The Ringer NBA Show - The Point God Is Stuck in Trade Purgatory | Group Chat

Episode Date: July 18, 2019

Chris Paul is reportedly “parked” in Oklahoma City. So how good will the Thunder be? (2:11) Plus: a way-too-early look at the FIBA World Cup (25:50) and a way-way-way-too-early index of 2020 championship contender tiers (39:19). Host: Justin Verrier Guests: Danny Chau, Jonathan Tjarks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. It's the season finale of Big Little Lies on Sunday, so make sure to check out our final episode of our live after show with the ringers Amanda Dobbins and ESPN's Mina Kimes. You can tune in on Twitter to Big Little Live right after the episode ends. Also, this week's 2019 Open Championship marks the final major championship of the golf season. So check out Fairway Rowland where Joe House is joined by a cast of Ringer and Golf World personalities for everything you need to know heading into the weekend. You can find new episodes on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Basketball is very good. The Warriors are still the best team in the league.

Kyrie will be a great locker room die in Brooklyn. R.J. Barrett's ceiling is a sixth man. Basketball is very good. Hello and welcome to the Ringer NBA show. This is the group show. Yeah. Isaac told me to do that. I'm Justin Varyer with me in studio.

The bug enthusiast himself, Danny Chow. It's been literally 20 seconds since I've seen you. This is great. We're back. And joining us from Dallas calling in one Jonathan Charks. What's up, Charks? What's up, guys? Hopefully this podcast won't be quiet as dated as soon as we, as last week's.

That's right. Charks and I last week recorded on Russell Westbrook kind of trying to figure out where he was going to go. And then a couple hours later, he went to the, he went to the, Houston Rockets. So that really worked out here. Today we're going to talk a few things here. It's kind of a dead time in the NBA, but all of a sudden we have some stuff to talk about. Yeah, we were like actually trying to figure out what we were supposed to be talking about.

And then within 10 minutes of us being like, there's nothing to talk about. We got some things. Yeah, we have some things to talk about. Partly because Charks is forcing us to talk about the Feeble World Cup in late July. Yeah, six weeks in advance. So we will get to that with Charks. we will also talk Danny and I about some tiers

of contenders based on what happened in free agency. But first we're going to talk about Chris Paul, the one leftover guy here after all of the free agency bonanza. ESPN reported yesterday that the Thunder's discussions to move Chris Paul are quote, parked.

Parked. Interesting choice of word there. I mean, I've heard stalled in the past. I've heard maybe held up, but parked. That's a new one. Parked is like truly you are stationary. Like you are, you are done. Like, you know, until... So I guess you can kind of assume that that means they're probably going to wait until

teams are able to kind of make their moves December 15th, right? Right. So the issue that the Thunder are in now is Chris Paul makes a ton of money. He also perhaps is not as good of a player as he used to be. I don't know if you guys are familiar with this. The problem is, as Bobby Marks outlined for ESPN, is there's a functional difficulty that exists right now outside of whatever sort of package is worthy of trading for Paul here. 40% of the players in the league who are under contract right now, Mark says, cannot be traded specifically because they just sign new deals. It takes until December 15th that Zanis was alluding to in order to trade them yet again. There also isn't a lot of cap space out there left.

I think there are only two teams with cap space. And they're in terms of trade exceptions. So the ability to trade for a player without trading anything back to match the money, there's really only Golden State who has a 17 million trade exception, and Dallas who has an 11.8 million trade exception. Nowhere. Noor near enough money. So as Woj writes, the increasing expectation exists, yet another interesting phrasing, that he will start the season in OKC.

So that kind of begs the question here. And Charks, we can start with you. Is OKC any good with Chris Paul still? in there? I'm kind of buying this team right now. So I was like breaking down the death chart before we did this. So I'm looking at, so their star is going to be Chris Paul,

Shea Gillis Alexander, maybe Andre Roberson if he's alive. I don't know about that one. We'll see about that. Danilo Golanari, Stephen Adams. Like that's a legit starting five with five players who fit kind of well together. I mean, it's a nice little team.

Yeah, but Danny, is it? I just, I just think this This is like an incredible fall from grace for our guy, Chris Paul, or maybe not our guy. Actually, we have the resident Chris Paul Hater and Charks on the line right now. It's just like he went from being the second option on a title contender to, hmm, maybe if we put him on this like aggressively mediocre team that doesn't really have an identity, it might stretch his career for another two or three years. Sure. Wait, I want to pause here. Charks, what do you have against Chris Paul?

I just don't like watching short guys who hold the ball all the time. It's not, that's not the kind of play I like to watch. Wow. So you're sizest? Is that what you're telling me? Very much so. Yes.

So here's my thing with Chris Paul. So Chris Paul very short, right? And I think watching him play, he thinks like, oh, because I'm shorter than you, I have the license to, like, foul you and, like,

just cheat whatever I feel like it. Yeah. Which I don't really appreciate. So, like, playing pickup ball, I'm a six four. I'm posting him a six-foot guy. I'm going to get assaulted. I know what's going to happen.

Because the guy's like, oh, this guy's bigger than me. I can just attack him whatever I want. Like, no, man, basketball is a sport about finesse and skill. It's not this, like, constant grabbing and holding. Yeah, and I mean, watching him play and watching him grouse through a game is definitely not aesthetically pleasing. I guess when I'm looking at the depth chart here, the one thing that pops out is, are any of these players small forwards? And while the NBA's position list, it seems like more players are, like, what you want in a player is more a three type, let alone the players who aren't three types.

And so I'm a little confused because even if we look at their best backcourt situation, it's probably Chris Paul and Shea. Are those complementary sort of players? I think so. And if you look at the Clippers last year, SGA was basically playing the three. So they were starting Beverly Shamit SGA.

