The Ringer NBA Show - The Bulls’ and Timberwolves’ Young Cores and First-Time All-Stars | Ringer NBA University

Episode Date: February 24, 2021

Kevin O’Connor, Jonathan Tjarks, and J. Kyle Mann start by discussing the four first-time All-Stars (1:54). Then they do a deep dive into the play of the Minnesota Timberwolves’ young guys (32:51). After that, they discuss young players who have struggled early in their careers in a new segment called Study Hall (56:52). Next, they talk about Tjarks’s piece on Gonzaga’s Jalen Suggs and evaluate his pro potential (1:07:40). Lastly, KOC is joined by House of Highlights host and YouTuber Kenny Beecham to discuss the Chicago Bulls' young core (1:12:29). Hosts: Kevin O’Connor, Jonathan Tjarks, J. Kyle Mann Guest: Kenny Beecham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From in-depth analysis of basketball and football to life advice, Ryan Rusillo has got you covered on the Ryan Rusillo podcast. Join him as he talks to some of the best names in sports while providing sharp analysis and wit you won't find elsewhere. Check out the Ryan Rusillo podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Basketball is very good. Welcome to another episode of Ringer NBA University. I'm Kevin O'Connor here today.

As always, is our Dean of Basketball Video Research, Jay Kyle Mann. And back from a one episode break is our distinguished professor of smallball. Jonathan Charks. What's going on, guys? I like these new titles. Yeah, I didn't know we got promotions, actually. That's pretty good. You guys into those titles?

I've had workshop on that the last two weeks. A lot of late nights thinking about that? A lot of late nights. I'm here for it. Good to be back. Yeah, yeah. And I just wanted to say up top, if you are new to this show, if you're just discovering us, we're getting this off the ground.

The sort of thesis of this show is that we're going to talk about, you know, we spend a lot of time in the NBA media and podcast and video culture talking about established players, which are fun, but it's very fun to talk about the people who are on the horizon, the people who are next. So that's what we focus on here at Ringer MBA University

is guys that maybe are in the first two or three years of their career and where they're headed, whether we think they are on track and what they can do to get there and some NBA drafts sprinkled in there as well. And maybe guys a few years older, too, as we'll talk about today. No doubt about it. There's, you know, some first-time all-stars is what we're talking about. Later on today's show, you'll hear a great conversation with Kenny Beachum about the Bulls,

including their first-time all-star, Zach Lafine. But first, us three are going to discuss the Minnesota. Timmer Wolfe's thoughts from last night's game and those other first-time all-stars. So let's start there with the first-time all-stars. The NBA announced reserves last night on Tuesday and in the West. They announced Chris Paul, Donovan Mitchell, Damien, Rudy Gobert, Paul George, and Zion Williamson, who's making his first appearance in the East. There's Nicola Voucherich, Jason Tatum, Ben Simmons, James Hardin, and three first timers.

Zach Levine, Jalen Brown, and Julius Randall. We'll talk about all four of those first timers, and let's start with Randall. Charks. Randall is 26, averaging 23 points, 11 rebounds, 6 assists, and playing the best defense of his life this season with the Knicks. What changed and clicked with Randall for him to be having the greatest season of his career like I think it's a couple things. I think number one, like, we'll talk about a lot. It's all about the situation.

I think Julius's always been a guy. He kind of has to be the guy, right? Like, he's a ball dominant player. He likes to hold the ball. He likes to survey the court. I think this is really the first time in his career where, okay, this is your team. Like, if you look at his touch rate,

he's in, like, the top 15 in the league. He gets to play with a ball in his hands a lot more. And that's really where he's most comfortable. Like earlier in his career, he was playing in New Orleans, playing with the Lakers. He was kind of one of three or four young guys they were all developing together

and it wasn't really an established pecking order. But in New York it's like, no, Julius, this is your team. We're going as far as you take us. You have the ball late in games. You have the ball the whole game, basically. So I think that's part one. I mean, he's shooting better,

which is probably the biggest surprise to me. I always figured if Julius had the ball, I think he'd get assists because he's always been a pretty good passer. But the jump shots gotten a lot better, which is really impressive. And then I think number three, like for a lot of young big men,

it's just really hard to play NBA level defense. And I think what Julius has done this year, it's like it's encouraging in some levels for teams with younger bigs because it's like, yeah, he's 26. We forget that even the league's seven years. He's just now entering his prime. And I think it just takes a long time

to figure out how to play good positional defense, how to read the floor, to know the whole league. And we're seeing it all come together for him. It's pretty impressive. Isn't it interesting how with big men we do this thing where we flip the expectations of them from offense to defense. Like you were talking, as you were talking about how difficult it is for young big men to

adjust to the complexity of having an entire defense in front of them, you think of like the real value of a defensive anchor, like a Kevin Garnett, like a LeBron, like an AD type. But on offense growing up, that just kind of triggered a thought that's interesting to me about like for young big guys when they're coming up, it is fascinating that the game is often like simpler for them. It's sort of like rolling and simple finishing. The ball's not necessarily in their hands all the time. I don't know. What do you think about that? I mean, I would say the big thing for younger bigs. So I remember, so I played AAU ball growing up. And I remember seeing Dwight Howard play a game. He was playing with like Josh Smith. It was like unbelievable. And you're

watching these guys just dunk on everyone all the time. And it's like, this is just too easy for him. Like he's not being challenged physically. I think a lot of young bigs that gets the NBA. it's a real adjustment because for the first time in their lives, they're not always the biggest, fastest guy on the court, right? They have to figure out the rest of the game because they can't why on their physical tools only anymore. Randall, I mean, along those same lines,

he's a guy that I've criticized a lot throughout his career. You know, the unrefined scoring, the iffy defense, the feel for the game. And that was true at Kentucky during his freshman year there. It was true early in his career. It was true last season. You know, Knicks fans didn't like Julius Randall entering the season.

So this development is pretty subtle. an insignificant. And, you know, what you said, Kyle just made me think about, you know, with Randall kind of being a late-blooming all-star at 26 years old, we saw Victor Oladipo do this a couple years back at age 25. He made a leap then. So I have a question for both you guys. Is there anything to learn about these late-blooming developments of players like Randall and Oladipo to have a better feel or a better sense of spotting those other late-bloomers before it happens. Like, what do we see from these guys?

It's interesting that you bring this up because this ties into somebody that I'm going to talk about later in the show, actually, which I don't want to bury that too much. But I think in the NBA, it's really important that if you have skills that do need to develop, like, it's really important to come in and have a trade, you know, it's because for the, for the purpose of, you know, if you're, for a lot of these guys, it's like, Ola Depot, I would say, came into the NBA defensively, you know, he was ahead of a lot of the guards, his age.

And if you have something that can keep you on the floor, I guess is what I'm trying to say, it'll buy you time to develop those other things, you know, because if you're a liability on both sides of the ball, teams just will lose patience with you. And, you know, they're willing to stick with you and keep you on the floor is just going to kind of come down. And then you lose runway to develop those things. Yeah, I would even say, Kyle, keep you in the league a lot of times. Like, if you're not like a top 10 pick, it's like, it's so easy to just fall out. And for me with like Julius Randall, I think about it.

I'm like, dang, it took him seven years and three teams to get it going. And that's what worries me about young big sometimes. It's like you're drafting this guy. Are you developing them for yourself or for somebody else? And a lot of the time you are developing that big for another player. Development isn't always linear. Sometimes it is. And that's been the case for Jalen Brown, our next first time All-Star to discuss here.

Brown's one of those players who's improved a little bit every single season of his career and then boom just makes a leap and that's what we're seeing this season with the Celtics averaging nearly 26 points on 59% true shooting excellent and he's playmaking too it's nice to see that Kyle with Jalen Brown on the scale of one to 10 how much are you buying this development from him this season becoming an all-star I'm I mean I'm buying it to a certain extent within I guess you have to kind of ask yourself what's the ceiling and I think that's true of Randall too. It's like, yes, in this context, you can be this. I always think of it like, you know, are you good enough to be the lead singer in your own band? Probably. But are you going to be

like as, are you going to be better if you're a part of another group that could maybe achieve something higher? In terms of Brown, I know specifically as it pertains to like last night and lately, I think some of the Celtics fans' feelings have been kind of bittersweet in terms of his development. It's like, yes, it is, his development has been incredible. you watch him. I mean, he still does have occasions where he gets a little, you can see where the, you can see the seams a little bit with his handle development and his passing development. But if you go back and watch, like, KOC, I think you and I talked about this on a past episode. If you go back and watch him in high school and then at Cal, I mean, you'd be a blind,

you'd be a blind man to not, basketball wise, to not see how far he's come because he was unbelievably raw as a younger player and really clawed his way to where he is now. And I think that's pretty under novel. How about you, Charks? Like, where are you at with Jaylen Brown? Because, you know, Kyle and I talked about him a bunch in the last episode when you were out. And I mean, we're buying the skill development. It's just along with his trajectory from what we've seen in recent years. And even though, he's had a dip in efficiency, the last two or three weeks, he's had some real down games below average efficiency. But overall, though, I mean, you can still see the skill development. It's real for him, it seems. For sure. I mean, I think for me, what's most impressive is the jumper. Because

it's just not that common. Like he comes in his first year. He's not shooting a lot of threes. His free throws in the 60s, in the 60s percentage wise. To see him now shooting like six a game at 40%. To see him like 78% from the free throw line, too. That's what's most impressive. Because I feel like the free throws are always the leading indicator.

Like if those are going up, that's when I buy your shot. And obviously Jalen Browns are all the physical tools in the world, right? Like if he's going to be a great shooter and a great athlete at 6, 7, 220 or whatever, for the exact way it is. I mean, yeah, it's only 24. Like, you were talking about his prime was 27, 28. It's really exciting. I think one of the knocks on Jalen Brown this year from Celtics fans is the defensive

aspect. He's always been if he as an off ball defender, but he's always been very good on the ball. And this year, there's been some slippage there for him. But last night against the Mavericks, I thought he had one of his best defensive games of the season. He had some great individual possessions sticking with Lucas every movement on the perimeter. And by the way, why the Celtics switched Tice and East Smith? late on Toluca and Brown off of him late in the game.

I don't know. Like those are two easiest switches. That's a different conversation for a different day. But overall, the season, Brown hasn't been as good defending on the ball, way more sluggage. So with that in mind, is it kind of normal, though, for a player who's taking on such a heavy offensive workload for the first time to have that negatively impact their ability and their energies on the defensive end? Yeah.

I mean, we've seen that over and over through Hoops history. Yeah, the more you take, there is sort of a finite amount of energy on both sides of the ball. And, yeah, I mean, you saw that, I don't want to compare him directly to Kauai, but I mean, Kauai kind of had that as his offensive load went up. I mean, different circumstances. But every star kind of deals with that, I think. Yeah, I think something else worth pointing out from last night, like Kyle was thinking of being the lead guy. I remember, so Brown scored in that last health exposition before Luke hit the second step back three.

And then he had Tim Hardaway on him. And I'm watching as a math. And I'm like, why is Tim Hardaway on him? Let's go, oh, yeah, they got to put Dorianface with on Jason Tatum. They got to put it on Kimball Walker. That makes life easier, too. And when you're like a second or third best defender every night, you're getting them. No doubt about it.

Like playing off a Tatum does help Brown out with those matchups, you know, but, you know, he has gotten better against those second matchups from last season of the scene, which is great to see. And with him balancing that, you know, heavier offensive load, I'm reminded of something that Stan Van Gundy said about Zion Williamson, who's the next guy, we'll discuss. Van Gundy said that for Zion to be a player who is bringing the ball up the court all the time, you know, not just after rebounds, not just after misses. There's a higher level of conditioning that a player needs to reach for them to be able to handle that load on both ends,

to be a heavy usage guy on offense and be able to survive on defense. And so with Brown, we're seeing that slipping defense. So that's the next step for him. And with Zion, it's the same thing. He started out the season as a clear negative on defense for the Pelicans. but he's made steady, subtle improvements over the course of the year with effort, focusing, positioning. That's been nice to see.

Still makes mistakes, but you like to see that progress. So, Charks, when it comes to, you know, Zion Williamson, though, if he doesn't someday become a great defender, it seems like he's already at the point, though, where his offensive impact is brilliant enough that some if he, if he defense is a little bit acceptable. I mean, I think eventually, I, but the thing is, like, it might be when he tells he's 25 or 20, like Julius Rand a little bit,

defensively. Okay, defensively, but offensively, he's already. Oh, my gosh. Unbelievable. So we, like, it's crazy. So we talked about him, what, maybe was it two episodes ago? And they've totally changed his role in offense. And it is so much fun to watch.

