The Ringer NBA Show - Road to a Brighter Future: Pacers, Suns, and Pelicans Offseason Moves | Group Chat

Episode Date: October 21, 2020

J. Kyle Mann joins Justin, Rob, and Tjarks to talk about the offseason for a few of the more underappreciated teams, including the Pacers’ new head coach, Nate Bjorkgren, and Oladipo’s future with the team, the Suns’ draft pick and offseason moves, and the Pelicans’ trade potential.  Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Jonathan Tjarks Guest: J. Kyle Mann Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to the group chat. I am Justin Varyer. On today's episode, we're going to get into some Pacers coaching news. We're also going to talk about the other teams that didn't make the Western Conference playoffs and might have a shot this season or this upcoming season after this off season. But first, we have some breaking news. I feel like we need some sirens here, some bp-b-b-b-whatever. Stan Van Gundy is now the head coach of the New Orleans.

Pelicans Rob Mahoney. What is your first take here? Can we get like one more go on those sirens? Or maybe it just splice something in for Justin's sake. I feel like, oh boy. I mean, I think we've been talking about this match for a while because it just makes a lot of sense. You know, especially once Ty Loo was off the board as a championship coach who could make sense with this roster, San Van Gundy, to me, was always the next name in line, a guy who makes so much sense to this team defensively,

who could bring them an identity but also a discipline. You know, he's the kind of coach you want to bring a young. team to that next stage to get them to a playoff caliber level of competition. Yeah, it seems like, so the last job he had in Detroit, it felt like he tried to make Andre Drummond into Dwight Howard. But I feel like Zion probably makes more sense in that role. And to me, the first thing that comes out to me is what happens to that center spot next to Zion? I feel like this makes a spacing big man even more likely going forward. Well, let's remember, too, not only did they try to make Andre Drummond into Dwight Howard,

but he also played around with some handoff stuff with Andre Drummond trying to make him more of a facilitator for offense which Zion beyond being just kind of a physical force is a really intuitive passer could do some really interesting things if they want to go that route

within a Stan Van Gundy offense as well. Yeah, look at Andre Drummond now. That's what Zion's future is going to be is what we're saying. No, I think the biggest issue for New Orleans during the Alvin Gentry era has been defense. They have had like a world of success on offense, but for some reason they couldn't find a counterbalance.

They always managed to have a good offense. In the one season, I believe they had a top 10 defense under Gentry. The offense cratered, they overcorrected in that issue. So focusing on the defensive side of the ball makes sense for the team in general just to provide some balance on that roster, but it also makes sense for Zion. I look at this higher is potentially, if all works well, as the Mike Brown era of LeBron's career, where he was still growing, and he talked about this now, he really learned how to play defense, became this just havoc wrecker on that end.

And then everything else came together. It really completed the package. And if you build that defensive stability in an offensive talent like Zion, he could be someone a couple of years down the road who is as impactful as LeBron is now. I see a lot of parallels, too, between this situation and what happened in Philadelphia.

Because, you know, Brett Brown, whatever you think of him as a coach, his job boils down to can Joel and Bede stay on the floor and can Joel and Bede be in shape enough to play big minutes? And those two things didn't really happen. If Zion is both of those things, Stan Van Gundy's going to look really good. And if he's not, the Pelicans are going to have problems long term.

The other thing, too, with the Philly comparison, so that's Doc Rivers, Stan Van Gundy, and Tom Thibito. These are all coached GMs who find that as GMs, but now are getting a second chance, or maybe a third or fourth chance technically, as just coaches. Because you've got to think if Dale Griffin's running this team, It's a daily Griffin show, not going to be standing back going to making the moves here. Yeah, it probably doesn't hurt that he also has JJ Reddick on this roster,

who can kind of tie the pass to the presence, can almost shepherd in maybe some of his principles. If you're looking at his offense, though, maybe is there anything to be gleaned from his time in Orlando or even Detroit, or even dating back to his Miami years that you could see that could help this New Orleans Pelicans team? Do you expect him to run anything similarly? Or are we expecting something completely different, given the personnel there? I think it all goes back to that favor's Zion thing. If they're going to bring back favors, it's a very different kind of offense

because you have two non-shooting bigs. If they're moving off favors and they're bringing in a shooting big man next to Zion, then it becomes pretty intuitive how he'd want to run his offense. I think that to me, they've got the coach. Now, what happens at Center

is the next big question for this franchise. Yeah, I mean, based on the way that he's put his lineups together previously, I would bet on them playing more of some kind of big next to Zion, not really rolling him out as the sole rim protector. think is the most important part of that, just because I don't think,

I can't imagine Stan Van Gundy trust Zion as the most important interior defender on his team yet. So I could see a guy like favors being slotted in for that reason. So there's going to be some balance there. You're going to get some minutes with Zion and bench guys where he's playing more of a five, but a lot of times where they're going to have to make room,

create room, find space working with him, and kind of a semi-traditional big, at least. Yeah, so in Adrian Wojernowski's tweet, kind of announcing this news, he said that Van Gundy's history, of building top defensive teams and his vision for the roster in place is what swung David Griffin to make this higher. I think that last part is something we should probably underline here, vision for the roster in place. We're going to talk later in this podcast as we

previously recorded this and we're putting this on top of it about what to do with Drew Holiday. So you would imagine that swings things more toward keeping Drew than trading him, but I guess we'll see. That's it for us here, but you'll hear us coming back in a bit. We record this earlier in the day, but we'll talk about the Pacers. We'll talk about more Pelican stuff. We'll talk about other teams in the West. Just coming up next on group chat. Hello and welcome to Group Chat, the Ringer's weekly NBA group discussion where we talk about everything from RIP Moneyball to hello, no money ball.

I am Justin Verrier and joining me today, Jonathan Sharks. What's up, guys? Rob Mahoney. Hi. And our special guest, you may know him is J. Kyle Mann. We only call him Kyle. man. What's up, Kyle? How's it going? Welcome, welcome to the other side of the audio bracket. We're happy to have you. Yeah, this is exciting. It's sort of like the finding the others thing and

lost. You know what I mean? I don't know who's here. The whole world over here. Yeah. All I know is when when we started this call today, you said something into the microphone and it just, it felt like drinking some warm apple cider, man. That voice is just perfect for audio. Oh, stop it. All right, let's get right into this where everybody wants to get into. I feel like we're doing a lot of Pacers talk lately. And here we are again, because this is literally the only actual news happening in NBA. The Pacers hired a new coach to replace Nate McMillan. His name is, and let me get this right, Nate Bjork Grin.

Beork Grin, right? Pretty good. Rob, can you tell me anything without looking it up about Nate Bjorken? my background knowledge was he was on the Raptor staff I knew he was a D-League guy and thus a Nick Nurse guy and that was if I'm being honest kind of the extent of my familiarity with Nate Bjorkren until yesterday so it's it's going to be a fun fact-finding few months about a coach who we don't have a lot of

background on even though he's been coaching for a long time at least in terms of what he's going to be running in the NBA Kyle what do you think about this higher so they get rid of Nate in kind of weird circumstances where they bring them back and then they don't bring them back And then all of a sudden we think Mike Dantonie's going to go there. We think Chris Finch is going to go there. And then all of a sudden it's this guy we just, I think most people just found out about yesterday.

Do you have any optimism about this higher? What's your like basic take on it? Well, it was kind of interesting to hear like the old guard of the NBA sort of cry out whenever sort of a guy connected to the player fraternity. You know, they kind of protect their own publicly on that and tell the line. But then like when you start looking into it, it's like from my light research on him, It's like, okay, this guy was on, he's clawed his way to the top from what I understand about him, like took a really unorthodox path, played like low-level college ball. And it seems like somebody who hasn't really rested on his laurels at all to get where he's going, you know, earned a lot. And then you start thinking about Toronto organizationally and on the bench is like really drawn a lot of acclaim from all the nerds that I know.

They've just raved about their adjustments. You know, adjustments is something you hear people talk. about over and over and over again. And if you're the Pacers, you're hoping that reinvention is coming. You know, he sold them on that, apparently, and sort of embracing a forward-thinking mindset. I like it. I think it's really interesting for sort of a team like the Pacers who have been threading that needle of, I think I looked it up.

They've made the playoffs like 26 of the last, or 24, the last 30 playoffs or something like that. So they've just been kind of good forever. Maybe this is a shot to try and be great. Yeah, Chuck, you wrote about Dan Tony possibly going there, which seemed like a departure for what we knew and what we know about the Pacers in that organization. They tend to keep things in house.

Rob, you wrote about this really well earlier in the year. Are you optimistic about Bjorkan considering some of his bona fides as under Nick Nurse, a guy who's really just transformed Toronto and basically came from nothing, and now all of a sudden he's the best coach in the league? I got to say, is that how you say it, Bonafides? Bonafides. That was excellent pronunciation. I know that's how you said it.

