The Ringer NBA Show - The Clippers Are Atop the Wacky West (for Now) | Heat Check (Ep. 343)

Episode Date: November 26, 2018

Somehow, the Los Angeles Clippers have climbed to the best record in the crowded Western Conference (4:02), and the Philadelphia 76ers’ Jimmy Butler experiment starts to bear fruit (21:32). Host: John Gonzalez Guests: Dan Devine, Dan Pfeiffer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, everyone, producer Isaac here. Before we get into the show, we want to play you a trailer for a brand new podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network called Winging It, hosted by Annie Finberg, Vince Carter, and Kent Baysmore. If you're a fan of this podcast, we think you'll really like this one, so check it out. Hey, guys, how's it going? I'm Annie Thinberg. What up? Vince Carter. It was good.

Kent Baysmore. And this is the Winging It podcast, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. We are so excited to be here. We're going to be bringing you guys NBA news, but not just that. life of NBA players. A lot of funny. Right. You're going to laugh.

On a scale for one to ten, how excited are you? I'm like literally off the charts. 100. I'm up there actually. Are you really? I'm glad you're excited. This is pretty cool. This is going to be a podcast we got going on all season long.

We're going to have a lot of really cool guests coming along. Former MVP's, all stars, regular guys, not so regular guys. What else are they going to hear from us? Shoot, man. Anything and everything. We're going to wing it. It's all over the podcast. I think we don't want to be the typical.

We think we all, you know, be able to be on that. We're not going to be the typical. We're not going to just talk about basketball. We're going to talk a little bit about a little bit about everything. Talk about some golf. A lot of golf. 30% will be golf. No.

We have our first episode coming out later in November, so don't forget to subscribe. Rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast and we can't wait to talk to you guys. Thanks for listening. You're going to enjoy it. I promise. Yeah, it's going to be awesome. Welcome to Heat Check.

I'm your host, John. Gonzalez. I'm back in LA with my man, Isaac, we're in the same spot. Yes, we are. Happy belated Thanksgiving. I hope it went well for you. I know it went well for you because you were texting me gloating about your team all weekend. It couldn't have been a better Thanksgiving for you and the Clippers. Absolutely. We are on top for now, barely, along with the Golden State Warriors. We are up by percentage points, but not by wins. The Clippers on top of the Wild West, it's everything you've ever dreamed of and imagined. And you were texting me paperclip emojis. Yes, it's always great to peek a fifth way into the regular season, you know? It's nothing but downhill from here.

But we'll talk about the Clippers and Los Angeles and the Wild West a little bit later on in the program. First, so I want to thank everybody for listening and remind you to please rate and review us and all of our fantastic Ringer NBA shows and pods, if you wouldn't mind. And of course, check out the Ringer.com. We've got great content up. KOC has a piece on the absolutely cratering Isaac Lee Celtics. I mean, those poor guys, they should just disband or sell them off. to Canada or something. Don't get fired. Don't get fired. I don't want to do that.

But KOC's got a good piece on how the Celtics need more quality, not quantity. Palauuggetti has a story up there about the Jazz. He also has a story up there about the Blazers who have lost three in a row. Danny did a story about the Cavs, who then went out and won two against the Sixers and the Rockets. So the ringer curse is in effect. And I wrote last week a long piece about Jimmy Butler integrating with the Sixers and the crazy never-ending storylines with that team. some of them are good, some of them are bad. Jimmy won another game last night. Later on in the program, we're going to bring in Sixers Superfan and a former Ringer podcaster.

Dan Fyfer is going to be on the program. We're very excited about that. But first, we're doing a double Dan today. We're going two Dan's. Two Dan's enter. Hopefully two Dan's leave as well. It's not a Dan Leaves Town match. We're going to go double Dan.

Dan Devine is going to join us to talk about everything in the Western Conference and the NBA writ large. There's lots of storylines. Let's bring them in. All right, joining me on the other line. Staff writer extraordinaire, a very difficult person to get on the podcast. We finally booked him. We had to go through his handler, I think his manager, his PR guy, his agent, but he's here at Stan Devine.

There are a lot of layers between me and you, Gons. I'm trying to reduce them, but a lot of roadblocks, a lot of roadblocks. My people had to call your people, all kinds of things had to happen, but you're here now. I'm very excited about it. We have many, many things to run through. Initially, I wanted to start with the Celtics because the Celtics are in free fall and that makes me smile and makes me very happy. But I can't avoid, we'll get to the Celtics, but I can't avoid what's happening in the Western Conference and specifically at top the Western

Conference because my producer, our producer, Isaac Lee, would probably cut me with something sharp or maybe even something dull if I didn't mention this. I'm a pacifist. Top of the Western Conference. Oh yes. Your Los Angeles Clippers. They are a lot of fun. I actually just wrote about them. I've got something coming up on them on the site later today. So Isaac, you'll be quite pleased with that. they're kind of fantastic to watch because the first thing that jumps out at you when you watch them is like there's no superstar here there's no like you know yannis kawai leonard lebron there's not like the one dude who jumps out but then you watch them long enough and the second thing that jumps out at you is none of these guys suck all of these guys are at least pretty good at something and like most of them

good at a number of things and it turns out gons when you don't have anybody who sucks you wind up being pretty good you right limit the number of suck and see how it goes. They're sixth in offensive rating and net rating as well. And like this is a kind of team. It's kind of perfect clippers in that like when I think about the clippers

and their history in the NBA, it's just mostly a team that I've kind of ignored for various reasons with the exception of Lob City. And the clippers are really good despite like Tobias Harris is their best player. And that's great. That's fine, right? It's good.

