The Ringer NBA Show - The Jimmy Butler Sweepstakes Is On—But Is Anyone Buying? Plus, Wemby Passes the Jokic Test, and Kawhi Is Back. | Group Chat

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

Justin, Rob, and Wos come together and talk about some of the biggest stories in the recent NBA news cycle. They discuss where Jimmy Butler will land (4:05), Wemby vs. Jokic (38:50), and Kawhi Leonard’s return (57:06). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Wosny Lambre Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? Chris Vernon here and welcome to a new season of the NBA and the mismatch. And huge welcome as well to my new co-host, Dave Jacoby. I can't wait to link with you twice a week every Tuesday and Friday right here on the mismatch to break down everything that's happening in the league. Who's playing well, who we loved, who we loathed, trade rumors, team dysfunction. We've got you covered right here. So follow us, subscribe and hit us with those five-star ratings on Spotify or wherever you get your. your podcast. And also don't forget to follow us on social media. That's at Ringer NBA. And check out the full mismatch episodes with the two handsomest podcasters in the history of

podcasting right on the Ringer NBA YouTube channel. And welcome to group chat. I am Justin Verrier. And joining me, as always, Rob Mahoney, Big Waz. Guys, I don't know if you saw this over the weekend, but they're giving out those presidential medals of freedom. Yeah. Shout out to Denzel. Well, yeah, I guess first of all, I, I, I guess we just give them to elder statesmen celebrities at this point. It was like Inowintour. It was like Steve Martin. So if you're just a celebrity long enough,

I guess you are a Medal of Freedom winner. I don't know how you, what the qualifications are. I was just proud of New York City's own Bronx native, Ralph Lauren getting a presidential medal of freedom. A true American hero and patriot. That was pretty dope for me. It illuminated for me that I really, to your point,

Justin, don't know the rules of who is allowed to get this honor or not. Like, we're clearly not operating by like a knighthood system where you have to actually be an American in order to receive this particular presidential medal. But, look, shout out to Bono. Shout out to Jane Goodall. You know, they're doing good things out there. I just don't really understand what we're doing here. Well, here's my question.

Like, if there are no qualifications, then how do we get Waz a Medal of Freedom at least in like 10 years from now? Maybe not this next presidential. Ten years. Well, you know, he's still in his 30s. I don't know if he's in the age range. It seems like these people get it at. But I think he's in the running at the very weeks.

I guarantee you there is a group chat listener out there who will one day staff a presidential administration. And this thing is closer to happening than you guys even understand. Well, I look forward to the day that the three. of us get to storm, if not the capital, then the White House for, uh, for Woz's celebration in his awarding of the medal. Also, man, shout to Joe Biden because my BF, my BMF heads will note that, um, noted notorious drug kingpin, big meech's brother was pardoned by the Joe Biden administration after he's, he's pardoning drug kingpins, you know, he's giving presidential freedoms freedom's medals to Hillary Clinton, you know,

war mongering ass Hillary Clinton, whatever. It is what it is. All better off going forward. Let's go. Is this why you've been boning up on Blue Bloods just to like get familiar with the system? Learn the inner workings of the judicial system in order to put yourself in position for this? Blue Bloods doesn't really help me with national politics, but in terms of the hand-ringing that's going on in New York City

with the new congestion pricing. Yeah, that's what I'm locking in on Blue Bloods for. Understanding New York City politics, y'all. It's real boots on the ground stuff. That's right. All right, let's get to the matter of hand here. It's a special day on this podcast because we're talking about Jimmy Butler

and for no other reason. Over the weekend, it seemed like things just kind of popped off in a way that, like, I think was expected, but happened a little quicker than I thought. And so the timeline, as we know it now, December 26th, Pat Riley issues a stern statement saying that the heat will not trade Jimmy Butler. January 3rd, eight days later, they're in the Jimmy Butler business yet again. They suspended Butler for seven games. He'll actually be back mid-January. So it's actually kind of a weird in-between zone where he will be back before the deadline

on February 6th. Um, Waz, what do you think about this? You broke the news in our group chat for us. Are you surprised that this happened at this point? What's your general just like outlook on this? It's not surprising. It's just the way that we got here. I think everybody has some egg on their face if we're being honest

here. One, there's no other way to frame this, but like Pat Riley has a very huge ego. And he's super old and he understands the old way of dealing with

disgruntled players and even stars. And I don't think it comports with modern realities on the ground. Like, there's a world in which Jimmy Butler comes out and essentially does a Paul George. He's on the last year of his deal. He can choose to opt in or he can opt out and be a free agent. He's a good soldier. He plays his ass off, makes an all-MBA 13, gets paid with somebody else next summer, or him in the heat work out some deal,

he opts in and blah, blah, blah, whatever. Right? Like, there's a, there's a world in which that happened. But you know, a world that doesn't happen where Pat Riley just takes a swipe at the guy last offseason for no freaking reason whatsoever. Like, he just literally just killed the guy in public for nothing. There was no reason to do that. For no reason? Um, look, you can complain to Jimmy Butler about not being available, which, by the way,

like, if people remember what happened, that last game that Jimmy played in, it was a nasty ass injury where a dude fell on his freaking leg. Like that wasn't somebody like, oh, I'm not playing. I'm load man. Like, he sustained a serious injury playing his ass off. And so he missed the playoffs.

Like this idea that he wasn't on the court because there's some, I don't know, was just crazy. I think Pat Riley, like the way he's carried this in public was a mistake. I don't think he needed to do this. Like Lawrence Frank didn't come out and destroy Paul George

when they didn't work out an extension, right? Like, he didn't, like, I feel like some of this stuff with Pat Riley's like all stick and no carrot. Like, you didn't give him the extension? That's enough. Remind me, did Jimmy say stuff on the bench or like there was a sideline interview where he's like, oh, if I played, like we would have won, and he did the Instagram stuff with the Celtics. And so perhaps that was what he was reacting to.

But Rob, to, to was his point, I mean, Pat Riley did this with LeBron. Didn't work out. Seems like the tough love strat. is just not what players of this ilk really want to hear. Completely. I think there's a larger conversation to be had about the heat because, as we're alluding to, a lot of the stars who have come through there,

things have ended really badly on the way out. Things even ended badly with Dwayne Wade before he ultimately circled back. Mr. 305, Wade County. Like short of being Eudanus Haslam, I don't know that there are a lot of players who have come through the heat organization. And plenty have gotten contracts and made money and gone on to other stops, like they get either kind of chewed up and spat out by the heat machine or they're stars who end up disgruntled by the end.

And so this is an incredibly accomplished organization, a great developmental enterprise. Like they do a lot of things right. One of the best coaches in the world in Eric Spolster. I don't think anyone's going to argue with that, except maybe Jimmy Butler on his way out, kind of taking some snipes at the scheme. It's just a weird situation that the heat find themselves in over and over and over.