He's 6'6 with a 611 wingspan. Very smart player, really good defensively for a rookie. I mean, to me, there are worse situations than the Oklahoma senior at the three spot. Right. And I think the way we're projecting their starting lineup,

they have a lot of guys who can kind of cover for other guys. So like Gallinari is ostensibly playing the four. He's a much better three-point shooter than Roberson. Roberson is essentially their four guy in that he can't shoot and that he's probably going to be taking on the hardest defensive assignment. So the Thunder still have two guys who are non-factors in terms of spacing, but they do have three guys who are very good. So it kind of balances.

out. It becomes a nuclear like lineup. Isaac, tell him about Gallonari and they're sleeping on the middle Gallauds this year. Gallow's good. Gallow's great. I don't understand why we're passing over Gallow like that. He probably should have made the All-Star team last year. If he was in the East, he definitely

would have. Him with Robertson is actually a really good pairing because Gallo he's big but he can't really defend fours, but he plays like a three on offense. Robertson can't shoot as we've already established, but he can play incredible defense on basically any position outside of center. I feel like that's a good pairing.

Gallo is good. Listen, I guess my question is, is Gallo going to be on the floor? Is Andre Robeson ever going to be on the floor? And I think the Thunder Runner situation now that if they don't trade Chris Paul this season, I think they still need to get under the luxury tax. So I wouldn't expect this entire lineup even to be there next year. So it's confusing to me. I also wonder, I mean, they're kind of in this weird middle ground space

where the team itself is still pretty veteran heavy. But don't you want to lean into Shea is your kind of your focal point and let him make mistakes this season? First off, She doesn't make mistakes. I'm saying for a young point guard, this guy's like basketball IQ and a feel for the game is super high. I think you're overlooking two things. One, I think Chris Paul will be a lot better in a pick and roll system as opposed to like Houston asking him to ice it all the time. That was a tough look for him. They're like Chris Paul cook dude at 5'10 when you're 40 years old.

Like not the best look for his skill set. I think in Oklahoma City playing with a little more a rolling big man, SGA, Gallo. I think there's going to be space for him to attack the lane, throw lobs. And I really like the idea of Chris Paul mentoring Shea. If you go back and look at Chris Paul's history, Eric Bloodsoe is a perfect example of a young point guard who got so much better playing with Chris Paul. I think, I think Darren Collison, too, like, Chris Paul is a great point guard to learn from. Cheating aside.

And they eventually kind of adopt a lot of. of his, you know, positive traits. Like, Eric Bledso became a much more patient, much more methodical point guard compared to who he was to start, which was basically he was a guy who backed up John Wall at Kentucky with just this massive, like, ball of energy who didn't really know what to do. That's why we kind of called him Mini LeBron. He was, like, running all over the floor, like, playing a lot bigger

and playing a lot more athletic than he was. But, like, it wasn't until a few years down the line where he was like, Okay, yeah, this guy kind of has taken in and internalized a lot of Chris Paul's lessons, and he became a point guard. Yeah, that's the thing. He became a point guard. He was this just athlete who was this ace defender that the entire Clipper fandom just loved. Perhaps more than even Chris Paul. Is that fair to say, Isaac? 100%. But I guess you can look at how that ended, though, and Bloodsoul ultimately had to move on. Now, did the Clippers actually have to trade Bloodsoe? Perhaps not.

because he ended up in that signing trade where I believe they got JJ and Jared Dudley. So I do wonder what this alternate reality would look like if Bledsoe and Paul had stayed together. But I also think it was better for Bledsoe and that kind of ultimately is my point here. I do wonder like, what's best for Shea?

Because you have all these draft picks. So essentially that is your future and you want Shea to be the guy there. I do want to talk about Shea just quickly there. Charks, what is Shea's ceiling? Like how good couldn't this guy actually be? I've always loved his game. I think so I'm doing an article on him next week.

I think it's the plan. So that'll be three articles and three years on a Shay. I'm all on this guy. That's your corner. I was trying to think of it. Isaac, what do you think about this? A 6'5.6 Drew Holiday. Oh.

That sounds about right, man. I'm telling you, this dude is freaking nasty. Y'all don't even know about SGA. When he develops a three-point shot, I feel like that comp would be more accurate. I mean, he's guy. He doesn't shoot it very much, but he's on a bad shot. shooter. He's a very like, what's the word, selective? He's very selective. Yeah. I mean, watching him even earlier in the season, even in preseason,

the one thing that jumps off right when you're seeing him in person is how smooth he is. How everything just happens in the flow of what he's doing, which doesn't seem like the type of skill that can be taught. It's just a natural court feel. I don't know what it is. Maybe he's just, he just has a high processing rate or whatever it is, but he just happens and just know where to go every time. I think that's important, especially if you're the one kind of setting up the offense. Also, I mean, he busted on the Warriors in the playoffs in one game. Yeah. That's really, really impressive. Now, before that, he struggled immensely. But basically what they ended up doing, the Warriors, they gave him all those shots, and he just drilled them, which is really important,

not only for, like, perhaps his development, but just like his confidence against a team like that. I guess the question is, as we're looking at this Oklahoma City roster, where would they fit in the West? because as we're seeing now, the West just keeps adding good teams. And if the Thunder are competent, that's just another tough team. The teams I listed here, and guys, correct me if I'm wrong here,

as already better than the Thunder, would be the Warriors, the Nuggets, the Lakers, the Clippers, the Rockets, the Jazz, the Blazers, and the Spurs. So that's eight teams. I'm not sure about the Spurs. I think that's pretty close.