I can't get bona fides. I thought it was bona fides. We're just a part-time pronunciation podcast at this point, if we're being honest. I feel like you needed to eat a piece of brie cheese right before you said that. I was doing the Italian like three-finger thing while I was doing it. So that's how I pass it. Yeah, I think the common thread between Bjorkren and Dan Tony is this idea of modernizing the offense. Basically, like, to keep it really simple, all those times,

Miles Turner shot 20-foot jump shots, we'll just move them back two feet or three feet or whatever. That's probably like the through line of all of it. And looking at it, like maybe it's not that biggest surprise because what, the Raptors won two years ago. Basically, if your team wins a championship, the assistants tend to get head coaching jobs, right? Happen for the Mavs, happened for the heat,

happened for the spurs, happen for the warriors, right? When a team wins, okay, obviously they're doing something, right? let's hire some of their assistance. I mean, that's just kind of how it goes. Yeah, well, I think the next question here is what they do with some of the roster decisions based on Bjorkan being there. The Charksdy brought one up that I think is kind of a negative essential question that's loomed over the franchise for two maybe longer years now about those two bigs. Rob, do you have any sense of if they could, do you think they'll stick with that approach or do you think hiring Bjorkren means they're more likely to break that up on talking specifically about Sabonis and Miles Turner? I think it would signal that they're open to exploring it,

but to me that always seemed like more of an in-season decision to make, just because they were always big on getting our four core guys on the floor. You know, Sabonis, Ola Depot, Turner, and now Malcolm Brogden with that group. Maybe T.J. Warren has played himself into that conversation as well with the way he played in the bubble. But those first four guys only played 142 minutes together last season. It was always somebody who was in and out of the lineup, but pretty much every time. I think they still want to see if we have both.

of our intelligent lead guards on the floor, can we decongest some of this stuff that happens with Turner and Subonis? Can we make sense of it? Can we balance it? I don't think they feel, at least they felt last season, that they had a proper chance to do that. And so now it's a matter of can we get a couple of quick months to look at this before we have to make a real call on a trade.

I think one of the things that was most interesting in Rob's piece last year was him talking to Miles Turner and really emphasizing how much Turner felt like he sacrificed. because Turner went from a guy who's in the pick and roll all the time to just spotting up from three. And if you're Miles Turner, you're like, give me some of those easy baskets roll into the basket in space. Like, I want to get some points.

And I think that's the problem for this whole roster right now is like there's a lot of guys sacrificing to get swept in the first rounds. Like, that's just not going to fly for very long. Like, it's one thing if you're Miles Turner and you're a spot-up shooter and you're going to the conference finals and you're winning a bunch of playoff series. But if you're getting swept, it's like, I'll get swept somewhere else getting more. stats. This is no fun. Yeah, and the kind of bigger discussion there is how long Victor

Al-Dipo is going to want to willing to do that as well. There's been a lot of talk about him potentially looking elsewhere. There seems like, and I don't know how much you can really read into this, but there's a lot of smoke around Victor Oladipo potentially wanting out in about a year, probably more than even Janus. I don't know if that's because Victor's just doing more interviews these day where Janus is just like probably hanging out on a Greek beach somewhere, you know, just drinking smoothies. Kyle, do you think that the Pacers would probably be better off getting ahead of the Ola Depot departure? Would you trade him now?

How would you handle that? I don't think that it's a situation really where you have the option to get ahead of it right now just because he's so, he came back and kind of he's trying to regain some of that trade value that he had, some of that pop, you know, scoring, creation, playmaking, balance kind of thing. and, you know, his two-way potency is a big part of that, too. And I don't, yeah, I don't think that they're going to have the option to do that because it seems like they're going to get back a pretty limited return if they try to do that, which I feel like it's probably going to be the case anyway because this guy's had a lot of injuries,

you know, so that's kind of the way I'm seeing it right now. Yeah, I keep seeing Ola Depot pieces. We wrote one about him yesterday on the ringer, Dan Devine did. And I just keep asking myself, which team is going to, willingly like sell off some of their better assets for a guy we don't even know really who he is. Like I don't think I've seen the real

Victor Oladipo in about two years maybe when was that injury? Early 2019. So we're coming up on two years here. It's sad, but I don't know. I guess like everybody's in a wait and see mode here. Rob,

do you have any sense of like how the Pacers might approach this? Well, I think the market for him, as Kyle alluded to, is pretty strange. And so, you know, it's just really hard to get a feel

for how other teams think about Oladipo right now and if any of them see him as a guy they would want to bet on. So you're just talking about a totally different and possibly unacceptable

level of return for a guy who is their franchise player who has been their franchise player. One team that came up that Zach Lowe brought up I thought was interesting was the Bucks. And he just kind of floated it out there

that, you know, I would watch that connection, I think is how he put it. a team that's like in that kind of tight financial situation, but also a bit of a desperate spot, that seems interesting to me. You know, that's kind of what it's going to take for,

to swing a deal for Oladipo, I think, unless you're really sold on his long-term health, are these teams that really need a bit more juice in the short term and don't have the luxury of asking a lot of questions. I think worth pointing out, when they traded Paul George for Olipo and Sabonis, whatever it was three,

four years ago now, that was like roundly mocked. Like that's not a good return for a star. I think if you're Indiana and you're trading Victor, you should be more proactive and like trying to find the next subonis. Try to find the next young guy in a smaller rule who might break out.

And if it's not a quote unquote good return, who cares, you need guys locked the long-term contracts anyways. Not guys, who does all over again in a year? Who's the next T.J. Warren is what we're saying. I mean, I do hope from these pacer cycles of Warren, of subonis, of Ola Depot, that we will hesitate a little bit in the initial judgment of a trade whenever it comes, because this is a franchise that has shown that capacity to find those guys.

So we'll see if they can do it again. It's hard to chain those kinds of trades and decisions together, but they certainly have the track record for it. Are you suggesting that we stop and wait to see something play out before we react to it? I would never do that to the internet, but yes. In fact, I'm actually going to ask us to fast forward here. So we're looking at the east right now. We're what a couple days, weeks away from the season just ended.

I want to look ahead to the end of next season. Is there any hope considering what we saw from Miami, from Toronto, assuming that they bring most of those guys back, Boston, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Brooklyn's going to be better. Is there any chance we see them in the top four again next season, sharks? I mean, for one, injuries, right? You can never assume that the top four teams are going to stay healthy, right? Like someone's going to get hurt. There's probably going to be an opening.

I just think realistically, at some point, you've got to play Subonis at the five. You've got to move off Turner, play some more. I think if you can find a way to turn Turner into a wing and speed it up and you're playing, I mean, if you're playing Brogden, Subonis, Warren, and Oladipo together with more shooting, that's going to be a pretty unstoppable offense, right? I think that is probably, to me, it's finding a way to maximize Miles Turner in a trade is probably the best chance.

I don't think that you, I don't think that Turner can attack closeouts fast enough and efficiently enough. He's just a little lump, like he's a good athlete, but it's like in space like that. He's a little lumbering, don't you think? Like to, to not, you know,

I just don't think he shoots it quite well enough to like really be productive in that role. Like that, like what you were saying, I feel like they're going to be forced to move him. And then also like, I was like doing a lot of research about Yokic. I think that you're right.

Like, Sabonis is probably, probably the way to lean. Like, when you go and look at, like, efficiency per touch in the half court, like on elbow touches and things like that, Subonis is like right there at the top, like really not that far below. Now, he's obviously like a lower, lesser passer than Yokic, but it really is amazing. I think people maybe don't realize quite to the extent that his efficiency as a playmaker and a screener. Yeah, for sure. The trade that Charks has brought up, and I think like it's kind of been widely accepted by the internet as something that should,

happen and we don't know why it will happen is Turner for Drew Holiday. I'm still looking back here and like I know there's probably going to be a lot of suitors for Drew Holiday, especially as we look around the trade market and I don't know if some of the guys that we want to be there, we'll be there, Bradley Beale probably most specifically. I don't know. Like my biggest question with the Pelicans is like who they're going to stick next to Zion, not only next season, but just long term. Like what is the right guy to put with him next to the at in the front court just to like bring out the best in him without really like stunting his growth. And I look at what the pacer's maybe need. And, you know, if you have two holidays, why not just complete the set? I think I could see it for

it from, I mean, New Orleans is obvious, right? You want that kind of shooting next to Zion. I mean, I will go out and say like Zion and Derek Favors were already very effective. I don't know what's going to happen with Derek Favors' free agency, but that pairing was very successful for New Orleans. So you can see if not that exact player, a certain kind of template there and turn or falls into that category. The only thing with Drew is then you're getting into kind of three and four guard territory pretty often just to get your best guys on the floor. You know,

he may make more sense for a pre-Brogden Indiana team than a post-Brogden one. Or, I mean, if you're just chalking up Ola Depot as being a guy who's already kind of halfway out the door, then maybe that makes a lot more sense. But, I mean, I would just worry for them, I mean,

we saw, you know, in the bubble and some games against teams like the Lakers, you know, playing Justin Holiday at the three at the four. He was just getting tossed. around by guys like LeBron. The wings that they have are not brawny wings. And so then you add a guy like Drew who can guard some threes.