So he's gone from being more of a post guy and a cutter to, as you were saying, bring the ball up the floor. And that was always to me the most exciting part about his skill set was he can handle and pass for a guy his size. They're pretty pretty decently. And it's like, oh, yeah, if this guy can handle and pass, he's so big and power. that if he goes directly from the three point line to the rim, there's nothing you can even do about it.

And like every night, it's like 30 and 15. Like he's so efficient. It's a machine now. It's incredible. Yeah. I mean, he is like the central weapon on like a like a battleship. Like that part of his game. Like I was picturing like a star like a what is it the big death star rate.

Anyway. But like whenever you. The strongest part of his game in my opinion is his activity on the defensive glass segueing in. into rim pressure like Charks was just talking about. Like he is such an incredible defensive rebounder that like he can go get balls. Other people can't get. And then immediately push and transition.

Really, Janus is the only person that's similar in that way that can like, LeBron when he's in the mood. But, you know, and then Zion, when he's, when he's creating that pressure and doing it so efficiently, that would be a crazy thing for the Pelicans to like leave on the table and not integrate into their offense. and when he was being lazy on defense, that was sort of undermining a big part of his game, I think. So, yeah, for him to get the ball into his hands,

even in the past few weeks, like you said, it's been crazy to see that transition. Pardon the pun. Yeah, it's important. I absolutely love, just love watching the way the Pelicans are utilizing him play right now, especially with JJ Redick, the screening action charts that they use with Redick and Zion. It's usually on the right side of the court near the elbow area.

And Redick, by the way, Redick earlier this one, said he's one of the best screeners in the NBA. And I think he's right. I mean, like, he's unbelievable. The chemistry he has as Zion is already as good, maybe better than what JJ had with Blake Griffin on the clippers. Because Zion, it's because of Zion with his level of skill. He is unbelievable at reading the angle of the defender, which way they're leaning and

he'll attack against that, reading the angle of Redick screens and then just exploding on the drive, just exploding. Like when he gets a little bit of an inch against the defender, there's nothing. something you can do to stop that. And plus he can pass off the dribble, too. It's, it's unbelievable to watch that guy. His assists have gone up a lot in the last couple weeks. And that's really exciting. Like, I was thinking about explosion, how everybody knows he's going to his left hand. Like, the whole world knows, like, he's going back to his left. It doesn't matter. Like, I'm still getting to my left hand no matter what. I mean, you can't deal with his, his athleticism

and funnel him. It's just not possible because you talk about his straight line speed. I think that's one of the big things that's underrated about Zion is just that his lateral explosiveness is just so overwhelming that like you can't funnel him so you can know full well that he's going to be working his way back to that left hand but you're backpedaling and absorbing his contact his 280 pounds conservatively and yeah you're you're not going to funnel him right in that situation you're going to foul it and you know that's what happens a lot of the time and on the topic is ion i get a video coming out on thursday with the void about zion's playmaking in his revised role with the pelicans and there's a there's a mily cyrus reference in that video that

very excited about it. Oh, you're like Kyle now. The pop culture in the videos. It came to mind like late Saturday night or Friday night. I was like, we're going to put this in there. Dylan, Berkey, and Sean, you did a great job with handling that. So be sure to check out. I think I can guess what it is.

We'll see. We'll see. Don't spoil it here, Kyle. It's a layup. So be sure to check that out on my Twitter at Kevin O'Connor NBA or at Ringer or the Ringer's YouTube channel and let us know what you think about that. Let's party in the USA, folks. I love it, Charks.

My wife gets so mad at me when I sing that song because I kind of secretly like that song. It's catchy. I get it. It's very catchy. She actually threatens me when I sing it. It's pretty funny. Miley Cyrus is one of the great artists of our time.

Oh, okay, I wouldn't go that far. Plastic hearts is one of the better albums of 2020. Younger now and 2017 has some bangers on it. Miley does good stuff. It's not all pop. It's like some,

she's got rock. Okay. We need the kids. her voice. We need the KOC music corner. At any point in these pods, Kea, just drop in the music take. I love it. Miley's got grit and heart. KLC has a lot of music girlfriends. I always

tease him. He's like, yeah. Liam Mahabas. Yes. Duolipa, yeah, he has a lot of girlfriends that he would marry. That's what he says. It's interesting that she's surpassed her legendary father who did such hits as Aki Breaky Heart and

could have been me, you know, things like that. They keep breaking hard is timeless, though. Like, in 100 years, they'll be able to listen to they keep breaking heart. One player that is on his way to authoring some hits this season is Zach Levine. Another guy I was never a big fan of, kind of like with Julius Randall, for the whole lot of the same reasons with the feel for the game

and decision making and all that. But, man, he's improved to at least an acceptable level on defense when he's already such a solid playmaker now this season. And now he's an elite score. Kyle, did you see Zach Levine reaching this crazy? Your voice really went up there. I mean, it's just, it's wild to me to see this guy reach the level that he has. It's nuts.

Loving KFC gets excited. Yes. I mean, Zach Levine, I was having this thought process with a lot of different, a lot of different players. I feel like Zach Levine has suffered from this a little bit where when players come into the league and they kind of have, you can see that they have this idea of who they are and they kind of keep, you know, stubbornly pushing towards it. And a lot of the NBA, like riders and fans would be like, you really, you really. really you're this, you should shift and do more of this, and they just keep pushing towards it. I feel like Levine has suffered from some of that recently, maybe to the point, maybe a little excessively. His efficiencies have gone up. Like, undoubtedly, this is the most efficient

offensive season of his career. He's, this is the highest box plus minus of his career. He's up from, this is a pretty wild leap. In 2017-18, his true shooting was 49.9. And this season, it's 64.8. Wow, that's nuts. Small, you know, a small sample, but that's a huge, huge leap. And also he's been a lot better at the rim. You know, he's just taking the things that he does and done them better. I mean, because he carried a pretty big pick and roll load earlier, like three or four years ago. I think it was in the 40% range.

And he's carrying that now. He's just more efficient. He's hitting more shots. Something interesting I wanted to talk to you all about, though, was, well, go ahead and comment on Zach Levine. I have a thought on All-Star kind of discussion. in general, but I'll pass that to you all. I mean, yeah, I think, Kyle, you're totally right. Levine's a bet on yourself, All-Star, for sure.

I remember after UCLA, his one year is coming off the bench, and he clears for the draft, and all the college riders are like, this is insane. This guy cannot cut the NBA. He doesn't even start. It's ridiculous. I've always been a Levine guy. I just remember watching him in college a few times.

He'd do like a windmill dunk in transition and then get a three, and you're like, this guy is so athletic, and he's just, he's got us some skills. And I've always, I had him like top five in that draft. I was like, this is my gamble. It doesn't always work out,

but I've always believed in his athleticism. Like, he's just such an athlete that once he figures it out, you can't guard him. He's just too fast. What's your all-star thought, Kyle? You're right, man.

I mean, he's sort of like a more refined Gerald Green. You know what I mean? Like a better, he's like a better iteration. Like the springiness and the length is like, it's really uncommon. I was just kind of amused with the snub.

conversation on Twitter last night. It was like you just go through the timeline. It's just like, man, they're like 30 different people here who say they were snubbed. I think that we're going to have to evolve in the way that we talk about this because I went back and I looked this season, we've had 42 players average at least 20 points per game. And that is up from 36 last year. In 2010-11, we only had 21 players average at least 20 points per game. And that hovered about the same.

If you go back to like 90, 91, it was 23. So we've seen a major rising tide. And my question for you guys is, do you think that we are capable of evolving the statistical conversation surrounding the All-Star game because we just have too many guys. I feel like we're hitting a turning point where the nuance of it is going to have to evolve.

And I'm wondering what's going to take for that to happen. I wonder if we'll see roster expansion for All-Star from the NBA next season from 12 to 15 spots. I fail to see any reason not to do that. I don't think adding six spots in the total league necessarily addresses what you're talking about, Kyle, but I think it would help a little bit in terms of getting in some of those deserving players,

and that's merely a reflection of the way the game has changed, but also just the fact that we have a wave of super talented players. We have the older generation, you know, people that were young, 15 years ago that are still producing in the league. we have this wave of incredible young players. Some of the guys we're talking about on today's show and some who are already stars or MVP candidates like Aluka. The talent pool is so deep right now

that it's a little bit of both with the change of the game and with just the level of talent now that when it comes to talking about stats and talking about players and their production, I'm not sure if we are, Kyle, to be totally honest with you. I think defensive data. Capable of it, you mean? Is that what you're saying?

You don't think we're capable of it. Yeah, I mean, defensive data right now, public defensive data is too weak to really get into the nuances from a statistical standpoint. And then offensively, I think we're coming along. I think like something like screenuses, people still laugh at it on NBA Twitter. They still laugh at the idea of Rudy Gobert's screenist is mattering when really they are critical. Like Rudy Gobert, when he rolls down the lane, he is one of the reasons why the Utah Jazz lead the NBA and three points a 10, you know, three point percentage, why they get so many open shots. thoughts because of just the gravity, him sucking the defense in towards the paint. Are we capable of that?

I think we're getting better from a statistical standpoint, but not quite there yet, not quite there yet. Yeah, KOSC, I think you're right. It's just like the level of offensive skill is going up and up and up every year. And it's like, the more it does, it's just these guys are harder and harder to guard. The game's played at a faster and faster pace. And the numbers go with that. As far as a snub conversation goes, I say go for it.

If you're a fan of your team, defend your guys. Let's have a thousand snubs. I mean, who cares? It's fun. Later on on the show, we bring on Kenny Beecham, who's one of the NBA's best content creators on YouTube, and he's going to talk about Zach Levine. So if you want more, Levine talk, hang around for that. Let's change gears now and talk about some of our observations from Tuesday's games.

Last night, the Nets beat the Kings 127 to 118. And late in the game, I feel my phone vibrate. It's our group texts and Charks texts us, quote, Bruce Brown has 29. Nets have been using him in interesting ways, end quote. Charks, please tell us about these interesting ways the nets are using Bruce Brown. Yeah, I mean, it's been kind of surprising. So they picked him up from Detroit in the offseason.

He's a six-three guard, really good on-ball defender, slasher, can't really shoot. And I'm usually, it's very hard for six-three guards who can't shoot to stick. But it's cool what the Nets have done. They said, we have so much other shooting and we need your on-ball defense. we're going to find ways to make you effective. And he's very athletic. So they'll put him in the dunker spot a lot of times at 6'43. And they'll use him as a roll man a lot.

So this stat like blew my mind. Like you'll never see this. So when Bruce Brown is the roll man, he's in the 90th percentile. When he's the pick and roll ball handler, he's in the seventh percentile. Like that's such a ridiculous flip of a normal usage for a 6th three guard. But they're making it work and it's cool to see. How much did you check and see how much of that was passing? out of the, is he finishing?

That's him as a score. No, this is all finishing. Like he finished because like he has so much space, right? He's playing with Jeff Green, Hardin, Harris, Kyrie. The lane is wide open for him to just slash to the rim. This is an interesting evolution to track, I think, in the next probably five years is the inversion of that. I think we've talked about a little bit is that like teams that are capable of doing it. And it applies to a team that we're going to talk about today is that idea of inverting

that. Because it's all about getting in the middle of. floor and putting good decision makers there to shooters, like into a central vantage point. And if you can put, if you can put a good guy that can finish there and potentially make good decisions and then be a good defender on the other end, that's, yeah, that's a valuable player and a different type of player than we've seen in the past. I think it's a new mold. Yeah, with inversion, you want the ability to put guys in different slots and you want to have variety in terms of the level of, you know, schemes you can use positions you can get put guys

on the floor. And Nick Claxton, the prospect that I think all three of us really love. Mike made his season to debut last night. What was, what were your early impressions of Claxton and his debut? And assuming he gets back to the full health, full conditioning like he did last season, what are your expectations of what he can do for the Nets? I've been watching Clackson for a little while now.

