The Ringer NBA Show - No-Conference All-Stars | Group Chat

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

Justin, Rob, and Wos make their All-Star picks, with a unique twist; they pick the 24 most deserving players regardless of conferences. They discuss their starters (07:09), reserves (23:33), and who missed the cut (58:29). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Wosny Lambre Producer: Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? It's Austin Rivers from the Minnesota Timberwolves. It's a new year and I have a new podcast here at the Ringer, Offguard, hosted by me and my guide, Pasha Higigi. Austin and I go way back and talk so much hoop already that we figure it was time to fire up the mics and let you in on all of these conversations. Every week, Pasha and I will hit on the biggest stories happening in the league.

And get Austin's perspective of someone currently hooping in the NBA. Tap into Offguard every Friday on the Ringer NBA show feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. And welcome to group chat. I am Justin Barrier. Joining me, as always, Big Wasp, a joke that five people on my Instagram will get.

And welcome back from his vacation. Rob Mahoney, thanks for joining us this time. Yeah, you know, I figured I should show up eventually. We appreciate it. Did you find your time off to be restful? I wouldn't say that exactly.

I went to Disney World. It was a great trip, but guys, I've seen some things. I've seen the girl dads of the world. I've seen people clawing for merchandise. It's a marvel to behold, but I'm glad to be back. Lord have mercy. Well, glad to be back on the Death Star, I guess. Welcome aboard.

What do they say when they welcome you on to the Death Star at Disney World? So we're evil now? We're the Empire? I guess so. Would you rather be a wookie? I would much rather be a wookie. Okay. I've still never seen Star Wars, so...

Come on. I only kind of understand these references. It only emphasizes how the two of you are kind of like the opposite extremes of, like, my interests. I'm very, like, absolute neutral to the both of you. So this is why this works. Well, it's good to be your fringe friends, you know, just really pushing your outer limits here. I'd say extreme friends. All right.

So we have convened as we do every year around this time to make our All-Star picks. That's what this podcast is about. But we have a little bit of a spin for you this time around. We have an email from our friend Doug Mac Kim

who wrote to us at SuggestionboxGC at Gmail.com suggesting that we should do the All-Star picks independent of conferences. So even though they do the draft with the two leading votes, boat getters and they pretty much split up the pool of All-Stars anyway. We're still picking 12 Eastern Conference representatives, 12 from the West.

We're not going to do any of that. We're just going to pick the 24 most deserving players who should be in the game in February wise. What do you think about this just as a framework? Do you like it more than All-Star? Do you like it worse? Oh, you know, I love it because it's borderless. This is an All-Star ballot for the.

globalists out there. So shouts to all the globalists, they're going to love this ballot exercise that our reader or listener, excuse me, has cooked up for us. Yeah, group chat is the one true cosmopolitan podcast out there. Don't ever forget it. Yeah, a podcast without borders. That's it. Yeah, exactly. I saw the other day, Justin, I don't know if you heard this, but the globalist invented calculators so that we wouldn't be good at math anymore, you know? It was a plot. Against math and basic arithmetic. To dumb us down. Yeah.

Wow. Well, I would feel like this one educates the fan more because I do think this is a smarter approach to this. It's like, you know, it's like five to 10 percent different than I think you would get from most people's just like regular All-Star Ballots. But, you know, I like to subscribe to the virtual Ablo role of like changing things five percent and all of a sudden it's a new creative idea, right? I love that. And also this kind of hues closer to the real All-Star with the captains and the picking of the teams and all of that. Like, it's closer to that anyway. So that's cool.

I would say it's also like 10 to 20 percent harder, right? Because you're getting rid of like the positional bloat in one conference or another. And it's just like straight up. Can you fit into this jam-packed field? I mean, it's easy at the top. It gets very hard to figure out who's who at the bottom and who deserves a spot. Yeah. I think I approached it more like mid-term.

season All-MBA than I typically do with All-Star, where like, I almost felt the way of wanting to get the guys who I felt represented the season more than other guys. Like, I did fewer, like, giving two nods to a team that was very good. I really wanted the best possible 24 to make this. And the big thing for me was, like, games played. I was saying to Wads before we got on here, typically, I think I would lean toward the guys who played the most just because that's part of the equation, especially when you've only gone through half of the season. I kind of went away with that this time around because I looked at the list and I thought it would be weird to not have certain guys just because they played two-thirds of a season as opposed to, you know, like three-quarters

of a season. They certainly have a lot of time to make it up to over the back half of the season potentially, but I think the one question is, as it relates to all NBA, how much did you guys give a shit about prior performance, right? Like, Lowry Markin and this season has been amazing. Do care at all about who Lowry Markenden is, or is it strictly, this season, is he worthy or not? So for me, I definitely did worthy or not. And I think the people that I penalized the most are the guys that might be performing at an all-star level, but their teams are severely underperforming. And so I just gave them the chop. Like, sorry, if your team is underperforming and you're one of the best players on that team, I feel like you get a lot of that blame.

Unless, like, there's nobody playing at like a Luca level or a Steph Kurtwell, we'll get into that. Or those levels where it's like their team is just way underperforming. And so that's why I was just like, look, if your team is not as good as they should be and I feel like, and I know that's not very scientific, you're one of the reasons why. Yeah, you got dinged for that. I don't do any of this past performance shit. Like I'm sure subconsciously, like I lean into that in some way. I think I did for one.

Just for one I did past performance. Yeah. Because it was a toss-up for me. Yeah. Toss up is fair. Yeah. But like I'm not going to give, I don't know, Kyrie Irving a starter spot in the back court just because like he's been on this thing

a bunch of one in MVP. No, no. You can't do that. No, no, no. I'm already treading on stuff that we're going to talk about later. So why don't we just hop in right now? So for the starters, as opposed to having two back court, three front court per conference, we just have 10 starters, four in the back court, six in the front court.

We are going by, I should mention the sometimes confusing positional designations given to us by the NBA. The weirdest ones, I think, are like guys like DeMar de Rosen, who, for some reason is a guard, even though he's been playing forward most of his time in Chicago. Are there any other weird ones which mentioned Jalen Brown is a guard, not a front court guy? Yeah, the Brown Tatum designation is about as arbitrary as it gets. You know, like one of those guys is apparently clearly a back court, clearly front court, but Damar is mystifying. You know, it's tough to say like where exactly these come from, are they player preference,

are they team submitted? Is there a category fraud by the Bulls trying to get Demar in and like a weak backcourt field? straight up. When he got drafted, people thought he was a shooting guard. And so to the league, it's just like this guy's a shooting guard, clearly. And apparently he still is, to this day. Yeah.

So those are the only real restraints we did put on the exercise. Shall we begin? Anything else we can cover? Okay, cool. So I asked for the gentleman's ballot for hand so we can kind of move along here through quickly. Rob and I have the exact same starting back court, which is Luca

Donchich, Shea, Gilderis, Alexander, Steph Curry, Jah, Moran. Waz has three of the four. He has Luca, Jha, Steph, but Donovan Mitchell and not Shea. So I guess that is the point of contention here. That is the past performance for me. That's, to me, Donovan Mitchell has been an All-Star for years now.