Like he has that range defensively, but you're just asking a lot of guys when everyone is kind of defending up a position. Brawny or brawny Jr.? Ew. Ooh, this man. Chargis, what do you think? I mean, three holidays, right? I think it would have to be Brogden.

He's the guy that has to. a guard up. He's probably about 2.30, 2.35. And then if you trade it for holiday, you would have two guards coming up in the last years of their deal. That would definitely be an all-in move. It really wouldn't fit kind of Indiana's. But I think it'd be a really fun team to watch, especially with a more creative offensive mind like Bjorkren, who, by the way, shout out to the guy with random Js in their names. Respect. On that note, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about some other Western Conference teams

who might have some moves in them this offseason. All right, we're back. And it's Small Market Day on the group chat. This is Support Your Local Businesses Day. Because we're going to talk about the teams, not at the top of the Western Conference, but some of those teams that were struggling

to make it into the bubble into the playoffs. Let's start with Phoenix. So let's start here, because I think the big conversation with Phoenix is how much we believe in them. So they go eight and o in the bubble. bubble. Devin Booker is the next superstar in the making. Who else? McHale Bridges is the next Bruce Bowen, all that stuff. So, Kyle, do you believe what you saw from Phoenix is the real

Phoenix or two months into next season? Are we going to be talking about Devin Booker trade destinations? Oh, man. I mean, there's this thing that happens. You see this in like college basketball a lot where a team goes into the tournament and has like a great tournament and then they return everybody and then the following year their preseason like number one or two or something like that like you see that happen a lot and that's sort of a pitfall I feel like I've noticed it's hard to take a look at what happened in the bubble and the things that maybe were possibly unique to the bubble like statistically I feel like we're still kind of unpacking a lot of that for Phoenix I think that it was like a great experience for them

because, you know, you're getting ready, you're getting a concentrated dose of being together and working together and sort of being trapped in one place, but also playing a lot of good teams in one place. So for me, I mean, you look at Booker, he's what, getting ready to turn 24 years old. His offensive peak is probably going to be in the 27, 28 range. Aiton has kind of made me eat crow a lot in the last year, positionally gotten a whole lot better. bright guy. And I guess the question is, are they, how good are they going to have to get in also a time where some of the teams above them slip? Like, are they going to be able to get good enough for it to matter? Like, I feel like they'd have to get significantly better. Like, I feel like they're still probably a piece away from that happening.

And what is it going to, what's that threshold going to take for Booker to be happy? Like, I mean, is that going to be able to happen within the next two or three? years. I'm pretty skeptical. Like, I do think that they're going to get better. Like, I believe in bridges. I always really liked Cam Johnson a lot. I don't know about it, that spot. But, you know, and Ubre, I'm kind of in the middle. I was kind of looking at him last night, like kind of a guy that lives between the cracks. Like, he's not a table setter at all. Is he going to be somebody that they want to keep around? I'm unsure about that. But I think that, you know, the more like sort of playmaking load you can take off.

of Booker, the more, he's shown that he can still produce and be efficient if his usage rate goes down. So I think it's just going to be about, you know, adding as much support as you can for him so that so that he doesn't have to carry so much burden. But yeah, to answer your question, yeah, I think that they're going to get better, but I'm not sure that it's going to be enough. See, I would say the missing piece they're getting back is Ubre. He wasn't in the bubble. And it's odd to me how much he's being thrown around in trade talks. Like, this is a 6-7 really athletic wing who can shoot 3s, score, and defend multiple positions. Right?

Every team needs all these guys. Ubrey averaged 19 points per game last year. This is a legitimate player. For me, I remember one of the things I remember most from last season is Ubrey dunking on Rudy Gobert than flexing in his face. Like, I like this. He's a really good player. And adding him to the team in the bubble, I think could make him a really good team. I knew that there was going to be an athletic wing on the Phoenix Suns that Charks was going to love.

I just knew it. I saw his eyes light up there. Well, I think it's interesting. I mean, they seem to have found something with Cam at the stretch four position before that. Ubre, some of the statistics. Stan Devine had this in his five most interesting teams last week. Some of the statistics with Ubrae in there are still pretty good. Does this basic approach just work?

If they do nothing next season, Rob, are they good enough or do they need someone? on the level of a Fred Van Vlee, some of these other free agents that they could potentially chase. I think they would be a pretty good team next season and just not quite good enough. Just because of the numbers game of the Western Conference,

there's way too many teams who are going to be in their range of competence. All these teams that are vying for, you know, the six, seventh, eighthsies. I see them very much in that group. I don't see them as, you know, an undefeated team like they were in the bubble, certainly, but they can string some of that

into what they're doing. they'll have Aiton for a full season, assuming he doesn't get randomly suspended again for something. I like what they have. The free agency question is tough because their kind of moment of truth here where you can, I mean, you can feel that franchise wanting to take the step like they always do. This franchise more than most always wants to capitalize on this kind of momentum. And it just so happens to come in alignment with one of the worst free agent classes in recent memory. Yeah. So let's set that up just real quickly here. So they have a couple free agents that they could potentially resign.

It's basically the rest of their front court. Dario Sarich is a restricted free agent. Aaron Baines is a free agent. And Frank Kyminski has a team option. They can get rid of all of those guys, renounce them, and open up to $23 million in cap space, which is not enough for like a max guy, though I don't know who is even a max guy available,

but they can get into the conversation. Fred Van Vliet is the guy that, like, a lot of people are, tying them to. Do we think, let's probably start here. What do they need? If you're looking at the market, do they need a Fred Van Vleet? Because a couple other guys I thought of is maybe you upgrade more at the wing slash four. And you get more of a bigger guy who could probably defend and do some of the things that

Uber and Johnson were doing. I came up with Marcus Morris, Davos Bertans, Danilo Galanari. Kyle, what do you think? Like, would you go for a Van Vleet or would you go for someone more in the front Well, they've got a lot of, I think they can cover their shot distribution pretty efficiently. Kind of what I was thinking about is they really could use sort of a, of course, you start saying some of these things and it's like these are the types of guys every team in the league wants. It's just you need one of these like longer three, four type guys that can be disruptive because

they have a lot of guys that are like positionally solid, like let's say like Bain sticks around, Aiton's positionally solid, but not, I wouldn't call him disruptive. It'd be just somebody that can sort of mirror and just kind of switch sort of in that 2, 3, 4 range and cause problems. That's kind of what I would lean towards trying to find. I actually thought Nerlands would be an interesting guy for them, but you, you know. Does it have to. Backup 5? Yeah, that would assume that, you know, you're getting more shooting from your 4-5 spot too.

So, yeah, that's kind of what I was leaning. And in the, do you want to save draft stuff or do you want to hit that now? Just go into it. They have the 10th pick in the draft, we should say. Yeah, yeah. I was thinking somebody along the lines of like a Sadiq Bay would be awesome with them, but I also think he'd be awesome with New Orleans and every team. Like, Coro would be interesting, too.

So tell us a little bit about Sadiq Bay. I don't think anybody knows anything about these draft prospects, even the experts on this call outside of Sharks. So what position does he play? What's cool is he from? You like Sadiq Bay, right? charts. I mean, everyone likes Sadiq Bay. He's a solid Villanova player. You can give him the scouting report. That's all you need to say. Yeah, just associate him with someone in the NBA and I'm good.

Right. Well, he's sort of a, he's about six, seven, six eight, sort of a guy that can cover a lot of a lot of different kind of roles, I think. He's, I think he's shot like 45% from three. He's got kind of an odd, shoots kind of a hard, low ball, but it goes in. He's somebody that can He's growing as like a playmaker. He's just, he kind of, he just sort of oozes that high IQ feel that you see from a lot of Villanova guys, like Charks said. But I see him as somebody that could just shore up.

He could keep your offense moving. The fact that he can shoot, he's a good decision maker. He's switchable. I wouldn't say he's like a nuclear athlete, but he's somebody that could help, you know, I think he can elevate personnel. Like he's that type of person. And he can just shore up a lot of different tasks. I wouldn't say that he's the disruptor type that I'm talking about here.

Like I think Okoro is more of that type. Like Jalen Smith, that's another guy that I like a lot. He's a little bit bigger. It can give you shooting and rim protection. But, you know, those are two guys that kind of come to mind immediately for me. For them. Kyle, let's quit some draft talk. So I was thinking it would make sense to maybe get a long-term point guard.

to 10 to kind of as Rubio gets older. And there's a bunch of interesting like point combo guards. Because I think you're right about having a second playmaker next to Booker long term. Right. And like to me, the guy I want there is Keira Lewis from Alabama. I think he has as much potential as almost any guard in this draft. He's the fastest guard in the draft. He's a really good shooter.