I was a big fan of his at Georgia. He's, he's a really interesting case because, and his, his minutes were pretty severely limited. He had, was it ACL that he had? He had a he had an

It's been like knee tendiopathy Like some kind of general knee soreness Kept him out all year Before tonight last night Right I mean he's a really big Really flexible player with some ball skills He's like last night if you watched him You can see he's kind of getting his sea legs back a little bit

He was a little shaky with the ball But he's he's really really flexible for how big he is If you watch him get into a stance and like defend on the perimeter I think he just has a lot of upside in that potential And a pretty critical crazy tool for the nets to just kind of have on their in their back pocket to just use as they want 100% Kyle I mean like we just talked about Bruce Brown would that line up when you have him playing center on offense on defense he's still defending on a ball but he's switching screens

when you have DeAndre Jordan out there you're playing more of a drop defense with him but with Claxton even in last science game like like you said he he looked lethargic as a guy would in this first game back coming back midseason but they were able to blitz and pressure and switch with him on the defensive end of the floor. And like for Brooklyn right now, it is worth all the experimentation that they're doing to try to figure out who are the guys that they're going to be able to use in the playoffs to have these options.

And Claxton with DJ and with Brown and Jeff Green and Kevin Durant, all these guys playing small ball aside from DJ. They have a lot of different players that they can use in different types of schemes. I think that's an underrated aspect of what Brooklyn can be on defense come playoff time. First, I just want to say, I love being on a pub rick and talking about Nick Claxton. Like,

that just makes me, it makes my heart really happy just getting the Claxton talk. And I've got to come for you guys real quick. Oh, let's hear it. So I really, like, Kyle,

we're talking about his fluidity and his ball skills and his size. When I see him, and I like, I think of Christian Wood. I think this is a guy, if that jumper comes around, four, five,

six years from now, they'll be like, dang, he's so talented. Where did he come from? I think he has at a foundation. He is that level of talent. What will happen or not, who knows.

But I think talent is there to be that kind of player one day. Last night, the Cavalier staffed a 10-game losing streak with a 112, 11-win over the Hawks. I just want to quickly hit on one thing that happened in the closing moments of that game. 14 seconds left. Hawks up one point. Trey takes and misses a floater. Cavs rebound. Bring the ball up the floor.

Trey's the last guy back on defense. And he's on a cross-match against Lamar Stevens. but he loses track of Stevens. So Stephen catches the ball, drives by Trey, and dunks to take the lead. Then five seconds left, Trey dribbles up the floor, throws a bounce pass, 0.8 on the clock, and the time runs out. It was just a great calves win, a hawks choke job, and it was the defense by Trey. That is just an utter embarrassment.

In that moment, a chance to win the game, and you can't even lock in defensively on Lamar Stevens to stop a drive. can't even focus there in a moment like that. I think for Trey to do that is just, it's inexcusable there. And the coaches voting for reserves, all these guys were talking about, these first time all-stars,

they got it right. Because awful effort like that, that should not be rewarded. It should not be rewarded. Guys like Randall and Levine, they're there because of their offensive abilities, but they've also reached an acceptable level on defense. Trey Young, at this point on the defensive end,

it reigns completely unacceptable. Kevin O. what would it be? Kevin O. Crush. Kevin O. Destroy. I don't know. We need some kind of, we need some kind of segment for when Kevin assassinate somebody. My eyes were like as big as saucers when you. I was like, dang.

I just got so fed up with it last night. Like, Trey is a brilliant offensive player. Like, he is so good on that end. But defensively, he's just as bad. It, like, that's inexcusable. And the closing moments of the game to do that, it's inexcusable. The outline just said, just for the record, it's just said, Trey rant, nothing else. So that was great.

I'm not beyond that. I'm glad to hear that one. Trey, Trey, yeah. We don't even spend a lot of time on Trey. Well, that's just, you're right. I mean, it's just really quickly. I mean, it's just lingering. That's going to be a theme, I feel like of today is like lingering kind of developmental

pain points and questions. And for Trey, that's been a lingering thing for him. And it's like he's going to have to, you know, I know there are a lot of, he likes to kind of come out and say, you know, stick to the haters, be like, hey, told you, I am good. He is good. He's unbelievably talented. But, you know, there's some areas of it where like that, like what you were saying, I think the shot clock was pretty

key in some of those sequences, too. Didn't he do some really bad? Even before then, too. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But I don't know. Is there anything else you guys want to hit on from last night? You get anything, sharks? I'll give a shot to Jalen Brunson. He's been really good this season. And I think the Mavs have kind of figured out the key to

him. Like, you kind of look at him. Oh, he's a Villanova point guard. He must move the ball. It's like, no. Jalen Brunson is a bucket getting machine. That's what he does. Like he's, he's not very big, he's not very fast, but he's got a big, strong frame. He gets to his spots and he just scores consistently all the time. And it's

really nice to see another young player with Luca growing with Luca. That's not just all veterans. Like, I think that's really encouraging for Dallas. How about you, Kyle? You got anything? I agree with him on Brunson. I mean, like, when they took him, it seemed like he seems like an archetypal

it is so funny how we do that with colleges. We're just like, you're from this college. This is who you are. But I mean, like Brunson is an attacking guy off the ball that you have to kind of pay attention to because if you put all guys who just kind of plug into Luke and stand still, you limit yourself. And for him to grow is in the Mavs best interest. So, yeah, I agree. I've always been a Brunson fan. I always kind of have funny back and forth with a shout out to Kirk Henderson, the Mavs money ball guy. He's, he's had an up and down. You know, you know, Kirk's awesome. You know Kirk, don't you, Chuck?

Kirk's serious face. Yeah, he's a legend of North's Twitter for sure. Yes, he's, he's had some beefs with Brunson and I always text him when Brunson does something good. But yeah, I agree. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back talking about the Minnesota Timberwolves. For today's main topic, we're breaking down the Minnesota Timberwolves. They have the worst record in the NBA and they just hired a new coach, Chris Finch.

And that happened kind of in an unusual way since he was just an assistant for the Raptors. So Finch was an integral part of the offense at Denver and installed for Yokic and he was with the Pelicans when they had AD and a healthy to Marcus Cousins when they were doing some funky stuff there. You know, the optics of the hiring and the way it happened is difficult, but it does seem like Minnesota general manager Gersad Roses did get a smart, long time highly regarded assistant who shares their long-term vision for what they want the team to be. And this team's future really does start with another big man.

Finch could now potentially help. And that's Carl Anthony Town. So, Kyle, how do you hope Finch, tweaks the system to maximize CAD and really helps facilitate his development to reach an even higher level. I think that it's important because we were talking a little bit about inversion, and that's something that Finch has kind of been known for. And you know, you do need to have a certain. And when we talk about inversion, we just mean taking the big guy, a guy, you can't do with every big guy. You couldn't invert the floor with Dwight Howard or somebody. Like there, or Javelle

McGee. It's not an idea that is translatable, but it makes sense that they went after Chris, Chris Finch for this reason because Carl has grown as a passer in the past few years. If you, you know, I talked a little bit about a stack called passer rating that our buddy Ben Taylor created for basketball. It's awesome. And I was kind of looking at some of like in Bede, the number kind of is one through 10. And if you look at some of the better passers, Yokic is up in the 6, 7, 8.

Maybe he may even hit 9 at 1. How is not a 10? Like what's, how is Yok is not the top of a passerating scale? That's confusing. Well, he is. I mean, like, yeah. I mean, if you go look at like Sabonis, and Walton and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, they're, they're near the top. They're

like the high water marks. But if you look at somebody like towns, he's a guy who's capable, he's in the middle in that kind of like four or five range. And the question is, how much more can he grow with this setup? Because he has some score-minded people around him. So I guess it's going to be interesting to see, I mean, Anthony Edwards, who will talk more about. And, and DeAngelo likes to score as well, as we know. So, and his fit in this situation, is going to be interesting. But I think it's, I think it's a move that could,

I hate this term, but it could unlock some areas for Carl and be really good for him going forward. Even in their first game together last night, Kat had 11 assists, got a lot of elbow touches. And that's the main thing that I think needs to change with him. You know, Kat gets eight and a half post touches per game

according to NBA advanced stats. And that's good. That's around the same area of other great high level offensive bigs. But he only gets two and a half elbow touches per game. And that's not enough. Like, for example, Yokic gets 9.3 per game. Sabonis gets 6.8. Bam gets 6.2.

Kat needs more of those because he can thrive with facilitating, especially with his shooting ability, the way he forces defenders to respect him on the perimeter. He can drive and kick out. He can drive and score. And I thought Nakayas Duncan over at basketball news.com, a friend of NBA, you, he wrote a great article yesterday breaking this down.

And here's what Nakias wrote. I thought that I wanted to pass along to you guys. he said, instead of primarily using actions that feature guards feeding towns down low, towns should be the primary initiator, stretching defenses from above the break to open up possibilities for everyone else. I say bingo to that. How do you feel about that charts? Yeah, I mean, I was looking at the numbers. What jumped out to me is cast time in possession this year is like 2.1 minutes per game.

Whereas like the other big guys like a Yokic or a Subonis or an Embedde, Randall, they're like twice as much as that. And it's like, we've just got to make sure cat gets the ball. You've kind of got to be a creative offensive coach. And sometimes that might just mean, like with Zion, bring the ball up yourself. Who cares? Like, we got to make sure you have the ball first because if you have the ball, everything else should flow from that. But if you're kind of off the ball, you're actually with the kind of shoot first guards they have.

It's like, I'm never come to you. And if the ball comes to cat first, something good should happen. He's a pretty good. He's a smart player. Yeah. And if you don't depend on the ball being dumped to you, that's just another way that you're cutting off the way teams can get into more nuanced schemes

in the playoff setting to choke out your production. This is a way, and a difference between the most productive centers is the fact that they can kind of wheel into their own offense on their own. If you watch Embed, he's gotten a lot better at this. He can come up the floor and he can meld his face-up game into a post-up game or not. And Yokic, that's one of the big reasons why he's so difficult to take away is that like even if he's not pushing in transition,

he's coming in and facing the basket. And, you know, it's just another way to, Carl is so skilled. And you think about how quickly he shoots, here's a question. Do you think that is he the most capable mobile shooter shooting center of all time? I mean, his shot is so quick. Probably.

Yeah. Probably. I mean, even today in a league full of elite shooters, he is one of the best shooters, regardless of position. And this isn't like the golden age of downtown shooting a So I would say yes to that, Kyle.

And I'm with both of you guys on getting him the ball, having him bring the ball up to court more often. He's capable of doing that. But this sort of relates to what we were just talking about earlier with Zion and Jalen Brown. He's already a guy on the defensive end of the floor who has not been super impactful. And, you know, Kyle watching him in college of Kentucky, after leaving school, he was supposed to be like a iffy offensive prospect and a elite defensive prospect. how do we how does carl anthony towns get back to being you know the type of impactful player we thought he would be out of school what needs to change with him on that end was that your read on it do you all remember coming out what what your all's thought was yeah i mean nationally people talked about cat

as like oh be a great defensive player he'll be a great defensive player i remember thinking that yeah a little raw but he'll be great someday but he's still raw he's still kind of you kind of had like the sponge bob boys oh he's going to be this we i don't like like from the intro song. Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Who lives in a bad offense in Minnesota? When he comes... That's not bad.

That's great. That's great. Look at that's intro. Maybe we will do that. No, I mean, their offense has been abysmal for this change. I mean, it was 28th in the league in total efficiency. Really, really terrible pick and roll. Really, really terrible spot up.

I mean, you're dead if you're bad in those areas and transition. But, yeah, coming out, I mean, I always thought, because I watched him, that roster really clouded a lot of the way he was seen. I mean, it was just so clogged up. I was talking to somebody last night. Just Willie's presence on that team, Willie Colley-Stine affected the way Carl was viewed, I think. And I think we would have seen some more offensive flexibility from that group. Honestly, let's not go into that, because I'll curl up into the fetal position and cry if we talk about that team.