I feel like Shea has probably played maybe slightly better this year, just on a way worse team, and I just think the stakes are lower. He gets to, like, the way he's allowed to play monopolized possessions, like just be the load star of that team is just different. I think that's why his stats reflect something that, you know, some people might consider to be better. I know for a fact he's not way better on defense. And so to me, I just did the young guy, you know, seniority thing.

Like, you'll get to start some All-Stars someday. And it's very close. And so I'm going with Donovan Mitchell. also he's a Mets fan I can't even pretend to have much of an argument here like those are the five guys right and you can you can pick and choose how you want Donovan Mitchell leaving him out

was the first like excruciating part of this exercise that a player could have a season as good as he's having it's still potentially not make the top four it's insane but to Shea's credit the Thunder are one game back of the Warriors right now yeah They are insane.

He is insane and he is the singular reason why in a way that like for a player like him of that profile for a team that we thought would be in the tanking race, we thought would be in that echelon and for them to be where they are and him to be like a no questions asked All-Star. It's really special stuff. And really a no-questions-asked all-N-B-A guy,

I think at the end of the day. Yeah. So did it come down to you, Rob? It was Shea or Donovan for the starting nut. I actually had it as Jah or Donovan. Like I was pretty sold on Shea. And then it's John Donovan, both exceptional seasons. That's where the team winning, like the Grizzlies have just been so good.

And you want to give them the respect for that. And in particular, the guy who drives their offense. Yeah, I was in the same boat. I had Donovan there for a while. And then I kind of stepped back and look at it and thought, wait, the Grizzlies are incredible. They're one of the best teams in the NBA. And while I think you could fall into the trap of the Grizzlies, being the number one defense,

and so much of their success has been defensively. Like, is this, like, a new age, Derek Rose where we're, like, they're winning on defense, but we shouldn't, we're promoting Rose because he's the superstar. I don't think that's actually the case. I think that there's still seventh on offense, so it's not like they're just completely falling off there.

And, like, I did give preference to guys who are the guy on a team. And I know that splitting hairs there, because, like, in some ways, you're faulting Donovan Mitchell for being on a starrier team. Like, he has more co-stars on the same level of him. But I do think there's more of a burden on a guy like Jot to be setting a tone and to being, like, the spiritual, like, shaman of a team. And I think the Grizzlies in particular kind of are a good example of this, because I think they play with the spirit of Jock. And I think there's a lot of, there's so many guys on this team, it could be very complicated.

in a way that it's not because of Jop? Also, I think the thing about Jaws that it's not as if the roster around him is fully optimized to his offensive skill sets. Yeah. Right? Like, I don't know that Donovan Mitchell would walk in there and make that offense work in the way that John Morant is able to with the, you know, the lack of spacing and some of the other guys that he shares the floor with often.

It's not like that's happening. You know, a counter example would be Russell Westbrook for those two. and a half months his last year in Houston where they traded away literally any guy, anybody that could have been considered a center. And he put up the best efficiency numbers of his life. They had to do some extreme thing for him to get there. Like, that's not the case with John. Like, this is just a straight up normal roster who, you know, it could be said they could use a lot more shooting around what this guy does on the ball. And he'd be even crazier and more impossible to deal with. And so that's why to me, it's not like a, you know, it's not like

an, you know, Iverson in 2001 sort of situation to date myself again. I just think Jaws just clearly been one of the best players in the league. And his team's record is an indication of that. Do we need to say anything about Luca or Steph? Like, can we just move along? No, I mean, like, when Steph has been on the floor, it's absurd. What he's done? Like, he's just been, he's been playing the best ball of his life this year, in my opinion.

and like he's one of the best players ever. These guys, easy starter. Easy starter. He's been exceptional. One thing that did give me a little pause with Steph. And look, the on-offs are great as always. He means a ton to that team. Without him, they've been like just below 500.

And with him, they've been just above 500. And I will say that doesn't really hurt Steph's case to me. But it does make the case for some other warriors kind of interesting. Yeah, I had a tough time with the Warriors because your eyes and like I guess your heart say one thing and then you look at the numbers like, and then you look at the standings like, why is this team still 500?

Spoiler alert, I didn't have any other warriors here. And like I wouldn't even say they were among like my next group of guys out. Wow. Not even no warriors in my honor of world mentioned. Guys. I can say your dream on. We'll get to that.

We'll get to all that. Okay. Yeah. All right. So why don't we do the starters in the front court now? I think we all agreed on all of these. So correct me if I'm wrong here because I took the time to not get into the situation, but I could have overlooked someone.

Nicola Yokic, Juel Ambide, Jason Tatum, Kevin Durant, Janice, LeBron James. Beautiful. This one was easy. Again, the top is not the hard part. So I think like in the front court, for instance, right, on my bench, I don't. Like the guy on my bench who I think could have come closest to me is either Zion or AD. And it's like they both have weaknesses in their game that the guys that are up here don't possess. Like weaknesses in their resume, excuse me, that the guys up there don't possess.

So I don't, yeah, I never really, never even considered it for real. Yeah, I think Zion is the interesting one. As far as I was concerned, it was Zion or LeBron, basically for a final spot. How do you? Spiritually, that's just wrong. You can't do that. It is spiritually a little wrong. And especially, you know, coming off of LeBron

dropping damn near 50 points, like what he's doing to salvage the season for the Lakers, I think we have to reward that. I think that is exactly the kind of thing that is deserving of a spot like this. Also, I think New Orleans is, they might be playing above their heads in terms of all the injuries they sustained this year.

and then being able to just cobble this thing together and still be a really effective team. But I honestly think the Lakers are a lot worse than they've shown. I really do believe that. Like they have played way above what they realistically should be playing at. And I think LeBron deserves some credit for that too. So being on the West Coast, I watch a lot of the Lakers games. Or I should say I just turn them on.

That's the Ciccom. That's what my home is said. Yeah, I make sure that I turn. turning the game on now because I know if I leave it on, even if a team is up 20 points and it really is a coin flip of whether or not it's a Lakers or their opponent at this point, more likely than not, it's going to be a tight game in the final seconds. And I think the game last night on Monday against the Rockets was a prime example of this where they just let teams hang around and all of a sudden like this could go one way or another. I mean, LeBron's scoring 48, 45 a night at this point,

but it seems like they're playing on par with the rockets. And I think, like, unfortunately, that's probably their contemporaries, not even like a team like the Warriors at this point. Yeah, I think the thing, too, especially with the Zion comparison, not only are the Lakers just a bad team without LeBron. The Pelicans have been a winning team

when Zion's off the floor, and that's without Brandon Ingram for the majority of their games. Like, that's just a good, well-balanced team that, yes, is probably playing a little bit above its head. But, you know, if we're going to pick and choose, I'm going to choose the guy propping up the disaster, I think. Yeah, but I will say that like for the All-Star case, it probably helps LeBron because also his numbers are more gaudy, at least in the scoring department than they typically are. He's currently 29.7 points and now we can knock that by saying like, well, it seems like everybody's scoring 30 points per game this year in the league.

