The Ringer NBA Show - Streaking Sixers, Scrappy Celtics, Re-drafting the Top 5 Rookies, and the Evolution of KAT | Group Chat (Ep. 238)

Episode Date: March 29, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier are joined by Haley O’Shaughnessy to discuss the bright future of the Philadelphia 76ers (2:41) and the Boston Celtics’ ability to elicit valuable production from unproven players (14:51). Then, they re-rank this season’s rookie class (26:02) and examine Karl-Anthony Towns’s complicated stardom (34:42). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Basketball is very good. The Raptors are the best. team in the East. Phil Jackson actually saved the Knicks. Mark L. Fouldt will be an all-star next year. Basketball is very good. Hello, and welcome to the Ringer NBA show. This is group chat,

aka Clubhouse of the Blog Boys. And girl? Yeah, but like you're an honorary blog boy in Kevin Durant's mind. I'll take it. Okay. Justin Varyer. Hello, friends. Haley O'Shaughnessy. Hall of Fame.

First ballot, inducted into the Blog Boy Hall of of Fame, Helio Shannessi. Do you guys listen to Kevin on Bill Simmons's podcast? I did, yeah. What did you think about that? Great content. It was incredible content. Incredible branded content for Taco Bell. I thought that it's just so interesting when you get to listen to players talk about how they view the game differently, you know? Or the internet. Or the internet. Or the internet, yeah. I thought that that was more interesting when he was talking about how he viewed people talking about the game. Yeah. We were not players. Yeah. And that the idea, I mean, like, here's the thing that's sort of the truth is that nobody has the time to watch as many games. None of us blog boys

and girls have as much time to write about all the games that we actually have to process. So a lot of it is taking in sections of games and analyzing like, oh, did this person have a good game? I will go watch their highlights. Perhaps even looking at the advanced analytics. Perhaps it happens. But apparently we shouldn't be. We should be looking at rebounds and using eye test. Rebounds, field goal percentage. I test. And the opponent feel goal percentage. I thought it was a really cool podcast. Part two should be going up shortly. You know, we always appreciate the support from Kevin Durant on the blog side. He's a big fan of the group chat podcast.

I hope so. I'm not a big fan of major players for the Philadelphia 76ers suffering from facial contusions. So it's been a bad couple years for you. Well, it does not escape me that the injury was caused by Markell Fultz's shoulder. Yes, that's some irony right there. Yes. It's not keeping Markell out of the game. No, he's an Iron Man. but now it's keeping Joel out of the game.

Yeah. Yeah, that shoulder is like better than anything now. It's almost like a bionic shoulder. It's just so tough. Maybe that is how he came back is that they pumped in like some literal iron. Like Wolverine or something. I want to be like a more present human being and connect more with people like in real. You should meditate.

It's not even about meditating, Haley. It's like I just want to have like conversations with people where I'm not also like kind of checking my phone. We say with our laptops in front of us. Yeah, this is just a rundown. But yesterday I had like this full love. afternoon of human interaction. Wow. Yeah. You were part of it. I love it. And then I got back to my office and everybody's looking ashen.

And like, did you see? Did you see what happened? It's like, do I, can I ever get off my phone? It's like, without Markell Fultz, caving in Joel and B's face or whatever happened. Now, I will say this and I will regret it. I think he's going to be okay. I hope that his not good Instagram that he put up was like a wink and a nod. Frankly, I hope he can still wink and nod. Let's just put it that way. It only showed half of his face. Yeah, but that might be more of like an Instagram framing thing. Trendy, yeah.

Yeah. You see that a lot. Did you rewatch in that particular game when the incident occurred? Yes. How was it? I refused to watch the video. You haven't watched a video yet? Oh, they were just scrambling for the ball and it just happened.

At first I thought, okay, he just got knocked in the face. Like, maybe he's like a broken nose or something. Which, speaking of Hall of Fame, Steve Nash. Yeah. That's my favorite Steve Nash. It's the broken nose. Yeah, the broken nose. Just popping it back into place.

Haley's bloodlust is really on the point right now. You're talking about Wolverine, resetting noses. But at first I thought it wasn't that bad, but then you can kind of tell in his reaction right away. Yeah, and also the found footage horror film, which is Joel and Bede going through that elevator door

and then collapsing in the hallway as the doors closed. Do you see that? No, I did not see that. Not cool. Why do they have cameras there? I don't know. I think it's like for like in 2022, when we've won our third straight title,

they'll probably really like be enjoying the camera footage of the hallway. Sure. But until then, I do like the glimpses of like the back areas of arena sometimes. Like whenever the heat guys would go back in there, there was always like these like extravagant displays of like past moments. I'm always on like,

I'm really into house hunters, I guess. And so I want to see the equivalent of NBA arena house hunters. Yeah. I wonder who would be, who do you think would be like, you've been to a lot of arenas. What would be like a really good one? The Warriors one would be interesting.