And he has a well-rounded offensive game. He's also only like 19. Here's a funny stat. So Keira Lewis is a year ahead of. of Cole Anthony in terms of school. He's a sophomore, and Cole Anthony is a freshman. But he's actually younger than Cole Anthony, because he was promoted ahead

while Cole was held back. And that's kind of the range of Cole Anthony's going to go. That's a very polarizing player. How do you kind of see that guard range in the 8 to 15 range as the top guys in that look? I mean, I like Cole, I'm kind of cooler on. I mean, it's funny that you're talking about the age thing. It's interesting that we're going to be hearing

to like a lot of, Kira's going to be one of those age joke people. Like it's just going to be nonstop with him. Because he's younger than R.J. Hampton. I was just looking at that. And he's, yeah,

I mean, he came into college basketball when he was like 14 or so. No, really, but it was 17. But have you guys seen the Obie Topin one? Who is apparently like just younger than Jason Tatum? Who also looks like Jason Tatum if he was like in the gym for a really long time.

Like he was trapped in quarantine just going to the gym. He's got some shoulders. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, Obie's older than Kevin Knox. I was pointing that out last night. So anyway, but Kevin Knox is pretty young, too. So I guess that one's not totally fair. You start getting into, like, you want to talk about, like,

sort of Fred Van Vleet type guys that could, like, be rotation, maybe secondary playmakers. Is that what you mean, sharks? Well, like, your Tyrese Maxis. You have some Kentucky talk for us. So Kyle's like the world's biggest Kentucky fan. Hey, now. Don't out me.

Follow me for 10 minutes, and you can figure that one out. But now, Maxie, I wouldn't say is, I'd say Maxie is more of a, he's, he's not quite there yet in a place where I would be comfortable depending on him to carry much of a heavy load as a playmaker. It's like he can make the right decision, but he is nowhere near like a prepper of decision, like of good options. Like he's, he's somebody that plays really fast and he needs to, it works to his advantage, but he's more of a bucket getter. He's sort of somewhere between, like, we Kentucky fans kind of try to compare them to alumni. And it's like, he was somewhere between Bledsoe and Fox, like in the fact that he's pretty fast, but he's stouter than you think and he's a pretty good athlete. He's just kind of a gets in the middle. He's kind of coming along as a dribble shooter.

I think he's going to be a pretty good three-point shooter at the next level. But he's somebody that has a great middle game. Like, I think that Maxie would be amazing in Dallas, actually, have you considered that? one, sharks. It makes sense if the Mavs use their draft pick and don't trade it, which... Yeah. He's somebody that could cross-switch with Luke, I think, because he's got that solid building can, like, pressure, dribble penetration.

But, yeah, I like him a lot. Yeah, I'm thinking Maxie is like Kendrick Nunn plus defense is like the hope. Great. Just put it in terms that we can understand. I appreciate that. Oh, you need comps. He really needs comps. Yeah.

Well, let's circle back to the Sons just really quickly here. I think this is actually the question they're probably having. amongst themselves, which is do we need another young guy? Can we count on another young guy to plug in there and we give them two, three years, and we all of a sudden have a long runway, or do we need someone right now? Do we need to prove to Devin Booker? Rob, do you think that they need to go out and get someone to fill these roles? Or do they have time, I guess, is the question. Well, I mean, Booker's under contract through, I think, 2024. So theoretically, they have the runway as to whether he would be frustrated before then. That's the question.

That's another question. I kind of would want to think things through and slow play it a little bit more just because I don't think for as good as they were in the bubble, this isn't a team that's just jumping into the playoff picture. You know, I don't think they're meaningfully better than the Grizzlies, for example, who are going to be a team that's going to be clawing their way into the playoffs if they make it. You know, I think that's why the Kelly Ubrey stuff comes up because he's a piece who, yes, every team can use more wings that's not going to kill you to keep a guy like him around.

But he doesn't give you anything you really can't get from Mikhail Bridges in terms of skill set. And then that makes him a little bit more replaceable, a little bit more movable. You know, you can throw him into all these potential deals. Like the trade I've been trying to engineers, how do we get Marcus Smart to the Suns? You know, him, you know, maybe it's Ubre and the number 10 for smart and like some future picks, future draft considerations. But like, how do we get that kind of player next to Devin Booker? which, I mean, it makes it kind of hilarious that Eric Bledsoe also kind of fits this conversation. I don't think he has any, I don't think the sons have enough to kind of interest Milwaukee in that part of it.

But you want that kind of, as we've been talking about, a stout defensive guard who can share some about playmaking responsibilities. In NBA terms, that screams Marcus Smart to me. Can you imagine Bledsoe went back to that hair salon in Phoenix? I'm just going to say, he has a hair salon that he knows that he can go to there. I think also, when we talk about this, we talk about this, we talk. about a lot about, oh, these range of teams, realistically, someone's going to get hurt, right? Look at last year's playoffs. The Warriors got hurt.

They were out. The Blazers got hurt. They barely snuck in. So, like, there's probably going to be two teams who fall out of this mix for these spots because somebody always gets hurt. The biggest thing for Phoenix is not being one of those two teams, right? Uber got hurt last year. That's what could really kill this franchise is them getting hurt, the team going nowhere,

and the thing kind of flatlining. But you have to think, okay, yeah, there's 10 or 12 teams. teams fighting for the spot, but two or three of them are going to be out. Just don't be one of those two teams. So your prognosis is to just not use a diuretic? That's the key to this franchise building. It certainly helps. Even if they are one of those two or three teams that doesn't get injured, you know, the warriors are there. As we said, they're going to be a playoff team. The pelicans are, you know, presumably going to be in this mix. Like, even if two or three teams get hurt, they could still be the ninth seat. I think the West is that level of deep. It's true.

Yeah, I do think they need to improve what they have. I was thinking another Celtics player who might be able to plug in there. What do you think about Rubio and Ubrae for Gordon Hayward? It's interesting. I mean, you get another veteran presence in there. You get shooting. You get some playmaking, you know, everybody. It's to the point where everybody says Gordon's playmaking is underrated,

where it's like it's not anymore. Right. But, I mean, I like that. I guess a question is him staying healthy. what are you getting? And yeah. Well, you guys have been in warm climates before. Like your joints just feel a little bit better, you know?

You're not like shoveling the driveway anymore. I would say also, though, like I think Rubio is important for this team on a leadership perspective, right? It kind of seemed like he was the guy. I don't really want Gordon Hayward leading my young team. Like that doesn't seem to really be working in Boston. So that would concern me a trade like that. All right. Well, here's another one I have for you.

Rubio and Ubre for Blake Griffin. I don't know. I just think like if you buy low on some of these veterans with all-star pedigree who just have been unplayable in recent years because of injuries and it just happens to work out. I think they need a veteran hand who could take them over the top and there just aren't that many of those guys. And if you could do it without giving up too much

and this really comes down to whether or not Charks thinks that Ubrey is the next MVP candidate. Well, I was going to say, Justin, that's not buying low on bedroom from now. That's not even a, that's like buying, that's not even buying him. He's not even like, no way. Chark Sinks Ubra is Scotty Pippen, apparently. I didn't realize that. Yeah, I don't know, like, do you run into some sort of like spatial dissonance?

Because, you know, four years ago, five years ago, like Griffin, Griffin and Aiton on the floor together. I mean, I'd be like, yeah, maybe. Now it's kind of like, do you run into maybe some of the same? I don't like it. I don't really. I would say, like, I'm not trading a player for Blake Griffin. Like, you're giving me him his contract plus some draft picks. Like, he's that bad an asset at this point.

Like, he's not getting value for him to trade. There's no way. If a trade like that happens, I think it signals to all of us that the situation with Devin Booker is much worse than we realize. Like, that is a, oh, my God, we have to do something immediately kind of move. I'm not convinced that it's not. Like, I think this is why I go back to our original conversation of, like, how good they actually are.

I think there's, like, a good chance that this could blow up pretty quickly. I mean, this is just my read from afar, but it feels like Devin Booker is that type of guy who wants to play on a big stage, he wants to win. And the sons have been one of the worst franchises while he's been there. And now he has his money.

Like, we've seen this story before. It's only a matter of time until, unless they start winning, this becomes just another Anthony Davis, another whoever story. Well, maybe that's where the bubble helps you. If you're, you know, managing the sons or running the sons,

you can say, look, when we had all our guys, we were beating the best teams in the league. Our starting lineup with Rubio, Booker, Bridges, Cam Johnson, and Aiton was plus 15 net rating. Like, you know, we can keep this group together. We can get, you know, add some pieces on the fringe. You're our superstar. There's something here we can build around.

Maybe you don't need to swing for the fences, you know, even to placate him based on the way you played in those eight games. And there's also Aitin, right? He was a number one overall pick two years ago. Like, we shouldn't think his ceiling is capped right now after two years in the league, right? He's good. Yeah, it's definitely not.

And I think that, you know, he has a whole other world of just kind of growth plate to explore in terms of, you know, like his shooting and things like that. But, and he started to show some glimpses of that. But I think with the sons, it's just kind of like Booker is like a pros, pro type guy. Like, he's very serious about his career. You know, his dad was a player. And it's like, which isn't uncommon. But it's a situation where I think we're to the point where it's results time. Like I know, you know, the whole like it's cute, we're young, we're having fun thing.

