The Ringer NBA Show - SGA Refuses to be Herbed, and the Bulls Are Going Shrieking | Group Chat

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

Justin, Rob, and Wos recap Wednesday night's play-in games starting with Oklahoma City’s road win over the New Orleans Pelicans. They talk about Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s impressive performance, the development of the Thunder’s young core, what’s next for the Pelicans, and more (2:11). Then they talk about the Chicago Bulls' comeback win over the Toronto Raptors. They try to figure out what the future looks like for the Raptors, Zach Lavine’s incredible scoring display, DeMar DeRozan’s daughter Diar distracting the Raptors, and more (34:56). The suggestion box is back next week! Send us your emails at [e-mail] Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, Wosny Lambre Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's no secret the NFL has a problem with race. Think Colin Kaepernick. Think Brian Flores. But this isn't a new problem. It's one that started as far back as the 1930s, with a ban on black players in the NFL, with a past that informs the present. Blackbald is a new miniseries podcast from The Ringer

about the four men who broke the color barrier in football. I'm your host, Chelsea Stark Jones. You can find Blackballed on the Bringer NFL feed. And welcome to group chat after dark. I am Justin Barrier. And joining me a couple of Spencer Dinn Shitties. It is Rob Mahoney, Big Waz. What's up, boys?

Was that in succession and I missed it? Where did you get that one from? No, that one was from Twitter.com, courtesy of our friend and socialite, Kyle Kuzma. Did you miss this today? Yeah, I missed it. What did he do? No. You didn't miss anything, Waz.

You really did. Kyle Kuzma diss Spencer Dinwiddie. He's still mad at it. that guy? This is the feud of our times, apparently. Wow. We get what we deserve. Didn't any win at Kuzma and Kuzma put together what I thought was a pretty concise and sharp Twitter thread in response to some of those points. It was like a bullet point by bullet point response to all of the contentions that Spencer Dinwiddie had against Kuzma. So it was pretty good. Unfortunately, I think Waz and I missed it. We were actually seeing each other in person for a change.

This is the second time today, Waz and I saw each other. Yeah, we had we had class pictures today at the Spotify offices. I got a haircut yesterday. Dry cleaned the shirt. Yeah, we took some photos, some class photos. Very, very chill invite. Thanks. Yeah, and I'm just surprised

that Kyle Kuzma somehow moved on from Tyler Hero in that situation. But only true heads know about that one. I have no idea what that one is, but perhaps who gets that to... All right. So on tonight, agenda. Two pretty exciting playing games, question mark, I guess. Definitely some, some iffy parts of

the first game. But that last game was pretty exciting. Thunder 123, Pelicans 118. There was a lot going on here for the Thunder. Josh Kitty had an amazing game. Another big Lou Dork game. But to me, this one was SGA stepping forward and having just a monster playing game. The type of game that really announces himself as a major player in this league after what was. was what, probably first team all NBA season. Very slow to start with. Herb Jones got all up in him. Then he comes back in the third quarter

and absolutely obliterates the Pelicans. And even when the Pelicans were trapping him late in that game, a lot of stuff was just flowing from him. So Rob, for you, was this just basically the big SGA game that I think a lot of us has been kind of waiting for? Yeah, I mean, this was superstar shit, right? Down from the way he was being guarded early, the Pelicans trying to force the ball out of his hands,

trying to pressure him. And I think it was a signature game not because he was clean and easy, but because he had to work for it a little bit. He had to figure it out, as you're saying. And he got to that critical point in the second half where the Thunder had basically rearranged the pieces on the floor,

changed the execution of their pick and roll, layered things a bit, so that either Shay could, like, get into attack guys like C.J. McCollum, bigs on the floor, like, you know, get Herb Jones away from him and have other pieces to attack, or he could work in,

ISO. And so that's kind of where the superstars end up living in a lot of these series. You have to do a lot of logistical work to get the matchup you want or you can just take guys one on one. And honestly, we saw him do both pretty well and we saw him kind of balance those things pretty well. It's just really remarkable stuff from him. Obviously great things from Giddy, as you mentioned, Adored the Thunder as a whole, like this looked like a playoff team. And for a team that's this young to play this clean a game, to have so few turnovers, really just exceptional stuff from okay c yeah i feel like she's game was almost like a three act play right uh you you guys talk about the first half where he's just he's inviting the he's inviting the double

and giving it up quickly and it's working and not only just that the way the thunder are whizzing the ball around um their open guys are actually splashing the shots i thought the pelicans game plan was like yeah lou dora should shoot the freaking ball right like josh giddie he's who just learned how to shoot like three days ago should be shooting the ball in big spots. And they did and they happened to make those shots. And then in the second half, as Rob mentioned, Shea was just like, you know what,

instead of inviting this double, just quick attacks and ISO. And I think part of the reason the defense doesn't have to let you work in ISO. They can sort of, you know, sag in and sort of try to contain you. But because, you know, Doort and these other guys, guys lifted the top off of that defense, they were less inclined to do so. And so he had cleaner paths to the basket. And then in the fourth quarter, I thought the way he finished was just magnificent, because there were times where he got denied, but he never looked rush. And his last

two baskets were just my chef's kiss, honestly, when he strips B.I. of the rock, the fast break, that was not fast. He basically took his time to get him. down there, executed every single angle, ultimately finished with a layup at the cup, and that last made basket, the sort of step back on the baseline off of one freaking foot, the wrong foot at that. That, like Rob said, that's, that's what all NBA dudes do. That's superstar stuff, for sure. Yeah.

His ability to accelerate, decelerate, kind of like have those two big stops and kind of get the defense off. he's almost like a second ahead. It's very almost like Neo-Matrixy where he can almost like anticipate things a second earlier and thus he's able to counter whatever is going to come there. It's not necessarily Hardin level like Prime Houston Hardin

because Hardin would manipulate things in order to draw fouls and obviously the side step evolved from there. But it's getting very close to it. And actually in terms of like isolation scores Robb, like where is SGA on like your power ranking? because at this point, he's one of the most unguarable guys we have right now. Yeah, he's one of the absolute best.

