The Ringer NBA Show - PG’s Return, Giannis’s MVP Moment, and the Lakers Chase for 10th | Group Chat

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

Justin, Rob, and Wos recap Paul George’s return to the Clippers and how that can change the Western Conference playoffs, whether the Lakers should fight for a play-in spot, the 76ers' chances going into the playoffs, and the state of the Knicks. Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, Wosny Lambre Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For as long as I've known the NBA, it's been a Stars League. But even among the Stars, there's an exclusive club. Russell and Dr. Jay, Jordan, Kobe. They're all part of a select group that paved the way for the NBA superstar of today. And some even shared secrets with each other along the way. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Jackie McMullen. And this is the Icons Club. Hello and welcome to group chat.

I am Justin Barrier, Big Wise, Rob Mahoney, who is joining us from parts unknown. I think we could say what, middle of America, Rob? America's heartland, right, Waz? Yes, the heartland, real America, as Sarah Palin would call it. Rob, are you just full of brats right now? Like, can you give us some details without getting too in the weeds about where you're like specifically? Yeah, what's the local cuisine of? Cleveland, Ohio.

Oh, this is a good guessing game. I feel like if I describe like a very meaty, cheesy, heavy cuisine, it really covers the entire Midwest. So I think we have a lot of cover there for secrecy. Great, great. All right, on today's episode, we have yet another deep dive into the Los Angeles Lakers fiasca. We'll get into some other stuff too.

Paul George is back. The Sixers don't seem like they're going as far as they should. and maybe we'll squeeze in some Knicks talk at the end. The Twyman Stokes Award finalists got announced today. I don't know if you guys want to hit that later on, but we could do that. Huge. But let's start with the Lakers. I remember what, two episodes ago, I asked you fine gentlemen,

can this actually get worse? Can the Lakers just fall ass backward out of the play interim? And here we are. After last night's lost at Dallas, they are now 11th in the Western Conference that puts them just outside of the play in tournament right behind the San Antonio Spurs with what, seven games to go. So I asked Wads, how the hell did we get here? I mean, you know how we got here.

There's no AD, so there's not a lot of viable NBA players on this team. And I think everybody's kind of figured that just not going to the playoffs or the playing at all is a lot less labor intensive and also just embarrassing as just getting the floor wiped with you in extra games and the playoffs that you just really have no chance of making any type of noise whatsoever. And I don't think it's a coincidence there's slow roll in this AD injury, right?

Like, it's like, come back at your earliest leisure. LeBron don't miss some games. And we're just going to guarantee that we do not make the playoffs. Like we don't make the plan. We end this season, bury this thing and pretend that it never happened. Because on weekends with Waz,

shameless plug, me and Sabrina merchant we did the funeral. Like this is, they're dead. It's over. Sianara, R-I-P, see you later. Stick a fork in them. What else do we got?

What song did you play? Dust in the Wind? For LeBron's knees. Or maybe Puff Daddy. I'll be missing you. Yeah, for sure. A classic.

A classic. Will we be missing them, though? I'm very done with this team. It's a great point. We should mention that AD is reportedly targeting Friday to return. So there is a possibility that he could come back. LeBron, unfortunately, expected to miss this next game against Utah. And we'll see what goes out with him because he's been doubtful and his injury looked pretty bad the past couple days.

I mean, I think the question wise, you kind of hit it. And Rob, I asked you this question, like, is it worth making a push here to really? really make the play in tournament or the Lakers probably better off licking their wounds and actually playing for next season already. No, I think they're better off not having their claims that they would have beaten the Suns last year fact checked by just avoiding that situation altogether. Just like, I mean, honestly, it's not just good for them. It's good for all of us.

Like, this is such, this is such a joyless team that as just a viewer of the NBA, I get more out of watching Portland and OKC try to out-lose each other than watching whatever it is the Lakers are doing right now. You're a sick, sick man. That game was an O-T and I couldn't even get past the first quarter. It's not great, but there's just nothing about

this brand of basketball, really for the entire season and especially since the All-Star break, it's just been so bleak. And I know injuries are part of that, but this is a bad team, an old team. I'm so tired. I'm so tired of this group. Yeah, and honestly, how can, like,

flaming out against the Timberwolves or somebody in the playoffs be the Timberwolves and the pelicans be like a better outcome like how can just completely just getting obliterated in the play in be a better outcome right like I think this is the best outcome for all parties involved like just don't even go to the play in everybody gets to go to the Bahamas as soon as the regular season ends. And again, we just bury the, we just burn the files, right? We set fire to this, like, as if it never happened, like, you know, like a government conspiracy where you paper shred and burn everything or a corporate conspiracy. That's what the Lakers need to do with the remnants of this season. Any proof that it actually happened outside of LeBron's Instagram, because as you

guys mentioned on previous episodes, on LeBron's Instagram, this has been one of the most successful seasons in franchise history. Well, I think that's actually a good point, though, because LeBron, based on the reporting work of the internet sleuth on Reddit here, needs three more games in order to qualify for the scoring title. And he is currently, as we're recording this on Wednesday afternoon, 0.1 percentage points ahead of both Janus and Joel Embed. And I do wonder if for LeBron, a way to salvage this season for his season for his

himself is to think about the big picture in particular his personal big picture and to say despite all this bullshit that I went through, I won the scoring title at age 37. That seems to me to be important to him. Well, and just piling up the numbers. Because if we're being totally honest, history is not going to remember that this was like a 33 win Laker season and just a total shit show the whole time. In the same way that like all the Jordan history just glosses over the time he came back and they lost in the playoffs. It just like never happened. The race from history. Right. Right. If he's, if and when he's the number one score of all time and has some untouchable total basically by modern standards unless another guy comes

in and just a star from day one at 19 years old. That's all that's really going to matter in the grand scheme of things relative to the Lakers rolling into the playoffs and getting obliterated by whoever they would play in the first round. This stuff just does not matter. Yeah. And in the story that it, that will be LeBron James's career. Like, I guess a score in title at 38 or however the hell old he is is like a nice trinket to add on to there. But like, the guy's got a ridiculous list of accolades already. And he's probably going to end up being the all-time leading score. I think that's enough to submit his legacy as one of the great, you know, bucket getters that the NBA has ever seen.

