The Ringer NBA Show - The Wacky Wizards, the LeBron-AD Duo, and Coach Tim Duncan | The Mismatch

Episode Date: July 23, 2019

The guys discuss the noise coming out of the Washington Wizards (0:50), the Los Angeles Lakers’ new pairing of LeBron James and Anthony Davis (31:35), Tim Duncan joining the San Antonio Spurs coaching staff (50:26), and Zion Williamson's signing with Jordan brand (55:37). Hosts: Chris Vernon, Kevin O’Connor 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. Welcome to The Ringer MBA show. I'm Chris Vernon and joining me as he does every Tuesday from the ringer.com is Kevin O'Connor, aka Kevin Obama, aka Kevin O Conflict, aka Kevin O'Connort,

aka Kevin O'Chammerer, aka Kevin O'Candyland. Kevin! Burnow! What's going on, buddy? Well, everything finally slowed down a little bit after Summer League. I mean, it just all felt like this incredible whirlwind where nothing really slowed down. We went straight into the NBA draft post-NBA finals. And then we went into free agency, which then spilled over into Summer League, which then ended up with these crazy trades and the whole league flipping, you know, upside down.

And now we have actually had a little bit of down. time over the last couple of weeks, but some news has happened, including one of the teams that we would not suspect that necessarily that we would be talking about, but that is the Washington Wizards and kind of news they are making, number one, hiring Sashi Brown, who many people will remember was hired to, you know, do a, he, the guy had been compared to Henke in the sense that it was going to be incredible amounts of losing. And then the team would be stocked up with money. They would be stocked up with draft picks.

And of course, now we know John Dorsey is the ones getting the fruits of that labor that was a 1 and 31 record in Cleveland. And he has made great draft picks. And he has spent the money that they had for free agency wisely. And so the Browns look in a Primo situation right now. But that made this guy not getting to see his, quote, NFL process through. And I read Kevin Clark's article, it did make him a martyr of sorts. And so now wildly a guy, the NFL has never been considered necessarily progressive.

But now a guy from the NFL now moves over to the NBA side to assist Ted Leonsis and Tommy Shepard. And then you don't know what is the total tear down, what's next for the Wizards. And then how do we square that with the report that they are ready to try to sign Brad Beale to an extension? What do we make of it all? Well, and, you know, also Tommy Shepard was officially announced as general manager after serving as an interim GM since April. So that became official as well. And he's still really the head honcho here. Sashi Brown is.

is the intriguing higher, as Kevin Clark wrote in his piece on the ringer, where it sort of echoes hinky coming in as this strategic planning guy sort of behind the scenes. And maybe at some point, Brown rises up the rankings. But his role as it was announced in the press release seems to be something where he's helping across teams, including on their WNBA team as well. So Tommy Shepard's still the main guy there. And as Shepard himself said on Woj's podcast or in some interview that, that he's going to offer Bradley Biel the max as soon as they're allowed to, which is this Friday, which Bradley Biel will naturally, in all likelihood, decline at $111 million over three years because he can earn more by waiting until next year. So for the Wizards, it's unlikely Biel would accept that offer. And for the rest of the league, Beale is already the guy at the top of everybody's list that is the most likely star to be possibly traded next. If you're the Wizards, it's going to be interesting to see how Shepard and this new regime attacks the scenario here because Bill was absolutely incredible after John Wall went down midseason, Chris.

Like he was one of the better guards in the league and his playmaking elevated to another level when they put the ball in his hands. And if you're the Wizards, you don't have a lot of time to prove to him like, hey, we're the team that you can win with. Because after these past couple years and how sour things have gone with them, they need to start building around Beal. The problem is, is it's hard to build when you have John Wall making the money that he is. So for them, I do wonder if it's going to come to a point, whether it's in January or February leading up to the trade deadline, where offers become so significant, like we just saw with some other deals that happened in the summer, if at some point Beal becomes the guy that can swing the pendulum in a favor towards one team to become a

clear favorite. Beal could be that player where her team just makes an obscene offer in order to land him because the Wizards aren't going to be good. They're not going to be good at all. So at some point, I wonder if for Shepard an offer becomes something that you have to accept. Well, and the

other thing is, does it give him an out if they come in and they say, hey, we offered Brad Beal the max. That was track A. And if he, that was going to signal, if he wants to be a part of this going forward. And at that point, we realized, okay, he doesn't, you know,

he doesn't want to be the guy that we do everything in mind to build around. And so we've got to pivot. And so it gives you a little bit of a, it's kind of phony, but it gives you a little bit of an out. And if you're Brad Beal, you are smack dab in the middle of your prime right now. There is no chance they are going to be good within what? I mean, it's going to be hard as hell with that John Wall. Unless you can get off that John Wall contract some way, somehow,

and nobody really thinks that's a possibility. This has to be a long view plan because it's going to be really hard to build a winner when you've got such a large percentage of your cap tied up to a guy. I mean, the only chance would be if Walt does come back and is a great player again. and what are the chances of that? We don't really know. It's possible, though. It's possible.