Yeah, the Spurs are, we'll see what happens with the Spurs. Now that they don't have Marcus Morris, we'll see if they can, compete there, but they still have... Or the great Dariusburg, was it Davasperthans? Davos Bertans. Yeah, RIP, Davos Burtans. We hardly knew you as a stretch four.

Yeah, now he's on the Wizards. So we'll never hear from him again. Yeah, that's a tough one. Yeah, maybe the Spurs, but I mean, Murray is back and we'll see what him and Derek White could do together. The other teams in the mix, however, the Pelicans, the Kings, the Wolves, and maybe even the Mavs. I think the wolves definitely have the, how dare you just. the highest upside of those teams.

You said the wolves? The wolves have the highest upside, I would say. Especially if they trade for Chris Paul. Yeah. No, that's definitely the trade that I am kind of hoping for. Yeah. I mean, as we're looking at the West, I guess, the point is, there's just everyone is good.

And even the sons think that they're good. They are not, in fact, good. But they should be perhaps fiestier than usual. They'll be better, I think. I mean, then again, they won 19 games last year. It's hard not to be, church. That's fair. So have we just named the entire West?

No, the Grizzlies. The Grizzlies are the only team that definitively won't be good. I think the Grizzlies might be more fun to watch than this team. Yeah, that accounts are awesome. Yeah, that accounts or something. They're not going to a lot of games, though, so.

So the Thunder would have to beat the rest of the West, essentially. But see, here's the beauty of it. Like, let's say they're the 12th seed. That puts them in great spot for the lottery next year. Like, they're in a really, they're in a no-lose situation. As far as I can tell.

Yeah, no, they definitely have options, which if you're in this position where you're trying to reboot, you just want multiple pathways, which is what the Pelicans did with that trade package, and the Thunder just took it to the extreme by getting all these first round draft picks.

And honestly, as I'm looking at the landscape, looking at the kind of the blue chip prospect that each team got in some of these trades, I think Shay might have as much upside as any of them. Absolutely. I think I might prefer him over Ingram, even. I mean, after Ingram's blood clot thing for sure. Yeah.

But it does still seem like the Thunder will ultimately probably trade Chris Paul. If not now, then perhaps in the middle of the season, maybe at the deadline, or maybe even next summer. I mean, I don't even think they're in a big rush if they're not going to get anything useful because they're probably going to be paying the same amount this season, even if it's in expiring contracts. You're just assuming that you're going to be paying this amount of money. But the one intriguing possibility that seems to be popping up here is just the Miami

heat. they seem to be the team waiting in the wings and they are the most natural fit because they are a team with a lot of contracts that they could just send the Thunder's way and they also have aspirations to be better than they are now that they have Jimmy Butler. I just think this is really fun into me

because Miami like completely whiffed on the 2016 and 2017 free agencies. They signed a bunch of fringe players to really bad contracts and it looked like they were going to be stuck in purgatory forever but here they are probably the only team with the kinds of bad contracts that you need

to trade for a Supermax superstar. And so I kind of love this idea of like the league always having like these imbalances where look, even if you try to take away tanking there are new ways to tank. Miami basically tanked to have the opportunity to get a start. Yeah, I mean as we've seen this summer in particular,

you need contracts in order to get a player. Yeah. It's just how the math works. What I think is interesting, and this is something Charks brought on before we got on here, is just it seems like there's a lot of posturing going on, perhaps, from both side here. Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, who's plugged into the Miami situation, reported the other day that the heater willing to take back Paul's deal. And now, already the phrasing is they're doing the thunder, a service here. But the thunder would have to send them back their two 2021 and 20203 picks that they traded away. That's awfully generous of them.

Yeah, right. So they want things back for taking on Paul, but I assume the Thunder's position would be, well, actually we're helping you out because all the players that were probably taking back aren't very good. I think it's, let's talk about that possibility, though. I mean, is a heat team, Charks,

with Chris Paul any better? I think so. I think if you have Chris Paul's number two off Jimmy Butler and you keep some of your athletes on defense, that might be the third best team. in the East, right? Yeah, because that's the counter to all the West team

stacking up here is you're looking at the East. We assume... Kind of open. Yeah, we assumed coming out of the first day of free agency that the East was going to be stacked.

Looking back on it now, it's really just the bucks and everybody else. Like, the Nets are a year away. The Sixers, too. There's still a lot of injuries to account for. So we're looking at the bucks and Sixers

as like locked in, you know, top tier teams. After that, it gets kind of nebulous. Which is fun. but then again, like a lot of these teams there isn't a ton of room to grow. So perhaps the window is really there for the heat. I'm not a big Jimmy Butler fan,

but he'll make them better in the immediate. What other teams, I think, is an interesting conversation to have, if not Miami, would perhaps be like in the mix for Chris Paul, who would make sense, Danny? I mean,