That Wisconsin game? Is that the one you never let go? Yes, Charks. Why? Triggering God. pause. Yeah, station technical difficulties for Kyle So, no, I mean, to me, I always thought he had more offensive upside. You know, defensively, I think that we want to transition to talk about this, right? His defensive kind of evolution. Yeah, that was my view on it because he didn't get used the way that he did prior. You know, I think that Kenny Payne and that staff tried to force him to develop some of that game to give him some staying power in the league so that he wasn't so wholly dependent on the face-up shooting parts of.

of his game. But I always saw him as a higher upside offensive prospect with the defense kind of being the longer term thing. Coach Cal didn't let him shoot three. So it's nice to see him doing that now. KOC, I think I was seeing what you were saying. I feel like with cat like conditioning. I don't really, I watch him sometimes. I'm like he could probably be a little, you know, like that's probably 15 pounds. I think that would really help him. And I think to just the age, he's 25. He's pretty much lost a year and a half of his development with the injuries. I expect that 26, 27, 28, I think it'll come. I think Kat's a guy. I still expect that leap, that a Randolike leak to happen. I believe in Kat. He's a guy that I believe can reach

in much higher level than already what we've seen. Let's move on to Anthony Edwards, their most recent number one pick. Where are we at with Anthony Edwards? He's been very iffy on the offensive and the floor so far this season, 35% on catch and shoot threes, which is good, but 29% on pole up two is 28% on dribble jumper 3 is only 49% within 5 feet of the rim some if he shot selection out there on the court which was to be expected from him as a rookie that is to be expected to be clear however i am wondering guys like how do we feel about the progress of anthony edwards since his season at georgia where are we at with him in the context of what minnesota's trying to build out i think well for one let's try out that dunk like that dunk on last

Friday was probably the highlight of the year, if not the decade. That was incredible. And I think, so you're 100% right. Like if you had totally for this season, okay, Edwards is going to play on this Minnesota team. Caddle be hurt for most of the year. Then Russell will be hurt. There'll be no structure. They're going to fire their coach. I'd be like, oh, yeah, he'll be jacking up a lot of bad shots. And that's what's happened. That's what I expect. I always thought this is a guy who needs offensive structure, a clearly defined role with better players around them. And that just hasn't happened this season for a variety of reasons. So I'm not too worried.

I think the tools are there. Can Finch provide that? Can he reel it in sharks? Like, what needs to happen? Or do you want him kind of shooting through this and getting those? Like, how do you want to change under Finch? I mean, I would say, like, if you want to lose a lot, you can have him shoot through it. There's no big deal.

Like, I think for Finch, like, I want to get Russell and Towns back. I want to build my offense around them. Let Edwards kind of get his moments. Like you said, the captain's shoot is there. He can play off the ball a little bit. It's just, it's going to be a progression. It's just how much a team around him lets them grow without putting too much pressure. on him. Yeah, there's already been some good allocation in his game. I mean, I was looking at some

of the shot distribution from Georgia to this year. At Georgia, he was prone to settle a lot more. That was a context that enabled some of his sort of, you know, flaws and warts. He shot 67.3% of his attempts were jumpers at Georgia. That's down 10% to 57.9 in his first year. And he's getting to the Rim War, which was the thing that people, you know, this guy is an unreal athlete. I mean, just absolutely unreal. He tests in the highest, you know, percentiles with some of the most phenomenal anomalistic athletes that we have. At the basket, he was, you know, 24.2 percent of his attempts at Georgia, 36.1 in year one. But, you know, he's only finishing 49 percent at the rim by the metric I'm looking at here. Sometimes it can vary from synergy to cleaning glass

in the NBA. But he around the rim, if he decides to, he misses probably more layups than he should, sometimes his awareness around the rim, but his ability to get low and power through gaps, you know, because a lot of times whatever drop big man is there, you know, whatever big guy's there, they're not going to be quick enough,

or he just has this blend of power and quickness low to the ground that is really difficult for guys to deal with. And, you know, he has a football background, a lot like a guy we're going to talk about later. And, you know, maybe some of his balance comes from that, his sense of just angles and things like that.

But he's a handful around the rim, man. No doubt. And I think he has flash enough playmaking ability that maybe over the next five, six, seven years that he progressively taps into that more and more so that rim penetration can be more than just forcing up a shot where part of that feel is about deciding whether to actually go up or whether to kick it out. That's the evolution that a lot of those go-to-scorer types need to make in with Edwards. We'll see if he can do that. You mentioned earlier charts DeAngelo Russell. You said for Edwards, you want to get cat in Russell. back. But with

the angel Russell, his defense has been very, very poor throughout his career. As always. Remain unchanged. And that is a serious detriment to the value he brings to the court. Are we sure he's a keeper? A long-term

keeper for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Are we sure? I thought you were going to stop the sentence right there. We sure he's a keeper, period, for anyone. I always like, I just got to see, I want to see this cat-centric offense. and Russell in it as the number two. Like, I got to see it first

before I can decide one layer or the other. Because, yes, he's looked bad this year, but Cat hasn't been there. They played five games together, right? And over a calendar year. It's crazy. So to me, like, yes, like if we're saying, we've seen enough now to say,

okay, if the Angelo's the main guy on your offense, you're not going to be very good. That's pretty established at this point. But can it be a number two with a big, like, cat? That's the hope. I think it makes sense logically, but we've got to see it obviously before he can say.

I think it's more likely he's in number three or lower. I mean, I think that because there's been like a direct correlation. I looked this up one time. I agree, Charks. It's like there was a direct correlation between his usage rate going up and his efficiency going down. So he's one of those guys that like there is sort of a contained area for him to stay valuable on the floor. And the defense is the other part of this. It's like, I just don't know a long term in terms of, do we want to segue into talking about kind of the timber wolves brought in the more in the more broad sense?

We'll get to them. Okay. Yeah. Well, his defense, I think, opened some questions about them in the macro sense that are pretty fascinating to me. I mean, just one quick note on what she said charts about them not playing together. They've, Kat and DeLo have only played 90 minutes together this season. Only 90 minutes. There's been 8, 657 minutes without either of them on the court.

Like, that's, that's absurd. But Kyle, let's get into what you want to find out there. Is the question. Are we going to get a bunch of messages? We love to trade your players. That's one thing about ringer NBA you. I think if you're running more offense through Kat, that's what can unleash DeLo off ball.

It's something I've wanted to see more and more since Ohio State. He can come off screens for he's not like a 45% three-point shooter off screens, but he's above average or good off screens coming off handoffs. I want to see more of that with DeLo. But Kyle, what were you thinking about with the broader thoughts about the Minnesota Timberwolves? Well, I think we walked the horse all the way to the water there, and I just didn't like pay attention to even what I was saying is that like,

Well, we talked about how he fits into the, he fits efficiently into these types of parameters. Maybe that's going to be the case. You know, maybe maybe the case of them channeling like, like Nakaya said, about making Kat the primary initiator and funnel. Because the best offense is in the NBA, this is the way it is, have somebody that can really score and really create and really share efficiently. Is Kat, that type of person? Does Delo fit into that scheme? It's very possible. Yeah.

So in terms, but for me, I think building around. Cat, the defense thing, it opens up a lot of kind of lineup questions. Like, how do you support Kat in the way that you need to while also staying flexible? And I was curious about, like, what, do you guys think that they have the right type of personnel to do that with their young guys in terms of, like, who is Delo? Are there guys on this roster that you think they could prioritize over Delo? Where do you see Promise or maybe, I don't know, I'm just curious about their lineups in general. Kyle, that's a great segue.

It's your guy. That is a fantastic segue. I think this guy, like, this is a name to remember. I think most people haven't heard of this guy. His name is Jaden McDaniels. He was a late first shot pick from Washington. He's really come on in the last few, I guess probably since the start of the new year. He is, I think he is the guy who can make all of this work.

And I was going to sound, so he's six foot 10. He's extremely athletic. And he blocks shots at a ridiculous rate for a perimeter player. I watched this guy think this is the next Jonathan Isaac. I think he has that kind of potential at the four spot to really cover a lot of mistakes.

He can switch on to anybody. I looked it up. He has the highest block rate in the league for non-centers already as a rookie. And he can knock down spot-up threes and that's all you need. I'm putting Jaden McDaniels

as a guy to really watch out for. McDaniels also feels like a perfect four next to cat. If you run like that length and versatility that he can provide for you. If you want to go with double bigs, you get another skill big out there potentially. Maybe you draft Evan Mobley and next year's draft.

You could slide McDaniels at the three because he has that level of defensive versatility. 6-9, 192 pounds. I'm sure as he ages throughout his 20s, he'll add more weight to that frame. But already, you mentioned the Jonathan Isaac comparison there, Charks. Isaac obviously has suffered a lot of injuries, you know, unfortunately with Orlando that have kept him sidelined.

But one of the best defensive players in the last. league. You see that level of upside with McDaniels? I think so. Like, there are sometimes, like, even when guys get around him, it doesn't matter. He's had like four or five, like these recovery blocks where a guy gets one step on him. He's come up behind. He just pop right off the backboard. Like, he's literally the eraser. Like, he erases shots consistently. He blocked Pascal Seacum like he was a child. Like, seriously. And I mean, it's interesting to compare him. I actually, like, busted Jay Billis's chops on Twitter for comparing Jonathan Isaac to Jay or yeah Jay McHale.

Oh, he made that calm too, Billiston? He did. He did at Washington. He did at Washington. And at the time, I thought that there was sort of the like visual thing going on with the hair and really big and tall. I think that, and he looks bigger than he is because when I found out his wingspan, his wingspan is, it's plus, but it's not like crazy plus.

I think it's only like, isn't it like 7-1 or something? Oh, really? I didn't got to look that up. I thought he looks like. longer than that. Maybe it's like the way he wears, I don't know, like, sometimes like there can be like optical illusions, but with their socks and things like that. But with Jonathan Isaac, I mean, he does. I call it corrective ability, like what Charks was describing. If you have the ability to be, you know, because the NBA is all about separation and because of the way it's

officiated, you need to have guys that can cover space and cover gaps quickly. And that was the big thing that drew my attention to him in the draft. He had a similar evolution to precious in the way that he played in high school. You know, the, the thing that, the comps that kept getting pulled for McDaniels in high school were like, oh, this is a Durant type. Oh, this is an Ingram type. People love a Durant comparison. Any tall guy who can shoot and move it all gets a Durant comp. Tall skinny guy. We got, we got

one coming in a couple of years of Moni Bates. He's going to be the first guy. He's the one to rightfully get the comparison. Not, not McDaniels, not Burnham, even though Ingram has come along. I just have some way, still not Durant. I have some holiest of holy comps that I'm just like, if you do not utter these types, these names when you're comparing, I just feel like, and I feel like KD is in that group. Like there, he's just so, it really undermines and disrespects

how special he is anyway. But I was going to say that like, you know, Preciousette, we talked about had a similar thing in high school where he was like, I'm a dribble shooter. I'm a dribble shooter. And if you watch McDaniels, that was kind of the context that I had because Kentucky recruited him. So I remember I watched a bunch of his games at Federal Way, his high school team. And that was what we thought he was. But then when you would watch him at Washington, it was like, well, he's kind of inconsistent in this sense. Like, he's definitely not consistent enough to carry this into the league and have this be his central identity. But then you'd watch him on defense, and it would be like he would just devour, swallow shots. He's just really quick off of his feet, I think, other than being really long.

And, like, defensively, I don't know, could you imagine putting like Carl, Evan Mowgli and McDale's on the floor at the same time? That'd be ridiculous. Add in like Malik Beasley, D.Lo, bad. core, get some spark plug scoring. That'd be a nice balance. I guess we should point out the whole pick thing. This is like a big story in the NBA this year is the fact that what is top three protected from the Russell trade.

Otherwise, it's corner of the Warriors. So that's a big, big thing to watch. So they only have about a 40% chance if they have the worst odds of keeping that pick, which we'll see. I mean,

hopefully for two old fans, fingers crossed that you stay at the bottom. This is the year, a year you want to stay at the bottom. Yeah. Let Anthony Edwards shoot a lot. Just go ahead and do it. Keep it going.

Don't give Towns the ball at the elbow. Nah, get that. Don't do what we're saying. Yeah. There's plenty of time for that later. Yeah, hold off on that, Chris Finch. So this Minnesota team, they are bad. They are bad.

This is a bad team. And obviously they've had a lot of injuries that contribute to them being bad. But the team, I look at them, like, how many keepers are there? You mentioned McDaniels. I'm with you guys on him. Cat obviously goes without saying, Russell, you get a see it work. Edwards is young. Got to see it work. Malik Beasley, having a really strong statistical season for Minnesota,

capitalizing on the opportunity that he didn't get in Denver. Is Beasley a keeper? And are there any other keepers that come to mind on this team long term? Beasley, I was going to note is the only other guy who's carrying a, like a significant minutes load and still maintaining a positive box plus minus. Like so, but to me, if you look at the pieces, that to me tells me that the pieces weren't. fitting together being used correctly. I mean, they're bad. They need to improve a lot.

But, like, there's just something inefficient about the way they were running offense. If you're, I like Beasley. He's a really confident guy. I think that it, the more, the more that you can keep two-way guys on the floor to support cat, like, I feel like a Kogi has kind of come into question and Culver. Yes. Those two guys.