And I'm with you. I was like, they didn't handle this particularly well. They didn't need to antagonize Jimmy Butler. I probably didn't need to antagonize the guy in public. Which also, sorry to cut you off, Rob. I'm not saying what Jimmy's doing right now where he's talking about maybe I could, I don't think I could be happy here and clearly not playing his hardest in the game. Like, I don't think that's right either.

I think everybody has faults here, but I do think the way the heat organization carried this is some old school mentality that doesn't jive with the new realities. I think that is largely true. I think the problem here is that the heat are operating that way. Jimmy is clearly miffed. The elephant in the room with all this stuff is not even who heard whose feelings, but who didn't get paid. And that's Jimmy Butler not getting the massive extension that he wanted.

And the heat, I think, somewhat understandably, being a little hesitant to give a guy at his point in his career with all of the question marks, with all of this sort of drama that does tend to crop up around him, like, oh, here's $11 million over the next two years. That's a big ask for Jimmy Butler right now. Yeah, the dye seemingly was cast over the summer where Jimmy very much wanted an extension and the heat very much didn't want to give it to him. In fact, they went out and gave Bam one instead of him

in a very showy way where it seemed like he was our guy. You were not the guy for us. And so this feels inevitable. Honestly, I've been thinking a lot about KD and D. and D. in the wake of this where it was like assumed that KD would likely be out at the end of the year. But to basically come to that conclusion on both sides, whether they spoke it into existence or not, and then try to get through a season is impossible. Like, there's an inevitability there. And if you all know it, it's hard to really work through the drudgery of the first couple months of a season. And that not lead to a boil, especially as we've seen with Jimmy and Pat over time, these are two of the most hard-headed, aggressive people, probably in all of basketball, at least in prominent positions. Like, so this was

always going to happen. Like, you can't just say, like, we're going to get a divorce in a year, but we have to get through the vacation first. Like it's not going to happen like that. I give you like six months. These things like human behavior just really comes to ahead. And I think that's what happened here. Yeah. And I think people might say that Miami can take their time and blah, blah, blah.

I don't agree with that. We have a guy in Jimmy Butler with a proven track record to be comfortable in chaos. He will be comfortable making their nice, tidy, heat culture. into a chaos factory. And if you don't move him, he will happily opt into 52 more million this offseason. And we could do this. We can run this chaos back again while I collect these checks

and make your organization of living hell. They got to move this guy. It's a hostage crisis. Period. Except the hostage is like refuses to leave. He refuses to just. opt out of his, his player option and just go do something, maybe with the nets or whatever. And I think, you know, I think it's really telling that Jimmy's not like, oh, I have my preferred destinations, which, you know, the stupid shit with the hair and the sons is one thing.

But he's obviously like, send me to Charlotte. I don't go, fuck, watch me show you people how great I still am. I think he's highly motivated to prove these people wrong. But I just think this didn't have to happen this way. He could have moved his ass last summer. He'd probably gotten some decent value for it, but they wanted to be stubborn and hardhead, and I think everybody's paying the consequences for it.

And wanted to prove a point. Like, the heat do a lot of things on principle for better and worse. And when they're going to the NBA finals, we're all praising those things. And at these moments, I think we're rightly looking at them and saying, maybe you can't operate this way all the time in the modern NBA, as you're saying was. Maybe this isn't the way to do things.

And I think the whole Jimmy Butler dual hostage crisis that you're outlining, is bumping straight up against all of these new rules that apply with an apron NBA, where we may be moving out of sort of a trade request, trade demand era in general. Like, it's just going to get harder and harder to execute on that stuff with players who make this much money.

And so that's where I may be a little more open-minded was to the idea of Jimmy Butler staring down that massive option and deciding at his age. And this is a guy who is not just, like, he, of course, cares about $50 million. Everyone cares about $50 million. This is also a motherfucker who cares about winning and who cares about playing. And the idea of wasting one of the best basketball years that he has left in his career, which is a vanishingly small amount of time for a player at his

stage, that may be too much to ask for him at this stage. Yeah, I kind of also have like a bit of a tinge of sadness to all this because Jimmy was front and center in the whole player empowerment. I'm going to force my way to this team and then to another team after that. And And it just seems part of this is that he doesn't necessarily have the power element of it. One, because his play has fallen off in recent years. And so you have to wonder, like, which team is really going to go over their skis, like be beyond themselves and, like, trip over themselves in order to go and get Jimmy. And then, too, Rob, I think you bring up a good point.

Who actually has the means and, like, the ability to do so considering the constraints with the CBA? And so, like, I look at the list of teams that would realistically, want to trade for Jimmy. And I have five down here. And that like eliminates all the second apron teams. It would be great for instance if the Timberwolves could like flip Julie's Randall's contract and maybe like try to import Jimmy, bring them back and let's see what happens because that situation is boiling over in a way that we should talk about soon. But they can't. Second apron team. Just going to be way too difficult because Jimmy makes almost 50 million dollars. You can't aggregate contracts in order to get them out. They're out of the race. So I have

five teams here. I'm curious if you guys have any more after I list this. I have the sons, first and foremost, the warriors, despite the fact that they say that they're not actually in the mix. They're in the fucking mix. Nuggets, Grizzlies, pistons. And if you were to say, like, how many of these I could see realistically happening, I'd say two. I'd say sons and warriors. What do you think, Was? Yeah, I think both of those teams definitely have a Jimmy Butler need.

I would say so do the nuggets that have a Jimmy Butler need. And I really do genuinely think a motivated Jimmy Butler could still be like a really dominant postseason player. I really truly believe that for those stretches. Like Jimmy at this point, we know doesn't really care about the regular season. It is what it is. But I do think he's a gamer in the playoffs. And I think another team that was thrown out there to me when I was, you know, talking to a couple of people, somebody threw out the cabs, basically doing a garland deal. and basically making them a serious-ass postseason team now.

A team that definitely, you know, like would become a peer with the Celtics by doing something like that because Garland is duplicative of what Donovan Mitchell does and Jimmy would just add a whole new element that they don't currently possess. But, you know, like you're on a 72 win pace. You're not breaking up your team

to bring the guy who's like burning down the fucking heat organization right now. Straight up. That is just not a thing that teams do. It would take a lot of balls, quite frankly, to do something that bold.