Okay. It's actually smaller. Well, they're going to move to the new one soon, and it's probably. why, because this one's too small. But it's like really congested and there's similar things up on the walls that you can kind of get distracted by.

What else would be good? Thunder just to see what happens with Russell Westbrook when he like goes into his labyrinth. Yeah, right. Sixers still beat the Knicks. Sixers, I think, are 19 and 1 at home since January. So pretty good. Trending upwards and seem to be able to handle road bumps like this.

Dario's been playing out of his mind. Another fantastic post-game interview with Dario Sarge last night. where he was just like, talked for like five minutes, and they were like, well, who do you? Brett Brown said you guys aren't scared of anybody in the Eastern Conference. Is that true?

And he's like, no, I'm scared of LeBron. He was like, I don't want to play LeBron James, but other than that, we could beat anybody. That was, I thought it was very funny. And what did you think of seeing Fultz game two? I mean, not a lot of shots taken. I think we'd have four points. He's the best.

But had like seven assists and one at time. Yeah, and he made a free throw, which is great. Here's him. One of two. Yeah, raise your coffee. Raise your coffee. I think that his, His court vision is already very obvious, which is good because it's something that he doesn't

necessarily need to be 100% in shooting mechanics to show. It's kind of funny that now that I'm saying this, it reminds me a lot of, like, Lanzo ball, like when we were all like, yeah, but like you can tell, like, his passing intelligence is so high. Yeah, yeah. The shot will come. But, I mean, it was only game two, but he's already thrown some, like, really special dime. So that's good to see. Obviously, running into your teammates is an ideal.

but everything else, I'm like, okay, this is good. This is like better than what I was expecting. Yeah, I thought he looked like God on his first game. Like, I was so enamored with. I just love his game. Yeah, but at the end, like he was like shooting and it was, what did he hit like two jumpers in a row? Yeah.

That was fun. Yeah, it was amazing. I mean, I just, I'm so excited to see him play. I am a little concerned again with the swap was Simmons or Fultz. They were not on the floor together, I don't think very much, especially the first game. But Simmons played a little. He had to play to make up for Embed a little bit.

Oh, okay. So when they were playing together last night, did you notice whether or not, did Markell try any field goals last night when Simmons was on the floor? I actually don't remember that. We took five total. Yeah. So probably not.

I'm going to just guess no. Okay. But I still think he can be the next James Harden. That sounds like a pretty good ceiling. It's reasonable. Yeah. What happens if Markell does progress to a point where it's pretty obvious that he should be in the game? Like in the playoffs?

So Bill yesterday was like, there's no way they play him in the playoffs. Like, you can't do that to him. But I would venture, I would say this. I think that whatever was wrong with him, and we can just make that the blanket statement, I think it was specifically related to his shot because nothing about the rest of it. Like, he got his shot blocked a bunch of times in his first game, bounced back from it. Fine with physical contact, was going into the lane, didn't seem freaked out by anything. Like, it's not like, oh, he has to get used to playing basketball again.

It's literally tied up in his shot. And it happens to be hilariously not very complimentary to Simmons because you just have these two guys taking up two back court positions who can't shoot. I think that's my question for you. That's what I was asking is like what happens if Markell, they see a lot of like potential and they want to put them on the court to start. How does that work? I really don't know.

I wish I had a cool answer. I guess I'm not the blog boy I thought I was because I really don't know how you play. I guess you could go Simmons, Markell, and some shooters, and just have a lot of driving and kicking. You play Bellinelli, Reddick, Simmons, Markell, and... Embedd if he can shoot. But Embedd likes to stand on the perimeter, too, so you basically have two guys who can drive.

I mean, I think Markele has a really nice slash, and I think he has a really nice tempo change when he's got the ball in his hands. But I don't know what you do about the lack of shooting from those two positions specifically. Yeah, the way that they started him off as the backup point guard, basically new T.J. I think was telling that they like recognize that

athletically he can hang and he showed that from like... Yeah, from the first second he was on the court, I was like, this guy like belongs. Yeah. He's like a high caliber elite athlete. On the other hand, like I think you're going to have to cover for him at least until he shows that he can even hit like a mid-range jumper with consistency.

Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I think so they're currently in fourth. They're like a little bit behind the calves. So I actually said this the other day, but you know, in terms of like the trajectory of the Sixers as a franchise, I obviously am just going to be blindly cheering for them as a Philadelphia fan, but I almost think it would be better for them

to lose to someone like Cleveland or Boston or Toronto in the first round than it would be to lose to Indiana in the first round. Just because in terms of like the narrative where it would be like, yeah, you know, like this was our first time, maybe we've went a couple of games against Cleveland or we win a couple games against Boston or Toronto. I mean, they're not going to get Toronto

because the bucks are like, they just own the seed right now. But they get to the point where it's like, we took a couple games off and it's a good learning experience. Whereas like a six or seven game series that they lose with Indiana, which is entirely possible, would be a little bit disappointing. Someone who they're more evenly matched with.

Yeah, and I think it was just like, there's Sixers have been such like a popular story this year and the Pacers have been largely under the radar. And it would be kind of a reality check if it was like, in fact, Sabonis, Ola Depot, Turner, and Corey Joseph are like the real process, you know?

Well, didn't Durant say that on the podcast too? He's like, the Sixer team is going to figure some stuff out in the playoffs. It is interesting because that's kind of the central question we've been talking about with them this whole season. It's like they are good enough to make the playoffs, but should they push now or is it better for them to get playoff reps for Markell Faults? Well, the Markell thing is a different situation now that he's come up.

But before he was back and before we knew he was going to be back, I was always of the opinion that this playoffs doesn't really matter. Sure. If you look at that, like, it's just like just be happy about the future. Like this playoffs does not really matter. But they quietly went out and got themselves a bench with Bellinelli and Ilyosova. Even though I'm not like, I'm not over the moon about those acquisitions, but Bellinelli has been good. Yeah, it should be about Bellanelli.

Well, that's not a, let's see what TLC can do in this series. You know what I mean? That's not like, let's run Justin Anderson out there and see if we should keep him. It's fine. And I think that actually, you know, those guys are very much responsible for this team's like cruising into the playoffs. Yeah, they can hang. And you look at the East right now. I don't know if it's ever going to be this.

soft going forward, like Gordon Hayward will be back next year. Kyrie Irving won't be dealing with his knee injury. LeBron maybe has like a teammate that couldn't hang with him. Right. Toronto, you have to assume, has a couple more years of their of their prime window with Lowry and DeRosen for sure. Right. The bucks can't be this bad next year. Or maybe they can, but, you know, I will say though, I hope that other teams are saying,

I think that other teams are saying that about Philly. I think other teams are probably saying like, oh, man, like, Philly's just going to get better. We have to take advantage of this this year. You know, if I was Toronto, I would hope I go to the finals this year. because I think the East is going to be that much tough for next year. Yeah, I mean, unless his teammates are concussing him, like, Embed is going to be a monster. Like, who guards him? I still don't know.

No, even Durant said that. He was just like, that guy, nobody can guard him. You can't switch onto Embeddeed. Right. Let's talk. You mentioned briefly Steve Nash. And the Hall of Fame inductees were named today. It was Mo Cheeks, Steve Nash, Jason Kidd and Grant Hill.

I just thought, like, if you guys had any thoughts on any of these guys, you know, we could go through, I think, I don't have, like, the statistical case for each of these guys. But one thing I thought that was really interesting about Nash, Kid, Kidd, and Hill, specifically. was how much they are like players who we play in today. They were like kind of this page-turning generation of players that introduced a sort of lack of positionality that changed the way we understood the positions that they played, whether it was kid, who for the large part of the majority,

like the beginning part of his career, was just like this defense and assists machine but didn't really score very much. Or Nash, who many people thought, like, was a borderline NBA player or was basically like, pretty good, but like a lot of people doubted for a lot of his career and wound up being a really revolutionary point guard in a lot of ways and paved the way for guys like Steph Curry or Grant Hill,

who was like one of the sort of sad stories where it's like, you know, his knees didn't allow him to have the career that I think he probably could have had, but really introduced this idea, not necessarily of stretch four, but of inside outplay of a wing that could do all these different things and wasn't just limited to being like, I'm Chuck Person, I stand over here, play a little bit defense, you know, and you have to sum me on and off. Like, I mean, do you have any memories of these guys you wanted to talk about? I mean, for me, and I think for a lot of people of, like, my age range, I think Nash is just kind of the guy. Yeah.

I just think that, like, the seven seconds or less team was just so different and revolutionary, as you mentioned, but also just like, I don't know, it seemed to turn the page in a more fan-friendly, like, style of playing, but also just, like, what could happen on a court? Like you said, like, Nash was just, like, the underdog guy that everyone counted out, and all of a sudden he becomes a, two-time MVP. Then you have guys who are just like outcast, kind of tweeners, and they kind of flip that on its head. Yeah. And they made that just an advantage. And it's just like, it's really changed the game for like what we have now. Yeah, the age of the unicorns now. And it's like these guys in their own way were unicorns. Yeah. Nash was the same for me. And I think that it's cool because I see a lot of what he did and how he like would run an offense in point guards today. Yeah. It's just kind of like super fast, but also like creative and like make it up as you go. And I

think that's like the most fun point guard for me to watch. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about some other games from last night, spin them forward towards the rest of the season here. Last night's Celtics game, it's their fifth win in a row. They beat Utah. I think this was basically the Haley Bowl. There was no getting out of this podcast for her today.