But you wouldn't be like, I got to turn on the Clippers game the night because Tobias Harris is cooking. I guess what I'm saying is they're greater than the sum of their individual parts. Like none of those guys individually, I guess maybe SGA a little bit gets me really worked up about, oh, I got to watch them. But when I do watch them, I'm like, they're just proficient. They're good. They're a quality basketball team.

They beat the Portland Trailblazers by just crushing them in the third quarter the other night. The Trailblazers got their third straight loss because of it. And now, yeah, Clippers at the top of the Western Conference. It's bananas. Which is something that nobody in their right mind would have predicted. even the Clippers would have thought that they would have been this good a quarter of the way through the season. But, I mean, there's aspects of it that makes sense for early season stuff, right?

Like, teams that have some continuity wind up sort of with a heads-up advantage. You know, like we talked about Portland. They're a team that kind of knew who they were coming into the season, and that's got value when so many other teams are shaking things up. You know, the Clippers weren't great last year, but they found some things that worked with Lou Williams, with Tobias Harris, some time with Harris and Danilo Golanari having like a half season to kind of come together. So they get some of that bump of like these guys, know how to play it together. A little bit maybe of addition by subtraction in terms of like

you're finally giving, you know, moving on from the last era like Austin Rivers goes away. Not that he's bad, but like you're finally breaking. No, no, he's bad. He's bad. You could say it. It's all right to say that on a heat check podcast. I know that he's Isaac's favorite player, so I didn't want to be too in Isaac's home. Oh, man. Isaac's got a jersey. He's got the

footy pajamas. He's got the whole bit when it comes to... Nothing could be further from the truth. I think like we should and I want to applaud the Kleppers. This is a great start for them. We're leading the Heat Check podcast with Clippers talk. I don't think it's ever been done before. But I do want to like a little grain of assault here in terms of the Western Conference

just being so deep and good and diverse. Like one to eight is separated by three and a half games. Like there's a big jumble of just really good teams in the Western Conference. So I just, I don't think this is where we're going to see the Clippers for much of the season, but them in the playoff mix among this whole group of really good. quality teams is interesting into their credit. Absolutely. And I would just say, you know, you may sort of moved over like, you know, maybe SGA is a reason to watch.

Shake Gilgis Alexander is definitely a reason to watch. If you're like a lead pass person and you're not really sure if you want to get in on the Clippers yet, check him out for a little while. He's been in the starting lineup for about 10 games, really, really good and fun player who can already do a lot of things really early in his career. So that's going to be somebody worth keeping an eye on as you go along. And like you said, who knows how long the Clippers kind of keep this going. But they've been really good and clutch situation. this season. They've played the third hardest schedule in terms of strength of schedule so far this season. So like there's stuff there that makes you think maybe this might be sustainable.

I think frankly, we've overlooked the big Lee Jenkins bump. This is clearly Lee, shouts to my man Lee, who's a great dude, and they couldn't have done it without him. Isaac, I want you to save this particular episode because I don't know that it's ever happened before. I don't know if it'll ever happen again. Clippers at the top of the show, but they also dispatched Dan the Portland Trailblazers in that game who have now lost three in a row. Ring or curse alive and well. Paolo just wrote a piece about how continuity is king and it's been great for the Trailblazers

and of course they immediately lose three straight. Never doubt the power of the ringer curse. Never. The Blazers are in that sort of big group. You mentioned only three and a half games separates one from eight. Only four and a half games separates one from 14 in the West. It is bonkers to watch sort of how congested things are

and how a little two games skid here or there can bump you from number one in the rankings to the middle of the pack. But I mean, I think with the Blazers, you know, we wind up seeing a lot of the same things. You know, we've talked a lot about the value of Damien Lillard as sort of like, you know, maybe the next closest thing you can get to Steph Curry, right? Like the off the dribble bomber, you know, fearless kind of shooter that will, you know, stretch defenses past their breaking point.

The fact that Terry Stats is now playing him and C.J. McCollum basically all of their minutes together instead of staggering them, gives them like a real knockout punch of a starting lineup as they get going. And then you're seeing some of those, the secondary pieces, you know, you're not, we're not, We're not going to get like a million Soskastasio games this year, but Stavis can shoot. Seth Curry can shoot. These guys in their second unit, all they really need those guys to do is be able to spot up on the opposite side of Evan Turner when he's operating and be able to knock in some shots. So I would imagine, given sort of the nature of that team and what they've built on, I can't believe they're as good defensively as they have been,

but that was carried over from last year too. That's a team that they're built to win a lot of regular season games. And, you know, like it's not a shockingly unique take, but then we have to see whether it carries over in April. in May. But I think that the clippers knocked them off is a sort of a feather in their cap early going, but I think we should still expect to see Portland around the top of that mix for the most of the season. Yeah, I think last year people

slept on the Blazers. This year, there was more of that and there was some surprise that they had continued it. And you touched on it right there. The defense last year was the thing, like you look at a team with C.J. McCollum and Damien Lillard, and you go, okay, well, they're just going to be really good offensively because there's a lot of different ways that they can

score with those two guys. But defensively, they were really good and surprising. last year, and that's sort of continued this season. So I think they're going to be fine. Everybody who listens to Heat Check knows that I love the Blazers, and I was high on the Blazers. I was also high on, and again, Isaac, save this episode. Because not only did we do Clippers at the top of the show,

but we talked about that LA team before we talked about this L.A. The Lakers, Isaac loves that. Yes. The Lakers got swept Dan Devine by the Orlando Magic, who I'm shoulder shrugging right now, might be good-ish. How do you feel about the Lakers? I think they're about as good. as I expected them to be at this point of the season

where they're still learning how to play with LeBron? Yeah, and I think there was reason to believe that maybe, just maybe, Tyson Chandler was not the solution to every problem with the Los Angeles Lakers in the year of Our Lord 2018. But yeah, I mean, you're starting to see some things level out. Like, as it turns out, the Lakers have really had a hard time without LeBron on the floor.

