The Ringer NBA Show - Ringer NBA Show Live at NBA All-Star Weekend 2023

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

The Ringer NBA Show crew (Logan Murdock, J. Kyle Mann, Kevin O’Connor, Wosny Lambre, Seerat Sohi and Michael Pina) took over The State Room in Salt Lake City, Utah for an epic live podcast in front of a sold out crowd. They talk everything from first half of the season analysis, draft preview and make their predictions for the rest of the 2022-2023 NBA season. Hosts: Logan Murdock, J. Kyle Mann, Kevin O’Connor, Wosny Lambre, Seerat Sohi and Michael Pina Producers: Ben Cruz, Elizabeth Fierman, and Jonathan Kermah Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rough year for your favorite NFL team. Join me, Danny Heifitz, along with Danny Kelly, Ben Sillek, and Craig Krollabak on the Ringer NFL Draft show, where we talk about all things NFL drafts. And more importantly, how to fix your mediocre team? Check out the Ringer NFL Draft show every Tuesday and Thursday. What up, Salt Lake City? How y'all doing? My name is Logan Murdoch.

I am the co-host of Real Ones, a podcast that I host with Raja Bell. Are you guys ready for the show? Yeah. Word, word. Word. Man, I got to, where's Raja at? I got to call him and see what. worries that. Maybe next time. I'm sorry, man.

Next time. But before we get to the show, I got two thank yous that I got to make. One, to the state room. Can we give a round of applause to the state room, please? Yeah, putting everything together. Number two, I got to give a round of applause to State Farm. Can we

give a round of applause to State Farm, please? And number three, I got to give a shout out to Jake from State Farm. Jake, where are you at? Can you stand up? What up, pal. How you doing, bud? Good to see you. The God. All right, man, let's get this show started. Somebody that I'm about to bring to the stage is one of the best minds at the ringer,

one of the best basketball minds that I've been around. And his name is Jay Kyle Mann. Jay Kyle, where are you at, bro? Hello. It's kind of crazy, right? It is. It's so nice to, I was just telling Logan, I was like, so much of what we do is we just kind of ship it out in a bottle and we're like, somebody's getting this, I think. It's a little different than video. It's like I kind of

interact with people, but it's good to see you guys. It's awesome to be here. Beautiful city. I know. I felt like the plane was landing on like the art, like on a beer can. Like I was like, this is just like is this a real environment? This is just surreal. It's gorgeous.

I didn't realize like it's kind of like in a bowl, you know, like a nice mountainous bowl. I'm just this, I'm just a country mouse just kind of, you know. Overwhelmed by it, right? It was a vibe. One thing we were talking about to the pre-pod, pre-live pod, just was about the second half of the season.

And you had teams that were talking about, and particularly in the Western Conference, that need to get their things together and need to figure out what they're going to do to go into the playoffs. And the Western Conference is such a, in a weird, space to where so many teams can get in. What is your makeup of the Western Conference? And what are the teams that are in this mumbo-jumbo that you like to see that can win a championship that are

not named Denver and Memphis? Yeah, yeah. We got Laker fans here? We got Laker fans here. I see you. I see you. I see you. Do the Lakers have a shot? Well, it's interesting because the standings are like really bizarre in the fact that from like five to 11 it's like a seven game total gap between so it's like if somebody gets hot and somebody gets not something I was telling Logan

it's kind of reminds me of those like major league games where they do the Mr. Freeze like thing in the outfield where they'd have like at the warning track they'd have somebody run and then that like Olympic sprinter would like catch them you know it's kind of so we're kind of seeing some teams like really bulk up

with like star power and it's like are they going to be able to reach the finish line between these well, which is it fair because Denver has really answered a lot of their questions. I mean, you got Yokic. Yokic is a guy who is, he's basically the only thing left is for him to have his sort of like, you know, a lot of superstars go through this. They go through this. Even MJ went through this for a while. Of course, his questions were different than Yokch's. Yeah. MJ was like, can he coexist with other people? Yokich is like, does he have the star power, the BDE to sort of like push them over the top? And I, and I just feel like what I was telling you was like, this, this,

feels like the get right playoffs where where we have some teams that are going to potentially get reach you know uh you know death star full full magnitude by the playoffs and who are those teams that you that that that are that are that are the get right team right now in your eyes well the teams that are they could potentially like click into place i mean i feel like Milwaukee's the team and overall i mean like Milwaukee's the team that like it seems like they're starting to get a rhythm it seems like they're starting to and they have they have a thing that works so and you know we We have teams with really the only two teams that have continuity at a championship level that are playing together right now. It's like the Celtics and the Nuggets.

I mean, the Nuggets haven't been to that stage. They've come close. I was asking you, I mean, like, Logan, you're close to the situation. You have expert knowledge of this thing. I mean, do you think that the Warriors? I know we talked, we like scoffed. Many of us did in this room about the Lakers potentially making a run. They made a lot of moves.

The Warriors made some moves. Do we have warrior fans in Salt Lake City right now? We got some Warriors fans in here? A little room right there, boo. Okay. Not a solitary dub person in here. The Warriors are in an interesting place, man. I know, like, you always think that they're going to turn on the switch.

I don't see that this season, man. I really don't. Well, I mean, be, you know, like, don't be so nebulous. Why specifically? What do you think? It's interesting because the Warriors are a team that are built on vibes, and they will tell you exactly the type of team. they are on a given year and they just don't have the vibes right now it's too much when you when you

when you have as much dysfunction as they have had this season with the bob myers um situation and if he's going to return next year if draymond green is going to return next year we all know what happened with draymond to start the season um and that's not how you want to start it that's not a vibe that is not a vibe it is a vibe it's just that's that's not a vibe to start a championship season but There's just too much, there's just too much bad juju with this team. And at a certain point, it will catch up to you. And I think it's finally caught up with the Warriors. They knew how important last year's championship was.

And you're kind of seeing the ramifications on the back end of that where it's hard to win titles, man. And it's hard to keep a good nucleus like that together. And for them to continue the journey, they might have to break the team apart. There you go, ominous. Yeah. I mean, the other one is, the, you know, the other one is, sons. I mean, it's rare that you, I mean, probably the best player of all time. We always talk about, like, the over hump trades are like, Rashid is an example. Rashid Wallace is probably the

all-time example of at the deadline. An existing team with continuity added the perfect. And Rashid was an interesting sort of distressed superstar, sort of. He could, on any given night, he could toggle and kind of go into that mode where it was like, okay, I can be a superstar, go toe to toe with somebody the caliber of like the Shaq Kobe situation. But, KD is on another level. I mean, it's kind of a, and it's another thing you're talking about getting right. You know, our top,

I don't know if you guys have read our top 100 rankings. How many, how many of you've been mad about our top 100 rankings in this room? Anybody? Has anybody tweeted at me? Any mad Dame Lillard fans in here? No, yeah.

So, yeah, I mean, Chris Paul, that was the point I was going to make. Chris Paul is somebody that's, in this situation, you would imagine he's not going to be as burdened. You know, you add another star like KD and Chris Paul can do the thing that Chris Paul does, which is he's going to be moving. I don't know if it's going to be this is a perfect analogy, but like the Peyton Manning game manager thing where he can just hand the ball off and make good decisions. I mean, what do you think about the sons?

Do you think that the sons are they just going to automatically? And when I say the Mr. Freeze thing, I'm talking about like superstar power. And it kind of makes you feel like it's going to suck if you do things like organically and build your team organically. Like they drafted Yokic and they slowly over the years built this up. Are you discouraged by the idea that like a superstar can just be like, I want to be traded and just sort of overcome that? Is that deflating for a team that does it the right way? Like the Nuggets? What do you think?

I think in terms of players wanting to be traded, that's their right. That's why they have free agency. That's why they, that's why they, you know, that's why we have all these things like a salary cabin. Why we have all these things for player empowerment, they're well than their right to have a trade request. That's fine. In terms of the Sons, though, there's just so much variance with them. that team, man. I think that they're, um, they have a great, great, great front five, but I don't know anything about their depth, man. And I'm really, really not a Terrence Ross guy.

And he got Baytides. I like him. Um, but I just, I really think that something that has really hindered them down the stretch has just been their, their lack of depth in the postseason, right? When they, um, against New Orleans last year, Chris Paul couldn't, it was, it was hard for him to play during those stretches. Now, there's a lot of pressure that's being taken. off of him with Kevin coming in, but are they going with their front court? If they get Aiden in foul trouble, say they play Yokic. Is he going to be ready for that challenge? Because he's the key to that.

He's the key to making sure that they get to that title run. Kevin's going to be cool. Devin Booker is going to, should be straight. Chris Paul and his new role should be straight. But you got to make sure that that front court is held down. And I just, I don't know that. I do think that they have potential to represent the West. I've said that on the podcast.