But yeah, I think the Warriors and the Sons are the obvious choices because of, you know, how their particular seasons are going and the obvious need for somebody like Jimmy Butler. Yeah, I think it's useful

to kind of bucket them into those sorts of groups. The Warriors and the Sons are desperate enough where they have to think about it. They have to turn over rocks. They have to mull over what would we have to actually have to give up if you're the warriors to get this done or for the sons like who was

going to take on bradley beale is effectively the question there because as as brian win horse reminded us recently like the heat have taken a look at beale when he was up for trade last time and said no thanks uh we're good they were not interested in taking bradley biel so even if biel wanted to go there and we should say bill has a no trade clause which complicates all of this too a million dollar contract and no trade clause very complicated can we talk about the sons though because obviously they're having their own little bit of a drama situation where right before, I think yesterday night, Sunday night, Chris Haynes reported that they're switching up the starting lineup. Beale, Nurkich, go to the bench, Dun and Plumley come to the starting lineup. And I have

to say that was pretty suspicious, the timing of which. And I was already my conspiracy theory brain was running because I'm like, man, it seems like the Sons are very clearly the obvious candidate, but there's no direct way for Jimmy to get there because of all the complications. that we just laid out. I almost wondered if Jimmy blew up the situation, had that press conference in which he was like, I can't find joy here, which was like pretty targeted,

specifically in order to grease the wheels so that he makes things so bad for the heat that he can get his way to the suns. And I almost wonder if the sons are like, oh shit, you're doing that. Let's do this on our side too. And everything becomes so toxic that they have to make a trade that the Beal,

who probably holds the cards in this situation, does not want. So 2025 is the year of mutual toxicity. There you go, yeah. Look, that is the glaring sign on the wall. Look, there are basketball reasons to move. I would say specifically Bradley Beal from the starting lineup to the bench. He's duplicative of what Booker and Durant do best.

The lineups with Booker and Durant and Dunn overall, basically regardless of who you want to mix and match around them, have been pretty good. There's just a balance to that that makes sense in terms of offense and defense. the bigs respectfully, it doesn't matter whether you start Mason Plumley or not. Maybe you could argue he's slightly less flimsy

than Yusuf Nerkich in some ways. Neither of those guys is going to solve your problems. But part of the value here, if we're all being honest about it, is Bradley Beale being a little less enthused about his situation to the point where he may look at some moves that for him could be

lateral, for him could be a slight downgrade, for him could be maybe a market he's not thrilled about moving to and say, you know what, at least there, I'm going to be able to do my thing and play my game. And maybe that's a team that's going to value me a little more than being the sixth man of the Phoenix Suns. Yeah, the other part of this is that the sons...

Are we going to talk about the CAD that's walking in front of the bosses' space right now? I'm going to move the freaking computer closer to the ledge of the desk so that she doesn't walk over it, but then she contorted herself to do it anyway. Just, ah, Mimi, the jerk. real Jimmy Butler energy from Mimi today. Yes, that's right.

Can we get her? Disrespecting the ball. They're trying to trade Mimi? It's fucked up. The heat are also in a situation where they can't really bottom out because they owe this pick to the thunder as a result of redoing the pick that they owed originally. I believe it was the Clippers or no, it was the Sixers and then I went to the Clippers. It's a whole saga, some of these draft picks nowadays.

So like, and they also have. have the type of players where you can't fully bottom out. Bam, Hero, whatever you bring in afterward, that's their core. You almost want like a soft reboot. And so I guess the question is like, was like, does Bill make any sense here? Is there any world where you're like, you could reimagine him and you just like, you just have a better kumbaya spirit and you just kind of make do with what you have? No, he's bad. He's not a good player anymore. He's just not. Just the idea that around this team, he can't find a way to be a contributing starter

where he's not asked to be anybody's version of the man. He's just asked to support what KD and Devin Booker do, and he can't do it. And he's being paid 50 million. Yeah. No. No, he's just not good. I think he can't do it at a star level.

I think overall he's been fine. he's played something like 80-ish games overall with the Sun so far. It hasn't been an abject disaster, but I don't know how you could argue that it's gone well. He hasn't found a way to fit and pop. He's fit in and yeah, he can space the floor. He can be your third option running a pick and roll. All of that stuff is well and good. Like he's overqualified for that. But he's not who reputationalally speaking Bradley Beale would suggest that he's capable of being. But also, I would submit, if Bradley Beale's deal was done this. summer, meaning it could be just as if, like, they just shed Jimmy's salary this summer.

Then you could see yourself talking, like, whatever, this guy's an imperfect player. But you know what? We're done with him. We're done with Jimmy. The summer of 2025, life goes on. We get to keep being the Miami heat. This guy has two more years left on his deal after this one. And a no trade clause.

Like, no. And whatever concerns you may have about his fit with the sons, like, kind of. Tyler Hero has just been flat out significantly better than Bradley Beal. And they have very similar skill sets at the end of the day. So whatever problems, you know, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal have coexisting, Tyler Hero is going to have the same thing. Yeah, I could see it if you could dump Terry Rozier as a part of it. I could see it if there were multiple picks coming back.

So they were almost paying you for Beal's contract in addition to taking Butler. But the sons don't have anything. And this is the problem with the new CBA. It's just impossible for anything to get done. And so I agree with you guys. It seems highly unlikely, but it does seem like these two teams are trying to make it work. God bless them as much as they possibly can. And so if it's not the Sons, then who is it?

Because the Warriors are out of the market allegedly, or at least they're making a big show of it. Kaminga is out three weeks. I agree that like he probably makes the most sense there. I don't know if he changed as much with Golden State the way that the season is going. They're an absolute mess at this point. Especially if they have to give up Wiggins and Kumingo, which salary-wise, they basically would have to do unless they give up Draymond, that's a lot of

good wing depth for what the Warriors have and need. And Jimmy Butler at his best can be far better than either of those guys, but they need rotation ballast. They need like good consistent regular season defense. And is Jimmy Butler going to be that? I don't know. I can't see it. I just

think Miami, when they do move Jimmy, I think it's just going to be to some NBA backwater like Charlotte or Detroit or or something that just has nothing going for it, wants to take a swing on an established star and do something different within the organization and the culture, you know, perhaps like, I don't know,

getting Miles Bridges out of there or something like that. Like, something like that I could see happening. I don't see him going to a real team at this point. And it's sad because Jimmy Butler in the postseason has provided some of the coolest moments in the past six years, man. remember when he was like exhausted in the bubble. It's just like giving it his all against the Lakers and LeBron, willing this team to a Denver Nuggets,

finals matchup, conference finals all over the place. Like, they've accomplished so much, overachieved like a mother. You know, aside from them, ain't been no all-stars or like real players. Like, there have been, you know, marginal guys like Max Drewson and Gabe Vincent and, you know, the like, who have overachieved for who they are coming into the league.

Duncan Robinson, these guys have overachieved. But, like, it's not as if Miami has been aggressive and pulling the trigger and getting these great players in. They whiffed on the Damien Lillard situation, you know, the years back. Like, they haven't been able to do anything major in the Jimmy years. Like, nobody thought this team was going to the NBA finals or conference finals the years that they did it. It was because Jimmy Butler was,

incredible. And so, you know, I can understand why Jimmy would think, like, yo, I should be rewarded for the shit that I've done it. This is one of those cases where even though we were saying no one has covered themselves in glory, everyone is kind of right. Like Jimmy Butler is right to be frustrated with his current circumstances financially and otherwise. The heat are right to be fed up of Jimmy Butler's bullshit.