I feel like it's like, we're kind of past that. Like I think that Booker's moving to a phase where he's like, I need to start, you know, seeing some real results. Actually, Kyle, one thing I've been thinking about with Aiton, like, I want to see like Aiden as a playmaker. I think that's an area where there's some room to grow for the team, right? So if you have Aiden in that BAM out of bio, Jokic role, right, pick and roll, Booker comes off the pick and roll, throws to Atenham, and he has a four on three. I think that could really raise a ceiling of this team as him. He has some playmaking chops. I think that's serious if I was Phoenix,

I want him to grow in the most this off season. Yeah, I see that happening. And I mean, a lot of his, I haven't looked at it recently, but I think he's been used more in that, like, elbow roll a lot, right? And they can run actions around him. Yeah, I mean, I could see that.

It's, I don't know, it's, he needs to stay on the floor for a whole year and he needs to, you know, reps are going to be really important for him. Because he is, he kind of has that, like, latency issue, which kind of made it hard to evaluate him coming out. Like, and when I say that, I mean, like, you watch guys sometimes and you think, well,

oh, he's like a bad defender or he just like doesn't understand. It's like some guys just lack the info to play fluidly. You know, we talk about like feel a lot. And like feel is just, yeah. Yeah, feel is just kind of real time, read and react kind of things. And Aitin, you could tell he just was kind of lacking the feel sometimes. But he has the skill set to kind of grow in the way. that you talked about.

I think that it's there with the right guidance. Yeah, that's why I was thinking Hayward, but a little bit more playmaking in the front court, allow him to kind of come along in that regard, and there we have it. Then we have the next great son's team, you know? I like throwing Hayward into a lot of these potential deals,

just because there's so many teams that have, whether it's a young star, whether it's a star who's been with a franchise for a long time and has been frustrated because they have to do so much, like that kind of secondary playmaking you can get from a Hayward makes him such an easy piece to throw into all these deals, plus the situation with the Celtics. The question is like, can you get enough salary

to make it work both ways? And can you really entice the Celtics who are a team who could roll into next season and feel really good about their chances to win the East? Yeah, we didn't talk about the Celtics component where it's like, Ubre would be nice just to have another young wing, but do you really need him?

Is he going to get on the floor enough with all the other guys they have here? Like, he doesn't, you can't close games with him, Tatum, Brown, without having also Kamba and Smart. on the court, right? And if you're losing Kemba, does Uber A provide enough offense? I don't know. It's a weird combination, or playmaking or just got, you know, all this other stuff. I think it's more would you miff Jason Tatum by acquiring another future Hall of Famer in Kelly

Ubrey, you know, can you really, can you do that to him? And Kelly Ubray definitely thinks he's a future Hall of Famer, I think is the biggest issue. You know what's funny, they could have had Tatum in that draft. Can you imagine Tatum and Booker in the same team? That'd have been crazy. I know. I saw that clip where they were like ready to play together. Tatum was, was ready to be a valley boy. That's where he wanted to go. It was Phoenix. Yeah, he did. Yeah. The compromise between those two would have been really interesting to watch. That's true.

All right, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about some of these other teams. Let's talk about the Pelicans now. We talked about them briefly up top. We talked about their big problem, big man problem. So my question with the Pels is clearly they're on a track to be good very quickly here. As long as Zion stays healthy, they have a long runway in front of them, they have the right young pieces. It's just you look at the team

and I think they need to start making decisions quicker than you imagine. All of a sudden, Brandon Ingram is up for probably a max contract this summer as a restricted free agent. You're already talking long-term extensions with Lanzo Ball and Josh Hart. Drew Holiday has one more year plus a player

option. If you want to keep him long-term, then you're probably talking extension with him this summer. I think a lot of the decisions that will ripple into the future of Zion are going to happen now. And the question is, are all these guys the right guys next to Zion? Charks, do you have a sense of like, if you were David Griffin, are you moving on from a ball? Or do you think those guys all fit with what they're trying to do? I think we were talking about earlier with Turner. I really want to get a stretch five in there next to Zion. I feel like that protects his body. It opens the floor floor.

him and favors were good, but I want favors who can shoot threes. To me, my concern is Drew, though. Like, you were in New Orleans. Do you think Drew wants to stay anymore? I kind of feel like that's about played its course his time in New Orleans. I think Drew has gone back and forth a lot. I could say pretty definitively before he signed his most recent extension or contract with them, he did not want to stay. I was under the assumption that he was going to leave. And I think that was in part because New Orleans was low-balling him on the offer. Like, he was getting a lot love from the Phillies of the world. Dallas was, I think, prepared to back up the brink shop a little bit.

And then he stayed, which I was surprised by. And I think at that point, he kind of accepted where he was in a weird way, where he and Anthony Davis, they didn't clash ever, but they just were always, it's kind of like one was the older brother and one was the younger. It's like they didn't really have like a natural relationship. it, but I think over time, they realized they were the only two guys there. And so they got along to the point where last summer, after AD was traded to the Lakers, they were both training together.

Like, AD was still training with a bunch of Pelicans players, including Drew. And now Drew is basically, like, the phase of the franchise. Like, he's the guy who's carrying them into this next era. As much as, like, Zion is the guy, like, nationally we all love, like, they're putting Drew front and center because they want to bring Zion along slowly. So that's a long-winded way of saying, I don't know, but I would imagine considering his tenure there, he also wants to win. So if he doesn't think that they're going to win there, I would expect him to want out. I don't know.

But if you're just looking around the league for him, is now the time if you're Griffin to trade him? Kyle, what do you think? Would you start shopping, Drew, or do you see him as a long-term piece that maybe would fit right next to Zion? Well, if you look at New Orleans, their draft situation in the next few years, it's like they picked up a bunch of those, well, they picked up some picks from L.A. You've got to assume that those are going to be pretty middling to fart sound. And then I think they could, you know, he's, we, Sharks and I've talked about this a few times, but it's like Holiday is a guy that could help a championship team right now. He could help a lot of teams. The types of things that he adds could swing a team's, you know, you know, current stasis. I would think that it, I don't know, it just depends on what's out there. Like some of the things I haven't seen anything yet

that is going to like blow my mind, that would blow my mind to the point where it would just compel you to do it. But in terms of changing it up around Zion, like I really like, I like the idea of like Turner next to Zion like you were talking about, that would give Zion a lot of support and areas that he really needs it.

I would say yes. Just go ahead, honestly. Because in terms of, I think that they're going to need to just build in that particular way. So that roundabout way of saying that. See, my thought with Drew, if he's up next summer, he's from L.A. Can you imagine him with LeBron and AD? That'd be the perfect spot for him. If you're Drew, you're going to do that every time we're staying in New Orleans.

You're going to go home to play with those two guys and win championships? Like, it's not even a question. But how do they get him considering they already traded every? everything they have to the Pelicans for Anthony Davis. I'm saying in free agency. Oh, in free agency. If he weighs his player option, he's available. I think what the Pelicans would hope for with Drew is that because he is that kind of

player that Kyle described, a guy who can help a contender immediately, and there are so many teams who are in that range of one guy away, how do we get that one more piece to put us over the top that you could start a little bit of a bidding war for him? That's kind of the best case scenario. but the worst case scenarios hang on to a really valuable two-way player who, as we've been talking about, has kind of defined your franchise, has been the hardworking core of your team. You know, I think they could really go either way. I see this is kind of a no-lose situation for them just because it's never really a bad thing to have more Drew holidays around. You mean like a Justin holiday and Aaron Holiday?

Sure, yeah, yeah. As many holidays. I like all the holidays. I love all the holidays. Christmas, Thanksgiving. Yeah, they're great. Arbor Day. let's talk about like actual trades here then so the nets are a team that keeps being brought up

would you trade if you're the pelicans drew for lavert and alan no no rob is shaking his head to me brandon ingram and caris lavert is not a good combination you know those are two guys who both are at the best with the ball on their hands are so so to okay to good shooters like there's a little too much redundancy there for me personally uh i get the appeal like You know, you certainly are aligning more in terms of the age bracket. I just don't like that fit. You know, if you think Ingram is the guy, and I suspect he's going to get paid like he's the guy to keep around, Lavert isn't the nice payer that I would want.

I think the one we wrote last year still makes sense. It was a DJ Foster article, basically like Drew for Tyler Hero. I would love a shooter like that, kind of a younger JJ Reddick type in New Orleans. Also, this won't happen, but can you imagine Drew and Golden State for that number two pick? took lamello ball. How awesome would that be? Two ball brothers together again. Too much ball. Not enough ball. Too much ball to go around. Jared Allen, I mean, how soon do we think that Jackson Hayes is really going to be that far off from Jared Allen here in like just a couple years? I mean, if you look at their production

as rookies, it's really not that far off. Well, yeah, this is the question I have here, because all of these younger guys that you would potentially bring in, there's a lot of redundancy. So yeah, Alan is probably similar enough to Hayes. Levert, he's probably going to need the ball. That means taking the ball out of the hands of not only Ingram, but probably Zion. If you wanted to throw Denver in the mix here, and let's just say theoretically, they wanted to put Michael Porter Jr. on the table, there's no way that Michael Porter Jr. would start, like, giving up shots for Brandon Ingram and even Zion.