I'd be curious what do you guys think about them. I think with Minnesota, one thing worth pointing out. So I'm looking at their school box score from last night. Like, they literally play so many young players, even our, pod can't talk about all of them. So, like, last night they played Jared Vanderbilt, Daniels, Josh Okie, Nas Reid, Jordan McLaughlin, and Jalen Noelle. And there's Jared Cole who's hurt right now.

Like, when you're playing six to seven young guys and you have young guys in your core, like that makes it pretty much impossible to win consistently. And I think all those guys I mentioned, they all plus and minuses. But if I was Chris Finch, I would probably pick like three of them. Like, we're going to develop these three. You can't develop eight young guys at the same time. That's very difficult. I hope Nazreed is one of those guys.

He chooses. So much too. Yeah, man, I like him. He's shooting threes bringing energy. He's just so easy. Like, I don't know. I've always loved watching him play. Like, he just has an easiness about the way he plays.

But yeah, really, really skilled. Yeah, deceptively skilled for how big he is. And you mentioned Jared Culver in passing. What's wrong? Well, Jared Culver right now, what does he need to get better at to get back on the Minnesota Timberwolves future? your radar as a potential keeper because right now it does not look good. I mean, I think with Jared Culver, like when you're a perimeter player and you can't shoot,

it just makes it very, very, very difficult. And one thing I was interesting as scout told me, he said he felt like Culver has confidence issues. And I think that's really hard when you're a young player with a streaky shot, right? Because when you're in college, okay, my shot's not there. We'll all drip onto the lane and get a layup, right? I'll move the ball. I'll get in a comfortable rhythm.

But when you're in a small role in the NBA, it's like he won't get that chance. you get like five shots a game. Some of them got to go in. With Culver, I think it's in his own heads sometimes. He misses two shots. His shot's not there. Then they can't contribute to the team. I mean, I think for him, like, if you can't shoot,

it's just not going to happen. Confidence is the thing that we always owe. That's an X factor that you really just can't unless you interview kids and like try to like, we can't do that from a distance as like armchair, you know, analysts. Culver very well. And the speed, the speed that the NBA game has played at and like, like the level of quality, like the threshold for how quality your decisions have to be. If you have confidence issues, there's, there literally is just no time for that.

Like so if Culver is struggling in that sense and struggling to be efficient with his decisions in the first place, yeah, that's a tough beat. Let's move on to our brand new segment. It's called study hall. This is where we each choose to discuss a first, a third year player in the league who's struggling or plateaued and how they can regain their traction and value. And plus we'll maybe offer a player. or multiple players who are good examples of benchmarks for them.

Kyle, you want to kick us off? Yes, I do. And I love how you just steamrolled right past the best player on Minnesota's roster, Jared Vanderbilt. He's awesome, isn't he? I'm offended by that. More Kentucky talk, Kyle. Vando. Love him.

I really want to get Chris Ryan to shout Vando for me on a pot at some point. So Kevin Knox. I knew it. More Kentucky Talk. Kevin Knox. Of course. He just fit. He just fit.

This segment is going to be where I just, there's where I just pick a Kentucky player every week and I say, you guys are in the wrong, not this player. I mean, there's like 30, 40 of those guys now. Why not? They're unavoidable. I'm not picking. Kyle on Kentucky.

No, anyway. KOK and KOC. Let's go. There we go. So Kevin Knox, as we know, 6-9, fluid bigger player. When he came into the league, he's another guy who shifted from football late. I was telling you guys, Kevin Knox was actually like an option quarterback up until he was like a sophomore in high school.

And he just grow too much. I mean, he's six foot nine, option quarterback at that size. That's what he was apparently. And he was apparently pretty good. Yeah, I mean, his dad was a receiver for Florida State. So this is a guy who has like a football pedigree and kind of came to the game late. You could speculate about like what role that played in his development. I think that it potentially did.

And some of the way and some of the things that are challenges within his game, you could pretty, I think, safely speculate about that. But, you know, Kevin Knox coming out of the. draft at Kentucky and just kind of looking at his development holistically here. He was a guy who kind of struggled to stay involved in games. He would disappear unless he directly had his number called. But he always gave you this look like, okay, this is a guy who has incredible size. The shot looks good. But he's not a total, you know, he's not a great defender. He struggled with that. It kind of looks, it's kind of had this impression that these optics that,

he's not a total physical defender and and you he's not a really an explosive player either either for as fluid as he is so now we're in year three with him and his numbers in the first two years have been really really bad um kevin knox is a guy who can't create his own shot uh he's not a great passer he's basically just struggling to stay on the floor and coming out of the draft he was compared with like mcale bridges miles bridges um those were guys who like we were talking about earlier, they had defensive thing currency that they could trade on to stay on the floor and develop and those guys have. Knox hasn't had that. I just have a question for you, Kyle. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. What's his position? That's what I have a hard time figuring out.

It's like, what is his ideal role on an NBA team? You would think he'd be a three, right? I mean, that's kind of the mold that he's fit for me. Because I would almost say Smallball 4, but I don't know if he can rebound enough to play, play up like that. The distinguished professor of Smallball, Jonathan. sharks. Oh, it makes it easier for guys, you know, slower defenders. It does. Especially guys like him.

Where did you guys have Knox coming into the draft? Did you have him in the teens? Did you have him in the top 10? I think I had him in the top 10. I had him in the teens. Like nine or 10, I think, something like that. I had him below both the bridges. I thought they are both better than him.

So I think that they're, you know, it's been rough. His shooting, he's not a great mobile shooter. But he is a guy that has some tools. There are some asterisks that I, I think they were really important with him. And I was talking with one of my Knicks fan friends. And they were like, please tell me that you're not going to make excuses for Kevin Knox.

But I think that these things are important to consider. Age factors in so much with these young players. Kevin Knox is only 55 days older than Emmanuel quickly. Can you believe that? That's nice. He must have been young for his age, young for his grade. He was very young. He was, I think, one of the youngest players in college basketball when he was there.

And so I guess I'm just kind of looking at this. And I'm thinking it's interesting how differently we feel about a player based on that. You know, Kevin Knox came in really young to the league. And the other thing is his context, you know, and like, I'm not trying to like say that he, if you're good, you know, you'll find a way to survive and add value. He has been bad. He has these, these challenges are not like just at face value forgivable.

The Knicks have been an absolutely terrible developmental, like scenario for him specifically because he's a guy that needs the table set for him. You know, the Knicks in the past three. years have had some of the worst passing numbers in the league. This year, they were, their 29th and assists, 26th in passes made their last and secondary assist, last in potential assist. In 2019, 20, 20, 19, they were 27th in assists. In 2018, 19, they were dead last in the league. So this is a team that has struggled to put creators on the floor. And Kevin Knox struggles to score unless he's having the table set for him. So I'm kind of just wondering, how much do we think that that could

affect what he could do if he enters a new scenario going forward. What do you all think? I think it kind of ties into what we talked about earlier with being patient with some of these players and the fact that they can be late bloomer's situation, environment, circumstances, opportunity, all play into what a player is and what a player can become. And for Knox, you're right, the context hasn't been perfect for him. So, you know, the fact, like you said, 55 days older than Emmanuel quickly, that kind of. says everything that you need to know that he's still a young guy, even though he's in the third year of his NBA career. So I wouldn't give up on Kevin Knox, though I've certainly soured.

You'd like to see some level of development. But he's another one of those guys where the skill is there, the body is there, the ability is there where maybe he could end up being one of those late blooms in the NBA. Yeah, I think for sure with like age and grade, it's almost like there's like a five or six year sorting process, like you're kind of sorting for gold till this all kind of shakes out, right? Because some years, like, you have 20-year-old freshman and you have like 17-year-old freshman. It's really, really varies. And I think a lot of like the smart NBA teams, they're always hitting on what age is this guy. Don't hit on his grade. How old is he? That's the comparison point more than the grade usually. Charks, let's move on to your player for

study hall. Okay, so I'm going to talk about Jackson Hayes. Always got love for my UT guys. He's had a tough two years in New Orleans. I mean, Jackson Hayes, crazy athletic center. I mean, probably one of the best outlets in the league at seven foot tall. Unfortunately, it's best known for telling the NBA to SSD after missing the rookie game last year. Oh, yeah. I still can get over it. That was so funny. So he's actually, he's lost his spot in the rotation to Willie Hernan Gomez in the last couple of weeks.

So, no one to starting Stephen Adams or playing Hernan Gomez off the bench. And that means there's no minutes for Hayes. I think there's a couple of key takeaways. Number one, center is really a mental position. people think it's all about athleticism, but it's really mental. It's can you read the floor? Can you cover the rim? Do you know how to move when you do get the ball?

Can you cut at the right times? It's such a thing that you got to learn on the court. So when you draft the Jackson Hayes, you have to understand it's going to take a long period of time. And then when you have Zion, too, I think, me personally, I would never have two young bigs together. I think that's just a horrible idea because it, like, compounds the error. because now you have two guys who know what they're doing in the back of your defense

and you're never going to guard anybody. And I think number three for New Orleans, when you break it down, the one player that Hayes has success with is Kira Lewis,

a pick and roll point guard. So most of New Orleans guards can't run pick and roll at all. They just, they dribble a little bit, they can't really show off the dribble. And like if Jackson Hayes is going to be successful,

so with a pick and roll point guard who can push the court, the numbers are kind of crazy. So when Kira Lewis is on the core with Hayes and 75 minutes, he's plus 11. Without Kira Lewis in 200 minutes, he's minus 17. Like, if you have a young big, you've got to give him a point guard and feed him open shots. And for Hayes, it's just not a good spot for him. My guess is he'll probably bounce to two or three teams, like a Willie Colley Stein before he figures it out.

Willie was big time my comp for him coming out of high school, actually. Because they were actually recruiting him. And I was thinking that is like a really, really similar. really, really similar comp. Yeah, Jackson Hayes. I like him. I still like him as a athletic rotation big for your long term, but we'll see how the development happens with him. He's pretty young too, isn't he? I think he's on the younger side. He's super young. So yeah, Jackson Hayes right now with New Orleans and his second season is 20 years old and 277 days, according to basketball reference. They make that easy for it. So almost 21. He'll turn 21 in May. I want to talk about a player who

just played his first game this season yesterday. Six foot 11, 23 years old, drafted 16th in 2017. He's played 10 games in his career. And like I said, his first game on Tuesday night or Monday night, four points on six shots. Just last week he was in the G league. It's Justin Patton. Wow.

This is a deep cut. Drafted as a red shirt freshman out of Creighton. He was 229 pounds. Now he's 241 pounds. looks bigger, still looks mobile, and I like the energy that he brought on defense in his debut, is encouraging to see that.

He still looks awkward on offense, very indecisive at times, and that's always been an issue for him since he was at Creighton. So the player that I'd love for Patton to watch and for the Rockets to have him watch, it's Clint Capella, another former rocket starting center,

because Capella, he was also raw with the ball on his hands on offense, but he's become a guy who's, like, very decisive with his, movements with especially in the short role some of the passes capela can make is encouraging i think that is somebody that patten needs to watch and try to take that on and become that because i patten right now he's 23 years old he'll turn 24 this year there's still something there's something there and i don't know if anybody can get it out but i'm glad houston's giving him a chance to try to get it out

yeah that's quite a cut who originally drafted him was it minnesota i feel like He was part of the Jimmy Butler trade. Yes. Drafted by Chicago with the Jimmy Butler trade. So, yeah. The Marcus had to die

so Patton could live. What can we say? Headline. Let's move on to our final segment of the show today. That's draft class. We're breaking down Gonzaga freshman point guard Jalen Suggs.

You wrote it about it on the ringer.com. People can check that out. It's Jaylan Suggs could help the right NBA team level up. That's the headline on the website. They can see you tweet it out at Jonathan Charks. on Twitter. Charks, fill us in on Jaylon Suggs. What's his deal? Why is he a top prospect? I love watching Jalen Suggs play. I think we'll start with. So he was actually a really elite, maybe I think better than Kevin Knox. No, definitely better. So he was offered Ohio State Scholars to

play quarterback. He was 6-4-205, just a dual threat, just kind of super mobile quarterback. He's an incredible athlete and he's built. Like, he's not like most freshman guards. Like, he has got a solid NBA frame already. And he's, I combined that with, with like, he's also a really, really, really smart player. And that combination of like elite athleticism and elite intelligence, I think really sets them up to have a really long career. I would say with him, he's probably not great at any one thing right now. I think he's terms of ball handling, shooting, passing,

but he's pretty good at everything. So if you combine a well-rounded skill set with elite athletic ability and elite basketball IQ, I think, like, it gives you a high floor and a high ceiling one day. I talk a lot about in the article is that Suggs, I think more than anybody understands how to make yourself look better. We talk all time about,

oh, the Ignite team for going to Kentucky or picking the right school. Sugg said, no, I'm going to pick the right system that's going to boost my stats and boost my stature. So he was not seeing

the top five pick coming out. He basically said Gonzaga, I'm going there. The Zags don't even recruit guys like Suggs normally. He recruited them. He's like, no, no, no, no.

