The Ringer NBA Show - Our Top 25 Players Right Now and the Ongoing Anthony Davis Headache | Heat Check (Ep. 388)

Episode Date: February 18, 2019

The New Orleans Pelicans’ Anthony Davis problem casts a shadow on All-Star Weekend (1:57). Plus: debating the Ringer staff’s ranking of the top 25 players (36:05). Host: Chris Ryan Guest: Justin Verrier Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of Heat Check is brought to you by Microsoft Surface. The new Microsoft Surface Pro 6 can help you get things done. Whether you're on the field or running a business, take Brian Arakpo and Michael Griffin two former NFL teammates who have opened up a cupcake shop. With the Surface Pro, they can do everything they need from setting schedules to creating promotions for social media and designing new flavors.

Plus, it's light, super fast, and has a great battery life. Brian and Michael are proving that you can tackle all your passions with the power and speed of the new. Surface Pro 6. And welcome to Heat Check. My name is Chris Ryan. I am not John Gonzalez, who is almost done his European vacation. We'll be hearing a lot from John in the coming weeks.

I am here today with my brother, Justin Verrier. Hey, man. And we are here to talk about probably just the most important story out there, which is the All-Star game. I thought this was the watch. I was ready to talk about High Flying Bird. Yeah, did you watch Umbrella Academy this weekend? I don't know what that is.

Justin and I are here to do a little bit of All-Star Star recapping, and to talk a little bit about the ringer's top 25 players after 50-ish games list that just went up on the ringer today that we both contributed to. We voted in. We wrote blurbs for. And then we're also going to talk about the end of the Del Dempsey era in New Orleans, which is something that Justin has a lot of insight into because he was a Pelican's beatwriter down there in New Orleans.

A lot of time suffering. You may have seen him in Tramay. In the Tramay, yeah. Yeah. No, in the show, you know, like that the Pelicans Beatwriter plot line. was one of my favorite tramee plots. Right. I sing the theme song too. I don't know if you thought that. That's right. That's right. Let's talk about All-Star a little bit.

I've officially like aged out of All-Star, I think, in some ways. Wow. Here's the thing. So my relationship to it is entirely based on the ones that I've gone to, I think. Oh, so you've been to a few of them. Yeah, I went to Houston, New Orleans twice and New York. Okay. I've been to two Houston and New Orleans. Okay. Oh, in L.A. this past year. All All-Star games should be in New Orleans.

I personally disagree because I've been there. And when you're in New Orleans and it comes to you, the last thing you want to do is deal with the zoo. Yeah. It also coincided with Mardi Gras. Was that like a good thing for someone who wasn't used to that? It felt relatively easy to get around and I enjoyed the lack of restrictions on behavior. I thought it was like just a really fun time and it was like the perfect, like it was an easy flight from wherever you were coming from pretty much.

Houston was okay. I didn't really leave the hotel. That was before Houston. I visited Houston like last year or the year before. And it was before Houston's downtown became much of a thing. Yeah. And I remember just kind of wandering around and like not really having much direction. But it's a better like NBA city.

Yeah. Yeah. And then New York was just too cold. Yeah. Never a cold weather city. Yeah. So whatever. Look, I mean, I think I've just kind of aged out of like going in terms of watching it.

Like I think that they were talking about it a little bit on Bill's pod with Ryan. it's for kids. You know what I mean? Like this is like for kids. And like we can do a lot of body language reading if we want to and we can kind of look into this. But I mean, the team LeBron versus team Janus. And it was actually like a pretty exciting last third and fourth.

Like the second half is pretty fun. But, you know, I think that this is like the Disney version of the NBA where it's like everybody's getting autographs and I can't believe Clay Thompson's here. And it's just not, you know. My thing is for hardcore tapeheads like us. This is my thing though. It seems like the rest of NBA Twitter would like them be running like slob plays and like pick and roll and like picking box. It's like how much can you really like ring your hands over like cool dunks and like three pointers from half court?

No, I don't care about like the actual game itself. It's not, I just feel like it's a lot is made out of a little. Like it's the circus around it would make it seem like we were going into Super Bowl week and that this game was of like a lot of consequence when in fact it's just like it's just fucking fun. It's just a pickup game. I personally like watching all the players interact. I think Bill has talked about this in the past. It's almost like a window into like who's kind of the alpha and like how these guys kind of play off of each other.

Yeah. And I think you got kind of a glimpse of that in this one, especially from the jump when Janus was just like dunking like 10 straight plays in a row. And it was kind of like, oh, he cares. And that seemed to align with how I view Janus where he like, he kind of, he's part of the group, but he exists on this other plan just because he wants to kind of be everybody. Well, I think he's like, his goals should be to be better than all of them. because he's got the tools, right?

And I think that there's a degree to which you want to be, like, in the crowd and be on team banana boat and just be like, oh, like, what if we were all free agents? But, like, I think that his goal should be to, like, I'm going to be the meteor that knocks LeBron out of existence here. Yeah, and he leaned into that. And I thought it was really interesting how he and Steph played off of each other, too. Yeah. And both of them are kind of on the fringes of that whole discussion, whereas Kyrie and Kevin Durant pretty much spent the entire time, like, playing footsie with him. with each other. Right. And so that's the specific thing about this year's All-Star was that it was

kind of this window into the imagined life of NBA players, right? Because this year specifically with the Anthony Davis trade request, with the Lakers cratering, with Kyrie Irving saying that he's not sure if he's going to resign with the Lake or the Celtics that he'll make up his mind in July, with the Kevin Durant free agency talk only heating up when he said he didn't want to talk about it. We went into this All-Star weekend, I think, looking for a lot of clues, and, you know, obviously, like, I think the eyeball emoji might have hit its all-time

highest usage rate last night on Twitter. Do you take any of it seriously, or do you think that it's just a bunch of guys hanging out and having a good time in Charlotte over the weekend? Have you ever taken a Myers-Bride test? No, I had a girlfriend in high school. I did, though.

