The Ringer NBA Show - Our Biggest Draft Hits and Misses: Jayson Tatum, Mike Conley Jr., Draymond Green, and More | The Mismatch

Episode Date: April 3, 2020

With basketball still shelved, we revisit our biggest hits and misses in previous draft coverage: Dragan Bender, Jaylen Brown, Mario Hezonja, and more. Plus, are you in or out on Julius Randle? Hosts: Chris Vernon and Kevin O’Connor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly, and welcome to The Ringer Podcast Network. We hope The Ringer can provide you entertainment and companionship during this time. So as always, feel free to check out The Ringer.com, where we're still covering the latest in sports, pop culture, tech, and media. And the Ringer's YouTube channel can provide endless amounts of entertainment. You can find that at YouTube.com slash The Ringer. Welcome to The Ringer NBA show. I'm Chris Vernon. And joining me as he does every Friday from The Ringer.com.

It's Kevin O'Connor, A.K. Kevin O'Connor, A.K.K.O. Conflict. Kevin O. see Kevin O Candyland, Kevin O'Climber, Kevin O'Climber. Kevin. Burnow. What's going on this Friday morning? Well, we are getting through. Everything is still very awkward.

I do guess we need to touch on at the very beginning of the show. A floated idea. I actually talked with Chris Manix yesterday from Sports Illustrated. I believe CNBC was the first one to float the idea. And then Manix attempted to advance the story yesterday for Sports Illustrated. about them, the NBA talking about if they are able to resume it, that travel would be very, very difficult to pull off, therefore would be looking to do it in a,

in one city where they could maybe stage the playoffs, and Vegas has come up. They obviously have the hotel rooms. They have the ability with their dealings with Vegas, which that relationship has gotten much, much stronger over the last couple of years. You know, the same way they do with summer league,

that you could go and stage the playoffs there. And then you have an attempt to make it the most safe possible environment with testing being able to be actively done. Obviously, we still would not have fans, but rather than players traveling from city to city and whatnot, that you quarantine them in a way and are able to finish out a season like that, which I found incredibly interesting considering, I mean, you and I, I see you out in Vegas every summer,

and when you think about it, they could pull this off theoretically. You know, obviously we're talking a lot longer from now. But if you are going to try to finish the season, it's at least an interesting idea that's been floated out there. Sure. I mean, you and I have hit on this from the start last month that there's a possibility when this comes back, that they're going to need a neutral site,

a central location for these games to be played. And as the weeks go by, that possibility goes from theoretical to something that seems like a necessity. And as Maddox reported yesterday, as, you know, Windhorst did last week, I believe, too. You know, it's about finding that right location and getting all these players to buy in. And then you're going to need more consistent testing as well. And that's the one thing I keep going back to. Are you going to have some type of tests for all the players, coaches, referees, you know, security, you know, of players, players have family there as well. How are you going to make sure that players are healthy in the day of a game?

And in order to do that, you're going to need one of these tests that we're finding out about this past week that are in development that can turn around results within five to 15 minutes. You're going to need something like that. And I mean, it's doable. It's possible if you can put all the players in a bubble essentially like an Olympics village. I mean, when the first week, the NBA shut down, I remember one reader, emailed me this whole big idea. And I'm sorry, I forget the name. I can't pull it up right now. But they mentioned the idea of like Olympic Village for NBA players.

And I read that at the time. And I thought to myself, sure, you know, because it's sure. But it just doesn't seem realistic. But as the weeks go by, though, it's, I think the NBA is all in on doing something like that with at least one central location, maybe two. it feels like with all the support behind it, that that's perhaps the only way this would ever happen. Yeah.

Well, at least some more optimistic, promising news, and they're clearly trying to figure out a way to finish this thing, even if it would be in, you know, I think we're looking at July, right, by the time that something would be able to happen. But this is, they've talked about having a World Cup style where they could quarantine everybody and make it a safe environment.

environment and, you know, given that relationship with Las Vegas that has been strengthened greatly, all 30 teams are playing in that summer league now. And there's a familiarity with the place and there are the venues where you could stage it. Maybe just maybe. They would be able to pull it off and we could have a conclusion to the 2019-20 season. If you're, I mean, here's the thing, though, for the players, the incentive here is that their salaries would get paid out and there would be a lesson chance that there would be a significant cap drop right in coming seasons so you know i understand that there might be you know some resistance on the player side like why would i why why finish the season you know like they're they might say why finish

the season and risk us coming back at a rush year potential of getting hurt why take this time away from the family why don't we just you know end the seasons i can see the logic and some players want to say that. However, I think it's probably for the greater good of the entire league and the future of the players coming into the league that you have some type of resolution with the games in the regular season and with some type of tournament in the playoffs. And as we've hit before, there is a possibility that whatever the league does, whether it's like a three game playoff, you know, in the first round and second round, go to five in the conference finals and then go to seven in the finals. Maybe that format works. Maybe people love that. Maybe these traditional NBA fans are

into that. Maybe if there's a one game playoff plan to get into the playoffs themselves, people really dig that too. And maybe that becomes something that you're more willing to try in the future. So I think for the league, not only would it be good for financial reasons, not only would it be good for social reasons, but also for the league itself moving forward. It's an opportunity to experiment. And I really, really hope we get to see that. Absolutely. And obviously, the experimentation in the All-Star game went over like Gangbusters. Everybody loved that. And if there was, if there was ever a time to experiment, this would be the time. It's not going to be like we're all going to look back on this as a season that was radically

different than every other season anyway. Sure. And think about the Elam ending in the All-Star game. When that was first announced, people were like, huh? what? I don't get this. This is silly. The game was pretty good last year. Like, baby, let's just do that. And then the game happens and people saw the results of how exciting Elam ending can be. And even then, because the game ended on a free throw, that was probably like the least exciting way an Elam ending can actually result. There are still far more exciting games with the Elm ending that can be seen with the basketball tournament in the past couple summers. And the idea of these shortened series, a one game, playoff to get into the playoffs or you know a three game three game round in the first round that may not sound appealing to a fan that is so used to watching you know seven game series for many years or previously five games in the first round but if you will actually see it happen and it makes for exciting basketball if like the grizzlies go to five games with the lakers in the first round or something like that that'll be really dope man and and i think it's something

that people would love, and I get excited at the mere thought of the league getting an opportunity to experiment here. Well, I mean, we used to have best three out of five, but they didn't want, you know, they wanted the best teams advancing, right? That people did not like eight beating one and then moving on to the next round. They wanted to ensure that the best team would win the series or the best matchup would win the series. And so, you know, I don't know.