I'm going to Gonzaga. I'm playing with. you guys running an NBA offense and I'm going to kill it. And that's what he's done. He's been a really big call on a 21 or no team. And Gonzaga is one of the most, for the NBA fans, like watch the Gonzaga again. They are incredible. They have like four or five NBA prospects.

They absolutely smoke teams every night. It's really fun to watch. It sucks a huge part of that. Yeah, it's got vibes like that 2018 Villanova team, the way they kind of run a lot of, they have a lot of NBA level talent running NBA type sets, smart decision makers, shooters, spacing. He's a guy to me that has a really high. high floor. I think that if he commits himself to being like a great defender, he could have a

really, even if he doesn't improve like drastically offensively, he could be a high value NBA player because he can hit open shots. Like spatially he jumps out to me a lot. Maybe some of that comes from football and like making decisions in kind of close proximity to physicality. He's very comfortable getting to his spots. And he's not like a bowl you over type when you talk about a football player. He doesn't like just try to physically abuse people. He just, uh, he's very like an incisive, quick athlete. Um, and I think he could, I think you're right. I think he could bring a lot to like a good NBA team. I think he could play. It's really all right there in the headline. He could help an NBA team right now. He could.

And there's not a lot of people you could say that about it. You mentioned Tyrese Halliburton in the article charts as sort of a, you know, a comparison for him in terms of the impact he could make right away. I mean, he could step on a floor tomorrow. Like, is there any fit or team that you would get excited about to have Jaylon Suggs on?

I mean, they asked him to do it in the article. I put O'KC. I love the idea of like Shay, Shay, Suggs, and Doort. Kind of moving the ball in space with a lot of athletic ability. I like that. But yeah, I think I would love to see Suggs

somewhere where he could be a smaller role now and just grow, grow, grow. I could say, I wouldn't want to be like the main guy right now, but maybe in four, five years. My com firm was kind of like a Drew Holiday type, kind of a do-it-all plug and play kind of guy to a player. I think that's the kind of guy he could be one day. Guys, this is a really, really fun discussion. This is a really fun discussion. You all got to go listen to some Miley Cyrus, though. I was going to say, that's the key takeaway. Give me some

songs, KOC. Give me like two songs to check out. Well, let's check out the new album. Check out the helm this year from 2020. That's a good one, good place to feel out Miley's rock. The great in her voice. Plastic hearts. I did like Malibu. That was a great song. Prisoner with Dua Lipa. It's a banger.

It's really good. Get him started on Duelipa, folks. Guys, have a good rest of your day. All right. It's fun. See you, buddy. See ya. Well, that was an awesome conversation with Charks and Kyle.

Up next is my conversation with Kenny Beecham. NBA content creator over on YouTube. Love his stuff. What he does. And we're talking about his favorite team, the Chicago Bulls and their first time all-star, Zach Levine. That's up, after the break. And now we bring on Kenny Beecham, one of my favorites cover in the league right now.

He makes great YouTube videos on multiple different channels. He's got an NBA podcast called Through the Wire. And now he's the host of Called Game, a new talk show that brings people and players from around the league together to have a conversation about the NBA. Kenny, I'll pump to have you on, dude. What's going on today? What's up? This is great. This is not our first interaction, though. I don't know if you remember Charlotte of 2019. Do you remember that? Charlotte 2019. I don't think you would. I have the worst memory ever, dude.

I'm not going to lie. I have a bad memory. It's kind of embarrassing. We met in Charlotte. A fashion brand party. Oh, yes. Yes. And that was the first time we met.

We exchanged numbers and things. Oh, okay. Yeah. It was really cool. That was my first interaction with someone in the sports media. And I was like, oh, snap. Yeah, that's right. That's what they were printing out the stuff on the jackets, right?

Yeah. Yeah, okay, I remember you. You were there with a couple of your friends, I think, right? Yeah, that was our first big time party in the sports world. Okay. And like your approach to like marketing or like networking, we took that. He was like, okay, we got to do that. We got to talk to everybody.

We got to exchange numbers with everybody. We got to do the KOC way. So it's cool to finally be here, like, talking to you other than that party two years ago. Dude, that's like sad on my part that we've met in person. But like, I don't remember until you were like, told me about the event that it was at. I was like, oh, okay, that's right. We did meet face to face before. I don't know, man. My memory is bad.

But I think a lot of people, at least on Twitter, may definitely know you as like a Chicago Chicago Bulls fan. That's why I wanted you to have you on today to talk about their situation, which is kind of odd. They're a younger team getting better. A lot of young pieces that might not fit well together, but are good individual players. So let's start with their best young guy, Zach Levine, who's only about to turn 26 years old. He's averaging nearly 30 points. per game on a ludicrous 65% true shooting. But when Levine was a restricted free agent in 2018, he signed an offer sheet with the Kings, and it was questionable at the time whether the Bull should match that contract.

They did, thankfully, and now he's having an all-star caliber season. It seems in some ways, though, that his former reputation hasn't quite caught up to match his production today. So, Kenny, I'm wondering, between then in 2018 and now in 2021, where he's in the all-star discussion. How and in what areas has Levine's game just blossomed over these three years? KOC, I will admit, I was on the

wrong side of history with that. Because when we go back to it, he played 25 ish games with the Chicago Bulls coming off the big injury after the Jimmy Butler trade. And in those games, he didn't look very good. And I was one of the people to look at those 25 games,

sample size after a big injury and be like, no, we should not match it. We went on my podcast, and it was two people I was like match it, two people. That was like, no. And I'm the only Bulls fan there, like Die Hard Bulls fan there. And I was the one that said, don't match it. And here we are talking about him potentially being an all-star.

And I'm so happy that they did match it because him as a player and even as a person has got a lot better. For the people listening, I am also a season ticket holder for the Chicago Bull. So I've been there over the past couple seasons to see the progression of him, Lari Market and Window Carter. And I can say that like Zach Levine as a person has got better too. and I think a lot of that matters in the front office as well. But on court, I think that that 25 games sample size, what we were seeing was that maybe his explosiveness was gone. So he wasn't into the rim as much as we wanted him to

or finishing at the rim like we thought he could. And I didn't believe him to be, at the time, to be one of those guys that could carry an offensive low. And that's one thing we were realizing now that he could carry the offensive low. It's about his intensity or his really ideal. of what defense can be, right? And I think that's the next step for Zach Levine

because at this point, we know he can score with the best of him. He's one of the best scores in the entire league. But we want him to do more on the offensive side of the ball. And with the new front office, I think there could be room for us to build a team around him. So maybe the expectations of him defensively are as high as we have it right now. And you know what? With him, I think you nailed it right there. Like he was coming off that injury at the time and it hurt his explosive.

It just made him look worse. And he ended up being when he regained his athleticism. And like that's, he's sort of improved in three main areas. Scoring, he's gone from a spark plug scoring guy that maybe is like a high end six man, a Jordan Clarkson type to somebody who can lead an offense, like you said. And even though he's not a savant playmaker by any means, he's at least become a solid guy facilitating within the offense. And even though he's on a lockdown defender, he's no longer like a total liability on that.

He's not scatterbrained. He doesn't like focus. Like he's had some like real lockdown. in possessions on defense this year. Like the game against Charlotte and January hits on awesome moments on defense that game. You know, with him, I feel like it's at the point where

the scoring is so ridiculous that average playmaking and average defense is enough right now. Exactly. Oh my God, Kelsey. We're on the same page. And this is a type of argument that I have with people that aren't actually watching the Bulls, right? I know that the events in the Lowe's.

Exactly. You know what? I don't blame them. I'm blaming at this point. But I know that the advanced analytics are so anti-Zak Levine on the floor. But when you watch him play, you know that compare him his defense to now, his defensive IQ to now from three years ago when we were thinking about whether or not we should match that offer sheet. It's dramatic. It's dramatic. Like just the other game when we were going against the Detroit Pistons, Jeremy Grant was dominating it. But it was like a lot of tough shots.

And Zach Levine was the guy was like, I'm going to take that assignment. It just so happened that great offense beats God. defense. So Zach Levine as a player has got so much better defensively. Even comparing it to last season, like I mentioned, season ticket holders. So I'm there every single night. There are a lot of times where he was getting beat back door. Things like that. Just not being, not being there like IQ wise. And that has got dramatically better this season. So I can, when I'm talking to someone and talking about Zach Levine or talking about the boys, I can immediately tell if someone is just stat watching versus who's actually watching basketball.

Defensive analytics are tough, man, especially the single number ones. It's hard to defense because you mentioned like getting cut back door something like that's hard for numbers to pick up to know like what an assignment is and I feel like more so than offense defense there needs to be a blend of the eye test with the numbers itself

and the numbers should be more process oriented than anything else and with the offensive end of the floor there's no question like Levine is ludicrous on that end what's the next step for him though on the offensiveity you mentioned he's a complete score so what does he need to get better at from moving forward now? I don't know

if it is much for him to get better. Of course, we do want to continue to see that playmaking progress, and he's done that every single year. But I think it's more on the front office's job to try to get a better playmaker around. I think as a secondary playmaker, Zach Levine, can be amazing. But right now, we're kind of relying on him

and Thadius Young and Kobe White to be playmakers when reality, yes, Thaddea Zong is done in his career, but, like, Kobe White hasn't shown in the year and a half of play, that he can be a primary ballhandle, he can be a primary playmaker. I mean, I've had so many great conversations with Kobe, but like realistically he's probably not a starting point guard, at least not on the team that is trying to compete for a playoff spot.

And I think that Billy Donovan is doing a great job as a coach because he's not just throwing Kobe White out there because we invested a first round pick to him. Like we saw it and maybe that was the Detroit game. I keep referencing this game where he set Kobe White. He set some of the younger players to let the vets really do the thing that they do. And that had that, Yashon, Tomas, Satteranskis playmakers. And defensively, we blew or.

we came back on that 20-point lead. So I think Zach Levine as a player, we want to see his playmaking go up a little bit. But other than that, man, he's doing everything we want him to do. Yeah, I think you're right. I think you nailed it there. You don't want Zach Levine to have to be the guy who's, like, rocking up eight, nine assists for you.

He's right in sort of the range you want it to be in terms of responsibility. It's about finding the right guys next to him. I do think this, though, like, as the Bulls, you know, do find that right playmaker or right number of playmakers around him, that could really help accelerate his development in terms of drawing fouls at the rim because I feel like Levine is sort of a reputation as a guy who gets everything from the perimeter,

but over the last four years, over 40% of his shot attempts have come at the rim. So he's a guy that lives in the paint, but he just doesn't draw a ton of falls at a level of a guy, you know, like a Jimmy Butler or Damien Lillard or Bradley Beale. That was really the difference between Beal before last season and what we've seen from him

since last season and this season with him. dropping over 30 points per game. The drawing falls to the rim and being able to live at the free throw line. And with Levine, there's some perception out there still that he's like a good stats, bad team player and he wouldn't thrive in a winning situation. How do you think Levine's game would translate in a winning context with the right players around him? I am so anti-good stats, bad team thing. And I think we're starting to see it more and more recently with like Devin Booker got that

early in his career. And now that there's a team built around him that's good defensively, he's got a great point guard alongside him, that narrative has gone away. So again, I think it does rely on the front office. Zach Levine has never played for a team himself that should have been good, ever, ever in his years of his career. When he was McCarthy towns in them and Minnesota, those were bad teams because it wasn't a well-constructed team.