Everyone who's out there telling you that Jimmy Butler is one of the biggest gamers in the league and can drag teams of the NBA finals are clearly empirically. right? And everyone's saying that Jimmy Butler is maybe not worth all of the trouble for a lot of teams are absolutely right. I've had a case at this point. Yeah. It's just a lot to deal with. And that's where the Cavs example is a great one, not just in terms of, you know, does it make sense to trade someone, you know, a player is good and promising as Darius Garland for every, all the problems that Jimmy would bring with him in the door? But like, does he fit with your team? You know, he, he isn't a great shooter. And so if you're a team that's already a little compromised for spacing, he might only, exacerbate that.

And if you're a shooting star, like the calves have been this season, if you're a team like the Grizzlies who ostensibly could use Jimmy Butler on the wing but would have to give up some pretty significant stuff to do what I would imagine, it's just really hard to talk yourself into taking that kind of leap. Yeah, the Grizzlies option is interesting because based on their conversations with the Nets, you would think that they would be in the market for a bit of a wing. They didn't get Dorian Finney Smith. He ultimately went to the Lakers.

They could be in the Cam Johnson sweepstakes. I like Cam Johnson for them, although it seems like that's becoming a bit of a thick race. I think every team that has title aspirations wants Cam Johnson. I'm a little worried about Jimmy in a lot of regards. I do think he fits the culture, I would say, would really appeal to that fan base who has spent many a year cheering on Tony Allen and those sorts of guys. Unfortunately, if you're looking at the final form of this team, it's going to have Jha and Zach Eadie there. And so can you sacrifice the spacing by putting Jimmy in that 30? spot, especially when you have such like a plug and play guy like Jamlin Wells, who's been performing

well, I get that he's a rookie, you might not want to just trust him wholeheartedly. Like, that to me seems like a really weird mix of players. Even though that Jimmy does kind of overextend himself in the playoffs and goes beyond the numbers, I wouldn't do that if you're the Grizzlies. Rob, do you like that as an option for them? I think it depends somewhat on the way that this Jimmy Butler sweepstakes takes shape. Like, there's a version of this where the heat ultimately settled for something. that's more like an appetizer sampler of decent role players and a couple of picks.

And a mooseboosh. A little amuse, boosh. Yeah. And that's where it's like, if you are the heat, does a Brandon Clark, Marcus Smart,

Luke Conard kind of trade package, move you at all? I don't know why it necessarily would, given everything that they need to reset in a post-Jimmy era. But what are you getting? Like, I'm just not so convinced that there's going to be, even a prospect as promising as Jonathan Cuminga

at the center of what ultimately the Jimmy Butler return is. It could be very wrong about that. I think Memphis is in a position where they have the salaries to make that work, plus they have all of their own full complement of first round picks if they wanted to try to grease the wheels on something larger, not even going straight to the heat, but incorporating a third or even a potentially fourth team. Like that's, those are the mechanisms that get things moving

when you have all of those draft assets at your disposal. in addition to good players on decent contracts that can add up to something that can feasibly make the math work. I will say this. If there's a star involved in a Jimmy Butler trade for the Grizzlies, I don't like it. And hands down, if anyone out there is in the trade machine

trying to plug Jaron Jackson Jr. in there, stop, leave, go outside. That is simply not happening and cannot happen. I think the heater looking at clearing their books and potentially getting a pick. Like, especially when you're out there, both sides saying like neither of us want to be in business with each other.

Like your leverage dissipates very quickly. I mean, the heat statement is basically like, this guy stinks. Yeah, we'd love to trade him. I don't know why anybody would want him. Like, it's nuts. It's a cancer. We don't even want him in our locker room for these next seven games because he's just been an asshole.

The specific reason why they suspended him was conduct detrimental to the team over the course of the season and particularly the last seven weeks. it's a real like can you believe this fucking guy who's came to have him in the building right now but look what happened he's not in the building they lost like 30 to the jazz oh my god yeah yeah i'm not really like that pistons are kind of a dark horse team honestly

they've performed pretty well even in light of the ivy injury they're on a three game winning streak right now they have performed pretty well with the past like i would say month plus of the season uh i like it for the cosmic uh just like his myth or irony of having to trade Tobias Harris or Jimmy Mueller after after not being willing to get rid of Tobias and sending Jimmy out of Philly. Does that make any sense?

I think I think a motivated Jimmy playing with a fire under his ass definitely makes this team like they're going to the playoffs in the East. I think they're going to the playing no matter what it feels like at this point the way they've been playing recently but I think bringing Jimmy in, hyper-motivated, I think it would make them materially better. Now, what does that ultimately mean?

Like, is it a seven-seed and get smoked in the first round? Cool. Isn't that what Miami does every year anyway? But, like, I think it would make them materially better. I really do. I think Jimmy is now out for blood and has a point to prove about the kind of player that he actually is and why he was deserving of an extension

and why he is a special talent, I think he's like going to be highly, highly motivated to prove that at his next stop. I like it from that perspective. You know, I think those are the sorts of teams we're going to end up talking about are the ones who are desperate for some sort of modest improvement, desperate for some legitimacy, right?

Like teams that have been in extended rebuilds because of injuries or just like weird draft picks that didn't pan out, find themselves now the room saying, why not take a year or two of Jimmy Butler basketball and see what it can do for us? And frankly, if you are the younger elements of the Pistons core, I think there's a lot of guys on the team who could benefit from playing with a Jimmy Butler. The fast-tracking you could get Jayland Duren playing with Jimmy Butler, I think is a meaningful thing just in terms of overall intensity and commitment and consistency. An engaged version of Jimmy actually is helpful

to some young players. Maybe not Carl Towns. and Andrew Wiggins once upon a time, but maybe for the young Pistons. Yeah, Jalen Dern just completely fell off. And it does seem like motivational, like, like it just lacks physicality sort of thing because it's not like his skill set has dissipated. It's really just like rolling hard to the ribbon

and playing defense. I kind of like that. Even if you look at it as like a stopgap for until J.N. Ivy comes back because you'd assume that injury probably lingers into early next season at the very least. just like kind of making something of the season. I honestly like Jimmy the most as like a one year plus sort of just like ballast, almost like like write our ship, do what you can this year,

and then we'll figure things out down the road. Of course, Jimmy probably is thinking more about the extension. So that probably muddles things. But we'll see. I mean, Denver, the last team on the board here probably makes sense just in terms of motivations for both parties. I don't see it. Like a lot of what the

Nuggets are going to do means getting rid of MPJ I just think it's selling incredibly low on a guy that could be pretty good for a lot of different teams and frankly has been

quite good lately especially like MPJ's been really important to them MPJ at his best as half the player Jimmy Butler is like I don't disagree but they're another team

where it's like who is shooting a three-pointer other than Nicola Yovich Westbrook is closing Westbrook is in your closing lineup Westbrook's like

they're third most important important player. You got Aaron Gordon out there. Sometimes. Jimmy, like, yeah, like I love Jimmy, but it just makes it

the pieces, the Lego pieces. It's just the puzzle of like competence in your biggest games becomes so weird now. If you do the MPJ thing, I like,

look, man, I've been out on MGJ for a minute now. And I do still think very highly of Jimmy. and what like he's capable of doing when he's dialed in. I just think the math starts to get so freaking wonky, man. When you're going up against OKC, he was willing to launch 50, 83s a game against you. It's just tough.