I think he's fine in that regard without this, this like, scoring title stuff. Did you guys see, I think it may have been last week, that Draymond tried to pull the LeBron isn't even thought of as a scorer thing? LeBron's been pushing this narrative and look, Windhorst is my boy, man, but like he's been helping push this.

LeBron's not a score narrative. He's passed first, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's been at or near the top of scoring since his second season in the fucking NBA. he's a score and always has been. Like by any, like, if you want to go by just straight counting stats, if you want to go by efficiency, like no matter how you want to quantify what good scoring is,

he's been doing it literally since his second year in the season. This is not a thing. It's not. But we need to educate the youth. This is why he's doing this. This is why we have the last dance to remember how great Michael Jordan is. This is why we're doing the Icons Club Jackie McMullen podcast.

on the Ringer podcast network. Free plug there. But, like, I do think he probably steps back and says it matters. I mean, let's just assume that it matters. Let's say that he wants to make the playoffs, which is a wild thing to say about a team, what two years removed from an NBA title and also one that has LeBron, James, and Anthony Davis on.

Let's say that they do kind of go for this here, or they get some LeBron, they get 80 back. Are you putting your money on the Lakers, Rob? Here's the schedule for both them and the Spurs. we'll just assume that the Spurs are primary competition, although the Pelicans are right there around the same record. They're only one game up on both teams. So the Lakers coming up have

at Utah, New Orleans, huge game, huge, huge game, New Orleans and Los Angeles Lakers, Denver at Phoenix, at Golden State, O KC and at Denver. Not great. Spurs, meanwhile, have Memphis, Portland, Portland, back to back at home, at Denver, at

Minnesota, Golden State, and they finish at Dallas. Who you putting your money on? I mean, not every team is lucky enough to have a stacked roster with Lonnie Walker and Yonka-Purdle and Kelton Johnson. I mean, honestly, both of these schedules are not

ideal because really what you're running into are not just good teams. Teams still looking for position. Exactly. In the thick of the West. The West isn't quite as like crowded as the East is in terms of just teams being stacked on top of one another in the standings. But there are some

bottleneck points. And both of these teams are bumping up against good playoff level clubs at those bottlenecks that need those wins pretty badly. And we'll see how badly the Lakers and the Spurs really want them because that's kind of what's interesting about this too is do the Spurs really want this either? I'm not sure it really

behooves them to make it ultimately. I'm sure the players do. I'm sure there are lots of people of things to prove and want to check that box and whatnot. But I'm not sure anyone really wants this particular spot. Popovich probably wants to go to the playoffs. Sure. He probably wants to do some play in meaningful basketball games. I feel like he's a gamer.

But like, yeah, like this is a team that owns their draft pick. This is a team that is still rebuilding. Yeah, it's probably in their best interest not to be, you know, messing around with a playoff game or a playoff push. But that hasn't been their MO in seasons past. I mean, like, just the Kauai Lender trade in and of itself where they're just like, no, we want good players back in return. You know what I mean?

Like, we don't want assets and this and that. No, we want good players back. So, like, that hasn't been their M.O. So I could see them really going balls to the wall and trying to do this thing. Listen, Yacup Pertral is an anchor, my friend, of this new era of Spurs basketball. And he came back in that Kaui Leonard trade.

But to the point, four straight wins for the Spurs. They should not be prioritizing winning here. And yet here they are on a four-game road ship knocking off the mighty Golden State Warriors without staff. Maybe not. The trailblazers and the rockets are also in here. But they did beat the Pelicans. Like the Pelicans are trying to win.

They're trying even more so than probably the Spurs and some of these other teams in order to assure themselves a spot in that play. And yet here they are. The spurs are spunky, man. And so I don't know. Like I guess it probably comes down to health. Like if you have a healthy AD or some facsimile of that and you have LeBron, is that enough to like power through a team like

Golden State that might be trying to shut some guys down to be healthier or a Denver team that just like maybe is out of the play in and safe and just is worried about the playoffs writ large. The health is pretty concerning if you're the Lakers just because if your great hope is a famously resilient star physically in LeBron coming off of a nasty ankle injury, the kind of thing that usually does not not come out of games and has done that. Not great. And then also a famously injury-prone co-star, who is was alluded to, has taken his time coming back probably with the full

sanction of the team in that case. But he was now just jumping straight from a foot sprain and recovery into some pretty important games. Not great. Not great to go from zero to 100. I mean, the Lakers can't go 100, zero to 55 or whatever the top gear for this

particular team is. Not ideal. The Lakers are a Ford Pinto at this point. And the reward for even making the play, and we should mention, would be to play the Phoenix Suns, right? Because the bottom two teams, I always have to remind myself with the rules of the plane because this thing is too complicated.

So the 9 and 10 have to play each other for the right to play the loser of 7-8, correct? Yeah. And the winner of that game plays the first seat. And so you basically have to treat the last seven games of the season, plus the two extra games of the play in, as if you are in the playoffs. You are in the post season.

This is game seven against the Golden State Warriors for the Lakers, just to get the right to play the best team in basketball. And so that alone would definitely take some of the gusto off of my efforts if I was like a Wenian Gabriel or some of these other guys just like trying to get by here. But who knows, man. Why don't we talk about the other points? playing race going on here.