Okay. I took one a few years ago, and I was, like, an INFJ, right? What does that stand for? I don't know. I just meant that I was like super introverted, which is like, all right, cool. But the description of it, I don't remember most of it, but it was like, you're usually right and you don't know why. Like you can't come to the conclusion of why you're right, but you just have like a feeling. The INFJs are. Yes. Okay. And I took that to mean that I'm always right, which as someone who has to deal with me on a daily basis, I'm sure it makes it really easy for you. And I just, I tend to put a lot of stock in that. I saw the way Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving were kind of playing off each other. I think we're at the point where they're basically gone. So you think this is Beijing all over again? Yes. This is like the deal is done.

These guys have made the deal with each other. They're going to go to New York, playing the Knicks together. They were spending a lot of time on the court together. Okay, but like, would you rat, like, would it be, what would happen if Kevin Durant was like hanging out with Yukin? It'd probably have a good time. Yonukes seems like a great hang. Did you watch him in that game?

I'm sure. Yeah, it totally does. A lot of like weird passes. It seems like both he and Luca have that same thing. where they just want to fuck around the whole time. Whereas certain guys take it really seriously, but they're just like, I'm just... Just say it, just say Westbrook.

Yeah, Westbrook. Here's my thing about this. I heard Bill kind of going in on Westbrook last night. I want to pull the stats up. I can't believe I'm pulling up the fucking box score for the All-Star game. I couldn't even find it. All right, I dialed up the box score for the All-Star game. Now, everybody was killing Westbrook

because he went eight for 20. It's pretty good. It's like a normal NBA night. But people were killing Westbrook. Brooke, Bill was talking about his plus-minus, and everybody was just like, Ross, look at Russ. Be such a corn dog because he cares. He's trying to, like, he shot, like, Team Yannis out of the game. But no disrespect, but Steph won six for 23.

Wasn't great. And everybody's just like, Steph's amazing. I love him so much. He's so adorable. He threw himself an alley-oop at the end. Charlotte is his city. Yeah. But, like, this is all it goes to say, you can read anything you want into the All-Star game.

You can see it, and you can see Kevin and Kyrie playing footsie, and you're just like, oh, well, that's a wrap. They're going to play together. And every time LeBron and Anthony Davis bumped fists, we're like, well, that's a wrap. He's getting traded to the Lakers or whatever. So it's a war shack? Yeah, I think it's like, you know,

you're talking about Myers-Briggs. It's its own psychological test. What do you take from the All-Star game? Yeah, but I think this is also the first time we really get to see in a season, like extended time of these guys interacting with each other. They might see each other in passing, but it's often just like a fist bump right before the game

than them whispering after a game, like, go to this club, we're going to hang out. Yeah. And so we don't really ever get a window into that. And we're probably reading too much info, but that's the fun stuff, no? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that the NBA drama is something

that I think has consumed us over the last few weeks. We've been doing these back and forths on the website called Rational Conversations. And we've done them by Jimmy Butler and Anthony Davis. But I think that the personality, I think we've talked also about whether or not the personality off-court stuff has a chance of eclipsing the on-court stuff. And it'll be interesting. to see because typically what happens in the second half of the season is you have

a few too many teams cut bait and start tanking and then there's like a lot of resting going on at the top of the table so that people can kind of get ready for the playoffs. But typically what happens then is that you've got a lot of guys resting towards the top of the table, get ready for the postseason run. I don't know if there's a vacuum there, we're going to fill it with more speculation. You know what I mean? Well, on the other hand, I feel like the person who is resting for most of this game will give us plenty of it going forward. I mean, I know you want to talk about the Pelicans in the second half here. Well, we can talk about Davis now.

Yeah. And then we can talk about the Pelicans later. So, AD's made some choices over the last few days. You want to sort of recap them? It's going to be a tough one. So, if you want to go all the way back, he obviously asked for a trade demand. Anthony Davis was born on Krypton. Sent to

our earth. I don't know if you heard this, but he had a massive growth spur in high school. Yeah. No, but he had a trade demand. Everything basically fell apart in wild he was just watching from the sidelines. They didn't play up leading up to the trade deadline. Since then, there's kind of been like a, I don't know, it's basically a pissing contest is what it's devolved into in New Orleans,

where they're playing him, but they're not playing him full games. And there was talk about maybe not playing him back to backs, though I think he did that. And then right before All-Star break, he seemed to get injured by launching himself into New Orleans in a while going for a shot contest. A little Kentucky on Kentucky violence.

Which, we could circle back to that, because I don't know how legit that was to begin with. I don't know how deep this whole goes. And then was seen sometime around halftime leaving the stadium with Rich Paul. Who, as Bill gleefully pointed out, was sitting courtside at the All-Star game. Right.

And then flash forward to the All-Star game, like the days before they all do media. And in which Anthony Davis both said that the Celtics are on his list and that all 29 teams are on his list. and that he was going to say goodbye in the right way, which meant that he was going to put a nice Instagram photo up. Yeah, Justin's not being facetious. He actually said,

I will do something special for the people of New Orleans, like post an Instagram. I think what we've learned about young Anthony Davis is he has no idea what he's doing. I agree with you. And this is what's really cool about this whole story as somebody who's not emotionally involved in it other than not necessarily wanting the Lakers

to get what they want, is the way that different kind of entities are trying to control the situation, be at Rich Paul, be at the NBA, be at the Pelicans, be at the Lakers, and then what happens when Anthony Davis has a hot mic? Yeah, I thought Rucillo put it really well, and it's just that Davis is super impressionable. That's always been my, like, assumption of him, just in my limited time with him,

is that he is at his core, just like a really no-nonsense type of dude, but will be pulled in different directions based on who's pulling it. Right. And I think you're seeing that. And then when we got to the actual game, all of a sudden he was healthy enough to play. But then he only played five minutes. And now we're at the point where he doesn't get the benefit of a doubt. So he very well could have injured.

I don't even know what it was. Maybe like a shoulder. It was like a shoulder contusion, which is essentially like I bruised my shoulder, dropping it into Norland's Noel's chest. Right. Which also, I don't even know if that makes sense given his trajectory into Noel because he was like, it was almost like he hit his armpit into his face. There's just in the, and there's a vacuum right now and Rich Paul's filling it.