I'm just thinking about how Bledso was such a net minus for them in the playoffs for the bucks. And you, you immediately slot Chris Paul in there who might not be able to hold up physically, but you know, in the playoffs

you can count on him to hit a three. That's huge for them. So this is a real circle of life happening where Chris Paul de places Eric Letso here. Charks, anybody that you're interested in? Yeah, I just think the Milwaukee one makes a lot of sense. Like, I'm thinking

like a pick and roll with like Paul and Janus. So like Chris Paul can't beat switches right, but if you switch that, it's good at the ball to Janus. And then if you give Paul a link, that's oops all the time. That makes a lot of sense to me. And then you can go like, Chris, so I looked at the numbers, it would be, if you trade like Bledsoe, Ilyasova, Robin Lopez, and a couple of like the fringe guys, I think

can get just enough. It'd be a losing lot of depth, but then you could still go like Paul, George Hill, Middleton, Janice, Lopez. That's an interesting team. I guess the issue there is just Eric Blentzo just. signed an extension. So he's on the books now for three more seasons, including next season, 2019, 2020, and then he has a partial guarantee for the following season, only for $3.9 million. So in fact, I think it goes one year longer than Chris Paul's deal. So I guess you're just assuming

that the Thunder would want Bledsoe back in that situation. It would be... Maybe you could get like a DJ Wilson, someone like that. Just something is sweeten the deal, yeah. I guess it would chop up the money. So, I mean, Bluetso's deal next year, according to Spot Track, is $15.6 million. So it's more palatable. You can deal with that, and perhaps, like, if you kind of resuscitate his value,

maybe you could spin him forward to something else. He's a clutch guy. So maybe you start with... There's always a place for clutch guys in the NBA. We keep saying that, though, but it keeps, like, it keeps going against what our conventional wisdom there is. Like, did the Lakers really end up with many clutch guys, but

beyond KCP? well I mean everyone else left right there's that and they also didn't have money so it really would have been like extreme negligence on the part of Rich Paul had he just like only gotten minimum deals for the Morris brothers and whatnot but that was the assumption I guess the other interesting team on the board here is Washington

because we don't really know what Washington is doing Bradley Beale Wildcard yeah yeah Danny this seems like your pet project would you train Paul for Beel and Wall? Is this what's happening? I think it'd be Chris Paul for John Wall.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, was this, Charks, Charis? This is your, again? Yeah, this is actually Ben Rubman at the Steppi and had a good article about this. And basically, the idea would be, if you package Wall, like a first-round pick for Chris Paul, and then, like, it allows Washington to fight for, like, a six-seed,

which is all I really want to do anyways, with Beale and Chris Paul. Hmm. It would definitely be something, I guess. It would be something. Although Wall is probably the only contract worse than Chris Paul in Westbrook in the NBA. Maybe you get two first-round picks out of there. Yeah.

I don't know. Yeah. The other one, which I think is interesting is San Antonio. I just think San Antonio is interesting for any player who perhaps, like, has diminished over the past year or so, because we just assume that they'll find the appropriate usage for them.

They made a range killers. The Dominique Wilkins rule. Yeah, exactly. But I do wonder, I mean, they already have Dejante Murray, so I'm not really sure. what would go on there. I mean,

The Wolves is the only other option I would throw out there. For the same reasons, we talked about the wolves was Russell Westbrook. I just think it makes a lot of sense to pair Carl Anthony Towns with an adult who can run the pick and roll,

who could take some pressure off of them, who's willing to concede to him is the number one guy, but perhaps could still be maybe like the leader on the team. There are another team that has those kind of beefy mid-tier contracts. You have Teague, you have Gorgie Jang out there.

You can build a package around that. I don't know if that's necessarily what, you know, Gerson Roses wants to do, but like, you know. Yeah. It's there. Another name drop for Gerson Roses. If this guy just completely screws up in Minnesota, the one thing he'll have is

name recognition. That's all you need in this world, Danny. Justin knows about that. You can recognize in bars now. Tell him the story. It's funny. I was at a bar on Tuesday night, and the server asked me, are you Justin Vary? And I was like, I am, yes.

And he's like, oh, I'd seen your YouTube videos. It was like, oh, really? You were the one guy who's doing that besides my mom. He was very complimentary, and I appreciated that. There's only the second time that's ever happened to me in L.A. But you were on a date, though, so even better, there was a real little assist. Yeah, it definitely helps. I'll say that.

Danny gets recognized all the time because he's a food superstar. Do you? So this was before, I think, I started working at the ringer, but I remember wearing, like, my grant hat to the opening of a show. Shake Shack in Hollywood. It was the very first day, I walked up, and the guy pouring my beer is just like, you're Danny Chow, I'm a big fan of your work. Here's one on the house.

Whoa. Yeah, I got two beers. I got two beers. Yeah, I didn't get a free beer. I mean, we are in the room right now, Danny and I, with the biggest celebrity on campus here. That's true. That's a good point. And that's ice superstar Isaac Lee.

I'm not even going to acknowledge this. I'm shaking my head. Yeah, this is literally just us talking about how cool we are. It's definitely not true. None of us are actually that cool. Isn't that every podcast we do? That's great. All right, we'll take a quick break here,

and we're going to talk about the Feeble World Cup for some reason. For some reason. Today's Ringer NBA show is brought to you by Pointsbet, New Jersey's premium sports book. You may have seen these guys talked about here on the Ringer, ESPN, the New York Times,

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Good karma payouts that were fun, bad beats, never before seen bet types like NBA head to win totals. Who's got more Ws next season? Bucks or 76ers? And if you don't see a market you want, just tweet your bet to at PointsBet USA with the hashtag name a bet and they'll price it up for you. PointsBet asked us to name a bet. We picked out Ben Simmons in honor of our friend Chris Ryan, specifically how many three pointers Ben Simmons will hit next season. I believe he had 11 total in his first year in the league, although most of them are kind of just all of them.

BS, half-core, heaves sort of shots. Three last year, some of which perhaps were even credible three-pointers. that he intended to take. But Tobias Harris mentioned that his three-point shots looking pretty good. Yeah, we'll see what happens there. Our over-under is set at 19.5 three-point attempts for Ben Simmons next year, and both over and under priced at minus 110. Danny, where are you going?