Like, John Wall, I mean, look, I've never been a big John Wall fan. I'm just not. I think his limitations as a shooter, at times as a decision maker, his inactivity off ball, his poor defense. That, to me, you know, limits his ceiling as a player, but he's still really good. He's still a good player. And with John Wall's salary, let's not act like this is a seven-year deal. his contract expires after the 2021-22 season. So after this year, which is sort of something that you're punting on when he's likely to miss the entire year, there's only two years left.

So if you trade Beal and like you're rebuilding for the next two years with John Wall's salary, maybe after that next year 2020, 2021, maybe at that point, John Wall becomes an attractive piece for a team to trade for entering the 2021. one off season when there's undoubtedly going to be a star that desires playing with another star. Maybe at that point John Wall restores his value and the Wizards are able to move on from him. That cannot be ruled out at all because we don't know how the landscape

the league will change. We just had Chris Paul get traded, who is far older and just as expensive as John Wall get traded in this unfathomable Russell Westbrook trade. It is possible for John Wall to get dealt at some point in the future despite all the flaws in his game.

despite the injury. So for the Wizards, I think there's a lot of logic to training Bradley Beale sooner rather than later, because if you wait until next summer, that's what Value You declines when he only has the one year left on his deal. Now it's two years.

If you deal them right now at this moment, and if it's in February, it's a year and a half. So I think for the Wizards, there's logic to making a deal ahead of time. If it hits a point where offers are something that you can't say no to, and I think it will.

Because Bradley Bale's a damn good player, and he's somebody who, for many, many years, has played second fiddle to John Wall and has excelled in that role as an offball shooter, a guy who runs secondary pick and roles, but he showed that he can be even more than that. I'm not sure he's your number one guy in our championship team, but he's absolutely capable of being your number two. And as you said, Chris, he's in his prime. He's only 26 years old, and he feels like he's been in the league forever, but he's only 26.

Yeah. And he's somebody that's constantly getting better, too. And if you're him, you don't want to waste 26, 27, 28. Yes. You know what I mean? Right? Like this is now, this is not the time to be rebuilding. You know what I mean?

This is not the time to be rebuilding time. You don't want to look up and now you've got a chance to win when you're 30, right? And like those seasons that you've had have been great seasons, but they've been spent maybe even without playoff births. the return that you can get, I mean, I do feel like the stock is very, very high. I mean, the guy's coming off

this crazy season, like 25 points. You know, he does everything. Like you said, five. He was so good. Yeah,

he was humble. And the great part is like, he had greater volume, but his efficiency stayed constant. If anything, it got better with the more volume, with more responsibility. And so when we have seen,

this has been one of the things that we have talked about. And we didn't know if it are, if it's anomaly. because of the situations that these teams were put in, or if this is going to become more common because of less value being put on high draft picks, the reward or the return that you get by moving star players. You know, we've seen teams give up a boatload to get Paul George,

a boatload to get Anthony Davis. And we are going to find when it comes to somebody like Brad Beal, were those just extreme cases that that's not going to be commonplace? And there were special cases because of what the Davis situation was and the Lakers. And the Lakers needed to trade for Anthony Davis. The Clippers needed to trade for Paul George. They were under the gun to do it. Therefore, they were willing to give up this, that, and the other, and everything. future assets to get those deals done.