So I think that there is not a strong, as we're going to get to later in the show, there is not a particularly strong leadership at the Pelicans right now, or at least it's unclear who's calling the shots. And because of that, Rich Paul's taking control of what Anthony Davis does on a day-to-day basis, probably. You know, like he's making the decision that maybe they didn't want him to play. He played and got, quote, unquote, hurt. And to prove the point or out of frustration left the stadium. Now, maybe that's what people do all the time when they twist ankles or hurt shoulders or tweak wrists and stuff like that.

But the reality is that there's going to be a camera on Anthony Davis every single day asking him a variation on the same question until the end of the season. Right. And I don't know in Anthony Davis's defense if they do have an MRI machine in that arena. At least they didn't the last time I was there. So he would have had to go somewhere else. And he wants to leave New Orleans. You're telling me. Right.

But I also wouldn't doubt it. And based on the way it looked like on that brief show. of them walking out was that they were just taking a car. They knew cameras were on them. Yeah. In fact, like the security guard even like tried to shoe the camera away. So clearly they must have seen some sort of action as they were walking out. I mean, you walk out with Rich Paul in that scenario when Paul is basically radioactive to all the people around there in New Orleans. Like you have to know how that's going to be perceived.

Yeah. And there's a little bit of what's for real and what's for show here. So there was the rumor that the NBA was threatening the Pelicans with a $100,000 per game. game fine or $50,000 per game fine, but if they held Anthony Davis out. So now they're in a situation where their star player doesn't want to be there. The NBA doesn't want them in to sit them. He's going to do stuff. He's apparently putting this stuff in play where he's like, I'll play five minutes or I'll score four points or I will pull myself out of the stadium.

You've got like a team there that's trying to figure out what to do. I think it would probably be best for everyone involved if he just, They put him in cotton balls, but we're also like stay away from the team. You know what I mean? Agreed. Yeah. You don't want to be here, don't be here. That was, that's like, I love the Kevin Garnett.

Like, if you're in street clothes, you don't exist kind of thing. And I think that that's probably for the best. And that way also, he's not getting hounded by cameras and people with tape recorders asking him what his plans are. Yeah. I mean, if Rich Paul is the one like pulling the strings here, his first priority should be to never put Anthony Davis in front of a live mic again. Because I don't think he's doing himself any favors. But it does seem like Davis, based on everything that's happened thus far, is just only further entrenching himself.

Like, he's just doubling down to where he's made his desires known to get out of there. And instead of kind of, he's saying that he's willing to go along, get along, keep playing, and do his best for the team. But everything that he is now saying and doing suggests otherwise. I just still don't understand. I mean, obviously, the trade demand was made to entice or trigger a Lakers trade this season. So I think we can safely assume that. It didn't work out.

Now they're in this limbo. I think in retrospect, maybe they would have tried to kind of do some back channel feeling out of what the Pelicans would need. And then they could have just made this trade request formally at the end of the season and got this done perhaps after the lottery when we know what the Knicks have or whatever.

But now it's become, in some ways you could say almost more of an insult to the Pelicans by him saying, my list is 29 other teams, which is what he said, you know, and that, like, he basically doesn't have any no-goes. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean he will resign with 29 other teams. I just think he's not objecting to being traded to basically anywhere. Right, and you've seen the Pelicans respond in kind where it's to the point where

they're willing to play hardball just as much now. They get rid of Del Demps and all of a sudden you bring in Danny Ferry, a guy who's a little bit more, who probably has more of a broad outlook on the situation. he wasn't as close to some of the fiasco that involved there just because he was more of a consultant. So I do wonder if the message from up top is, well, F him. Yeah. Like how does this get any better?

Because that's basically the line that they drew just by getting rid of down. So let's get into, let's do the Pelicans now. Let's talk about them. So we've got Anthony Davis who he's made this formal trade request, which has now had some edits, but is still basically standing. The current state of play in the New Orleans Pelicans, is on Friday, I believe, they got rid of their long-serving general manager, Del Demp's.

Right, who survived the previous ownership. So he was carried over from the previous owner. And I thought that when we talked about, we had a rational conversation on the site about Anthony Davis right around when the trade demand was sort of made, you gave me a really nuanced impression of Demps. You know, I mean, I think that there's, it's easy to be like, this guy's an idiot or this guy's a genius with GMs. We're really binary with that. But I thought that your description of Demp's was really interesting, both in terms of how stubborn he was and how close to the vest he plays it, but also how, like, in some ways, savvy he has been, like getting a guy like Ferry who, regardless of what you think of him as a distressed kind of executive asset,

was probably a good move because you bring a guy in who's got that kind of experience, but you have him at basically a consultant salary. Yeah, I think you saw the way his unique situation kind of played out, on him. I think he was a headstrong guy to begin with, but he really didn't have much oversight, so everything kind of stopped at him. There's been much like kind of discussion about like what role Mickey Loomis played in there. And I think in terms of bringing in ferry or in terms of the exit of Dems. Or just like how much oversight he had over Dell to begin with. Because as has been discussed, Mickey Loomis is the Saints GM. And my understanding is that job kind of comes first. And so he would often play it both ways, Mickey.

where he would say, well, it's basically Dell's show, not to make sure that, like, he didn't seem like he was interfering with what Dell was doing. And yet, you also heard that he had final say. So there was always, they always tried to kind of play things both ways, and I think it doesn't often serve them all that well. But pretty much all to say that the buck stopped with Dell, and I think it almost leaned into some of his, like, his worst habits. Sure.

I often heard when I was down there that he preached, like, accountability. But when it came down to it, he would never practice it. Right. And I tweeted that out, I think Friday after he got let go, and I heard from like several people in that organization, like, yeah, that's 100% right. Okay. And that's just kind of the, that's the kind of thing that infected the whole situation. I think when people kind of rib the pelicans, I think there are a lot of people there that think like, well, you just think we're dumb people that just don't know what we're doing. But if anything, I would say it's a lot of good people often put in difficult situations because of the way the ownership works there.

So how would you describe how the ownership works? Well, I guess it's, that's like, that's a huge question because it's changed. It's a huge unknown. And that's why I'm kind of giving Gail Benson some slack here because while the reports and things that I had heard that like she kind of pushed Tom, her husband to, to purchase the Pelicans when they got out from NBA ownership, I don't really know what to make of her. But based on her, like, her moves over the past couple of weeks here and she's had the team for now a year, I think like I kind of agree with everything that she's done.