Believe it when I see it, under. Wow. See, I think he will either go under and stay the same as he had or go way over. because, as we mentioned in today's episode, it seems like the Sixers need some three-point shooting. They have a lot of these big guys, some of whom perhaps aren't the most accurate three-point shooters. There's just not a lot of physical space on the floor,

so they need spacing, and so Ben Simmons better provide some in some way. Hey, man. Again, I'll believe it when I see it. So I would say the over, bang the over, and that is my advice to you. New Jersey only must be 21 plus. Additional terms and condition apply. gambling problem, call 1,800 gambler points bet. Stay sharp. And now back to the show.

We're back. It's Danny. It's Charks. It's the Iceman. We're going to talk some Feeba World Cup in July. I think the big thing here is it seems like Team Canada, perhaps the most interesting team outside of Team USA, because of their collection of NBA players that they've built over the past few years. They announced recently who is going to training camp for them. And there are some interesting names here. Not Andrew Wiggins. Not him. What was the reasoning for that? They say why? He doesn't want to do it?

It feels like this is not the right time for him. It was very vague. Yeah, so Rowan Barrett. That can mean anything. So Rowan Barrett, who is R.J. Barrett's father, who I believe is in charge of this whole thing in Canada, he suggested some vague reasoning for why. He's moving out Wiggins.

Take RJ's spot. Yeah, I can't have a little. He's got to go. The cool thing about this team, Canada team in terms of the participants in this training cap, six of them came from the NBA draft this year. Whoa. Yeah. So the team of the future. It's a lot of, a lot of future talent and a lot of talent that they're hoping can kind of, you know, carry them for the next decade or so. So here are some of the interesting names on this list, R.J. Barrett, as we mentioned, Jamal Murray, Tristan Thompson,

Kelly Olick, Corey Joseph, SGA, our guy from the first segment, and his brother, his cousin, Nickle, Alexander Walker, there you go. Stouskas, back and better than ever. Brandon Clark, our Chow and Charks' boy. And Kem Birch! What a come up for a guy, Kim Burch.

He's back. He's better than that. That's like 10, what, 10, 12 NBA guys? That's ridiculous. And there are more here. I just didn't call out all of them. I guess the question is, is this the team, perhaps, that would be the biggest competition

to Team USA in the World Cup, which, by the way, is happening in late August. August 31st is when it starts. Sharks, take us through this. So I spent way too much time this morning going over these rosters. Surprising. First off, shout out to Andre Blatch on Team Philippines. Like, that to me is by far, that's going to be awesome.

Yeah, where's Rafe, Bartholomew? I think he should be out there. Yeah, I think he's in a lot. Is he on the team? Oh. I mean, covering it. Yeah. I think, I was looking at it.

I think the team that's probably the second best team is actually Serbia. they got Yokic there and Yokic is probably the best player besides James Hardin. They're one and two. If you have like a second best player in the tournament and you've got Bogdan Bogdanovich Milos Tiyadoci, Nemenza Bialica, they've got some really fun skill players.

They're going to be putting up points. And the other team is going to be probably France. So France has got Rudy Gobert, Evan Fornier, Nick Batum. That's a pretty solid core for a... They have a lot of length. They have a lot of scoring ability. And France has kind of stockpiled a lot of like rotation type players who can kind of slot in as like an athletic 3-and-D defender.

They have a bunch of those. I probably wouldn't discount the Russian national team. They kind of fell apart after David Blatt left. But all of their players are now at like the very end of their primes. Who do they have? Alexei Schwed. Oh, God. Nice.

You know, it's a bunch of guys who have been playing together for like a decade now. So I don't know. I always kind of believe in continuity for these like. international tournaments. I think it accounts for a lot. Do you think there's a natural rivalry? I can't say rivalry ever. I don't know why.

It's just impossible to say. Do you think there's a natural rivalry between Russia and the U.S. right now? Oh, my goodness. Oh, I see what you did there. Yeah. Okay. No, I'm curious. Like, are you interested in a Russia?

Not at all. Okay. Not at all. Where's Slovenia? Where's my guy, Luca? All I hear from you guys... They want Europe. basketball. Why aren't they here? I don't know how that works.

Are they not in the tournament? They're not in there. Croatia is not in here. Yeah, I wish I dug into the qualifier. Great. We're just not prepared. That's like peak chow, isn't it? Like, World Cup qualifying for basketball? Honestly, no. I don't even

know who you are anymore. It happens in like random times of the year. I don't know. Oh yeah. They changed it up. That's right. It's weird now. So another interesting one is just Australia. but unfortunately Ben Simmons isn't playing and it doesn't seem like oh, Kyrie isn't Australian. He goes for the USA team, right?

Sharks, help me out. I believe that's right. He's born in Australia, but he played for US in 20, I guess 2016. So yeah, so it's looking like Team USA it's going to have a pretty easy path here, which gives us an opportunity

to talk about Team USA. So it seemed like the big star for this team was going to be Anthony Davis. He missed the team a few years, ago because he had his first major procedure and he was really upset about that. I remember I was in that press conference and he was

getting a little teary because he wasn't able to go support Team USA. I think he was hoping to be the front line guy. This year he opts out. I think he gave yet another vague reasoning for doing so, but if you only have Space Jam 2. Yes, I imagine Space Jam 2 played a factor

in it, but also if you only have two superstars on your team, you probably want to take some time and And wrap yourself in like, you know, bubble wrap. Yeah. packing peanuts and stuff. So here's the list of guys who should be participating in training camp, which I believe is in early August.

