The Ringer NBA Show - The State of the Bucks and Who Can Compete Against Team USA?

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

Kyle, Seerat, and Michael get together to discuss the state of the Bucks and whether their window as title contenders is starting to shrink, if Giannis can still carry the team, and where they’ll rank in the East next season (01:58). Then, they pivot to talking about Team USA, their takeaways from what they’ve seen on the court, and whether the gap between the U.S. team and the world is actually shrinking, then construct a lineup that would compete with them (28:52). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out rg-help.com to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: J. Kyle Mann, Seerat Sohi, and Michael Pina Producer: Eduardo Ocampo Additional Production Support: Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join me Danny Kelly along with Danny Hyfitz and Craig Horlebeck every week on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show as we prepare for the 2024 fantasy football season. We'll cover all the biggest news and topics across the league as well as whatever weird topics our listeners email us about. That's the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on Spotify. Folks basketball is so tremendously, so outrageously, so spectacularly good. And it is the summertime. Summer League has wrapped up transactional sort of warfare and Hullaboo, Bally. who is settling down. And it's a little slower right now,

but we do have some basketball to talk about. And who better to join me than two of the, two of my people that are like snark champions, I would say, two of my favorite people to cut, to chop it up with and to talk. One, I haven't laid eyes on in a while, and that's Michael Pina, who is in the throes of domestic life. It seems like you got a happy, healthy young family there.

Seems like that I see from day to day. And I have Seart So, he also on the call with me. Guys, how are you guys doing? Terrific, Kyle. So great to see your beautiful face. I'm awesome. I'm excited for this very special edition of the answer. We never really got the three of us in the same. Past and present. In the same recording, yeah.

I don't think the three of us have ever been on one together, right? Other than like the live Salt Lake City thing, we were all on together. Have the three of us ever actually been in the same room together? I think Salt Lake and then Sweden. I think those are the two times that we've been in the same place together. But Pina didn't do karaoke, though, on that trip, I don't believe. Seyrit did. I don't think so, right? You went home, right? I did not. I did not do karaoke. It's one of my great life regrets, to be honest with you.

If I could go back to that night, but, you know, it is what it is. So there's been a lot of moving and a lot of shaking going on this off season. The East continues to be, the East got a little tougher, I would say. Hopefully we get a little bit more interesting playoffs next time around. The West got a little bit stronger among the young teams. But there's an interesting team that, you know, won the title in 2020, kind of coming out of the COVID fog there, the Milwaukee Bucks. They are a team that in the shakeup, in the jockeying for supremacy, I wanted to kind of touch base because I kind of feel like they're a little bit of a forgotten team

in terms of it feels a little bit like maybe they've been left behind. It's sort of the vibe that you hear from the general media that maybe other teams have done a better job retooling recently. We wanted to do just a touch base on them and do a little bit of, you know, underrated, properly rated, overrated. I wanted to kind of just start with this question, because as I was evaluating them and just getting a temperature on where they are,

how do you guys think that they're, how are they rated, period, right now, regardless of how we think they should be rated? How do you guys think, what's the general vibe in terms of the narrative that you guys have detected as NBA experts on the Milwaukee Bucks? I think that they are properly rated,

leaning towards slightly underrated. And when I say properly rated, I guess I mean that they're behind the Knicks, behind the Sixers, behind the Celtics as legitimate championship contenders. And some, I will say that they're still legitimate championship contenders, despite being a Janice Santacumpo skeptic myself,

I like their offseason. I think they signed, they did what they could as a team in the second apron and signed some really solid-ish two-way players who compliment Damien Lillard and Janus. And we're going to probably get into this, but Chris Middleton having two ankle surgeries doesn't help things.

I don't know what his status is. Reportedly he will be ready to go at the start of the season, but that's not really what you want from your aging injury-prone key two-way wing. So, yeah, I'm, I'm trying to be optimistic about this team, but because of the off-season they had, but I don't know. What do you think, sir?

I mean, as far as the off-season goes, getting three positional upgrades in a year where you're above the second apron and you can only sign guys to the minimum. And then to be able to get Gary Trent, Jr. who, you know, probably in a different year where there were less strong role players available is a, candidate to get the full mid-level, getting him for the minimum 25 years old, great shooter. That's awesome. A feather in the cap of Damien Lillard's recruiting ability. I don't know how all of that went. Maybe it just came down to this is a team that he can actually start on and really rebuild his value.

But I think if he was to go to Denver, for example, would have been the same deal. Even if he didn't start, would have gotten a lot of minutes. Philadelphia, same deal. So pretty big win for Milwaukee to not only get him, but to prevent him from going to another potential contender, especially one that is in their backyard in Philadelphia. As far as where they are in the general championship contention race, I think that they are one of the biggest question marks because to me, everything really comes down to health for them, regardless of how they build around the margins.

This is just a team that, you know, they fell apart right before the postseason started. And Chris Middleton, a lot will come down to his health. Like, I mean, I feel too minds about him because, yes, two ankle surgery is not great, but at the same time, we just watched a playoffs where he basically dragged them to six games against a Pacer's team that, you know, made the Eastern Conference Finals in a, you know, an injury-ridden bracket, but made the Eastern Conference Finals. And, you know, that's that's not nothing. He was by the end of that series, like he had vintage Chris Middleton moments. He was hitting a ton of clutch shots. He had the game with like the two three-pointers. to send it to overtime.