But tie for third most in his career and his numbers look like a prime like late, late first run Cleveland era MVP season. And so it's like really hard to be like, don't put him up there. Just watch those games, man. There's parts where LeBron is barely getting. He's barely jumping over a textbook on some of these finishes. And this is one of the most athletic guys we've ever seen in any sport in history. Right. And so, like, if you watch the games, you know this guy is old.

And a lot of this is guile. Should he test Christian Wood in overtime at the basket? Probably not these things, yeah. When he bricked that reverse layup, oh, my God. God. And he's shooting 29% from three. And I think a lot of that is just because he settles more than ever. He just walks it up and then just jacks randomly.

But honestly, like, he deserves the right to do that at this point. So, well, one thing I will say is, like, the front court is easy here, but it seems like it's a pretty difficult proposition if you have a regular ballot, which Rob does, because you have to really whittle down four of the best players in the NBA down to three spots in front court between and B, Tatum, Durant, Janice. Rob, did you make that choice yet for your actual ballot? I'm still agonizing over it, but you're right to identify it. If we've learned anything from doing this as a cosmopolitan one league pool,

no borders, all-star team, the east is unquestionably more front-court heavy. The West is unquestionably more back-court heavy to the point that, like, I had six back-court locks for the team, and five of them are from the West. You know, like that, that's, and the other one's Donovan Mitchell. Like, that's kind of where it ended up. And so, yes, those four guys picking between Janice and Abed and Durant and Tatum for three spots, it's brutal.

I think I'm probably leaning toward leaving Jason Tatum off, which is, is it? That's it. Is it? Sorry, that's it. That's it. Seniority rules, man. But the best player by far on the best team in basketball, maybe the MVP this season and he's not even our all-star?

starter? At least for the actual Eastern Conference. If we could do some jiggering with the positional identifications, then okay, cool. We'll gladly throw you in the front court. But sorry, K.D., Janice, Joelle and Bede, they got to be in there. They got to. I checked everything.

I'm like, is there a chance that Kevin Durant is mistakenly a shooting guard based on his Seattle Sonic's history? Is there a chance that Janis? J. Carlosimo. Is Janus mistakenly like a point forward and could be classified as a point guard somehow? But no, no shenanigans allowed this time. You went with KD over Tatum?

That's brutal. Like, what is the statistical, like, argument there? It's just like Katie's been hyper efficient and he's been playing pretty good defense? Like, Katie's absolutely insane. That's statistical argument. The statistical argument is that he's better at pretty much everything that Jason Tatum is good at,

Kevin Durant is better at. Yeah, but not on paper. Like, based on the actual results, and this is what I get into, like, how much we're favoring guys just based on what they're capable of versus, like, what they've actually done. And I would say just, like, based on, it's close. I'll say that.

But Tatum's statistical resume is probably slightly ahead of him, and then you factor in team success. I would give the nod to Tatum there. So for me, I go with a lot of times when it is a bit of a, toss-up. I do go with straight up, it's a toss-up, and I'm like, who's just straight up a better player to my mind, right?

I think you get into a lot of this when you get to the C.J. McCollums of the world, who is doing great work for a team that we said is even overachieving a bit. But it's like, at the end of the day, like is he better than some? Like, I don't think so, not individually.

And so he gets dinged for that, especially in his positional group. You know what I mean? I think the key of the statistical case is the efficiency. Like it's 67% true shooting for Kevin Durant for a wing on jumpers,

on just straight jumpers. I don't know how to disqualify that. And as far as the team success goes, yes, look, the Celtics are deserving of inclusion of honors in this, but like the net success is so surprising

at this stage in the season. I almost give that as much credit as I do the Celtics being the best team thus far. At what point do you factor in this new metric that I came up with, which is trying to submarine your team in the offseason

by asking for a trait. I call it shithead. Hey, hold on, hold on. The shithead index. Hold on. But that's the thing, too, because it wasn't just an off season. We've talked about it numerous times on this podcast.

The Steve Kerr days of this season were, it was nasty. It was some of the ugliest stuff that we've seen, especially from somebody like Kevin Duran, who's kind of been one of those good soldier type of guys. Even in Golden State where he's like doing the weird thing and not showing up to

timeouts and hanging out by the rim during the whole timeouts, he played really hard on both ends of the floor. There were times on defense, especially with the nets, just looked like they were, you know, it was flag football out there. Yeah, and you call it trying to submarine your team. I call it building character. I call it testing the medal of an organization. Some real Phil Jackson stuff right there.

All right. Let's move along to the reserves here. So there's 14 spots. We have four back court spots, six front court spots, and four wild card spots. Woo, very wild. So I do think we should talk about how we grouped players, whether they were in backcourt, front court, or wild card. Because I didn't distinguish between I want the guys who I want in first and foremost in back court and front court. And the wild cards are basically my last four.

we're in. But let's start with backcourt here. Rob and I both have Donovan Mitchell, who Waz had in the starters. Was has SGA, who Rob and I have as a starter. We all have Tyreys Halliburton. Of course.

I have Jalen Brown here. So do I. Waz has Jalen Brown. Rob does not. Yeah. I have Devin Booker here. I believe Rob has Devin Booker as well, but

Waz does not. You both have Damian Lillard here. I do not have Damian Lillard here. Who do you have? So I have Mitchell, Halliburton, Brown, Booker. I see. So you guys just have Lillard and you trade it off whether

or not you left off Brown or Booker. So where do we want to start? I mean, Halliburton seems pretty clearly in the mix here, right? Deservingly so. Yeah. 2010 and 4. bro and every single and it's not just the eye test of course i think he's a direct influence on

how they play as far as the space um the pace excuse me of this team how fast they play like that's a direct caliber and influence what he does in the half court at the end of games where dudes are deathly afraid to sag off of him because he's just going to pop a three in their eye and of course his assist numbers to turnover has just been ridiculous like indiana is my personal favorite team to watch this year in the NBA when Halliburton is out there just because I love the energy, I love the youth, I love the exuberance, they're not afraid of guys.

And I just think, He's clearly, clearly deserves this spot to me. Okay. I want to talk about Booker next? Because he was a tough one for me. So he only has 27 games played. It doesn't look like he's going to be back anytime soon. I basically came off with a cutoff of a thousand minutes,

which is honestly completely arbitrary, but I felt like you needed to break into four digits and minutes in order to play. And the big swinging point for me, because the statistical resume is pretty similar to a lot of guys on this list, including the guy I have right next to him and Jalen Brown. The difference is the sons are 18 and 11 with him,

3 and 13 without. And it pretty seems like he has been the clear difference. for that team and the direction they've been going this season. So that was enough to sell me. And as I mentioned before, I did ultimately come to the conclusion that I wanted to set a bar that players had to go over for games played a minutes, but I didn't want to knock someone who's played enough.