And luckily, we do have a new front office so things could potentially change. But the team right now in the previous years with Zach Levine on it weren't built to be good. They just weren't. So I would want to say that the bad, the good stats bad team thing, is so heavily reliant on the pieces around you. If you're not LeBron James, if you're not Michael Jordan,

Kevin Durant, you can't carry an entire franchise by yourself. That is a generational talent thing. And Zach Levine is not a generational talent. He's an all-star talent. So I just think that if we get those pieces around him, that whole narrative would change. Nobody cares about Devin Booker being an average defender anymore

because he's got McKell Bridges and Chris Paul and now DeAndre Adon developing defensively. So I hate narratives in the NBA, especially negative narratives. It can really hurt a young player's overall perspective in the NBA. Everything you're talking about, like mentioning Devin Booker, that's a perfect comparable.

It really is. Like Booker before last season. Remember the video of him where like he was getting double-teamed and he didn't want to get double-team during like that. Shout to my guy, Joe Kim Noah. Yeah, right. Like at the time, everybody was saying Booker's a ball hog.

He's not a winning player. And I felt like I've always been a son's supporter. I love, you know, Devin Booker. Yeah, I love the bright future now the bright now sons. And I just felt like people were like stuck in old evaluations with the Booker. That's sort of what it feels like right now with Levine because with Levine, like anyone who's listens to the mismatch, anyone who's read my stuff over the years, like has no knows like there's probably not a player.

I've criticized more than Zach Levine. You mentioned that you didn't want to match him back in 2018. Here's what I wrote November 2019. This is bad. This is bad. Levine isn't a bad player because he can shoot and score, but he's not a winning player. Levine's central flaws,

the poor decision making on offense, and the eyesore off ball defense continued to hold him back. Levine is J.R. Smith with Jamario Moons, otherworldly athleticism. Boy, do I sound dumb, don't I? You know, the first half of that, I was like, you know, way, he's got a point. You lost me at J.R. Smith.

No, no, you lost me there. But I think everything we're talking about, about, like, being on the wrong side. history with Zach Levine. It's not that it was wrong at the time to think, maybe they shouldn't match him. It's not it was wrong to think, maybe he's not the guy you want to win with.

But it does make me think about just the idea of patience. You mentioned Devin Booker, what we're seeing with Levine right now. I can't help but think about the fact that like the way these guys blossom trajectory, development is not linear. Some guys pop their first year and never get better. Some guys suck early on and they get better in their

third year. Some guys progressively get better, deal with an injury, have setbacks, you know, like Levine did, and then they pop. Is there anything that you've learned about player evaluation and the need to stay patient with development from a guy like Levine or from somebody like Devin Booker when it comes to like how you watch the game and how you might project players forward? Yeah, I just think it's natural for NBA fans to want to see their team be successful, right? And in that, you get to the point where you're ready to give up on a player because year two, year three, you're still at the bottom of the lottery. And I think a lot of that has changed for me.

As being a Bulls fan, I've seen the lottery a lot in recent years. Yes, you have. And in that, we get a guy. I'll talk about Laurie Marketing where you said, it's not linear. We're definitely seeing that with Laurie Marketing, right? The first couple years of his career, he was really good. You know, he's really good. He put, like, I remember maybe a couple months into his rookie,

rookie season, people are comparing them to the next Chris Stapbs for Zengis, right? Seven footer that can do it all. And then he took that major step back under Jim Boyland during that season. But now we see this year in the games he's played, he's blossomed a little bit. So it's never linear. And I'm usually a guy that's going to allow a player to spend as much time as possible to get better. Now, it's hard to say that when he's on your team and maybe he takes that step back. But I'm usually on the side of the players, man.

transition into the NBA is about as tough as it gets as far as a profession, especially going from high school, going from overseas ball. It's just the tough as it gets. So I think that my perspective as an NBA fan and NBA analysts, if you want to say that, is I'm not hypercritical about anybody anymore. I kind of enjoy what players do and take it for that. Sure, we do, I can't point out when somebody misses a rotation or things like that. But at the end of the day, I'm just trying to admire the high talent basketball,

Because even the guys that we talk about that may not have blossomed into what we think they are, they're still the best basketball players in the entire world. For a team like the Bulls right now, they're sort of in an evaluation stage. I think it's become pretty clear that Zach Levine is a guy that should be a keeper, somebody to build around. You mentioned that Bulls have spent a lot of time on the lottery the last four years. They've had four straight lottery picks. So let's quickly go through those four picks, starting with the most recent one.

Patrick Williams, who has drafted fourth in 2020, after a really good start to his rookie season. What are your thoughts on Patrick Williams and what are you seeing from his game early on so far? So I'm not a guy that's really into college basketball whatsoever. I do use other platforms like your draft board and everything to try to get a feel for some of the players. So when he was drafted in number four, I was not surprised because we had heard rumors of it like the day before. But it was a bit weird to go back on Mox and see him at like seven, eight. But as we've seen from this class, I mean, there's a big gap between like number one, number two, number three and then the rest. But from Patrick Williams specifically, I love him as a player.

He is a stone cold killer, if you ask me. And he projects to be a very good defender. And these are the type of players that I think that we need with Zach Levine, right? Like even just the other day, he had a three-quarters court shot and then smile, no reaction whatsoever. He's just the only guy on the team with no reaction. I think us as Bulls fans, after he was drafted, we looked at the film and things like that. And we kind of saw a power forward, right? A lot of us saw a power forward that we try to stick at small for it.

But what we've seen through the first 20 or so games is that he can actually guard other wing players in the league. And I think that's amazing. I really do love him a lot. Like there are a lot of guys in strapped class that I like Tyree's Halliburton, of course, LaMello Ball. But right under that is Patrick Williams and he happens to be on my team. If he was on any other, on the other roster, I'd be a fan. But he's on my team. And it's exciting.

It's excited for me. I just wish he was maybe, sometimes I wish he was a little bit more aggressive offensively, because I think his mid-range game at 20 years old is better than many mid-range games across the league, but he still trying to find himself. I'm glad you brought that up about wishing he was a little bit more aggressive with, like, the mid-range game, the scoring, because I think, like, the defense, 6'7, 250 pounds,

and only going to get stronger and, you know, and better condition he gets older. He's already had some really good defensive possessions against LeBron James and Kauiliter. Yep. Period. Like, you don't need to understand anymore with some really good defensive possessions,

giving them a hard time. Like he can defend one through four. And in the future, like, who knows how the Bulls build that out? Like, you could see him, like, pulling off a PJ Tucker impression and, like, a super small line of you could. Defense, no question. Offensively, this season, I love the potential off the dribble. Like, he came off the bench as a freshman at Florida State.

And it's crazy now that, like, he goes to Chicago and he's starting in the NBA after being, yeah, after being a six-man in college. It's wild. But, like, this season, he's attempted 70, jumpers off the dribble and only six of those 76 attempts have been three pointers which means 92% of his dribble jumpers have all been for midrange that's a pretty high share of mid range shots only anthony davis rj barrett demar de rosen bam adabio and nikola vucevich attempted a higher share of mid range dribble jumpers and

the reason why i bring that stat up is because when you look at patrick williams game are you seeing anything that makes you feel comfortable that someday that range will extend to three like we've seen from other players, or does it seem like with his mentality on the court that he's just one of those guys that sort of feels most comfortable in mid-range, which isn't a bad thing necessarily. But it's just, you know, part of who he is as a player. Where do you see his development offensively going? I think it could get to that point for sure.

I think of right now a lot of things I'm seeing from him when he catches the ball at the perimeter is he second-guessing what he should do next. And because of that, he gets a lot of travel calls or he'll have an open jump shop but pass it up. And I think that a lot of that has to do with just trying to figure out who he is as a player. I do believe that he can take that off the dribble three, at least later on in his career. I think that the jump shot is very pure. It's very pure.

It's a high arcing, not touching any rim, all bottoms. 39% from three this season, 80% from the free throw line. Nice touch. Nice touch. It's amazing to see because even comparing now to where he was the first three, four games of the season. He's already progressed so much. So I don't think there's a ceiling. I don't want to put a ceiling on him because I'm hoping he can turn into the guy, you know, a super, like people want to compare him to Kauai because he's got

the big hands. The frame is the where is there. Defensively, he's great. In the mid-range area, you know, we talk about Kauai all the time. I would just love to see it. I don't know if that's what he'll end up being, but that's what we're hoping for. Since you brought up Kauai, I'll just say this. I have this stat handy ready to go in case you did bring up Kauai. As an NBA rookie in 2011, Kauai Leonard attempted 58 dribble jumpers. Only two of those shots were threes. Another guy who at first in his career lived in the mid-range, but became a guy who was aggressive, became a guy who could hit those threes out the dribble and still create from mid-range as he does. Get to the basket. And with Patrick Williams, my co-worker and co-host of Bringer NBA

University, Jonathan Charks wrote a great feature on Patrick Williams before the draft last year. And in that story, Charks talked with Patrick Williams about just the drive and the work ethic. And it seems like Williams is one of those guys who just genuinely loves the work. He loves the feeling of getting better and breaking through plateaus and learning a new skill. He's like a learner. He desires to always build, build, build, build and get better and better. And with that type of mentality, it just makes me think about what you said about Levine. Levine seems to be one of those guys too.

Like he wants to be good at defense. He may never be a great defender, but he wants to be good at it. He wants to be a great playmaker. He's getting better at it. Patrick William seems like one of those types of players too. Another guy in the year before was Kobe White. Right now, another player, they're trying to push the limits of who he is. They're using him a lot at point guard this season.

Drafted 7th in 2019, another smaller point guard, more of a two, but playing the one right now. What are your thoughts on the Kobe White? at point guard experiment with Chicago right now? I haven't been a huge fan of it. I do, we do have games where he looks very fluid. He looks like he can run an offense, but overall it just hasn't really been the case.

And you know what? That's completely fine. I think just allowing him to attempt to be the starting point guard was a good decision by Billy Donovan in the front office. But the end of the day, I don't think we're going to be looking at Kobe White in 10 years and thinking that he was a point guard. I like even coming out of college,

when I go back and read some of the draft analysis, a lot of people saw him as a conversation. combo guy. He's better off the ball and he's more of a spark plug. I think as a, we don't, we don't have a guy at the point guard position that we'd replace somewhere like Tomas, Sederansky has been solid this season, but I don't know how much better the offense gets if he's a starting point guard. But I think if we can pull off a trade throughout the next couple of seasons and allow maybe Kobe White to be that leader of the second unit, I think that's probably what he projects best, especially if we're considering, if we're keeping Zach Levine on this roster long term,

I think Kobe White is a backup fits more. I'm with you completely. I think Kobe White in like that six-man spark plug role, it would be awesome. Is there a player in the league right now that you think about that would make sense to target to fill that role in the back court or as a facilitator? Or do you think this is something that more comes to the draft? I think that a lot of Bulls fans are in love with the idea of Lanzo Ball. We've seen. Thank you.

We've seen the rumors for the past couple of weeks. I think he would be the first. perfect fit for Zach Levine. The perfect fit, especially if he's going to shoot it the way he is right now, like this hot streak has been amazing. He's the perfect guy, but also with him being in a hot street, I don't know if the pelicans are looking to sell on him right now, right? Or even once he becomes a free agent later this offseason.

I think that him and Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram could be a future core for them. So I don't know what their direction is the team, but if they're willing to make a trade or to allow him to walk, I think Chicago is a perfect place for him as a player. And it's like a matchmate in heaven from the organization and for the player. I think your thought right there touches on everything we're talking about here, about how situation and environment interact with the player to help facilitate development. And Kobe White right now isn't in the best situation next to a guy like Levine.

Lonzo, I like the situation in New Orleans. I kind of hope they stay together and would continue building there. I love the fast pace with Zion and Lonzo. but like it would be ideal with him and Levine sharing the back court together. And the next two guys to talk about Wendell Carter drafted 7th in 2018 and Larry Markan and drafted 7th in 2017. They've had if he fits so far with Chicago. But with Carter this year, Billy Donovan has used him more of a facilitating big around the elbows and the high post, which is something I thought he would do more of when he first entered the league.

Obviously they didn't happen quite as much with Jim Boylan. Do you think Wendell Carter has made positive progress this year with Chicago? And how do you view him as a piece when it comes to the big picture of interacting and building around Zach Levine? The progression has been great. Last season, he wouldn't look at the rim. He was just more of a screener, just sitting, like legitimately, he didn't look at the room whatsoever. There was that stage where he wouldn't shoot.

Yeah, yeah. It's really weird. And when you compare it to what he looked like before the Jim Boylan era, is like, what are we doing here? And Billy Donovan has empowered him to showcase his self more offensively, which is great. The main thing about him is the fact that he is a relatively small center and we see the dominant guys dominate on those smaller guys.