She's taking the hardline stance against Davis. and it feels like you don't want to get pushed around by agencies, which a lot of franchises have issues with. I mean, there were rumors for a while that the bucks, for instance, were controlled by whatever one that... It was a kid's agent, right? Right, exactly. And so, and you don't want to get pushed around by the NBA.

Look up and down any NBA roster, or a lot of NBA rosters, and then cross-reference that with certain agents' player rosters, and you will see certain teams that over the years have had definite, like, influences by an agent, you know? For instance, the Lakers in Clutch Sports. Right. Or in the past, like Dan Fagan, the late Dan Fagan, had a strong relationship with Mark Cuban.

I mean, you can find these sort of overlaps anywhere. So I think it's fair to wonder what Gail's, like, approach will be because I don't think she's ever been put in this position. And the Saints hierarchy is kind of established, and it's been carried over for years. If anything, Tom Benson was known for, like, not getting rid of people when they might have should have been. Bounty Gate.

Bounty. Well, I mean, like that, I mean, I was kind of, wondering about that. Obviously, it's in no way the two situations are comparable, but in terms of when do you cut bait with who in your organization based on public perception is an interesting question.

Yeah, and I mean, like we said before, they carried over Del Demp's from the previous regime. They pretty much just held like that entire front office structure in place and put their own executives over the top of them. So they really haven't done much. So I

think we should like almost wait to criticize how she goes about things until she's actually making the decisions and we'll figure that out over the next year or two and now if those don't work out then we could safely say that they don't know what they're doing. Yeah, you know, I often wonder with those teams that are kind of geographically

on the line between the conferences, the Memphis, Minnesota, New Orleans line, which is not like a perfect geographic line but it's loosely like the middle of the country like just what would happen if there had ever been conference real alignment at any point for those teams because they are all pretty good at various points in the last 10 years, you know, maybe not Minnesota, but even with the Kevin Love time, like there were a couple of good teams there that got crushed by Kevin Love injuries or whatever. But for New Orleans, this has been a pretty decent team. You know, they've had a lot of bad luck with injuries. They went all in on boogie, but in retrospect, it's like, did they know, like, would Buddy be Buddy in New Orleans ever? I don't know. Probably not. And this is a team that, like, did what they could with what they had, I guess.

And obviously just happened to play in a conference where there's three or four perennially dominant teams. Yeah. And the excuse you'd always hear from within that front offices, if they played in the East, which, like, they're in the central time zone. So maybe theoretically they probably should. They would probably make the playoffs, like, throughout this entire run, that they had a lot of injuries, although that gets pretty dicey because,

as we've talked in the past, their injury history hasn't been all that good. Yeah, like, it's case in point Eric Gordon. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's not that their blueprint wasn't without thought. It was just constantly rushed and rash. Yes.

There's always been, I mean, you could talk to anybody there, and they'll tell you two different things. Basically, was it the ownership pushing to make sure that they had a viable product to sell to the market immediately? Or was this just Dell's kind of approach to begin with? Because his basic. blueprint was to put a bunch of what people would call young veterans around AD. It's basically the Ben Simmons thing where AD showed after his rookie season that he was ready to run now and they put a bunch of guys of similar age who could grow alongside with him. Now, the problem was it didn't work out as well as they'd hoped.

And by the time they got to the point where they found that it didn't work, all those guys kind of left. So Eric Gordon, Ryan Anderson just walked in free agency for nothing. Sure. Yeah, and you just don't get anything coming back. All right. So, ferries there now. There's been rumors of David Griffin.

There's been, you know, I mean, even far out rumors, like, not rumors, but basically, like, people suggesting it should be something like hinky. Where do you think this organization goes next? And what do you get the feeling like the next steps are in terms of handling this Davis thing? Do you think they eventually, like, go to, like, do they basically need Silver to come in and mediate this thing and figure out, like, what we're going to do with Anthony Davis for the second half of the season? Yeah, I think they made the right moves to begin with to install ferry in there.

And now the ferry situation is pretty complicated. He obviously left under like really ugly terms in Atlanta, although not to be the one like just kind of, because I don't know whether or not he was reading up. It basically boiled down to he said he was reading off a piece of paper that's had some pretty awful things to say about Luel Dang. But who's didn't know, like, was he actually saying that or was he reading off? There's always that unknown.

But I would just recommend that everybody read the story that Kevin Arnivitz and Brian Winhorst did about that entire situation to find out. Yeah. Yeah, which was basically laid out how it wasn't so clear cut that there were some animosity amongst the ownership group there that he won. There's this one guy named Michael Garron who wanted essentially push Ferry out. And this was the reason he found for him. And that's how that regime kind of fell. But I would say in my experience is dealing with Danny, I've always find him to be like super bright. And what I wrote in that rational conversation that we did was Dell made a good move of getting Ferry into the organization because it provided them a steady hand for a consultant fee. but essentially as soon as he got there everybody kind of gravitated toward Danny and realized that he was like the smartest sharpest guy in the room

and so now I don't know if it's the best approach to keep Danny there because of the optics but at the very least I think they're stable for now I think like things will kind of go as planned and I think the first step is basically to tell Anthony Davis to go away I don't know what that would do to the NBA

and like the friction that exists already between the league and the Pelicans organization just based on what Davis Stern said about Del Demp's about, he was basically like he's a terrible GM. So I would hope that they come to some resolution and see that this is helping no one. Right.

And I think based on all of like maybe like the media backlash that you've been seeing, that will happen. And then from there, settle on some sort of steward of the franchise. And it seems like they're on a good path because Gil Benson said in a statement that it's no longer going to be bypassed through Mickey Loomis. whoever is hired is going to answer straight to her. Yeah, there was some, I saw some writing

over the weekend being like, that's good on paper, let's see it in practice. Sure. Because it's not just the saints that are under that hierarchy. Like Greg Benzel, who is their PR chief there, runs like their horse operation. Like, they're thoroughbred horses. It's a family business.