And so that's why I think the Suns are the most likely scenario and probably why we're in the situation. Who actually, this is a question I have on the docket here. Who has it worse this year? Is it the Suns, the heat? Throwing the Warriors and the Nuggets. Like, which team is the saddest to you this year? I would say the Warriors.

And it's because... They tasted glory. They had two wonderful weeks of Buddy Healed, and now they're in the doldrums. It's not even just that. It's like they want to, like, you could tell they would like to honor Steph's, you know, remaining prime,

but they just don't have the stomach for it and they just don't want to do something drastic, something that, you know, when Steph is inevitably finished and Draymond is done where they're holding the check and holding the bag, like that's why I think it's the saddest. Like spiritually, I think the layups are like, we should be like trying to get superstars and all of this and like trying to do this with stuff.

But like, ah, 2028 is right there. We can't just throw that in the trash, can we? It's a presidential term away. And so that's what I think, that's why I think the Warriors thing is the saddest, because stuff is the greatest thing that's ever happened to this franchise by far. And I think he should be honored with, you know, whatever it takes to make a competitive product out there. But I think logically the people who will own this team for the next three, four, five decades being like, look, we want to take a long-term, you know, approach to how we're,

doing this and trading assets and all the young guys and all of this stuff to bring in, you know, temporary health for stuff just doesn't job with that. I think so long as the Warriors have Steph, they can draft off vibes to a degree of all the history. Like, so long as you can go to a Warriors game and show up in your number 30 jersey, like, there is a, there is a psychic value to that experience. If you're the Phoenix Suns and you have the most expensive roster in basketball, basketball and you're at this point a couple games under 500 and the vibes are horrendous.

Like they're consistently bad to the point that you are benching $50 million players. I don't know that it gets a lot worse than that. I mean, it gets worse than that if you're like last year's pistons, right? Like there's levels to this stuff. But to be thinking you're competing for something and I was among the people out here in the preseason saying I think this could kind of work. Like I think the outline of the son's roster could maybe work. The butt effect.

He can do it again. The Tyas Jones effect. Like I was buying into that stuff. And it just has not moved the needle in a meaningful enough way to outweigh everything else that drags down the suns right now. And that is a very expensive, both in terms of money and in terms of all of the assets and picks that went out the door to make this possible. That's a very expensive lesson to learn.

The sons are currently 15 and 18, sandwiched in 12 place between the Sacramento Kings, who we've talked about, have been an absolute disaster. They've already fired a coach. Yeah. Don't a four game winning streak though. We should say the Kings are back. I know. Kings have been playing pretty

feistyly and the Blazers who are actively rebuilding. So it's not great. What's funny is like whenever I hear about like McHale Bridges and like how much Cam Johnson is wanted. I'm just like, oh, you could have just been

fine. You could have just not done the KD trade and just found the next great superstar in order to bring them into the mix or just like gone on. along and being a very good team and just like steadily brought along draft picks to supplement what you had, which was the core of an NBA fucking finals team. It's just like, it's bizarre to the point where NERC now, whom they dealt Aiton with, uh, for just for like nothing, just to get NERC in

there to try to solve the situation is one of the worst centers in the NBA. And you can't even trade him for, for instance, Nikola Vucevic, even though that works on paper in, in the NBA. So like the COSI. So like the COSIZER. So like the COPS. contracts match in a way that you could trade them straight up. But you can't because you're in the second apron and you can't trade like whatever. It has to be like within a dollar or something in order to do it. They can't even do that. This is one of the worst situations in basketball. I think in the past decade or two, this is like old school bad. This is like Charlotte Bobcats level bad where they just like wanted to play fantasy basketball and just didn't work out. Yeah. And once again,

I've said this a trillion times on this show. like KD, All the Famer, Wonderful Player, all of that stuff. He is not a leader of men. He is not going to be the glue that keeps a, you know, a messy situation held together. He is not going to lift a finger in that regard. He's just going to show up and drop 28. That's it. That's it, y'all.

Nothing more, nothing less. Bad choice and friends. Extremely tough. Meanwhile, Chris Paul's spurs look pretty good. Yeah. You know? C.P. Chris Paul.

My guys. Chris Paul. Off to greener pastures yet again. I have to say, like, I think Chris Paul can play two to three more years. Just like being a 15 minute of a game guy on second units and basically just being the daycare employee, like, overseeing and like managing some of your upcoming young talent. Like, could he play next year in Detroit and just like run their second unit? and show them how to play basketball. Like Chris Ball has been awesome this season for the Spurs.

Let's actually talk about the Spurs and Denver, who played this weekend in one of probably the only interesting back-to-back series, regular season series. Yeah. How did you feel about this, Justin? As a, you know, you've spoken out in the past about this. Justin has spoken out against the baseball sort of series where you get two straight home games of the same team.

But this was not that. A home and home, yeah. How do you feel about the home and home, though? I feel mixed, one, because they were both good games, probably some of the better games we've seen all year. Two, I liked that at the very least, the Spurs brought out those, like, those light blue old school uniforms. Those are probably one of the best uniforms in the league. And so, like, to have that difference of aesthetics was a little bit nice. But as good as, like, the matchup was between Wembe and Yokic and to see it back to back and see

him like go right again, go after each other. I would have rather seen this later in the year. I would have rather them had like a month or two. Like maybe Denver makes a trade. Maybe they're better. We get to see Wembe with another month or two. And it seems like he picks up something new every month or two. Like that still would have been better.

So as good as this was, I still think it's the bullshit format. It makes for good pod fodder though, because then we could be like, oh, they played two games together. Let's talk about it on Monday's pod. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. And again, two of the best. games. Two revelatory games, as far as like a contained stretch, just like one of the best contained

matchups of the season. Like I, I just love watching those two guys go up against each other. So I agree with you if you can spread it out all the better. Like that's, that's wonderful. But I'm not going to argue with getting a back to back of Wembe and Yokitz trying to figure each other out. And specifically like Wimby is maybe the only guy in the league who forces Yokic to play differently, who actually pushes him out of his pace and his element in his comfort zone. I love. of watching that. And we just don't get enough chances to do it. Yeah, Wembe was incredible.