Does another team step up and do it with Beal? And I'll give you even another instance. This could even fall closer maybe to kind of in the middle of the Davis and the George type of returns and then the Conley return, which was a great return for Memphis and a return that keeps on giving and included picks and included players and included contracts that you could flip into this, that. and the other. And maybe somewhere in between there is what you get for bill. But I buy what you're selling that somebody out there's going to look and say, man, this guy's like got a chance to be one of the top, you know, 20 players in the league for the next five years. And so what's the cost of doing business on this? I mean, it's got to be a lot. Yeah, it's going to be a lot. And for Washington, that's what makes it so interesting because when you and I first started doing

this show, Chris, in 2016, that was at a time in the league. I remember I wrote something, maybe it was September 2016. It was like state of the trade market in the NBA. And it was about how Jimmy Butler, DeMarcus cousins, Paul George, all these star players on these teams were really nearing a crossroads where these teams would have to make a choice on these players. And I remember at the time, like, understandably, Bulls fans with Butler and King's fans with cousins and Pacers fans with George were like, no way we're trading these guys. There's no chance. Like it would not be the right thing to do. But over these past few years, as you said, Chris, so many players have been traded that are superstars for significant rewards.

And virtually every team, if not all those teams that traded those star players are in a better position today than they were priors. and that includes the Kings, that includes the Bulls, that includes the Pacers for that matter, includes every single team that's traded a star player. And now it may also include the Oklahoma City Thunder for doing what they did this offseason. And so for Washington, you could get a significant return for Bradley Beale because he is a guy that, for one thing, he can fit next to anybody. He has already proven that he can excel in a role next to another star player, another ball dominant star. But he's also shown that he can be one of the guys that is in control of the offense.

So for one, that's what he has. But he also has a salary that is easily acquirable, making $27 million this year. It is not hard for any number of teams to assemble the right amount of salaries required to make a midseason trade. So for the Washington Wizards, there's significant appeal after December 15th and finding a trade partner. And I think personally, like, it's hard to come up. with trade ideas because there's so many to come up with. Any team could use a Bradley Beal. And so in a year where the league is so wide open, I do think he is somebody that, I think the circumstances we saw with George and Kauai were unique, but I think they could also be unique with Beal in the

sense that he fits so many places and there are so many teams that could acquire him. So Washington could face a scenario where there's just an insane bidding war for him, assuming he's a healthy midseason, assuming he continues to excel, which feel safe to say that could occur. So the Wizards, they're in a rough spot here. Like, when you look around the league, I don't think there's many teams you can look at and say they're in a bad position. A lot of teams are in a good spot right now where either they're in clear contention or they're a rebuilding team with appealing young core. Washington is one of the teams where you're like, oh, oh, like they're in a tough spot. But if they're able to get a

massive return for Beal, I think suddenly that changes where Wall only has two years left on his contract and maybe at some point he becomes tradable. It's not unfathomable for Washington to turn this around. And maybe it's more like one of those because we always look for who's got assets, who's got picks and whatnot. But with teams becoming less interested in the picks, just given the smoothing out of the draft, right, that you don't have as good a chance. Even if you're trading with somebody that's supposed to be super crappy,

it's possible that they end up with the fifth pick or the sixth pick in the draft. And so their chances of being number one, two or three have been decreased. We even just saw it this past year with the Pelicans of the Grizzlies moving up to the first and second spot. And the Knicks, for all they're losing,

they end up with the third spot. And then it went down from there to some of the teams that had really bad seasons, but then didn't end up with some kind of great prize for the draft. So maybe you see more like the, the first Paul George deal where you get young talent like an Oladipo or Sabonis or like the Jimmy Butler deal that you mentioned where they get the seventh pick and they get Chris Dunn and they get

Zach Levine and right you get some you get some young players that are in those early contracts because that kind of fits whatever your timeline is going to be with Washington. So you go out and you try to find a team that's got some young players that you particularly like and so now you have the young players as the assets, and maybe one of them develops into a great player like Oladipo did. And then on the other hand, you know, you still get some draft picks so that you've got, that's there in the case that you can get mega lucky

when it comes to the draft or if nothing else, it's a great asset to have. I do think they could get big return. And then the figuring out is now what do we do on the, the wall front and you've just got to hope against hope that he's able to come back and look like a player. Maybe he's not worth the contract that he's got, but it's not super long. And what if he can return to, you know, a kind of guy that might make an all-star team

again? It's possible. Possible. And he was making all-star teams when he was healthy, despite what anybody's opinion was. He was an outstanding player. And so if he could even just get to that level, somebody there thinks, hey, you could you could swing this for.