So many of your larger old sons were playing. It wasn't a three-way with the Clippers. Yeah, right, with Harold. You mean? Yeah. But if the Clippers were playing the Wolves, so Montrez versus Gorgie, then, yes. Yeah, that's right. But Donovan versus Terry is a pretty big clash.

And these guys were very instrumental. They were very instrumental in this game last night. Utah, for as much as they've been red hot, still can't really afford to drop these games, especially at home against a Boston team without Kyrie. Man, Jalen Brown was awesome last night. He was so good. That last shot was incredible.

Yeah, and like these injuries at the Celtics have been happening. Yeah, they've been bad, but it's the same thing with what we're talking about with the Celtics. It's like maybe not for this season. it's a good sign, but like you're getting reps for Jalen Brown. He's taking the last shot at the end of the game, and he wouldn't get that if Kyrie was on the floor. The distribution of points, the distribution of minutes,

the getting 13 out of Aaron Beans. This is also without Horford, of course. And this whole thing where I heard Rissolo and Bill talking a little bit about this, I think, but this idea that pretty much any person who's filling that Isaiah Kyrie roll at any given moment, their numbers just pop. Like Shane Larkin scoring 10 points in 3. 34 minutes at plus 25 plus minus last night? I don't know.

I mean, like, how does Brad get these kinds of performance out of these guys? What is the basement for, like, what Brad Stevens could do with a player? I think that what Bill was saying on that podcast was that that was a result of them running so much and so heavily through the point. Yeah. But I also think that you have to give guys credit. Brad is kind of like that college coach who would give, you know, like a three star an opportunity. And that's what he does with his bench and so he can pick out these guys. It's funny that we were just talking about Nash. And, you know, I very intimately know Terry Rozier's game, but he is exactly the kind of player. He's like a very small guard. But he has all the indicators that he could be a good reserve in the NBA. He'll like run up and grab more rebounds than your backup center. So I think that's how he does it, is that he finds the guys who maybe other people aren't looking at. I've been thinking about this a lot because of Kentucky Basketball Week, Kentucky Basketball Station.

We did a couple of pieces, Paolo specifically did a piece about the guys who went to Kentucky and now have been sort of on the fringes of the NBA. And I can't remember what the exact cliché is, but there's this idea basically that after the eighth guy on a team, the margins of between talent of the ninth guy and the 12th guy. And then even the 17th guy, whoever that would be, are like micro. Like there's not a huge amount of difference between Archie Goodwin. and a guy who's in an NBA rotation right now, talent-wise, or physical skill set-wise. But there are these series of things like context, you know, chances, taking advantage of opportunities,

and being in the right place at the right time. That makes you think about Donovan, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he's a super small guard too. A lot of the players in last night's games are, like, that case, Ingalls. You know what I mean? Right.

You know, I don't even know. Like, O'Neill, Royce O'Neill getting like 18 minutes against the Celtics in a March game. Royce O'Neill, like I wouldn't have picked him out of a milk carton. Right, but also really impressing on defense. Yes, and that was the thing is like this was a 97-94 game. We saw two of the best defenses in the league last night.

Yeah, and that's what I was just going to turn to. It's just like, we talk a lot about the star players, and we talked about this a lot with Kyrie and like where he stood in MVP race and all that. And we'd always bring up the defense, the context, the environment with which he plays in. And you kind of see it shine in these sort of moments. Like, yeah, the system is set up to perhaps showcase a point guard. but their defense is really good. And they didn't have Val Horford

who's been kind of the anchor there, but they have a lot of these switchy wing types, which in today's NBA, if you have those positions filled out, it seems like you just have a certain advantage and you look at on the other side of the game, just the Royce O'Neill types. Those guys are hard to find,

and yet these teams have managed to not only get them in the draft where you'd expect them to go, but also manufacturing them out of nothing. And like, Rousse O'Neil's the type of guy, like even Jay Crowder is looking semi-competent, you know? And on the cabs team, it just didn't look like that. Well, so the bucks are like a really good example of the bad side of that, right? That they are trying to manufacture their own talent out of like a system that's sort of just like,

I think was based more like on physiology than maybe fit where they're like, oh yeah, let's get, let's get all these long guys and switch everything and then hope that everything else comes from that. Now they've also made some unique personnel decisions, I would say. I mean, they've suffered without Brogton a little bit, but they're running out there with like Jason Terry leading a crunch time offense because they need anyone who can shoot the ball past 20 feet. And they're busy and they do a lot of stuff.