Like, I don't have AD on this list. I'll just say that right now because he only had 800-something minutes, whereas Booker basically got it over. And I realized that's kind of a little chicken shit, but like that's how I did it. Yeah, I think AD is rightly like the fringe case. Like if you're going to draw a line somewhere, he's planning like just over half his team's games.

That's really skirting it. To me, Booker clears that line a little more clearly. I do look mostly like games, like percentage of your team's games played more so than total minutes. And so for him, he's in the same class as guys like Zion, as guys like Steph, as guys like James Hardin, who I think has a pretty good case in the back court too.

Paul George, Jimmy Butler. Like all those guys are in the same rough, like, grouping in terms of the percentage they've actually been able to play. And Booker, when he's been on the court, the numbers just sing. Like he has the on-off profile of a Joelle and Bede, for example, in terms of like the sheer impact he's having on the way the son's play. And we've certainly seen just like how their whole infrastructure falls apart without him.

Like we have all the evidence we need to get him on this team somewhere. If he's not here, he's a wild card one way or another. It's hard to parse that part of it too much. Yeah, I, that's my rationale. I looked at the games played, but I was like, when he's not here, he's a wildcard, one way or I was like when he has played, he's played at an all-star starter level when he's been out there. And he was excellent when he played. Like he was just the son's clear definitional best player.

And so to me it was obvious that he would make it. I put him on the, I put him on a wild card because I guess that's just a distinction for like, you know, to me, he's less deserving as far as his resume than kid guiltress, Jalen Brown, Dame Lillard. in Tyrese Halliburton. But, you know, I don't think it's like that far away. Like, to me, he's the first of the wild cards for me. Right. We all have them somewhere. Justin, do you want to explain yourself not having Damian Lillard in this group?

Yeah, what are you doing? What is wrong with you? No, I have Lillard as, and I actually kind of rank them within the individual groupings, too. So I have Lillard second in Yard. wild card. I think he easily could have made it up here. He would have been my last guard out. I just have Jalen Brown. And in fact,

I have Brown ahead of Booker probably because of the game played thing, even though Brown is now out. I mean, 27.7 rebounds, three assists. Pretty good. Lock. Lock. I actually didn't think much about it, but clearly you hate Jalen

Brown. So maybe I should flip this to you and ask what is wrong with, our friend. I just look. Someone very wise once told me, like, I value the first options on teams, the guys who are really driving their success. I took that to heart, and I said, look, I'm going to look at this team in Portland that has, yes, a decent supporting cast, but not a great one.

And yet, offensively, they're sandwiched basically between the pelicans and the nets in offensive efficiency. And Damien Lillard is the reason why. It's not just his ability to score. Like, his command in terms of creation, I feel like has maybe not fully leveled up, but taken like a modest half step up from even where he was before his significant injury. So he's

had a great year. I think we probably haven't talked about him enough because Portland's regressed a bit in the standings to that playing range, but Dame is, he's unbelievable. He's just one of the best players in the league. To me, this is, he's another one of my grandfather clauses. Like, this guy,

like, when you think of Dame Lillard and Devin Booker, like, at no point you're thinking, do you say Devin Booker's as good as Dame Lillard? There's just no, there's no shot. Day Little is just clearly better a player. You know on defense? No,

on defense he hasn't. Even though Devin Booker look, he used to be horrible and shouts to him for even being a, you know, a clear two-guard, bucket-getter and taking defense seriously. I salute him for that, but I just don't think anybody in their right mind would

take Devin Booker over Dame Lillard. And some, like again, when those things are, when their statistical profiles are reasonably close and Dame has missed a decent amount of time himself. I just think he's so much better. And when you watch the game, he's dictating everything that Portland does, right?

Like when they try to – when teams get tired of getting bashed over the head with threes, they're just like, oh, we're going to hard trap. And Dame is manipulating those traps. Sometimes he's just outright beating them off the dribble. Like, this guy's ridiculous. He's ridiculous. One game under 500, though. Don't know if you got that.

aren't the suns like five on it? They're also way better players. Yeah. And the SGA is is also driving a bad team though. I mean, I imagine there's some sort of fatigue

playing here where like SGA, for instance, is the hot new thing at the ballroom. I love that SGA is keeping the genius draft pick accumulator away from when bin Yama. That irony

that sweet, sweet irony is giving me life, guys. I love it. His excellence is keeping them far away from that number one picket and it makes me so, so happy. Yeah. Rob was right about the thunder

going into the season. I have to give you credit for that one. I didn't see it, but yeah, Rob was right. I tried to tell y'all. Chad isn't even playing yet. Did you consider Giddy for any of these spots? You know, he made a fringe bid.

You know, we had to at least consider him. Giddy's good, I have to say. I'll eat that one. I don't know if I necessarily thought he would be bad, but I thought the giddy hype train was a little out of control going into the season, but he's like legitimately a triple double threat, like 20 point triple double threat now like every game.

The question is when will Wazzee eat that one? When will Wazz take accountability? I'm not there. I'm not there. I want to see them do it in the playoffs. Might be a year. Might be a year. Might be a year on that.

will you do the opposite of what people do when they shave their head for certain things? You'll grow out your hair when Giddy makes an all-star team. I will match whatever his haircut is at the time. So Josh Giddy, whatever you want to do, I will mirror you. Might need some perm equipment there, but we'll get there. All right, let's flip to front court now in the reserves, which I believe we had a lot of disagreements here. So I'll just list off mine and then you guys can do yours. I have Lori Marketing, DeMonis Sabon, Pascall Seacom, Zion Williamson, Bam out of bio, and Julius Randall.

I had Zion Williamson, Anthony Davis, Lori Markening, Pascal Seacom, Jimmy Butler, and Miles Turner. I like the Miles Turner. Yes, sir. So I ended up with Zion, Anthony Davis, Jimmy Butler, Paul George, Pascal Seacom, and I. Domazza bonus. Okay, so let's start at my number one here, who I thought was an easy selection, Lori Markinen.

Rob, you do not have him anywhere, correct? I don't. That's crazy. He was in the wild card pool for me and then just, I couldn't quite get there. Too wild for you? You know, he's a wild guy. Look at him.

What? Like, what's going on here? What is there to explain? Did you see the players I put in over him? Yeah, no, I think there's Should we wait then? Because I think there are a couple of them

That I was struck by it. Who's the point of contention here? As far as marketing is concerned Because he's on my He's on my ballot with a bullet Actually. So neither of y'all pick Paul George, right? No, no, no, no, no.

No Paul George. Oh, you did. So one of two, Paul George. One of two, Jimmy Butler. Jimmy's on mine. Jimmy's with me. Jimmy did not make it for me. Interesting.