obviously, look, the greater the stakes of every single game, the more fun it is. There's no way around that, right? Like, it just, that's the way it is. The greater the stakes. And in that particular All-Star game, what we saw was the greater the stakes, even when it came down to possessions, right? It makes it more exciting. And so if you lose one game, if you lose game one of a series where you got to win three,

it is so much different. than if you lose one game of a series where you've got to win four. To your point about how in the past they went from five to seven to better or sure that the best team moved on, if the league in the future, who knows how many years from now, but if in the future they had a midseason tournament. And if that midseason tournament, let's just say it was a one game playoff, you know, with all 30 teams or something like that and the top two seeds get by. And let's say that, let's say that tournament became something that fans and

players and teams actually celebrated. If that became something meaningful, the midseason tournament, I think if that were in place, then in the NBA finals postseason, you know, end of the year like we currently have, I think at that point, then maybe because you had that mid-year tournament, you could have those shorter series in the earlier rounds because even though it's still incredibly important, it's the finals, that's what everybody wants to win. that's still the ultimate goal. I think if you still have other ways to reward teams and reward fans,

you could have a short and serious there and feel a little bit better if you have an upset, like a seven over or two or an eight over or one. Because like, let's say this year, the Lakers could have won the midseason tournament, but then they could have happened to get upset in the first round of that postseason. Something like that to me, if you have more, more reward, maybe you're a bit more willing to have more upsets in the early rounds of the actual postseason itself. All right.

Well, for today's show, for those of you that have been keeping up with the book of basketball pods and what Simmons has been doing, they've been going back and they have been redrafting different drafts. And one of the things that you can gain from listening to these redrafts is seeing where people messed up and seeing where people got it right, general manager-wise,

when it was time to make those picks. And Kevin and I have been keeping up with the draft for a long time. I think my first draft was like 2000 or something like that. And so I had a lot to go back on. It's like 20 years of looking back on guys that I liked and guys that I didn't like and guys I would have really swung and missed on and guys that I really liked that turned out to be great picks for franchises. Now, that being said, I was happy.

be that I clearly have learned from mistakes on a lot of these things because I go back and read some of the stuff that I wrote or see some of the predictions that I made because I think it's been a long time since I've had somebody that I thought was going to be really awesome and then was just a dud in the NBA, right? Like that's not my misses. My misses, at least in recent times, have been, I didn't. like somebody as much as I should have, right? Like somebody that I thought was going to be good, but I didn't like him as much as I

should have. But in terms of, and then like the misses are like, you know, like the guys that I thought could be good or rotation guys that are misses, you would say. I mean, those are like late first, second round picks. I mean, you're throwing darts half the time in those anyway. But because it's been, I mean, I was going back. And, I mean, I had to go all the way back to, like, I saw that kid that played for Arizona, Derek Williams.

I saw him in person. And Derek Williams had a career. Is he still in the league? I don't think he's in a league anymore. And he was okay, right? But I thought Derek Williams was going to be good. I thought he was going to be good. And he wasn't.

He wasn't. He's clearly not worth the pick, right, that they used on that. And when he got swapped for Darren Williams or whatnot. And there are other guys who, actually playing in, or was playing in Turkey this year. Oh, wow. Wow. And then I threw out the guys that are like super recent, right, the last couple of years. Because I'm going to, I'll give you a couple stories from yesterday of guys that you, like, proof that you got to wait it out to see what they end up becoming.

So I don't think it's fair to judge guys that are like the last few years necessarily. In some cases, for sure, we can already see mistakes that were made. But the book is clearly nowhere close to written on some guys. So I ended up writing down a bunch of names on hits and misses, some of which are going to be. I wonder if like some of the names, have you ever heard of the name Damien James? It is totally, it is totally reasonable if you have it. Jamie and James. No, I don't recall that name.

He's a kid that played at Texas. He was drafted in the first round. And that year, the Grizzlies had the 12th pick overall. And I saw the kid work out. I mean, he was like a huge big 12 player. He was a great, great high school player. And it just didn't take. He just didn't even have an NBA career and was way wrong about it.

But that will lead into, I am going to, make you feel better, Kev, right off the bat. Please, thank you, Chris. I like to feel good. Okay. Because there is no way you can defeat this. That year, the Grizzlies had the 12th pick. I went to all of the workouts.

They ended up taking Xavier Henry, who I hated. So I was right about that, at least. But I would have taken Damien James from Texas. But how about this one? You ready for this? This is what I wrote at the time. This is, God, it's 10 years ago now. Are you quoting yourself here?

Like this is written word. Written word. This is what I wrote, which I should have deleted years ago. But I am going to, for the purposes of my own humiliation, I will, I'll read this. Paul George has gotten a ton of hype. You're going to love this. He's going to be the steal of the draft. He could be the best player in the draft.

He's the guy that's flying under the radar. I've heard it all about Paul George, so I had to go see him in his workout with the Grizzlies on Tuesday. Going into the workout, I must say I was hoping to see a guy that I would want the Grizzlies to take it 12 if he's available. I just don't think it's there with this kid, to be honest. If it was there, he'd be going top five. There's a possibility I could have pegged this kid wrong, but I can't stand guys with motor problems. They disgust me. I think you lose with guys like Paul George.

because when push comes to shove, they'll cave. I don't want anybody that's not going to give Max effort. Everybody can wait for the light to come on. I'll pass. I detest the fact that he was on a losing team, which is virtually impossible in a crap conference if you're a lottery guy. And the fact that he was not even first team all whack. Get real.

I'd bank on the potential that everybody loves going unfulfilled. I have no time for lazy. Oh, my God. God. That's about as bad as it gets. I have no time for lazy. That's about as bad as it gets. I did see him and he just got walloped in every drill.

And you know what? There's a thing. And this is one of the lessons I had to learn. That when you could go to those, there were so many guys over the years that absolutely tanked workouts when they came to workout here. Because when you are a loser and you lose every year, they don't want to get drunk. drafted by you. There's a slew of guys that never even came to work out. You know, and obviously this goes into a whole other discussion, but it's one of the reasons that I am so anti-losing on purpose, because these agents will try to direct it so that you won't take their guy, and

sometimes their guy comes in and just absolutely tanks a workout completely. You know, one famously years ago, Hubey Brown started screaming at Dwayne Wade, because Dwayne Wade were just wasn't even playing. He wasn't even trying. I saw Harden do it. I saw George do it. And, you know, and in retrospect, it's like, okay, I drew something from those workouts where these guys were tanking the workout so that they wouldn't get drafted by a team. You know what I'm saying? And I'm sitting there watching it being like, this guy, get out of here. But in retrospect, he don't want to get drafted here. So he's going, he's half assing it. Right? Whereas guys like Damien James, they're projected to go low. Of course they're winning every drill and playing like with

a massive chip on their shoulder because they ain't going to get drafted there or guys that like might not go in the first round and you see them go harder than hell. You know, I had to learn. Like Steph Curry that year, his dad and them, they didn't even come work out. Grisys had the second pick in the draft, Kevin. He didn't even come and work out. He didn't want to get drafted, you know, by Memphis. And there was a bunch of guys that were like, that over the years. But I learned my lesson, right, on Paul George. In fairness, he has caved when push came to shove in the playoffs. Oh, God. You're not a fan of playoff, P? He is. I mean, good grief. I had to watch two years ago Joe Ingalls emasculate him on national TV. So anyways,

yeah, Paul George. Joe Ingalls, who looks like an NBA player. Yeah, Paul George, one of my, one of my worst for sure. Can you even come close to that? I don't, of the misses that I have, I don't have one that fits that exact criteria. No, but. You mean like a guy that could be a Hall of Famer? Not that I saw from scanning my draft guides the past couple years.