And it's the combination of not needing to be purely explosive, right? Like, as we're kind of alluding to, he does play at a particular pace. He does kind of slink through the lane and through defenders. He doesn't have to just be point A to point B faster than you. He's going to pivot around. He has great footwork. He has such great touch on those, like, reaching, leaning layups

in addition to the floater in the mid-range game. So when you have all of that stuff and you're a player who just like categorically usually this game accepted you're not very interested in taking threes everything is coming from the arc inside once you take that first step everything is a threat

every potential move is a threat it's so hard to guard and the fact that he's 24 years old and has already kind of mastered the speed of his own game I mean the sky's the limit for a player like that right? Like this is a guy who's already all NBA who could be the MVP of the league

someday who could be that level of dominant score and creator because he had he had this game in his hand by the second half yeah so what he reminds me of honestly is if like paul pierce had quickness right uh he's more sudden than paul pierce but all of that footwork stuff that he's doing um he's beating guys to the spot with that skill work you know and he's got some level of quickness a really really at this point super tight handle i remember his rookie year you'd go to um clippers games pregame and Sam Cassell was just drilling this fool every single game every game they were working on just this kind of stuff and obviously if you guys are old enough to remember Sam Cassell

just a master craftsman um so to see him doing that now you know four years later where he's just mastered it with his length with his quickness it's incredible and you know the thing is guys can't just sluff off on him he's he's a great mid-range shooter. You know, he doesn't take the three that much, but you can't just, he's not Russell Westbrook. If you leave that man open for three, he's going to can it off the dribble or spot up. And so, yeah, this was just a magnificent performance. And if I may steal some of Rob's OKC, Homer, Thunder myself, this is why I thought they could get out of the playing. I'm just like, SGA is going to be the best player on every single court that he steps on in the playing, and I think he'll carry the day.

well in addition to sGA you had jalen williams the santa clara one i guess who were calling jubb for lack of a better term we're calling him jilliams okay great jub had a couple of the typical scoop the scoop shots that he typically does uh door almost got to game seven rocket status where 27 points four three-pointers unfortunately didn't hit the 30 point six three-pointers uh he had from from that game in 2021. But Josh Giddy, 31 points, 10 assists, nine rebounds, only at 31 point near triple double in your first playing game. I guess we can't technically count this as a postseason game and it will be lost to history, unfortunately, for him, but still a great performance nonetheless, was I'm sure you've already done the Mulligan over Josh Giddy, but does he continue to surprise

even where you are now on it? Justin, I don't know what you're talking about. I've been on the getting a train since his very first summer league. Everybody knows that. No, you know what I like about him is that he's punishingly smaller guys, right? He's playing de facto point guard for the team. And, you know, in the past, his jump shot was not reliable. He didn't have much of a drive game or post game to speak of. A lot of it was this drive and finding fancy passing angles that originally got, you know, NBA

hipsters tentilated. But now he's got some nuts and bolts to his game where, you know, C.J. McCollum is getting his armpit all up in his grill, you know, down by the basket whenever he sees that matchup. His transition stuff is nice to see. And what, you know, the thing about his jump shot is not just that he's making it. He's taking it with no hesitation. And when you're doing that, the defense has to react to you in a different way.

And so it's not just that he's making them, but like the way that teams know, He's ready to fire at all times. Yeah, that's a long way of saying, yeah, I've come around mostly on Josh Giddy. I think I want to see more than a playing game, a solitary playing game before I start crowning this guy, you know, the next Larry Bird. But I think he's doing his thing. But this game did feel like the culmination of something, right? It's like every breadcrumb throughout the season of some game in January you're watching where Josh Giddy is really aggressive in transition or coming off the screen looking to attack.

like the before and afters of him now in this game versus where he was last season just in terms of pure aggressiveness totally different player you know to the point that just the fact that honestly the fact that he took 22 shots in this game my heart is growing three sizes like I don't even mind the turnovers in the fourth quarter

I don't mind some of the some of the sins of aggression in that case that is the player the thunder need him to be and the fact that he had a whole season of kind of looking for his own shot a little more and a little more until he's at this level and this kind of game. That's just incredible development for this team and an incredible story for Giddy's career.

It's a great place to kind of track his trajectory from here. My favorite Josh Giddy factoid among a few of them, including that on his Twitter bio, he calls himself Himmethy Shalameh. Accurate. He is ostensibly the shooting guard for this team, right? Leads the team in rebounding over the course of the season. And not just by a few, it was by three.

And now this team doesn't typically play with a traditional center. Dario Sarge is the closest thing these days of getting a center out there. I guess Jalen Williams, the J-A-Y-L-I-N Williams, was ostensibly the starting center of this team. But like the way that these guys are able to just fill in the gaps around each other is so incredible. I'll get to the Pelicans at some point, but I'm clearly fully engorge for this Pelicans team, or excuse me, this Thunder team.

It's just I brought up the... Jesus Christ. I brought up the raptors. It's not that after dark, Justin. Let me tell you, it's getting there. I brought up the Raptors as a comparison point, just because they're another team that's tried to downsize at the center position,

go with all light-bodied type of players. And you saw kind of tonight in the earlier game how that advantage manifested from there is a lot of toughness and physicality, right? And on the right night, that could be a big deal. But with the thunder, it's more that they just have all these big bodies, but it results in an abundance of skill and athleticism and dynamism.

And it's like, it's such a like an incredible like collection that they've been able to do where everyone kind of plays off each other. And as Rob alluded to it before, it's not just like chaotic and messy as you expect from a young, like, energetic, spunky team. This team is really disciplined. And that's a credit to just like the organization that Thunder have. I know it's in certain instances it could feel more like a police state. but like they really have molded what are pretty awesome raw talents into like fully fledged like two way wings within like sometimes one or maybe even two years it's really incredible i want to i want to just slow down the enthusiasm just a bit because i think the difference

between again the raptors and this team the okay okay c thunder is shea gilgesalexander They have an all-NBA level wing. When you have a guy who is inviting automatic doubles where, you know, you get to play four on three, like those kids get to play four on three because of Shea Gilgis Alexander. Like, as much as we love Seacom, much as I love, personally love, Fred Van Vleet, those guys even combined don't make up, make what Shea does on a possession by possession basis. And, you know, to me, that's what makes all the difference. It's having that guy who defenses are like, man, we got to commit extra resources to. Toronto doesn't have a single person who a defense looks at it. It's just like, oh, my God, what are we going to do when this one man has the ball?