Because the other team in Los Angeles seems like they are pretty assured to be in that seven, eight spot. Probably going to end up at eight, which means they only have to win the one game. And they just got some reinforcements last night and when Paul George comes back after missing every game since December 22nd.

I think it's 43 games and just pulls off yet another come from behind victory over the Utah Jazz 34.6 assists for steals. in six for nine from three. How are we feeling, Rob, about your Los Angeles Clippers? A team that, like, a week or two ago we were talking offline, you were kind of eyeballing is like, oh, this can get really interesting for them.

Yeah, I mean, it's just been a completely insane Clippers season. And it's very easy to gloss over that because there's nothing sparkly from, you know, or glamorous about their situation. But none of this should be possible. They came back from another massive deficit in this game. It was basically a mirror image of what they had done before against the same jazz team in the playoffs. They were able to do that again.

I just don't really have a way to understand how or why any of this is happening. You can understand how they would dig themselves into holes because they do not have offensive firepower at all. They are outgunned every single game that they play. But the makeup of this team doesn't lend itself to big comebacks, really. Like there are big time shot makers for most of the season, really shot takers were. Reggie Jackson, kind of Marcus Morris, sometimes Luke,

Luke, the legend Luke Conard, of course. They don't have like the spark plug guys who you'd be like, oh, that's the Lou Williams who comes in and gets 20 and keys this big comeback. They don't really have those guys. They just have a bunch of like complimentary role players

who for whatever reason have been able to spring these impossible comebacks. And now they get Paul George back on top of that. I don't understand it. I don't get it. But I'm in awe of it. I'm in awe of what they've been able to pull off that they're even close to being a winning team this season

under these circumstances. And once they get everybody back, I mean, this is kind of the time to get your licks in on the Clippers, I would say, if you're one of these other playing or playoff teams, because we've seen glimpses of what they can be in various forms. We haven't even come close to seeing what they're going to look like with not only Kauai and Paul George back, but Norm Powell and Rob Covington is full-time members of this team now.

They're going to get real scary, real fast. Yeah, as I sit and stare at these standings, and realize that the clippers are six games better than the Lakers are. And Kauai Linder has played no times this season. And Paul George has missed 43 games with seven remaining, right? Like, that's craziness. That's just the biggest indictment of the Lakers that you can get. And, you know, again, I got to give it up to Tailu.

and I got to give it up to management for putting together a roster that could just straight up just be competent and competitive NBA basketball team even without, like, these are clearly the two best players on the team.

It's not like, you know, you have a golden state situation, right? But sometimes I might think Draymond is better than Clay. Sometimes I might think Clay is better. But, like, you know, you might be able to quibble. Obviously, Steph is the best. Paul George is clearly

the second thing. best player on this freaking team. He misses half this freaking season and they're fine and they're sailing into the playing game. It's kind of crazy to see like, you know, and that game last night to me was more about Utah. It's just you go up 25 and then you give up 70 points to this team the rest of the way. 70 points in less than two quarters.

and defense is supposed to be or used to be one of your calling cards. Like, that's embarrassing. Yeah. That is an embarrassment, man. Yeah, let me read some of the quotes coming out of locker room from Utah last night. Donovan Mitchell, I don't know what to say.

This is the same shit. This is literally the same as last year. Really putting a fine point on it. Rudy Go, Bear, we don't get our hands dirty. We never get our hands dirty. So just the yikes. express coming in hot. Yeah.

Is it fair to say that the Utah dynasty, aka the team that would overachieve in the regular season and fall flat on its face in the postseason year after year after year, soon to be succeeded by the Boston Celtics, but we can get that later. Is it fair to say that this might be the end of this? Because I don't know how they come back from this. Because not only are there major roster construction problems

with this team that have been, evident throughout this season. I don't know how you rebuild around Gobert and Mitchell considering the assets they have, considering the market that they're in, and even more so, like, vibes from this team, because

this is bad. This is irreparable. If that's what the dynasty is, isn't it still going strong? Because the jazz are currently fourth in the league and net rating, or sorry, in point differential. And yet, they just cuff up these leads. They look

a complete mess. They look completely disjointed. They completely fall apart if they're missing like one rotation player for half a quarter. They're just so perilously thin in players that matter. They're a mess.

I just have a very hard time after games like this thinking this team is going to do literally anything in the playoffs. I just, I have zero trust in their ability to combat the dynamics of a seven game series.

And what's so crazy about this is when they were flaming out in the playoffs before, it was, we were watching them just brick open shot after open shot after open shot after open shot. And the idea was like, you know what,

that's never going to happen again. And guess what, you're right. It's not going to happen again. However, you literally can't stop a nosebleed. Like, this is embarrassing. This Clippers team is not the seven seconds or less sons, guys.

Like, this is not some dynamic, offensive juggernaut that's like impossible to figure out. It's Reggie Jackson, guys. It's Luke Kinnard. I mean, what the? How is this a team that can't be stopped? You know, specifically when you have somebody like Rudy Gobert, who is going to win defensive player of the year again.

He's going to win that award. It's probably deservedly so. And you can't stop the like, of Zubach. Okay, this was really more of an Isaiah Hartenstein kind of game, you know what I'm saying? Absolutely, absolutely. But it's just, this is, this is so depressing, man,

because you know, you go all in and fixing a problem or a perceived problem, which is shot making. Like, we got to be able to make shots in the playoffs. Guys are packing the pain on us, and they're basically daring us to shoot and it happened two or three pole seasons in a row. And it's like, you know, we go out, we get bogey, we get Mike Conley, we, you know, we basically revamp this thing to become a spread offense juggernaut spraying threes and passes all over the place. And now, you know, they look like the Washington generals.