It's weird because the net ratings are still sort of leveling out, but that's, if he's played a ton of minutes, they haven't done a ton without him, and they still haven't really gotten a secondary score in that mix. They're still trying to figure out kind of what the best lineups are around him or how to get stops when they don't have bigs in the middle. I think you're going to see more teams saying like, if Tyson Chandler or Javille McGee are the rim protectors, the guys that are on the back line there, we're going to draw them out into deep water

and say, all right, put you in a screen, who's going to help you? Is it any of the other young forwards? Are the wings going to be able to crash down? And I think in the early going, you're seeing there's not a whole lot of that. So it's not shocking that a LeBron team would struggle early as they're sort of figuring out which pieces need to fit next to him. And it's even less shocking this year that they would struggle with the magic because the magic I wrote about them in five most interesting teams of the week last week. The magic are pretty good. Like if nothing else, they just don't do a whole lot of things wrong.

And if you're a team that is prone to some mistakes, like a young team like the Lakers on defense, they can carve you up with off ball cuts. They can move you around and sort of take advantage of you. So the Lakers, obviously, they have the Trump card that everybody wants and that LeBron can sort of cover up a whole lot of sins. but they still have to wake up and figure out the rest of the rotation around him, and especially how they're going to get stops when those two big guys aren't standing on their heads. Yeah, you nailed the Orlando Magic and the five most interesting teams. And I want to shout out to Kevin Clark, who's very excited about this. He tweeted out that the Orlando Magic are good and they're going to make the playoffs.

And I, like, clipped off that tweet and saved. I put in my pocket. I sent it to myself directly. I took a screenshot of it. I'm going to hold on to that for a couple of months from now, maybe even a month from now to see if he was right about it. but I hope he is. I wish nothing but good things for Kevin Clark

and the Orlando Magic fan base. For the Lakers, with LeBron, I think right now, LeBron goes, we're good enough to be in the mix, so I'm going to take some opportunities to try to marshal these guys and get them involved

because you touched on something like who's their second best player or their second scoring option, right? Like at times this year, it's been Kyle Kuzma, then he kind of had some struggles recently, you know, his minutes dropped off a little bit. Everybody anticipated that it would be

in Brandon Ingram, Brandon Ingram's been sort of hit or miss. Lanzo ball has been more aggressive and better lately, but he had a sort of slow start to the season. So you look at these guys and you're like, all right, I think he's still trying to figure it out, which was evidenced by late in the game the other night where LeBron could have just done it all himself

and instead passed to KCP. And if KCP nails that shot, we're not even talking about them losing to the Orlando magic. All of a sudden we're talking about the Lakers, you know, really in the mix in the Western Conference and they still are. So I think LeBron is just sort of trying to get these guys going because it's still early.

I think that's right. You know, that's been sort of part of the leadership path going back however long now. You know, like, it's the, I'm going to let Kyrie go nuts so that after the game I can have like a teachable moment with him early in the season when he first gets back to Cleveland, and then we'll see where it goes from here. You know, I'm going to like show these guys. I have confidence in them that they can hit those shots, irrespective of whether or not KCP can hit those shots.

I think there's certainly a lot of question as to whether or not he's really a 3&D guy. He just looks like one on basketball reference. there's obviously a lot of things to be solved but I think and I'll admit I was skeptical heading into the season this idea that like we're going to play super fast we're going to get the ball out of LeBron's hands we're going to let him be a finisher and let other guys be playmakers I was like

that runs contrary to everything we have seen be successful with the LeBron James team over the last decade but he seems to be at least somewhat amenable to that and like the assist numbers aren't through the roof the assist percentage at least how you know how often he's assisting on his teammates buckets that's not through the roof the finishing numbers are and the efficiency is

but he's giving everybody else a chance to show that they can shoulder that load. And whether that stuff, you know, you make those deposits in October, November, if that pays off in March, April, May, you know, that remains to be seen. But I think if nothing else, it suggests that he's sticking with the game plan. And that seems, you know, it seems now like a long time ago that Luke Walton was on the hot seat. Everything seems to have chilled out a little bit there, maybe because LeBron's still sticking with it. I love it.

I love all the storylines with the Lakers. I love all the storylines with the Western Conference. KOC had a tweet about the jumble of teams at the top of the Western Conference and how we're probably in for or headed 20. towards like a really fun Western Conference playoff race. I'm on board with it. KOC, speaking to KOC, because we have to get to this before I let you go, because you're

very, very busy and of all kinds of things going on. But KOC also wrote a piece about the Boston Celtics. I knew we were going to come back to it. I knew we were going to come back. We have to get to the Boston Celtics. And I'm just going to paraphrase it here for KOC's purposes. I want you guys to go to the ringer.com and read it. But KOC basically wrote a piece saying

the Boston Celtics are bad and should disband. I think I got that right. That's the gist, for sure. That's the gist. They're 10 and 10. They're barely above the 9 and 10 Charlotte Hornets for that last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference should it end now. The playoffs don't start now. Luckily for the Boston Celtics, they're in free fall. I think I mentioned this before Brad Stevens' job is on the line.