Was, I take your point. But look, we live in some pretty troubled times. You know, our institutions are failing all over the place. It's hard to know what you can put your trust in. Something to believe. You know what we can believe in? Big game Dort. This dude shows up.

Do or die games. You can count on Lou Dort to hit an inexplicable number of threes and basically steady your first half offense, to be honest with you. Period. That game could have got out of hand quite easily if he wasn't scoring so much. If he was succumbing to the pressure and getting lemon booty and bricking those threes, instead of like, again, another guy who just straight up was not hesitating. He was firing and he was like three feet behind the three point line on some of these things.

He's like, oh, you're going to go under? Splash. And all while guarding the shit out of people on the other end. It was crazy, dude, to watch him do what he was doing on defense tonight. That man was unscreenable. Like, you just could not put a body on him. Yeah, he was blowing past a bunch of dudes. So the Thunder had a lot of guys coming up big in this one.

the Pelicans, unfortunately, did not. I would say 90% of the roster probably didn't really show up for this game. Ingram got 37 and 6. He was awesome at times, especially in the fourth quarter. But as we mentioned, Dort was really just in his shorts for long portions of this game. Unfortunately, there really wasn't much else to turn to. Trey Murphy had some big stretches earlier in the second half. But like, man, C.J. McCollum, 14 points on 4 for 14 shooting.

And like everyone has bad games. but CJ man, just he's been, I, way too much for this team. And the thing is with CJ, it's, you know, four for 14 or 15 or whatever it is, five threes. This guy was basically taking 10 long-ass twos as a short man.

It's like, this is not quality offense in this setting, right? He's not going to get to the line. Like, we know who C.J. McCollum is at this point. And so, yeah, they gave him. a valiant effort. And I thought the crowd was super into it. But ultimately, man, the best guy on the floor showed who he was tonight. Did we think the rest of the Pelicans were that bad?

You know, I thought some of them had underwhelming stretches. But like, Herb Jones, for a guy who was just being left to take like self-flagellating threes that he was, everyone knew he was going to miss. I thought he found, but he found really like creative ways and good times to cut to attack. Valanchunis was incredible. Valanchunis was, again, straight up the reason they were in this game and had leads at various points of it.

Like he had some really crucial stretches. He also had some tough ones. As we've seen from JV, you know, all JVs, really, at various points. Fuck off. And then I thought Willie Green's decision to like reorient the offense a little bit to the point where Trey Murphy was the corner release

when the Thunderwood crashed the paint, paid off, you know, paid off, paid some dividends and stretches. It's just like they just couldn't keep it all sustained beyond Brandon Ingram's, you know, not only sensational scoring, really tremendous playmaking from Ingram. It's just like they just didn't have quite enough. Like this is a close game. And I don't think we can just gush so much about all the Thunder guys that acknowledging that the Pelicans put something together here too. It's going to easily went the other way. The Jackson Hayes minutes, not the best.

Yeah, let's not do that. It's tough. They didn't have Larry Nance tonight. We should mention. They didn't. And JV. hurt his ankle, right? And so they had to put Jackson Hayes in.

By the way, just spinning this forward, I do think OKC goes into the real playoffs. But they do, this is a young-ass team. They're not really going to guard sophisticated offense. That B-I bucket, that huge, you know, mid-range where he snaked around the pick and roll. Jackson Hayes set the screen. He's like 19, 20 feet from the beach. basket and Jalen Williams is hugging the pain and letting B.I. get a clean shot. It's like, bro, when Jackson Hayes is on the floor, you can step up and do whatever the hell you want.

That dude is not a threat to score. You know what I mean? But, you know, I thought the supportive cast did as good as they could consider in the circumstances, aside from CJ probably. Yeah, CJ had a tough game. They had their moments. I think the problem was, it seemed like finding answers was a little bit more difficult than it was for the thunder. And to the Valanchunis point, he had eight and nine, I think, in the first quarter, and it seemed like he was just going to stomp all over the thunder. And, like, credit the Thunder because they are so good at making up for the size disadvantage by just, like, gang rebounding and gang defending and working as one and all that.

But, like, it always hurts the Pelicans that they don't have enough outside shooting that they could crowd the paint and take that away from them. So your big advantage, which was Valentunus, was effectively neutralized. I guess that's where the disappointment comes. You'd want to see CJ step up big in that point. And I don't fault like, Trey Murphy and some of these other guys not doing so because like they're on the younger side.

And honestly, that's not really their role at this point. So it just would have been nice if Ingram just had like one or two moments where he didn't have to be just the all end all be all like balls to the wall's like go-to-guy. You're right. It's just like this, the whole story is very different if she doesn't hit a tough contested runner with like 30 seconds left or whatever it was to put them up, right? Or you want to trace it back, like,

if the spirit of the sky hook isn't alive in Jalen Williams, you know, like you take it with any interchangeable bucket throughout the game. This is a very close margin, stretched out a little bit by the free throw game at the end. But the pelicans are right there in this. They had their shot at this game, and Ingram is the one who really dragged them there. Yep.

So the pelicans go off into the offseason. Let's do a quick just look ahead with the pelicans. things are pretty muddled. In some ways, they have one of the brightest futures in the NBA. On the other hand, they have one of the most complex one. And that's just the case of being the employers of one Zion Williamson. We got an update earlier this week where it was a little cryptic. And I think it had to be cleaned up during the broadcast by David Griffin, I believe it was Lisa Sultz.