The first year we did the draft guide was 2014. And the year before that, I did have a top 50, my first year for Celtics blog.com way back in the day. So all of my guys that I'm choosing are since 2013. Anybody before that, I never really had definitive rankings. I would just sort of have a list, you know, and all those files are gone somewhere. Who knows?

But so to start off, I guess I'll go with a guy I definitely missed on, though, just to stick with guys that we swung and missed at. Kyle Kuzma, in 2017, I had his. him ranked 46th, incredibly low. You hated him. Behind Cendarius Thornwell, Tyler Dorsey. I like Thorntz. Batis LaSort.

I mean, I had Coosma low. And Coosma, of course, today is a very polarizing player. Some people love him. Some people hate him. And it's undeniable, though, that I had him too low. And that's because I think I leaned on his weaknesses too much. I looked at him at 22 years old coming in as a rookie. I looked at him and thought to myself,

well, this guy has never proven that he can become a consistent defender. He has never shown that he has a consistent jump shot. What I underrated was the fact that he is a guy who at 6 foot 9, 6 foot 10 can handle the ball and can do other things on the court despite his weaknesses. He can still be a spark plug score. I think I sort of put him into a box as a guy who wouldn't get an opportunity because of his weaknesses, when in reality, it's his strengths that has given him opportunity and that has given him value on a really good team last year and this year with

the Lakers. And look, he still is a weak defender, but he has still shown in certain minutes that he can be versatile. He still is an iffy decision maker. That has not changed. He still has his weaknesses. And in that sense, the evaluation is sound. But the ranking was too low because I think I look back at that and I was too hard on

his weaknesses instead of focusing on his strengths as a player. And I think his age as well entered the equation too much for me. That's one of the big lessons that I look back on with some of my best hits and some of my my worst misses. Age, it matters. You know, drafting an 18, 19 year old, obviously those are the guys that have the highest upside. But everybody's development is on a different trajectory. And oftentimes that 21, 22 year old can come into the league and make an instant impact and still have room to grow. And that's where we've talked about with a guy like Brandon Clark and Memphis coming in older, but still has more upside.

That was the case with Kuzma, his year in the draft, that he came in, he had his weaknesses, he's gotten better, his strengths have gotten better, and he still has more room to improve despite the fact he was an older prospect. I love this because you're feeding right into my next one without even knowing because this is the argument that I made over and over again for, I would say, I would say my biggest hit. So in 2012, and this has come up before and people have been like, oh yeah, nobody saw it coming with Draymond Green and I will throw people a link because I wrote with the 25th pick, the Grizzly should select Draymond Green.

It's the official, it's the official endorsement of the Chris Vernon show. There is absolutely no way there'll be 24 players better than this kid. He dribbles and passes like a guard and rebounds like a big. He shot the cover off the ball in his workout here. He fits the culture. Lionel Hollins would play him. I know what I get with him. A good rotation player for years that'll play hard every single night. Give me that guy. Dremont is my, yeah, he's my best one. And it was, and that was my argument because I remember, it's funny. They took Tony Roten, 19, year old point guard out of Washington. And I, the argument was, you know, like, oh, Draymond's like, whatever he was, 22, right, 22, 23 years old. And it's like, yeah, but what is this

guy going to look like when he's 22 or 23? And I kept repeat, like, he's not going to be as good as this guy, right? Like, I mean, the answer for people, like, that's what GMs used to always say, right, that it's a projection thing. And so you take this, the young guy always gets the advantage because, okay, yeah, he's only 19, but imagine what he could look like when he's 22. And in many cases, the answer is not as good as the awesome 22-year-old that you're passing up, right? And Draymond would be easily the biggest hit, for sure. I mean, I loved him when I saw him. And I thought, like, there's not a coach on the planet that won't play him outside of Mark

Jackson, I guess. Thank God, David, thank God David Lee got hurt, right? But anyways, Draymond was, I mean, so for George, I at least had Draymond. When I went back and looked, I would say George, George was the biggest one that I saw him. I would not have wanted him, and he turned out to be awesome. Dremond is the one that I saw that I thought he was awesome, and he got drafted obviously entirely too low. For my, hits. I'm going to have a guy that I had ranked maybe slightly higher compared to the consensus and then one guy that I ranked way lower compared to consensus, both of which were hits. Let's go on it. Let's go with a hit first, Chris. You just named one of yours. I'm just going to

read what I wrote in 2017. So this prospect was drafted in 2017. A high draft pick, not a steel like one of yours right there. Go-to scoring is the hardest skill to find in the NBA. I'm talking about players you feed the ball to in an emergency situation toward the end of the clock. Players you lean on in the fourth quarter when the defense is locked in and the game is muddied in the half court. These are irreplaceable talents found on every championship team in league history. Nothing matters more than scoring, but sometimes there's more focus on what Jason Tatum can't do than what he does at arguably the highest level of any player in this draft class. So Tatum is one of the guys that I look back at and I am happiest with my evaluation.

in ranking of him. I had him second behind Markle Foltz, which was a mistake. It was everybody's mistake. But not mine. Tatum in a lot of places was ranked like 10th or 11th,

which was just way, way, way too low. And I think with Tatum so much of the focus on him at the time was what he didn't do in his single year at Duke. I wrote the feature story

on him this year on the Ringer and it kind of sort of came back up in conversations about the conversation about how at the time his defense wasn't at the level it should have been but that was due to a foot injury that really knocked him off athletically early in the season the fact that he wasn't shooting

threes on the off the dribble as much as he was shooting twos well that's because he was still extending his range every single year his range was always getting deeper and now we see it all manifesting for him this current season with the Celtics there was talk about his passing ability

I thought at the time that was a little bit overblown, if you look at my Skeddinger report. He did make some nice passes. Just he had a score first mindset, and he has gotten a lot better there in the NBA. So Tatum, I think to me, when you're looking for guys that can be the face of your franchise, guys who can really take you from good to great,

it's still those players who can be great scorers. It's still those guys like a Jason Tatum. and that has made me think about this year's draft class when there's not a lot of guys like that. Right. There's some that you might want to swing at and take a chance on. And Anthony Edwards, Achilles, these guys who show scoring talent, but it's not all there. Those are still the guy, even La Mello Ball, for that matter. You can look at his horrific shooting percentages, but he can generate space.