Joel LeBeez just had a career night, MEP performance against the Chicago Bulls. Who else? Nikola Vucevich has had big games against Chicago Bulls because as a team, we're really small. I think Wendell Carter gives effort and everything, but he hasn't figured out a way to be the Al-Horford blend where he is a smaller center,

but also a very, very great defender. He hasn't been able to use his body to the point where we'd like him. He usually is in foul trouble going against those better bigs. And I think it just comes with time. We also have to see him on the court

for a longer period of time. That's the main thing for him. Him and I guess Laurie Marketing too. When these guys have stretches of 10 or so games of being healthy, then we get the knick-knack injuries and then that knick-knack injury turns into two weeks. And now we're looking at Luke Cordnet,

getting rotational minutes, or Daniel Gaffer, who's not completely ready, or Thaddea Jung playing a lot, I mean a lot of sinner. Sadd Young's been fun though. I love that. He's been amazing. He's been amazing. But when he's guarding Nicole of Usovic, there's only so much he can do.

But I do like Wendell Carter. But this is the reason why I'm so happy I've never been in the front office position because I don't know what to do with Lorry Marketing or Wendell Carter. Well, let's talk about that, though, because with Lary Marketing and that's what's on my mind. I feel like talking about Lorry Marketing, it kind of puts a bow on the idea of the patience we're talking about because right now he's 23 years old. He'll turn 24 in May. Getting, you know, a little bit older past his rookie deal.

He's a restricted free agent this off season. So Chicago, if they don't trade him before the deadline on March 25th, they'll have to make a choice with him when he hits the market. If he signs an offer sheet, it's going to be match it or let him go and get nothing back or possibly figure out of some type of sign and trade. But with Lowry, like I look at him. You mentioned all the injuries. You mentioned some of the defensive issues.

also 23 years old averaging 19 points, a big guy shooting 40% from three and has the ability to not just like hit spot up threes, but like come off of screens and handoffs for you and be used as some unusual piece. I can't help, but at least wonder if letting go of a guy like that could end up being a mistake in a couple of years. If he gets the injuries right, if he continues getting better and can actually stay healthy for multiple seasons in a row, I can't help but think about that. I mean, do you have those concerns when it comes to the patience necessary with these young players?

Yeah, 100%. And I think that the Bulls are in such a weird position because it seems like every one of our draft picks while we are in the lottery are good draft picks. I just don't know if they fit together to build a playoff team or to build the eventual championship team that everybody wants. I think that's just the big deal. I have no doubt in my mind whether we keep Lari Marketing

or we allow him to go somewhere else. He's going to flourish in his. career. I think he, I think he does, but would he be able to flourish with Zach Levine? Would he be able to flourish with Window Carter at the five? Are the real big questions I think the front office has to answer? I mean, this is the big challenge in team building. The Bulls are a big market team that hasn't won a whole lot in recent years. And they've had lottery picks and they're good lottery picks. They're solid players who are going to be in the league for a while. And yet, even then, it's like, ooh, this fit isn't perfect. There's something off here with the way these pieces

are fitting together. So, Chicago right now, as of recording, we're recording Monday morning. We don't know if Zach Levine will be named an All-Star or not yet.

As of right now, they're 13 and 16. They'd have the 12th best lottery odds, not good. Speaking strictly as a fan, do you kind of wish they were a little bit worse to get higher lottery odds

and what could be a really stacked draft up top? Or are you overall encouraged to see the team compete and win more games and actually try to get a play-in tournament spot and maybe get the seven or eight seed for the privilege to get smacked by the Sixers'

nets or bucks in the first round. You know, I think, I think as a Bulls fan, I do like to see competent basketball again. I think last year was so hard for us Bulls fans when you consider who is at the head coach that seeing the team be at least competent has been amazing. Like, when you take a look at some of our losses,

we've lost three, five-point games to get some of the best teams in the league, and that's encouraging for us. I think if the idea is to continue to grow, row with this core, us being good right now, or not good, but us being competent right now is encouraging. But if we don't, if the front office doesn't know who they want to keep, who they want to let go, I think it probably would be better if we were in the lottery. But I, for the first time in years, like today the Bulls play against the Rockets, I am excited to watch them play against the

Rockets. For the first time of years, and I don't miss Bulls games. Even when we were bad when it was Wayne Selden and Robin Lopez picking roles, I was watching those games because I'm, I'm such a diehard Bulls fan. So to go into games and actually believe that we can win on any given night is exciting to me. You got your start, what, like eight, nine years ago doing videos on YouTube. You do NBA and 2K now. That takes up a lot of your time, you know? Basketball and 2K.

What else do you do? What else do you do for fun when it's not related to the fun with work? I am a huge-ute sneaker guy. Okay. So when I'm not watching basketball, I'm probably looking at. at sneakers, looking at the market on sneakers, or looking at my own. Like, I can legitimately hold it here and just admire it for what it is. I'm also a big gamer.

Like, you mentioned 2K, so I am also gaming a bunch. What games? I see you're a demon on the war zone. I kind of put war zone away from a little bit. Oh, not dropped from a Burdance game or? I dropped it once the newest ones, the Cold War came out. Oh, for real. Okay.

Just because I didn't have the patience to play multiplayer to grind the guns. to the point where I can go to the war zone. So when it comes to BRs, I've been doing a lot of Apex Legends lately. Just got back into that after. I played a season one, season two, and season eight just came out a couple days ago, and we've been pretty heavy on that.

First of all, Apex, one of my buddies I play with all the time, Prince Will. He loves Apex, and he wants us. Like, he says, if we ever get bored with Warzone, we're going to Apex. And so we might be following you there at some point later this year. But with Warzone, I still love it. I'm still having fun with it.

I feel like this is very, video game week on the ringer, so it's appropriate for us to be talking about this. I think I'm better at Warzone than I'm than I am at any shooter I've ever been at. For whatever reason, I feel like things have clicked with me. Like I feel like I've done more research on what works in the game. What's your, what's your favorite thing about what you're doing right now? I mean, this whole past year, the pandemic's been weird, but you get called game coming out right now. Like, when's that actually starting up?

Like, what are you loving about all these projects you're working on? Yeah, so talking about calls. game, I started it because I like to talk to people at the end of the day. And more specifically, I like to talk to people in the NBA world because that's what I know and love. And some of the other projects that I've been on with other companies haven't really allowed me to have full creative freedom. So call game is something that we created where I can just talk to a person in the world of sports, talking to a former NBA player and just have good conversations. But even under that, like that is our hero show is what we call it, an hour or so talking to an NBA player and just just kind of

of mapping out their career. And I'm a guy that loves to learn at the end of the day. And there's nothing better than learning about basketball from guys to do it professionally. But under that umbrella, there are so many different content ideas. Because like you mentioned, I'm a YouTuber. I'm a content guy. So many different content ideas. Or when we have a player in the studio, after our hour alone conversation, we're going to

go do some other shoots that will exist on the called game channel. I think overall the way the show is going is still up in the end. air. Like we filmed a few episodes and I'm still trying to get a hang of what the overall vision of this show is. But through the first couple episodes, I will say that I am having a ton and I mean a ton of fun just talking to people. I've learned so much from two interviews, just from two of them. And it's, it's been amazing. And we got more planned and we don't have an official due date when we're starting to drop them. But it is coming very, very soon. And I'm excited. Like my team built this huge, beautiful studio in L.A. It's just, it's been amazing.

You know, I don't know. I talked to my guy, Omar, who used to work with HOH, or he founded HOH. Yeah, Omar, yeah, I know. And he's transitioned to ESPN, and we were talking on a trip. He's like, you better be looking at houses. I was like, ah, man. I just love my city so much. I couldn't imagine leaving.

But at the end of the day, that's what work is. So I'll probably have to move there eventually. Okay. How's your family feel about what you do? They must love it, right? My mom doesn't understand it whatsoever. She doesn't understand it whatsoever. She understands the concept of a podcast,

and that's the one would I do with friends, but like the House of Highlights show that I do or the called game experiment that we're working with. She doesn't understand. I call her every day to give her updates, but she doesn't understand. My dad, he is a sports media guy as well as far as like he listens to radio, podcasting,

so he understands what we're trying to do. But even him, he can only understand to a certain extent. Like when I first started YouTube, it started with me asking him to buy me this thing called a dazzle, which is what we used to record content back in 2011. He didn't understand what it was, but he saw that I was passionate about this one thing for Christmas, and he got it for me.

And overall, they've been super supportive, like to allow me to stay up to 1 a.m. in high school to record YouTube videos. Like, as a parent, that's kind of scary, right? Is he going to be okay for school the next day? But they were super supportive. And I think I kind of eased their pain by, like, I was still a very good student when I was going there on three to four hours

asleep. So I love the support they've given me throughout these years. We're lucky, man. You know, everything you just said, it's like, ditto to that. You know, everything with like supportive parents seeing like when I was in college, not really knowing what I wanted to do. And then, you know, seeing that I liked writing and we're like, okay, as long as you continue doing good in college and, you know, work during, you know, work and make some money

and do this in your own time. Cool with it. You know, go for it. Push for it. and having that support of parents, like, it's, it's beyond. You know, I think if I'm ever lucky enough to be a dad, it's hopefully not for like five plus years from now, but I'm 30 now.

So like, you know, still let's hold off on that. Oh, I feel like I had the best examples for how to like nurture that creativity and that spark and desire. Like if a kid has something that they like to do, you know, you get to promote that and try to push that. So it's awesome. You had that. Was there ever a moment, a specific moment where in your career, like where there's a break or something cool happened where like you and like your mom or you and your dad were just fired up?

Like just like you felt that high of the moment knowing the magnitude of what was happening. Was there ever a moment like that? Yeah, there were a few. Shortly after we signed a House of Highlights, one of our podcast episodes, we're doing so good. We're like number two or number three on Apple. And then Jalen Rose shouted us out on Jalen and Jacoby. I listen to that show every day. And I was driving to school

because at this time I was still in college and I hear him say shout out to through the wire. And I'm like, wait a minute. Does he mean like this, this thing that we do? And he did. And that was like, okay, if Jaylon Rose has taken note, if the people house of highlights has taken note to what we've done,

I don't think there's a ceiling of what we can accomplish. And that's the mindset I try to live with every day. There's no ceiling to what I can and can't do in this world of sports media. Because I mean, everything I've done, has been super untraditional. I dropped out of college. Once you started to do well, I was like, I don't need to go here anymore. So my journey to the sports media world has been so, so different. And I would never recommend anybody to drop out, but I would just tell people that there are different

routes now because of the internet. It's so, it's just out there. It's just out there. So there is other routes to becoming successful in sports media. The internet's a game changer. Like you can learn anything, anything at all, right? I feel like with you, like everything you just said, The big takeaway for me is that you felt the momentum and you're like, I'm not going to let this go to waste. I'm going to do everything I can to seize the situation and maximize it. Like there's no complacency with you. Was there ever a moment you felt complacent? No, I don't think so.

I've always wanted to do bigger and better, whether it be with sports media, where there be pretty much anything in life. I've always wanted more, always wanted more. And my girlfriend say it's a great thing and a bad thing at the same time. because we don't have time to just chill. Like, I haven't had a vacation ever, like, because I'm always working. But that me always working has got us to the point where we are now. So it's like, it's a very good thing and a very bad thing. But I think that early on, I saw my dad go to work at 2 a.m. every day and then come home at 5 p.m.

So it's like, he's a worker. He, like, he instilled that hard work into me. And that's something I try to live with every day. Like, it's a lot different when we live in a sports world where it's not nine to five or eight to like a traditional job, we're usually around clock. And though we are working a lot, I would not trade it in for anything in the world, anything. Kenny, where can people find you on social media for all the cool stuff you're working on? Yeah, so typically you can just find me by searching KOT for a Q that's like short for King of

the fourth quarter, a name that I came up with and I was 12. And it just doesn't fit me anymore. But I'm also, Kenny Beacham on other platforms. You can type in called game so you can tune into the newest show. Yeah, it's pretty much it, man. I appreciate you having me on the show. Kenny, thank you so much for coming on, man. Have a good rest of your day.

Thank you. You too. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Ringer NBA University and thank you to Isaiah Blakely for producing. I have a couple quick favors to ask. If you enjoy this show and listen to it on Apple, please leave us a five-star rating and review. And no matter where you listen, please follow this podcast feed

and let a friend who loves the NBA know about the show. Maybe they'll like it too. Thank you again for listening. Hope you have a fun day. Basketball is very good.