And we got John Wall and we put him with some guys. Now all of a sudden we got a pretty good team and he's only on their books for another year after this one, right? Sure. And to your point about going for a younger guy, Chris, that's sort of along the lines where I'm thinking for Washington where if you can get a young guy who will be a restricted free agent in either 2020 or 2021 with picks on top of that,

there's a lot of appeal there. And a couple names that come to mind is somebody. like Dejante Murray on the Spurs, who will be a restricted free agent in 2020, or, or Jalen Brown on the Celtics, if they wanted to pair Kemba Walker with Bradley Beale and their back court, they have plenty of picks to offer as well, or even New Orleans. If New Orleans is having a damn good year and they're like, hey, let's accelerate this thing and make a run. Maybe you can flip somebody like an Ingram or a Lonzo ball. I'm just, I'm not saying it necessarily something I would do, but you can see the scenario there where you have so many picks and so many young guys.

Maybe you add a guy who's also young, Bradley Bills, only 26, and he can help accelerate your rebuild and maybe make you push into the playoffs of Zion's having this great year. You never know. Point being is there's a lot of guys out there that fit that criteria that you mentioned, the young player, when you have his rights as a restricted free agent and teams that have picks on top of that that they could give. There could be a lot out there for Washington to turn this thing around. And you don't really know which direction they are going to go. I guess we'll find out. I mean, the big shocker would be if Brad Beale says, okay, I'll take the $11 million.

Because look, at worst then, that's still an incredibly tradable contract, right? So you just go ahead and you say, hey, I've seen what's happened to some other guys. I'm going to go ahead and lock myself in for $11 million on top of what I've already got. And I can force a trade out of here. Like now the contract stuff, we've just seen it so much. If I don't want to be here and I'm not part of their timeline, I mean, I've got that contract. And that contract is still desirable to anybody that wants to trade for me. And I've locked in my money.

It would be shocking if he took that, given the amount that you expressed, he could make more. But it's there. I mean, it's not the craziest thing in the world to think that he says, okay, I'll take the 111 million, you know. Yeah. is there any logic to riding this out and seeing if you can keep him like taking this into next summer? I mean, there's logic in it just because he's frigging awesome. I just wanted to touch on that because, I mean, we've talked partially because of my tendency to blow it up. No, are you?

And if you're like, I mean, look, we don't know. Is he cool with it? Is he cool being the man in Washington and wants to see Washington become a big time, winner. He's a great guy. Fans love him. And so if he's cool with it, then yeah, okay, we're going to do this. But you're going to find out rather quick how much he wants to be a part of that. Because if he looks around and says, you know what, y'all are going straight rebuild. And I, I'm not here for this. You know, get me somewhere else. The problem is, like, if you're Washington, unless these young scrappy rookies and guys,

like Isaiah Thomas, these veterans are able to really surpass expectations, there's really not another guy out there right now on the radar that you could realistically add or pursue that could enhance your current situation where Bradley Bill would look at it more fondly in order to sign an extension. So that's partially the issue facing the wizards right now is besides Bradley Beale, there's not a realistically acquireable star out there that could make your situation significantly better. One last thing on this, and this regards to Sashi Brown stuff, because his name does come up

with Hinky in terms of a guy that blew something up to smithereens, acquired all kinds of draft picks, money, et cetera, made some mistakes along the way. But in the end, the excessive losing, they were not able to see it through to the other side. And someone else came in and was able to reap the benefits, at least some short term like Calangelo before his falling out. and then the guys in Philly now. And then you're seeing what John Dorsey,

who has made great, it's one thing to have the picks. It's another thing to nail the picks. And it appears, though they were not popular at the time, to take Baker Mayfield, to take Denzel Ward, to take some of the guys that they have taken, he's nailed the picks. And then probably we will see with Jarvis Landry and others, nailed free agency.

He's got Odo Becum Jr. Now, for God's sakes. maybe he's nailed all of the moves there, but he had this, you know, almost plate of nothingness to build from, and it was full of money and draft picks, and that's because of the original tear down. And one of the points it was made, and we mentioned Kevin Clark wrote about this, I thought there was something that was interesting in there, which was, in some uncertain terms, it was basically that it was a different world when Hinky did it.

And so now the expectation that somebody would come, and if he is really in charge, advise, hey, we need to do this total and complete tear down like the process and lose excessively, which it stands to reason he might be that kind of a guy simply because of what he did when he was with the Browns, but that because of the odds and because of the smoothing out of the draft, it's a different game, that whatever the process looked like, that's under different rules. That's in a different world. And it did make me think as I'm reading that, like, it almost feels like Sam Hinky wouldn't do the process now, right? Because the tenants were you have this incredible opportunity, the way the rules are,

you have this incredibly opportunity to get in the elite level player. if you have the worst record. And so now that those odds are simply not the same, you wonder if in this world would Hinky do it like he did? And I think the answers probably no. And how much does that change the way somebody like Sashi Brown thinks about how to go about fixing an NBA team now, right? Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I'd never really thought about that. but like, what's the method now? Like if I gave Sam Hinky a team now and I said, go build me a winner, like he probably goes about it a lot differently than the quote process. Sure. And that's sort of always been the case. I think a little bit more so now because of nature of the game.

