The Ringer NBA Show - The 2026 Take-athon, Part 1 | Real Ones

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Welcome to the first Real Ones Take-athon! Logan, Howard, and The Ringer’s own Tyler Parker and Jomi Adeniran get together for a two-part episode to take a hard look at the player landscape of the NBA and fire off their wildest takes on the biggest and sometimes most polarizing stars in the league. (00:00) Opening (02:02) Take-athon rules (02:49) Anthony Edwards (07:14) Giannis Antetokounmpo (17:51) Jalen Johnson (19:23) Jaylen Brown (22:55) Luka Doncic (26:36) Karl-Anthony Towns (29:53) Tyrese Maxey (31:51) Pascal Siakam (33:01) Brandon Ingram (33:36) Scottie Barnes (34:48) Jamal Murray (36:47) Norm Powell (38:21) Cade Cunningham (40:26) Kevin Durant The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠ ⁠⁠www.rg-help.com⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Logan Murdock and Howard Beck Guests: Tyler Parker and Jomi Adeniran Producers: Logan Murdock, Conor Nevins, Victoria Valencia, John Richter, and Ben Cruz Video Producers: Victoria Valencia, John Richter, Sarah Reddy, and Donald LoBianco Audio Producer: Chris Sutton Graphics and Show Art: John Richter Production Supervision: Ben Cruz and Conor Nevins Additional Production Support: John Richter, T. Cruz, Nick Kosut, and Hannah Leikin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's popping? Logan Murdoch here live from Spotify Studios here in Los Angeles. Here for the first ever take-a-thon with myself, Howard motherfucking Beck and Tyler Parker, where we each have a take about every single All-Star. And we have our buddy, Jomey our dinner on, give the best take and make best best champion. We're about to do that next on Real Ones. Up next, Victoria, play the theme music. What's popping?

Hello, everyone. I'm Logan Murdoch, and I would like to welcome you to the first ever take-a-thon, presented by Real Ones, where we give the boldest take possible on all of your favorite All-Stars. I am your host, obviously, and I am joined by my distinguished panel, Howard Motherfucking Beck, and, you know, an honorary one of the day. Mr. Tyler Parker.

How are you guys doing, man? Doing great. I'm just, you and I are in the same room, which is a rarity in itself. We're in the same room with the great Tyler Parker, which is just raising this whole thing

to a whole other level. Very excited about this. Tyler's made some turns on the real ones when I was subbing for you. You know, I like, I freelance a little bit. When you're gone,

I just like, I just start bringing on random people. Like you're Tyler Parker? Cool. Yeah, yeah. We had fun without you, but it's good to have us all here. It's fine.

No, it's an honor to join one of my favorite shows. always happy to talk ball and yeah, let's get some takes off. I am a little intimidated by the fact that we are in this hallowed studio space where the house of our tapes. So shout out to Mal and Joe.

Like this is like, I almost put on the Knights Helmet out there. That would have been cool. If you would have came in with the Knights Helmet, that would have kind of taken the show. The takes hit harder when you got a nightseller. Yeah, battle ready in that. Yeah, yeah.

All right. So just little ground rules. We've been tasked to analyze a group of players based on the separate teams, the team stars, the team stripes, and team world. Each pick will be heavily scrutinized by a resident take expert, Jemio Dideron, who is going to be in here at some point. And he will, at the end of all of this,

give out the prestigious take champion award for the best takes. I had no idea there was a championship on the line. It might be. It might be. I'm taking a lot of stuff back home, as you can see. We have a lot of players and not a lot of time, But the biggest thing out of all of this is we're just here to have fun, Howard Beck. We're just here to have fun. I'm all about fun.

Don't take the take too seriously or do it. Just make it entertaining. Without further ado, take a look at the first player. And is Anthony Edwards. This is your take. Man, I get to break the glass here. Okay. All right.

Anthony Edwards. Anthony Edwards has the best accessory in the league. Okay. The number five sweatband on the left. Yes. This is the best accessory to me. It's not too loud, but it's unique. It says, look, this is who I am.

This is what I'm about. Yeah. I'm a big fan of Aaron Gordon's headband whenever he's in the mix. Obviously, there's a lot of sleeves, a lot of tights going around. Yeah. Which you all find him good. But I really appreciate a leg band, and I like how committed he's been to for such a long time. You know, that is a throwback back to back in the mid-2000s where a lot of guys

were that, we got away from that as a basketball culture with the sweatband on the leg. But what I love about it is he has a sweatband on one leg, but he has the flow joe tight on the other legs to keep that leg warm. And then he has the arm band here. We got away from arm bands for a long time. And we got the, we had the wrist Iverson band for a long time. And I'm glad that we're getting back to sweat bands because they're very very. vital. I feel like the arm band especially is it's a very brave choice to do it on the outside of the elbow because to me it's going to restrict it's going to I'm going to feel it here when I'm going up for a jumper. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's going to it's going to constrict and I don't like