On Real On Real On One's Pop, make sure you guys listen to that. Never heard of it? You know the vibes. But I do, I think that there's a lot of variance. I think that they could be a West Coast power, a Western Conference Power, excuse me, but they got a lot of work to do.

And it's also hard to build that camaraderie in just a short span that they have. What is like six, seven weeks until the postseason starts, they got to get right. We don't know when Kevin's coming back just yet. They're not going to be whole and they're still going to be figuring themselves out. There's a high ceiling.

for the sons, but there is also, there's also some potential for some bad stuff to happen as well. It's going to be, they're going to be an interesting team to follow, but it's going to be, it could be tough for them. There really is a difference between get right, which is sort of like get healthy, like Chris Middleton coming back and coming full strength, and get your shit together, which I feel like it's, you know, it's kind of like differently naked and naked. Have you ever heard like a country? I'm from the south, sorry.

But like, anyway. Yeah, so, no, I mean, like, getting your shit together, this is like a team that's going to have to really fast forward to, like, do a lot of things in a short amount of time, which is what you're basically talking about. I'm really distracted by how well Logan dresses. I always think about this. This is an incredible vintage HBO hat he has here.

Just, I don't know, I was feeling, I was just, I talk a big game about sneakers. I feel like I didn't bring it. But I'm willing to be the straight man so you can pop. and you can glimmer, you know. Thanks, pal. You've got it going. You appreciate that, bud.

I appreciate that. We're talking about the get right teams in this season. Well, let's go on the Eastern Conference. Who you think is a team that can get right in this season going into the playoffs? What's the team that you think that can figure it out that might be in that lower tier of the Eastern Conference, at least standing-wise? What do you think, what is a team that you're looking at? Well, the one we've been making a run. The one we've been laughing about it is, I mean, is, I mean, the zombie,

Heat? How much of a threat do we think the zombie heat are to the Eastern Conference right now? What would you guys say? Let's take a poll. How many people think that Miami's for real? Russ Kevin Love reunion? Anybody want to see that? No, no vibes. None. No UCLA fans in here? I really, I've been watching the news, obviously. We don't know what Kevin Love was going to do at this very point, but I really just don't want him to go to Miami, man. It's just, I wish he went to the Sixers. I would love him. We got any Sixers fan in the building? Philly? Philly, for show.

Shout out to Philly. I just think that that would just be a better fit for him, just for the simple fact that, like, he can play alongside M.B. He can stretch the floor. I just don't see Miami going anywhere, man. I just think that they got a lot of real solid dudes, but when they go into the postseason,

there's just so much firepower in that Eastern Conference. There's a lot of star power. You know, when you talk about the Celtics, when you talk about the Bucks, Miami is just that tough team. It seems like they're just going to, going to be, it's just going to be a hard six-game series. Yeah. Well, let's, let's talk about the other thing that we were going to hit on that earlier we were talking about, you talked about

trade requests and if it's, if it's good for the league or if it's not good for the league. I mean, the basic thing that you think about is like the relationship. You talk about it, Denver. Usually it's the teams that build, maybe they're not free agency destinations. They build these long-term kind of relationships with players, and there's two sides to that. You know, you can either you can have the guys that can come back. Like I was on an elevator with John Stockton earlier, and I was just like, he's like, is he the mayor here? I mean, I'm taller than him.

I was surprised about that. But I was curious to ask you, as we have a strong jazz contingency in here. I mean, are you guys still fond with Donovan Mitchell? Like, you used to love him if he comes back? Okay. That was a big cheer when Donovan was playing early. When he came in the Eastern Conference, practice. There was a big cheer. They were like,

Donovan Mitchell and I was like, oh, uh-oh, is it going to be, is it going to be funk? Is it going to be funk? But you guys here, y'all was good for Donovan Mitchell, man. I was tight. Well, I've been to the two places now. Like, I live in Louisville and I was at a coffee shop the other day. Was there a Louisville person here? Sweet. Let's

tap after this. No. And in like, in a coffee shop, there were like four people in line with Donovan Mitchell's shoes on, and I almost took a picture of it. I was like, Salt Lake's probably the only other place where that might happen. But Kevin Durant's the opposite. side, I mean, like, the other thing that you have is the situation where it's, it's, you know, you live long enough to become the villain and there's an ugly divorce.

Logan, you were around KD a lot. I mean, do you think that KD's ever going to have that kind of thing? I mean, that's what you lose. I mean, you lose that sort of camaraderie. You lose, it's, that's a fun wrinkle to being a fan of a team is like, I'm a fan of a college basketball team where it's a revolving door. We have newer players. That kind of gets old.

We still love them. But, I mean, I mean, taking it to the KD thing. mean, do you think, is KD going to get a reaction like that from any market in the league? I mean, his star power sort of supersedes that, I guess, but like a fondness. Like, we fought with you, we love you, we're loyal to you. I mean, we got any Golden State fans out here? Any Warriors fans right there? We establish that, right?

I think Seattle, for sure, he will get a great reaction to Seattle. But I'm curious to see because they play, the Sons play the Warriors. I think he should finish his career in Seattle if they get a team. I've said that. I think that would be awesome circularness. Yeah. We'll see. I think the Bay Area, because he won two titles,

I think that he'll get a lot of love there. I think that'll, especially the relationships that he has with, currently with Steph, with Draymond, with all those guys. I think he has a home in Golden Estate. It's going to be, I'm curious to see the reaction in a month. The Suns play the Warriors at Chase Center. And it's going to be the first time that Katie actually plays there with fans since he left. So I'm going to be curious to see how,

how the reaction is. I think it's going to be love. I think they're going to have the tribute on the Jumbotron. I think there might be some tears shed, and I think he's going to get love, and he's going to I think he's, I think when it's all said and done, especially of a player he is, he's going to get love

and probably every place, but Brooklyn might be the place that he doesn't get love. But I think that he's one of the top three forwards ever to play the game. He's one of the best players to ever play the game. And, you know, He made...

I think he's the best score to ever play basketball personally. I think he has... I made a whole video about this, like a half-hour video about this, arguing that he basically took perimeter skills and took stretch four skills.

Like, he took the Dirk model and the T-Mack model and crossed them together and then, like, took them to volume to high efficiency. There's not, like, a more potent guy like as a shot baker. I mean, you just watch Katie,

people guard Katie, and they just are like, The best defender. I mean, there's a video of Jimmy Butler being like, literally, you can't do anything. It's like, he just kind of patch you on the back. It's like, good try, buddy. But, I mean, I don't know. Sorry for that.

I mean, is that a controversial statement? I don't feel like it is, honestly. That is a great score? I mean, people are going to say Mike, I'm sure. I mean, MJ, is that what people generally are going to say on the, yeah? Oh, they don't like Mike here, bro. Oh, yeah, I forgot where we are. They don't like Mike here?

I saw a family. What's you mean? What's you mean? You got to say like Greg Oster tag. They'd be like, yeah, let's get it. You know what I'm saying? Are we going to eat Carillo Fasinko jerseys in here? I loved that guy.

You know what I mean? That was one of my favorite players. He just had this look on his face. Jerry Sloan was like, he's talented, but I'm tired of his ass, basically. Yeah, that was an interesting dude. Wait, I got a quick question, no. I got a quick question, though. Okay, yeah.

We're in Salt Lake City. I know there's a lot of jazz fans. How many of y'all still love Roger Bell? Yeah. Okay, I'm going to tell him that. I'm going to tell him that because he don't know. We have the audio. I'm going to tell him.

I'm trying to get him to get on this PJ to pull up right now. But I'm going to tell him today. Yeah, PJ. Yeah, I just got it like that. Okay. Yeah. No, but I do think. The Rory family.

I do, oh, they're giving, my guy Kerm is giving us the, the, the white, O.G. Kerm is back there with the, if you guys see, he's back there. Give O.G. Kerm a round of applause, please. Kerm Devils in a lot of good content on the ringer. I think, but that's my time to go. But I want to introduce somebody who is going to join Jay Kyle Mann, another really, really smart guy that I love,

and I love reading his coverage, and I really love his video breakouts. He really carries a lot of the coverage on his back. But you guys know him as KOC. I know him as my dog, Kevin O'Connor, and he's coming out to talk to Jay Kyle Man. AOC. Kevin O'Connor.

the blazer the boots how about it he just got done whipping ass on war zone he's not wrong Kevin's like the ultimate sicko time I'm like I don't know how you're doing what you're doing he's like riding his Peloton and playing war zone and watching

watching synergy I don't know how he does it he's a machine a lot of multitasking Kyle a lot of multitasking how's everybody doing tonight thanks for coming out Logan appreciate you coming out with Kyle man opening the show. How many people here are jazz fans?

Okay. Now, for the jazz fans in the audience specifically, cheer if you would rather the team lose out the year and tank rather than make the post season. Hey man, tanking

can be fun. I don't know if you guys have ever read our Tyler Parker's articles. There's nothing better. Like the perfect, we talk about the perfect tank games. You're like, oh, 122, 120, we lost an OT. That's beautiful. That's a good night. It's the truth.