But like, ultimately it comes down to Janus getting to the hoop is their entire offense. And you have to wonder whether or not they are a team that could use a little bit more delineation between who does what on their team. I think Jibari also is like whatever the opposite of an X factor is. He's sort of, when he's on the floor, you can kind of feel him pressing a little bit to show that he can still play and it doesn't really work for the team so much. But I just thought it was really interesting because you're talking about franchises that can seemingly like manufacture their own luck by finding these players, whether it's Boston, whether it's Utah. And Milwaukee has a bunch of interesting pieces, but especially this year and post-Kid, they've sort of started to take a nose dive. And if it wasn't for how bad the Pistons were, they would be in danger of being out of the playoffs.

Well, I think that's why last night's jazz Celtics game was so much fun because it was the Haley Bowl, but it was also the Blog Boys Bowl in the sense that it's these two coaches that we just are obsessed with because this is exactly what they do. So they can take a game that starts Terry Rozier and gets a bunch of minutes from Yaboo and we still are like really into it. It's still really fun. There's usually a drop off when Spurs guys leave San Antonio and Boston's like the only safety that I've found. with Aaron Bain's like playing well. I mean, Boston is starting to have those kinds of San Antonio-esque successes with some of these guys. Like Daniel Theos, like, who is this dude? I know he's not going to play this year again.

But like finding people off the scrap heap and just manufacturing NBA careers out of that. Yeah, I think the one thing in common that Jazz, Celtics, and Spurs maybe even have is that they never make moves because they have to. Yes. I think feel like that's the issue with the bucks. They almost like decided collectively that this was their year. like Janus popped as an MVP candidate early on. They just decided this is when we're going to go for it, which seemed to be a little bit early.

And as a result, you've seen them make moves after their Bledso trade where they almost feel like they have to double down on that whole idea. Whereas like the Jazz can sit back and trade a guy like Rodney Hood who the cabs would love to have and pick up Jay Crowder just to think one more year in the future and to look at the bigger picture in a way. And the difference between San Antonio and Boston, for instance, or even maybe even Utah, who've shown themselves to be very willing to wheel and deal,

is that San Antonio tends to get these guys and then more often than not run down their contracts and hopes to re-sign them on like a team-friendly deal or somewhat team-friendly deal, but like Jonathan Simmons and these guys who leave the team, they could have some success, but they're never back at the Western Conference semifinals or finals like they are with San Antonio.

Boston... Well, so they're not having that kind of success. But when you leave San Antonio, you're definitely having more monetary success. You get paid, for sure. I'm not even, and I wanted to be construed that I was like, you know, you don't love the game if you want to go get paid and play in Orlando. Like, go get that money. But I was more saying that a guy like Danny and to a lesser extent, Dennis Lindsay and it's Dennis Lindsay, right, in Utah, they can take advantage of those guys that are like, oh, all of a sudden Terry Rozier is like a legitimate starting NBA point guard. I can trade him.

You know what I mean? Like, they can basically develop assets internally and have pieces to go get the next big. player that they think can put them over the top. Because if you think that the drop off from Terry Rozier to Shane Larkin isn't that bad, then Rozier's an asset. That's definitely how Danny Aange thinks about it. Yeah, I forgot who said this. It might have been a Ben Falk or Kevin Pelton type, but like the NBA is essentially just like getting guys who are better than their contracts as they are. A lot of it just comes down to like math and that sort of thing. And you look at what they do. Like getting rid of a guy like Jonathan Simmons, yeah, like it's great that he's having

success in Orlando. It's great that he got paid. But like, like from a franchise building mode, like those are the contracts usually get in trouble for, especially when the cap is going to be more complicated in the next couple of years. Like, you don't want to be stuck paying a double-digit million dollar like salaries in it. You don't want to be the wizards. Yeah, they are, but that's the trap everyone else falls into because they are desperate. And with the bucks, it's kind of funny because you said they don't sit back and they made too many moves. And that's absolutely true.

But now it almost seems like they have to do that again because they've gotten themselves in such a pickle. Jibari needs a new contract. It's not about blog boys. It's about spreadsheet boys. We're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor, but when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit about this Ricky class we've been watching this season. Today's episode of the Ringer NBA show is brought to by Hotel Tonight. Fun fact, unlike flights or other travel hotel rates, actually get cheaper at the last minute. In fact, Hotel Tonight partners with awesome hotels to help them sell their unsold rooms, which means you get amazing deals.