And that's still the skill that can set guys apart. It's just about, are you going to take a swing on that like I prefer to with Tatum in that year? Or are you going to go with the more safer option who fits into a team but doesn't have that upside? It's more philosophical than anything else when it comes to rankings. I'm just glad in that year I drank Tatum as high as I did. You know what? I actually had, when I was going through this exercise, I had names written down and this is going to be, this is funny. So the one I had written down from that draft, which I count as a win, a hit, is Fox.

Of the three point, of the three point guards, I liked him the most. And that includes Lonzo and Fultz, right? And part of that was watching him throughout the season. I know a bunch of people in Kentucky, they absolutely loved the kid, loved him. And I heard what a great kid he was and how smart he was and all the stuff you want to hear about him as a, kid as a guy. And then I was in the arena when he dropped 39 on Lonzo's head in the NCAA tournament. And I walked out of that arena and I'm like, how could you be sitting there and take Lonzo over him? How? And by the way, Magic Johnson was on the front row. And I remember

saying to my buddy, like, what is that conversation walking out to the car? Because I mean, he was, Lanzo was going like to the Lakers if he was if he was there, right? If he was on the board, if he didn't go number one. And most people had Fultz going number one. But I liked Fox more than those two. I think you'd still.

Yeah. I mean, like those are the, that's one. On that note, with this year's draft class, I think back to 2017. And look, I had Fultz number one. And I really like Fultz as a prospect. There's, but at the time, there was something in my gut that told me, Tatum was a

one prospect. And I look back at that at the time and I'm like, I think I had a little bit of fear because of the group think because of, you know, how it was really a consensus across the board in the league that faults is the number one player in the draft. I think there's a little bit of almost fear inside of me. And I've removed that since then. I don't care what anybody else has his rankings. I don't care what NBA teams have these guys ranked as either for that matter. they're wrong, they're wrong just as much as we are. Just the facts.

NBA teams are wrong just as much as the guy on real GM that's been posting for 10 to 15 years. It's just the truth. You can look at their track record. It's just the facts. And so I look at, I look now at this year's draft class when there is no clear number one pick.

And my rankings, whenever we put them out there, I think they're going to end up being drastically different than any of the other website. I love it. I love it. Because I don't, I don't look, man, like especially this year, there's not that guy. There's not that guy.

And I think if anybody's ranking players, you shouldn't worry about what other people have. Just trust your own, your own evaluation of these guys and take in information from others. That's important. It's important to take information and take in other opinions, but you can't necessarily let that affect how you're ranking a guy. Oh, no. The group thing has, it's been a killer for. I mean, look, because. Because here's a thing, and this is how people think that it doesn't matter.

It absolutely matters because what the consensus becomes, what the mock drafts say, your owner reads those, right? And so if you want to be bold and you want to go off the grid and you have a conviction, you have to be right. Because if you take the guy that everybody should say is a top five pick and he's not, well it's like you did what everybody else is going to do you were wrong but you're also not going to get fired over that maybe probably right well and that's what happened in 2010 i believe this has been reported i don't think i'm breaking anything here but with the minnesota timberwolves

with the fourth pick there was some noise that they wanted paul george but ownership didn't want to take that risk so they ended up taking wesley johnson with the fourth pick who was the more the consensus high you know better prospect all that but there are a lot of people within the organization who wanted Paul George. Oh, it happens all the time. It happens all the time where because your owner gets involved in the draft. There's a lot of things that your owner doesn't get involved in. Your owner usually is involved in the draft or has a say, right?

And if he's talked to people and he has a conviction about somebody, then many times it's just a lot easier to say, okay, we'll go with that. And that's how you can make, you know, grave errors in judgment, right? Just like how there's, and these have not been confirmed. I've never confirmed it. I believe it to be true. But there's been the reports that Sam Hinky with the Sixers wanted to take Christop's Porzingis instead of Julia Ocalfour, but ownership made the push for the safer pick

in Okafore. I don't know if that's true. I believe it to be true. But even something like that, there's so many mistakes that are made over the the years because of ownership's ownership pushing basketball operations to make a decision that they really shouldn't be making. Oh, for certain. It happened.

Look, I witnessed it twice once Hashim Thabit. Absolutely. I mean, Michael, Michael Heisley. What year was that? God rest his soul. That's been, oh, nine, right? Yeah. So Michael Heisley, God rest his soul.

Oh, geez. I love, I love. The top, the top. that year. Blake Griffin. Don't. To meet James Hardin, Tyreek Evans, Rookie Rubio, Johnny Flynn,

Steph Curry. That was the top seven that year. Well, I'll tell you this. Wow. So Michael Heisley, God rest his soul, he had, he got the okay from Jerry West

and other guys like that. He was still, he didn't, he was still talking to guys like Jerry, guys that, you know, Dick Bersays, all these guys that had worked for the team before. You know, and so if he goes in and he says, look, they're all, they say we should take the kid from Yukon, right? We should take the kid from whatever.

I mean, you think Chris Wallace or any of them are going to stand up to him? Hell no, right? Because if you're wrong about who you take two, then you're dead. But if you, right? And so, and the other one, and this is absolutely so, was the year they had, the year before that, they had the fifth pick. And they took Kevin Love, who I, I mean, I ran. And then the trade happened for O.J. Mayo, right? And why did that happen? Because Heisley is a Chicago guy. And Heisley was living there. And OJ. was working out all summer with Tim Grover, the old, you know, Jordan guy.

Oh, yeah, yeah. And Hysley went over and watched him. And so Heisley wanted OJ Mayo. And so they figured out a way to make that happen. They swung that deal on draft night when he got taken third and Love got taken five. So they made that deal with Minnesota. In an alternate universe, you guys take Kevin Love and then you take James Hardin. Oh, my God. You have no idea. Is that one reason why you don't like James Hardin because the Grizzlies didn't take him? No, no. In fact, you know what's funny?

Not even a part of it, not even like just a pebble. No, no. No. No, I don't like watching a guy hunt for fouls and go to the free throw line all night. but I also I would say that that particular draft you got to remember Tyree Evans had just played a whole season in Memphis I mean he had just played here so and and Steph Curry had just lit the world on fire at Davidson I saw there's one guy on there that you could count as one of my misses I absolutely liked the other Minnesota guy

and I'm talking about the to beat year Johnny Flynn I saw him in the I saw him live in the NCAA tournament. I don't think he's necessarily a fair one. He made the all-rooky team, and he was in the worst situation ever. They drafted Rubio 2. He's playing in the frigging triangle for Kurt Rambis. And then he had a life-altering. I mean, you can go read articles on him, life-altering hip injury that just destroyed his career completely. He was never, he was never the same, ever after he had this horrible hip injury after his rookie year. I still think Johnny Flynn. His rookie numbers were not. bad.