He was Chris Middleton. And if he can be Chris Middleton, and if Dame Lillard, who has, you know, talked about last summer, been very candid about the fact that he wasn't working out because he was scared of getting hurt

before he got traded and was obviously dealing with a number of personal things going through a divorce, was, you know, out of Portland for the first time in his career. I think I expect him to have a better season. Like we have to remember that

he was putting up career highs before he left Portland. You know, he was, aging, but he's not one of those guys that look at his skill set and say, like, oh, it's all downhill from here, especially, I don't know, especially with the scale of how, uh, you know, how these guys have been able to elongate their careers. He's an incredible three-point shooter. I just, I feel like so much context-wise was going wrong for him last year. It would not be

unreasonable to expect him to have a bounce back season. Now, Pina, one thing that you kind of put in as a throwaway line was you are a Janus skeptic. I'm just, I was going to circle back to this, too. Yeah, yeah, I just, I want to take. I'm not anti or anything. I'm just, I'm curious. He's the spine. He's the spine of what they do. So I think that's an interesting place to start.

I mean, if we just assume that they're fully healthy, what's, I mean, just go, let's go ahead and just impact from the center here. What's, what's the skepticism? Do we still think that Janus is the type of superstar that can be the anchor of a, he's not necessarily a two-way O1D-1 type anchor. But what's, what's the state of Janus as a superstar leading a championship level team? I mean, you know, we do the top 100 list several times a year, and he's like number three or four on my list. So it's not like he's number 11 or 12. Let's get that out of the way.

But I just think he's got the finals MVP in his resume, which is tremendous. But what does he won one playoff series since then, I believe? And when you look at how this team is built, It's a combination of him kind of never really, I don't want to say never, but not really improving the areas of his game that have most needed to get better, particularly on the offensive end. But you combine that with, you know, like that shortcoming led to them making the Damian Liller trade. And the Damian Liller trade is kind of created this Achilles heel with the roster in a sense that they're always going to have a weak link on the perimeter who can be attacked in a playoff series. And I look at this team, I mean, I look at this team and I'm like, how is the perimeter defense overall improved from last year when they were in the bottom third of the league in defensive rating for the entire season? And do you need to make some type of more transformative transaction, including, I don't know, Brooke Lopez?

Do you need to just, like, change the structure of your team to kind of shore up what is your great weakness? So I like Janus. I'm not saying Janus is bad, but I think that his flaws have to be masked in ways that have created holes elsewhere on the team. Yeah, I think that's pretty fair. And I was going back and looking through the past few years of how Milwaukee has changed. You know, this past year, you kind of run the risk of like we were talking about, you know, overdoing it whenever you're like expressing your pessimism or skepticism on them because, you know, this past year they were fourth and points in the league.

They were fifth and three-pointers made. Offensively, there was a lot to kind of be happy about. But, you know, health-wise, like you said, Middleton missed 27 games. Janice and Dame together missed 18, and then Janice didn't play in the playoffs. So you start to kind of wonder if you're overstating how dire the situation is when you factor in what Siritt was talking about, that the Dame thing will stabilize a little bit

once he gets his legs under him personally, basketball-wise. And then that kind of doesn't even mention, like, sort of the chemistry stuff on court in terms of their, everybody talked a lot about, like, oh, like the drags in transition, the pick-and-roll type stuff. The biggest thing that's been noticeable for me, you mentioned the defense, Pena, is that, like, the role that that plays into the thing that, the thing that, like, was Janus's superpower, the thing that they did that was the most sort of, like,

difficult thing to account for was they were just, like, one of the most incredible transition teams in basketball over the past few years. If you look at, like, that 2019-20 team averaged 23.1 transition possessions per game, And that was down to 18.1 in 2020, 23, 24. So because we've been on this team, we'd been on this kick of like just trying to pressure them into becoming a better half-court team. I was really obsessed with them, like,

for the love of God, sealing the deal on that Bogdanovich deal a few years ago because I thought that he made such so much sense for them in the half court. But the defensive, there's just so much tied up here. And like talking about like the people that they added, which I think is a good segue. Obviously, they lost Drew. that was sort of the highlight of Pena's life, I think, is that they somehow came.

The Boston Celtics managed to get true holiday. Maybe they should have had the foresight to think, like, oh, maybe a contender might go that will be in our way, might go grab him. But you mentioned Gary Trent this past year. I do think offensively he will add something, like 42.4% on spot up three is 46% in transition from three. He takes care of the ball, but not a lot of offense ripples through him,

whereas they've also picked up Dillon Wright, who I want to get your old's opinion on this, I feel like there is like a really big disparity between how excited, like, real hoop heads get about Dallon Wright when they sign them. There's almost always like universal, like, oh, I like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like everybody always just kind of nods. But then, like, if you get to the end of the year, it's always, you know, Dilan takes care of the ball. He's a ball mover. Like, he has some decent range.

but he's one of the worst finishers in the league this past year. He doesn't really create a lot in the middle of the floor. I feel like there is some disparity between the sort of universal approval of Dilan Ride and what he actually provides. What do you all think? I think we've just been wanting Dilan Wright to happen for so long. I think that's really what it comes down to, especially the way he came into the league, too, just as a rookie being able to play,

fitting so well into the context of what that Toronto Raptors team wanted to do, steals, deflections, running the floor. But I think ultimately he's kind of one of your, he's, you know, we think we talk about guys like Drew Holiday. We talk about guys like Bruce Brown. Dilan Wright, I think, is one of those guys that fits really well into that context. If you could put him in a situation where you don't need him to space a floor, you don't need him to create, all he has to do is defend and cut.