Yeah, exactly. More broadly speaking, as somebody who spent time down there, and I think it's easy for me to be a dick and watch a game and be like, if I were Anthony Davis, I wouldn't want to play in a sparsely populated gym either. Like, I want my games to matter, and I want to feel like I matter, especially as I'm in my prime.

And I am injury prone, and, like, I think Davis may be more acutely than, say, like, a LeBron feels like the sort of impermanence of basketball. You know what I mean? Like, I think that he's not a superhuman. Like, that's a guy who every time he hits the deck, you're kind of like, is this guy going to get up, you know? For the Pelicans, what's the ceiling there? Like what could go, what could be done differently in New Orleans to basically make NBA basketball even just appear more viable?

I would say to take the long view. I mean, that was the biggest criticism of what they did throughout. I mean, they were gifted the, like the best raw resource in the past, I don't know, a decade. Like if we're talking about just prospects over the past 10, 20 years, it's LeBron, AD, and perhaps Zion. Maybe Luca, I don't know if you want to throw him in there. The problem was they just rushed the process in order to make it violent. And now, I get why they would do that because we talk all the time how difficult that market is. I mean, it's in the South.

There's a lot of football fans. They won't probably gravitate. Half their season is during St. Season. Yeah. Right. And they probably won't gravitate toward that product unless there's something there to witness. Now, when I first got there, I saw signs that that would take hold if they just had a consistent winner. But again, they were constantly trying to win that season.

And I think they need to be looking long term. I think this needs to be a five-year, 10-year plan, which is like it seems like they're on that path because a lot of the prospects that are been discussed as possibly going there are guys that they would have team control for like two contracts, and they're young enough to where they're not rookies, but they can at the very least sell hope there.

And like, honestly, Drew Holiday is pretty good. If you want to keep him around, I think you could re-go pretty quickly. He's also like an excellent asset. Right. In this day and age, I mean, like, you could figure out someplace to send Drew Holiday and get some stuff back in return. Right. And I do think the way,

one unintended consequence of all this AD stuff is it's almost like galvanize the fan base in weird ways. I almost think it's like the wrestling tactic where it's just like maybe you weren't getting them in because the product was was so nice and like fun to see. But now they're like, fuck this guy. Like this is our team versus Davis. And I do wonder as soon as Davis goes, maybe there's that sort of like sort of thing. Let me give you my read on it and you let me know if it's bullshit or not. I think Dems tried to build the spurs without the rings. Like I think he saw a Duncan figure in Davis, a guy that you could have for 15 years

and just be like, we have like a baseline of like excellence here because this guy will only ever let us be this bad. And that around him, we can try and just basically find our manu or Tony, you know, like our guys who maybe, because Davis is going to keep us in that mid-lottery

and above zone, we're going to just add dudes like Drew and Meritich and like those kinds of, trades to kind of be decent and think that Davis is so transcendent, he's just going to get us over the home. But they didn't have Popovich and they don't have the culture of winning that San Antonio does that kind of transcends market. Also, to say nothing to the fact that people are crazy about the Spurs in San Antonio, almost the way that people are crazy about LSU football there. You know what I mean? And the Saints. And there's just, there was not enough flexibility, basically. And then once

they started getting flexible, once they started doing things like boogie trades, it was too late. I've actually heard the specific criticism from someone there being like, Pop would be the type of person who would be held accountable for his own failures. He would be the first person to say, that was my bad. And I mean, he essentially did that with Lamarcus Aldridge. Yeah. And then I guess he tried to at certain times with Kauai. But no, I think that's, in the broad sense, I think that's, that's right. I think Del was at his best working the fringes. I do think he struggled. on some of the bigger moves. Like even Drew, who was really good for them,

and I love him as a player and I think he's been really good. They gave up two lottery picks. Do you really need to give up two? Yeah. You gave up a lottery pick for Oshik because you got rid of Robin Lopez to sign Tyreek Evans.

It all kind of goes hand in hand. And so ultimately, yes, but, you know, his whole job is to cover all that stuff. Right. Do you think a team that's about as good as, say, let's say that the ceiling for the Pelicans after Anthony Davis is like the Pacers. Let's just put like around that.

Paisers are quite good this year. But a typical Pacers 5 to 7 seed. Is that enough to keep New Orleans fans interested? Mediocrity without the drama, let's say. Maybe my guess would be no, but I think the easiest comp are the Grizzlies. Okay. Just because the market is like right there. And I think they're two of the smallest markets in the league,

if not the two smallest. And then the Grizzlies were super competitive. They only made it to one conference finals, though. They also told a story, though. Exactly. They had one of the best, like, branding in, like, recent NBA history to the point where, like, people in the NBA are all, like, how did you do that? Like, tell us how you, like, marketed this team.

Because it just fit the vibe of the city just so well. And I think if they had something like that, then perhaps, which is why... It was probably one of the most distinctive... There's, like, Lob City, but Grit and Grine... is one of the most distinctive, like, branding exercises since Showtime. Yeah, exactly. I was just going to say Showtime. Because, like, it fits the, like, just the demographics or just, like, the general sense you have of the city.

And that's why I thought Boogie was pretty huge for them. Because New Orleans is similar where, like, there's almost that, like, stripped down snarl that they kind of appreciate. I mean, you look at Alvin Kamara as a guy that they all love. And I feel like Boogie has a lot of those same personality quirks. Yeah. And instantly when Boogie got there, he just... took off. I think he was probably not a bigger deal than AD, but I think

they saw something in Boogie that they didn't see an AD. AD you kind of appreciate almost as if he's like a crystal vase because he's just like, everything he does is so great. But there was obviously something institutional that happened with a relationship with Boogie. I mean, obviously the Achilles was devastating for both parties in some

ways because it was going to change his value. But I don't think there's any love loss between Boogie and the people at the Pelicans. Right. And that's the other side of Boogie is that he takes things very personal. them, it sounded like based on the reporting that they had come to some sort of agreement before the Achilles tier, or at least they discussed some stuff. Wink-wink kind of thing.