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You're going to love this so much I'll give you my other Big Miss All right And the reason you're going to love this so much is because I would call this guy a friend now A friend

Yes And it is one Mike Conley Wow I I wanted Joachim Noah Which in retrospect is not terrible. No, not bad. But I resented the hell out of that. And then you've got to remember all those

years following, you're talking about all those great perimeter players, right? Whether you're talking about Hardin, you're talking about Curry, you're talking about Tyreek, you're talking about whoever. You can go through the list, right? And I resented it so much because it was like they're going to, they keep on doubling down, tripling down, quadrupling down on this kid. And, you know, we're five years into his career, and he's 12.7 points, 6.5 assists, shooting 43% from the field. And I'm like, they pass on great players every year because he will not lose his job no matter what. They drafted him when he was very young. They believe in him, and they stood by this thing over and over again.

They got rid of Kyle Lowry. They got him the hell out of town, you know, as to not have any competition. for him and they wouldn't draft anybody that could even play point guard. They brought in a thousand horrible ones over the years as to never create a competition for him and I resented it so much. I mean, I was ready. I would have traded him for anything. I just, and then they gave him the second contract and I'm like, oh, my God.

And that's one of those where it's like you stick with it and the development because by 2013-14 season, he's shooting 45. percent from the field, 36% from three, 17.6 assist a game, a couple of steals. He's making a second team all defense team, and he's leading a team, you know, to the, you know, game sevens of Western semis and the Western Conference finals. It just took forever, you know what I mean? And so for, you know, for so long, I'll always, you know, that makes you gun shy on making your predictions on what a guy is going to be or what his destiny is. In the end, the people that believed in him and what he was going to become were right. It just took so long. And interestingly

enough, it also took that long with Kyle. Kyle Lowry didn't make an all-star team until way later in this career. One of my hits is I had Victor Old Depot ranked first in 2013, but it's also a miss because after four years, I gave up on him. Right. Right. Yeah, no, you got to stick with the guys sometimes. Oh, God. There's so many that, I mean, when we were going through this exercise, Kevin, how about this one?

I wrote down a name. This is from like, oh, six. I wrote down P.J. Tucker. I loved P.J. Tucker. And he got drafted. He was out of the league in one year. And, of course, I mean, I was like, and he showed back up six years later in Phoenix.

I mean, anybody can go look this up. up. Like, PJ Tucker was gone for like five or six years. And then he showed back up at the NBA. And it's funny, my buddy, Chris Harrington, who has covered the NBA for years here at Memphis, he said, I remember you loving PJ Tucker. And I'm like, yeah, all right. Well, I haven't known where he was for six years. That's not, I can't really take credit. I'm not going to take credit for PJ Tucker becoming an NBA player when you had to have him go overseas for six years and then show back up, you know? And now you look at PJ Tucker with the way the game has changed.

He is a, a player, these six foot six, six foot seven strong bodied wings should aspire to be like. I know. It's hilarious. And the way he can defend bigger players, that's what you want in today's league is a PJ Tucker. And that sort of goes right to my next guy. And this is somebody that sort of falls into the category we were just touching on where you can't necessarily give up on a guy. but also I feel confident that this is a hit for me. And that's Julius Randall.

I had him ranked 17th in 2014, and he went seventh to the Lakers that year. And I was, the reason why I was so low on him was his defense. I wrote an article at the time called the Randall problem, analyzing Julius Randall's weaknesses on defense. As I said, I had a ranked 17th in my draft guide that year. I was not a Julius Randall fan, just as I am not a Julius Randall. fan today. And that's because he's one of the worst defensive big men in basketball. He just doesn't know how to focus off ball. He doesn't know where to be playing pick and roll. He's always in the wrong position. So are you counting this as a miss? Because you're just

shooting on this guy. No, I'm saying it's a hit. I had him low and lower the consensus. But I'm sort of hedging here in the sense that I'm saying he still is only 25 years old. And he still is a guy that did score 20 points per game this season with the Knicks and last year of the Pelicans. He still is a great rebounder. He still is a guy who can handle the ball a bit as a big man. The problem is defense. It is still defense. And that is what's holding him back.

He is one of the of, if you look at the guys making over $15, $16 million in the league, he's probably one of the worst of them making high money in the NBA. But the fact is is that there is still a chance that he figured. figures it out on defense and becomes at least average on that end. And then my 17th ranking will end up looking silly. Well, there's still a chance. Hold on. Your 17th ranking looks silly anyway.

No, it doesn't. What are you talking about? You think there's 16. You're 16. Yeah, there is. If you go through the 2014 NBA draft, Randall ends up like 14 to 17, 14 to 18, something like that. If you're doing a 2014 redrafts, I deny that.

I don't know. I'd have to go back and do it. but here's what I know. I'm pulling out one. This is the first. I'm pulling one up. This is the first one that came up on Google. Here's what I know.

Okay. You go and I know. Then I'm on. He has been on all bad teams except that one's Pelicans team. He played for the sorry Lakers who are losing 60 games and he played for the sorry Knicks who are losing 60 games. So put him in a good situation. I think you'll see a different guy.

Again, again, to your point, right now I think it's a hit for me. It can end up being a miss. And that's what the point. The point, the only point is what I'm saying is that it's still early in these guys' careers. Oh, for sure. For some of them. You know who I think he could end up like? And he's a mini version is a guy that obviously I fell in love with in Zach Randolph.

It was years down the road. Now, he has not had the off court. He has not had the off court problems. But no, he played for the Knicks. He played for the Clippers. And it was like, yeah, he puts up numbers, but he stinks on defense and he's not this, right? I mean, I could see that happening. If you ever got Randall in a real winning situation,

that the whole opinion of him changes dramatically. And that happened for Randall, what, at 28, 29 years old? Randolph, yeah, yeah, right. With Memphis? Yes. And those weren't even his prime scoring years. Right. He was more of a secondary player than a primary player at that point.

Oh, no, he was on all bad teams. And, you know, he's looked at as a reason they are bad, right? And I do think that in the case of Randall, he spent the majority of his career in undesirable situations. So I'm just going to throw out some 2014 players that I would redraft ahead of Randall, just for the exercise here. And this is not in any order. I pulled up a different list.

Joel Embed, Nicola Yochich, Andrew Wiggins, Zach Levine, Clintzkepella, T.J. Warren, Spencer Dinwiddie, Aaron Gordon, Yusuf Nurkich, Marcus Smart, Dario Sarge, Gary Harris, Bogdong. What the hell? Joe Harris. Aaron Gordon and Dario Saurich. Yeah. Aaron Gordon is.

Did you fall off the planet? I know you still love Aaron Gordon, but he's been dreadful. Aaron, his defense is not dreadful. Last year, you look at his defense and superstar matchups. He can defend at a elite level against multiple positions. He did a great job against James Harden, did a great job against even KD last year, did a great job against Kauai Leonard to the extent you can in the postseason for Orlando. Aaron Gordon is a stellar defensive player.

He's not better than Julius Randall as a player. Yeah, yeah. You lined them both up on a... I would take Gordon ahead of Randall 100 times, regardless of the team that I'm building. You and I, you and I break ways there, that's for sure. And Dario, sorry, it's a guy's been in witness protection. He couldn't even start for the sons. All right, so do you disagree on Joe Harris?