It's the Incredibles meeting where they're like, his son's running here. We're like, no, slow out, slow out, slow down. You know, it's like there can be, this is the best time, honestly. That's what I always say. For the expectations come and spoil the soup, you know? Well, the fun's been had. Lowry Markinen's an all-star. The team, great head coach and Will Hardy.

The fun is ongoing. It's still going. It's going to go for a long time. This is me in the 0-607 Celtics, rooting for them to lose to get Kevin Durant or Greg O'd. It was fun watching the. the young guys. I heard a boo just now. I don't know. But how many people here are jazz fans again. Cheer if you want the team to win and make the playoffs. That's pretty definitive, Kyle,

that a lot of fans would rather Utah lose out after the fun is out. Trauma for Yama, right? Let's start off with Utah here, Kyle. The Jazz are 29 and 31. Two games back from a guaranteed playoff spot. Currently have the 12 best lottery odds, a 7.1% chance of landing in the top four, a 1.5% chance. of landing number one, but they're four and a half back of Orlando for the fifth best record, a 42.1% chance at the top four, 10.5% at number one in the opportunity to select Victor Wenbi. Generational talent. I mean, yeah. I mean, you're excited about Wimby. I mean, this is a guy, I mean, we've talked about him a lot. I mean, do you guys listen to us talk about Wimby? Have you heard of you tired of it yet? Do you need to hear this feel again?

Yeah. Well, we know this guy loves the French players, right? Ladies, in general, I have a surprise me. Killian Hayes. He's here. And Frank Milakina. Frankie Smoke's chest bumping, Kyrie Irving was never a thing I thought I would see. But we've already seen it.

I do love the French. It's true. I absolutely love the French. But for Utah, they're in this spot now, Kyle, where I think they represent this new NBA with the new flattened draft lottery odds now because in the olden days, you know, it was 25% odds at the top, you know, their odds of landing in the top three were pretty minimal. But at this point, you can have a really fun year. You can be 500 with 20 games left.

And you can be in the playing race, but also be in the lottery race at the same time and have an opportunity to still move up in the draft. Every year, ever since the first year with the draft lottery odds with Zion, a team with the seventh to 11th worst odds has moved up into the top. four. So for Utah, you don't need a bottom out to get a top four pick. You can have a great year like this and still potentially be rewarded by the basketball gods. Yeah, miracles can happen. I mean, I just did a video about the magic pick shack and then they were like 11th and they moved. There was like 44 to 1 and they ended up with Penny Hardaway. I mean, it can happen.

But yeah, this is a draft. There's a lot of pieces. And the luxury I think for the jazz right now is that, you know, we talk about fit a lot and I was kind of rail against this. In this situation, just go get the best player. You guys are going to be in a position to just pick the most talented player and there's a bunch of like, we're going to be talking more about it here in a minute, but there's a lot of talent. There's an obvious tier one, but there's a lot of guys who sort of

fit and interface with the modern NBA, in my opinion, like a lot of wings, wing heavy draft. I think the cool thing about this draft too, Kyle, is I mean, you know, this is a draft with a lot of good quality role players, right? And I think we've seen this year with the jazz how good quality role players can hit right away

with Walker Kessler, who of course, got back on the Rudy Gobert deal. Shooting over 70% from the field this year. This season, here's a stat for you. 24 players, according to the second spectrum, have defended at least 1,000 pick and rolls this season. Number one, in points per chance defended in pick and rolls, Stephen Adams.

Number two, Joelle and Bede. Number three, Chris Haps, Porzinger, who's had a great year defensively for the Wizards. Number four, Jared Allen. Number five is Walker Kessler. There you go. Number five. I let out a squeal because I was, A, waiting to see how long it would take Kevin to say according to Second Spectrum.

And I was wondering if you would have ever considered getting a tattoo according to Second Spectrum. I have no tattoos. Oh, okay. But maybe tonight. Maybe. Yeah. If my team that we're going to draft, if my team wins, if people agree that my team wins, will you get a second spectrum? I was hoping.

I was hoping. But it's impressive, though. It's allowing 0.95 points for a pick and roll. Gobert for my comparison over the last five years allowed 0.89. I mean, with Walker Couser Kyle, he was Mr. Georgia in high school. McDonald's All-American. He won defensive player of the year, his sophomore year in college. Despite all of the success that he's had so far,

I think it's unrealistic to expect a rookie to come in and be this good this soon for an NBA team. Yeah. I mean, if you consider how you got him and where you got him, and the other key here, the crux of this that I think is the most, I hope, I'm sure a lot of like maybe temper tantrums are being thrown in Minnesota over this fact, that the offensive upside with Kessler has actually has been a little underrated, I would say. And if you think about him going back to one of the big reasons he transferred from North Carolina is because this is a guy who has had stretch on his mind.

He's wanted to be a spacer. And that was one of the reasons he went and played for Bruce Pearl. It would be, you know, I'll leave my Bruce Pearl comments out of this. But, I mean, he's showing it a little bit. He hit a three tonight in the skills challenge, you know. He did more than Palo and the other guys could do. But, yeah, I mean, if you consider it, it's just such a huge win. It's such a boom for them that they got him for what they did.

Well, not only that. I mean, even if he never becomes a reliable shooter over his career, he can do a little bit off the dribble. I mean, like, Rudy's amazing in his own right. But Walker Kessler, he can feed him the ball in the short roll. He can, you know, dribble of the ball. a couple of times and get to the basket. You can make kickout passes. We're not asking much.

We're just asking you to take one dribble and turn your head. And Rudy, I rooted for Nick Richards for three years. I know how hard that can be. So, no, I mean, like Rudy at times, you watch him try to do that. And he just can't. I mean, you guys watched it a lot. And Kessler, I just think Kessler is a little more elastic, I think. It's not like Rudy's a total stiff, but I don't know.

I'm not going out of my over the edge here to like dis Rudy, But I mean, I think you guys are in a great spot. Don't you dare, Kyle. Regardless of market. Anyway. So what we're going to do, we're going to do a rookie draft in honor of Walker. I'm saying about this. Being here in Utah with him being one of the 21 rising stars.

So what we're going to do here, we're going to build a 10-man rotation, Kyle, of the 21 rising stars, which means one guy is going to get left out, our Mr. Irrelevant, our Mr. Undrafted. Kyle, you can take the first pick here. Of the 21 rising stars. NBA rookies. Who do you got? By the way, not just rookies, young players, whoever, the 21 guys that were in the rising sales challenge.

You can't bully me into making a pick. Max McClung. I love it. This one's for sharks. I'm taking Evan Mobley first. Evan Mobley is an archetype of rim protector that is really hard to get. He's a guy who could switch. He's a guy who can drop and still bother shooters because he's quick.

He's a gap closer. He's got some of the most, the best. hip flexibility for a guy his size and he has offensive upside. I think that it's going to take a while, but I don't think, I don't know that he's going to have the offensive offensive. And the other guys that are in this category are like the ADs. These are guys that have higher, you know, capability, but like Garnett, it's that that big body type that can, is strong enough to, to take contact around the rim, but still block shots. I think he could absolutely be the defensive anchor for a championship team and I'm taking him first. And our goal with this exercise here is we're building a team

for like five years from now. You've got to win that game. That was the key part. Five years from now. We're guessing what they're going to become. Yeah. Five years from now, you're trying to win a game. This is how you're building out your roster.

So with my first pick, I'm going to go with Paulo Bancaro of the magic. Where's Siruti? Steve Serrudi is here. Was that Serrudi probably cheering in the crowd out there? Yeah. But I think with Bancaro, I mean, we've seen some ups and downs this year with Orlando. But for the most part, you have a guy who's six foot 10 who can handle the rock, who can play make, who can create off the dribble.

the main thing with Bancaro is going to be we know he can get to the basket we know he can create we know he has versatility in terms of the sets he can be used in but what level does he reach as a shooter to garner the respective defenses to just open up the entire floor for him he's been inefficient from the outside

going back to high school does that reach an efficient level that's the big question but I'll go with Ben Carrow and just bank on the upside here with my first pick who you got I think that's a great pick I mean I think you hit it It's not Mobley's like already a sure-fide They're very high-level player.

No, I just made a video about this. I think Paolo, if he can start to figure out his middle game, when to attack, when to dish, he has all the tools, use his shot as a pressure release and not like a means doing it in and hunt it. Anyway, number two, speaking to the Orlando Magic, I'm going to take Franz Wagner. Yeah, the old, the old, the slick German. No, I think that Franz has positional versatility defensively.

I think you could be a catch-and-shoot guy. We've seen, I mean, the big, The big sort of like storyline, I think, for the magic in the past year and a half, is that Franz immediately came into the league and was like, I can be like a guy who can carry heavy on ball reps. The efficiency is going to come around. Like he takes a little bit of a dip when he's shooting off the dribble in the pick and roll, but his shot looks good.