Salters, where it was, Zion basically was like, I'm ready, but I'm not like peak Zion. on. But then Griffin was basically like, no, no, no, he's not cleared. And so I do want to give the Pelicans a benefit of the doubt. I do think that this could have just been a player not being as precise with what was going on as he could have been. But I do think this is also kind of what has been happening probably behind the scenes. And honestly, publicly with Zion, where it's just like there is a little bit of disjointment happening there. And I don't know, man. Like I want to just believe in Zion can stay in the floor and this team could be whatever it could be with him there. On the other hand, he hasn't shown it at this point. He's probably good for what 30 games a season, if that at this

point. And I don't know what you do. I guess you can't do anything, Rob, just because if you're in the Zion business, you have to just go along for the ride. Yeah, the conversation has shifted from where it was a season or two ago for a couple of reasons. One, we have just more injuries for Zion, even less reason for us to know exactly what to do with him, despite the fact that when he plays, one of the best players in the league. The other thing that's shifted a lot is Praninand Ingram is really freaking good. And so any concerns you may have had about fit,

like these guys are way too good to do anything like preemptive, right? Like you can tool around the edges. If you want to, you know, flip elements of the supporting cast, if you want to lean one way or another, if you want to please get more shooting on this roster,

just a little bit would go a long way. Those kinds of things would help. But the core of this team kind of is what it is. And that's a combination of Zion and Ingram being too good to make dramatic changes. And CJ being on the other end of that. I don't know what your options are for CJ

other than just kind of keeping him and running it back. Yeah, I've been pretty annoyed by Zion and his management of certain elements of his career so far. He seemed a bit childish about certain stuff, right? Immature, whatever, unseasoned, whatever you want to call it. This, I'm less inclined to feel like this is some big thing because essentially we ask these young people to get up here and speak as eloquently as Justin Varyer does just getting out of bed. That's not going to happen. I feel like what he was trying to say is that I went down with a muscle injury and I don't want to fucking come back in the playoffs.

Like, it's high intensity games and like I want to ramp up before I come up. before I come back, right? And there's no way for me to ramp up to playoff-level intensity basketball, especially since, again, it's not an ACL that got repaired, you know, it's not a broken wrist or hand or something. It's a muscle injury, so I understand what he was saying

is just, you know, the dude's talking in third person, you know, and it's just like, wait, this is the playoffs and there's a chance that you could be out there and you're doing this stuff. Like, I understood what he was saying, even if he didn't say it in the best way possible. We need to get over this idea that, like, getting hung up on whether a player is medically cleared to play or not

being the sole determining factor in this stuff, it's certainly relevant. I get why the pelicans are trying to give him cover in this instance to basically say, like, no, he's not allowed to play. But if the reason was straight up literally what Zion said, which is that he doesn't feel prepared to be the fullest version of himself because of a muscle injury as was just laid out, I'm fine with that.

Like, I'm honestly fine with that. These are high stakes games. That is a, that is, you have to be able to trust in your ability to explode at a moment's notice off that leg. And if you can't do that,

I get why you're not out there. Yes, but he also does the thing where in pregame, he does a big show of making windmill dunks and explosive plays and it gets all the beat writers to tweet about it.

And he's constantly in conversation with like Twitter basically. And I get like as someone who is just driven to madness by some of your fucking comments. I'm talking to you listeners. Just like I understand it but it's just like it seems like

a very difficult dance to really navigate through. One if you're the Pelicans as an organization but also like if you're a fan of the team. It's just like there's a lot of multiple front wars being waged here. Here's a question I want to ask was would you ever consider trading Zion,

considering what you might still be able to get for him, but also considering how high maintenance, any sort of situation with him has been at this point? What am I trading him for? You know what I'm saying? It's always the question. Yeah, like, no, meaning, you know, let's just say, but this is tough because you're New Orleans,

but I don't know. Like, if somebody who, an all NBA level player, comes on the market, hell yeah. Hell yeah, he's on the table, 100%. So, and by all-MBA, I'm saying like somehow a Jason Tatum, you know, or somebody like of that caliber.

I'm not saying Jason Tatum, don't aggregate me and say that, do my actual trade. I'm just saying, like, somebody of that level. And maybe Jason Tatum might be too good. But, like, if an all-NBA caliber guy, Shoo, man, if a guy like Jimmy Buckets was two or three years younger and he came on the market, I would absolutely consider trading Zions out of shape ass. Hell yeah, I would.

But outside of that, there's like three, four guys who you could envision that came, you know, open. And it'd be like, all right, let's move heaven and nerve to make this happen, meaning Zion. And not much else, by the way. man, I can't believe if Jason Tatum demanded a trade today. That's wild stuff. First we had the Kuzman News, now this, yeah. I mean, I think the other question is

if you're a team that is positioning yourself for the next disgruntal superstar, let's say the next or whomever. Like, do you even want Zion at this point? I think it's a really difficult discussion on both sides of it, in particular for the Pelicans, Rob, because you, like you said, you do have Brandon Ingram.

You have all of these parts. You have a very good team that's just dying to take the next step. It seems like it's one player away. Just that player is just never healthy enough to play with you guys. Yeah. I mean, Zion is the kind of talent

who makes almost any team in his orbit or any team that could hypothetically be in his orbit do a lot of soul searching on that front. Like really consider what you have, what it's worth, what it means to you. Personally, I think, you know, not only are a lot of decision makers

in the NBA, and certainly a lot of ownership groups in the NBA, pretty risk of hers. But you look at someone like Joelle Embed, right? And it's like you are injury prone until you're kind of not. And then you're the MVP of the league, right? Like, Joel, there's still some things hanging over him. He still might pick up this nagging injury or that,

but he is a dominant knightly force. It doesn't take that long for a guy early in his career to flip that kind of switch. Just needs a little bit of luck. Certainly a lot of body work. Some factors going in his favor. Maybe Zion can get on that kind of path. Like that's what we're all hoping.

for based on the glimpses of him we've seen. Yeah, I think the crazy thing is Joel was probably playing as close to a full season as he can get by this point in his career, you know? So we're actually longer with Zion in this weird nebulous zone than we are with Joel. Yeah, I don't know what's going to happen.