How about Jeremy Grant? Dwight Powell. I can get on. Julius Randall's better than all these guys that you're talking about. Really? Julius Randall is better than Joe Harris.

I mean, I don't think that there's some kind of massive difference between those two guys. Like in terms of certainly. I think there's a pretty big difference. I mean, Julius Randall. Joe Harris, who is a dynamic shooting weapon,

who is a smart decision maker on the court and a competent defender at the wing position. I would much rather have that guy who's just a total zero. on the defensive end and can't space the floor on offense and that makes poor decisions on offense. I mean that guy. And same with Bogdanovich. Same with Gary Harris, who is struggling this year. He was Randallel.

Aaron. 21 and 9 last year and 20 and 10 this year. How about Jeremy Grant's? I mean, he's just a guy. He's a guy. No, he's not. He's not a guy that's ever getting me 20 and 10 on any team ever. Who cares about 20 and 10?

All of a sudden. Mr. Defense. You've never given a shit about defense in four years of us doing this pod. What are you talking about? Their defensive ability of Jeremy Grant? Like, who cares? How have I never cared about defense? I mean, now all of a sudden, we're talking about how their defense matters so greatly that

it- Marcus Smart is one of my favorite players ever. I care about defense. If you're talking about current guys in 2014 draft. Jewish Randall's a lot better than what he has gotten credit for. He's been on rat teams his whole career. That's not his fault. You know what I mean?

This guy's had some really good years. You go look at his years that he's had. He's just been on bad, bad teams. Free Julius Randall. That's what I'm saying. We'll see. You don't get to use that as a hit. That's a miss.

It's a hit. It's a hit. It's a hit. It's a hit. And I'm saying it could end up being a miss if he ever learns how to play defense. And right now he's one of the worst defensive. players in basketball. He's a worst defender than Ennis Cantor, a guy who everybody talks about is one of the worst defenders in basketball. Julius Randall's worse than him. My God,

this is beating up Julius Randall in a manner that I never suspected. All right. Julius Randall would not go 17 if you did that draft. Yeah, he would. No, he would go 16 or 17. I would. You'd still be taking Aaron Gordon in the top five, though. Like, you just deny what has taken place. I wouldn't, I wouldn't take him in the top five, but he would go ahead of Randolph. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I just wanted to make sure you're listening to podcasts on Spotify. Here's how you do it. First, search for your favorite podcasts on Spotify's app. They have a library of over 750,000 pods at this point. So let's say you're searching for the rewatchables or the Dave Chang show or the Ring or NBA show.

Once you find them, click on the follow button. That's how you subscribe. Then click on those letters near the top of the ad that's a podcast. All the pods you're following will pop up separated by episodes, downloads, and shows. way it gets better. At Spotify, you can adjust the speed of the pods to seven different speeds. 0.5 times is the slowest. I actually sound drunk at 0.5. You can do 0.8 times, 1.2 times, which is my favorite.

Everyone sounds like they just had a good cup of coffee. And then there's 1.5 times, 2 times. And if you're completely insane, three times. Anyway, Spotify's app connects directly to many of the best automobiles in the world. It even has a car play feature that's pretty cool. of all, it's free. Download Spotify on any device, and you're good to go. Should you be embarrassed that you're not listening to podcasts on Spotify?

Well, I don't want to app sham you. But the answer, unfortunately, is yes. Make the move. Listen to podcasts on Spotify. Back to yours. Other guys that I had written down over the years for Mrs. I did like Jimmer Ferdet. And I had this moment.

You remember when we were talking about going back in Arias in the last one? like now all of a sudden speaking of defense right nobody gives a crap they bring it up here it was a while but like tray young don't play any defense right but he like was scoring 30 a game when he's playing at oklahoma like that's what jimmer was and i do wonder if jimmer exists now if it's looked at totally different and he actually could have a place in the NBA but it was like you know if you're going to be a traffic cone for a defender now you can get on an NBA court you know, five, ten years ago, you had no chance of getting on an NBA court,

especially early. But I thought Jimmer was going to have an NBA career, and I thought he could be really good. And it was a debacle, for sure. He was one of my favorite college players to watch ever. It was so exciting. And then I had Johnny Flynn's name written down also as one. For the hits, the other names I wrote down,

I still get this one brought up to me this day. In 2010, my son was born. And I was up every night, as it were, with a baby. And I fell in love with a team that I was watching at like midnight regularly, which was St. Mary's. And they had this guy, Omar Samhan was their big center, whatever. But they had a freshman point guard who I absolutely loved. And I was talking about.

talking up all the time and that team ended up making the elite eight and it's always going to be a special team to me because you know it's just a moment in time where i'm having i had my first kid i'm up every night i fall in love with this college basketball team that i'm watching all time you know who it was it was delvedova wow i loved him and he got on he was undrafted undrafted and he's still got an NBA career going. So I'm counting that as a hit. And then one that I, I'll be mad about till the day I die is Malcolm Brogden. Malcolm Brogden was an ACC player of the year and the ACC defensive player of the year. And the Grizzlies assistant general manager, John Hollinger, was a Virginia graduate. And we took Radezogorak, the pick before Malcolm Brogden. And I went to the gym,

and I watched Rod Azagorek in like a summer league training camp and I was like, oh my God, like this is not an NBA player. Yeah, I told the second I walked in the gym, I watched him do three drills. And I'm like, this guy has no, he ain't got the feet for, he's not the athletic. He's slower than hell. They're just going to put him in every pick and roll forever. And he went to Summer League and guess what? They put him in every single pick and roll.

I don't even, I don't think he ever played an NBA minute. it. This is my write-up for him in my 2016 draft guide. Zagarak is an extremely competitive team first player that has role-player potential. His shot is inconsistent and his handle must improve, but the tools are there for him to be a solid stretch forward.

He'll need to get stronger and improve laterally in the defensive end. And the scouting notes go far more in depth than that, but I liked him as like a shot in the dark in the second round, but I loved Brogden that year. I had Brogden ranked 22nd in 2016. I thought he was for sure going to be a really good player.

So I don't dislike the pick on Zagorak. There was a chance he ended up a good player. But considering some of the other guys on the board, that was obviously a mistake to your point. All right. Those are the majority of the names that I wrote down. Obviously, a lot of them are more recent names and stuff.

It's been a long time, though, since, like, somebody's gotten drafted really high that I thought was going to be super awesome and just flamed out, you know? Yeah, I got a couple. of those. Dragon Bender. Oh boy.

This is where I'm going to beat myself up. I get some misses on the international side. Dragon Bender, I ranked him third in 2016. Mario Hizonia had him ranked fourth in 2015. And then here's a little bit of a deeper cut. Timothy Luawu.

I had him ranked ninth in 2016. Too high. Hey, you know, Kemp, though, to you, that's totally fair. To your point, uh, about, not paying attention to the mocks. I did this about maybe two years ago.