I think, you know, he's definitely one of those. candidates to have that type of arc, but it hasn't quite happened yet. I mean, it definitely wasn't going to happen on a team like the Miami Heat that is just, you know, so thirsty for its own kind of spacing. Milwaukee actually has a better shot at it. And with Milwaukee, too, which is, I think the upgrade from going from Pat Beverly to Delon Wright is something that we should all be excited about from an on-and-off-court perspective. And we talked about perimeter defense. Like he's definitely going to be able to shore that up. Sometimes just a matter of getting a guy who, you know,

in a different context, he might not be as valuable, but because he plugs a hole that is such a big deal for this team, it's definitely worth getting excited about, in my opinion. But I'm also, you know, on the same page as Pina and sort of thinking that, you know, I don't, it's, by the time the postseason comes around and you're probably starting Gary Trent for, spacing purposes for the fact that you signed him to a minimum and he needs to rebuild his value purposes as well.

You know, just having your best perimeter defender have to come off the bench because he's an offensive liability is not a winning formula. Who's the fifth closer on this team? Like you have Lopez, Middleton, Janus, and Dame. Who's the fifth guy who's closing games on this roster? It's probably Trent. Yikes. I think it's fine.

He's fine as your fifth starter, though, in most context. He's going to hit open shots to the point that Kyle made. I think the biggest issue is really just when you put him on the floor next to Dame, that's just a very small bat court. For a guy that has also, I mean, part of the reason that his value has gone down is just because the perimeter defense from him is not what Toronto expected it to be. Now, that kid partially have to do with the context in which he was playing. that was not a good defense,

and it wasn't a team that was actually going anywhere, and he's only 25 years old. But he's not exactly a guy that has a ton of size either. Yeah. Is he a huge upgrade over Malik Beasley to you guys? Yeah, but probably says more about Malik Beasley at this point. I was going to say, I mean, to your point, there is a big difference between being in sort of like a ho-hum-wandering sort of team scenario

where you're expected to sort of raise the floor as opposed to. And like, there are a lot of players that kind of fit in both categories here. Whereas, like, with the box, it'll be him sort of raising what he does to meet what they do. And if you're, like, looking, and that's how, like, players' values can change a lot, like, even dramatically, sometimes deceptively in situations where players go to winning environments and they look better and they, you know, it's newly on life. And teams start to think, like, oh, well, maybe we'll take a chance at that. And then you realize, and they get the person and realize, like, oh, like the person didn't change at all. I mean, if we're looking at, like, let's say best case scenario, next year, they're healthy all year. Let's just kind of go through it and look at the standings and what's possible for Milwaukee.

Let's say hypothetically, you got Orlando has retooled. Pina, I know you wrote a really awesome piece about how Orlando, he's pumping his fist now. You know, they add KCP. we get another year of Anthony Black. I'm just kind of going down the line. Hopefully, Franz can kind of start to grow and address some of the things. Orlando should be better. I expect them to be a little bit better.

If you're going through and looking at Indiana, Indiana proved that they are feisty. They made some moves. They're a team that is going to be making a lot of progress, I would assume. Miami probably going to take a step down. Of course, we've said that so many times. Philadelphia, where do you think this team is?

Boston, obviously, is at the very top. cue another fist pump from Pina. Where do you all think the sort of like gatekeeper line is from Milwaukee? Where do you think like the, where do you think that like threshold of they're going to have trouble ascending past these types of teams if they're fully healthy? Where do we think that that line kind of starts going from the bottom to the top? I mean, if we're talking about just regular season standings,

uh, it's hard for me to envision them finishing higher than four. And I like, and the three teams, I got New York, Philly, and Boston. And I really like Orlando, as you mentioned. I think Orlando is a regular season juggernaut in waiting. I really do. And so if you come into the postseason without home court advantage,

and your defense stinks and you're closing games with Gary Trench Jr. In Crunch Time, and we've seen, as you alluded to, Sir, like how a dame Gary Trenchingier back court has fared defensively in the NBA when they were both on the Portland Trailblazers and the answer was absolutely terrible.

In fairness to Gary Trent, they were making him play the three a lot. That's fair. That's fair. That's fair. But, yeah, I think that I would kind of my assumption going to the season is they should not expect to have home court advantage going to the playoffs, particularly just given their age, given their lack of depth, and given their need to kind of preserve Janus, who's been hurt at the end of every year, basically since they won the title,

dame's age, wear and tear on his body, and Middleton, and Lopez, who's like older than than I am. So I think that the regular season is not a priority for them, and not having home court shouldn't be, like I don't expect them to have home court, I guess, which is troubling for a team that is this expensive, I would say. I don't know, guys. Look, at the end of the day,

you have a top five player, you have Chris Milton, Dame Lillard. If you're telling me that all of those guys are going to be healthy, when that is my biggest concern with this team, then I don't really care. if the fifth starter, you know, is not always who I want him to be on defense. It's just not that important to me, you know, just especially when you go down the line and, like, you talk about some of these other teams in the East and the depth issues that they're also going to have. Like, Philadelphia in their depth chart right now, basically after Paul George and Caleb Martin,

you're kind of like Ricky Council and KJ Martin are your guys. I don't know how I feel about that. I don't feel great about that. With New York, you're relying on Mitchell Robinson to be healthy for an entire season. Precious Chua is still a free agent. He could go back to New York. He might end up somewhere else. They're going to be pretty depleted.