He gets to the rim. So Rudy and I were just talking about this. He finishes a little bit differently than Palo. Palo is more wiggly at the beginning of drives and he can turn the corner on people. Franz in the lane, I don't know if you guys have paid attention to this. He has one of the most bizarre. broad steps. Like he just, he takes, he's like a really, really strong and can contort.

I like Franz. I think he gives me a lot of flexibility. Let's speed through these. I'm going with Jalen Green. Okay. Jalen Green, you know, you guys are him in the Western Conference. He's had a worse sophomore season than he has a rookie season. But I'm just banking on that athleticism, upside scoring ability.

I believe in him, man. I think he's a conformist. I think with Green, once the situation improves in Houston, if it improves. approves like it did in the G League. You saw his progress in the G League over the course of the year as a playmaker as a defender. I'm banking on that improvement with drilling green. Going upside there is my go-to score. Have fun with that.

I'm going to see. Benedict Mathrin is who I'm going to take. I think. Okay. Benedict Mathrin, I think, went to the, I predicted him preseason as rookie of the year because I think he went to a situation that was perfect for him. He went to a guy. The anti-Jalen Green.

Yeah, he went to his, you know, Halliburton is a guy who's like, you like to score. Cool. You like to do this? Cool. I'll let you do that. Like, he's just like a great, I want to turn that into a Halliburton praise situation here, but I will. Mathrin is who I'm going to take. And I think he's got outside as an on-ball, like a high-level.

I think he could be like an efficient high-level on-ball score later in his career. I have confidence in him. He has some star flashes to me. Trey Murphy. So I'm in the dunk contests. Shoots over 40% from three. I'm trying to build out some wings in my rotation here, Kyle. Okay.

I'm going to go with Jalen Williams from Oklahoma City. Oh, we got OKC people here. Nice. We got Santa Clara people here. Is that what that was? Jaylon Williams has something that I kind of look for whenever I'm looking for guys. One of the big themes in, I call them second-siders, is that guys who basically are secondary playmakers that can off the catch,

they don't just shoot. It's evolved to the point where that's not going. good enough. Like if you're just like a catch-in-chew guy, you have to have some chops to like catch the ball and roll into a pick-and-roll and make a good decision. And Williams grew up a point guard, grew three inches late. Luca did that too. I think Jalen Williams, my whole roster is built kind of on the idea that he could take a Desmond Bain-type leap from 22 to 23 years old. He's 22 right now. Bain did that. A lot of wings do that. I think that Jailen Williams is absolutely going to do that. I have a lot of confidence in that guy. And I believe in Jalen

Williams is a jump shooter too. Oh, yeah. I think he's 80 plus percent from the free throw line improved at Santa Clara. I expect that progress to happen in the NBA. I'm going to go with Keegan Murray from the Kings. Having a really good year for Sacramento, 3-&D guy.

Love Kate. Yes, Cade with Cain's very good, yes. Who got, Kyle? I'm going to take Josh Giddy, and I'm amazed you didn't take him first. I'm shocked. Josh Giddy. So now at this point on my team, I've got size, I've got switchability, I've got shooting,

and I've got one of the, best live dribble passers under the, like, Giddy's incredible. I, like, he could throw skips, like, on a dime. Like, he's really on a short list. I really think he's on a short list of best live dribble passers in the league. Oh, absolutely. He's incredible. I mean, he's a highlight factory.

Yeah. I'm going to go with a guy who looks like a bus so far, but I'm banking on five years from now. What a sell job. Jabari Smith, Jr. with the Houston Rockets. Yeah. Kyle, I'm building out length and versatility. That's the name of the game in the NBA playoffs. That's what you need to win.

That's what the jazz didn't have behind Rudy Gobert? They need help. Way to appeal to them. Yeah. Speaking of versatility and length, I'm going to take Scotty Barnes next. Okay? This is a guy who as a rookie posted one of the highest defensive versatility, according to B-ball index.

Great side. There's a dirty one for you. No, I mean, as a rookie, he did that posted and was really impactful. You don't see that very much. Scotty has playmaking potential, so I feel like I have size, length. I could really mix my lineup. up and love Scotty. Good vibes guy too. Vives are important.

I'll go with A.J. Griffin from the Hawks. Another 3-N-D guy. You see a little trend here, Kyle. With Trey Murphy, Kegan Murray, Jabari Smith, A.J. Griffin going consecutively building around my sources of creation of Bencaro and Green. I don't think your team can guard mine. I am going to take Quentin Grimes next. Quinn Grimes is a guy.

Get some Knicks fans? Yeah. Quinn Grimes had like a weird start to his like, collegiate career where like coming out of high school I was like this dude kind of reminds me of Darren Williams which is like a Utah you know big Utah guy I don't think he's just savvy or crafty on balls Darren but he's big uh he shot that shit out of the ball last night in the uh in the rising star competition but he's a guy who really really cares about defending so I think I've got ball pressure now too and he can shoot he's versatile I think he's a playoff player I just think he's

somebody he's a he's a universal donor Kevin I think he could go to any team and you're like okay we need shooting we need somebody to guard the ball every team needs that So, Quinn Grimes is who I'm taking. Absolutely. I'm going to go to my third Houston rocket here. Alperin Schengun. That tattoo is coming. Schengun's a baller, man.

I take Schengen before Jalen and Javari. Really? Easy. I was going to take Schengen Gould. I was waiting for you not to take him. I was going to just end the draft. The head of Green and Smith. Interesting.

You must really hate my team. No, I think that Shingun is like an offensive hub. I think you could go and get certain types of moves. movement shooters and have an incredible offense. Yes. So next, I'm going to get a backup center for Evan Mowgli. I'm going to take Jaylen Duren. He's 18 years old.

I think he's going to be, I think he has, if you look at their timelines, like Robert Williams is a similar type of guy. I think that he's, it's like 7 foot 6 wingspan, super strong as an ox. He's already a decent finisher for his age. That's what I'm going to take. I'll go with the other big available from the Rising Stars Challenge, Walker Kessler. Yeah.

Was the groan? Because you all thought I should have taken Kessler? Was that what that was? I figured. Now my team is better. I have one of the best for the best proctors

in the league for the next 10 years. I'm going to take a guy who flashes some star upside and that's Jaden Ivy. J. Nivey super, super fast. Turns the corner like we said. I mean, the big thing is the shooting.

But if he's my backup guard, if I need a change of pace to come in, I mean, depending on the lineups that I have, I can just let him go balls to the wall and transition, turnover so yeah jaden ivy's got a good fit for that so i feel like i have my my wings i think i have my room protector i have some creation i want one more wild card on my team jeremy sohan from the spurs

don't mess with the sohan yes i'm a little surprised he fell this far here one of the reasons why i didn't take giddy early because i hope to get sohan late with his ability to create offense his constantly improving jumper and that dude's just like a mother effort like out there he's cosplaying as dennis rodman and it's like not ridiculous. Yes, it's not at all. Yes. I love that guy. Also dies us here, as we saw it this weekend in Utah.

Yes, yes. He's always done that here. Last, I'm just going to take a steady backup, Andrew Nimhard from the Pacers. I think this is from the Rising Stars group. We're not just picking from all guys under like 22 or something. No, Nimhard has been, his shooting's been a little inconsistent this year, but if you go back and look, which we like to always do, according to Cerebro Sports. If you go and look throughout high school, throughout college, he's been like a mid-year. 30s shooter.

I think he's just a nice, steady, steward of offense. I think he's a good player. I'll go with Bones Highland as my final pick here, Kyle. Bones, new L.A. Clipper. We'll see if he can tap into some of his playmaking as he says he wants to being away from Joker and Denver. I'm not totally sold there, but give me a little scoring juice to complete my 10-man rotation here, which is Kessler-Shangoon at the 5,

Bancaro, Jabari Smith, at the 4, then I get some wings, is Trey Murphy, Kegan Murray, A.J. Griffin, Jeremy, Sohan, Jayland, Green, Bones, Highland. I don't have a true point guard, but I'm trying to be progressive here with the Bancaro, Green, Highland, Sohan, those are my sources of offense, and then Shingoon, the DHO offense as well. I think I have you with on-ball talent and switchability and defense, and I have a lot of good years. I don't know about switchability. That's pretty loaded.

You don't know about switchability with Barnes and Mobley can guard? I don't know. So I have Evan Mobley and Durran at the last. the five. I have Franz, Benedict Mathron, Jalen Williams, who I think could become a semi-star, Josh Giddy, Quentin Grimes, Jalen Duren, Jaden Ivy, Nimhardt. I don't know. I think who...

All right, let's just do it. I mean... He's the one undrafted once again, Alvarado. I know. Here's the thing is, I like Alvarado a lot, but I was like, I couldn't prioritize him in this setting, and he was literally the odd person left, so he ended up

being the odd man out. Yes. He was the MVP. That's a good transition. Yeah, Scoot. So Scoot. Where would Scoot go in this? He wouldn't go ahead of Mobley, right? Where do you guys think Scoot would go?