A couple of things from this weekend. Just the words that Nicola Yolkid shared about Wembe was, I thought, just so cool. He was so high in his praise of this kid, which I thought was legitimately dope. And you could tell he was being genuine. And then when you watch the games, like, I haven't seen somebody make this singularly. Like, I think what Minnesota did in the playoffs was, like, in tandem of three guys, three pigs, working in tandem to make Yokic's life miserable.

That was impressive. Wembe was doing it by himself, essentially, and he was making Yokic work, okay? Like, this is the hardest I've seen Yokic work in a minute to the point where he's turning the ball over at the end of game one of this home-and-home, because he's about to get his freaking Sambore shuffle blocked

and he just threw the rock away. Like that's not something we saw now in game two because Yokic is Yokic, he made his crunch time adjustments. He was like, oh, okay, this guy's still fucking unstoppable in crunch time. It makes every right choice, every right read and it's ridiculous.

But that game one, that was a revelation. Like, I'm sorry, he didn't know what the hell to do. Yeah. And it was because Wimpy is such a singular problem on defense. And so the defense was out of this world. He's on his way to defensive player the year. All three of us picked him to do so.

I think even having picked him, I'm still impressed by what he's doing. But then offensively in game one, what I loved, man, he got his ass away from the three-point line, only took six threes. I love that. Get your ass closer to the basket. Beat these little fucking wings up who want to guard you. Be a man. That's what he did in game one.

Game two, he went back to shooting a bunch of freaking threes. whatever. It's a nitpick. He was excellent. He was awesome, man. I'm looking forward to Waz's Be a Man pivot into being like a Jordan Peterson style influencer. I think he got a track here. Listen, that was my like sort of take on Mike Gundy. I'm a man. I'm 40. Okay. That's better. This is a be a man, even though you're only 22 years old type of situation. But the three ball does look good. I have to say. And that was one of the things that jumped out to me, especially in that first game is like with how much confidence and how quickly he's putting them up at this point.

He had that stretch late in the game where he was like, I would say like two to three normal human size steps out of the three point line and you just put it up without hesitation. And then he went, I think in the very next possession into a step back. He got it on off of one of those guards. Just a way that he's now taking those with confidence in the flow of the game. And really that like nobody thinks nothing of it. Like none of his teammates are really, if anything, they're feeding those shots rather than like, being miffed by him taking so many of them. And then the defensive part of it, Waz was right because it's so wild watching him close out on shooters because he doesn't

need to run or sprint into it. Like he doesn't hard close. He soft closes because he knows his length can make up so much of the difference. And like just, I was just thinking about like what an advantage that is because he's basically covering the length of like the basket to the three point line in like one to two like hesitant steps because he knows that he can get his hand in the in the mix there, especially against Yokic, who, as we know, like, moonballs these shots, he takes these, like, unreal

launch angles. It's just, like, that combination is just impossible to, really, to deal with. That last jump shot he made, basically at the foul line extended. That was hilarious. It was insanity. Scraped the bottom of the jumbo-tron on its way down. Like, that was crazy shot from Yokic. Crazy execution from Yokic.

As we're kind of talking around, it's difficult for a player, the best player in the league is having a hard time dealing with Victor Webb and Yama is having to consciously shift how he's trying to approach the game. You could see when Wimbi got in foul trouble,

it was like, okay, Zach Collins, we got to, we got to drill these minutes against Zach Collins to even out kind of the leverage in this game. But I thought what was interesting, too, about Yokic shooting so much. He took 36 shots and 35 shots in these two games. Absolutely has to for where the nuggets

are right now in a lot of different ways. in a lot of these games, but those aren't just up there with the most shots that he's taken this season. They're up there with the most shots he's taken ever in his career. That tells me, yes,

that he's trying to take advantage of the Zach Collins minutes and things like that. He's hyper-aggressive. It also tells me that he's looking around at his teammates and saying, I'm having this trouble with Victor. How can I expect Russell Westbrook

and Jamal Murray, basically anyone who isn't Michael Porter Jr., also moonballing threes from the perimeter to do anything against this guy? And so he does play more physically against Wemby. You do see him rushing. You do see him putting an extra shoulder into him to try to create a little more space around

the basket. And sometimes he still gets blocked anyway. But he does have to be that aggressive in this matchup. And it's fascinating to watch. Yeah, the Yokic test, I think is an important one because I think you're right. Just to see Yokic like pay like credence to what Wemby is doing and having to step up is really important. And Wembe passing that is a big part of his trajectory.

Honestly, though, I'll probably remember this game for what Wembe. B. did to Russ, which was basically tell him to fuck off multiple times. Like, Russ is a pretty scary figure, especially for, well, one, foreign players, because God forbid some of these American foreign players ever give them the benefit of the doubt, but also younger players, because he's a snarly motherfucker who's going to go up at you at any point. And to see Wemby basically be like, don't fucking, like, grab me while you're following me. You just don't do that. Don't go to the head. And then when Russ tries to go to the pat off. Wemby actually pats him

back. I'm like, hell yeah. That is the competitive spirit that we love to see. You are a guy who would appreciate a pat off. I could see you being a big like, I'm not touching you. I'm just putting my hand an inch away from your face. With a sibling kind of rivalry, I could see that for you,

Justin. No where he got that from. Chris Paul, who was like the ultimate don't son me in any situation. Do not come close to my head. That's his whole thing. Don't touch my head. Yeah. Well, that's the benefit of being Wemby, you will never be sunned. No one could ever do that to you.

That's true. Yeah, it's dope to see that. And all indications, again, I've never personally met Wembe Namba. You talk to people close to the situation is that he does have that maniac competitive fire spirit winner, win at all costs, want to rip people's heads off, wants to be the best. Like, he has that intangible within him, man. Like, this is not some, like, guy who, you know, like, of Lamar Odomer, pal Gasol, who it was like,

Kobe had to make me play hard. Like, that's not Wembe. Wembe wants to kill people stepping onto the court. He's holding his teammates accountable, hold himself accountable. That, to me, is one of the most exciting parts about this, is that he's a self-starter, a self-motivator. And Russell Westbrook, I'm sorry, bro.

You're like, you're not going to punk me. You're not, like, I'm here to kill people. Sorry. I think it's worth noting with Russ, too, not only is he as surly, as you mentioned, JV, but he is a guy who, if you are Victor's age, Russ has been a huge deal. He's a hero, yeah.

He has been a huge deal on the NBA landscape. Like, this is the era of players now who grew up watching his MVP season and his all-out, balls out, like post-KD era. That's a guy you don't take lightly. Even knowing kind of what the last few years of his career have been like and what some of the situations in the way they've sort of petered out.