So, like, they have young guys here, but if you want to bring in more young guys in Trey Drew, then all of a sudden you're building redundancies. So I don't know if there's like a really easy solution. Maybe Hero is that. But then if you're Miami and Drew picks up his player option for the following season, then you're cutting into money for Janus. And so I don't know if you could really trust that. Guys, we just missed the obvious thing.

Phoenix, right? That makes sense. Combine these two teams together. Phoenix uses Drew Holiday. Get some 3&D wings in New Orleans. Are we saying Ubre? Is Ubre going? That would be worth Kelly Ubre, Drew Holiday.

That would be the one trend I would do. Oh, wow. I want to circle back to the Miles Turner of all this too. You know, like, you know, Turner is certainly a candidate, but who is, who's like the ideal young big to pair next to Zion? Like, in my mind, it's like a Jaron Jackson type, which this is way outside the range of possibility. But so, like, if we start from that place, how far down do we have to scale to get

to realistic? Like, Miles Turner is in that realistic conversation. Are there any other shooting stretchy bigs who could fall into that range that the pelicans can actually get? You know who I wouldn't mind? He's not quite as young anymore, but Vucevich. I feel like Vosovic would make a ton of sense in New Orleans. He'd give them some structure on offense.

He can space the floor for bid. He's a good passer too. That would make sense to me. I was also wondering if, and this is more of a longer-term project, but if the Mavs do eventually get into the Janus conversation and Chris Stap's Porzengis becomes a little more expendable, maybe a piece they have to move to clear cap this way or that, is Chris Staps a guy who could make sense in New Orleans longer term?

Not a question for this summer necessarily, but something to think about. Can I throw out another son here? Please. Aaron Baines? Yes. That would be perfect, too. I actually like that a lot. If you just, like, want to plug and play someone for a year or two, let Jackson

Hayes, like, gain 100 more pounds, like, I don't know. I think he's, like, a perfect type of guy. Like, rough some teams up, like, he'll protect Zion, and protect Ingram. I don't know. I think he makes a lot of sense. I've heard people say they need some nastiness. But I think another question you kind of have to ask is you're probably going to have to pick up somebody that can scale up and take on more load because of how much of a question Zion's become more of a question to me in the last year than I can even believe. I'm more worried about it than I ever have been.

Is it going to be healthy? That's why you add Chrisaps for Zingis to that because that alleviated all your concerns. Yeah. I guess we can also talk drafted. We could talk draft a bit. They have, what, the 13th pick? This might be a spot for Jalen Smith, Kyle. I mean, to me, I was surprised they took Hayes last year

because why draft another non-shooting big next to Zion? It makes sense to get a more front court spacing guy like Jalen Smith from Maryland. Jalen Smith is a really interesting player. He's like about 610. He's got like a 7-2 wingspan. His arms seem longer than they are. He defended jump shots as well as like, anybody in the country this past year. I think he was like in the top. He was like in the 90th

percentile. But he's a guy who shoots like an effortless ball too. He's like one of the, he's sort of similar to, I'm not saying he's on the same level as Jaron Jackson, but he's similar in the fact that like you watch his sort of, he has that kind of athleticism where when he shoots such an easy ball, you're like, how, how do, how are you this gifted? It's kind of not fair. But he's a guy that I think could get in the high 30s percent as a three-point shooter and guard multiple positions. Paul Reed is another guy that I feel like they could pick up. That's affordable. That's kind of coming along. Have you watched him much at all? I don't only buy his jumper, though. Like, to me, he's more of a role man than a spot-up guy. I'm Googling all these players as you're saying.

Played for DePaul. He's about six-nine, but he has like crazy long arms too. You just want guy- I would say Smith is kind of like Miles Turner. I feel like that's the same kind of role Smith will have in the NBA. They're both kind of. kind of mechanical big men. If you're the Pelicans, are you thinking next season or are you thinking long term, two years down the road? I think that's like sort of the situation we're getting in with a lot of these teams and especially this next team on our docket.

I want to talk about the Sacramento Kings, who I think everyone's in wait and C mode here to see if things will be different under a new regime here. Moni McNair, I believe, takes over. He was the assistant GM in Houston. And all of a sudden, we already kind of have a litmus test for the front arm. office where Buddy Healed, it seems like, does not want to show up anymore. I don't blame him, considering everything that he's probably gone through over the past couple years there.

Rob, if you were Moni, would you hold the line here with Buddy? Would you say, like, dude, do you got to show up? Or is he someone you think could probably help fix some of the other issues they have on this team? I mean, as someone personally who I'm kind of on a split decision in regard to Buddy Heald versus is Bogdan Bogdanovich. I could see us kind of going either way with those players. I'm kind of fully investigating the market on both of those guys.

Bogdan and potential sign-in trades, because I think there would be a pretty robust market for him among that contending set, those teams, again, that are one piece away or consider themselves one piece away. And then Buddy appeals to a different kind of base, just given the level of salary you're talking there. You know, Sacramento's cap sheet isn't really that bad. You know, there are a team who I think has this perception

of being mismanaged, who have certainly made some questionable deals, but they're in a place where they can take a shot on a younger guy who can make a trade for someone on a flyer, for someone who's going to hit free agency soon and we'll have to pay if they feel strong enough about it. There's a lot of deals I wouldn't mind them seeing and a lot of maneuvering I wouldn't mind seeing from them

as they kind of try to find their way out of this. But personally with the buddy conversation, I'm open to keeping him around. I don't think that's a closed book just yet. Justin, my thought, so you covered Alvin in New Orleans, right? Gentry, and he just got hired as an associate head coach in Sacramento. And I immediately thought, hmm, Luke Walton hired by the last regime.

Alvin Gentry has got more, you know, more skins in the wall. Could he be the head coach in like four months? Is that why he would be Sacramento? I would be surprised if he was thinking that in advance because he has such a tight relationship with Luke Walton. Like, these guys go back to Golden State. I think they were really close even after they both moved on from those situations. I think Alvin probably was thinking,

ooh, a nice paycheck, where all I have to do is like save to push the pace every 10 minutes and then also make a lot of jokes to the media. Alvin's a lifer and he's probably just looking for the next bench. But I don't know. Like, is he a major upgrade from Luke, you think? At the very least he's had some success where Luke has had zero. But I don't know.

Like, I would see him running into the same issues with, that roster. But I did feel like Luke oddly slowed them down last year when you have Deere and Fox. That seemed weird to me to do that. It doesn't really fit your best player's strengths. Yeah, that was a curious one. I can't rationalize that. It seems like Alvin's good.

It seems like there are different types of coaches in the same way that they're like different types of CEOs. There's like startup CEOs and then there are like, you know, Helm the ship kind of CEOs that can take you from this to that. I feel like Alvin is is kind of strong in that like establishing confidence and culture. And then it's, and then you just see him kind of move on or get forced to move on. But yeah, with with the Kings, I mean, it's, you're in sort of a, a tough spot because you want to play fast with them. But they're so bad at defending the rim.

They've been like just abhorrent at defending the rim in the past like five seasons. How do you improve that? and then, you know, because they give up a lot, the problem with them is they play so fast, but they just give up so much easy stuff and fouls and production around the rim that, I don't know, it's just caught in this vicious cycle where you have to find a way to disrupt it somehow, I think.

Yeah, I think the defense question is the big one for them. We get caught up in the pace of their offense on whether they're best using Deerrin Fox. Like, you know, if the core of your team is Deerrin Fox, who I think, you know, could be a good NBA defender, Marvin Bagley, when healthy, and then one of Buddy or Bogdan or wherever you can trade those guys for,

that leaves me with a lot of questions as to how you're mounting a really successful NBA defense. Rob, how did you forget their highest paid player in their core? Great Harrison Barnes. Making $22 million next year. He is an NBA player and around and being paid by Sacramento Kings.

Those things are for sure. I do think that they need an identity. And they seem to have found one in that fast pay system. under Dave Yeager and then they quickly just junked it for whatever reason. And if you want to go back to Pace and Space and just like be elitza at the center and just we're just going to outscore everybody, then how many games are you going to be able to win against really good teams?

Honestly, this is like, we talk about Alvin. This is the issue he's had like not only in New Orleans, but probably his entire career where like if we go back to the New Orleans discussion, I would say New Orleans needs a defensive identity and they need to teach like guys like Zion and. and Lonzo to really lock in on defense. And I don't know. I look around on the pieces that I'm saying, does this work?