Everything's going wrong for them. I think we all expected Brad Stevens to need to pull the Aaron Baines ripcord eventually. But for it to take this long, I was fairly shocked by that. I mean, we expected it to take a little bit of time for Kyrie and Gordon Hayward to kind of get back going. I think it's taking longer than maybe many of us thought for Hayward given sort of the talent around. And we had expected you put him back in the starting lineup, you give him a chance to kind of come along slowly by about a month or so in. He'll be back to his old self. That's probably, you know, we're seeing now that might have been like a little bit optimistic given just how severe and serious that injury wasn't how long he had to be off the floor.

But, you know, if he does not start to look, he's had some fits and starts where it's started to look like maybe, the guy that we're familiar with from his days in Utah is in there, but it's kind of played hide-and-seek a little bit, and he's been tough to find that time. So if that guy doesn't start showing up more regularly, it's going to be tough to continue to give him major minutes, even off the bench. And then that throws a whole lot up in the air for them.

So, I mean, it's kind of surprising that Brad Stevens, you know, widely reputed as one of the best coaches and the sort of smartest tacticians in the league that it's taken this long for him to kind of get to some lineups that consistently work. But now you're seeing the, you know, the domino effect of like, you plug in not just one guy, to a one all-star caliber guy to the team that ended last season,

but two of them, and then you force-feed the minutes, and everybody else's minutes and rolls started going up in the air. So it's like, it's the things that a lot of us expected at the beginning of the season. It takes some time to figure out. They're just taking way longer to figure out. And right now, I mean, the East is, at the very least, not putrid. So the Celtics don't have a whole lot of time to figure this out before it gets really concerning. Yeah, no, they don't have a lot of time.

And like, defensively, they've still been good. They're still second in the league in defensive rating. And that gets that boost their. their overall net rating, their 11th overall. Offensively, obviously, they've been really bad,

and they haven't gotten it going like nearly the way that you would expect. Because, like, they're 27th and offensive rating. And I thought early on that the problem was Kyrie didn't look like Kyrie,

and it was taking him a second ticket going. But lately, Kyrie's been fantastic for them offensively, and nobody else has been, and it's not just Gordon Hayward not looking like himself.

He has obviously not looked anything like the Gordon Hayward that we saw in Utah. But Jason Tatum taking these long twos and falling into that trap and Jalen Brown who had played better against the Mavs but still isn't shooting well and Terry Rozier who's like struggled in a reduced role and like you've got Marcus Smart and all these lineups have been like super wonky for them and I think you're right that Brad Stevens who's this master tactician as having a harder time than we anticipated

putting it all together and to your point about like where the Celtics fall into that pecking order they're supposed to be in that Raptors bucksixers conversation and they're what three games off that pace right now, which is not insignificant, even though it's still early. So, look, I still believe that they've got an incredible amount of talent and they're super deep. But when they miss the playoffs and they break up the whole team and Danny Ainsh gets fired, I'll feel bad for them. That is fair.

I'll feel bad for everybody in Boston. Every single person there. Our hearts go out. Last note about the defense, because you're absolutely right. That's what needs to carry them. And this is where it's concerning. Last 10 games, they're seventh in the league in defensive officials. see last five, they're 12th.

So of late, they've had a harder time getting stops. And if they don't get stopped, if they can't hang their hat on that, then there's really not a whole lot that does work in Boston. And then everything's kind of up for grabs. And I mean, it feels remarkable to think that Danny Aege and Brad Stevens could be on the hot seat this early. But I mean, I don't know that there's any other way to read it. Super, super hot.

Danny Aange, I think if you really want to undo a big mistake, you could maybe trade Tatum for safe faults right now. make a call, see if Elton's on the phone, try to salvage this. There are no atheists in foxholes. You've got to figure something out fast. All right, Dan Devine, make sure to read all his stuff. He writes like 12 pieces a day. He's going to have at least 10 of them up within the next hour. Dan Devine, thanks so much. You're the best. Thanks, guns. All right, that was Dan Devine. He was excellent. We're going to bring in another Dan,

Dan Fyfer to talk all things Philadelphia 76ers because never ends with them. But first, a word from our sponsors. Today's heat check is brought to you by Zoom. Video conferencing has changed the way we do business, fewer long-distance trips, and more FaceTime at the click of a mouse. And in 2018, the clear winner is Zoom. Zoom delivers flawless video, pin drop, clear audio, and instant sharing across any device, desktop, laptop, tablet, mobile, share anything with anyone, a word file, a spreadsheet,

a presentation deck. Zoom is everything you've always wanted video communication to be with some amazing features you didn't think of, but you'll wonder, how did you live without them? We'll visit zoom.us to set up your free account today and find out. That's zoom.com. Meet happy with Zoom video communications. And now back to Heat Check. All right, joining me on the other line.

I'm very excited about this. Former Ringer podcaster extraordinaire, Rip keeping 1600. Now doing great things with Pod Save America. It's Dan Fifer. What's going on, Dan? Hey, man. How are you? Thanks for having me.