Like, he's still a ball out of a cannon every night out. And he is still a guy you don't want to mess with in certain ways. Yeah. Stefan Castle doesn't need to run through Wemby's chest in like a NBA cup game or, what is it, the Euro League finals sort of games. What am I,

what am I reaching for? Are you reaching for the Kobe, like OA versus Powell? Is that what you're reaching for? Yeah. First played a game. World Cup games is what I was reaching. Yeah.

So we don't need any of that. Wemby's got that going for him. My biggest takeaway from this as a result, of this is that the spurs should not rush the process. And so I think there's been talk about maybe Deeran Fox being in the mix for him. And I think Deer and Fox would be a great fit. In theory, just the competitive edge, he would be able to step up as a guard compliment to Wembe in sort of these high leverage situations right now. It was Devin Vassell in that second game. Did okay, but like, you know, you'd probably rather have Deeran Fox who's gone toe to toe

with Steph Curry in a first round playoff series as opposed to Vassel. But everything is just built in San Antonio as an incubator for Wembe. And you could just see even in between like the start of the season and now, even like a month or two and now, just the amount of growth he's made. And like, I'm not touching that. I'm not disrupting what is basically an entire organization built to foster this one guy and make the optimal contacts for this guy. You bring in Chris Paul, You bring in Harrison Barnes, veterans who have paid dividends and just like stabilized things in order to feature him. Even like some of the young guys, they just don't step on Wemby in a way that a veteran with preconceived notions about how he wants to play and how he wants to go about things isn't going to do. And so like I like Fox as a fit.

I think you'd be great there. I just don't want to disrupt the Wemby growth process. And I would hope that the Spurs, and they probably will do this, go through the season and then maybe think about it in the offseason or even later on. Well, you're not turning this thing into a pressure cooker either, which I think is so important. Like the way we talk about the spurs versus the way we talk about, say the Minnesota Timberwolves, that's a team that drastically accelerated its timeline despite how young aunt still is. And as a result, we look at Mike Conley and we're like, this guy looks unplayable in some of these games. Is what Mike Conley and what Chris Paul contribute of radically different quality or worlds?

No, like they're both caretaker point guards and dramatically. different situations. I think Chris Paul's able to engineer more than Conley is in part because of his role. But it eases the load on everybody, including Wemby. Like right now, Victor Wem and Yama is learning how to exploit those guys, little guys in the post, like Waz's saying. And that's one thing I love about this sort of like home and home or whatever kind of back-to-back format you have against teams. You see him learning game over game how to take Russ on the block, how to take Peyton Watson on the block a little bit, although Peyton Watson really acclimated himself pretty well defensively we should say in that match.

I thought he did a great job. Yeah. But I love seeing that growth from Victor Webbenyama of, okay, not just how do I do this in general, but how do I do this against specific personnel? At this point, he's a little loose with his passing sometimes. He does settle for some shots over the top because he can get to them so easily. But you notice kind of over the course of this season, Victor settling into a real comfort zone in that like free throw line extended elbow kind of pull up area.

And if he's doing that right now, that's found money. If he's doing that when you are expecting to be the number three seed because you traded for Deerrin Fox, everything feels a little bit more charged in a way that I don't know is productive to the enterprise. I think the ant example is an interesting one too because, you know, they accelerated the timeline with the ant situation by bringing Rudy Gobert and Conley and all of that stuff. And they end up getting to a conference finals, but then consciously decelerate. trade their second best player, make themselves materially worse for financial reasons. And I think we see Ant is, like, frustrated by the clear and obvious step back that the wolves have taken in the Western Conference pecking order.

And you want, and I think that's what DeAaron Fox would be. I think it'd be two things. It'd be one, I think you're getting Wemby into bigger games faster, you know, making him taste playoffs, actual competitive series, playing in the biggest moments, faster. But then that becomes the standard for what he wants and how he thinks things should be going. And so you wonder if they're just like, yo, we'll do this incrementally, take it step by step. And when Wembe gets into big games, like, it'll be great.

But we don't need to rush it. I just, me personally, I just want to see this guy on the biggest stages as soon as we can. you know, and I can understand why the Spurs would be like, look, man, organizationally, we got time to take here. I would also say as a fan of this whole experience, like, this is the best, period. It's like there are expectations coming, but they're not necessarily weighing on anything he's doing. And so it's all found money.

It's like he's over exceeding what you would probably expect because he's not human. He just does things that like regular players cannot do. And so like just watching the growth process day to day, like week to week, it's It's just been a hell of a ride. Have you guys looked at the Wembe MVP odds lately? I'm here on Fandul. He's plus 10,000. What do you think?

Are you ready to snatch that up? No, well, here's the thing. Is that an official JV minted pick, Wembe for MVP? No, I don't want to mess with my Spurs playing bet, which I feel pretty good about these days. It's looking quite good. I hope you guys are like searching out berets. Just relax. Well, I almost wonder should I double down?

and go with Wembe on the top five MVP ballot because I think he's got a shot here. If only because the games played, the 65 game role now these days, might just like chop some guys legs off. Yeah, like so I think very clearly, Yokic, Yonis, Shea, in some order is your top three. Probably going to be that at the end,

if they play enough games. She's Ketim. Tatum will be on there. I think Mitchell almost certainly will be in the mix, if only to give credence to what the calves are doing, kind of give a tip of the hat to him. And then it's like Brunson, cat maybe. I think Wemby's right in the mix.

So if anything, he's like right on the edge of five, that if any of those guys missed the mark, he's at five. So I think there are good odds for that. I think if there were any justice in the world. And if, and I say this as a voter often, uh, if people voted on MVP as a holistic basketball award, if we're giving Wemby defensive player of the year

at the end of this season, and he's a really good offensive player too, he's deserving of MVP consideration, point blank. But the way MVP is often awarded is who is the best offensive player in the league. At least that's the way a lot of voters lean and vote. That's the tiebreaker in almost all cases. It's the way it should be.

Offense is harder than defense. I agree with you. He's also the star of their offense. Yes. And not the star on the level of Nicola Yochic. I think this matchup illuminates some of the differences between them. Like one of these guys is putting up 40s

and is doing it while orchestrating everything around him while picking out every individual matchup to attack. Wembe is doing stuff we've never seen before. And that makes it hard to contextualize sometimes. It makes it hard to understand how many threes he should be taking. Is he in the right offensive role? Is he doing everything he can and should do? And what is that worth against guys like Donovan Mitchell

and Carl Anthony Towns? These really established stars who we have a better understanding of? I think all of that kind of weighs against him. him in some certain ways. But based on what he's done so far, he's deserving of that consideration. I think the spurs are probably not going to be good enough to get him into the actual MVP running,

but could he get on the ballot? I wouldn't be shocked. Yeah. We'll give him best original screenplay, which is what we do. We get for the up-and-comers. The NBA. Can't get best director.

No shot. I'll get defensive player of the year. Maybe second team, all NBA. I would assume second team all-emé because we're chopping up or we're going positionless nowadays. So pretty good. And other news over the weekend, Kauai, he's back.