that. But I appreciate Edwards because there's clearly a science. Yeah. To what he's doing. Or maybe not which makes it actually even more. If it's all aesthetics, honestly even better. But like, yeah. The league got weird about it though in the early 2000s. That's what happened. Like I ever sent it his arm's sleeve, which shout out to Ty Lou for then. emulating the arm sleeve in practices when they were getting ready for the finals in 2001. He, like, not only was playing the part of Iverson at practice, he did the sleeve to emulate. But then, like, people started doing, like, full-on leg sleeves and arms sleeves. And the next thing you know, instead of wearing, like, the standard NBA uniform,

which is, like, you know, shorts and jersey, it looked like you were just wearing full body armor. And the league got all weird about it, like, no, this is not regulation or whatever. But that was back during the day, too, where, like, everybody had to wear the same colored shoes. you had to be coordinated. Now it's, like, it's so much more interesting now, right, where everybody's got like... Just go to fool Todd Gibson. Yeah. You know?

Right. Just the sleeves right here, the Pat Ewing sleeves, the Iverson sleeves, just cover the whole body. Listen, if the NBA is going to, like, allow for, like, 72 different fucking uniforms in the course of a season for every team anyway, you got no standing as a league to tell guys, you can't wear, like, various accoutrement, you know? Absolutely. What's your favorite, um, wristbands and headbands of twid? Like, what are you guys like? You haven't played pickup in? a while, but what did you wear the headband? Like, what did you wear? Uh, I liked, I liked, I like, I liked

the wristbands. I like, like, like, wipe the sweat. I love back of the day, because wristbands were actually utility, right? Like, it was actually like, this is why we use them now. We just put them everywhere. They started because they actually helped, I think. Yeah. I didn't have, I didn't have one. I tried to experiment with a wristband here every now and again. My dad had an old Air Jordan one that he got from like late 80s, like with the flight logo, or with the wing logo, you know? Yeah. And I was like, all. about it, but every time I would wear it, like, early in the first quarter, I would start to feel like it was bother me, and then I'd always take it off. I had the Iverson headband, like the Reebok Iverson headband, and I would wear it over the ears, but then Derek Fish used to wear it, like, covering the ears.

Yeah, he really pinned them back with that. Yeah, yeah. And then I would wear him around my neck a la Suggs. NBA is hating on that, too, because that was a good luck. Yeah, let Sugs eat. Let him cook. Yeah, what the fuck are we doing? We don't want to hinder bravery and invention.

And the, the, the, the, I heard nobody. Areaters are cold, bro. Areas are really cold places. Let's put the fucking, let's warm with the neck. Yeah. I tried to do a leg sleeve for a little bit to, or like a leg, like a leg, sweatband on the leg, like same kind of, honestly, similar to what Edwards did.

But it just never, never felt like me, you know what I mean? And man, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's normalize again, just getting swaggy for it. for a pickup game. It doesn't matter at all. And that you're probably going to be trashing. Let's just normalize. I'm into that. Okay. That was a good first player. Great first take, buddy. Hey, thank you so much.

Next player, please. Ooh, we're getting spicy. Janice, I did a cumbo. That's a Howard take. I got a lot of thoughts about Janus. We have emptied out a lot of that. I didn't know we had any more thoughts about Janus. I didn't know it was possible.

I had to get a little more creative here because we have talked so much about him, about trade demands and non-trade demands and his passive aggressiveness and all this stuff. And I stepped back for a second and I thought about it and this is where I landed for our NBA All-Star Take-Athon which is no matter what happens next, trade, not trade, more drama, whatever it is, I think he's already the greatest buck of all time

over Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then Lou El-Sinder. The greatest person to ever place a buck? The greatest buck? The Kareem getting in bed with the betting company? maybe not the most ethical but the best the new calci swerve by him does it's color in some things I can't distinguish Kalshi from like Kashi

like the little rice cereal stuff one is probably better than the other but greatest buck I'm not this is not about ethics or morals or anything else Logan this is not even about whatever he's not the most moral buck the best lady and John just the best buck listen

Kareem of course All-time legend should be in every goat conversation. But Kareem spent six seasons with the Bucks. He won one championship, two finals appearances. Yonis won championship, only one finals appearance. And Kareem did have three of his MVPs in that span, Janus, too. But Yonis has already been there for 13 seasons. Yonis is the longest tenured all-time great to play for that franchise.

And it had been a very long time, half century, they'd won a championship until Janus brought them back to that. And I think what's happening now is as we all start getting into the weeds of, you know, Janice's trade slash non-trade demand, it's kind of coloring our views of him right now because he's kind of annoying a lot of people. He's pissing people off. But I think we need to take a step back and recall what he has done and where he has come from. Kareem got there almost as a fully formed star.