Okay. And then AD, obvious reasons. I mean, I think we all agree. if AD had played a full slate of games, he'd be no questions asked on this team. Okay. Waz has him, right? Yeah, I got 80.

I mean, to me, you played, like, he played at an MVP level while he was out there. Like, that needs to count for something. Instead of being like, oh, he was serviceable, he was a good player, like, it's a bonus. Like, no, he was a MVP level player when he was out there.

Like, it's, you know, I think that matters. So for you, Rob, was marking a product of the jazz just not being a good team? Or I'm struggling to understand this. Yeah. What's going on here? I put him, so he and Sabonis were a close call for me.

To me, Sabonis is more like structurally important to what they do in Sacramento than Markan is, which I think for Markin is like part of his strong suit, right, is that you don't have to build around him necessarily. You don't have to feature him in quite the same way. But it works against him in a little bit here. It's a tough one to parse. And ultimately, like, the reason he's not even a white. wild card for me has more to do with the guards than it does Markinen.

But it's tough. Like at some point you're going to have to leave off either one of the best players on a top defensive team or one of the best players on a top offensive team. I looked at the jazz as a team that has fallen pretty precipitously in the standings. And yes, he's central to what they do. Yes, he's been great. Yes, he's going to make the actual All-Star team. But when you include the East front-court guys in the pool, it gets real crowded,

real fast. 52 4087 right now from our guy Lori. Just incredible. 25 points. Almost nine rebounds. Dunking on his replacement in Chicago. I mean, like, this guy, he's just, he's having such a charmed season. It's just beautiful to watch.

And honestly, I just love the way the jazz play. Like, these guys play for one another. They, um, super, super and selfish that everybody thought they were headed for. an 11-win season, essentially. And they've been one of the toughest house all year. And Marketing is like, he's the focal point. Not the focal point, but you know what I mean? He's been their best.

Driving force. Yeah, he's been the driving force. And so, yeah, man, Lori just had to make, as far as Paul George is concerned, look, nobody in their right mind would ever say that Paul George is worse than Lori Markan in or even that he's having a worse season. It's just the unevenness of that Clippers situation just leaves a number. nasty taste in my mouth.

And I don't think they have any all-star level players this year. I just don't think the output has been there. Both individually, when you think about the games that have been missing, just the team's output has just been so uneven, so disjointed. And you can say it's physical stuff so it's nobody's fault. But, like, you're not an all-star this year. So Paul George was literally my last guy in, and I do not feel good about it whatsoever. I think it did come down to a lot of guys who I had to pick between the best representative of the clippers who, despite everything we've said about them and how awful it is at times to watch their games, whether or not their superstars are playing in there, they're still six in the West, and they're a pretty good team.

They're one of the best defensive teams. And I think they're already putrid on offense. They would be somehow even worse without Paul George. Paul George has been the best offensive player on their team. And so, like, I feel like at a certain point, I don't want to celebrate it, but I do think, like, the empirical evidence is so, like, it's so, like, you can't ignore it.

Like, he is good enough to make it. And I would rather reward someone from a team I haven't put on here rather than at a Jimmy Butler. I did not put Jimmy Butler on the team, but I did have Bam. I have a Miles Turner query for you, us. The Turner one's interesting.

It's an interesting one. I honestly, I thought about him. I like the pick. Why would you pick Turner over Jaron Jackson Jr., for example? Very similar player, very similar strengths, that much better team.

I just think Jared Jackson, Jr. plays, like the players around him are much better. I think John Morant is an MVP. As much as I like Halliburton, he's not an MVP, right? like John Morant's an MVP. And, and you know what?

Jared Jackson has actually elevated his performance, right? Like this year. Like he's like better at defense that he's actually living to his sort of potential or his reputation on that. And I just think to me, Miles is he's one of the big dogs on the Pacers. And again, overperforming the expectations, right? He's having a career year in score on offense, like shooting, the best he's ever shot from three at basically his standard volume.

He's giving you his customary defense. He's doing more on offense than he ever has when it comes to, you know, actually like dribbling the ball, finally got shooters in the corner. Like, he's just been opened up in a way since Sabonis got kicked out of town finally. That to me, he's just that all-star kind of player. He's anchoring what they do in a way that in times it doesn't. feel like Jaron Jackson is doing for Memphis

and you know obviously he's still fouling the hell out of him. Yeah, can I answer the Jackson question? Because he's actually the first guy I left off. Like he is my number 25 and I really really wanted to make the case for him just because he is in my mind

clearly the defensive player of the year like 3.3 blocks a game. I think his like pace adjusted numbers are almost historic. 14.2 on court net rating. He's been incredible. The problem is he's played 704 minutes.

And he's played as many games as Booker, 27. But he's played 300 fewer minutes in part because of the following. Some of it is injury, like coming back, blah, blah, blah, stuff. But a lot of it is also

that he follows the crap out of everybody. And so, like, if that flaw is keeping you from being on the court as much, I'm not as inclined to, like, give you a safe pass. Yeah, and he's played, I wouldn't argue that he hasn't played at an all-star level. I think he's played at all-star level.

To me, he's just on the fringes. And, you know, and on the fringes, I'm allowed to play favorites here. Like, you guys know Miles Turner is one of my favorites. And I think... Max Guy, yeah. This was... Exactly.

I think this was a make-a-break season for him reputationalally, right? Because all he's been saying to people is like, I can do more. I'm just not being allowed to. And this opportunity presented itself. And this Pacer's team has just played above their heads, man. And Miles has been a big part of that. And it's, again, all of the stuff that he, in the past where he's been this great, you know, defensive guy, especially around the rim, serviceable as far as his perimeter moving his feet on the perimeter.

And, you know, the three-point shooting spacing. It's just been, he's been doing it all. He's been the best version of Miles Turner, the unbecoming begging for the Laker trade, notwithstanding. You know, he's been incredible. Well, I love to see Turner and to just get Jackson in this conversation. And Justin, I guess your analog to that is BAM too in terms of like a big on a good defensive team who's also worthy of consideration here. Personally, look, I just love stars. I just love the stars.

I'm just going glitz and glam all the way down to Demada Sabonis, apparently. Yeah, it really came down to Bam or Butler for me. I wanted to put one heat player in. And I think you could say that. Jimmy, for me. He's just like, he's just so. I'll say that. He's just so clearly like the best guy on a team,

especially when it's close games. And Jimmy's like, he's getting to the rack, up faking a guy, getting the end one to go up one. And like, nobody else does that, right? And Bam still has never taken the step to be a more involved party on offense. Like, he's still just a, he's always an afterthought on that end. And yes, he's a great defender. But to me, Jimmy, he's just so much more important, man.