They are pretty depleted in their front court. Milwaukee's a really good team if they're healthy. I think if you look at it long term and you want to start talking about their future, yeah, they definitely have some issues. especially as it pertains to Janice and Dame, their contract figures are going to keep going up, even if the cap, we expect that to keep going up. It's just, you know, they're going up at a higher rate. Lopez is old.

But as of right now, this particular season, if they're healthy, and I have no reason to believe that they can't be a 55 win team. Well, speaking of expensive, I think it's interesting to kind of look at like where this is heading. You talked about Dame. Dame in his 34-year-old season is going to be making 48.8. That's going to go up at his 37-year-old season with a player-ops in $65.5 million. So we kind of are in sort of a – this is a squeeze scenario where this could sort of go into a free fall.

They're so, so expensive. They kind of – they don't really have a choice but to stay all in with this. But I'm looking at like the Knicks. You were talking about them as a team. potentially, I'm just kind of going down the line and looking at the teams that really have an answer for fully healthy, Yonis in the playoffs. I still kind of feel like Janus's player type would wreck the Knicks in a playoff series. Like, I really think they would have no answer for him. I still even think that, like, Embed on, like, his tiptoes hobbling around on, like,

one leg gave them all kinds of problems. I just, that's one that I'm kind of unsure about. The Celtics, I agree with Pina, though, that, like, you know, The Celtics are sort of that last level that now that they've added Pina, or not added Pina, got Pina on the brain here. Now that they have a devastating offseason for them. Yeah, I agree. Well, now that they've added Porzengis. The second apron is really hard.

I just think, I just think this is a tough ride here. But anyway, I also had it written down in my notes here that Thanasis, one of his nicknames is Thanasty. And I wanted to point out that he's made almost $10 million. speaking of nepotism. All right. Any kind of closing thoughts on the bucks? Do we want to do like a prediction here for their record next year?

Can I make a, I have a prediction. Yeah. I think they're going to trade Brooke Lopez. Okay. What do you, what are they going to be after? Are they going to be after like a rangey OG type if that's even out there? What do you, because you kind of alluded to it earlier, but what do you think would be the optimal landing if they did trade Lopez?

I have a fun one for one. swap that I'm going to throw at you guys. Brooke Lopez to the Houston Rockets for Dylan Brooks. Straight up. No fucking way I'd do that. Absolutely. We have to remember that Brooke Lopez, like the archetype of the five-out center, is basically what literally every team that wants to win a championship wants on their roster.

I don't know if you spend much time watching the Boston Celtics this year, peanut. And even Yolkits, you know, like it's just, it's, it's such a valuable archetype to have, especially for a guy that can actually play defense, which is why I think they're kind of in a bind, because Brooke Lopez is the guy that if you're looking to make a difference, you trade, he's obviously aging. Maybe you do say, okay, we need to think of configuring this team in a different way. Maybe we put Janus at the five, put spacing around him. I am not against a Broke Lopez trade, but it's got to be good. I don't just throw him out for for for Dylan Brooks just so I can have a saboteur

defense you guys are haters. You guys are haters. I have been so I've ridden the Dylan Brooks trade trained for so long. I have taken so many else because of this guy. I know exactly who he is and I do not get rid of him for Brooke Lopez. The best the the one that I've seen that you know, at least from a talent perspective. I couldn't tell you were defending him or rooting for him in that sentence here. think that says a lot about Dylan.

I was like, wait, she lied? What's going on here? I just, no, my point is I'm not hating on Dylan Brooks. My point is I can, I know exactly what he provides. And I just don't think that that's worth Brooke Lopez. I would at least need to get some draft capital back, especially from a team like Houston that is just putting together plenty of it. Brandon Ingram, that's an option.

That's a guy that you can retool around that also solves New Orleans problems at the five. It also puts some spacing around Zion Williamson at the same time. Other than the age aspect, that I love it from a New Orleans perspective. And then you can kind of start working in your Middleton replacement as he gets older. What do you guys think about that? I would say that is super disrespectful to Brandon Ingram, but I like- You'd have to probably throw in Bobby Portis and whatever is left of your draft cast. Sure, sure, sure.

I also like Brandon Ingram, I think, more than anyone. So I'm a lunatic when it comes to talking about him. I, like, in theory, I totally understand what you're saying, and I agree, New Orleans would love to have a player like Brooke Lopez, but at that age, giving up Ingram, like how many more years are you getting out of Brooke Lopez with this Zion Williamson experiment? You know what I mean? So I don't know. And I also think there's some overlap significantly with Ingram and Chris Middleton.

Like I think they're very similar players. And I think that Ingram needs to become more like Chris Middleton in a way. Like if Ingram was replacing Middleton, then that would be, I think that would be a smart move. by Milwaukee if that could ever happen, which I don't think it can. But them together, like, unless he's really willing to suddenly shoot threes, it's a cramp floor. It's he needs the ball on a team that has Dame middle. It would just be, I think, a little crowded.

It would be. I think the idea would be that he becomes like your eventual Middleton replacement. And you start to sort of reimagine Janus in a new, context and, you know, kind of figure out a way to move on and transition. Because eventually, like, this is what this team is going to need to do. Maybe the Ingram move for the present moment would make things a little bit too messy. But there's got, you know, you got to do something at some point here. Otherwise, as soon as sort of, I mean, you know, Lopez is in the last year of his contract.

Maybe he comes back on a on a shorter term deal. That's probably the option that if you're Milwaukee, you're hoping for. But if I'm him, I'm also like, well, whatever this last contract is, it's going to be my last big NBA payday as well. Yeah, I agree. Like, I feel like Middleton, I was thinking the same thing, Mike, that like Middleton has a little bit more of get into some pick and roll, get on it, get off. He has like, I feel like the isolation sort of compartment in his overall, like the pie of what he does is pretty properly like sized. Whereas, like, in terms of like, in terms of the ball sticking with him, he has a really good feel for that. Whereas Ingram, as we've seen, just kind of flat out, doesn't.