Yeah. Well, let me throw this idea out at you because it's late March. It's getting to be fake trade season yet again. We had a nice, like, what, week off, two weeks off? how is it fake trade season past the deadline before the playoffs? This is the exact opposite of fake trade. It's always fake trade season.

I'm strapping this. All right. Would it make sense to import another bogey, double down on bogeys and actually trade Rudy Gobert to solve the Hawks' defensive issue

and import some of their depth in order to fill out around Donovan Mitchell? Rob, I could see your eyes just lighting up like, wow, what an incredible idea. I can't wait to diagnose this. I just died inside. You know how Russell Westbrook is picking fights with media members

now just to feel alive, just to feel something? I feel like that's what I have to do on this podcast now. You don't have to. I mean, I'm assuming this would be around like John Collins and bogey. Sure. I'm just throwing out there, man. I'm just trying to have a conversation. I'm like Kevin Durant.

I test for solve a lot of the Hawks problems. I'll tell you that much. I think the bigger question is, is just like, can you make something of a Rudy Gober or Donovan Mitchell for right now? But then it's like, but then it's like, you're trading Rudy Gober's beef with Donovan Mitchell and his lack of try hard on defense with Tray Young? That's just, just that can't, that can't be, that can't be the answer to, to the

woes and his issues with teammates not selling out on defense. If I were to defend it, I would say that, like, you don't have to worry about Royce O'Neill's 40-year-old Mike Conn. I think, like, you can make do with one guy who's dying on screens left and right. But, like, not having, like, having two other plus defenders there to support Gobert, I think would make the other sense. That was the worrisome thing about this game is that the Jazz lost and their defense completely fell apart. And they weren't even really getting picked on in the way that they're going to get picked on. on in the playoffs. Like if you want to victimize some of these smaller guards on the perimeter for the jazz, you can do that in a seven game series, especially if you bump up against

the Luca Donchich's and the Nicola Yokic's, these guys who are involved in a lot of screening action, have a lot of size. That's going to be a nightmare if the jazz had to play a team like that. The clippers were just like running stuff. And Paul George was hitting a lot of shots and they had to start trapping him. Again, Paul George coming off an injury who's probably not going to go to the basket. And you just got to trap him to stay alive because, you just got to trap him to stay alive because Royce O'Neill's getting cooked. It's just, they're just sticking fingers in the dam all over the place trying to plug all these holes.

It's such a mess. Man, when they spent all that money to get Bogdanovich in there and the Conley thing, like when it first happened, I was so high on those moves. I was so certain this was going to make a huge difference for them in the postseason in nut crunching time.

And it's been the close. Complete opposite. Oh, my. Like, this is just, it's just a disaster. Yet, like you said, like they've had a pretty good regular season, considering all the injuries. You see what their freaking point differential is. Like, this is a team that's, like, had a successful season

by any reasonable metric yet nobody has any belief that they can do anything meaningful this postseason. And, shameless plug number two on the show. when I had Donovan Mitchell on our YouTube show on Full Court fits, I asked them, I said, what's the expectation for the Utah Jazz this year? He said, conference finals finals are a bus. We failed. We stunk up the joint.

If we don't get to the conference finals this year, they ain't getting to the conference finals this year, guys. And worth noting as we kind of, you know, basically start lighting the jazz funeral pyre in a way, Donovan Mitchell in this game kind of hobbled 33 points on 21 shots. And yet he also pulled the Chris Weber. So it's not just. Yeah. Yeah. Let's not forget that.

Yeah. Sure. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if this offseason were having a lot of like, could Donovan Mitchell force's way to X team sort of conversation because those burbles were already happening over the league, around the league, rather. But I do want to just flash back to the clippers just briefly because we talked in the past about maybe the nuggets could be a team that. was high on the dangerometer, the dangerometer.

I wonder, Rob, like, not only with Paul George back, but there's some reporting that Norm Powell could be back in the next week, week plus. If they have those two, and God forbid, if they have Kauai in there as well, is this a team that could, like, maybe give the Memphis Grizzlies a run for their money? Could, like, could even threaten to make a Western Conference finals yet again. They certainly have, like, the makeup and the pedigree to be an interesting playoff team. but I want to see Paul George play like two games before we start making proclamations

just to see how he holds up game to game what shape his elbow seems to be in especially because he's a guy who's so important to them not only as a shooter and a score but his handling is important. His ability to go both directions, his ability to guard lots of different kinds of players, all of that stuff that's going to really test that injury.

That's kind of what we need to see in action. But if Kauai's back, all bets are off. Anything short of that, even Norm Powell coming back, think they are a competitive, interesting team. And certainly one, as they've shown in this game and others, that you just cannot file away. You have to keep pushing and pushing and pushing until they're just done with. Yeah, I almost wonder if their death in the playoffs, if they have those guys back and they're integrating them on the fly. That might be the one thing that they might run up against. A lot of these guys that are playing integral roles are probably

going to have to fall back into the deep reserve bench. But this is what Steve Ballmer's money buys you. If anyone ever told you that money doesn't buy you, happiness, they have not had money. So because the clippers seem to be doing quite well for themselves. All right. Let's flip to the other major game from last night in addition to the Lakers, obviously. The Bucks overcame the Philadelphia 76ers. And what one might describe as Janus and Teddacumpo's MVP award-winning, award-convincing performance,

getting that last block on Joelle and Bede. So, Wads, I kind of ask you, we've been going back and forth throughout the season on MVP, but in particular, we seem to have identified Yokic Mbid Yonis as the three guys were probably going to be voting on. Did that sway you at any at all last night

not only the block, but the performance and the win? I think of the three that you just mentioned, Janus is who I would pick to win me a championship tomorrow. In the postseason, I just feel like, Like, what he brings to the table is most postseason ready and effective. But since this is a regular season award, my pick is Nicola Yokic. Still, I just, like, when you look at his all-in-one metric stuff on offense, it's not even, it's ridiculous.