Janice got there as like this skinny teenager with no promise of anything. And he's delivered way beyond what anybody could have expected. He embraced Milwaukee. And he, for all of what's happening now in what is eventually going to be a divorce sometime this offseason, almost certainly, he gave them a lot of really great years of really great basketball and put a small market, cold weather city back on the NBA map. There's no small thing. It's tough on this one, right? he did,

Kareem did have better individual, um, circumstances and, and better, better individual career in Milwaukee. But we got to have a little bit more nuance as to why he left Milwaukee, right? I mean,

he had gotten up into some politics at, at that point and it didn't necessarily jive well with the community in Milwaukee. Um, he also had a few of his own trade demands to get out of Milwaukee as well, right? Right. So they're even on that score too. Yeah.

And, um, you know, who knows where Milwaukee go? I mean, who knows where Yon is, ends up being he might I don't know if he's going to be

a Laker I don't think so but like it's it's weird how those two they're connected even more than we give credit for it but I don't and I'm not saying he's better than Kareem no no no I get he had a better career but how much of that

I got to admit I got to take Howard's word on this because I mean I wasn't alive stop it I just I try to have something for profound and what happens when I, when I try to go into a profound rebuttal, I just, I couldn't do it because I really don't have anything to stand up. This is why sometimes he got a deferred to.

He actually, he actually watched Kareem in Milwaukee play. No, no, I did not. Who would be, who would be, is the only other player that would even be in the conversation would be Oscar, right? Yeah. That's got to be it. Why is he better, why is he better than Oscar as a Milwaukee buck? I didn't even have to consider Oscar within this because Oscar's going to be

the notch below Kareem, isn't he? Yeah, he is. So this is like, we've got like a reverse Transva. Who's going to be something? Do you, is your argument? And I'm not going, I can go back and forth. I don't really have a rebuttal because again, I was, I'm 12.

Still, right now. But how much are you considering the story of both players as a means to talking about their impact on that community, right? because I feel like you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're this story of yonness in Milwaukee as a part of his story of being the best right because right right out of the gate if you look at karim stats going into they were bananas and that also speaks to the time even at his peak don't even touch carems so that would I guess be my rebuttal during that

time is like what is are you saying it because of the relationship that the walk he has with yonis based on how long he's been there or the play in which that uh those two played for each other like played in that community this is this is basically a what did you mean to that team during your time with that franchise okay so that there's a difference between most loved and best right yeah but i just said the greatest buck and that is that doesn't mean he was than him overall. It doesn't mean he's got more hardware because he doesn't. It doesn't mean he's got more of the other accolades. He doesn't. And when all is said and done, Janus is not going to touch Karim in the Pantheon in the all time in Bill's pyramid. Like, Janus will be really high,

but he's not going to be in Karim's tier. That's fine. For the period of time that each of these guys anchored this franchise, what did they each mean to it? And what did they leave behind? At the moment that Janice leaves, there will be a lot of those same bad feelings that we see every time we see a version of this. LeBron, KD, everybody. But I think time time will heal that, though. I mean, the last time the Bucs were in the finals, Kareem was there. But I think it's important at a time like this when we're about to see the backlash because of the parting to remember what he is meant to them. I think he would be based on what you're saying right now.

Because I think when you look at the stats and I don't have them right in front of me at this very moment, but like it doesn't even compare the stats. the stats, it's apples and oranges from Janus to what Kareem was at that time, right? But I would say what you're trying to say, it feels like one is the more beloved figure than the other. I don't even be beloved. I just mean imprint. Okay. Okay. And that's the time argument. So yeah. Okay. One of the points that you made that strikes me as significant is how much of a like dormat the bucks were whenever he got there. Like, you know, they were they were far removed from Somewhere to Karim.

Well, that's, yeah. They were far, but, but like, it's hard to be competitive in the league now, I think, than it was then. Back, like, there's just, there's just more teams. And I think it's harder to be competitive in Milwaukee now than it would have been then whenever there's just like, like we say, fewer teams on the board. And players maybe haven't, like, free agency in the way that they have now and been able to move in the way that they can now.

So bringing them from, you know, the bottom to what he did in the current modern NBA, it has to count for something. So, you know, there were 17 teams in the league when the Bucks win the championship with Kareem. There's 30 now, obviously. So it's a different landscape. You only had to win two rounds to get to the finals back then, too. So there's like the, you know, everything is different.

And it's always hard to compare errors because of those, like, just. fundamental differences. But also back then, though Kareem, you know, and maybe was the first to do this, I want out and I wanted to go to New York or L.A. I want a big market. That's like the norm now, right? Which is why it's even the all the more important and impactful that Janus has spent 13 seasons with a small market cold weather team at a time when superstars do not go to these places. And if they do go because they get drafted there, they're getting out. the first chance they get most of the time, right? He has been, you know, loyalty is overdone,

but he's been more loyal the most, and everything has limits. And his limit is, you know, I'm 31 and I need to win more championships and it's not going to happen here, which is reasonable. To be fair, he was saying that at like 26, 25. As soon as he became Janus, he was like, okay, if we're not winning a championship, what are we doing? What are we doing?