Yes, this is wonderful. So, Dan, you are basically a Philadelphia, close enough from Delaware, longtime Sixers fan. Philly has a weird sports, like, geography, where we claim basically everything in South Jersey and then also Delaware as well. So you're in.

Yeah, 100% in. So Clay does are by far our closest NBA team. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is good. It's much better than being a Wizards fan for all kinds of reasons. But the Sixers, as you and I were talking about right before we started the show,

squeezed out another win on Sunday against the Nets, which is pretty much how everything is gone for them since getting Jimmy Butler. It's just like really close wins and then losses. They have had two losses, one to the magic, who I guess are like kind of good because they just swept the Lakers and then they lost to the Cavs where you go, oh, how did that happen? But the wins have been both dramatic and close.

How do you feel about that so far? You know, my first reaction to the Jimmy Butler trade was I was at breakfast with my wife and daughter and I saw a woge bomb and I yelled fuck, way too loudly in the diner. And my wife thought, I mean, she thought something terrible it happened in the world. And then I had to explain to her that she does not care about the Sixers in any way she performed what had happened. And she thought I was insane. Because I had been arguing they should not trade for Butler. I stand corrected on that, I think. What was your anti-Butler take? Was it just like chemistry stuff? Chemistry, not the ideal fit spacing-wise. And I was worried

they were going to give up a lot for Butler. And there's just risks. I mean, he has burned down the last two buildings he's been in, so there is some concern. But I have come around, I've been convinced by multiple people, including many hosts of this podcast, that this was the right move to make, even if it's a high-risk endeavor. I want to, wait, I want to probe your Sixers fandom here, like the process fandom.

When you were saying, like, you weren't sure what they'd have to give up for them, I was actually really surprised that it only took, and I say only, you know, in some sort of air quotation marks, Roco and Dario, who I, like quite a bit, but I just thought that they'd have to give up like another pick or something, like something more than just a second rounder. There were, however, like, hardcore process fans who, because those guys are sort of folk heroes, were not on board with it, probably are super on board with it now.

But like, what was your attachment level to Rocco and Dario? My attachment level to Dario was very high. Roco, I love because he just was there for all through all the dark times and we're running out of original process Sixers. because we have McConnell left. But when I saw what we gave up, I felt okay because I just know we were going to lose Dario anyway because I can't see the Sixers paying what it will take to keep Dario in a free agent market.

So we basically traded two-thirds of a season of Dario and Robert Covington for Jimmy Butler. And that's a pretty good deal under all scenarios. Even if the Butler thing doesn't work, it's a worthwhile risk to take. Look, I'm with you. I mean, who knows if it's actually going to work out? We have a small sample size right now. but he said he was asked about it after the Nets game and he said, I could see this being home now and he's excited about it.

At the very least, it's been dramatic. I mean, like that shot that he took, he takes this step, they clear out, they ISO for him late in these games. Like he had some hero ball on the Hornets game where he wanted for them. He had some hero ball late in the jazz game. I was at that game. It was his home opener. And then in the Nets game, they clear out for him.

And he does this like step back, fade away, falling out of bounds, three-pointer where I was screaming, no, no, no, no. and then it went in and it was like, yes. And Zoomoff lost his mind. And what's better than hearing Zoom off lose his mind? It's fantastic. Yeah, it was great. And it is, like, this is where the Jimmy Butler trade makes sense,

even if that was a ridiculous shot and a low percentage shot. The every end of game scenario for the Sixers, since the beginning of the Simmons-M-Beed era, has ended in two ways. One is a turnover by Embed on the baseline where he tries to bully ball, three people triple teaming him or a turnover trying to get the ball to a triple team JJ Redick running off a screen. So to actually see in these two games like another person on the court that people have to cover and someone you can just give the ball to who can create a shot, which we have actually

not had basically since Jiru Holiday left. So that's a very, so like that is worthwhile and that will matter in the playoffs. I am concerned that we're giving up basically an average of like 36 points a game to guards under 6-5, but whatever. This is a good point. Super deep dive into the basketbally stuff. The Sixers have gotten cooked by basically every guard they've played so far. In the last game, DeAngelo Russell became the latest.

And it's like part of the thing that I think people overlooked with that trade. I'm on board with it. I was on board with it for a lot of different reasons getting Jimmy Buller. And you just outlined one of them. Like late in a game, they needed a guy that they could go to who could be their closer, They're not just offensively, but defensively as well, who would want to take those big matchups. But Robert Covington guarded a lot of guards.

Like, he was super switchable and he could do a lot of things. But he guarded a lot of their guards defensively for much of the game. And now without him, they're kind of thin there. Like, they got both better and thinner by trading for Jimmy Butler. Yeah, that's right. I mean, this is where, as much as I love your fellow Ringer podcast hosts, J.J. Reddick, this is where we get. sort of like what we dealt with in the playoffs

of people picking on JJ becomes a problem because you have to put Butler on Kemba Walker and that's just not really the right, it's not fair to Butler and it's not the right matchup because you have to hide JJ. Yeah, Brett Brown was talking about that after, God, what game was it? It was probably the Sun's game where it was like,

this is why we got Jimmy and we want Jimmy to be our dog late in games, but there's sort of like a balancing act that the Sixers have to do and Brett Brown has to do because you can't expect Jimmy Butler to be your number one option late in games offensively, while simultaneously also playing lockdown defense in like the last seven minutes of a game against the opponent's best offensive

option? I mean, that's really a lot to ask, especially when offensively, the Sixers run a lot. I mean, their offense is predicated on not just moving the ball, but human beings moving, and that takes a lot out of you. So it'll be interesting to see what happens with Jimmy. But like so far, it's been really fun. I just, I wonder to your point about like how Jimmy Butler would fit. I thought, like, Jimmy Butler would be a good fit for Philadelphia, the town, because, like, he's... Oh, for sure.