He's their best facilitator. He's their best score. He's the spiritual leader. He's still a damn good defender. Like, he's not Kauai yet when it comes to washness and coasting on reputation. on defense. He's still pretty damn good at defense. I gotta give it to Jimmy if it's gonna be between him and Bam. I also default Jimmy, but I will say, like, this is the most assertive season we've seen from Bam yet. So I can see the case. Centipiece of a top five defense,

averaging 21 a game for the first time in his career. He's been awesome. Like, he's been great. And that team, again, like, is just persistently a little better than you think that they have been or that they will be or where they are, given their personnel, given who's in and out of games, including Jimmy Butler for a lot of these games. I have no problem with Bam, getting some love here. Yeah, I mean,

Jimmy clearly takes them from a good team to a great team. That's been clear even recently when he's been backing that lineup, and you've seen them steadily climb into the rankings. 17 and 14 with Butler, 7 and 7 without. It really came down to, do I want to reward the guy who takes them over the top and brings them out of like the play in muck?

potentially into the regular big boy playoffs, or do I want to reward the guy who has been so consistent for them and has set the baseline for competence for them? And honestly, like, the statistical resumes are pretty similar, too. With Bam, you're talking 21, 10, and 3, and with Butler, it's 22, 6, and 5. So it's like, do you want a little bit more playmaking? Do you want a little bit more defense,

rim protection sort of stuff? Like, it really is kind of eye of the beholder, I think. How many lattes is Bam selling them? How many units is he moving? That's great. He's more of an espresso guy. What are those things that you get, the cafe Cubano's that are basically like shots of heroin?

No, I think it's the little things that come in like the small smartphone cup and then you take the shots. Is that what it is? Yeah. Those things are very potent. I'll say that. But I have such a caffeine addiction.

They really pierced my mood, unfortunately. You're just dead inside. this is 100% true so we all have subonis we all have siacum we all have zion right in the front court um zion was actually the guy where i didn't have him in the mix here and i stepped back and like that was that doesn't feel right i'm going to completely change how i'm approaching the games play here like pretty much having the same all-star season he had a couple years ago with actually better assist numbers which is surprising considering i think that year was the year of point zion So my last front court guy, Julius Randall, neither of you guys have on the entire ballot, right?

No. He's not even honorable mention for me, no. Wow. You're Knickerbockers back in the mix, and we're not going to celebrate the guy who's putting the city on his back. I think what they're doing is definitely a collective effort. Julius is obviously he's one of the two, three, whatever best guys on the team. I just don't think he's like carrying. The Knicks.

And I just, I don't know, man. The, the, the nature of what he does, how he is offensive insists on some of what I consider to be come and go kind of stuff, whether it be if his midrange is falling or if he's getting the fouls or whatever. I'm, I don't know, man. And I like that he's playing harder on defense this year. I'm happy for it. But he's not an all-star for me.

I'm not falling for that again. I think the tough part is like not having Markinen and not having Randall on my list like Randall if you don't include him the Knicks are the best team without a representative on the team

and that's by record and also they're a really solid team by point differential too apparently I was too at the end of the day you know we all got to sleep at night somehow and I'm just gonna just gonna hand wave the Knicks

and say nice job cute season keep it moving Wow, cute season. See, this is where I almost feel like aesthetics almost become overvalued here. It's like, yeah, is Randall my favorite player? Probably not. Is he like efficient this year? Not particularly.

Okay. So what are we doing? Keep making the case, Justin. I know. You can't argue with like raw effectiveness on a good team to a certain extent. So like I'm not going to put them as a starter. Like maybe this is even too high. Oh, okay.

You're not going to put them as a season. You're not going to put him involved Janice? Okay. Thanks for not doing that. Like maybe he should be in the wild card. I would be fine with that. But like at a certain point, like, I think we get too caught up in like what we value rather than what like is actually being effective. Like it really is like, yeah.

The fringe, my fringe guys, who do you think have been more effective? Lowry and Miles Turner or Julius Randall? Do you think he's been a more effective player than both of those two guys? Oh, not Laurie. I mean, I have Lowry way ahead of Randall and most of other front court players in the NBA. I suspecting Miles Turner. Miles Turner? The guy who doesn't even want to be on the team who would, who had his bags packed and is only even playing nice because he thinks he's going to get an extension.

I mean, he's playing real nice, though. He's playing nice. But, like, I would even have him as, like, the top defense first guy. Like, would you even consider Brooke Lopez or, like, Drew Holiday over Turner? Like, if I'm going to reward a guy who's, like, defense first, I want to get the guys who are, like, leading the league in defense as a result of their rim protection. No.

It's a good point. It's a good reward. It's the most important defensive position. So get Drew Holiday out of here. No shot. Okay. Did we cover everybody that you guys have as a front court before we move on to Wildcar? Yeah, we got everybody.

Yes. But I'm very curious to see, Justin, who you left off in Wildcard as a result of having Julius Randall in there. Okay. So I have Demar de Rosen. We all have him. I don't have DeRosen. No de Rosen for me. Love DeMar. You don't have noted guard

Demar de Rosen on your list. It's just off my ballot. It's just like, and I think a part of it is my own you know, it's anecdotal stuff. Like I happen to have a disproportionate amount of Bulls fans in my life and the misery that these people have felt all season long. It's hard for me

to not, you know, that residual to not stain Damar. It's like they've been so bad. Like, he's been bad. I'll write just terrible it stretches this year. And I just don't think any Bulls deserve to be on this team. That's just, that's just me.

But don't the miserable Bulls fans in your life love Demar as the one guy who's actually showing up? That is true. That is true. They're like not that much worse than the Pacers. So like, I feel like Damar is a pretty clear wild card spot for me. I have Dame here. You guys have them above. I have deer and fox.

And I also have Paul George. I mentioned Paul George. Neither of you have Fox. Fox is a wild card for me. My two wild cards, because I just couldn't I couldn't disentangle Fox and Sabonis. And so I really didn't want to put Subonis on my ballot, but the Sacramento story is too good.

I feel too sentimental as a purist watching these guys come out and do what they do on a day to day. And so I was just like, I can't pick between the two. So I picked both. Devin Booker's a wild card. And my last wild card is Kyrie Irvin. I just think, you know, like, I look at all of these dudes that I have above him

in honorable mention. I don't think Damar's been better than him. Trey Young, Zach Levine, Garland, and Edward C.J. Like, these guys ain't better than Kyrie. They just haven't. And to me, the net's overachieving. Kyrie is a big part of that. Well, excuse me.

They're not overachieving. They're playing better than we thought they would, considering the problems that even people like Kyrie have contributed to. But you got to look at the record and what this guy's put on the floor. Like, Kyrie is a wild card for me. And he's definitely a wild card. This is where I sell my soul and come with you. Come on. He's been good legitimately.

And also, I will say this because this is just a very emotional. moment right here. I remember when we did the stock buybacks and I said, I'm going to buy this extremely low Kyrie stock. You guys thought I was a psychopath for this, but he's come out, he's hooped. He's played his ass off since, like legitimately playing his ass off. He deserves to be on his team. For the record, you were a psychopath to that. I just wanted known. But I was right. Apparently, you were right. And apparently I'm coming with you. Like, I got down to it and that's where the, are we, like, can I really put Lowry Markin in on this list over Kyrie Irving

with the way he's playing and the nets are playing? I found that really hard, but my question for you guys is, where is James Hard? Can we talk about the Kyrie part first? So both of you have Kyrie? Yes. So we're just like, we're back in on him now. He's like, he's paid his penance.