And I wonder what that would do to that team. I've tried to trade Dore and Finney Smith to the Bucks. Like, that's been one that I felt like would be a nice piece where he's big and physical. You get that two, three-four switchability. He can hit threes. I think he'd be a nice fit around them. That was one that I thought was pretty interesting. And I don't feel like the, I don't feel like the nets would be.

Yeah, I don't feel like. like the Nets would be averse of that type of move or because they're not in the same sort of class in terms of like worrying about hurting each other. Anyway, the Bucks. Hit us up with any kind of other bucks trade ideas that you have or yell at us for the dumb ones that we had. Next up, we're going to do some talking about the Team USA, do a little basketball patriotism, even though Seared is Canadian, and we're going to be doing that after this break. All righty. So, Team USA. I was out in Vegas watching this stuff when I could, trying to keep up on the sort of warm up. I mean, there's been a, do you think, is this the most, like, dramatic lead-up to actual Team USA basketball being played that you all can remember?

I mean, we've had the Jalen Brown stuff. We had the Kauai stuff. We've had multifaceted Jailen Brown stuff. We got the Nike kind of drama. We got the, oh, he didn't publicly come out and say something about Derek White first. Can you remember a more dramatic lead-up to actual Olympic basketball than this? Just on the American side. I can't, but my memory is terrible.

so maybe something happened before. Yeah, I can't wait to watch this team. I think this is, I don't know if I'm being hyperbolic when I say this has the potential to be like the greatest basketball team ever assembled. I don't know how you guys feel about that, but I just don't think that they have any holes. I think that the individual resumes

are just purely iconic. They have championship pedigree. They're shooting. There's athleticism. There's speed. There's strength. There's, you know, some of the greatest defensive lineups you'll ever see on a basketball court. And then you'd, like, splash in Anthony Edwards off the bench.

And it's just like, this team is just amazing. Yeah, I agree. And there's so much fun. I mean, it's the point of the defensive stuff, too. It's like we finally figured out how to beat Nicola Yokic. You just have to have Anthony Davis and Bam out of bio on the floor at the same time. You know, that's the guy, like, what have we been doing in the end? NBA, why don't we just do that?

But yeah, no, when it's the third quarter of a game and you're watching Batman at a bio in the short role throwing lobs to LeBron James, like, it's a pretty good time to be a basketball fan. It was, it's, it's been a lot of fun, honestly. Even watching some of these blowouts, it's almost like what you would want to see out of an All-Star game. Like, this is basically like, yeah, like you put the best players in the world together and they actually give a crap and they run.

sets and their defense first and then they just run the crap out of the ball. It's it's the best. I don't know, guys. That's that's that's my incredible analysis of it. It's the best. It's so fun. It's it's hoop it's pornography a little bit when you get like these social breakouts of like Spoh in practice showing like LeBron these like zoom action slips to the rim and everybody's like bought in and doing it. And it's like it's it's it's. It's, it's, it's, it's fun to see. I was going to say if I was Isaiah Thomas and the original dream team was one that I was thinking of. That was pretty big drama to answer that question. I was going down and just kind of looking at if you had to like pinpoint one thing on this team because I was doing the

same thing, you know, especially if Kauai were healthy here, you know, and, you know, Katie will see if he actually what happens with him. I assume he's going to be ready to go from everything that I've seen. The one thing that I've seen is that there are a lot of kind of dribble pull-up guys that lean perimeter on this team. I mean, obviously, Halliburton, Booker, Steph Curry, obviously, even though he's improved as a finisher over the years, KD, Tatum, as we know, prefers to shoot when he goes to the rim. He had one where he, I can't remember which game it was.

It might have been, it might have been Serbia, but he went to the rim and just discarded a dude and dunked on him. I've kind of wondered about, like, downhill pressure on this team. Guys that are just pure, like, physical drivers, take a bump. drive through them. LeBron can do it here and there in spots. I feel like Anthony Edwards, that to me sort of spells out why Ants is one of the big reasons why he's so important for this team, because a lot of these guys are sort of moving into the phase of their career, because when you're younger and you're a wing, you can kind of watch it over when you're comparing

wings that their rim attempts sort of like shift as they start to get older. And I feel like a lot of the guys on this roster aren't in that phase of their career anymore. And Ant is squarely in there, because when you see him check into the game, he pops like that 2008 Dwayne Wade type physicality and athleticism. That was one thing. What do you all think about that? Because I feel like that is one area where maybe it's just like a case of like these guys need to choose to drive and prioritize it, especially with this group of players. But that to me, that strikes me as like the one area that is they're not as strong as they have been in the past. It's just like physicality driving the ball. Yeah, I think part of it is just the makeup of the big

men that are on this team as well. You look at AD, Bam, Joel and B, those are guys that love to face up and look for a perimeter jumper. You know, out of all of them, you know, Joel and Bid is probably the one that you're looking to apply the most swim pressure, but he just hasn't worked out in the context of international play. In which, ways that I think have been absolutely hilarious to people who don't like him. But maybe that shifts. Also, LeBron, just being such a good leader after they went to BAM and AD in the second quarter, probably had a feeling that Embed was not feeling so hot about himself.