Right? Yeah, like, he feels like a good Philly Sixers kind of player, but then I go, well, what happened? What would have happened? Like, how do you think the reception would have been if some of these close games had not gone the Sixers way? Like, right now, it's everybody's happy and excited, but I just wonder about Philadelphia being fickle.

I think that Philly is still going to have the Super Bowl high for, like, another three years. So the Sixers could have had, like, a 15-game losing. losing streak and people still would have been happy. The Eagles won the World, the Super Bowl. Yeah. I think, like, my expectation was, like, in any big train, any big player movement, the inevitable NBA Twitter panic cycle, which, you know, took full war on the corner three, the morning after we lost to the magic on the first Jimmy Butler game.

Yeah. But it's just like, you know, like, we were doing it. We were dealing with. Well, LeBron, two weeks ago, we dealt with it when LeBron went back to the Kaz. We don't. Like, in every move, they're like, it takes a while to get used to it. And even when I saw them, when I thought they were going to lose last night to the Nets, I went and quickly looked at the schedule to see what the next three games. We're to see if they're about to be on a, like, a five-game losing streak that would cause the panic.

So, I mean, they are living on the Razors edge. Yeah. I think Philly itself, you know, I don't know what would happen on WIP for people who don't know. It's the Philly Sports Talk Radio that's been around forever. Like, there would be panic there. I think that in the arena, the Sixers fans are so. fired up that I think they would be fine as long as

Butler didn't start attacking his teammates, right? If it was like, we're losing, we're figuring this out, people are fine. If he starts like, you know, going all Carl Anthony Towns on Embed, then that's a different story. Yeah, I'd prefer that he not burn everything down like his last stop, but at Pod Save America, you use the line, you know, worry about everything, panic about nothing, which is perfect

for the Sixers, because that's exactly how I feel with this team. I look at them and I'm like, I don't know. Like, there are some games where I just can't imagine them pulling it out. and they have with Jimmy Butler and tow and it's been a lot of fun to watch. The Cavs game though was one of those games where you go, oh, this doesn't make any sense.

Maybe it was just like a schedule loss and they pulled it off. The important part here is that and I want to run this past you because I feel like this is right in your wheelhouse. Apparently one of the Jenner's isn't, Isaac, I'm bad with Jenner stuff. Is it Kendall or Kylie?

I'm bad with Jenner stuff too, but I believe it is Kendall. It's Kendall. It's Kendall. Okay, see, Dan knows. So Kendall is there. Apparently, there's some. dueling petitions now. One petition that people

don't want Kendall to show up to Sixers games because there's a Kardashian curse. But then there's another one that's like, no, let her show up because the Sixers have been pretty good since she's been around. Where are you on Jenner's being at Sixers games? Well, I've been very

anxious about this since I read over the summer that Ben Simmons and Kendall Jenner had started dating and were living together in L.A. And so the three things that haunt me over the summer were a lot of Instagram videos of Joel M.B. Not working out. Like, everyone else is just, like, posting videos themselves, like, lifting weight doing all

the stuff. And B was, like, eating burgers. And I found that alarming. I was alarmed by the lack of videos of Markell Felt's shooting, which we'll get to, I'm sure. And the fact that Kendall Jenner was dating Ben Simmons, you know, it's, I don't know how close you follow these things. But the one year in which James Hardin was terrible was after the summer he dated Chloe Kardashian.

Right. I don't generally believe in curses, but let's not mess around here. So I am nervous about this. It is not surprising to me that the game, they lost to the Cavs, was the one that Kendall Jenner was there. It was very complicated. I know you don't follow these things closely, but also playing for the Cavs is Tristan Thompson, the father of Chloe Kardashian's baby, of which there is a lot of drama happening

there. So I don't know whether, and Jordan Clarkson, who also dated Kendall Jenner. There's two, we don't need this in our Sixers' fandom. It is my personal opinion. You're blown my mind right now. I feel like you should have gone on sources say or jam session with Juliet Ledman because normally like Juliette, who is the original co-host of the Heat Check podcast with me, she's my go-to for this.

And now it's going to be you because I get the Kardashians and the Jenners are very confusing to me. I did however see Kendall. I have to keep looking at my notes here to remember which Jenner was, but I did however see Kendall at the Cavs game booing Tristan, which I thought was a nice touch. She's trying to ingratiating herself to the Sixers fans. Do not mess with the Cardan. and Jenner Klan.

Do not. But evidently, so they had broken up, this is way bigger deep dive into the Kendall, Jenner, Ben Simmons union than I had anticipated. But evidently, they had broken up and gotten back together. And since they got back together, Sixers are nine and four. I think they've got to stay together for a second. Maybe it's nothing to do with the Jimmy Butler trade.

Maybe it's all Kendall Jenner. Maybe it's all the Jenner's. It's been a pleasant surprise, as has your Generter Kardashian knowledge. Not everything, though, great for the Sixers. Like I think like on the whole, I'm happy with the team. On the whole, I like this new three. I think that they need to add more pieces.