I don't know, was is L.A. a buzz with Kauai making his return after 2503 days on the sidelines? Is L.A. a buzz? A gag, perhaps? Not that I could see. A gag? Yeah. Not that I could notice. I actually, because Kauai came back on Saturday, I actually saw.

saw somebody, a friend of mine Saturday after the Clippers game, they mentioned being at the game, said nothing about Kauai's return. So, yeah, I don't think anybody is a buzz that a guy who just basically never stays on the floor finally came back for one freaking game. Like, I think, you know, if he gets a nice little streak of quality basketball going, people will get excited again. I'm not going to let myself be excited for anything Kauai related because, like, I don't. just don't believe in his ability to stay on the floor.

But it's nice for now while he's here. You're not even going to get excited about the extensive new balance rollout for his return. It's just, come on. Did you see he has like some movie coming out or something that he dropped at the postgame press conference? Yeah, he teased it. I guess there was some extensive production around this whole like fishing concede or something. I don't know what's going on. Jesus.

Can't sound super interested in that part of things. because I wish Co-I Leonard well in all of his business endeavors. Athlete executive produced media. Boy, oh boy. Yeah, I have to say, I thought it was a fine return, which I guess is what you can expect after you've been off for what, damn near a year at this point. Moved a little bit more rig or mortisey than I would have liked.

Definitely was quick to fire up threes, almost as like a point of emphasis, like, I'm back. Let me just fucking get in the mix here. but the clippers look good, you know? And the one thing that I keep thinking of is that they do have a lot of live bodies around the James Harden and now Kauai combination where it's just like, so yes, is Kauai standing in the corner while they're all cutting off of James Hardin, putting the ball at the top of the key?

Because that's what they've been doing for an entire season. Yes, but I almost wonder if it works down the road where if like if you have the Kauai option, if you could just swing to one of the best isolation scores in the past five years, like, I see it. I keep being optimistic about it. Yeah. They blew out the Hawks who didn't have James Johnson, Jalen Johnson in this game.

But, you know, they're playing good basketball right now. Well, Hawks games without Jail and Johnson aren't canon, and we don't recognize them. But I agree with you that, yeah, clearly, having someone like Quile Leonard on the floor is helpful, even if he is just standing in the corner. Where I talk myself in circles is in the overall value of the movement and the cutting that they have a,

established and the identity that they have established and how clearly he doesn't really fit into that stuff at all and i'm not sure that he ever will uh and maybe that's fine a movement based player certainly not since like his spurs era like early spurs era that it's been a long long time since kawai linnard was an active engaged like moving offensive player without the ball so it's not really what he does maybe that doesn't matter especially when you think about you know they're taking derrick jones junior out of the starting lineup and just the threat of kawai as a spot-up shooter in the corner versus even Derek Jones Jr. cutting is pretty dramatically different. And if you can get the defense to tilt it all in a way that benefits James Harden and Norm Powell,

great. I think that could be healthy for overall, like, the balance of their offense. I just, I'm just not sure. I will, I'll give Kauai credit in this way. Yeah, he wasn't moving super well. And he's clearly not fully actualized. Don't even pass the ball in this guy's direction when he's guarding somebody level of Kauai. But he doesn't let you get away with easy. stuff. Like just like easy little entry passes you may throw away. Like things that you take for granted, he will pick off and rip from you. And that's true even now with him kind of inching back into form. Yeah. And even four years ago it was the case that like when he'd come back from injury, like it wasn't like he'd come back in two games in. He'd be back to himself. Like it's going to take

some time for him to get used to, you know, to get his win to figure out what spots he wants to choose like it's going to take him a little while to figure out where he wants to be on the floor on a given possession um and how his how his body is responding to that like and so you know his it's one game i think he's going to figure out a way to be more a bigger contributor um i just wonder how much that's going to add to what this overachieving clippers team is already doing i don't think this takes them from overachiever to like legit team i just I just can't see that for them in the future. It was pretty stark when Derek Jones Jr., who he supplanted in the starting lineup,

would get into the game, and he's running and he's dunking. He's just, like, flying through the air practically. And then you cut to like a Kauai set, and he's, like, waving off in the distance while everybody's, like, having fun, like doing actions and cutting off the ball. It's just like, it's definitely going to take a while to work him into the mix here. But I don't know. I think that they have something with this team. So we'll see.

I still feel pretty bullish. Honestly, I don't know if you guys saw the Lakers this weekend. Like, Lakers have also been playing pretty well. They ultimately lost the Rockets, Men Thompson also flying through the air regularly in that game. But, like, L.A. teams are back. Big athleticism gap, though, between the Lakers and the Rockets,

which that's most teams. A million percent. I feel like, you know, the physics, like the rockets are just physical and, like, get after you. And the Lakers are just like old. Let me wear you down with the RON 3.0. that he just jacks up, yeah. Yeah, it's just such a stark contrast.

But yeah, the Lakers have been better on defense recently. It's a nice development for them. And in the Justin Verrier honorary, they're in the mix consideration. Like, you know, they do find themselves in the mix. And maybe we pooh-pooed you a little prematurely, JV, on both the Lakers and the Clippers, as much because the Lakers are playing better overall, the Clippers do have something to look forward to,

if nothing else, in trying to incorporate Kauai. And a lot of these other teams that were looking really good in the West at the start of the season have petered out, have had guys who got hurt. Like other than OKC, and I would say to some extent Houston and Memphis with its like mass unit style, those are the three teams that have separated themselves. Everyone else has really substantial questions or injuries or gaps they're trying to fill or like existential crises of varying degrees. And if the Lakers and the clippers can kind of take that void and take that oxygen at this point in the season, maybe they will end up. in the mix as much as they are right now. I think any sort of incremental improvement at this point in the season is going to distance yourself from a team like the Warriors or the Timberwolves who are slowly, slowly sinking

off and fading into the distance and we're never going to talk about it. They're about to fade. Anthony Edwards. Hello? Yeah. They're fading into Bolivian for sure. Do we have thoughts about Anthony Edwards talking about being 23 years? and being like, I want to fucking shoot.

Why are these teams double teaming me? It's a little annoying that I have to be a playmaker so often. I don't even think he was saying why they do. He's just like, this is my life. I don't want to do this. Like, I don't want to play this way. This is a horrible way to live. But like, the way our offense is set up is, you know, it's whatever.

I think, you know, look, the guy's 23. It is a bit sign of immaturity to be like, you know, the passing shit works. But like, that's not how I want to play. Like that's that's an immature way to look at it. And to chase it with 53 points and a loss to the pistons is really perfection. I have to say. Why don't we pause it there? Because we'll get to the walls on the next pot.

I have something cooked up for them. Oh, please. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely. Thank you to Ben Cruz. We'll catch you next time on group chat on Thursday. See you.