And, like, even he said that with a Tanya Ganguly, you know, He said that behind the scenes after his first conference finals flame out. You know, he kind of has all. I feel like with Janus, it's a, there's two things pulling at him. It's the loyalty aspect. You know, this community of Milwaukee embraced me. I owe this to them because they embraced me. A young kid from Greece, a young Nigerian kid from Greece who had to figure out how to just

live a life and grow up in a certain place. And then also what is expected of a star of, and a talent of his caliber. And I think those have always kind of pulled at each other. And it's going to be interesting for a guy who moves on how, if he does win a championship somewhere, how much that is going to fulfill him because Milwaukee means so much to him as both a player and a person.

So we'll see what happens. I think one thing that, like, is pretty inarguable is that if we're looking at most important bucks, I think Phanasis is in the top five. I mean, he is? I think you have to consider. I think he deserves his day. Was he behind Michael Red? Michael Red, Big Dog, Thanasis, they're kind of all the same, you know? So it's hard.

But, you know, I just, I want to make sure we give him a shout. out because, you know, his contributions have been enormous. I think that is a sign that we need to go to the next player. What is the next player? Okay, Jalen Johnson, this should be fast. Tyler Parker. What's your Jalen Johnson? I think Jalen Johnson's the most complete offensive player in the East right now.

Wow. Most complete. I think he's averaging 23, 11, and 8. He's shooting 50% from the field. He's shooting 35% from threes on like almost five attempts a game as a big. I mean, he's like taken off from a step inside the free throw line and dunking on Nick Claxton. Like, this is, I think that he can do more on the offensive end sort of across the spectrum than anybody else in the East. Are you taking into account injuries right now?

Is Tatum? Is Tatum is Tatum? I think Tatum would be more, would, yeah, Tatum's definitely got an argument to be more complete, but he's hurt right now. Wait, does this mean you're also like if you had to build the team from scratch exercise? No. You're taking Jalen Johnson over Jalen Brown or Cade or? I'm not taking Jalen Johnson over Jailen. I'm definitely not taking him over Cade, which that will come up later. But the, and I'm not taking him over Jalen Brown, but I'm just talking about as an offensive engine.

Somebody who can, somebody who can do a whole lot with the ball in his hands. I think he's the most complete offensive player. Yeah, let's see what Jomey thinks about that. Let's get to the next. That's crazy. I like that, though. That's bold. That was bold.

Let's get saucy. Let's do it. Logan, let's take some chances. Oh, while you say that, Jalen Brown, I think we're going to come, I think we're about to have another impasse between Jailen Brown and Laws and Selties coming, going forward. There's a little, like, there's a little sprinkles and tea leaves that he is really, really excited about being the lead guy. And I know there's always been stuff behind the scene.

of him having some level of frustrations, not necessarily with Tatum, but what the partnership means for him individually. And he's kind of like, he's kind of said some quotes over the last couple of months where it's like, huh, is he going to be okay when Tatum comes back? Well, he had that quote right where he's like, I mean, now you see what all right here. He says, I feel like I've sacrificed over the years in order for us to be a championship caliber team. And I think now we're getting to see a little bit what exactly I was capable of and what I was sacrificing. I think before maybe it wasn't so obvious,

but I think now being at the helm of things, just being in the second seed in the East, he kind of likes this, you know? But I do believe this has always been a friction of Jalen Brown and Boston that he isn't thought of in the way that he thinks of he is. And I think this great season he has is validating. And once you get the taste of being a number one option and having the success,

it's really hard to come back. And Tatum has been the chosen, son in Boston from the moment he got into the city and Jalen has had to work for it to get to this point I feel like there's going to be a friction and I don't think the saga's over. I mean Jalen did win finals MVP when they won the championship and conference finals MVP so it's not like he hasn't had his moment to shine and to get recognition for his abilities to be

kind of the lead guy and it was maybe by a couple percentage points within a couple of series right But yeah, you're right. I mean, it's always still been about like, it's Tatum's team. And then we also have this guy, Jalen Brown, who's this amazing co-star. And like, nobody wants to be the Robin to the Batman, right? And that was always the tension behind the scenes anyway. It was like, well, are these guys going to stay together?

And it wasn't because everybody's saying they don't get along or don't like each other. It was more just like Jalen Brown thinks he can do more. And he's just shown us, to his credit. The guy has walked the walk. He has proven everything that he projected about himself. He can be a number one. So now it's just a matter of like, can they be co number ones? But also like, I don't think we have to worry about that or they don't have to worry about that in the near term because when Tatum comes back, assuming he is coming back in the next days to weeks here, he's coming back as a guy coming off in Achilles after less than a year.

And he's going to need to lean on Jalen Brown. So for the duration of at least this season and this postseason, I don't think there's any, there's no reason for there to be tension because they need Jalen Brown to be the guy carrying the load for. next season? Maybe Logan's going to have a point. Who knows? We'll see. I'll just end this segment on a quote that Jalen gave me in 2023 when I asked him point blank how long he wants to play with Tatum. I just enjoy the time that you have now. If it's your whole career, it's your whole career. If it's not, it's not. Obviously, some of the greatest players of all time finish their career with their organization, didn't finish their career with the organization. Michael Jordan retired a wizard. As much

we like to like it here, enjoy being here. You see where life takes you. You see how the process goes. All you really have to focus on is what's in front of you. Jalen Brown to the Wizards, done. That's what they want. Next player. Luca Donchish.