I went back and looked at everything that was written about that draft. And the argument all out of Boston was about Chris Dunn and about Dragonbender. Oh, I got a good story about that. On the mocks, nobody. I went back and looked, I think the highest on any mock that Jalen Brown was, was like eight or nine. on any mock. For the Boston media. No, no, any national.

No, any, no, any national. And it wasn't until like, you know, like later that day, like I think Jeff Goodman at Fox had moved him up. But Goodman's like big buddies with, uh, with Ainge. He's known him forever. So, I mean, he had a, he had a beat on that, right? When he, when he did that. But if you go back and look at all the mocks, because I pulled them up just as an exercise,

not one mock had the Celtics taking Jalen Brown. None of them. And Chris Dunn and Dragon Bender and who else was there? There were like all of them were ahead of Jalen Brown. That was like a real anti-mock pick. Like I don't care what everybody else says. I'm taking this Jalen Brown kid at three. Nobody had him that high. You know who else had Jaila Brown going to the Celtics that year?

Me. I did. Wink, wink, wink. Wait, you had him ahead of Bender? No, not in my big board, but on my my mock drafts. You mentioned mocks. I had Jaylin going to the Celtics. And my story about that is that that year I was doing TV in Boston and Celtics fans booed the pick. They booed when Jaylon Brown got selected. Everybody wanted Chris Dunn or they wanted the pick to be traded for Jimmy Butler.

Understandable you'd want to trade for Butler. But everybody wanted Chris Dunn, the more local kid out of Providence, not the raw. shooter with Jalen Brown. And I think it was that night or the next night I went on TV. And the argument was like, why would the Celtics draft a guy that can't shoot? Why would they draft this guy when they already have, you know, Jay Crowder and these other wings and forwards? And it was really amazing feeling like the only person who was like, this is a pretty good pick. I remember, I think I wrote something at the time. Like, if you loved Jay Crowder, you're going to definitely love Jaylen Brown, because he's at least

going to be that good of a player. Well, you know what else hurt him? He did this last year. Like, Kevin Pelton used to do the, like, the draft rater, like the analytics thing. The analytics. Oh, geez. And like, Jaylen Brown was like, analytics hated him.

He was like 5,000. You know what I mean? Like, he wasn't even, he wasn't even on the grid. The analytics, like, predicted that Jalen Brown was going, like, should be like undrafted. You know? I remember looking it up because I've talked to Kevin about it before.

Like, you know, what are the lessons of something like that? Because it's like you have these predictive, you know, again, nothing is perfect. But you have this, you know, formula that you can stick in. You can say, okay, here's what translates, here's what doesn't. These are great predictors of future MBA success. He didn't have any of it. None of it. Like, none of the predictors of NBA success were there.

if you looked at the numbers. And that's fascinating to me, considering Boston was, you know, by most accounts, way ahead of the game on the analytics front. And, you know, with Jalen, though, this touches on what we hit on

earlier in the week. Player personality. Player personality is the secret. The brain doctor. Sure. You know, whoever it may be. No,

no, don't they have one that was famous, right? I know, they do. But I'm saying, like whoever it may be on your team, but they do have a guy that they call the brain doctor in Boston. He's had some misses as well.

But I'm just saying. What's his name? Nied. Niednagle? All I know him is as the brain doctor. Yeah. He's John, John Niednagle is his name. The point is, is that who a player is as a person, whatever way, way, you know,

you have that, whether it's through interviews like the brain doctor tends to use, or whether it's through personality assessment tests like you see with other companies like sports aptitude that do that for teams or players that have their in-house database that they use. I believe the New England Patriots, the New England Patriots have a in-house database that they use themselves. I think there might be a couple of NBA teams that do that as well. I'm not sure who specifically, but whatever way it is, figuring out What makes guys tick is the key to success. So with Jalen Brown, the conversation at the time was, well, he has a raw handle.

Okay, well, that's something he's improved at significantly in the NBA through his hard work. Inconsistent on defense. Well, how much of that was role in situation on a pretty bad Cal team in college? Well, now in Boston a defense first environment, he has become a great defender. And his shot has improved. His shot was underrated at the time. anyway. So it's the work ethic and the mindset that you really need to figure out to understand how much guys are going to make their strengths better and how much guys are going to turn their

weaknesses into at least average skills or good skills. And like the numbers of a hollow player produces on the court at the college level do not touch that at all. And that's why for me personally, when it comes to college statistics, college data, I don't put too much into it. First of all, it's a small sample size of 25 to 35 games for these guys. The situations oftentimes are horrific. So many college teams play with two bigs clogging the lane. They don't play anything like an NBA style. How much zone defense do they go against compared to man defense?

There's just all so many variables that diminish its value and importance to me. And that's why for teams, it's about figuring out how the college production on the court interacts with player personality. It's blending those two together to get the best possible assessment of players. And that's what I'm really always trying to search for with prospects, figure out who these guys are. And teams, that's where they have an edge over anybody else because they have direct contact with players and coaches and assistants and, you know, guidance counselors at schools. Figuring out who they are is the key. All right. Last thing before we get out of here, Bobby Wagner's producer as always. And I'm calling you out, Bobby, because right before we started

recording today. You said you had one. As a Sixers guy, it was the Fult year and they traded up, right, to end up getting Fultz. But tell us who you wanted them to keep the pick

and take who at three. You know, I'm not even a big Sixers fan, so I will just say that up top but a lot of my friends are, so I follow the team closely and I care about them. I wanted them to go with, I believe I tweeted this and stood by it,

so I guess you could say this is my Jeff Green. I wanted them to go with Malik Monk. It doesn't look so great right now, guys, but come on. You shot the hell out of the ball. He was really athletic. This is a great one, though. This is a great one. The story is not written on Monk. That's what I tell you. I'm with you. I'm with you, Chris. The same way that I, you know, that's why I was telling some of these stories. You know, these are lessons learned over the years. that sometimes you're going to look up in five, six years down the road, that's a different guy. If you would have judged a lot of guys on their first four years, if you'd have judged Dramon,

if you'd have judged Kauai, if you'd have judged Mike Conley, if you'd have judged Kyle Lowry, all kinds of fantastic players, a lot of guys that ended up being all-stars. If you judged them on their first four years, you would not have seen it. You also got to remember at the time, like everybody kept talking about how the Sixers had no floor spacing and no shooting and all you could hear about was this dude who came out of Kentucky who could just chuck. I'll tell you something, though. And had a flamethrower. I see him, you know, I see obviously seen him at Summer League and I seen, I saw him play

for Kentucky in college and then I see him. He's an Easter conversation. So I really only see him once a year in person. He is so much smaller than what I thought. What I, I guess I just envisioned him being like a real shooting guard and shooting guard size. He is smaller than a lot of point guards now. Yeah. He's not tall. Bobby, that that year in the 2017 draft, I was arguing about how teams should trade down before the lottery. I said, whoever wins the number one pick should look to be trading down this year. Teams that win the

number three pick like the Sixers did should look to trade down. And one of the, after the lottery results happened and Philly ended up with three, I believe I might have said this on a ringer live stream that they should trade down and take Monk. And I didn't see them trading up to one. He got the idea. Stupid. But like the guys I really liked that year in that 7 to 14 range, I liked Donovan Mitchell a lot.