And the fact that he's made himself an above-average defensive player to boot, like, that means so much. a regular season where not just his two best teammates did not play. These guys both make Max money, okay? These aren't like, like his second best teammate is making McHale Bridges money, right? Like he's not some looked at as some all-star level type of player. These are two all-star type of players did not play a freaking single minute, basically, this season. and Yokic has these guys not even in the playing

and his offensive numbers are just again like you do whatever you want VARP, real plus minus whatever win shit pick a stat you know Shaney shouts to my you know what I mean shouts to my dog you pick a freaking stat

and this dude is clearly the best offensive player in the league like I gotta give it to Yokic still however Janice is who I'm taking in the postseason. I think that's the right pick. And it's, there's some scheme flexibility stuff with Yokic that

becomes an issue in the postseason defensively. And it's like, Janus doesn't really have any of those questions anymore. He will play whatever style you need. He's viable in any series, any matchup. And as we've come back to over and over again, who is the matchup for that guy? Who is the person you're trusting

to stand in front of Yonis and build that wall? Because I know who it isn't. And it's whoever was backing up Joel and Bede in this Funny you should mention that, young Rob. Yeah, do you want to talk about In Bede's comments after the game? Let's. So to summarize, he basically suggested that he wasn't too happy with the rotations. And when Janus was going off to start the fourth quarter, he says to himself,

why am I not out there? Which ultimately brings us back to the big question, Philly, at least for this season, is Doc Rivers, the guy for the job there. Was, you've been pretty consistently on the no camp. No, he's not. And aggregators relax, because I do want to share some things. One, like a few weeks ago, because I'm decently tapped in with the player side

of what's happening with the Sixers. No, I don't know anybody in the Mori administration. Anyway, I'm hearing like, guys are not feeling, Doc. And his rotations, his philosophy, just like, what he's doing, guys aren't feeling in. To me, sometimes, like, you can chalk that up to be like, I should be playing more. That's every NBA player. So I'm like, I'm ignoring this. I'm ignoring this.

The Sixers are in L.A. last week. You know, I'm out and about getting dinner having drinks. You? Do a. doing what I do. And I run into somebody who's close to the team. And I'm like, you know, I've been friendly with this person for a while. So I'm talking shit.

And I'm like, sorry, but I can't pick you guys to go to the finals this year. And his response kind of raised my eyebrow. Neither would I. Ooh. Oh, okay. But maybe that's hyperbole. Maybe you're having a bad week. I'm not even thinking about it.

But again, I'm keeping. This is a running tag. of what's going on down in Philadelphia. Then the Joelle and Bede just clearly, clearly talking about, I don't know, maybe next time we should match my minutes with Janice. We're not building the wall. We're not doing this. He's the best guy on their team.

He's the best guy on their team scores 16 straight points. Maybe it's time that, you know, strategy, game plan, throws Doc Rivers under the bus. And now I'm just like, look, one strike, whatever. Two strikes, you know what it is, three strikes. Fellas, come on. I think we're on like 20 strikes with Doc.

I mean, after the clip. I also just can't believe, I can't believe Furcon to Corkma's told you. I was going to say, I was going to guess George's Nyang, actually. Rob, what do you think? You think this thing is, is, I don't want to say broken,

but it's probably a little bit more complicated than it needs to be for a team that, like, has title expectations. this season. Well, I do want to zero in on the commentary part of this buy and beat, who laid out pretty quickly or pretty clearly what he thought the problem was, which was the minutes he wasn't on the floor. And he's not wrong, but also in this game, he's a plus three and plus minus in a game that they ultimately lost by two. That doesn't tell me a lot. It doesn't say like, oh, Embed's minutes were so dramatically different from everybody else's

that those minutes had to be the problem. Obviously, that one stretch was bad, and Janus 8 and 8 and 8. That's not great. It's also kind of your job as the leader of the team to give some people some cover sometimes, and Embed is not great at that. I think even when he's trying to be more cordial

as he was during parts of the Ben Simmons saga, he's still kind of, he's not going to push you under the bus, but he might trip you and just watch you fall under the bus. He's not going to grab you from underneath it. Absolutely. And again, like, you know, part of his comments was, you know, this stretch happened while I was on the bench, which is just like, it wasn't me, you know, shaggy and bead. And, you know, again, the strategy stuff like that's just, that's not veiled. Like, there's a guy whose job it is to come up with strategy and his name is Doc Rivers.

And so, you know, there's the teammates part of it. And then again, like, this is a game where your ass got met at the rim by your chief rival. And he sent your shit into oblivion at the buzzer damn there. And the first thing out of your damn mouth is to, wasn't me? I'm not going to lie, man. I'm starting to become an embied truther on the level of Van Goliver where it's like, this guy gets to fail, then throw his guys under the bus. And again, we brought up Yokic just now.

Yokic in the midst of like triple doubles and like crush, just killing everybody in front of him. He loses the game. He's like, it's my fault. I should have did more. Should have did better. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, it's me.

Or Janis or Jha or DeMar Derozen. Like, go down the list of guys. It's like, again, what you're saying is not untrue. But I think there is a value to giving guys cover beyond telling the truth all the time. Yeah, I don't want to put too fine a point out of it. but like that Janice block really just like solidifies every case for Janus for MVP over Mb. just because like, I mean, Rob, you wrote about this. Like he could win defensive player of the year and win the scoring title.