Like, Mobley, Bencaro, Wagner, is he? Third, four? Third, okay. Something like that? Well, I mean, let's do it really quick. Who do you think? Which of you guys think that Kevin's team would win in that seven games series? Which of you think Team Jay Kyle would win?

You know what, Kyle? I think this speaks to the greatness of Evan Mobley as well. And Franz. Don't, don't, don't, don't disown. It does. I mean, hey, but Mobley is so good. He's great. He's unbelievable.

And so are you guys. Yes, absolutely. Thank you guys for coming out tonight. Me and Jay Kyle, man, will be back for the Q&A at the end. But right now, we get Sir at Sohi, Wazi Lambrey and Michael Pina coming on out. Wazi Bear. Hell yeah. Yo, yo, yo, yo, what's going on?

Salt Lake City. Salt Lake. My first time ever in Salt Lake City, y'all. It's crazy because you tell people you're coming to Utah and it's like you're going to like a foreign country or something. And it's just like... And I got here and it's beautiful. I'm loving it.

Everybody's been wonderful. Having a great time. We sold out this damn show. That's crazy. So we're super happy to be here. You guys ready? Yeah, that's real. I'm so excited.

We wanted to talk some MVP with you. you guys because I think right now that's one of the most interesting conversations that are happening around the league. My man Tim Bontem just put out his MVP straw poll. He talks to a bunch of people who vote. He's pretty accurate with this thing that he does every year. I'm trying to watch my language. And, well, you know, man, it's a family. It's a family atmosphere. We're going to keep a PG. But anyway, in the straw poll. In the straw poll. In the straw poll. Yokic is way ahead and I think justifiably so

but the reason why I think the conversation is interesting because Bill had me and Vann on his show and Vann was representing an argument against Yokic that I think is really prominent amongst players who think that Yokic is judged differently and they feel the same way about Yonis quite frankly

to foreign guys and I want to get you guys's take on Yokic winning three straight MVP's and if that's the proper precedent to set with a guy who you know let's face it he's not Mike he's not Larry he's not magic he hasn't

won that way where are you guys in that whole argument I'm here for it I think you should win it yeah it's not like you can't go back and say because in the past only certain guys have won three MVPs now we have to gatekeep it

he deservedly won the first two and he deserves it this year. That's just how it is. I 100% agree. He's the best player in the league, in my opinion. I don't care what the players think. That's the players don't get to vote. Yeah. The players gave Chet Holmgren all-star votes this year. What was that? The players gave Chet Holmgren all-star votes this year.

Yeah. Not great talent evaluators, but go on, Mike. Just look at it. Okay. This man is the best player on the, the best team in the Western Conference. He's averaging a triple double. The Denver Nuggets are 21 and 0 when he has a triple double. They're outscoring opponents by 13.7 points per 100 positions when he's on the court, which is the highest individual net rating in the NBA.

He is the most efficient post-scorer. He's having one of the most efficient scoring seasons in the history of the NBA. I don't really know. Nobody makes their teammates better. He's just the most valuable dude. Like, I don't... Shout out to you for having 13.7 just... That's the only number I'm going to have off the top of my head in this whole conversation.

I love that. And for the record, I agree with both of you guys. I think he's playing better than everybody. His team is having the success. I think just to play devil's advocate, the argument on the other side is that nobody gets to win MVP's as a six seed. Nobody gets to flame out in the first and second round, and everybody takes them serious as an MVP candidate. Of course, there are caveats and there's reasons for why the team might have underperformed. but I understand when players say, wait a minute,

we've had this one standard for 75 years, and then this dude comes from Serbia, and all of a sudden we're changing rules for him. And I'm telling you, they feel very similarly about Janus and how he's handled and covered in the media. And to be honest, like, when I talk to my normie basketball friends, you know, people who don't know what a VORP is or real plus minus or any of that,

They feel quite similarly. They're like, yo, the white boys overrated, right? I don't agree, but I understand where if people are looking at it from how we've traditionally done it and see what's happening with him that they would have some pushback. Hey, I think that's a different conversation, though, and I think it's fair. But if you even compare Yokic and Janice, it's hard to make the same argument. Yannis has won a championship. He's consistently been the best player for a team that's been like the number one to four seed pretty consistently.

like they're both in different situations. So you can't really make the same argument for both of those guys. But I hear, I hear what's being said, though, because there is like this weird model minority infantization of like every European player, every foreign player. They're just like,

oh, they just don't care about all of like the, you know, Yokic in his media availability today. Like we were even eating it up, right? Like we're talking about how, oh, he said he wants to win MVP this year because last year he said he didn't want to win. in it and he felt like people talked about that too much. So this year he's like, if I say yes, maybe they'll leave me alone.

And we all just like, he's so grounded. Oh my goodness. He just doesn't want like, oh my. He's just like not like other girls, you know? Like it's just, you know? And it's not really fair because like there are different scenarios going on. And like I think if you grow up in a situation like you get all of this attention from a very young age, yes, you are more likely to have an addiction to attention at a later age.

And that is what a lot, like what goes on a lot with American players. No, I completely generalize. Listen, you preach it to the choir. Yeah, like, I don't want to completely generalize that. But then, like, to use the fact that there are players that grew up in completely different scenarios that somehow have a different outlook on life against American players is not fair. Yeah. I hear you.

And my thing mainly, yeah, give it up for Syrah. That was a beautiful point. My main thing about the team success and all of that and MVP and all of that is I literally think the league is just way better. It's harder to win on just one guy being great unlike it used to be. It was enough to just have your one MVP level guy and you could count on maybe going to the conference finals. I mean, God knows the Bucks did it one time with Gary Payton washed up. Right? Like, so, like, it's just harder to win now.

And so to Doc Yolkich for being as great as he is, it just doesn't make any sense. To me, you know, I love Joelle and B. He's a great player. He's obviously a better defense. But the difference between him and Yokic, to me, one guy's a great offensive player, one, the other guy's an offense unto himself. He's a great offense by himself. Monty Morris getting buckets last year in the playoff.

This is ridiculous. I don't even know why we do this. And, you know, I think I understand the Tatum love. I understand the Embed love. I understand even if somebody would to want to vote for Janus, I would completely understand it. But for me, yeah, I got to go with Yolkich. I hate that we're agreeing on this. Let's get into some fights.

Okay. Shall we? The Phoenix Suns, because I want to talk about the championship chase. A lot of people think the Suns are going to be world beaters. they're going to be this juggernaut. What say you, Mike? I think they're going to be really good. I'm a little skeptical.

I'm a little skeptical of the depth. I don't know who the fifth starter is. Tori Craig. Campaign. You're making my point for me. Landry Shamit. These are all quality role players. But you're, you know,

also have a situation where Chris Paul gets hurt every single year. KD. gets hurt. KD. gets hurt. Every year. A lot. Devin Booker gets hurt every single year. These players get hurt. Thank you for making my point for me once. Yes, exactly.

KD, tremendous offensive talent, obviously. And we were talking in the back. You're a little dubious about Devin Booker and KD and the overlap there with the offensive skill set. I think it's going to be a lot of one-on-one stuff going on. I don't think it's going to be this beautiful game, continuity,

egalitarian stuff that Phoenix likes to do. I think it's going to be a lot of this ISO, super ISO. I think it's going to look like the Nets from last year. Obviously, the Nets didn't have somebody the caliber of Chris Paul when he's right, but I'm not too crazy about what they're doing in Phoenix. And most importantly, like, it's not as if, KD has been some world beater outside of the Golden State

context in the playoffs. Just go look it up. You can go look up 2016. What he did. He played well, but he wasn't some world beating, destruction-reaking machine. Yeah, KD. has historically just struggled a lot against

physicality throughout his career, but I think as he gets older, that's only going to get worse. And I'm just reminded of the Celtic series last year. Like, the guy, if you put a body on him, he just couldn't get past the nail. and in a Western conference that has a lot of physical teams and a Phoenix Sun's team that frankly just doesn't have a lot of death left over it doesn't have a lot of front court talent like Aiton is basically their whole front line

then you add that with the fact that they also have Chris Paul who is historically struggled against those kinds of teams and you look at you just you look at everyone that's in the West and I don't know exactly how it's going to go down but like they run into the pelicans or the grizzlies I don't know I just they could beat those teams and then end up just getting picked off by somebody else because I don't think that they can make it all the way through four rounds. Well, we were talking in the back and I, the series, I don't know about you guys, but the series that I want to see in the Western Conference is Golden State versus the Suns.

And I think Golden State will kick their asses. I really do. If they are reasonably healthy, they will kick their asses up and down that court. And I'd be willing to put some money on it, Mike. Listen, we can talk about that later. Don't worry about all that. We can get it to specifics later. It'd be a fun one.