You have James Harden. You have Damien Lillard. You have Kemble Walker, Bradley Beale, Tobias Harris, Kevin Love, Chris Middleton, Kyle Lowry, who just went through a minor thumb procedure, I believe, today. C.J. McCollum, Miles Turner, Eric Gordon, Harrison Barnes, Andre Drummond. also guys I think who are going to be in the mix but seem like long shots because I think this is their first year doing so. Kyle Kuzma

who apparently doesn't think the same way as Anthony Davis they should take this time off. Brooke Lopez. Big come up for our guy Brooke Lopez this year. Paul Millsap, Donovan Mitchell, Jason Tatum and PJ Tucker. Ooh, PJ Tucker. That's cool. That's a good scrappy guy to have him on these son of things. How much overrated

is PJ Tucker now because of how into the shoe thing he is. Like, I feel like I hear about PJ Tucker constantly, but I think a lot of it is just because I subscribe to like Soul Collector on Instagram. Look, man, we did a video with him. He was a delight. He was honestly, like, one of the best interviews, like, I've ever gotten in the NBA.

So, like, I have nothing but good things to say about him. And he's in the pocket of Big PJ. No, he's, Texas Longhorn, man. Gotta love it. He is quite a delightful human. I will say that. I don't know. What jumps out?

at you with this team charks. You forgot the wild card. Zion. Yeah, so it seems like Zion is going to play for the select team. It does seem like he could do something like Anthony Davis did. Right? The 12th man. He's really following in the footsteps of Anthony Davis.

Real big comparisons. How do you feel about that? As someone who has followed the pelicans for a bit? I feel fine because unlike when Davis got to the league, the Pelicans actually have things to go forward with. Sure. And they really just settled on their team a year after Anthony Davis played his first season, and that was it.

They really didn't improve much over the course of his next two to three years. And here we are when Zion Williams and having to take his place, I think Zion in international basketball will be fascinating. Oh, absolutely. And that's kind of why, like, one player on this team that, like, I don't think a lot of us think about too often, but who I think is going to be awesome in international play is Andre Drummond. Wow.

He's just an extremely wide body who's extremely athletic. He has a very clear role on this team USA team, and you could play a bunch of like dribble handoffs with him to take advantage of all your shooters. I think he's going to be a beast. Do you think he'll beat out Miles Turner for that starting spot? I think he honestly makes a little bit more sense as a starter than Miles Turner does, just because...

It's Coach Pop now, right? Yeah. Hey, Miles Turner 20-footers. that's coach pops. Yeah, I guess that's the question. How much do you need a center in this specific international environment? You gotta guard Yokic.

Offensive rebounds and like you gotta be able to knock the ball off the rim. Like that's Andre Jumman's forte, man. That's all we know about international. I mean, I'm saying if you put Drummond on Yocch, that's like 50 points. Yeah, I mean, so Drummond or Turner, perhaps both even, could get the

Tyson-Channler Memorial. We just need a big man in there. Just like just be big. Yeah. spot. It's interesting that Hardin is still in the mix here. We'll see if he ends up still playing on the team. He's trying to sell some shoes, man. I'm trying to. That is a big thing. Like, if you look at this list, there are some guys who are trying to make their mark. Jason Tatum is now a Jordan guy. Demian Lillard also, he is an Adidas guy who has his own signature shoe. And it's also probably exposure. You know, a guy like Bradley Beale probably has aspirations for being a frontline guy and all NBA guy. He gets his name out there. So you know a little bit more of my own. about them. There's going to be more

folks watching this than the Wizards this year, I'm sure. Even though this game was beyond like at 4 in the morning,

it'll be highly rated in the Wizards games. So who is the alpha for this team? If this is the pool we're pulling from,

who will ultimately emerge as the guy? I mean, I'm not counting on James Hardin being there. So after that, the pecking order gets really kind of...

It's got to be dame, right? It's not there. Yeah. And I think this is interesting. I mean, this is the whole thing about

the Michael Jordan Dream team. It's just like that it seemed like bird and magic magic more than bird didn't want to give up the reins as kind of the league being theirs but there's that famous

practice like scrimmage where Jordan just went at them and just like completely obliterated magic and all of a sudden they're just looked at each other bird and magic and they're just going to go well it's his league now we have to give it over I wonder there's that sort of thing happening here where one guy

always kind of emerges and it's really fascinating yeah but it's also like I don't associate Team USA success with James Hardin. So it's like, it's not necessarily the same like push and pull, I would say. It's a diminished pool, which certainly doesn't help. But, you know, there's still a lot of good guys here. And if Lillard does kind of take the reins, well, here's the question.

Is there ever a jump? We always talk about the Team USA bump. Like if a guy shows out in Team USA, does that translate to the season? I would assume, given all we know about sports science now, that it probably goes the opposite way where the guy probably did too much. during the summer, and I wonder especially if James Harden is staying on this team whether or not

like he would be best served doing so, considering that he has a tendency to flame out in the postseason? I don't know. It'll be interesting here. Charks, who's your guy that you're most interested in? Maybe not necessarily the alpha. Hmm, that's a good question.

I think Beal and Kemba is a big, like Kemba, right? Because this is definitely the most talenties that are played with since, I don't know, Yukon, probably. Yeah, that's right. So how is she going to kind of like, there you go, Yukon reference. Yeah, I mean, since Jeremy Land.

Yeah. Wow. His best team. I think for Kemba, like, yeah, like, how is he going to take a step back? How is he play other good players? And I'd be interesting to watch. I want to see these young guys. Does, like, does Donovan Mitchell make the team?

Does Jason Tatum make the team? Because this is kind of like jockeying for 2020. And of course, like, these teams, these are how guys become friends, right? K.D. and Kyrie became friends. playing for the Olympics. This is how the original Healds got started, right? The relationships you make here at these camps and these tournaments can have really long-term effects years from now in free agency.