I'm not, I'm not back in on anything. It's the tape that he's put on the field, as football players would say. He's put good tape on the court. He's put all-star level play on the court this year. That's it. I'm not saying they should sign them to an extension. I'm not saying any team that has real aspirations should go near him with the 10-foot

pole in the summer. I'm not saying any of that. I'm saying what he's done this season is that of an all-star player. Unquestionably. And for one of the best teams and the biggest surprise teams, and an extremely top-heavy team. Yeah, Ben Simmons stinks, guys. Guess who's not honorable mention,

All-Star Reserve, All-Star this? He's one of the worst contracts in the league. The guy sucks. He's terrible. He's been awful on this team. Okay? And it's just Kyrie and KD carrying this thing. And so, like, I don't see how I leave this guy off,

you know, terrible indiscretions from months ago, aside, of course. Yeah, I think this is where I bring up my proprietary shithead metric. Kyrie is off the charts. We've never seen anybody so high in the shithead metric. And as a result, I cannot in good conscience reward this guy, celebrate this guy's performance.

Like, great, you're playing well. Fantastic. I'm sure KD. loves it. Although, based on recent comments, I don't know how much KD actually loves it. Or maybe vice versa. I just can't. I can't get there with him. Let's try it next year.

Go a full year without causing a controversy that doesn't dominate Sport Center for like three weeks in a row. I don't know if Sports Center domination is the right metric, by the world. It's also part of the shit going on in New York that Sports Center could would do well to pay attention to that they've paid none to suspiciously. But we can move on from that. Well, this is why I actually. tried to divert to James Harden, because I can't

defend Kyrie Irping. If you want to disqualify him based on being again, number one with a bullet in the shithead metric, that's a perfectly I'm completely with you. How James Harden is not on this team, I don't understand. Like, where is

the gulf between the Tyrese Halliburton case and the James Harden case? Where is it? It's a feeling. It's a feeling. I just don't get that loving feeling when I watch James Harden Who, but I just, I don't know, man. Since he's come back, he's been better. He's really good.

Than before he left, that's for sure. Like, he's definitely been playing better. And he's made some slight adjustments in that he's not taking 12 years to make a decision, which has been his sort of like the Houston thing. That was it. Like, he could take however long he wanted to make. decisions because it was his show. He's making quicker decisions, which I like.

I just ain't a all-star for me. Number one in the league and assists right now. Yeah, it's tough. I'm not going to lie. I kind of discounted him, but now that I'm stepping back and considering it is. It is. It is a biased stone mission. Because, you know, you can't say that he hasn't

been as good as Sabonis. You know, for instance, one of my wild cards. I think Fox is like, Foxx. Foxx Bond. Because it's like I want to ding hard for the defensive contributions, right? They're still trying to figure out whether or not they could play him and Maxie at the same time.

And I don't know if they'll ever figure that out in time to make that work in the playoffs. We'll see. But like, how do I justify Fox with worse offensive numbers, probably equally shoddy defense? Scott, I mean, excuse me, Scott, Fox is actually their go-to guy in Crunch Time, right?

Like, he's the guy that's orchestrating, and it's not just orchestrating, he's scoring in Crunch Time, which is, like, traditionally has been a knock on him. At the end of games, he's a terrible shot creator. He can't shoot the mid-range. He can't shoot from long range.

People wall off the paint. And this year, he's making it from all over the place, man. I just, yeah, like James Hardin's numbers are just as good, if not better than De Aaron Fox. But I don't know how you guys watch Hoop and love Hoop and say to yourself.

Yeah, James Hardin has been just a better experience. I just can't do it with that dude. He has not been a better hang than Dearon Fox, but he has been a better basketball player this season, unfortunately. But look, Waz is circling the important thing, which is we got two Pacers on the All-Star team.

We got two Kings on the All-Star team. Everybody wins the Tyrese Oliver and DeMontas a bonus trade. We got a guy from the Prairie, damn this, starting. Or on you guys' ballot starting, like, you know, David Stern is so happy right now that the small, small, he's up in heaven, you know, basketball heaven, just loving it. that these small markets are getting this love. Just shooting free throws on a hoop attached to a barn.

Underhand. Do we want to talk about like our next guys out? Well, let me clarify. My wildcard picks were Hardin, DeRosen, Jalen Brown, who you guys hit earlier. And then Kyrie, who I kind of wish was Lowry Marketing. But I'm susceptible to shitheads, apparently. Pretty similar players and people. You know. Right.

Enjoy Utah, Kyrie. All right. So my first three out. So I have a very long list, but I'll keep it to the three. Jaron Jackson, and I mentioned number one. I have Butler there as well. And I have Drew Holiday. Holiday is an interesting case.

You're seeing a lot of love for him on other people's ballots. I want to reward him because the Bucks are third on defense, and he has been able to slide into the – like his offensive production is better this season in part because he's been having to slide into that number two role that's been vacated by Middleton. the problem I have with him and probably what kept him out of my ballot was the bucks are pretty bad on offense. And I would think a max guy who is a clear number two, not only a number two, but like one of the few number twos I'm going to put into the All Star game should probably be able to carry a little bit more of that load in order to balance them out.

And for that reason, I kept them out. But I feel like he's right on the verge for me. I can respect that pick, especially because he is there, you know, the perimeter defensive stuff, he just gets on people and just dogs the hell out of them. And that's been consistently his role. And, you know, the offense waxes and wanes, some of his decision-making to me,

I'd just be like, yo, you are too old to be doing this kind of stuff. But I respect it. Like the bucks, like, I understand why they haven't been playing to their level this year. You hear the grumblings out of, over there that certain people might be annoyed with Chris Middleton and how long his rehab is taking. Like, we've all heard that kind of stuff. But I can understand that Drew Holiday.

I get that. I mean, for me, people that would, like, first up was, like, Tray Young is still playing. Like, he's playing a little bit worse than he did last year when he was clearly an all. Like, he's an all-star level player. But Trey Young, he's not making my team because you're why the team is underachieving. Like, the lack of cohesion, the your turn. turn, my turn offense with Dejante Murray. It's just, it's so disjointed and nasty.

The beefing with your coach is just, I can't put that guy. Because, again, I think he is like the pie chart of why Atlanta's not playing as well as people thought that they might after the Janté Murray trade. He's owning a huge portion of that. And so, Trey Young had to be left off. I thought Aunt Edwards should get some consideration 100%. just, you know, Carl Towns has gone down. This hasn't been a whole flame out since then.

And I think he's getting better. I think he's improving. I think his decision-making is getting better and better by the game. If not some of the shot stuff. Like, sometimes, like, I get it. You're really good at making threes. I saw just now that he was the youngest player ever to 500 threes, which obviously says a lot about the error.