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is brought to you by Coca-Cola and PowerAid. If you're into sports, then it is your favorite time of year. It's NCAA March Madness. The final four is this weekend. With so many games, you never know what's going to happen. That's why you need to be ready for whatever the next round brings and make sure your fridge isn't empty by halftime.

Swing by Walmart for every round and stock up on Coca-Cola, Coke Zero Sugar, and PowerA before the next game tips off. Coca-Cola is the official fan refreshment of the NCAA. I know Haley loves to have a fully stocked Powerade fridge whenever she watches her Louisville Cardinals. Oh, cold, cold. Just like Powerade is when it's in your fridge. Be ready to watch all the games by picking up Coca-Cola and Powerade all turning long.

NCA March Madness isn't just one game. It's a whole tournament. Make sure you're ready. Refresh every round by heading to Walmart to pick up Coca-Cola Coke Zero Sugar and Powerade. Okay, guys, we're back. I want to talk quickly just because Fultz came back. just because... Oh, did he?

Jason Tatum had an incredible jam last night. Just because we've been watching this really awesome rookie class grow this year. And there have been some people that I thought were going to really pop off that did not, holler at Malik Monk. There have been some people who have sort of started to develop their own cult following, like Frankie Smokes, but maybe have not risen to the level that we thought that they might get at. He is ultimately a 19-year-old. Let's do this collectively. I don't want to do, like, each of us have to do it.

But let's redraft the top five. and I want to cast forward a little bit. So this is as much about emotional confidence in someone as it is like empirical data that you have to show that they belong. From this season. Yeah. Like if somebody has shown flashes, shown the potential.

I'm going to start with you, Haley. Who's the number one pick? Okay, but you say we're doing this collectively. I'm just going to ask you kick off the conversation. We have your back. Yeah. Okay. Well, you guys know what I'm going to say.

Lori marketing. I actually have him third Okay So it's between Donovan and Tatum Okay, can we say that that's the debate? Jesus Christ, Chris. How do you know I'm not going to pick Bam out of bio? I just have a feeling.

I'm not going to, it's okay. Donovan and Tateam, yes. Yeah, so that's their one too. Yes. I have rookie of the year contender Donovan Mitchell number one. Okay. And I think that the argument for Tatum is casting forward.

forward, right? Yeah. I would actually argue the reverse. Would you argue the reverse? I would argue that Tatum feels to me more like the third best player on a team. And that Donovan Mitchell will see how far you can go with a guard as your best player in the NBA in the next 10 years. But Donovan Mitchell is like ready to rock right now.

How much of that is just like what we have seen and known? Like I think why a lot of the current NBA stars have embraced Mitchell and Katie like referenced that. And to Bill was just like he's doing it. He did what we did. He was running a team. And like, it's great to see that, but also, like, Tatum is thriving around, like, All-Star and a bunch of other stars, and he's getting his and he's putting up numbers and contributing to winning. So, I don't know. And I think in the redraft, I think people who would put Tatum number one are basically saying that they see all this potential for him in the future.

Play one through four, switch one through four inside, outside game. I would counter that with Donovan Mitchell looks like early Dwayne Wade crossed with a Wolverine. And a literal Wolverine or the comic Who character? A literal Wolverine. I think that's pretty scary too. I just think he's just like a very special talent. And like if you were going to take number one and you wanted to like, I mean, that Utah team was very beta.

Like, you know what I mean? Like there's not a like, there's not a lot of like fire in that he brings a different energy to that Utah team. And you can tell he's just such a competitor. I also think it's very impressive that he was not a very good. shooter at the beginning of the year and something that it was in the the you know all the draft guides including the ringers was that his potential would be a good shooter but yes it's a toss up and then all the i mean he is a good shooter now and uh the the only other thing the only get other counterpoint

to put tatum number one is that i think that although donovan is an exceptional defender and has always been his size does limit him and that was very obvious last night against jalen yeah there were a couple times where Jalen got the best of him just because Donovan does not have the wingspan to guard someone like that who's really crafty. So if the 13th pick is number one and the third pick is number two, who's number three? I have Lowry. It's pretty good. I still like Lonzo. I still believe in the bow. In the bow? That's what I call. It's a zo. Well, you know, I'm just trying something new out. Okay. Is it making up a new nickname? We're close. You know, we go back. So you think Lonzo four? Casting forward.

I think you have Lonsa's three. I would have Marno's three. Okay. Would you have Markin in four then? Probably. I think Markinen is a really like, again, another really slick. It's like NBA ready, way better than I thought he was going to be. Still not a one or two option, which is what I want from a top five pick.