Third quarter opens. Finds Embed Bid on the seal for the end one immediately. That's just elite stuff from one of the greatest basketball players of all time. And one of the reasons that this Olympic run is going to pad. his resume, just, you know, they all, they all look to him. Everybody, you know, LeBron's in the, in the, in the huddle, you know, it doesn't matter who you're talking to. They're like these elite players, like the steps of the world, Tatum, who just won a championship, they're all congregating around this guy. And, you know, it just, just had to point that out, um, so that clutch would get out

of my driveway. He dislocated somebody's shoulder in the Serbia game, though, driving to the rim. So I do think that in this context, he can get to the rim. I think a lot of these guys can when they want to. I also think that Steph is somebody that can be really important in this context. I think that Jason Tatum dunk that you're talking about might have been the one that came off of the Steph screen where everybody just ran to Steph and Tatum gets a wide open dunk. you can leverage that with LeBron.

You can use even a guy like AD in those situations. I mean, honestly, I'd love to see it with Ant. I would love to see some guard, guard action and get a lob up to Ann. That's like the beauty of having guys like Ty Halliburton and LeBron on the team too that are just incredible passers. So I think it will take a little bit of, you know, greasing the wheels and setting the right place to get some rim pressure going, but I'm not necessarily worried about it.

I, you know, just because of how much spacing there is with this team, you know, obviously in FIBA, you can just, everyone can just stand in the paint and there's no three second violation. So I've kind of figured that it's a great point you made about Ant and the driving ability and the Dwayne Wade comparison. But even with some of these guys aging as they are, I mean, there's still tons of athleticism and youth on the team besides Ant. But there's so much spacing, I just don't think that the driving lanes are. are necessarily going to clog for this team as they will for some of the other countries. And, you know, one of the, like, fascinating two-man games that I've been noticing is, like, the Steph, LeBron, like, inverted pick and rolls that we're seeing that are just like, or like, even when LeBron is the point guard and they run stack with Embed setting the ball screen and then

Steph sets the back screen on Embed's man, it's like, how do you guard that? That's unguarded. It's impossible. So whenever they post up Embed, or whenever Edwards, you know, I'm not trying to be negative. But like, whenever this team takes a contested jumper, I'm like, why? Like, they will go 10 straight possessions, wide open shot, wide open shot, wide. And then whenever someone takes a pull up that's contested from inside the three point line, I'm like, what are you, come on, what are you doing?

You don't have to do it. They can generate such great look, such efficient opportunities when they play together. And so I really like Edwards. I think he's super funny. He leads the team in scoring right now. But sometimes I just want to see a little more modesty in his game, like a little more sacrifice with his shot selection. He pulled up on a three-on-one fast break against Serbia. He tried to attack the rim on a one-on-four against Australia.

And it's like we don't necessarily. need that out of you. So a little less like I am the protagonist out of that would be wonderful. And a little more like I'm the sixth man scorer. You know, that's my role on this team. And I'm happy to draw two and kick out to Tatum for a wide open three. So I just love watching this team play in general. And what really like gets me excited is the defensive end.

and seeing Drew Holiday, Bam, and Anthony Davis on the court together. And it's like, you literally can't score in them. Good luck. It's not going to happen. Peanut famously hates it when Superstarers take a necessary pull of threes. It's... Both sides of, it's bound. Yeah, I mean, it is pretty funny.

Like, this is sort of a nice, like, sort of, like, simulation for, like, ants specific. I love the, I love the, like, protagonist. comparison. Like, that's a really great. And honestly, I mean, that's been kind of the heart of, this might be a nice segue here. We'll see. That's been sort of a core criticism of the American game that, you know, NBA basketball is sort of like driven to incentivize the individual. You know, it's set up in our contract structure. It's set up in, you know, this, obviously, we could go into a macro conversation about how basketball changed with marketing and all this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But there's been a lot of like talking about what's wrong with the

American game. You'll see former players. I was listening to the, what's the Eudanis and what's the name of it? Is it OGs? Is that what it was? I was listening to like Jason Williams and Mike Miller and Eudonis complain about like kids not listening and stuff like that. I was like, how much, speaking to where we are, we're talking about this is the best basketball team potentially ever assembled. Speaking to where we are, looking at how good this team is, how much of that, Do you think it's overblown a little bit like the gap? Like we just mowed through the U-17. It's clear more talent is coming down the line.

Do you think it's overstated a little bit that like the gap between the U.S. and the world has closed or what do you guys take as sort of the state of the union on that? I definitely don't think that like I don't think there will ever be a run like the Dream Team had in 92 ever again. I think that you look at some of these clubs. France is like, France is actually like legitimately scary in the next Olympics when Victor Wemeyama is the best player on the planet. That's going to be terrifying. But at the same time, I expected Serbia to be a little bit more competitive in that game, to be honest with you. And like, Team USA still looks pretty sloppy and it looks like a team

that isn't nearly as good as they can be. When you just look at the rotation and the fact that Kerr is doing these hockey subs and he was really disciplined in subbing Steph Curry out of the game and plugging Derek White in. And like after Steph at like three threes in a row or something like that and like KD's hurt, et cetera.