If I was Monty McNair, first I would want to hold the line on buddy, just to hold the line. Like, you can't have guys just cashing in on us and then asking out immediately. That's just an awful look. And, but at the same time, I do think there's an opportunity,

whether it's this off-season or maybe even later at the trade deadline or maybe even next off-season, where they need, to probably spin one of those two guards, buddy or bogged on, into something that could help them just round out the rest of the roster because they need defensive pieces.

I don't think this team really succeeds without it. Yeah, Kyle was talking about rim protection, and that gets us back to Bagley. I'm curious Rob and Justin, those guys who don't follow the draft, like, what's your Bagley take out for two years? Like, where do you even stand on him at this point? Do you have one?

Oh, man. I'm kind of, I had like an infamous Bagley stance because I started, I started, casually covering the draft. And I came, and I had watched Bagley, like, all the way through high school and stuff and, like, just liked him. You know, Kentucky was recruiting him.

Wanted him on that level. And then so I came out hard. I was like, I love this guy. I think he's, like, the best player in the draft. Oh, Kyle, you emailed me for you working at the ringer about Marvin Bagley. Like, I remember this now. Yeah. You email me your whole Bagley blog.

Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. Charks is really good about emailing just people who are doing, yeah. He's good about talking with people. I was, we didn't know each other really well. well back then. But anyway, I came out and was like, yeah, I was like Bag was the best player in this draft. It's just kind of like the, he has some of those like easy gifts that just are going to just dominate at the lower levels. Like he's got those just rapid, you know, pogo stick kind of

second, third jumps. He's really easy runs effortlessly. He can score. But then his problem is just sort of integrating him. I always compare him to like he's like a, he's like an Eddie Van Halen type that just struggles to play with a band. Like he really is like a guy. He's a guy. He's a guy. He's a guy. He's a that has like a lot of skills like he's he like I said he's fluid for his size and things but it's like integrating him. Kauai kind of has the same kind of questions like offensively it's like does this guy exist in a compartment next to what we do or does he fully flow through what we do and he's not good enough for him to be like the center of an offense like as a creator so it's kind of like what do you do with him so and then defensively yeah I don't think that he provides the rim protection that you

want and then also can he stay healthy so I've come down quite quite a bit on him. I still like Bagley. Like, I think that he's going to end up resurfacing at some point in his career, because I don't think that he's like a, let's a pun on this guy. I just don't think that he's quite as the franchise type player that I thought that he was going to be back in 2018. I mean, struggles to play with a band is just what you want to hear from, you know, your franchise big man to pair with your, you know, great young point card. I think, you know, personally, you know, Justin, you can, you can speak to Bagley too. I am a resounding incomplete on, I have no idea

what to make of him just yet. It's just been all fits and starts, just in terms of even getting him on the floor. Seems fine. Seems like he's going to be an NBA player of some kind. But like the range for him, injury and otherwise seems pretty enormous. While we're talking about off-injured, talented Kings, Bigs,

what's going on with Harry Giles? Do we think that Harry Giles has a future somewhere? I feel like he's the type of guy as soon as he gets out of Sacramento, who I believe didn't offer him a qualifying and thus is an unrestricted free agent this summer. I feel like he's going to show up on like New Orleans and all of a sudden like all of his melodies will be healed

and he will be the next like franchise center somewhere. He'll be on the spurs like shooting threes in like two weeks. Well, no, it wasn't even that they didn't give him a qualifying offer. They declined his fourth year team option. And like let's let's put that one up on the wall of all time weird King's decisions. And again, different front office from what we're dealing with. with right now, but don't turn down the fourth year option on players. Just don't do it unless you absolutely have to, unless that couple million dollars is the exact amount of cap space you need.

Because the third and fourth years, you get so much information and you have to make those calls so early in the previous season. It's such a bad call. And, you know, Harry Giles, you know, even if he's ultimately just a role player in the NBA, that's one more year of a potential role player on your roster who you could entice another team with, who could be a value to you, who you might reevaluate yourself and decide, oh, this guy's actually pretty good. I happen to be in that category. I think Harry Giles is going to be a pretty solid NBA player for a long time.

But just don't turn down your options. It's really not that hard. Rob, would you go Giles over Bagley? Just make a call right now. I just gave Bagley an incomplete. So I don't feel like I'm in a position to make this call. Nevertheless, give us one. Give us a take.

I feel more confident about what Harry Giles is in a modern NBA offense than I do Bagley. just, you know, in terms of all the stuff we've been talking about, playmaking bigs, the ability to kind of fit within a team concept, those kinds of things, to me, are where Giles makes a lot of sense for a lot of teams. New Orleans included potentially, you know, as a free agent or any number of destinations. Bagley, you kind of have to orient a lot of what you do around him or else I just don't see how it works. Yeah, that's kind of what I was going to say. It's like, how do you, what yields the best outcome from a team setting? Like if you, based on what Bagley, insists on being, you know, it sees himself as, whereas, you know, we talk about this all the time, but Harry Childs used to be a god. Like, if you go back and watch him before he got injured, it's really one of the saddest things. But like, he's adjusted, I think, to his role now, whereas Bagley, I don't think it's going to take him some time to adjust. Bagley gave himself the Janus comp last year. I saw that. So, like, he is the next Janus?

He was saying he was watching Janus's film to, like, learn from him, be more like him. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah. That's going to be a really interesting part of this year's draft is who are the guys who think they're Janus or think they're Kevin Durant or think they're whoever and teams just because they can't get them in the building for extended interviews because they only have a very limited exposure to these draft candidates because of COVID-19. They're just going to miss that, oh, this guy thinks he's a superstar and we think he's Mikhail Pridges. Actually, the guy like that, I think, is KOC's top guy. Everyone's favorites, Killian Hayes. So I think the reason he's not seen as a top five guy by most NBA teams is because he played like James Harden last year in Germany. So the question is, do I give Killian Hayes a keys to my offense?

And if I don't, can he fit in a smaller role? Like, that is the question for it. He's probably the guy I would say in this year's draft like that. Yeah, role malleability is like really big for me. Yeah, that's something I'd try to look for a lot with players. Well, we're on the draft. Anyone for the Kings you guys are looking at? at 12.

Jalen Smith again. I'm going to say for all these guys, I think if you're in this range, you want to draft someone with a high floor who's going to be an NBA player, who has maybe some like star, you know what I'm going to say, Kyle. Patrick Williams,

Florida State. He's the guy. He's the guy who like, okay, he's 6, 8, 230 with a jump shot. You know, he'll be a good NBA player no matter what. And then maybe, maybe, maybe in three, four years, he's really young like Cairo Lewis. Maybe he becomes more.

than that. But I think you want to take a shot at a guy this part of the draft. The other guy is Pocchevsky. If you're taking shots for a star, Kyle, give us the Pocyshevsky round done real quick, because he is something else. This guy is one of the strangest prospects in a while, because if you just really talk

about like outcome volatility, like in terms of like this guy, you watch, he's one of those guys like when you're watching him run, you can't, your brain can't register how tall he is. Like, because he runs fluidly like a wing. Like he runs like a, he's not as good as this guy, but he runs like Clay Thompson.

Like he just kind of moves like that. And you watch the like, like, he's seven feet tall. Yeah, he's a fit, yeah, he looks like a like a seven tall like Bradford Cox. Like he's, he's like a just like, yeah, we might want to cut that. I don't know if that's offensive. But he, but he runs really fluidly. He has really efficient like feet. His shot pocket is like really fast and efficient and clean. It's quick. But the thing is, like, off the dribble, he is like yakety sacks, wild man. Like, you never know what's going to happen. He's the kind of guy that is like, if the Kings, like, contextually, he worries me. Like, I would, I would worry people, I would encourage people to go watch him because if he gets in the right context, he could be a really good player. If he gets

in a bad context for a few years, I mean, it could get ugly. I don't know. But he's super young. He's a Seven foot 200 pound shooting guard. So just put that on your head. He's legitimate shooting guard at seven foot 200. I know one guy in the league who has a number two on his big board. Like his range, there are guys who have him in the 20s, guys are in the top three.

In terms of his outcomes, I think he goes that high. Like if you want to bet on a guy that like in a year like this, like, you know, there's so few guys that we're sure about that make you kind of sick to your stomach. But like Pocoshefsky could, people calling Poku,

could have a high outcome. go with that. I'm not going to get the other name. So speaking of transitioning from a bad context to a good context, let's talk about the spurs here just to close up. So they're in a weird situation where not this offseason, but the next off season, they have like four contracts on their books. All of a sudden,

this is going to be a completely different Spurs era. But right now they're still caught in the middle. Demarta Rosen has a player option. You would assume he's going to opt into that. Marcus Aldridge still around. I don't know. What do we do with this team? Did they find something in the bubble with going smaller?

And is that repeatable, Rob, going into just a regular season where they're functionally playing DeRosen at like the four? Well, I'm not sure they're going to have much choice in that, in the sense that, you know, DeMar DeRosen is not a name that front offices are jumping to acquire. I think there's a lot of respect for him and what he does. But just the way his, the dissonance between his game and the modern MBA is so stark. He's a tough guy to sell on potential trade.