On the whole, I think it's been a good fit so far with Ben Simmons and Jimmy Butler, who I was a little worried about it being like two ball dominant high usage players. But so far so good. Except for, as you mentioned earlier, Markle Fultz, who we just cannot get away from talking about him. With the Sixers, it's always like two steps forward and then, you know, it's not even one step back. It's like tripping over something big and breaking your leg. There's always something massive that happens with the Sixers. And the Fultz thing, right after I went to Philly and I wrote about Jimmy Butler, and I'm getting on a plane, and all of a sudden, David Aldridge from the Athletic breaks the story that he's shutting it down. His guys decided that he's shutting it down.

And as we record this, he should be in New York, Marco Faults, not David Aldridge, in New York right now getting evaluated, not just for a shoulder, but for a wrist. Yeah, it's weird. The whole thing is weird. It's sad. I actually think it's really sad because I've been a Markle Fultz fan since he was in high school because he was living in D.C. all the years I did, I followed D.C. high school basketball pretty closely. And Markle Fultz was his incredible story of this kid. He went from the J.V. to the All Met team at DeMatha over a summer. Just basically one year came out of nowhere. And then two years later was the number one pick in the draft. It's crazy. This is not in a good place. Either for Markle Fultz or for the Sixers right now. No, it's bad both ways. So the night before that story broke for the second half of I,

believe it was the Sun's game. Brett Brown was playing TJ a lot and you know like the fans like fucking love TJ and he was going crazy and he was giving him a little energy boost but as a byproduct of this you had Markle Fultz not playing and he was sort of salking not so much sulking but he the body

language wasn't great so after the game Brett Brown was asked like how are you going to handle this and he said well you know it's going to be matchup base and whatever and then that next morning all of a sudden Markle decides to shut it down from everything like the context clues the day before and then for me asking around. They didn't know this was coming. This was very much like a Mark Hell Fultz camp decision

where his agent slash lawyer was like, yeah, he's not going to play for a while, even though he's still around the team. It's a super awkward situation where he's sitting on the bench and going to practices, but dictating to the team, hey, I'm not going to play, even though the team thinks that he's healthy. Yeah, it's really over the summer, over last summer, the summer before his rookie year, I was pretty critical of the way the Sixers were handling it. that like no one could get on the same page, everyone's saying something different, but maybe hindsight being 2020

or seeing how this has played itself out. I think this has a lot more to do with Fultz's agent and how his camp has handled this. That's made it very hard on the Sixers. And the idea that you would tell Woge, I know if there's like a law, you have to tell Woj everything first, but that you would tell Woj prior to,

or, you know, Aldridge, whoever else, that you're not playing before the team found out is, that's not the Sixers fault. That is a problem. with the agent. And I don't, I don't think it is possible for Fultz to succeed in Philly anymore. I think that that, as sad as it is, that is over. Yeah. I mean, part of me goes that report where it said, like, he didn't officially, they were definitely trying to hedge here because there was, like, dueling banjos on reports. It was like the Aldridge report, which was his people think that a

fresh start might be good. And then the Wode report that was he didn't formally request a trade. So there's some, like, gray operating area in there somewhere. But I think that, like, universally, it's very difficult right now for anybody to look at the situation and go, no, they should try to work this out. I think he's right. Whoever thinks he needs a fresh start, I think is right.

But the problem is, how do you get him off this team? Right? Because you're not going to get, I don't even know what fair value would look like for him, but you'd have to pretty much give him away. His value is nothing or next to nothing.

I think where his value, to the extent it exists at all, is packaged in a trade with like Wilson Chandler or something else to get you the shooting we think we need to head into the playoffs, right? Just like two weeks ago or whenever the original Woz report was

is that the Wizards had put Beal and Wall on the market, I spent way too much time on the NBA trade machine trying to put together a Beal package for the Sixers. And I was refusing to put Fultz in there. And then now you would 100% put Fultz in there. And it's basically just like extra.

But I think the hardest thing in life is to admit you made a mistake. and trading two first round picks for faults has turned out to be a giant mistake. On paper, it made a lot of sense of the time. And I think almost every team in the league apparently except the Celtics, I guess, would have done the same thing

because he was number one on almost everyone's board and seemed to be the irony being, I remember all the arguments listening to all the NBA Twitter and your guys' podcasts talking about that draft was he had the highest floor of anyone. Maybe not as highest ceiling as Lonzo may have had, a higher floor. And it turns out there is no floor. This actually is quite a problem. And so, look, I think it's, I think they should find a way, they need to make another move and they should

put faults in the move and just move on because it's a distraction we don't need. And just hanging on to this, the longer you hang on to the asset, the more it's going to depreciate. So, like, there's not a world, I think, where he, his shoulders healthy all of a sudden, they bring them back and he plays great for 10 games and they can move. I just don't think that that will work here. And so if you can get off of this and move on with your life, you should do it. And it's embarrassing that we did this. And it really hurts that Jason Tatum is on the Celtics and not on the Sixers. And the only good news is that Kings pick is going to be less valuable than we thought it would be when we gave it up because the Kings seem to figure out

how to play basketball. But I think you just move, as sad as it is, you just move on and take the loss and go. I would still really like that King's pick, whatever it ends up being. I'd still rather have that right now. And then whatever player would have fallen to you at three. But you're right. I mean, like, Brian Colangelo gets rightfully knocked for a lot of things, this website, finding out the dangers of social media, for example. But, like, at the time, I was like, yeah, okay, if that's your guy, go up and get him. Nobody could have ever anticipated this. But the problem is it puts them in such a sticky situation because, you know, it's going to be very difficult to get somebody to take him.