I mean, you said the big thing. If they're healthy, they haven't been healthy all season, the Golden State Warriors. Their defense has been below average. Who are you taking in the series? If the Warriors are healthy, I'm taking the Warriors. Oh, that's not what he was saying in the back, though. That is not what he was saying in the back.

What do you think about a potential? I love the story and the drama that would be involved in that series, but I think legitimately it's a fascinating basketball matchup. I think it's tough because Durant is pretty clearly the best player in pretty much any series in a Western conference, and that's why you got to give him some respect. Is he better than Steph? Yes, yes, he is.

He's better than Steph. When he was on the Warriors, he was better than Steph. We're getting murmurs in the crowd right now. Yeah. I disagree. I really think Steph Curry is such a model superstar. He allowed this guy to be himself. And he was able to sort of be like,

all right, I'll find my way to contribute to what I'm doing. But if Steph wanted to, he could have been the ball-dominant killer that he was last year in the playoffs. I will say real quick. Also, Steph, Game 4 of the finals, against the Celtics team that just absolutely dominated Kevin Durant.

That's a tough one. That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. Okay. That's true. That kind of goes to... Igoudala has a finals MVP.

What are we doing with this finals MVP crap? It's crappola. Whoa, whoa, whoa. We can't go that far. We can't go that far. It's crapola. Step was great in every single finals that he played in. essentially.

Delahoba hobo is the Steph stop? He had to get an... You gotta stop. He had to get an IV drip after two games. Come on. That was not easy. Come on. Come on.

Brin got that dude $40 million. Ain't heard from him since. He's on milk cartons. Y'all talking about Delah Bobo and Steph Curry? Come on, y'all. Have some respect. Let's say they're a wash. I know we in Utah, but have some respect.

By the way, just a sidebar. The black guy head nod in Salt Lake has a deeper meaning. It's crazy. I was just like, yo, nod. I felt that, brother. Yes. I see you. I see you too, brother.

Go on. Sorry. What? What? We wasn't doing that today? All right. Let's say those two are awash. Just so we don't get lost in the weeds of that.

Sure. I just, I think the Warriors own Chris Paul. I think they own him like in perpetuity. I think they love playing players like that where you can predict what they're going to do. You can get them to just basically tell you what's going to happen. And I think they enjoy it.

I think they enjoy it the way that they enjoy beating a player like Russell Westbrook. Yeah. Because it like, it's like about their basketball sensibilities and the philosophy. Like I think they really liked playing the Rockets and I think they really liked playing Westrook

because it was like this clash of styles. And we're going to prove that the beautiful game is better. And working it around is better. And, like, chaos is better. And unpredictability is better. I think they would just enjoy a series like that. And I also think Draymond would end up just doing things to Aiton that would impact him for, like, the next 20 years.

He was talking about in therapy. Like, you know. He's shit in a prison book? What are like, damn? Mike, you were saying? When can we talk about, can we talk about the clippers ever? Oh, God. We're doing this with the Clippers?

We can't actually. We're doing this? We're doing this? Go ahead. No, I just think that they should be more in this conversation. I think that they're better than Phoenix. It's not good. It's not good.

I know all that. I just, I love Kauai. I bow at the altar of Kauai when he plays. When he plays. Good call. He's been playing lately. He's been playing an extremely high level. And I just, I love that team.

I think they're built for the postseason. They've got lineup versatility. They've got depth. I love Eric Gordon on that team. They had all of that in 2020, then got worked. Who's your finals pick? Eastern Conference is pretty easy for me. I think the Celtics are going to win the finals.

In the West, I think if you put a gun to my head right now, it sounds incredibly stupid. I think the Warriors are going to make sense. The Warriors, wow. Finals rematch. Michael, Michael Pina, who's your team? There's just no one else I have faith in. Yeah, no.

Like, I don't think Denver has a perimeter defense. I don't think Memphis has the offense. They're not ready. I think Dallas has Kyrie. That's a different show. Yeah. Yeah. I like the Celtics, too, coming out of the Eastern Conference.

Oh, my. Go ahead, Mike. I mean, I tried to float the clippers and I got shot down so I'm not going to bring them up again coming out of the West. I think the Nuggets are more serious when we were talking about this in the back. I mean, they're the best team for a reason. Again, go Nuggets.

They have the best player. And I know the defensive concerns, but when Yokic is on the court this season, they have the fourth best defense in the NBA. I don't know. I don't understand why no one's talking about this. Numbers, Mike. No.

It's not that bad. Straight up. He's not that. That's the endorsement that we're looking. Put it on a T-shirt. Yeah, no, I actually happen to agree with you about Denver. I picked them before the season started. I just liked the way they put that team together to bring in Brown in the offseason.

Kenny, Colopold, love that guy, one of my favorite players in the league. I just think top to bottom. They have the best unit in the NBA, Denver's offense. I'll put them against any unit out there, including Boston's defense. And I do think they're going to play the Celtics in the finals, and I think they're going to beat them. I really do.

Okay. I think the Nuggets are going to win the NBA championship this year. I do. I really feel that way. And I wanted to get you guys out here before we bring in the Q&A. You mentioned Kyrie. We're not going to talk about that. I happen to think the Lucas, like it makes sense for,

him to play next to Luca. Like, obviously the offense is already incredible, but in the playoffs you can't just ask one guy to initiate offense every single possession and expect to win, you know, in the biggest games, in the biggest rounds.

Like, he's just one man. So I think having Kyrie as an offensive hub is going to do wonders for Luca and his freshness in big games. But, you know, there is a thing called defense. And it's tough. it's tough

they're not beating anybody their third best player is Josh Green right now like their center is Christian Wood I don't know what else to say they're not going to beat anybody love Luca Kyrie's a special offensive talent but

Mike you were around the Kyrie thing in Boston though yeah and Brooklyn and oh my God and Brooklyn so If you were having a frank conversation with a Dallas Mavericks fan right now, what would you tell them to expect? Pick a new team.

Oh, Lord have mercy. Yeah, he's blown up literally every single situation. You know, Bill always likes to make the comparison of like a crazy ex-girlfriend. He's just like a really attractive person, lover. but you know it's just not gonna... I can change her. Yeah, famous last words.

So we about to bring back the rest of the crew for a Q&A. They've told me that you guys have to line up right there if you want to ask questions. Yeah, everybody else come out. You're up, brother. What's your name?

My name is Jake. What up, Jake? We got two Jakes in here. Jake from State Farm was in the building. That's right. Jake. Salute to Jake. So my question is for KOC,

because I've been listening to you, fighting in the trenches, defending our guy, Rudy Gobert, against ceaseless Chris Vernon Slander. Thank you. My question is about the jazz from two years ago. We were the number one seed in the West

in the whole league. And we went up, we went up 2-0 on the Clippers. For the first time of my life, I thought it was going to happen, and it didn't. It was horrible. Who is the name a player that's not like Janus, that the Jazz could have added to that team

and won the NBA championship? I'm not sure there is one player. I mean, like, Jeremy Grant is, like, the first name that popped into my head. I'm thinking about, like, what Portland added around Dame. It's a totally different situation. But what Rudy Gobert and the Jazz didn't have was support. I think when, like, Gober gets so much hate

for, like, because he get pulled out of the paint, but there was nobody else Utah had to protect the paint, you know, to help him out. That's the way I feel about that Utah situation. So a Jeremy Grant-esque player, but not just one of them, probably two or three of them. Do you guys agree with me on stage about those jazz teams? I think the problem with the team is that they went all in on Rudy being an incredible defensive player and had no point of attack defense. Like Mike Conley had a reputation, but he was older.

Donvin Mitchell became like a 30-point-per-game kind of guy, and he kind of didn't care about defense as much. Not like he does now in Cleveland. Well, you know, change the scenery. Do that. Spice things up, you know. So I think that was the problem. They couldn't stop anybody at the point of attack

to the point where Jalen Brunson's getting Max Deals off of Utah's defense, right? And so, yeah, that's where I'm at with it. Next. Good question, Jake. Thank you. Hey, everyone. My name's Chris.

At the end of the season, you're given a choice. You have to choose one of the, these two things, inject 82 Hornet stings into your body at one time, general time, or be forced to watch all 82 games of the Charlotte Hornets this season in succession with Mason Plumley and the left-handed hook shots and everything else. Open question. Want to go down the line? Like clockwork orange style?

I'm thinking CIA off-site, but you have at least basic human needs. This is eight days of Hornets basketball. 2020-23 season. Can I choose when I'm eating? Sure. It has to be canned, but yes. Yeah, I'm taking the B-stings. I'll go with the games.