So it's, I'm kind of going back and forth on it in my head. I feel like there's so many really competitive teams now. Germany won the World Cup. They have a lot of NBA talent. Canada has Shaggildiz Alexander and the great Dylan Brooks holding it down. So there's just a lot of really good clubs with a lot of NBA caliber players, a lot of continuity and chemistry. And they do play a style that is hard to deal with in terms of team basketball.

like sharing the basketball on a more consistent basis. Yeah, I think the conversation probably speaks more to how much more talent there is internationally now than there was in 92. It's just never, you're just never going to have that gap again to penis point. And I think it just, it feels more like an NBA conversation than an amalgamation of international basketball talent conversation, you know, because like, you know, you look at this team, you put them together. They're the freaking Avengers are in.

incredible. It's just more so in the NBA, nobody has come across and taken that mantle where it's like you look at internationally, Luca, Yokic, Janice, two of those guys who won championships. The other one is sort of, you know, taken over the conversation to a degree in a way that only Anthony Edwards has for a long time to the extent, like, you know, to be a guy that the general public is legitimate. really excited about and is an American basketball player and a young guy. It's more like that passing of the torch that hasn't happened on the NBA side. And for whatever reason, you know, like we can talk about it with Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown.

Maybe because of the way the Celtics play. Maybe it's like the whole aura thing, which I mean, is not like a productive basketball conversation, but when you talk about marketing, it does matter. there's just Jason, like Tatum has won a championship but has not captured or captivated people on a national scale in a way that, you know,

somebody like LeBron or Steph did. And that I think is what people are more worried about than anything else. Like will an international superstar or will an American superstar be able to just carry that mantle? and I don't know. I mean, I think that's why everyone is actually, like,

as much as you might not like it on an X's and O's level, and, you know, you might want to watch the beautiful game, why everybody is actually okay with the fact that Anthony Edwards came in and said, oh, yeah, like, I'm going to be the guy on this team, and he comes in and it does give you a different look because I think that more, like, alongside the basketball stuff, is sort of like what our eyes are on now, like, who's going to be the next guy who just takes it.

I would like to just remind, Real quick, I'd like to remind you that Jason Tatum did just win the NBA championship and he's 26 years old. He did. No big deal. I think these things sort of like speak to why. I was going to ask you, you know, I was really excited to troll you like basically all summer long if they didn't win. I know. My text messages have been quiet.

My phone has not been buzzing. I guess we'll never know. I don't know. Maybe it speaks a little bit to the, like, there's a little bit of a dissonance between. the thing that made the game grow so much, which is like these marketable superstars, you know, is a lot going to change if we don't have this sort of one person who can, like, carry a sneaker brand, you know, maybe Ant fits that mold. Like, Sir, that's a funny, good point about that. Like, we were a little bit okay with that because we like those guys. We like to have

those players. We've been sort of conditioned to think that that's the case. But then you look at a team like the Celtics, who in a, in a playoffs full of teams that had sort of like individual superstars with teams built around them, they have. Hadkin, granted, they spent a lot of money to get there, and they had the savvy front office to do it. So I'm not going to act like this is replicable, but they put together a team that was sort of connected and they, you know, beat the shit out of everybody. And maybe that'll be the U.S. going forward. If the superstar sort of level players aren't quite there, it'll be interesting to just see if, like, the talent continues to be high enough. And granted, there are some stars coming along.

Cooper Flag, A.J. DeBontz, Cameron Boozer, you know, there are a lot of like all-MBA type players clustered together in these classes that are coming. Ronnie James Bronny James It was so implied I wasn't going to say it It was one of those ones Like why waste the energy But yeah

There's also I mean one guy Who should be in this conversation And isn't And you know Is increasingly like Looking like a worse elf For Team USA

From a marketing perspective And just like From a basketball perspective Jalen Brunson Like if After the summer he had Obviously he broke his wrist So you know

it's maybe a moot point, but, you know, having that playoff run and then him being one of these guys on team USA, I think that would have been incredible for everybody involved to be able to take him from a brand like the Knicks to then introduce him to an international stage. Like, playing, like, on a stage that I think, like, the FBA game would really accentuate what he already does well. And he's obviously a guy who knows how to exist within a team context as well.

And he's never going to, you know, make you give up anything defensively either. he is probably a guy when we talk about this sort of macro who's going to be the next face is somebody that we don't actually mention enough in the conversation. That's fair. Let's segue really quickly here. Just to end because we're running out of time,

but we wanted to talk about, you know, Syrup brought up that at the WMBA All-Star game, if I have it correctly, that the Team USA, it's a Team USA versus All-Star situation. Sharpen that for me, is that right? Yep. Team USAP field. So I went through

So I went through, so exactly right. So I went through and I was trying to build and we were discussing what would happen if we tried to build an all-star team to take this team on. Because if this is the best team ever assembled, it would stand a reason that you wouldn't be able to beat, I would assume you're not going to be able to build

another team from the leftovers that could beat them. So I wanted to just pitch a roster here to play the dream team. I was calling this the scheme team. I just typed that. I don't know why. So I compiled some, the first name on that list is Jalen Brunson,

Damian Lillard, Palo Bencaro, Bencaro, a little bit of FU energy. He's mad. He's going to come in with an agenda, Jalen Brown, Paul George, Ched Holmgren,

Aaron Gordon, Trey Murphy, Jalen Williams, Brace yourselves, Nas Reid, Derek Lively. Is that a good basketball team? In a seven-game series,

do they get swept? How many games do they win? They, can I throw out a name that you didn't? Well, I have a whole other roster, too. We don't have to get to it. Go ahead. What's the name? Jimmy Butler.

He's like one of the first names that I would say that I would love to see Jimmy and like four G-League players go up against like five guys in this team. They did just see what happens. No, I think that's an interesting team that you have there. I think that they would get, without thinking too hard about it, I think that they would get demolished. Like, I just. They win one game.