Yeah, but then after it happened, they kind of like slow-played it, and that was enough for Bogie to be like, fuck you. Because those sorts of like gray areas, he does not work well in. Right. Okay. We're going to take a break to hear from our sponsor. And when Justin and I come back, we're going to talk about our top 25 ranking that we have on the site today, but we're going to do it kind of through the lens of all the

off-court drama that we're talking about. Today's episode of He Check is brought to you by Deezis and Mero, the all-new weekly late-night talk show that's available now on Showtime. Tune in to watch the Bronx's own Deesis Nice and Kid Mero bring their illustrious take on current events, politics, sports, and pop culture, all while talking spicy with the week's hottest celebrity guests, quick-witted and fun. The duel will riff off the cuff and get the Twitter's fear buzzing. New episodes of Deezis Amaro drop every Thursday at 11 p.m. only on showtime. Today's episode of Heech is also brought to you by Hulu. Hulu's paying some of the league's best players, a lot of money to do some pretty crazy stuff. Joel changed his nickname from the process to Joel Hulu has live sports and bead.

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ADT is there. ADT, real protection. Visit ADT.com slash podcast to learn more about how ADT can design and install a secure smart home just for you. All right, Justin, we're back. It's heat check. We're talking about the ringers top 25 players

of the first 60-ish games. We did this after 25 games, right? And the fascinating thing about this list this time that I wanted to ask you about, was I wanted to know because I think it came up a couple of times in my blurbs. How much did the off-court shit

that's been happening over the last few weeks or months impact how you voted in this list? Well, we were just talking about Anthony Davis and he's a guy that I consciously dropped to the bottom of like an elite tier. So I think he ended up at 12 for me because of everything that he was doing.

And he's also just missing games as a result of all this. He missed, I think, two right before the deadline. and he's barely playing and son of them. And at a certain point, that has to add up, no? Yeah, I mean, it's a holistic thing. We weren't saying we could just publish the stat lines and some advanced numbers if we wanted to say,

well, statistically, this person is the best player in the NBA, and this is the third or this is the fifth or whatever, depending on what you value. But NBA players teach us how to watch the game, and they teach us what to think is important. And I think that right now, all this volatility is what's important. And it's not media people who are making, like, who are feasting on it. Yeah.

Like, there are totally, like, bullshit stories that people get really worked up about because somebody accidentally is, like, New York seems nice and, like, maybe we lose our minds for a week. But this isn't bullshit. Like, this is actually happening. People are actually, like, challenging the paradigm of whether or not a contract needs to be fulfilled. I support, in theory, players saying, if we're allowed to get traded, we're also allowed

to advocate for being traded. Right. I think that's fair enough. 100%. I do think that it kind of like undoes the idea of like what you're saying, like they need a five or 10 year plan in New Orleans. I don't know how you do that if players can decide in the middle of a contract or with a year and a half remaining on a contract that they're not interested in that plan.

But that being said, I'm all for like turnabout as fair play. If we can get dealt, if Blake Griffin can get like seduced into signing, resigning with the clippers, and then months later get traded to Detroit, which he would not have chosen to go to as a free agent, then I think it's just fine if Anthony Davis is like, I do not want a player for another year and a half

and possibly blow a knee out in ninth place in the Western Conference. Did you vote for Butler this time around? I did. Okay. See, I didn't, which is funny because he showed up at 18 in our previous list,

which was immediately after everything in Minnesota, but not this one. Perhaps there was just, just recency bias because we knew who made the All-Star team and who didn't. Yeah, I also think that once you get towards the end of the list,

there's a lot of like... recency bias. Who have you watched recently? I watched too much Butler, you know? I forget about Chris Middleton because I don't watch enough, like the bucks every night the way I do the Philly. It's not a huge sample. So like if one voter had them higher than most, like perhaps that swung things. Yeah, but I agree with you. You were like Davis dropped and he's at ninth on our list after placing fifth in the previous list. And I think he's probably like a little low on the first list. Like I thought he was that good. But for him to drop to ninth, I think that. Obviously, that off-court stuff affected it. It affected the most interesting debate. And it's not one that we actually have a lot

because I think everybody's just got Warriors fatigue. But the most interesting thing that happened on this list was that Kevin Durant and Steph Curry tied. Right. And now, Steph is ranked fourth, correct? Right. Yeah. And he moves up from 8th.

And Durant is 5. He was always at 5. Now, what happened with the vote? So basically they tied Zach Cram, who kind of crunched the numbers for us, basically remove the top and lowest votes for each. Right. And that's how we separated the tie.

Okay. So I wrote about Kevin Durant. I really think he's just about one of the five or six best players I've ever seen in my life. So this is not like, hmm, are we sure he's good? This is literally like just such a fascinating situation, though, with Curry engenders so much goodwill and so much joy. Like, we're talking about this to the All Star thing. Curry goes six for 23 in the All Star game. People are like, like, steps having a blast out there.

And Russ goes eight for 23 and people are like Russ is ruining this game. Kevin Durant was a friggin awesome last night, won the MVP and like we come out of it and it was like that was Steph's game

and that was like great LeBron hanging on to like the top of the mountain there. And I do think that for as much as Kevin Durant is like shut up and hoop if you guys don't want to talk about basketball I just want to talk about basketball all this crap is kind of like clouded

in a little bit. Yeah, I mean, because the difference is Steph isn't the one yelling to shut up and talk about basketball. Right. That's a huge difference. And like, the other thing is, I thought last night that was the crystallization

as people kind of noted on Twitter of their whole relationship, whereas KD, and I wrote this in my blur, was basically the consistent one, whereas Steph is the one that fluctuates but his peaks are so much higher. Right. The stat I had in this was that

KD had only four games under 20 points this season, whereas Curry has eight. but Curry has seven games of 40 points or more, Durant has four. Yeah. And what were you going to remember? But Durant also carried a Warriors team that was essentially like him, Dre, an off clay, and some G-League guys while Steph was out in November.

And he's also won the past two finals MVP. I know. Even when last year we were like, this is Steph's year. He had that one big game and then he had that one dud. Yeah. And if you look back on their when they didn't win the finals, A lot of that is because of Steph and like, yeah, maybe some of that was injury induced.