Oh, yeah. My favorite topics. So, been kind of a jagged ride so far in L.A., right? So this isn't necessarily about Luca as a Laker, the totality of his career so far with the Mavericks, right? finals appearance, not so great of a finals performance. And then we're in this really interesting moment here where the Lakers have a lot of major decisions this summer and all of them need to revolve around Luca, right? And I keep thinking about what this is going to mean, what this next phase of his career is going to mean. And I keep coming back to aside from all the things that the

Lakers need to do for him and around him, that the greatest threat to Luca's overall legacy when we start getting to like, he's like, you know, mid career now, right? With seven, eight years in. the greatest threat to Luca is Luca. It's a great take. He's, he, every year there's some little like, you know, Luca's really trying to rein himself in. Coaches start praising him for doing a good job of not chewing out the rest of the time. Dude is still fucking complaining about every single call on every single position.

He went on a whole media run about how he lost weight and he's going to play defense. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. So, but there you go. Still chewing out the refs all the time. for every call and every non-call and everything else, still too consumed with that.

He's the biggest whiner in the league by far, the biggest whiner among stars by far, and maybe the biggest whiner among stars that I've seen in 30 years of covering this league, right? I think he has surpassed Tim Duncan at this stage. I think that he is going to be shielded by all of that because the fact is he has the leverage over the Lakers right now and he has the built an excuse that, hey, man,

you guys, at least at this point, you haven't built a team, my liking enough for me to win a title at this point. And they continue to not do that. All the stuff you say is kind of irrelevant in the narrative space. Well, he can shield himself from it in the short term if that's the case, and especially if they screw up this summer, which they cannot afford to screw up this summer because he won't stay, I think, if that's the case. Contract or no contract, as we've seen, you can always force your way out. But the things that have been the major knocks on him are throughout his career, mid-career are still the major

knocks on him. Defense, whining, conditioning. And by the way, he has the highest usage rate, career usage rate in the history of the NBA at 35. Higher usage rate than Michael Jordan for his entire career. Higher usage rate than Iverson, Kobe, anyone. And that comes with responsibility. It also comes with a, hmm, maybe you do too much. And so he's not shown an ability to change. Nope. And he's really shown kind of an unwisanship. willingness to. And there's, it, it, it is always a red flag when a player does have glaring weaknesses like he does on defense. And you don't even see a ton of effort put forward on that end to try to mask some of the, you know, lateral quickness issues that he's got, right? Like,

there are some, some things are, you know, physical limitations. But it, there's a lot of Matador out there from him. And it's, that has always been my biggest thing with him is because he does, he will talk about how, yes, I do say too much to the refs. I got to get better at that. I got to come in in in better shape, that sort of thing. But when it, the same things are issues every single year, there is a problem. Yeah. He's incredible, but there is a problem. He's incredible. Yeah. But any, but in that, the way he carries himself on the court really grates on people. All right. Who's next?

Carl Towns. That is, it says Howard, but that is actually me. We made a trade. We made a trade. We made a trade. After the game he had last night, I don't, this is, I don't know how good of a take this is going to be, but I'm just going to roll with it. I think Carl Towns would have been better served staying in Minnesota. And I'm talking about no, I'm not talking about the contract situation.

I'm not talking about the apron. I'm talking about sheer his responsibility of what he was asked to do. he is asked to be a lot of times a number two on a next team on given nights, especially from a scoring perspective. And I don't think that should be his role. I think that he should be maybe a number three or number four option. And when you need 50 points, he can provide it. But sometimes he kind of fouls out of games and you need a Nasreid to kind of hold down the fork.

I think he might have been better served staying in Minnesota. I know all the cap situations. I know everything. But I think that his career, he had, obviously was great for him to go home. It was great for all of the, from a personal standpoint, but I think from a game standpoint and being able to help a team, I think he's kind of miscast in his bowl. Wouldn't he have still been the second best player on the wolves, though?

Yes, in theory, sure. But I'm saying, like, if he did the things that he does late in stretches of games, he has a little bit more of a buffer. Maybe. I mean, that marriage would go bare. did not inspire a ton of confidence in it. But I hear what you should say? It was a take that I needed to have.

You know what I mean? Also, you know, it wasn't quite the armband take, but it was just like, you know, hey, that's what I thought when I watched at 11. I was like, huh? He didn't. At 11 o'clock at night. Huh. The next thing is not going smooth.