I liked Malik Munk a lot. I liked Frank Nilakina a lot. You still like Frank Nilikina. I still like Frank. Look, everything you're saying, Chris, think about Frank Nilakina in the same contexts. Join me. Join me, Chris. Join me. Join me. Join me. Please. The whole reason, the whole reason you're shitting on Julius Randalls because he's got to play with bums like him. Yeah, well, Julius Randall can't

defend. Julius Randall can't defend. I like defense. You're telling me I never cared about defense. You're telling me, I never cared about defense. When I love Frank Milikina, come on. Let's be real now. I don't know where you pulled that out of. Yeah. Can I ask, can I ask one question? I have a question. No. I want to know this is for both of you guys.

Does this count as a hit? In 2013, I had Janus ranked ninth. Does that count as a hit? Yes. Hell yeah. Counts as a hit. Nobody even knew who the hell he was. Well, sure.

But, you know, I still had him behind. I tell you this. I still had him behind Tray Burke. I still had him behind Anthony Bennett. Oh, that's tough. That's terrible. That's really tough to hear you. sake have. Don't keep going.

No, we don't. Then it doesn't count. But this is what I'm saying when it comes to, you can say like the bucks, you know, stole Janus, but who did they have Janus ranked behind? Well,

I'm going to tell you this. You know what I'm saying? A couple of weeks ago, or no, whenever this quarantine started, so one of the things I've been doing is cleaning out, uh,

game rooms, addicts, etc. And I found all this like memorabilia that I just collected over the years because I never throw anything away. And I don't know if you saw this, but I posted it on Twitter about, I don't know, a couple weeks ago, whenever the quarantine started.

I found this poster that I had from Janus's rookie year. You could probably find it on my feed. And it is a poster that they gave out, and it says Greek and still growing. And it's side by side, Janus on draft night and Janus at the beginning of their season. And it's almost like a growth chart. And he grew like two and a half, three inches from June until when, when he, you know, started playing for the bucks. And so, like, did the bucks predict that Janus is going to be 611 instead of 6.9?

Like, I guess you could say that, you know, but how could you have known, right, that he was going to be growing three more inches? I mean, and is 6-9 or 6-8, Yonis, is he Yonis? He's, look, 6-8, Yonis is still a great player. But he's not 6-11, Janus. You'd admit that, right? Oh, of course. Of course.

That makes a difference. I mean, that's the difference. That's the difference. Like, that's what makes him modern shack. And that's four months. In the four months, I mean,

they gave this poster out, I have it. In the four months from they drafted him to when they started the season. And it's a side by side picture of Janus on draft night and Janus in his buck's uniform. And he's significantly taller.

You know, within four months. And it's like, okay. Like, that's just lucky. How can you know? You can't know that somebody's going to grow to be that tall. So who knows?

In an altered dimension, maybe he stays the height that they drafted him, and he's pretty good, but he's not, you know, a frigging best player in the league, MVP, Hall of Fame talent. I don't know. You know, it's fascinating. Like, Giannis, we're going to look back at him whenever his career is over and think about all the mystery

that surrounded him when he was first, drafted and think about how he did get taller and stronger. And he got more athletic, too. Well, the other thing is, how could you know? You remember those old films, Kevin? I mean, he was playing against nobody. I know. He was playing in the Greek A2 league at the time and just a bunch of scrawny little

white guys for the competition. It was fun to watch. I mean, looking back now. It's crazy. But, but the thing is, is like, at the time, I'm like just skimming through my article. I wrote at the time. One paragraph I wrote, most likely Janus will be a solid to good role player like Nicholas Batum and Lamar Odom. But once again, it's hard to pinpoint both his floor and ceiling as a player due to his age and lack of experience.

With time, his potential will become much more clear. This is what adds to the mystery, blah, blah, blah, blah. But point is is that at that at that time, there were a lot of Nicholas Batum comparisons. Another bigger overseas player, you know, you mentioned Chris how he was only 689 at the time like Batum is. there was comps like that that were good results for him. If that's what he became as a player, that would have been a good pick at 15 for the bucks. But nobody could have seen this comic.

Nobody. Oh, if you're six, but you would admit, you're six eight, six nine, you really got to be able to shoot. And so that would have showed up. That would have showed up a lot more.

Because even now, he still is a guy that people will let shoot, like in the pick your poison, you know, decision. He, you know, and it's gotten better. You're right. You're right.

You're right. And that's what I wrote about this week on the ringer. You know, Janus last week on Instagram posted just got done watching Chris Bosch and Paul Pierce highlights. Who should I watch next? So my editor, Justin Verrier saw that post and got the idea of like, well, yeah, who should Janus watch next? And so this week on the ringer, I wrote about what he could take from Bosch.

And from Bosch, I mentioned that he could develop the face up post scoring. Janice never faces up in the post now because he hasn't established his mid-range jumper, which is better this year. He's shooting 42% from mid-range, which is not great, but it's solid. If he establishes that, he can do more face-up moves and be a more dynamic post-threat. From Paul Pierce, take the ability to hit more tough contested jumpers off the dribble, which could help him in playoff situations. And then I mentioned Kevin Garnett, the passing ability from KG,

one of the best passing big men we've ever seen in the league. as Janus continues to get better and better as a scorer. And keep in mind, he's still only 25 years old. He will get better. That passing ability might be the next thing that continues to separate him from nearly everybody else in the league as a talent. And it's really amazing, though, just to look back at what he was when he was facing those little Greek guys, Chris.

And you see the glimmers. You see the transition ability back then. you see the length, you see how quickly he covered ground. You still couldn't have seen what he is today. And to still be thinking about at 25 when he's about to win his second consecutive MVP, it's really remarkable that it's still fair to think about how he's going to continue to get better. How lucky are we to watch basketball in the age of Giannis Sondon. He's a Kumpo?

I mean, it's remarkable. He's 25. What's he going to look like, you know, when he's 30 years old? Yeah. Four and five years now. I mean, it's, it's going to be a great, great story someday when he's getting inducted in the Hall of Fame. And we're looking at him when he was a rookie and he was so skinny. It's really thankful to watch a guy like him today.

Not today, though. I look forward to when basketball is back and watch him again. I miss watching, be honest. This has been a fun one. Kevin, have a great weekend. It has been a fun one, Chris. I'm still having fun. No basketball games are being played.

But I'm having fun talking hoops with you guys. place of the week. Thanks to Bobby Wagner for producing another episode. If you dig what you're hearing, go give us a rating and review on iTunes, five stars, five stars. It really helps. And we will talk to you on Tuesday.