But Lanzo is an interesting call there because what he does is he makes guys like Kuzma and, you know, whoever else he's paired with better. You know what? Yeah. I don't think you'll be playing with LeBron. Whether or not LeBron's on the Lakers, I don't know. Okay, so you're going to go Lanzo 4. I would go three with Lanzo and Markin and 4. But it seems like what we're getting into is

current production, what these guys have shown already, versus what maybe they can do a year or two later on? Yeah, I think it's like, what do you want the value of your top five pick to be? What do you want out of that? And I think that this class has a lot of guys who will be good contributors, but so far, I think Donovan and Jason are the two guys.

You think, you know, I personally don't think you could build an offense around Jason Tatum, but he's shown that, like, on certain nights, he can carry the load. The fifth pick is interesting because that's the one where I'm curious. Like, Bam is honestly, like, one of the biggest contributors of this class this year. And Zach Collins, look what he's doing on a playoff team. Hell, I mean, even, like, at the peak before you got hurt, Jordan Bell, you know? Yeah. And then...

I forgot about Jordan Bell when I was looking at the draft. But there's a bunch of guys from this. class who have kind of fallen, they're having a rookie season. Malik Monk, Jonathan Isaac, Deeran Fox, all having like a rookie season figuring out how to play NBA basketball. So would you guys consider Dennis Smith Jr. for the fifth? It's really hard because one of the things that you see Jason and Donovan and these other guys do is they did make their teams pretty exponentially better. And I, you know, you can't blame Deeran Fox or Dennis Smith Jr. for how bad their organizations are at this point, but you can note that they did not dramatically increase the wins, you know?

Yeah, I mean, Josh Jackson's another guy. I really like, like, he brings a tough miss and he kind sets a tone on defensive end, and we knew he was going to struggle offensively and with his shot, and so he's really just living up to what we expect from originally. So let's put the fifth one on one of these guys, and you tell me who you think you have the most confidence in going forward. I actually had DSJ. You have DSJ 5. Yeah, I think that he is having a rookie year, but I think that his emergence will be the highest. So it's DSJ, Malik, Markell. Bam. Or Deeran. Bam's Bam. Like, they could trade White Side if they could find anybody to buy him. Like, I love watching Bam play on the heat. He's great.

So why wouldn't you give him the five spot? Because I think for five, you want somebody who could be like a team changer. Oh, I see. Or a huge contributor. Bam's going to be like a double, double guy, maybe at the best, you know? I still like Josh Jackson. I mean, maybe that's just like me not getting rid of my initial evaluation and just like liking him in the tournament last year. Yeah. But I just think he has something that you can't find out there. It's tough to find wings. We just said that. Okay. I'm going to say Markell Fultz. Just because number one pick, you've got to ride it out for more than a season. And I think he's shown, even in the early games, I'm like, this is real. This is a real player. All right. Anytime you can get six good games from someone, got to go with them.

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of what Carly Anthony Towns does. I think with Kat as their best player, Minnesota is basically a 500 team. You could argue that with a training camp and with knowing that he was their best player, maybe they would build the team differently, but watching him last night against the worst team in the league by far,

he was mesmerizing and amazing and did every single thing that you would want a modern basketball player to do. And yet you pointed this out last night on Slack, I think, the Hawks were still in the game. The Hawks were in the game with three minutes left. So talk to me about the state of Carl Anthony Towns

after watching him for this season and watching him not, you know, at one point playing as a third option or a second option and now being the focal point. He was always the second option. I think that's just because of talent, but that could also be by default because Wiggins does not bring it every night,

as I feel like we've said a million times. But his progression has been at first, First being quite like he was last season. You know, really flashy on offense, no defense. And then he transitioned into what hopefully was the Jimmy effect and did play defense. And then that tapered off a little bit. And now without Butler, he is completely taken on this number one role. Yeah.

We never saw him like this last season, even when he was the first option. So it's been good to see. And it's also, it just feels like he's like more genuinely. intense. I don't even know if that makes sense, but he's on a team that's winning now. And it's like he wants to win. And he's like in it to win. He's not in it's like, you're pretty into it. Sat pat. Oh yeah. And I've been someone who's who's criticized Carl for the longest. Yeah. It looks like he wants to make an all-star team instead of win a game. You know, like it seems like very much someone who's like, oh, I got my, you know, 70s, double double or whatever. But

he genuinely looks like he is like someone who is counting on getting to the playoffs. How much do you think that's like just Ben Simmons rubbing off on him? Ben Simmons and him playing video games together. You don't think it has anything to do with it. Well, do we have any proof that they played video games other than last night? No. That's a great conspiracy theory. But they were definitely like pretty chummy when they were talking to each other.