I watch enough already because I hate myself apparently. Yeah, I'll grind some tape. I'll grind tape. Hell yes, Sarah. Yeah, get after it. Hi, my name's Jason. Welcome to Utah. A lot of shout-outs to Logan for his outfit.

and you do look good, Logan, but KOC, man. That's great. Yeah, I mean, not ready to do. He's ready for brunch. Yeah, it looks like he's going to audit my taxes or something. Looks like an oil tycoon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

I need the cowboy hat, like you said earlier, Kyle. KOC cowboy hat needs to happen. It just does. Kevin O. Cowboy hat. There it is. There we go. So, we're in Utah. A lot of jazz content, obviously.

I'm not going to zag. Jazz have presumably, I don't know, 60 million in cap space this off-season. We talked about like teams that are free agent destinations. Let's be honest, Utah is not one of those four or five places where free agents go. That's all right. We got Danny Aange and we got $60 million in cap space and a boatload of picks. So if you were to guess, pull out your crystal ball.

and one of these guys shakes loose a la Kevin Durant or, you know, Kyrie Irving, none of us saw this coming, who would you say is the next disgruntled superstar that would be made available? Ben Simmons. Hey, we said superstar. I think Waz called Ben Simmons a cactus, right? That's how he plays.

They're showing him clips. They're like looking at the time. Said, wait a minute, this is from like three years. years ago, yeah. LSU highlights. How about like cat? Carl Anthony Towns? I agree. Boo, I totally agree. Can Carl Anthony Towns carry a championship team at this point?

Can he be the primary? It was rhetorical. Who else? Who else? Nobody. That's why I said Ben Simmons. Is Zach Levine a superstar? No, I mean, be a primary. I'm not talking like the Grinch carrying it up the mountain by themselves.

I mean, I'm talking to it takes. the village to win a title. Even MJ needed Pippin, you know. It might not have to happen this year for Utah, though. I mean, they have all these picks deep into the future. You can build a little slower and wait for the right moment three, four years from now, or even just two years from now. I don't know about the summer, though.

They could take their time building around Walker Casley, you know. I don't think Dame is going to force his way out of Portland to go to Utah. It's no disrespect. I just, from what I understand about. his thinking, I don't think he would force his way out of it to come to salt. Food's pretty good there. I don't know. Salt lit.

Among other things. He's the consummate pro. We can say that. All right. Yeah, I'm buddy. So, Logan, I just want to ask you because I had a question for Raja. I wanted to know who his softest teammate ever was. So if you could ask him that one time, I'd appreciate that.

But question for the group. over here is tell me is this a good wrinkle to the season so what if we went to 72 games on the year you play everyone in your conference three times right other team other conference two times and in the playoffs seedings is the same as it is but home corner advantage go to whoever won the season series so let's say eight is playing one but the eight seed won the season series they would get game seven at home what do you guys think of that hate it hate it Why?

I'm curious. Why? Because the great, like, if you're going to use a three-game sample size rather than a 72-game one, like, that defeats the purpose of an entire regular season, in my opinion. That's why I'm not very into it. But other people might think it's a good idea. I think it increases the value of every game, though. Exactly.

That's my point. Well, I'm with you on that. I think we need way less games. I want to see us do a round robin. play home and home. Get us out of here. You know, two games a week. Let's go.

I don't need 82 games. I think, like, creating meaning for the regular season definitely matters, though. Like, I agree, Michael. It does increase the meaning of those games. But I wonder, like, the idea I've had in my mind is, like, letting the top three seeds choose their opponent. Because then it's, like, you get an incentive to actually get a top three seed instead of just four, five, six. Putting that in the hands of the Warriors, that would be fun.

And then you get the little fuck you of you have you picked us. All right, buddy. I mean, I'm wired that way. We talk about that on our show all the time. I would love that element of it. But I think something that is present in the NFL and that's honestly present even in college basketball more is that like when your team starts kind of flirting with the bubble,

like every game does have more. College football is the ultimate example of this. I mean, like if you're a powerhouse and you want to make the playoff, you can be done in like the first couple weeks. I think the NBA, there are just so many games. I mean, and this comes from me. I watch basketball all the time. But it does just sort of become diluted.

They definitely need to think about doing something like that, I think. My name's Jack. I'm a diehard Wolves fan. And you mentioned Cat earlier. Cat coming back. How do we feel about it? Is it going to work, not work? I think you should just get rid of cat and just build her on Anthony Edwards.

I think that would be the right call. Beautifully said. That's probably what you should do. I mean, they had to, they traded four picks for a guy that plays his position. Like, just think about that He plays the same position as Rudy Gobert And it's not even like he ever played the four It's not like he had a few minutes

And like, you know, like their big man would come into the game And like, you know, every once in a while in the third quarter He had zero minutes at the four ever in his career In a long career Just doesn't make sense Well, I mean there was that play earlier in the season There was probably multiple plays like this but I remember one where Gobert and Kat running in transition,

getting back on defense, both took the center, leaving a shooter wide open on the wing because they're just so used to playing back, defending the five, and that's it. So I think is it going to work for a level of becoming a championship team this year? No. Could it be better than it was early in the year when Kat was coming back from a sickness? Yeah, I think it could be because that's partially, like you said, Logan,

Anthony Edwards has taken a leap. Ant has become a all-world caliber talent the last two months. So it would hit with Minnesota figuring that out, adding Mike Conley and Gobert being better as of late as well. I think it can be better than it was earlier in the season. But, you know, I still don't trust the cat. Gobert fit long term. Yeah, and we had John Krasinski on our show.

He's like the most plugged-in wolves guy. Amazing, yeah. And he was like, yeah, that's the next domino to fall. If this doesn't work out, they're going to trade Carl Anthony Towns for sure. Didn't you literally, didn't they trip over each other at one point during the season? I feel like I clipped that at one point. That was like the symbolic moment. And like one of them fell down.

I was like, that was just the perfect symbol for their dynamic. Hey, how's it going? My name's Ben, huge Nuggets fan. I see the Jersey. I've sat through the 09, Western Conference final team that lost the Lakers. The 57 win team that jumped started the Warriors dynasty. The 2020 bubble team that lost to the Lakers convinced me that the Denver Nuggets

are going to win the championship this year because I'm convinced we're cursed. Michael? You got Yokic, man. You got the jersey on? Yeah. Like, they have one of the best offenses of all time. I feel like they've added the pieces around him

to supplement his defensive shortcomings. Aaron Gordon's having a tremendous season. Montmarry looks like he's all the way back. You should feel good. If I can follow up real quick, who covers, who cards KD in a playoff series? Like, what is the answer to KD? That's a question everybody's asking. No one.

I mean. Yeah, that's Gordon. That's Gordon's job. But you got some bodies to throw at him. I mean, no, I mean, you've never had a player like Yokic, man. I mean, like, you never had a table setter floor raiser like Nicola Yokic. I mean, he's, yeah, he's like one of the best offensive players ever to play. I mean, I think this is a unique situation.

My favorite thing about Yolkits is that his game doesn't change no matter what the situation is. So five minutes to go, he's going to play exactly how he plays all game. So you can't put one guy on him. You can't send help. You can't leave him open from three. There's nothing you can do with this dude. So in the playoffs, that matters. Clutch offense.

For sure. I mean, like in the NBA nowadays, there's so much variance because of shooting. Denver is consistently. an elite offense. I think they have less variance. I haven't looked this up, but I'd imagine statistically they have less variance because of Yokic being the talent that he is. So you look at teams like Boston, they shoot 45, three-pointers a game. They have nights where they shoot the heck out of it. They have nights where they shoot poorly. So I think for Denver it's going to be about at least being average defensively in the postseason, but continuing to be, you know, an all-world,

all-time level offense. That's the key to winning a championship for them because I don't think the defense is ever going to be elite with Yokic. I mean, he's a good defender, above average defender, but he's not... He's not that bad. Yeah, he's not bad. He's not bad. It's just he's not an enforcer inside, like some of the other contenders have. So it's about

still maintaining that elite offense. Thanks, guys. Thank you. We need to talk about the honest disrespect. Talk about it. None of you picked the Celtics, but he almost beat them by himself last year. You don't think with the healthy Middleton,

they're doing anything? I picked the Bucks right now. And Joe Ingalls. You pick the Bucs. I have the Bucks number one right now. The Bucs in the championship. Yeah, number one right now. Okay.

Jingling Joe. I've just watched the Bucks in three to four straight playoffs, just throw up all over themselves on offense. Like, at least three, four times a series, every single series. This is why I just don't like picking them. That's it. That's it.

like Jew holiday turns into Boston without Middleton though. Almost. This Celtics team is better though than last year's Celtics team. Yeah. Significantly. My man Derek White?

Yeah. Michael? You're the Yokes guy. You don't love Janus. Is there an argument? I got nothing against say. We're splitting hairs. We're splitting hairs.

No disrespect to Janus. I will say that Rob Williams was impaired in that series as well. But no one wants to talk about that. That's okay. Next question. Howdy? I'm Dan.