The recruitment never stopped. So we'll be seeing Jason Tatum and Donovan Mitchell on the same team together in, oh, six years. So we're going to take another break. Charks, we're going to say goodbye to you here. It has been lovely, as usual. We will catch you next time. And then Danny and I will talk about some tears. Enjoy the video fame, boys.

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slash ringer MBA. And now back to the show. We're back. It's Danny and I. More of an intimate conversation than a group chat. Yeah, this is just our office chatter. Yeah, I know,

except we're actually facing each other, which is a little weird. We usually sit back to back. Butt to butt. But to butt. Okay. That's going to be our super group, rock group. Yeah. Isaac can cut that out. It's fine. I will not cut that up. Damn it.

All right. We're going to do a little bit of a survey of the league here, post-free agency. I think it's interesting now that things have settled, now that Chris Paul is perhaps the only guy left on the board here, who seems to be on the move, to kind of assess the landscape to see what we really have here. So I broke every team Every team that has a shot essentially Up into tiers Probably the best way to do this Is just to go through my tears, Danny And to see how you feel about them

Sure Just to evaluate my life essentially Which is basically our role in the office too So this should work well So title favorites I only have two teams I have the clippers And I have the bucks

Isaac is raising his hands In the background for the listeners I think the bucks are Easily there Just they have The most continuity in terms of what they have on their roster. They only lost Malcolm Brockton,

who was a huge loss, and I'm dying to see how this affects them, especially later on. We saw him be, you know, Milwaukee's best defender against Kauai. I wonder what happens when they lose that element. The Clippers, I mean, come on, this is a dream come true for most people.

Like, I have wanted to see two elite, two-way wings paired together for years now. and they finally did it. The only thing is, like, I think there's a little bit of an asterisk there because we're looking at two guys who have pretty serious health concerns over the past three, four years. How does that hold up? Yeah, you would hope that they would be better as a playoff team

than perhaps a regular season team, but as we were discussing earlier, the West is going to be thick with just good teams. And so I do wonder if seeding will ultimately matter a little bit more than it has in years past. The bucks are an interesting case. I think that I would assume that they would be worse than last year, specifically because of Brogden.

Sure. I do wonder how good Brooke Lopez will be going forward. It seems like we're just assuming that Brooke will be what he was last season for eternity, which is a little weird. I mean, he's one of those 82 game players, right? Yeah. You talk about 82 game players. You talk about 16 game players. He's going to be that guy for the regular season.

He's always been that guy. If not as a, you know, oversized shooting guard, than as a traditional center. He was always a guy who was able to put up, put up like 20 and 7. Yeah. He's always been a kind of a shitty rebounder, but you know. Right.

Well, it seems to have worked in Milwaukee. They also have the path. It's really just theirs for the taking. The only team as we'll probably get into here is Philly's really the only main competition. Are there any teams that I didn't mention that you would put as automatic titled favorites? I mean, there are just so many question marks

across the board. There's so much movement. Like, it's so hard to project. I think the reason why the Clippers kind of edge out all the other teams in the West for me is that they have the backbone, they have the depth. They still have their best, you know, two-man combination from last year coming off the bench in Lou Williams and Montrez-Harrell. Like, they can be innings-eaters for you in the regular season. They can come out, show out, and dominate for most of those games against, you know, lower competitions. It's once you get to the playoffs and once you're you get past that first round, second round, that's when you need Kauai and Paul George to be at their best.

I think the Clippers can cruise. Yeah. I mean, if Paul George has shoulders still, I think they'll be pretty good. I would almost have a tier of nobody as title favorites if I were to really do this and perhaps put the Clippers in box as the next tier. But underneath them, I have a list of contenders. I have the Rockets, the Sixers, the Lakers.

Does that feel right to you? Yeah. I might bump the jazz up. Wow, we're already here. The jazz love is happening. I just think they've made such, such strong improvements to their offense. And you can always build a regular season defense around Rudy Gobert. Like, that's just proven.

You can sustain an elite level defense with just him. He is a system unto himself, blah, blah, blah. What we see in the playoffs, that might change. But I think they're more built to play kind of small ball than they were in the past. it's a lot of tinging on Jeff Green, which is scary, but I think the additions of Mike Conley and Bogdanovich are amazing.

Yeah, offensively, they should have way more firepower, perhaps more firepower than they've had since Gobert has been there, which is scary to think. And the fact that there isn't, perhaps, this looming death lineup that I wrote about on the site a few weeks ago

for the Warriors, perhaps Gober can stay on the floor now. Unfortunately, it seems like the clippers could be the successor to that, where they could just throw out five wings who are just as dangerous offensively. And I mean, the Sixers could have, like, a reverse death lineup where it's just like,

everyone is big and everyone is skilled, and everyone can do a little bit of everything, and what are you going to do about that? What are you going to do about, like, having to guard four, six, ten players or taller? They're a fascinating experiment, especially in this era where everyone seems to be prioritizing, shooting, and in smaller players

in order to get that shooting on the floor. they also have, as everyone seems to forget, Ben Simmons, who could easily just become a top 20 player again if he just has a credible shot. That's just in the realm of possibility. Now, maybe that just never happens. That's certainly a possibility. But I think the fact that he's so talented,

and they have this guy on the scene, that just raises their ceiling so much. You have two guys on that team who can credibly defend Janus, two or three, if Simmons gets better. and beat has shown a little bit of ability on and off. Al Horford has definitely shown the ability to be able to guard Janus. That's basically who they're striving to beat. And so they've built a team that kind of make sure that they can account for the biggest elephant in the room.

Right. Yeah, I think it's interesting to look at matchups now because we have so many good teams that the matchups perhaps matter a little bit more. I also had the Rockets here. And I guess they would be in another team who could throw out a death lineup. the tuck wagon, it will probably be not as good as last year, but as Danny and I talked about at length on a video series that we did. Check it out. Check it out.