It's not going great. Yeah. He didn't choose to go there. He got traded. He wasn't mad at it. He wasn't mad at it. No, it was very much like a homecoming he embraced. But he also like, like we were talking.

talking about with Janus where there might be mixed feelings because Janus really did embrace Milwaukee. Carl Anthony Towns really put in some deep roots in Minneapolis to his credit. And John Cresenska, the Athletic, wrote really beautifully about this at the time of the trade and since then. And so great piece he wrote after the trade, right after the trade. Yeah. And I think the towns very much loved the homecoming. Everybody, all the New York area guys love the idea of the homecoming and it almost never works out quite the way you hope. Well, on one hand, he's excited about it. He's happy about the homecoming, but like, the homecoming

to New York also brings a crazy amount of stress from a press standpoint that he has been on the bad end of. And I think that's another reason why I think it would be cool. Because I think a lot of his struggles right now in New York is the fact that he is reading about himself

every day in the paper, and they are relentless. In Minnesota, if he was doing this, which he was, I was like, that's Carl Tows. Sure. I mean, he does, he has had a little Jalen Brown in him where he talks about how much he is sacrificing. And I don't think that's ever a good thing for any player on the team. No, you got to just do the thing and not brag about doing the thing.

If a player is feeling the need to be like, hey, yeah, but look at how selfless I'm being, right? Like, that's not what you need. Yeah. All right. Who's next? Tyrese and Maxie. Okay. All right.

This is the most exciting offensive player in the league now. Behind step? even above Steph. Above Steph, huh? He's faster than Steph is now. Tyrese has also started to incorporate these deep, deep threes into his game. Wait, more exciting than Wimby? I think so.

That was my first, yeah. Oh, shit. I saw Wimby last night and he was fucking crazy. You are out of your mind. Last night was nuts. You are out of your mind. Last night was nuts. You are out of your mind.

I think that Wimby. Tyrese is bawling, and I know Cliff is going to watch this and say Tyler's right, but he is the biggest fucking Philly Homer that we have on this program. I think you're out of time. Cliff, what's up, man? I agree with you. Chris Ryan, I know you agree with him as well. Yes, Wimby is amazing.

But Wimby, there is a, there is some element with Wimby of like, well, yeah, you better be amazing. You're 7.7. You better be doing this wild shit. You're 7.7. Someone just says, like, Tyler, we're giving you a ticket to one game the entire season. I'm going to say Tyrese Maxi. One player you get to see or one team you get to see and you're going to pick Maxi over Wembe.

Well, no, I mean, look, defense was championships. I think Nico taught us that. No, no, I don't mean by winning. I mean, for entertainment purposes. Right. No, I would rather watch, I would want to watch Maxi play against a great defensive team like the Spurs. I'd rather watch and play against the Thunder because I'm a homer. But, like, I think that Maxi now has the full end-to-end stuff, the hyper speed, like,

all the acrobatics around the rim and he's starting to take these shots from like New Jersey and this is this is a whole new element to his game Wimb and Yama

okay I can't do this Not like Tyree not like Maxie yeah Joe will give us a score at the end that's a wild take Can we um next next next player Jesus

Pascal Seaccombe Howard Pascal you're great he's great great great player This is, like, I don't mean, I don't mean for our lack of collective enthusiasm here to be any reflection upon Pascal Seaccom. He's a really, really, really good co-star. He might be the ideal co-star. And I think if I have a take on Pascal Seaccom, that is, that is about as strong as I can get.

He is, he is the best prototypical number two in the NBA right now, possibly. The question is. He doesn't, he doesn't need, he's not a jailer Brown is going to say, I need to, he's like to be crawled in town saying, look how much a sacrifice. He helped Kauai with a championship. He helped Tyrese get to the finals. My thing is this, though, the question is when Tyrese comes back. He's fine. No, no, no, no.

That's not what I'm saying. If Tyrese doesn't come back as the number one that they need and Pascal has to be put into that number one spot, that's when they're done. That's when they're cooked. They're cooked. But he is the idea. If Tyrese is Tyrese is Tyrese, he comes back, we all hope he is. Pascal goes right back to being this incredible number two who can just do a lot of everything, guard multiple positions. He's wonderful.

All right. Who's next? Brandon Ingram. Shout out Glorilla. He was a late ad. He was a late ad. Blame Adam Silver. Brandon Ingram. He finally gets to live up to the promise that we, you know, that Jemey thought he was going to be when he got drafted, you know. I'm just happy to see him healthy.

I'm happy to see him healthy. Shout out to Alex McKek for getting him healthy. Also, shout out to, I don't even have a take, but shout out to Brandon Ingram for outlasting Ben Zimmons and proving to everyone and himself that he was the better player all along. outlasted everybody in that AD trade, right? No, they did, including AD somehow. All right. Next player.

Scotty Barnes. So this is going to be fun. All right. When Scottie Barnes plays well, people should call him Scott Bones. Why? I think it's a better, more elevated name for a guy who's starting to play a mature physical brand of ball. I think that he should, I think, because right now if you go to basketball reference,

his one nickname he's got is Scotty B. That's a snooze to me. It is. That is. I think Scott Bones, there's something like, hey, did you guys watch Scott Bones play the other night? Yeah. Shout out to him.