Maybe not. They probably wouldn't. Anyway, yeah. Is there a, is there, let's just, for time's sake, though, I mean, let's pick a five. Do you guys think that there's like a team with a five that could like compete with this team if you were building them? I said Americans, but just, you know, put together an all start. I did an exercise with everybody and I think that this team would actually win. Jalen Brunson, Jalen Brown, Luca Dantzich, Nicola Yokic, Victor Wemnon, Yama.

and then off the bench you have Tyrese Maxi, Kyrie Irving, Janis is coming off the bench, Oji Onoobi, Zion Williamson is like your wildcard. If he's healthy, that's awesome. Lowry Marketing and Pascal Seacob. That's a good fucking team, yeah. Did you say Shea? Oh, man, I got to put Shoe. Oh, God, I got to put Shire on the stream.

I can't believe I of all people. I know. I think I, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not only did you pick Kyrie Irving. You didn't pick the Canadian legend, Chey Giltis Alexander. I'm pretty amazed. I've been teasing you about the Kyrie thing for a good year now. Pina, do you got a squad?

I mean, you guys have basically named everyone. My five, if I was just doing international players, would be Janus, Yonkich, Shea, Luca, and Wembe. And I think that that five, even though it's like, I mean, you have Yokic Wembe, Yonis front court. Like, that's, I, yeah, I would look to see it. Yeah, I would really like to. love to see that.

But I still would take, actually, I don't know, that's a ridiculous five players with absolutely ridiculous potential on the defensive end. So, yeah, but I would love to see that. I'd love to see those five on the court together going up against any five from Team Jose. I don't play 2K anymore, but that would be something to tinker with for sure. I'm saying, I just think that should be next year's all. Star game that maybe could actually fix the All-Star game. If you made Team

USA play for pride and then you have like these international guys that are like kind of looking to prove something, maybe that's maybe that's what actually gets guys to try in the All-Star game. I mean it'd be like just the Nike Hoops Summit except expanded to not teenagers like you know like versus the world. I mean it is an interesting idea. But it's that would be a Nike sponsored event. So that might run into some custom issues for some guys. An interesting one that we didn't mention is Trey Young. Trey Young nowhere in there. Does he fit, is there a world where he could fit into a roster like that?

I mean, you could put Trey Young with penis team, I think, and that would work. They'd have more than enough to protect him. Or John Moran. Another one, John Moran. Do we ever see John Moran on Team USA as the starting point guard? I did a story about Jaff for Sports Illustrated a couple of years ago, and I talked to his dad T. for it. And he said the angriest he'd ever seen,

or the most like, I have a chip on my shoulder was when he was not selected for Team USA. Wow. Okay. I think that for what it's worth. All righty. Well, what are you guys working on? You got any kind of off-season big projects that you're doing?

Or where are your basketball, where's your basketball brains at right now? Are you doing anything sort of eclectic off the beaten path? Are you just taking it easy? What's in the, what's in the hopper? Love the Boston accent. I am writing a, column about Team USA right now and basically read from it as we were talking about them.

So all my takes in written form will be on the ringer.com. You should go check it out. Nice, nice. Well, as you guys know, I'm just getting out of concussion protocol. So I'm really just trying to find my bearings. And, you know, remember how to be a human being in this world again. Have you, have you, like, gone public with what happened to you? Are you comfortable with describing or do you want to out the person, say their name?

so we can go after him? You know, it's funny. I actually don't know her name. Wait, no, I remember her name. Her name was Zoe. I don't know her last name. And I don't think it was malicious. So I don't want to, you know, put her on blast or anything.

It was actually my fault. I was guarding a player that was much bigger than me. And I decided to, you know, take that personally. And we had pretty spirited game, pretty competitive. It was fun. But then at the end, one of the ones, final place is boxing out and she just whacked me with her forearm to the back of the head and it was one of those things where I kind of immediately knew that it was really bad but then I

gaslit myself and finished a game and then I was kind of fine for two days and then everything went downhill after that and it's been a rough few weeks but we're getting better well we love the switchability from Syria we love the scrappy energy she's garden fives you know we that's her just sort of that's her makeup as a person she's uh well i told her i told her there's some sneaky moves that i do whenever the bigs take me on that maybe we can workshop those next time we play pick up no they're really like there there is a is a degree to which like and you know i know you still play uh i've turned 30 this year um and i was having a conversation with a friend about like the types of risk that are good for you versus bad for you and i keep like i look back at

just deciding to guard her when, you know, I could have just been like, hey, can somebody else take her? I need to change that part of myself as I get older. Like, the only reason I did that was because part of me was just like, internally, I need to prove something. This is a semi-competitive league where absolutely nobody was going to have a problem with me at 5-6 being like, hey, maybe this isn't such a good idea. It was all me. I did it to myself sheerly because of my ego. And I just, you know, I don't know, man.

You get to a certain place where, like, if you want to still play sports somewhat competitively, you do start to have to make some business decisions. And this is the first time that I really came face to face with that. So this is your Kobe guard and point guard sort of like shift in your career, right? You're like... When the guards are resting on defense. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, you got to go with the back tap. You got to pull the chair.

There are some things that you can do to punt on actually garden big, Siritt. But we'll save that for another day. All right. Pina, Syriot, it was great to see you both. As we said, rare treat for us. Go check out their work on the ringer. Cereid will have some stuff going for the once the fog settle, she'll be back kicking ass again as she usually does. Penis piece on Team USA. Sorry. Coming up here soon, I'm sure that'll kick ass as well. guys, good to see you, and we'll catch you next time, whenever that is.