There's also a luxury tax issue to watch for the Pelicans because they're paying CJ so much money and also Ingram and also Zion. They're already pretty close under the luxury tax with Josh Richardson to figure out this off season, Jackson Hayes. So, like, I don't know what you can do. And the other thing that we could probably just note here, I don't know what will happen with it, a lot of the picks that they've been stockpiling, it's starting to depreciate just a little bit. They're not going to get the swap from

the Lakers this year. They actually only have, believe it or not, after talking about this, millions of times for the past couple of years, they only have one Lakers first round pick to come. And it could be top five next year for Hall. We know what's going to happen to the Lakers, but it's mostly bucks picks. Pick is their last pick from the Lakers? But then it becomes the bucks. And like, honestly, we'll see with the bucks. Like, you know, you never know with a team that's aging like that. Wow.

Next year, the Lakers are going to be good next year. Damn, maybe. I honestly don't know what the Lakers. Did they get, who did they get that was worthwhile with that Lakers stuff? Was Herb Jones a Lakers situation? DeAndre Daniels was the big one. They flipped the pick that ultimately became D'Andre Hunter and traded back in order to get Nikonji.

Alexander Walker and Jack Nays, which was a pretty big mistake because there is Garland, went after Hunter and whatnot. But yeah, definitely, I mean, at the very least, like, I think it is becoming time to maybe aggregate a salary, let's say a CJ and some of these picks and do something with it, because the core is already here. You already have enough young guys. Yeah, I think they got to ride this Zion thing out because, you know, and even like I said, with a disgruntled or whatever, an all-MBA caliber guy comes.

on the market. Like, who says they want to force their way to your stuff? Nobody's going to be like, oh, get me to New Orleans. Right now, I need some Beny's. Like, nah, ain't going to happen like that. Benis are kind of overrated. I got to be honest. It's just a very, this is just a very year dump on New Orleans.

He just, like, you know what? You know what's so funny? I'm watching this game and New Orleans goes home, and it doesn't even occur to me that this is a mini-vary Christmas. You know what I did? I always somehow forget various capacity to hate the city of New Orleans and the pelicans that represent them. Listen, man, the one thing I will not dump on with New Orleans is the food. I gave away a few years of my life.

You literally just did. You literally just did. No, beyond the Benets, like, just the culinary scene based on how much you could pay. That's bang for your buck. in the States, I'll say. Anyway, so there you go. See? Love New Orleans.

All right. Just quickly here. Thunderwolves on Friday. Rob, who do you like in that one? Fuck if I know, man. Do you know what Wolf's team is going to show up? I know Nathan Knight might get two or three minutes based on last night's game. Yeah.

Do we think Ann Edwards is something's wrong with him? That's the question, right? Like that was, he's had some performances certainly where he forces up a lot of perimeter jumpers where he settles for some stuff. Like that is part of his basketball character, so to speak. But that was something else. Like he just looked like he wanted no part of attacking the basket. That's who shows up and that's what they've got.

No, that that is not winnable, that situation. I got to say, man, as bad as Carl Towns was in the fourth quarter, even though his whole team was bad, he dominated the previous. He was the best player on the floor by a mile before that. It's just, I'm just like, man, look at Carl Towns, turn around his narrative. You know what so crazy watching that game is that Carl Towns left the floor and I was like, oh my God, his team needs him defensively. I've never in my whole life said that about Carl Towns before last night.

It's just crazy that he just crumbled and turned into a pumpkin down the stretch, man. It's such an interesting contrast, though, with these two groups. Because, yeah, on the one hand, it's a wolf's team. that makes all kinds of mistakes, but is so much more talented than the Thunder, just in terms of veteran talent. OKC, they do play a clean game. They're one of the lowest turnover teams in the league.

We've seen what their guys can do in essential games just now. Well, let me ask this. Lou Dort can guard at Edwards. Loodort's going for 40 in that game. If you're the Nuggets, who are you rooting for? If you're the Nuggets you're rooting for OKC, Hmm, interesting.

Just because it's like, it's more of a, you know, although, okay, see, they're going to show up, they're going to play hard, they're going to play their way, they're going to be disciplined. But like you need, if you're, if you're an eight seed beating a one seed, you need high variance. You need Aunt Edwards popping off and having the series of his life. I think Shea has that in him. But overall, the Thunder are like more of a baseline team, right? They're more steady than they are explosive. And if you're an eight seed that's going to win a series, you've got to be really explosive. Yep, I agree with that.

I don't know. I look at those young-ass bigs. But you know what? Minnesota is like what their big rotation is in shambles right now. It's fair. It's like the idea that any of these teams are going to single cover Yokic at any point of that series is just, whew. Have mercy. We might have to call BCW for them kids, man.

All right. Why don't we flip to the East matchup, the first matchup, Bulls 109, Raptors 105. My recap of this games goes something like this. That was not a good impression, but thank you for not doing the right impression, because we'd be losing a lot of listeners right now. I mean, I thought it couldn't get any wilder than Lakers Wolves over time, just everyone just throwing shit against the wall and making every possible flub you possibly could. and then we had this one where the game potentially could have come down to De Marder Rosen's infant child, shrieking.

What? How old are you? How old was she? Not an infant child. What do we say, toddler? Breitin. Those are all the same, right? I don't hang out with kids, clearly not as much as Rob does.

but shrieking during the Raptors free throws and seemingly potentially making a difference the Raptors only made 18 of 36, that's 50%. If my math is correct, I believe it's defused, makes free throws based on that many attempts for the entire season. So something was going on here. Even a team like the Raptors that doesn't shoot particularly well

wouldn't shoot this poorly from the free throw line. I'm kind of just flummixed here. I know we can talk about Zach Levine, but this whole like side show is just like is baffling to me, Rob. I mean, it was some real like epic poem shit of Damar's daughter coming back to Toronto to return to the city that raised her and just like laying waste to it one screech at a time.

It was amazing. I looked it up. So of the 10 worst free throw shooting performances at home this season, the Raptors were at home in this game in which DeMar's daughter was terrorizing them. Four of them have come against the Bulls. I'm wondering if DeMar's daughter's been traveling all season, and we just haven't been clocking it.