I think, I know Bill and I talked about this on his pod last week, but I believe you and I touched on it as well with the state of the, the value of draft picks. Yeah. And how that's sort of diminished because there's no guarantee that you can keep guys for 10 to 15 years now because so many players are pushing their way out or are willing to leave. Never mind the fact that the possibility of draft odds, the fact draft odds are flattened decreases

the incentive to get high draft picks. That decreases the need to go full on process like the Sixers did. But as for Sam Hinky, if he ever got another job, It depends on what that team situation is. That's what was always, you know, kind of silly to me when you and I back in the day just a couple of years ago used to argue while blowing it up. It was very, very few teams that I really thought needed to quote unquote blow it up. Just like right now, I look at the league and I really can't point out a single team that clearly needs to blow it up. But besides maybe Washington, there's just a lot of teams, it's kind of weird to say.

I said this earlier, but there's a lot of teams in a good position right now. There's just not many teams where you're like, wow, they're screwed. I feel like a couple years ago when you and I started this podcast, Chris, there's a, there's a whole bunch of those teams. And right now there's not. I don't know why do you think that could be? Like how many teams are there that were like, I wouldn't want to be them? Charlotte.

Charlotte, yeah, Charlotte. I mean, Charlotte is in a. Yeah, Charlotte. It sort of stops there. I mean, you can. Cleveland. Cleveland's in a tough spot because they have the one great player too in love. And then it's kind of surround.

Cleveland and Washington are a lot like each other, honestly. I agree Cleveland would be there too. But even then you could look at Darius Garland and Colin Sexton and be like, oh yeah, there's something here, you know, with that back cord.

It's not hopeless necessarily. With Phoenix, you can look at them and say, well, at least they have Devin Booker under contract. You can at least say that. Even with Detroit, I mean,

they're sort of, stuck in the middle. But even with them, you can look at them and be like, hey, at least Blake and Andre Drummond, one move away. But they're a team. And I, and I hate to bag on Charlotte. But when I was out in, when I was out in Summer League, I did this podcast with my buddy, Tim Bontams from ESPN. And Bontas just like, he'll say stuff and he'll just say it like, you know, the Northeast guy talks like very matter of fact, right? And so he says, uh, look, You look around the league and like you go to games on a regular basis like you do, Chris, and you say like for every night, there's somebody you want to see on the other team.

There's somebody that's like on that team that's coming in town. And so the league is in a great place. And he said, except for Charlotte. And he said they are in the worst position of any team in American professional sports. And I was like, wait, hold on now. Because you would do when somebody says something like that matter of fact, I'm like, I don't even know how I'm going to think through every team

in American professional sports. But I also was like, you know, I mean, I like Miles Bridges in college. But I mean, it is tough. That is the game that it's like, who are you excited to go to the arena to see? Like, to your point, almost everybody's got somebody

that is worth the, you know, maybe not worth the price of admission. But if you've got the tickets, it's certainly worth seeing them. Sure. Except for, that may be the only team. And I hate to say that because, I mean, I always root for the small market teams. But you look up and down and given their situation.

I mean, the roster is like, I mean, it's like Bismay-Biombo and Zeller and Kid Kill Christ and Batum. And I mean, they're just locked up into all this money. And once Kemba was gone, like Kemba was the answer. But now there's really not an answer. There's really not. Absolutely. And I think Charlotte's on a level of their own. But after that, there's maybe five teams.

that you would look at, Orlando, Detroit, Washington, Phoenix, and Cleveland where you're like, uh-oh, could be in a rough spot here. But even then on those teams, I don't think it's as extreme of a dire situation as it was for some of these teams, maybe just three, four, five years ago. Right. All right, Kevin, we'll get right back to it. I want to remind everybody, today's episode of The Mismatch is brought to you by Express. I love jeans. I wear jeans all the time. and you want something that's comfortable, you want something that's not going to stretch or wear out, something that's going to look good but allow you to move.