And then what do you get in return? And then the real worst case scenario, like there's a camp of thought that if you're going to clear a bunch of cap space next year, part of that would require you moving off of Fultz sooner than later, right? So part of me goes, okay, yeah, I would rather get rid of Fultz sooner than later. That way you can clear that space and you've got some money for next year. But as the Sixers learned this previous offseason, just going out and shopping on the free agent market is not so easy. And then beyond that, the absolute worst case scenario, and this is not out of play. But I can envision a scenario where they trade him and he goes to another team and figures it out.

And now not only did you, like, move up in the draft for a guy who then all of a sudden cratered for you, but then he, like, corrects whatever's wrong with him, either mentally or physically and becomes good. That would be an absolute disaster. Yeah, it would be terrible. And it would be, but, like, I think you always have to recognize that it's not going to get fixed here. So, like, in my mind, there was not a scenario where Fultz fixes it and is an asset to the Sixers. So your choice is either hold on to someone who's going to take a roster. spot, sit at the end of your bench and play or not play at the whims of his agent slash attorney, or try to put him in a package to get another player, or get off him so you have, what is it,

$10 million in cap space, I think? Yeah, roughly. Yeah. You get from faults. Because I think the thing about the free agent market next year for the Sixers is you're not trying to get Kauai again or Clay. Like, you'd be great if you got those, but it seems highly unlike you're going to get the top tier. Right.

So you want that $10 million to get your version of Iliussofa, right? someone who is a solid veteran floor spacer who adds the depth because we've been doing okay because you can play two of Reddick, Embed Simmons, Butler at all times, which is a pretty good bench unit. But the rest of the bench, like we're counting on Landry Shamit to continue to shoot like he's JJ Redick, which seems like that may regress to the mean at some point. I really do like him as many JJ, though. Yeah, he's great.

That was a great draft pick. It was. The fact that he's contributing is wonderful. But if this is the first year of a three-year process to try to get, no pun intended, to get a ring, then the next year you've got to use that cap space to fill out the rest of the team around the big three. And you've got to figure out what you're doing with JJ again. It's weird that you're not on board with, say, Mike Muscala and Amir Johnson.

Muscala has been better than I thought he would be, but it is. It's not what you're going to want in the playoffs against. the Raptors, the Celtics, or even maybe the Bucks. Yeah, or anybody, really. Presuming the Celtics make the playoffs. Which right now, them in Freefall just makes me feel that much better about the Sixers situation. It's really pretty great.

Before I let you go, would you set, because there's also been, initially I was very, very against this, and now I'm starting to like at least entertain the idea. If you can't move Fultz and if Fultz is going to stick around, would you send him to the G-League to play? Only because the Sixers' G-League team is in Delaware. Yeah, that's right. Great. It would be a great thing to catch when I go home to visit my parents.

No, I wouldn't because I think that that is just a disaster for him, too. I just don't know how that helps. And it'll be the first G-League games that will be like broadcast live on ESPN and like live tweeted because people love to make fun of faults being bad. And so including Amari Cooper on Thanksgiving. Amari Cooper is clowning on him on a national Thanksgiving football game. I mean, I hate the Cowboys. Yes, we're all in agreement on hating the Cowboys.

This was excellent. I've learned so much about you on this podcast, including you toggling between the ESPN trade machine and like TMZ to check in on the Jenner Kardashian clan. It's really fantastic. Before I let you go, I saved this story for the end because now you've done the podcast and you can't undo it. But before the election, you guys were like doing pods all over the place.

And you had done one in L.A. and it was very early in the morning the next morning, and I was flying out of LAX, as were you. And you and I have never met in person, but I saw you in the TSA line. And because I'm hyper awkward, I, like, double-taked, and you saw me do that.

And then, of course, I, like, blurted out, like, hey, Dan Pfeiffer, and you were very kind about it. But that was me. And then, you know, we, like, avoided eye contact as we snake past each other for the rest of the TSA line. But now, but now you've done the pot, and you can't take it back.

You should have introduced yourself, because one, one, I've done the pod, but two, like, I just would, I would have rather just talk six or particularly at that type of the election. So I'm always down for an NBA conversation. Next time I see you, I will make the introduction even more awkward than I already have. It's been great. Perfect. All right, that was Dan Pfeiffer. That was so much fun. I was excited to talk to Dan Fyfer. I'm a big fan of those guys. Want to thank him. Want to thank Dan Devine. I want to thank all of you for listening. Don't forget to please rate and review us on Apple. And of course, every Monday you get heat check.

Every Tuesday, you get the mismatch. Every other Wednesday you get sources say. Group chat on Thursdays, Corner 3 on Friday's Ringer NBA show has you covered. Isaac and I will be back next Monday. Thanks for listening, gang. Bye. Hey, guys, it's Liz Kelly. Right in time for the holiday season,

the ringer's merch store has tons of new stuff. And right now, almost everything on the site is 20% off, including your favorites like binge mode and Ringer NBA. And for the first time, we are introduced. seen brand new merch for NBA desktop, Shea Serrano's villains, and Bill's Parent Corner. This Black Friday Cyber Monday sale lasts until Monday, November 26th. You can check it out on the ringer.com slash shop.