He already has gone on record and said she is not going to be at the game in Miami. She needs to go back to school. So we'll have to see if, you know, the forces of the universe return to normal. But what a turn. What a turn of events. And in particular, not only did they miss so many free throws, just like so many free throws over the course of this game. We had another play-in game in which a shooter had three free throws

and a chance to tie the game in crunch time. Pascal Siakum steps to the line one of three against the screech couldn't cut it we need to change the shooting file we need to make it harder to draw a shooting foul for three free throws I just think that was a bad call too

I just dude was literally on the ground there was no gather there was no oh he's in the motion he was his the ball was basically by his knees it was nowhere close to going up that was ridiculous the Conley foul was ridiculous.

Um, B.I. crying because he wanted the four-point play at the end of the game. Newsflash people, every single contest is not a foul. Just stop it already. I would really like to see us legislate that out the game because it's just annoying the freaking foul hunting behaviors that we see from these folks. But to me, the Raptors story is like they stopped scoring. Um, that's been a story of the Raptors for, what, three years now? Can we put a bow on the shrieking thing just really quickly?

Yeah, go ahead. So Russell Westbrook gets a fan ejected for calling him Westbrook. Right? But we can't ask a child to just like stop screaming. No. During a playing game? No. What's wrong with it?

No. No. Well, like one is ostensibly disrupting whatever is going on in the court. And, wait, wait, hold on, which, which one is the disruptive one in this case? The adult men are like hurling racist insults or one of the players' daughters supporting her dad. I do not obviously support anything that crosses the line, but based on all evident, the one in Memphis was a guy on the sidelines just saying Westbrook. Yeah. This has happened before with Russell.

You shouldn't be able to kick a fan out for calling him by his. nickname. Right. And so like, where's the line here with what is acceptable and what it is not? Because like I just would have liked to see this this game play out without this like outlier shrieking going on, potentially disrupting the Toronto Raptors entire season that has lasted what, like six or seven months here. I completely agree with you in the sense that Russ and certain NBA guys are too fucking sensitive. Fans should be able to say that you brick jump shots. That's just like you shoot in the 20s from three for years on end, shoot them unabashedly. Nobody can tell you to stop doing it.

People should be able to pay money to call you Westbrook to your face. I don't see any problem with that. However, if Shannon Sharp can be allowed to threaten to beat people up on the Memphis Grizzlies just because he's friends with LeBron, I think, you know, DeMarco Rosen's kid should be able to be like, yo, you know, I'm going to be fuck up your free throws. Yeah, unlike some people on this podcast, I'm going to go on the stance and say that players'

family members should be allowed to attend games. As long as they aren't just like, shrill, like screaming at the top of the lungs. I'm good with it. Anyway, Rob, you want to talk about the actual basketball. Seven-year-olds out of NBA games. You have taken this shit.

Yo, bro, like, you are topping you. You're topping yourself week after week after week, bro. You know what the crazy thing is? I believe all of this. This is not like Skip Bayless. I'm doing this for a fact. No. These are literally my thoughts that I am conveying here.

We know. We know. This is facts. Thank you for being my therapist. Less seven-year-olds at NBA games, Rob, continued. That's all I'm saying. The thing about this is, like, even if, per Justin's wishes,

DeMard Rosen's daughter, been ejected from the game in the first. quarter. You don't think the Raptors, you don't think the Raptors would have found a way to lose this game because they sure seemed like they wanted to. And it's a great point. It's honestly, it's the kind of loss that gets a team blown up. And the Raptors are probably headed in that direction anyway.

We'll see what happens with Nick Nurse. We'll see what happens with every relevant trade piece on the roster. Certainly a lot of them. You know, it felt like the Swan song that this version of this team probably deserved. and they had all of their chances to win it. Not only did they stop scoring, but they just stopped even trying to prevent Zach Levine from getting to the basket over the back half of this game.

He was just walking to the rim. Very, very tough stuff for Toronto. Like, honestly, just kind of completely fell apart when they had some things that were working in their favor. Like, Pascal Seacum had a great game. Unfortunately, couldn't hit crucial free throws, had some mistakes that really cost them, but overall played well enough to win.

They don't have a bench. You know, if you're wondering why Nick Nurse has never trusted this bench, I would look at their performance in this game. Three of 13 total, eight total points, 35 total minutes from the bench. Gary Trent Jr., one of seven on shots, did not make a three. Just brutal stuff from the vast majority of the Raptors roster. And I don't mean to underplay the fact that the Bulls stole this game because they did. They took it right out from under them.

Came back from, I believe, a 19 point lead. We should absolutely, you know, hammer home everything that they did well. but man, did Toronto give it away too? Yeah, Zach Levine was incredible. I think he's had a really tough year up and down roller coaster. This was Zach Levine at his finest, where he is attacking the basket and just finishing over guys. That's my favorite Zach Levine,

when he's just putting his head down and being like, I know I got one of the prettiest jump shots in the league, but I'm going to get to the rack and use my explosiveness. That was really cool to see. But I would ask you guys, like, I think if anybody in the league would do, would have the balls to bring this team back as is, it's Masay Jiri. But how should Raptors feel if they bring back these same cats again next year? Well, I think that's a great question because the midseason trade for Yakupurtle

suggests that there is some belief in this core from the front of it. office. At the very least, they're going to roll certain elements of back because you don't give a first round pick for an ensuing free agent if you don't intend to bring them back. I assume maybe something else happens. Maybe they just wanted to rent them to make the run here. But something is off with this team. They're not even the best version of what they were in the good times of last season. Rob, do you think it is simple as like maybe Nick Nurse just like wears on people and maybe he's just lost the locker room, or do you think there's like something maybe fundamentally just absolutely flawed in this team is actually fools Aaron to blame Nurse for this?

I don't want to put any like thoughts in the players' heads on that stuff, but I will say this. Nick Nurse, I think he's a reputation from people at a distance as being like, oh, this tactician, this kind of like awes-y presence, he's carrying his guitar around everywhere. That dude is cutting in a press conference. Like he will air you out if you do not have maximum effort. playing exactly the way he wants you to play. I will say would not surprise me if I'm, you know, one of the players on this roster and I was starting to get a little bit tired of that, especially for a team where it's like, I'm giving

you 40 minutes every night. I'm going to make some mistakes now and again. I'm not going to play up to my maximum capability every second I'm on the floor. You know, you want to yell at Gary Trent Jr. Go yell at Gary Trent Jr. But I would understand if players were a little tired of that, to be honest with you. And I think you see some of it in terms of like when you're saying something's off with this team. Some of that is skill set.