Yeah. Was that like an ad or were they just like hanging out one night? Who can tell anymore? It's all an ad. This is an ad. I was looking at some of his game logs. It was very interesting to see how many minutes he plays. That and how Minnesota's wins correspond.

bonded to his field goal attempts and how when he is just obviously like they're feeding the beast, it tended to mean that they were winning. And if it was like Carl disappeared tonight or Carl didn't get like much action tonight, nope. And to his credit, even last season, he has been one of Minnesota's most reliable three point shooters for quite some time, which is, it says a lot about their roster construction. But it also, I mean, last night he hit like, he was like six for eight. And that's not the first time he's done that. Yeah, like, Bielisa is basically playing the three right now.

Yeah. Bealeiza's really nice combos last eight. Yeah, and he's stepped in well when he's had to, but, you know, he's just very limited and what he can do.

Yeah, they got the jumbo package out there all the time now. It's just, it's a weird team to look out and see. And, like, they're playing eight guys

in a game against the Hawks and 41 minutes for towns. It's tough. There's eight. I also wonder for all my criticism, now, like, in retrospect of both his and Wiggins' defense, because we bring up all time

how many minutes they play. And it's like I kind of always have given LeBron a pass. What's like, he plays this many minutes. Like how do you expect him to get back for every possession? Yeah, right. He's also like way older, a decade older. But I do wonder. There's also not the expectation that Cleveland will be at all good at defense. Whereas like, I think because of Tibbs were just like, well, they should be holding teams to 81 points. And I'm sure that it's really

annoying to have this guy like, you know, preaching that. But meanwhile, he won't give you a sufficient break. Yeah. Yeah, I just wonder what's going to happen in the playoffs, especially Jimmy Butler still not back. The range that they put out for him originally would have put him back around this time. It doesn't seem like his return is imminent. And so now I'm starting to wonder if he's not back for the playoffs

is just making the playoffs. A couple guys who are on that, like, when is this happening? Like John Wall's supposed to be back tonight but was like didn't participate in the shootaround, which was sort of supposed to be the first. I think Candace Buckner was tweeting like, if John Wall is a shoot around, you could see him tonight. And he's just, but the first part didn't happen.

and Jimmy still getting memed while sitting on the bench, but it doesn't look like he's close to suiting up. I guess they could break in case of emergency if they felt like they had to win a game to get into the playoffs, but it was the first time we're going to see him against the Rockets and the playoffs? Possibly. You know, they have the sixth easiest schedule

of the entire league from here on out, so they might be just, you know, waiting for him. But also that seems extremely not on brand for Tibbs to wait for anyone. if they think that they're even possibly could go. They should beat Dallas. Yeah, they should, but they almost lost to Atlanta last night. And before that, they lost to the Grizzlies.

I mean, the nice thing is that most of these games are spaced out, but they have Dallas, Utah, Denver, the Lakers. Lakers probably won't have, definitely one of Isaiah Thomas, and they probably won't have Lanzobal by that time. Memphis, who don't seem to know that they're supposed to be trying to get the number one pick, and Denver again. And that Denver, Minnesota game,

if Denver were to somehow go on a run here, could be for the eighth seed. But like you're saying, with Minnesota, there's no easy wins. Yeah, and I'm starting to look at some of the playoff matchups now and you have Golden State versus Minnesota.

Now, is that the type of thing? If you're Jimmy Butler, you rush back because you see Golden State without Steph Curry, maybe Draymond's not quite right, maybe KD's not quite right, and you're like, wow, we could take this. Or are you just like, you're not going to win this series, dog.

Just stay home and, like, figure this out. Jimmy Butler is so the former. Yeah. He's so, like, he's so, tense. I know. I know. But he has a contract coming up too. It wouldn't be smart for him or the team that desperately needs him to take that next level. I think I agree with Haley.

I know that he like sat out the All-Star game because it was, but like obviously that was tied to the knee. You know, I think that Jimmy Butler wants to be in the playoffs. See, like he had that. That was really rough for him in Chicago. And I think that you were saying this earlier, is it enough to get in the playoffs? Yeah, it's enough. It's like, it's absolutely enough. Maybe not enough for Tibbs, but enough for like, the entire Minnesota fan base. Like, yeah.

Being in the first round to a five-game series is still going to feel like a win. A good accomplishment, for sure. All right, let's wrap it up there. That's it for the Ringer NBA show. Group chat for Haley and Justin. This is Chris. Make sure you're listening to all the Ringer NBA shows draft classes on Friday. You got heat check on Mondays.

Chris Vernon and Kevin O'Connor on Tuesday's sources say every other Wednesday. Until next time, talk to you soon. Basketball is very good. Basketball is very good.