But he has a tendency to go fluctuate. Yes. Yeah. Now, punitive. I'm not trying to be punitive about Kevin Durant's upcoming free agency. I don't care if he stays with the Warriors or not. I actually think it would be better for basketball if he left. I think a wider dispersal of talent is probably needed at this point.

Like, we've gone through about, what, 10 years of super teams, right? Probably. Well, 2010? Yeah. We're almost like, we're almost a 10 years of super teams. You know. Doing this way too long. And I think we could probably handle like a couple more bucks,

you know, a couple more teams where it's like, they've got like this really great player that they're building around. And does that lead to more Pelicans teams? Possibly. Well, does anybody want to watch the box? This is the debate when it comes down to it. Everyone says they want the bucks. But do you really want the fucking bucks? That's a great question, man.

I don't know. I mean, I have a super team now. I'm cheering for a super team now. And it's harrowing because there's a lot of personalities at play. But the basketball is pretty good. sure I don't know I only root for the

story lines only to like keep things fresh every couple of years so when LeBron went back to Cleveland it's like all right we don't have to keep

like hammering over whether or not like Josh McRoberts was going to be the key to this next finals team and then now we have the Lakers it's just I don't know

it's fantasy basketball at this point or like NBA 2K you just put the star in a different jersey and go for it Isaac do you want the bucks do I want the bucks

like do you want an NBA full of one to two star teams like Janice Chris Middleton style I think those are appealing if we had 32 teams those would be teams that I would pay attention to

if there was a slightly bigger league with half the league making the playoffs then I think there'll be enough room for maybe one more of those teams I will say that the super teams have been fun they've driven storylines

we've seen it obviously at the ringer we can write stories about super teams yeah I don't know it's a really interesting question We gravitate toward the stars. But that being said, it's not like Kevin Durant's going to Orlando to play by himself. He would probably be going to New York with two other Max players. The rumor before he went to Golden State was always that like, oh, he actually doesn't want to be that guy.

He doesn't want to go to a big city. He doesn't want the limelight. Like he wants to go to Orlando because they have a tax cut and maybe he'll go play with Al Horford. I remember the Pelicans like... What? That was a rumor? That was a thing for a while. To the point where the Pelicans had like a really cool. quiet plan of like, oh man, if he wants to just go play with like a star in a small market and

disappear, like, what do you want to like play with Anthony Davis? I just think it's inscrutable. It's like, like, it was, remember there was like all the wizard stuff and like the wizards were hiring like friends of his and stuff. It's just like, like then he was like flat out like I don't want to go home. Right. You know? If anything, I wonder if the market correction over the past couple of years has just been like there's more information so a lot of these teams just don't look dumb.

Yeah. Because you look at the Knicks, they ended up with Amari and the wizards ended up with Jan Mahimni and Andrew Nicholson. So perhaps this is just actually for the best for the rest of the league that they know not to get into these derbies to begin with. Yeah, that's true. Now, another player who dropped

significantly, I think, from the last one was LeBron James, who was ranked number four after 25 games and is down at 10. You know, Chow pointed out and Danny wrote his blurb and he was like, are we supposed to grade the greatest player of the past two generations on a curve? Right.

Which, yes. I definitely feel like, yes, the six-week absence came into play. I don't think he's healthy. Slash, I think he's dogging it a little bit to send certain messages. You know, he is still capable of being the best player on the planet. I just don't know that he is bringing it every night and bringing it all game the way I think we should be rewarding people like Paul George, James Hardin, and Janus, who won, who was top ranked after both 25.

and 50-ish games. Those guys are in a zone right now that I don't think we... That's the kind of thing that needs to be rewarded is when you go out there every night and you are the best player on the floor. What I thought was really interesting

is where Kauai landed. He's two spots ahead of LeBron and I believe they've missed, if not the same amount of games, just about the same amount. And so we knocked LeBron because he's constantly in our face about him missing games

or the Lakers missing games without him. Whereas Kauai, like he kind of disappears just both based on his personality and because the Raptors, I think we've put them on an auto-high line. He's not playing back-to-backs, which people are starting to take shots out about him, take shots at him about, you know. But the statistical production is pretty similar. Now, the Raptors are really good. So maybe that is what comes for it, too. But, like, in terms of, like, raw numbers about their personal contributions, they're pretty similar. Even the net rating, Kwise at a 5.5, which isn't like over the moon. LeBron's at 2.5. So I don't know.

I just think it just shows how our biases kind of show up or at the very least like prominence, like how much that factors into what we do. Yeah, and I think the same thing happened when I... I had Paul George number one, I think. Really? Yeah. And I kind of was just...

I think that this February, especially, but since 2019 turned over, I think he's been the best player in the NBA. He was fucking good last night. He was good last night. You went at Hardin during the Hardin. It's sort of wild to watch how he is filling the Durant role. but how it's changed Westbrook a little bit

if you watch Thunder games. Yeah. The impact he's had and Westbrook is like starting to believe, I think. Yeah, I feel like two things. I think that maybe Westbrook appreciates him more because he's seen life without like this sort of dominant wing score. Right. There's something just like really that sparks joy in between the two of them.

They're even hanging out an All-Star weekend. Like I think we mostly correctly kind of ding Russ for some. of the things that he does on the court. But I think it's really fascinating that he's never had a teammate come out against him and say that he's like a bad dude or a bad teammate. Right. And this is like the sterling example.

He was throwing lobs to Diallo in the dunk contest. Yeah. I think that's something that we always forget about Russ. I think it's an important plot point in saying. But also, I think George is probably an elite defender, whereas Durant was still trying to tap into himself as a defender. He was mostly an ISO scorer. He had the body size.

but he kind of left that to other players. Yeah, there was a couple of cool moments last night. I mean, it wasn't like it was a defensive showdown, but you could tell when they started playing defense in the fourth quarter because George was getting, like, low in his stance. Like, he was getting into, like, Terminator mode for defense. I don't even know if he actually stopped anybody, but he's been my favorite player to watch over the last couple of months.

And I allowed, like, that to jump in there. Was there any other inclusions or exclusions that you wanted to note? Well, the only thing I had was Hardin at number one. Okay. And now I ended up writing about Janus and how, like, his Herculean effort is basically just as good as Hardens. But I do feel like there's going to be a point where we realize that Hardin is doing something that, like, nobody has done since Wilts Chamberlain. And we're going to look back on it. And if we don't give him the MVP, it's going to be a travesty.