And a recent episode was, you seem kind of triggered by the mere mention of Dario Sarich. And I was just wondering if any of the rest of you had players, whether it's their game or the discourse surrounding them, that the mere mention of them

was similarly unpleasant. I mean, for me, to just explain the Sarge thing, like the hanky discourse in the media used to drive me up a wall where it's like, this guy's a genius because he figured out

that when you lose more game, you get more lottery balls. I was like, that's not a... Okay. All right, that's not a, like, that's not smart. And so Sarish, they would always bring him up. Like, oh, he's such a genius. He drafted Sarich number 10.

And it's like, this dude's barely in the league anymore. Next question. Lance Stevenson, for what it's worth is fine. Former immediate player. Hey, guys, how's it going? My name's Adam. I'm a Warriors fan, if you can't tell. Steph Curry is probably my version of Joseph Smith.

You guys... Same. Same. So this question is directed to Logan, because you kind of brought it up. You know, in order to extend Steph's window, assuming that they don't win the championship this year, which I'm not super optimistic they can hold it together four rounds, assuming that Draymond does opt in, what do you think the likelihood is that they would consider to trade him or even move off a clay, use his expiring contract to extend Steph's window and try to get him

some more championships. I think Dremond, and he's probably said it himself, he's probably the one that's most likely to go out of that core to get traded. I don't know where he goes out of that. But I think that just everything that he has done this season has kind of amplified his exit out of Golden State. Clay is a little fuzzy because he's a guy that is, how should I say this? He is a stable guy on that team and he's gone through rehab and he hasn't really caused

as much trouble as Draymond. over the left. Exactly. He ain't did all that. But I think it's the most likely is Draymond dipping out of the whole core for them to get better. What about Jordan Pool, Logan? Could they flip him this summer? I know he just signed the contract, but I don't know, man.

They've been tough to, like, get rid of pool. He hasn't been good this year, though. Not the Sims. No, Peter. No, I just, I don't see it at this point. I don't see him as the likely one. He's the guy that is young. He's one of the, no matter what his struggles are, he's one of the best young prospects that they have right now.

And if they want to extend their window, they're going to need guys like Jordan Poole, like Caminga, like Moody, to get to the next step in order them to be successful. But I don't see Jordan Poole getting traded no time soon. Thank you. Where are you from? Where are you from? I went to Santa Clara. Oh, hell, okay. There you go.

Yeah, I lived in Campbell. Word, okay, cool. Pena, 10 seconds on pool, please. Please, please. You have to. It's not the Jordan Pool guy. I was going to answer the Dario Cyrus triggered question with Jordan Pool and then just leave it that.

We can move on. It's okay. What's up, y'all? Wise. What's going on? What's up, what's up, brother? We're here. We're here. We here. We're here. It's fine. It's going to be okay.

I got it. I got two words for y'all, load management. So what do you think, what do you project the league is going to do to address the issue with guys sitting out? Fans are being disgruntled with the fact that they go to these games. They're not able to see their favorite players. They're paying inflated ticket prices. Guys are sitting out with sore big toes. I mean.

Name names. One of your guys, Kauai. But what do you project that the league is going to do to address the issue of what's saying in the next five years? I think they're probably going to, with the next collective bargaining agreement, they're probably going to put incentives now to, like, game incentives. Okay. Of minimum games incentives that you need to play this amount of games to get this amount of money. And I don't even think it's just a load management thing.

it's a Ben Simmons is an example of this, right, of like guys that are just sitting out whole season and still trying to get paid. The league does not like that. So I think that what's going to happen is... Well, he's getting paid for his fashion. Well, the thing is, Logan, do you see that?

I think he's paying for his fashion with all them checks. But I think that that's what's going to happen. In the next CBA, I think the league is going to push for more minimum games in their contracts to make sure players do play a minimum them set of games in order to get their full salary.

But did you see the Adam Silver comments today about load management? He pretty much said there's like science behind it and he kind of defended it when he was asked about it. I think you should ask Adam Silver that question. Get it out of him. It was passionate. I'll have a meeting with him. There you go.

You seem tapped in. Hey, good evening, y'all. Thanks for being here. So you all see the jersey on tonight. Just question for the group. What's the plan with? the expansion. Seattle's a fantastic basketball city. Have you heard anything within the next five years of it coming back to the PNW? I think Silver addressed this today and he said that they wanted to

get through collective bargaining. They wanted to get through the next media deal. And then it looked like I think the path is clear for expansion. Before 2030, I think. Probably like mid, mid, late 2020s like 26, 27, something like that. I'd be a little bit. surprise if we don't get expansion at this point. Seattle, Vegas. Let's go. All right. Thank you. Better be Seattle. Better be. Hey, what's up, y'all? My name's Russ.

I got a couple questions for you tonight. First one is, what do you think the legacy is of the bubble championship? And the second one is, where's the after party at? I think the bubble is, you know, the beauty. is in the eye of the beholder. If I'm a Laker fan, I'm like, yo, our guys had to... Hold on.

Are there any Laker fans here? Damn, fuck that. If you're a Laker fan, you're like, our guys had to hunker down who's the purest form of basketball, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, yeah, it's a real championship. It was the hardest championship ever.

If you don't root for the Lakers, you can poo-poo it. To me, that's just what it is. I look at it. I watch those games. They played hardest. hell. And it was great execution. It was extremely high-level basketball. I take it seriously. I don't know where everybody else. I did two walls. It's a legitimate championship. Everybody was

on the same playing field. I think with the Lakers championship in the bubble, it's just because we're in a pandemic and just dire straits in general, I think L.A. just didn't have the connection with that championship in the way that they did in other ways just because, you know, it was in it was, there were no fans in the arena. It was in some place in Florida. 3,000 miles away, and people were dealing with real-life stuff during that time. So it was just a lot of, you know, ancillary factors that went into that disconnect. And it's going to be hard for that to happen. It's probably going to be hard for Bron to stomach that.

But that's just what it is. Like, there is a disconnect. I'm sorry, Kerm up there. Kerm is out there really sad right now. He's right there. Really, really sad. He puts on for the Lakers in that bubble title, but it is going to be a disconnect for years to come. But they did get that banner, but yeah, it's going to be disconnect for sure.

All right, thank you. A clipper jacket. That's crazy. That's going. I just want to go back to a question that I don't feel I got addressed enough. Going back to my guy, Michael Pina right there. What a great article in the ringer.com. Saloo.

A good website. Great website. Why not the clippers? You know, other than injuries, taking that aside, why not the clippers? Taking aside the biggest factor. Taking aside? I mean, look at Kauai. Read the article.

Read the article. Front court, that's right. Also, I think the Nuggets sort of own their soul at this point. Ever since that bubble shalacking, that embarrassment that they put you guys through, they just own them.

They have their number. It's one of those things. She mentioned it with the Warriors and Chris Paul. I really think the nuggets are that to the clippers. Like, they just poison for the clippers. So, yeah, I don't take the clippers seriously as a championship. There's also just a curse. Yeah, they are the clips. By the way, I feel like there's some spicy Denver Nuggets stuff going.

Like, are there more Nuggets fans here than you? Yeah, like it feels like there's a little. Yeah. Curses can be broken, Syer. Oh, yeah, the Boston guy. Red Sox, Cubs. Right. Kings are about to make the playoffs.

Yeah. You're right. Counterpoint. The Jets. Yeah. Hey, what's up, you guys? What's going on, brother? My name is Kenyon.

I'm a jazz fan. And I feel like you guys never talk about the jazz for months and months. It seems conspicuously absent from your topics. So my question is, what do you think about all this? The blow up trading our top players, $60 million in Capspace, 15 first round picks. Are we doing this right? What do you think? I mean, is there crazy potential in the future?

Is this artfully executed by Danny Aange? All this in the last three, four months, you guys, I don't think you've mentioned it once or twice, so let's hear it. What do you think? What do you think about the jazz right now strategically moving forward? Thank you.

I wrote a 2,500 word feature about the Utah Jazz. Oh, my bad, I missed that. My bad. I can't wait to read that. I can't wait to read that. I only listen to the podcast. So there's a podcast thing. On your various shows,

I don't hear the mention at all for some time. Reading is fundamental, my friend. You got any thoughts on the jazz, Kyle? I thought we talked about them a lot in the beginning of the year. It's one of the coolest stories. I think one of the big things is that we looked at their roster and there were so many players in a squished into a middle tier that we were like, yeah, there's nothing really.

There was nobody like they're terrible. There's nobody that was like, that's an obvious star. But they just had a lot of good play. Like Jared Vanderbilt is one of my main, My man's dudes. I loved him. And, I mean, they used to have a lot of good, just serviceable players.

I think they got overlooked, and it was fun. But in terms of doing it the way that they're... Their current roster? No, I'm familiar with the roster, but I'm just saying that I loved Vando at the time at the beginning of the year. That's what I was referencing, but yeah. We good?

We got one more? Oh, we're done. That's the show, y'all. Thank you, everybody. Thank you guys for coming tonight. That was awesome.