Like these are the things that like, I know Embed has been great and he's done what he can on the defensive end, but like Janice just gives you everything. And then he gives you that extra effort on top of that in those type of plays. Like his timing is just like was unbelievable on that. Like any other player, I feel like, not even just superstar. Any other player probably would have made an effort, but that late of the game probably would have done so performatively. You really went after that, and that was the game.

And especially, I think what's easy to gloss over with that play and a reason why I think some of the guys might not have gone for it is because if you goaltend there, you look really bad. Yes. Then it's on you. And Janus, for whatever reason, doesn't really have that kind of self-conscious. He's not wired like that. He doesn't have that self-consciousness.

he will go after those plays with whatever he has left in minute 48. And that's what makes him a great player. And there are a lot of things that make Joella meet a great player. Makes him a champion. A champion. And, you know, because we're having fun here, I just wanted to take a hardened temperature meter with you guys. Sure.

Where are we at on the hardened temperature meter? Because I saw people talking about, oh, they need to split Hardin's minutes up. Guys, for the last time, this man needs. to be paired with Joel and B. He needs to be paired with a pick and roll partner that defenses cannot switch on, that defenses

have to play honestly. Like Paul Milsap, you were saying? Like Paul Milsap. Exactly. Because when defenses are up against Hardin and some also ran, like nobody cares. He's not dangerous. Nobody's scared

of his nasty stepback three-pointer. Like, nobody is afraid of that. Defenses are inviting that shot from James Harden these days. But, you know, I ask you guys, where are you guys at on the Harden meter and how great this is all going? Well, I was going to say,

we need a meat thermometer if we're going to take this one because, boy, what a turkey. I mean, it hasn't been great lately, but I feel like this game, get this guy out of here. Stop me. Just stop the presses, please.

It's hard to knock him in this game. Like, he wasn't good down the stretch, but this is probably one of his better games. It was great in the first half for sure. Which, like, I mean, if we're going to zero in on Bede's criticism, I think you could say, yes, this is a doc problem. But I also wonder, as we've mentioned a few times here, like, what is the correct roster in order to support these guys?

What is the correct crunch time lineup? Because, like, going into games, I kind of, like, try to jot down some notes, you know, just really, like, get my thoughts together, really, like, go deep dive on the X's and O's. I ended up writing one note from the first minute of the game. which was they are doubling so hard off of Matisse Thibel. Like Drew was barely even playing Thibel in order to go over and guard and B. And I'm just like, if Thibble can't play offense and Maxi can't play defense,

like what is the correct combination here in order to make this worse? And so like, yes, they have a Hardin problem, but they also have a rotation problem. I don't know if it gets solved by Doc just like drawing up like brilliant ATO plays. Yeah, Hardin has not been consistently great to say the least. But I do think he's done one very important thing, which is just like displace some of the workload off of Joel. It doesn't feel in these games like Joelle Embed has to score 40 to win.

He might do it anyway. But in a lot of these games, Hardens at least been able to, you know, heavy usage, a lot of handling, end up with, you know, a 24 and 8 assists or 10 assist kind of game that have been really productive. And that doesn't solve all the problems. It doesn't get into the heart of the Matisse Thibald thing that's going, they're going to bump up against every step of the way. it's not great that opponents now have a choice as to,

do we put our dominant defender on James Hardin or do we just have them lurking in the background, disrupting everything as they go? Because as we've seen this season, the Sixers are not a great puzzling team. They're not great at, like, figuring you out and moving you around and diagnosing exactly what it is you're doing.

It's not necessarily their strong suit. It's more like give the ball to Joel, he'll rip through and either score or get free throws. Very good at that, less so on the other stuff. Yeah. So we'll see. I mean, Waz, where are you on the temperature? I think I'm, I've kind of been resigned to Hardin kind of is who he is right now. He's just not the guy he was three, four years ago. And I know I sound like a broken record, but like that guy can legitimately break down any perimeter defender you put up against him.

He is not that dude. He's way more increasingly relying upon that step back jump shot, which is the hardest shot in basketball to make, y'all. Like off the dribble, moving away from the basket and firing a jump shot contested is the hardest shot in basketball and that's basically become part of his quote unquote bread and butter. So, you know, I've kind of accepted that

that that's who he's become. But, you know, I still just think, like, you can squeeze enough juice, like some nice looks offensively off of Joel and James Hardin pick and roll, off of Joel and James Hardin, man game. There's like, there's enough juice there. It's just defensively, man, like, very astutely pointed it out. I just, they got some problems, some problems. And people felt like

we would concern trolling when they first made the trade, but they got some problems on defense that that's really what worries me. It's the hard end of it all, like, he is what he is. He's not going to play defense. We know his show guys. He's not going to play defense. He's going to pass the and not move a fucking inch. Therefore, the defense can just completely ignore him. He's still a pretty good spot-up shooter. But, you know, we know where his deficiencies are. I just think just as a team,

making all of these pieces sort of fit in a way that is going to make sense in the postseason against a pretty stiff competition in their conference, you know, it's tough, it's tough. Here's one thing I'm watching along those lines was is if Hardin is what he is, as you're saying at this point, if he's not blowing by guys, if this from a mobility standpoint is the player he's going to be basically for this next stage of his career, is he in line for a bit of a steep playmaking dip in some of these series

that really matter? Because we've seen this with guys like Russ, the guys who are super reliant on athleticism, that when they aren't bursting in the same way, the angles, the shape of the floor looks different to them. Hardin was always reliant on collapsing defenses. that way until he wasn't. And then he was reliant on separating with the stepback to then make plays.