God damn it. Are you for Hardin or against? I'm actively against Hardin. I just don't like watching him play basketball. Yeah, but the results, I'm saying. Well, then, what's the point? I'll watch baseball then and just worry about results. Everything will be like, well, the swing plane was like this.

I can't keep from like on an aesthetic value. I think he gets knocked for that more than he should because some of the stepbacks are incredible and most of the things I want to see are just like shots that shouldn't go in but do go. He does that pretty much like 10 times a game. Yeah. I just find like what he's done

with a streak of 30 games, it's just like something I've never seen before. And that supersedes any sort of like manufacturing of points with fouls. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's fair. And I'm not trying to say that there's some sort of like like, focus, pocus going on with what he's doing.

What he's doing is remarkable. I just think that watchability and aesthetics matter. You know, and that's, I think that's exactly why people don't like Russ, is they don't like the aesthetics of his game. They don't like the watchability of his game. They think that he is actively like a bad team basketball player. which I get sometimes.

I also think is kind of missing the point, which is like, if anything, he probably cares too much about wins. Like, I think he cares too much about what's happening on like a Wednesday night against Memphis and screw shit up because he tries too hard and does too much. Yeah.

Then it is that he's like coasting, you know? Yeah. And I think it's interesting to pair some of these guys that ended up on our list. That's essentially what I did when I was trying to like figure out spots. Yeah. Like, Westbrook and Simmons are actually really similar.

Yes. And the way I kind of like separate the two is basically saying that Russ is Simmons, but he takes all the shots that Simmons won't. Even though it's a bad idea. Like there's something about like the fact that he's willing to take those. Like if they basically like merge those two players, like if Russ had Simmons's trepidation about shooting and Simmons had Russ's fearlessness or like a willingness to make a fool of himself, they'd probably both be better off. I mean, Russ is reckless. Ben is just like a steely, like emotionalist robot. Right. So, but I did think it was interesting, having said that about Hardin, ultimately.

Like, if Janus continues to hit three-pointers, he's on course for a 3012 season, which, like, hasn't happened since Moses Malone. So while I think Hardin's, like, personal successes are away flashier, like, there's something to be said about this guy just be rolling people down. I think also it's going to be a really interesting narrative. I can't remember the last time we had back-to-back MVP. Did LeBP? Did LeBron do that? Steph. Oh, Steph. Oh, Steph, right?

Jesus. It has been a long 10 years. Are any of these guys that didn't make it, like you had, but didn't make the list? Because the ones that I see are just the two Spurs guys, Markets Aldridge, to Marta Rosen. Let me check. There was something about Kyle Lowry making it in the last spot I thought was appropriate, just because I think he's really important to what that Raptors team is this year, even though the numbers are like

among some of his lowest since he joined that team. But I don't know. I think the spurs have been a pleasant and surprise, so I wish they had been like represented. I think Alters was in the field until like the last ballot came in. I had, I didn't have any spurs on mine. I had Seacum on mine and he didn't make the list.

I think it's your guy. Danny, that was like an insane like the last two days kind of thing. Like you scored like 40 points the other night and I was just like you're on there. We got Clay in, but no Dremont. Okay. Which I think is appropriate. Clay's in this weird zone where he's not playing as well as he has in years past,

but he's still on a team that's probably going to win fourth finals. Yeah, I think it'll be really cool to see a post-Durant Warriors because I'll be interested to see what Clay looks like on the other side of it. Dremont, I think, is just like, unfortunately, maybe on the downside of his career. I don't even think he's averaging 10 points a game. Yeah, and I just think physically isn't, is like got to compensate for a diminished physicality with like screaming at people basically. Right.

Which might work three nights a week, but I'll be fascinated to see what happens. Like, they could just go full Splash Brothers on the other side of the mountain. Yeah, Kevin O'Connor had this in his piece about Steph last week, where if those shots that Drant was taking are distributed to Steph and Clay, there's a chance that Steph could be hardened, just more efficient. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Great.

Yeah. And then they get Janus in two years. Right. Anything else you wanted to touch on from this? Gobert jumped probably the most. He went from off the list of 14. Yeah, how did he not make an All-Star team? I don't know.

He cried about it. He does do that a lot. I mean, Kemba dropping so much, I think was inevitable. Like, he had a really good start to the season, but they really didn't do much to help him. And I think that team is suffering as a result and, like, some of his numbers are as well. There's only so much you could do.

trying to be harden when you're not. Kyrie moved up, even though I bet Kyrie's curating is down. Yeah. But I think he's like kind of defined himself as clearly the best player on that team, if maybe not in the non-Yannis

in the Eastern Conference. Yeah, they, basically the way I described it in the piece was that objectively, they play better with Kyrie on the floor. Subjectively, things seem to fit better without them. Right.

I mean, you could be, I would make the argument that Bede's a, a bigger deal than Kyrie at this point but... Yeah. I don't know. I mean, he beat Dame.

Yeah. Which I thought was pretty appropriate. I mean, the Celtic success is measured in contrast to like what we expected of them. But like they still have been pretty good. Drew got in at 16.

I think there's like just this appreciation for him. Yes. And it's not even like just Ewing theory. Yeah, it's the guy who like stays on the deck of the Titanic. Right. He's playing his violent.

Yeah. So yeah. Okay. You can check out the top 25. on The Ringer.com. We'll have stuff for you all week in this somewhat down week of NBA, but something tells me that the NBA will not let us sleep easy this week, even though there's not games.

I just think that there will be some controversy, off-court controversy. We have podcasts all week for you guys to listen to. Mismatch on Tuesday, group chat on Thursday with Justin. Friday, the corner three, will be back. And Sunday night, just to give you guys a heads up, we have a bunch of stuff happening. The True Detective finale is happening that night,

so Concepcion and I will be live afterwards doing the flat, circle and we'll have a big picture for you live that night or not live but shortly after the Oscars. So exciting weekend. Basketball's back on Thursday. Until next time, Zhechek.