Some of that is ill-fitting pieces. Some of this is the fact that like OG Ananoi is a great example. Excellent theoretical player who can slot into lots of different kinds of teams. He has games like this one where he doesn't hit threes, where DeMarjorozen is beating him one-on-one in a lot of possessions. This is a Rissilo take right here? Is it? Yeah, he's not an OG fan. Let me, let me parrot Rassillo.

Like he has some emptier games. And I say this is someone who just voted him all defense. I think he's an exceptional defender. But offensively, sometimes he's a little bit of a tough hang. And the Raptors, I think, struggle with that a little bit. I think part of it is I feel like we've all been in relationships where we look around and we just say, we've gotten all that we could get out of this. I think that's the weirdness you're recognizing there, that everybody involved from Pascal,

to OG, to Fred, to Nick Nurse. It's like, we know who we are together as a relationship. And it's probably, we're dragging this thing at this point. Let's go find new dance partners, so to speak. We'll get to the Bulls. I'm sure any Bulls fan is wondering why we aren't talking about Zach Levine scoring 39 points. But since we're already on the subject here,

it's just like, it's just so complicated to figure out. how you move forward with this team because not only is Fred Van Fleet and Gary Trent Jr. impending free agents they both player options, but we assume the market price for shooting is going to be at a premium, especially with only a few teams having Caspaces summer.

That's the one thing you need the most. You don't break the bank for Gary, you can't break the bank for Gary Trent Jr. I wouldn't, I know, he's going to so he has an 18.8 player million player option. I would assume that's about what you're going to get at the top end for Trent,

but I don't know, people go crazy with shooters, especially young ones on the market. My wonder is with Fred Van Vleet. Like, I have to imagine a team like the magic and maybe even a team like the Thunder, although Van Vleet,

I don't know where he would fit in there, but more like a team like the magic, after hoaring cap space for so long, might pull off the JJ Reddick contract move where you overpay short term for a veteran just to get someone to plug a hole for you. So I would imagine he's going to be a pretty coveted free agent. But anyway, long story short, like, yeah, you have those.

And then you have Siakum and then you have OG coming up the following year. And so, like, what do you want to do? Do you rearrange your team around Scotty Barnes? Is he ready for that? Here's my question. Scottie Barnes thinks he's ready for that. I'll tell you that much. Do we think Scotty Barnes is going to be better than Pascal Seacom?

Are you just trying to, like, jab the masses? Haven't we gotten into this particular beehive enough times? He's trying to get us. He's trying to get us. I mean, this is relevant. I don't see it. I don't see it. But Pascal Seaccom's an all-n-eal-level player.

The odds of anyone being an all-embea-level player is not great. That's what I'm trying to get at. Pascal is excellent. I don't see that in Barnes's future. I don't, because Pascal has such a sophistication to his game. game. The footwork alone. Can you guys imagine? We haven't seen signs

of that level of footwork from Pascal. He's gotten his jump shot better than what it used to be. Certainly like four or five years ago. It's not even close. It even looks different. I don't. I don't think so. I don't think so.

I think it's certainly possible. It's possible. Most of what's happening with Barnes now is pretty unvarnished, pretty instinctive. Like, he has a feel for how to be a good contributor. But he needs, like, the Pascal Seacom developmental arc that Waz is talking about. Like, Seacom is one of the great developmental success stories

in the NBA. He's a very skilled player. He might not possess some of the physical tools as far as Scotty's natural heft and strength. And he's probably more vertical and faster and that kind of thing. But Pascal, he's not, Pascal's very skilled and not unathletic.

You know what I mean? Like he's, he's, he's, that's going to be tough to live up to. That's what I'm saying. And so I want to see Scotty Barnes given an opportunity to be his best self. I just don't know what that is. And I don't know when he's going to get the opportunity there because there is so much redundancy there with Seacom. And so like, this is just such a really, really tough equation because like the most likely scenario right now, is you're looking at the core of this team coming back with Pertil possibly,

without as much shooting for one of the teams that is in desperate need of shooting. And it's just like, I don't want to be blow it up guy, but I wonder if that's just like the easiest path. I think that's the easiest, simplest path. And it's the easiest simplest path to getting Scotty Barnes some touches and seeing what you got. It's hard to justify when you have a championship winning coach, championship players, veterans,

and you say, hey, guys, you guys are clearly better at five things than Scotty does, but we're going to, you know, make him the focal point of all of those things because he's young. You can't do that with a veteran team, right? You got to get him out of there. And, you know, again, I like Scotty Barnes, but if he's supposed to be this next level guy that everybody should be excited about, it's because he's a wing who is high usage and all that. I watch him with the basketball in his hand. I'm watching Jalen Williams, the wing, right?

The fluidity with which he handles the ball and gets to his spots and doing these scoop layups. Like, Scotty doesn't have that slickness. And if you're going to be a wing, you need some slickness with the ball. I haven't seen that from him. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm just not watching enough Raptors games. But he doesn't have that perimeter craft that you need from a guy at that.

that position. No, I don't think you're wrong. And honestly, the fact that we're having this conversation speaks to the problem, which is coming off of Barnes, you know, rookie of the year coronation, there was so much excitement about his game. Everything since has been incredibly not going to do it. I'm not going to do it.

Don't. Please don't. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. Everything since has been incredibly muddled. And that's where the raptors are. The whole roster, the whole future, the whole situation is muddled. And the problem with Barnes, is what you saw from Siakum in this game,

which is Siakum was the driver of Toronto's offense. He was scoring tough baskets. He was drawing double teams. He was creating. He was doing things that, frankly, we just have not seen Barnes have the opportunity to do. And that he may not ever be great at doing, at least to your point, Justin, as good as Pascal is.