But, like, this guy, he fires it. He shoots it. He makes it. And so I understand why he settles a lot. but he's making pay in that direction. I consider Jordan Clarkson, again, just because I'm just flabbergasted by Utah's success this year, limited as it might be.

Garland got some looks, but nobody that I kept off, am I going to be like, oh, these guy, this guy absolutely did everything he needed to to be an all-star this year. I don't feel that way. I think it's more just like the borderline cases at the bottom when you get to Kyrie territory.

and Kyrie's a guy who, to clear it up, Kyrie Irving will make the actual All-Star team. Point blank, we'll make it. The East Guard pool is just not that deep to begin with. And I think this is the reason Drew Holiday is going to make it too, where if you level it out

and they have to compete against Luca and Steph, it gets a little crunched. But if you're just looking at East Guards, Drew has a great case. Kyrie has a very good case. Darius Garland, I think we'll probably have a better case even than Jared Allen and Evan Mobley. no matter how you think of that hierarchy,

because those guys are just going to get boxed out because of the East Front Court depth. Right. The guy I do want to bring up that we haven't talked about is Draymond, and I think he's got a pretty good case. I think he's got a pretty good case for the West team in reality. I think he's got a pretty good case in this exercise as basically the guy keeping that team afloat,

despite the fact that they can't decide, are we playing the young guys or not? Is Anthony Lamb our fourth most important player tonight? Who knows? But Draymond Green is out there, and our team is functional somehow. And either he or Clay kind of has to factor into these discussions on some level. So 19th on defense.

Tough. And unlike some of these other defense first guys, Dremont is effectively giving you five points a game. Yeah, that's the tricky. Especially if you're saying, like, it's him and Jackson, for example. Like, it's hard to make the Dramon case over Jaron Jackson. Or if you want to get into good defenders on teams that are winning lots of games, like maybe Aaron Gordon deserves a look.

Like if any team is going to be deserving of two all-stars in the West, we're giving the Lakers two all-stars. We're maybe giving some of these other teams that are much less successful. We all know how great Yokic is in the way he elevates everybody, but Aaron Gordon has had an incredible season.

Gordon's on my list. As of the guys, no one's mentioned, yeah, I have Jalen Brunson. On my long list. That's the Jalen that was on my audible mention. Yeah, Jalen Brunson, definitely honorable mention. I think one of him or Randos should be in.

The Knicks have been pretty good throughout the entire season. Not Jeremy Grimes, though. Not yet. There's always time. Jeremy Grant, just someone to throw out there. I don't think he has a chance, as much as Rob would like him to be off there. Guys, you played two few games,

La Melle Ball, only 21 games. Somehow has played more minutes than Jaron Jackson, though. The horn is or garbage, so he probably doesn't have much of a shot, but he's been incredible. Like, still one of my favorite players to watch and, like, a guy built for an All-Star game and I'm kind of disappointed. He's not going to be in there.

I love Lamelle Ball. I guess Bain, unfortunately, missed too much time. He's at 22 games. He had an absolute, like, rocket ship start and just fell off and because of injuries. A guy I want to mention who did not come up in my calculus whatsoever. So we've mentioned, like, what, 30 to 35 players at this point? Like, I think you can get to the point where you're even, even considering like a Christopps Porzingis.

Like some guys like really, really deep in the weeds here, right? Most nobody said Brad Beal. No one said Brad Beal. Which his wife is not going to be happy about. I was thinking about this as I was going through because I was like really considering everybody. Like anyone you can even possibly sniff this list. I was like, let's just like consider, right? Not once did Brad Beal come close into my mind.

And then like I looked at the highest earners in the NBA this season. number six. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 50 million. Yeah, would not even be the Wizards representative, as you mentioned, Justin. Like, I think Chris Daps has a better case. One of the weirdest careers in history. I shall also mention that among the highest earners in the NBA this season, pretty much a lot of them have been on the Wizards within the past three years

because John Wall and Russell Westbrook's up there too. So some good stuff happening in D.C. Do you guys think Brandon Ingram would have a shot at this team if he had stayed healthy? 100% 100%. Okay, so let's just set aside the jokes about me and the Pelicans for a second here.

Do we have to? Not necessarily. I'll do my best. Has Brandon Ingham had more than one good season? Like full season, where he played enough games where he has been a bulletproof like All-Star. One season. He's always getting hurt.

He's always getting hurt. I think he's, I think essentially since he's got to New Orleans, he's been a high quality player. Yeah, yeah. Definitely on the fringes of this group, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the efficiency stuff hasn't always been there where it's like, is Brandon Ingram

an efficient offensive player? But I think basically since he got to New Orleans, he's been that. And the stuff that's been disappointed to me, it's not his shooting numbers. I think he's improved immensely as a playmaker. I just think his defensive potential, he's never met it. You know,

a guy that rangy, heady on offense anyway. And he's not some stiff. He can move. He can move laterally that he hasn't always been that kind of guy on defense. To me is the biggest knock on him outside of what, out the physical stuff. I'm a Brandon Ingram Homer, kind of.

I mean, he's a guy who I think his injury is especially unfortunate because this felt like the year he would pop. This felt like the year he was going to put it all together. And then he's off the court. And we just don't get a good enough sample, much less time to see like his game really evolve over the course of the year to see him partake in all of these like 40 and 50 point explosions

potentially to see him get to like feast in that particular way which is a bummer but hopefully we'll get to see that I mean I think to your point Justin we've seen like good seasons in aggregate you know like multiple seasons pieced together to make 82 games has been pretty good but he needs to do it for a sustained period of time and he needs to be consistently available he hasn't played since Thanksgiving will he play before the All-Star game?

Certainly hope so Hard to say. I mean, he's great in theory. I mean, he was also great in the postseason last year, which is why this is so disappointing. He showed he could be, like, a guy on a team that could push the best team in the NBA, although, like, in retrospect,

maybe the Sons weren't as much of a jugger or not as we all assumed. Also, this whole thing when you don't get the surgery, guys, like, he's not going to be able to hoop at 100% at all this season. I don't get the case for the Pelicans. I mean, I don't, I guess we should go out on this note, but, like, it's all in theory still. you know the injuries keep happening all these guys aren't playing together

like I don't know it seems like a dicey bat in my opinion we're picking all stars we're not even talking about teams and Justin still finds time for the Pelicans to hate on New Orleans my nothing more important than me clarifying why I'm right okay tusha

all right this was fun thank you again to Doug Maccum hopefully I'm getting your name right but this was a great idea we should We should keep doing this because this was a lot of fun. Super fun. Almost as fun as my man George Santos representing New York City. He just got two house committees, business and science.

Go George. Is Kyrie on those subcommittees? Excuse me, the small business. The small business subcommittee in science. That guy's science. So looking forward to science, America. He's on our short list, too. All right.

Thank you to Eduardo Campo for Philanon Production. We'll be back next week. We'll see you.