So, DeMar Rosen is going to be a part of your team if you're the Spurs. I think that's pretty safe to say. He and Lamarcus Aldridge are going to be parts of this team. So then it's about how do we involve those guys and leverage what they do best while also taking a great extended look at these two lead guards we have and seeing if they can play out together. And there's a bit of a ticking clock on that given, you know, Derek White's contract situation. and you want to make some definitive decisions pretty quickly.

But I was kind of reassured by the way their young guys played together in the bubble. I think I would follow that string out a little bit and see if there's something there. Kyle, what did you see from them in the bubble? Does the White Murray back core, is that the back court of the future? Or do you need to pick one of those guys? Yeah, I was going to say, I agree with Rob a lot. Kind of what I had written down was that, you know, we need to let it play out a little bit because I think the spurs are, they've been, they were, they've been on a slide since 2018, like,

defensively, you know, Kaua didn't play a lot that year, but, you know, they lose a lot of their core. They stretched that out as far as they finally could. But they, they slipped from like eighth in defensive rating to like 16th to like 24th. They're way down there now. They're at the point I think where it's like you want to see, you want to give those guys some rope to see if someone can emerge and establish some like, hey, here's some kind of a lead, some kind of a hint is what we could, what we can work with. I think they're at a point where they're just like restructed their defensive identity. Like they could go in a lot of directions in this draft.

And the thing that I always kind of wonder is like when you're in this position, it's like, do you go for a defensive anchor first? Do you want to go for a guy who, I don't know, I don't think that there's that type of guy in this draft that they could go for, especially at the spot that they're in. Honestly, they're one of the most hard to decode teams for me in terms of like where they're headed. I don't know.

Charks, do you have a better idea than I do on that? Yeah, this feels like the end of an era of a, the Lamarcus de Rosen era, which will go down on his first history, undoubtedly, is a glorious run. But it's feel like the last season of that. I would think you take a swing here. Like we've talked about with the Kings. Like, you're at 11. You have a bunch of decent young players. Take a swing for a star and see what happens in your developmental system.

When I was thinking about with DeRosen, do you feel like after this year, he's only 30? does he become a sixth man on a good team in his 30s? He'd be awesome in that role, right? Like a Lou Williams arc for him. A Jamal Crawford. He could do that until he's like 36 and get 20 points of game off the bench, right? Yeah. Yeah, but here's the problem.

I don't think either of those guys, Lou and Jamal had the history of starting. I think it's going to take probably like a pretty significant shift in mindset for him to really like accept that role. I think it would have to be in a winning situation, one. and then if not, I bet you there's a team. There's an Orlando who like desperately wants to win or Sacramento even who was willing to give him the opportunity to continue to be a star, and that's all it takes. I would actually guess that he's going to end up being the star player on a bad team

before he is a sixth man on a good team. I'd hate to see that because he's actually a little bit underrated as like a pick and roll creator. Like his efficiency was really good this past year. We talk a lot about, like, I was telling KOC, I feel like this off-season and during the playoffs, I've said secondary playmaker, like, over and over and over again. But it's like, it's in this, like, wide open game, like, it's just such an important thing to keep, you know, to keep the engine moving. It would be really cool. I would hate to see him, you know, sort of fizzle out his good years as, because wings like him, I mean, when does their production really start to slip based on what they're, you know.

size. I mean, he's a big guy. I mean, it kind of feels like, you know, the last Raptors, great Raptors two guard, right? He could have a Vince Carter like run here in his 30s. Well, and let's give him credit in terms of the role, too, because everything that was encouraging about the Spurs in Orlando was because he was willing to give up touches to shift positions to play ball with what they wanted to do.

So maybe there's more hope for him long term in finding whatever the best roles for him, six men or otherwise, because of that kind of precedent. Do we think Lamarcus will age any more great? I mean, he's older, but he's also shooting threes now. So I wonder if, like, he's an end of the bench, like Golden State Warriors next David West type in the making. Oh, I kind of like that. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Him at the Warriors would be really fun. I would love that. There you go. Just give me a job on the Warriors. I'm ready. Yeah, but I don't know. This is a really

weird Spurs situation. They're kind of like, they have the role players, but they don't have the star. It's complete opposite of what we've known from. them where it's just like you just plug and play all these guys around duncan and parker and you just go forward but now it's like i like derrick white i like dejante murray kelvin johnson is someone that people talk about and i'm sure he's great they're going to keep finding those guys and so i do wonder if at 11 it makes sense so like you guys are saying to really swing for the fences and like quite frankly the spurs with a lottery pick for the first time since two decades or whatever it is it's pretty terrifying if i'm another organization like i imagine they're going

to find somebody, especially, and you guys can speak to this, isn't the draft better in the middle or to the late first round than it is at the top? Yeah, that's what everyone's saying. I made a, this has been like the hardest year to make a big board. Like I, because I, well, I started like separating it into groups where I was like, okay, these are guys. With this group, I ended up with this big chunk of guys that was called dudes I know I'm supposed to like, but ultimately I'm unsure about. That's like the biggest group. And then I have like a group below. that that says guys that I love that I know are probably going to be on good teams in a few years. It's just kind of hard because I think we talked about this over text,

sharks, that like you feel like in a year like this that like you're kind of compelled to take a swing at the top. And, you know, but you have the, it's almost like you're in a room, like in a speed dating thing where you're like, there's somebody that I have great chemistry with. But I feel like I should wait around because I might, you know, hit it off with one of these people that I really would like to be. You know, it's kind of one of those things. Wait, have you, um, no, I've never done that. Because I'm just wondering. He's got a very specific example there.

Yeah. No, but I was just like, and then, you know, years from now, you're going to see the person that you had chemistry with and they're like in a happy marriage and you're like, damn. Okay, see, this is a real example. He's just hiding it right now. No. Trust me, no.

But, yeah. They're in Toronto. They're drinking bagged milk and they're just like having a great life. Yeah. Well, I do think, you know, in terms of being in the Spurs position, as we've been talking about, is that the spot for them to take a swing in the draft on somebody with a little higher upside? To me, that's always the question versus, you know, fit versus best player available. It's what is your risk appetite at this spot? You know, you're going to evaluate players however

you evaluate them, but like in terms of the range of their possibilities, the spurs are absolutely a team that should be taking a bigger swing. For that reason, you know, separate fit, separate best player. It's just about who can you get that can most maximize the top of their range? I would say too, it's a lot about expectations, right? If number 11 and number one are not that far apart in talent, the number 11 guy, it's just going to be a lot of easier. But if you're the number one pick, there's just so much pressure that comes with that from the media, from yourself personally.

If you're number 11, you kind of slide in. No one's really talking about you. You can grow slowly over time. You're not kind of rushing into a big role before you're ready for it. Sounds like a spurs player, honestly. I mean, they're really good at threading that needle like we were talking about. Like, they're the best. It's hard to decode what they do because if people could decode what they do, they wouldn't be a successful.

You know what I mean? They've been doing this forever. This is also our obligatory mention of Yakup Pertil, who is a good NBA player on the Spurs. We haven't talked about. Who hasn't gotten enough minutes and seems to be bristling? He's like, of all the players that I thought would really just speak out against the Spurs, Yacob Pertil is definitely at the end of that list. But here we are, and he's a restricted free agent.

He wants four minutes. Is he up for an extension, right? Yeah. he's restricted, yeah. And so I don't know, what do you do with them? I mean, I guess he's the bridge from Lamarcus to the next era, but is he going to be happy doing that? It's a tough sell.

I mean, for a guy in his position, again, the only way you're going to get paid is to get touches. The way you're going to get recognition and respect in the league is to get touches. He doesn't really. He's kind of a supplemental part of their offense in a lot of ways. I would default to paying him just because I think he's a player who will be immensely movable if it comes down to that. Yeah, and this is probably Lamarcus's last year.

I think he's a rotation player on a good team. He could. Like I really, like a top level team. Yeah, they've got a lot of decisions here. Bellinelli, Forbes also up here. So the old spurs, as we knew them, won't be here for much longer. So do not take them for granted,

as we say about many, many of players these days. We're not taking the Lamarcus Aldridge to Rosen Spurs for granted. We're adding them to that bucket. Don't take the-Hack-Burnal for banners. I don't know what the banners are for, but hang them. on that note

Kyle, thank you for joining us this week. Thanks coming on, Kyle. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I'm sure we can watch many a video

on some of these draft prospects who I don't know about yet but I'm excited to learn about in the future. It was also really nice to have someone who could check sharks a little bit because when he talks about the draft

Justin and I are just nodding along maybe casually Googling so it was nice to have somebody I can stick in some takes for sure without Kyle here. Oh, God. Just make stuff up. Yeah.

Yeah. All right, we will be back next week at the same time. Until then, for Rob, Charks, for Kyle and me, and for Sasha on production. We'll see you next time.