And so what do you do with that as a front office? That's where the Raptors are. That's why we're talking about it. Right. Well, I mean, another team that was seemingly muddled and probably still is in the big picture, are the Bulls, but the big difference there is they had Zach Levine.

And Zach Levine had an incredible night, 39 points, as I mentioned, 30 in the second half. Good Lord, six rebounds, three assists. But quietly, this is kind of what he's been doing the entire second half of the season, right? For months. Yeah, months at this point.

It's really been a punctuation, though, on that stretch. You know, three, four months effectively of really high quality play, really efficient play. Levine's always been when healthy one of the best shooters out there but when he's getting to the rim like this

as you alluded to, Oz, this is the best version of Zach and he was toasting Fred Van Vleet on ball, working over Scotty Barnes when he tried to guard him leaving big after big in the dust. Taking the contact

and still finishing, it was beautiful stuff to see. Absolutely. I'm sure those people on Madison, excuse me, not on Madison, on 7th Ave at Madison Square Garden

to watch them quite closely. I do got to say folks at home, please drink. You can't stop a team from scoring this much with Chicago's personnel without having a guy like Caruso out there. This dude, he just is flying every, like no regard for his body. He never gives up on a play. And the other thing that, what I love is the transition where he's just like, I don't care who's already down there.

I'm coming for your head. I'm putting it on you. He was incredible on the defensive end, hit a huge corner three that I thought was, you know, was just amazing. And I want to give a shout out to KOC, who was nice enough to have me on his TV show. Y'all check out Fanduil TV if y'all got cable still.

But he bigged up the Bulls. He said, yo, they've been guarding people for like a month and some change now. Like, you can't discount what these people have done on defense. They're going to get out of the playing game and they actually play some defense tonight. it's not just lately too they finished with a top five defense

which is incredible considering some of the personnel here and like typically your identity trickles down from your best player and there are good and bad examples of that I kind of think this Bulls team trickles down from Alex Caruso like maybe if you ask Michael Pina

and some of other people on our staff would be their best player but like yeah this team has quietly like overhauled itself he thinks Caruso is the best player the team? Well, let's just say in our, in our top, exaggeration. Yeah, in our top 125 rankings, there are two players with the goat badge. One is LeBron James and one is Alex Caruso.

So go check that out if you have time. But no, this has quietly become a defense of team that can't shoot. And then I guess that's Zach Levine when you need them. Yeah. And like, you kind of hate to hand it to him, but the Pat Beverly effect has been pretty real too. Like, having him and the lineup has really helped. But Caruso, not only is he flying around, but the versatility is really crucial, right?

You don't want Levina de Rosen guarding stars. So that, like, Alex Caruso, guess what? You get to guard Pascal Seacum in this game, right? Like, there is some funky stuff like that that's going to happen as a result of Chicago's lineup. And yet, they make it work. You know, they have Pat Williams coming out of the bench. I thought he played an exceptional defensive game in particular, right?

They got good minutes out of, Andre Drummond's minutes I thought were pretty shaky but they actually looked pretty good when they went to Derek Jones Jr. as the backup five again just like a smaller more athletic look that made more sense for this game they won those bench minutes

and they won the minutes when Levine was just like again running it down the throat of the raptors off of creating turnovers off all that chaos off of all of that havoc to the point that I you know Yaka Pertil wasn't at like on the floor in this game for critical junctures

I think it was because you know, what good is room protection if you can't beat Zach Levine to the spot and Levine just looked explosive as hell. Yeah. So we got Bulls Heat coming on Friday. The matchup everyone has been waiting for. Anyone feeling one way or another in this one?

I have no freaking idea. He's playing, man. It's been brutal. No, it's perfect. The play is perfect. Games. Come on now. Don't do that, Justin. I'm enjoying the games, but like to to pretend that I know which version of any of these teams is going to show up in a given quarter, much less a freaking game.

I couldn't tell you. But Miami's at home, I guess. Bam has to redeem himself because he was God fucking awful. He did not seem pleased after that game. He did not seem pleased about his touches. So maybe he'll actually play up to the level of his caliber. I don't know, guys. I don't know.

If a gun on my head, I'll probably pick in Miami. I would pick Miami too, but moreover, look, this is exactly what we want, you know. These games have been great games, Justin. Great games. They've been entertaining. I wouldn't call them. Drama. See, this is the thing.

No, yeah, absolutely. I'm plugging. You're doing the basketball hipster thing where it's like, oh, it's not crisp passes leading to, you know, beautiful jump shots. Every possession matters. This is like an AFC North game between the Steelers and Ravens, 6 to 3. This is what you're getting in the playing. You know what I mean? Honestly, you don't want like top-seated teams in a winner-take-all.

You want flawed, imperfect, teams that might trip over themselves at any time. This is March Madness, baby. A slot knocker. These are college basketball teams that might just implode at any time. And I'm kind of into it. That Laker Wolves 4th quarter, that was, I was like, am I watching the ACC or perhaps the big sky? LeBron made some like inexplicable turnovers. He threw it into the skybox, dude.

What was that? In a crucial possession under two minutes, threw it into the skybox. LeBron freaking James. You guys are really selling these games. Fantastic. No, I've been I've been wrapped in some of them. I've got to say that the Lakers Wolves game was so bizarre. If only to see things that you typically wouldn't,

which I guess is LeBron making as many flubs. as he did just incredible plays. Go back and watch those Jordan Eastern Conference games, the last possessions. This is this is what was happening. I thought you were a Knicks fan. This is what was happening. Here you go again with a disrespect.

Do we want to do 40 minutes on Derek Harper again? Are you guys good? I've been for it. Let's do it. What have we got to do at this point? It's a great point. All right, why don't we wrap it there? Just a heads up. We're going to bring the suggestion box back for next week's episode on Wednesday.

So if you've had any pressing questions, you want any more of my takes about children at basketball games. Just send it to us at suggestion box gc at gmail.com. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely. As always on production, thank you to Ben Cruz for filling in. We'll be back on Sunday, early on Sunday. So as you're sitting down, getting ready for the new slate of games on Sunday, plug in group chat, turn the TV on mute and listen to us. Just talk about some hoops, you know? It's fantastic.

See you next time.