Logan, did you watch Scott Bones the other night? He was killing. He was good against the Cavs. Yeah, I know. Also, I think he's the ideal number two. I think he's, no, I swear. I don't think he's the number one, but I think if Johnny Bards your number two,

you're fucking cooking with him. He'd be amazing. he'd be an amazing Pascal Seaccom. Hey, let's just, you know what, let's just trade Pascal C. Let's just do a reverse trade. I like Scotty Barnes a lot. And I think he, I'm glad that I think he's the type of player that when the people around him are better, you get to appreciate the gifts that he's got more.

He fills in a lot of blanks that a team can have in fun ways. All right. Who's next? Jamal Murray, Howard. So Jamal Murray, congrats. Finally an All-Star. the longest tenured, rhetorical,

best player to not be an all-star. He took the Damien Lillard Award for the most tenured guy who didn't get all-stars. Great that he's there. We can stop calling him underrated now. And by the way, honestly, if we're being honest,

he never really was underrated. He was properly rated. He was properly rated. In fact, we veered so far to the other side because, oh, he didn't get it. He got snubed together or he got injured again, whatever, that he became almost like, I don't want to say,

overrated. but like we got too... I hate the rating system. You are who the hell you are at any given moment. Listen. Okay, you are who you are. Here's the thing. This is not a knock on Jamal Murray,

who's a very, very good player and a worthy all-star this year. But like, he's never been among the top scores at point guard or the top assist guy is at point guard or the top defenders at point guard. He's having a fantastic season this year. He's the all-star of, man, politics got in the way.

Yeah, exactly. He was playing me how politics are. But like, here's the guy, who were always ahead of him in the All-Star pecking order to the Western Conference over like since 2020 Steph Curry, James Hardin, Luca, Chris Paul, Westbrook, Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, Donald McHenbuchar.

You know what? Now does you say that list? Howard. I think Murray should have got in. I disagree. Like there's like Mike Connolly in 2021, I think that was the year. Murray's ACL was somewhere in that range. Actually, that might have been the year before he got hurt. But still, John Morant,

Dejante Murray gets in after, Jamal has the ACL but like SGA Daron Foxx like Like who among these guys Was he like clearly better than Even if he stayed healthy in a season So forget it

Just stop the underrated thing It's he finally got All-Star He's worthy He's great He's got a ring He's got a ring He's stamped He got way more money than all of us

Except for maybe Joe me The rest of it Yeah You're properly rated bro There you go Next Norm Powell Damn

Um Okay My Norm Pound take is more of a generalized take, which is don't despair it's solid as a means of a compliment. Because one day solid can be great. Okay. We need a lot more solids in this world. All right?

We need them on more. Like, the fact that the clippers just let them go for nothing is just a travesty. And that's another thing that we talked about. And we ranted on the last podcast of real ones of like, if you have good dudes in your building, don't let them go for nothing. Can I just add on this? Because it's funny, somebody hit me on Blue Sky a couple weeks ago. I think it was because of the Clippers having given up, right?

And it's like, oh, man, maybe they should have just held on to him, especially early in the season when they were really struggling. They're, you know, they're okay now with Collins. And it got me thinking, and I pulled up his basketball reference page. Do you realize that every team that has traded Norm Powell was worse? Was worse off for it. 2015, traded by the Bucks with a first that became OG Ananobe to the Raptors for Gravis Vasquez. horrific trade by the Milwaukee box

2021 traded by the Raptors to the Trailblazers for Rodney Hood and Gary Trent Jr. 2022, traded by the Blazers with Robert Covington to the Clippers for Eric Blitz, O'Kion Johnson, Justice Winslow in a second round pick.

That's really wrong. Every single one of these, the team trading Norman Powell was worse out for it. So shout out to Norm Powell. And you put Norman Powell in Miami, which is like the perfect place for him. Just be, A, be solid, not salad.

Next one. Oh, Cade Cunningham. When Janus is hurt, he's the best player in the East now. That's not even, that's a... Is that not that hot? It's not hot. You mean the guy that is leading the best, the best team in the East is the...

Is that not hot enough? Is that not piping hot enough? It's him and Jalen, Brown. Or I don't know, I don't know, maybe Jalen Johnson's in there too. I mean, he might be, let's say. But no, I mean, to me, it's like either it's, it's the two, the two other Jalen's. It's either Jalen Brunson or Jalen Brown right now,

if it's not him in terms of like non-Yonest dudes in the East. Yeah. But I think what he's done this year, I mean, he's been nuts in the fourth quarters, nuts in the clutch. When's the last time we had a superstar with a good fro? Like just like unapologetically good fro.

I feel like it's fantastic. Has it been on? I don't know, Stretch from NBA Street? Maybe that's it. Stretch looked great. He looked great, man. I mean, it's hard to maintain a lot.

of hair, but shout out to Cunningham for doing it, bro. He's out here, moisturized, you know? Shout out, bro. We need a star with a lot of hair. Ben Wallace was the last one. Yeah, maybe so. Kay's established a culture, though. Like, there's like, he's got like a way of being that has permeated throughout the whole team.