Go to the YouTube's. Apparently, bartenders in L.A. have been checking it out as well. Just an FYI. If they lean more into perhaps Russell as the ball handler in that situation where he has four shooters spread around him, perhaps it could work a little bit more. They have a lot to figure out with Hardin and Russ and the backcourt, obviously. But they still have the guts of the team that, was successful the past two seasons.

Absolutely. And if you're just looking at it from a very basic level, you're replacing a 34-year-old who was basically in shambles with a younger, more athletic, more talented player, not the easiest fit, but if you're just trying to go with Occam's Razor and trying to get the best talent available, they did it. Yeah.

And so some other teams here on the board, some teams that perhaps are sleeping that didn't make flashy moves this off-season, but they did make some of the right moves in order. to fill out what they already had here. The jazz, as Danny Mansion before, the Nuggets, an interesting one. Jeremy Grant, you know? Jeremy Grant.

The most underrated signing of the summer. He all of a sudden has become the new ringer guy. We've moved on from Oji, and we are welcoming Jeremy Grant as our Lord and Savior. A guy who has improved his three-point shot tremendously, an incredible athlete, one of the best athletes in the league. He can play the four. He can credibly defend three, four positions,

positions, that's exactly the kind of guy you want paired next to Yokic and hopefully as a successor to Millsap, who is probably going to be leaving at the end of the year. Yeah, I think the nuggets are an interesting test case of what we used to think about the league versus what we think about it now. For so long, we talked about continuity as being the biggest advantage for certain teams. I think the Spurs best represented in that. Then all of a sudden we accelerated the player movement. Stars started to team up a little bit more. They're, there were literally three as opposed to do. And I do wonder in this environment where we have two big stars,

whether or not something like that will matter more. On the other hand, I think we're assuming that Jamal Murray will take another leap. And while he is super young, he just got paid. So he just, I don't know if there's the same incentive there. And I just wonder, like, how much we should expect from it. Is he the type of guy who could lead this offense? Because they need that, as we saw in the playoffs. Yeah, I mean, he was so streaky in the playoffs.

and it was borderline infuriating to watch when you saw a much more efficient player in Malik Beasley. Like, I'm always going to be banging this hammer. But I totally understand like Murray has the kind of ceiling that Malik Beasley probably doesn't because of his tough shot ability.

You just hope for more consistency. That's really all you can hope for. Yeah. The other team I have here is the Trailblazers. I'm fascinated by them. It seems like they've done good work on the fringes in order to fill out that lineup they lost Alpharukamino.

Mo Harclis. Mo Harclis. They traded Myers-Leonard RIP to that era where we thought that Myers-Leonard was going to be a stretch five even though he runs

like he has weights attached to his legs. They brought in Hassan White side though it seems like they're looking at him more as a kind of low-risk proposition if he doesn't work out they could just kind of move on for him

and he's just a stop gap for Nirkich. I thought they did. good job, a good job filling out the wings here. They brought Rodney Hood back. Anthony Simons is apparently the next Michael Jordan. Yeah, and they took another swing in Nasir Little, who was a top three recruit last year, similar to Anthony Simons,

a guy who just didn't really show a lot in his one season in North Carolina, came off the bench, had a disappointing season overall, didn't really reach what people thought he was going to be. But he's a talent. He's definitely a talent, and he's the type of guy that the Blazers have shown that they've been able to develop. Yeah, they've bet on talent while having this existing contender, which I think is the right idea. Zach Collins is a guy that we're all interested to see what he does next year,

especially if they deploy him more as a stretch five type that they thought they had in Myers-Lennard. I'm out, man. I'm ready. Some of the other teams we have here, wild card is the big one, is the Warriors. I don't think they'll do well earlier in the season without Clay Thompson, who apparently now is their starting small forward. Yeah, look, I need Draymond to be chugging as much green juice as possible because he needs so much energy to keep this defense afloat next year. Yeah, we'll see if we'll see him at Soul Cycle in Los Angeles here. I'm actually going to my first cycling class on Saturday.

Nice. So maybe I'll see him there. Yeah, but I think we are sleeping on how good they could be later in the season. It's just a matter of what they can do earlier in the season in order to stay aflo. I'm assuming that they'll probably end up somewhere in the six to eight seed range as opposed to it. where they have been in the past, where they're just assured home court advantage almost throughout the playoffs.

The other two teams I just mentioned here briefly, who I'm labeling notable nopes, the heat in the Celtics. They're fine. Yeah, you know what? The thing that I'm most excited for with the Celtics, they're two rookies, I guess. They're two big rookies who showed out in Summer League.

Grant Williams, I think he can probably play himself into the rotation. Same with Carson Edwards, who can kind of duplicate a lot of what Kemba will probably be doing in the, the starting lineup. He can probably do in the second unit. Isaiah Thomas with hair is what I'm calling him. Okay.

So, just an FYI. Yeah, I don't think, I don't think these two teams are, you know, finals bound. I think they're kind of in that second round and out range. But sure. A lot of weird things can happen in the NBA. Yeah, I mean, the Celtics, I think defense is going to be a pretty huge concern, especially if they're going to use Ennis Cantor as often as I think they might. Mark is smart at center.

I think that's the move right here. That is the move right here. And our move is to say goodbye to you for this week. We will catch you next time. We'll perhaps have stuff to talk about in the NBA. Things will always happen. So we will see you then for Danny. I am Justin.

That's Isaac and Charks is somewhere in the ether. See ya. Basketball is very good. Basketball is very good.