That's not always working the same way it used to. I'm wondering if we're going to see a little bit of a dip in the productive passing. He's still going to get assist numbers. He's still by far the best ball handler and passer Philly has had this season or in previous seasons. But is he going to be the guy he was, which is one of the best passers in the league for a long stretch of his career. If he's not drawing two,

what is it like what is the playmaking going to happen at right and he's never shown himself to be some type of post player where like he's he's got the strength and the girth but he's never shown that he's got any sort of dexterity down there so how is he's supposed to draw two defenders to exploit his his legendary playmaking you know again i don't want to be the philly skeptic although i have been all season you do want to be be, come on. Just sneak that in. An opportunity for your guy, Furcon, to rise from the ashes and take the reins yet again. The Furcon agenda, we see right through you,

was. Right. All right, guys, it's everyone's favorite part of the podcast. This is when we try to muster through some college basketball talk. Rob, are you ready? Absolutely not. All right. Let's pay the bills anyway.

some fans think they have a good idea of how matchups toward the end of the tournament will play out. But then a game surprises everyone by being close the entire time with multiple lead changes and a buzzer beater or steel that clinches the victory. Wozni, you were watching my Yukon lady Huskies the other day and they were in a close one. Can you tell us about it?

Listen, man, that game had so many ebbs and flows, so many big shots made, big contested shots. Every time you thought one team was pulling away or another team was resting control of the game, somebody else came down and made a big shot. Page buckets, like, you cannot be unattached from her body. If she has any space and is able to fire, that thing is going in.

She was incredible against NC State in that Elite 8 matchup. I think this is Yukon's record. 14th straight Final Four, something ridiculous like that. Just a marvel to watch. That was an incredible game. Yeah. I've been most impressed by Mike Shoshchevsky's comeback from the dead and the two team, which was written off.

I mean, I've been surprised that how old this guy is. I definitely dropped off the college basketball landscape for a while, but I'm like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. He's retiring. He's incredibly old, but here they are in the final four and more power to Rise from the dead with five NBA players on your team. Yes. That helps a little bit.

But remember, friends, even when you think you know what will happen, a team can step up and prove that they deserve to cut down the net at the end of the season. It's like people that assume they can't afford great insurance, but then they discover that State Farm has surprisingly great rates. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Get a quote today. All right. Let's wrap this up just briefly here by talking about the New York Knickerbockers.

We forgot to talk about them last week when we went through our hot seat rankings for coaches. We didn't mention Tom Tibbettoe because we forgot about Tibbs. We did. But it's because we planned on talking about the Knicks more in depth. I almost said the nips. Let's leave that in there. I did. So things aren't going well for Wozney's Knickerbockers here.

and you're starting to see some rumblings. I don't know how verifiable they are, really. But about Julius Randall being unhappy, his guy, Kenny Payne, a long-time Kentucky assistant, who he had a close relationship with, blah, blah, blah, went and left for Kentucky. And he's just been like, he's had a bad month or two or three. He's just, like, not happy there.

And so I don't know, man. How are you feeling about the rebuild? The return, shall we say, of the Mighty Knicks? Why in the hell should anybody care how Julius Randall feels? Like, it's just one of those. Just on a human level, was I care how you feel. I care how everybody feels. Brother, let me tell you something.

Your family going to care how you feel, okay? Your wife, your kid, your mother, your father, et cetera, et cetera. They're going to care how you feel. At your job where you're underperforming, we're supposed to care about your feelings and be trying to move heaven and nerve to give it. you what you want. I'm glad you're not my manager.

After, well, first of all, JV, they paid his ass. Sure. You got paid. You got a great extension. Lots of money about 25, 26 per. Probably some stock options. Yeah. You got paid, brother.

I don't want to hear nothing else from you. You're supposed to be coming out here delivering all this salking and crying and pissing and moaning. Like, you got your money. Let's just cue up the that's what the money is for. That's what the money is for. I could understand if, you know, you're, you know, you're sort of on a team-friendly deal and you've made all these sacrifices and all this other stuff and you don't like how things are going.

Negro, you got your paper. Be quiet. Go to work. Deliver. Be quiet, man. I'm done. I'm done with these dudes that, like, don't change your life as a player. They don't change your fortunes as a franchise.

right? Like you are a cool player, fringe NBA All-Star at best. You don't get to start doing all this demands and gripes and all of this type of stuff. Like, you ain't never done anything for anybody of any level of magnitude. Stop crying, bro. You got your paper. Now do your part. Please. Sounds like my dev talks with Rob, actually. It's a lot like this. I guess what is the plan from here? I mean, I always seem like Randall was something of a placeholder number one, or at least like a guy that you bring a number one and he plays off of him.

He ultimately becomes like maybe even in the number three. But like, I don't know, man, because they are still right there in the middle of the standings. They're not going to make the play in, but they're not going to have a high lottery pick. So, like, where do we go from here? Rob, is there enough, like, with the young guys, even where you're like, oh, they have some stuff here to build upon, or are they kind of back to where, not necessarily where they started,

but are they not as far along as we maybe thought they were? Well, as far as I'm concerned, and maybe this is part of what's stuck in Julius Randall's craw, is this feels like an RJ Barrett team to me. It doesn't always look that way on the court, depending on how Randall is choosing to play and how organized their point guard play is. Like, they have a lot of issues,

just generally offensively. But RJ has had a really strong back half of the season. Honestly, it's been one of their more consistent performers, especially now they're just getting to the rim more often. I really like what his game looks like right now. And if I'm the Knicks, that's really the thing that matters to me. To what Waz is alluding to how Julius Randall feels. And this really is the time-honored tradition of team in a losing season.