Also, that's also an argument to when you do have a culture setting player, that you have to also have the culture setting people around him. Yeah. Like the GM Langdon is, Trajan Langdon has just been amazing. You need that. You need to do right by your star plier by putting the pieces around him. And Kay got a lot of shit early in his career because he did a lot of losing. But now that he has the infrastructure around him,

it's been great. Yeah, you've got to have serious bonafides if you're going to like come out of those Monty Williams years with your soul still intact. I don't want to do that. Shout out to him. Somebody got to do it. 72 million?

I think that's bags. Let me do that. Let me get that money to just sit, sit out. Next, next player. Kevin Durant. I don't know that this is a particularly hot trade. Maybe it's just more just an observation. I just think it's fundamentally true.

I think Kevin Durant is the most underappreciated star of this era or maybe of any era. And it has to do with the decisions he made, right? Okay, thank you. He is. We have the Oklahoma City representative sitting next to me. So the fact that he left OKC to go to Golden State, the fact that he decided to leave Golden State to go to Brooklyn and force his way from Brooklyn to Phoenix. And then, you know, was that Phoenix or KD or both that are responsible for him landing in Houston? When Katie moves to sixth on the all-time scoring list a week or so ago, passing Dirk Novitsky, I felt like this wasn't as celebrated or as it wasn't as big of a moment as it should have been.

And there's a lot of different things that go into that. And some of this is self-made by KD, but to me, it's a little bit of a tragic aspect of his career that because you don't have one place that you firmly planted, you don't have anyone fan base that's going to seriously, like, cheer for you and give you all the adulation for like, oh my God, this is a major career milestone. Like, the only guys ahead of him now in all-time career scoring are LeBron, Kareem, Carl Malone, Kobe, and MJ. That's fucking incredible.

And we've always known this, right? we've known for years. He is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, like pure score of all time. However you wanted to find that, he's been incredible. Obviously, two-time MVP of the finals, two-time champion, regular season MVP. But it still feels like people do not embrace or respect him enough. And I think it is because he bounced around. And that's a consequence of doing that. Nevertheless, I feel like his standing should be higher. Because LeBron bounced around and he's considered the greatest way. But he didn't bounce around like Duran.

No, but he bounced around with a plan as what it was. The difference is this. One, LeBron's got four rings instead of two. So, like, you can, you can. There's a lot more nuance with KD's career. You could, you can come. One rings at multiple places. You can paper over a lot of stuff if you win a ring everywhere you go.

It's that KD. Like, LeBron's choices. LeBron said, I got to go to Miami to win championships, and he won two. And then he's like, I got to leave Miami to go to Cleveland because I can't win anymore here. and again he won, and then he went to L.A., and he won. And I think, yeah, winning in each of those spots helps, but also he left pretty cleanly every time.

He never, like... Except for the first time. But it was... That was a little dirty. He left as a free agent. He didn't force a trade. He didn't promise anything. No, but he left.

The decision was pretty dirty. There was a lot about it that did not go over well. It was also dirty from the Cleveland side, bro, because, again, listen, you ain't... That was weird to burn someone's church. Even OKC, sorry, buddy, to burn Katie's jersey and burn. That was very stupid. I think more often than not that stuff is done by performative dorks that are hungry for clicks.

It doesn't really represent the entirety of the fan base. But Cleveland, no, I think it did for Cleveland because that was before the clout chasing era. They were just out of here. I wrote something about like the anniversary of the decision earlier this year. And I went back and looked to see how many jersey burning videos there actually were. And there was like the one that always gets played all the time that they did in the parking lot outside of a Cleveland bar, like right after it happened. And they start throwing the witness shirts on top of the burning jersey and everything like that. This has some weird, like racial undertones.

Oh, well, big time. I mean, these dudes are wearing like aeropostal polos and flip flops. They look like they like they like a frat house, vomited them out their ass. You know what I mean? Like it just doesn't. Because somebody left. to go to another anyways. It was horrific, but I will just say this,

to put a pin on this one. LeBron goes back to Cleveland and all is forgotten, all is forgiven, and now he goes back as a conquering hero. The Lakers will always love him for putting them back on the map, and Miami will always love him

for the two championships there. Whereas with KD, there are the Warriors championships, which he will always be celebrated for, but everywhere else that he left, they do not have the same adulation for him as, like, LeBron is still loved in all these places that he was at,

and has had been at fewer. Also, LeBron actually made an effort to be loved in a way KD has it. But we're pushing time right now. But I'll end on this. I think he is super underappreciated. I agree that he hasn't done himself any favors, but I think it's, I think it's inarguable that he's like way underappreciated. Yeah.

The ultimate NBA ringer, Kevin Durant. All right. And that is part one of this series. We will see you guys tomorrow for part two, where we crown our champion. of the take. That's next. Thanks for watching.