Let's get towards the end of it and just like dump all the negative incidents involving this one player into one article or one piece. there's some of that going on. I'm not sure how connected all of those things are with Julius Randall. What I do know is that this team doesn't have a lot of structure or a lot of focus in terms of how it's built and how the pieces fit together. What does make sense is R.J. Barrett is a really good young player, probably the future of your team, barring, importing a superstar from somewhere else. I would start to focus a little more around that and a little less around can we facilitate Julius Randall's Kiro Ball predilections. Why in the hell?

And again, a team with this many young guys in need of development in minutes and guys that have shown, you know, somebody like RJ, who we talked about early in the year when he started off, his shooting woes were like, man, we were starting to get a little bit worried. And then the back half of the season, as Rob said, he's looked incredible. He's gotten his average up to 20 points per game, which was a stated goal of his before the season,

which, you know, it's superficial and arbitrary, guess what, like, it still matters that he's getting there on a reasonable efficiency. Obviously, we want him to be more efficient if he's going to be some offensive hub, number one option type of dude. But still, even as a third-year guy, he's taking steps in the right direction and we like what we're seeing from them, right? And, you know, the quickleys and the toppings and the rest of the young guys, like, we can deal with whatever their development has been.

However, like, the idea that you kowtow to these seedless celebrity players, I just don't get it. You know, and I get that they could be poisonous in the locker room in that type of way. But, like, to me, you dare these dudes professionalism. And, you know, do they care about a reputation? Do they have any personal pride or professional pride? To me, you're supposed to be daring these type of dudes specifically after you give them all that damn money. Yeah, the contract is the big. sticking point, right? Because if

Randall was unhappy and he was playing on the contract he was before going into last off season, you'd say, eh, just let him go. Turn the page on RJ Barrett. We have the flexibility. Let's focus on somebody else. Let's, let's keep putting calls into Damien Lillard and Damien's Lillard's agent and all of his friends that are on Twitter.

But he is signed he is signed through the 2024, 2025 season and then has a player option on top of that. This is a problem that's just going to be lingering for them for so long. And this is the problem with just paying everyone on the roster. Like, I thought they made a couple shrewd moves getting guys under contract in order to

potentially trade them down the road. They didn't really hamstring themselves with some of these other deals for Derek Rose and even Evan Fornier, which is like way too much for Evan Fornier, but like at the very least it's not going to kill you. Right? The Randall one can kill them. Like, I don't know what to do that. So I'll push back and I'll be curious to see how you guys feel about this. I actually don't think Jewish Randall's deal is horrible. I think he plays at the level of that deal. I don't think it is this is not some John Wall, Russell Westbrook situation here.

I think not even just in terms of the dollar amount is not as high. He plays to the level as a percentage of the cap that is commiserate with the type of production that he, you know, gives his team, right? So I don't think it's this horrific deal. I think in the right situation, particularly like they got,

They got all that picks. They got all this stuff that they could, if people wanted to pretend that it was this onerous deal, they could get rid of that deal, right? So I'm not even particularly concerned about it in that respect. I just think, like, just culturally, like, Julius Randall doesn't rise up to the level of player. Like, even say a Bradley Bill,

who also, if we'd be quiet as kept, has never done shit for the Wizards either. But, like, we just know and feel that he's way better than anything Julius Randall has ever been. So we, you know, we pay lip service to his bitching, carping, and moaning and all of that. Julius Randall is just like, stop bitching, but you're not a horrible player. Your contract is pretty fair. And I don't think you're an immovable object.

Yeah, I'm with you. I don't really see this as being an issue of, like, them being stuck with Julius Randall and his deal so much as if you need to adjust Julius Randall's role over time, how cool is he going to be with that? because historically he doesn't fit into, you know, he's a square peg who doesn't fit into the round holes that you might want him to fit in. And so if you need him to work in a different capacity,

is he going to be cool with that? Because he doesn't seem cool with it now. And that's where I will say the red flag of all red flags and any of this Julius Randall stuff for me is, when a guy on an NBA team can't share in his teammate's successes, that worries me. Because celebrating a four-game winning streak when you're as bad as the Knicks and a young guy in your team like Obie Toppin having like a big moment,

shouldn't be that hard. That should be the easy part of your job. And to whatever extent that incident with Julius Randall was overblown or not, I don't know. But it doesn't feel great. But I do know we're hitting on, I think, you know, we got a disgruntled star here. We got some Doc Rivers coaching fuss. We got a blue collar big market team in the Clippers. We got the underperforming Lakers.

I think we are hitting big market bingo at this point. I will just say just before we go here, I, yeah, Randall's deal isn't awful, like 24, 25, 27, 29 million. I guess the problem is can he play a smaller role? And at that point, are you paying him to be functionally maybe a six-man? And just,

just briefly here because I remember hearing so much about Julius Randall's transformation as a shooter, despite the fact that he's shot what the season before 27.7% from 3 in the 20s most of his other seasons 34 and I remember saying to a lot of people including people on our staff like maybe we don't like overblow this one season where he's just shooting over his head that typically isn't how these things work and all I hear is like oh his shooting for him is so much better like he's finally figured it out taking the leap this motherfucker is shooting 30 0.5% from 30.

Just like, no more with the, like the aberration three point shooting news. Like, Dennis Schroeder, same thing. Just like, when it happens,

just as like an FYI, is a PSA to our audience here, just realize this is not going to continue. This is classic barrier. Can't be happy about your one good shooting season. You must be sad about it. I don't think most people in New York are very, uh,

ecstatic about much going on with Jillis ran these days. But we will wrap it there. Uh, thank you for joining us yet again. for this journey on this Wednesday afternoon. Thank you to Stefan Anderson for jumping in on production. Thank you to Benjamin Cruz for looming in the background. We'll be back next week.