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data you use. Plus, with bill protection, even if you use a lot of data, your bill is capped at a reasonable amount. Learn more at Phi.gov.com. That's fI.orgul.com. Switch to Google.com. Switch to 5, a phone plan by Google. Let's move on to some of the other news that has taken place you recently. We talked about how everything's been flipped upside down. You wrote about duos, and you wrote about the biggest one. And that is the Anthony Davis-Lebron James duo, which, interestingly enough, happened in what feels like so long ago.

It almost feels like we've already seen them. Of course, we haven't. We've been talking about it. reading about it and thinking about it for so long, it feels like a duo that's been together already for a long time because we've had all these other ones that we would have never suspected. We would never have suspected that Kauai, Leonard, and Paul George were going to be a duo. We certainly would not have expected in our wildest dreams that Russell Westbrook and James Hardiner are a duo.

We thought there was at least something out there, but we really didn't know when, until it came time that Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant would eventually be a duo. Like, I guess Jimmy Butler is the only guy that, like, he doesn't really have a duo guy with him, but has moved teams. But you had these different duos grow through free agency and trade over the course of the last several weeks. You focused on the one that is the elder statement, I suppose, of the duos and took some time to think about that and how that works and kind of how they built around them.

And, you know, LeBron being out last year and the Lakers not having the season, I think it is kind of taking people off the scent a little bit that at peak of powers, LeBron is the best guy there is. And now you're teaming him up with Anthony Davis, who is in the argument as a guy that can be the best player in the league. at some point, maybe sooner than later. And so when you get to thinking about that and you're going to be writing about it, what comes up?

Well, first of all, Chris, how dare you disrespect the duo in Miami, Jimmy Butler and Dion Waiters? Stop. Hey, do you want to hear something crazy real quick? Because you brought up Dion Waiters. It made me think of this. But Joe House has been in town in Memphis because there is a huge world golf championship that is going on. a WGC event in Memphis and Joe House has been here all week doing shows with me and hanging out and whatnot. And so the pro-am for this deal is tomorrow. And with any pro-am, they bring in

celebrities to play in the pro-am. And so it's people that are like big in the golf community or have a real liking for golf that are very famous. Right. So it'll be like the guy that hosts the Bachelor. And it'll be some guy. Chris Harrison. Yeah. Sarison in the house? Wow. That's cool. They'll be like Joe Disman and they'll be like, you know, just all kinds of people, right?

But there's a couple NBA guys. Sleepy Floyd is one of the NBA guys. I guess he's a big golfer. But check this out. And Joe House confides in me. He says the story is he is extremely good. And I was like, no way. Get this.

Because you brought up Dion Waiters that made me think of this guy. it's J.R. Smith. What? J.R. Smith. He said this guy's got like this great short game. One of my buddies played with him and he's like the real deal. And I was like, this is insane. If I were going to have a list of guys with my, you know, this is one of those where it destroys your perceptions, right? Like I'm thinking it takes patience and it takes this, you know, even keel and all of it, like, all the things that I think about, like the reasons I fail when I'm golfing, right, by ADD and my lack of patience and my, all these things. And I'm like, this guy, this guy is kind of goofy, right, J.R. Smith, but evidently awesome golfer that you absolutely would want to be paired with in a pro am. And I was like,

what the hell? I had no idea. I knew. Curry really good plays a lot. Mike Conley really good plays a lot. Iguodala has gotten really into it and is a big time golfer. I didn't even know that that was true of J.R. Smith, but evidently accomplished golfer J.R. Smith. Figure that out. I just I just Googled J.R. Smith golf to see if like the fact check this essentially. from 2014, an article on Bleacher Report headlined, for most NBA players, golf is just a hobby. But for J.R. Smith, it's a way of life. I told you. That's five years ago.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable 2014 was five years ago. That's a different conversation. But dude, this is nuts. He's playing in the pro. Am, no less. So anyways, going back to the original point, the duos, you want to start thinking about,

LeBron and Anthony Davis and writing about that. And so now as you're going to go about writing that article and start thinking about this duo of which we feel like we've known about for a year or maybe we've been thinking about Anthony Davis and LeBron forever, but now you're going to try to put it down with a pen and paper as it were or a keyboard. And what do you start thinking about? Actually, on typewriter. That's what I use.

Understood. And in regards to that article, it sort of started. it out with me and my editor, Chris Ryan, just about like, hey, Anthony Davis is probably going to elevate this game even to a higher level now that he's playing with LeBron James. You know, like, that's just sort of where it started. Like this, this outstanding player who in New Orleans with these average, mediocre teams over the years without any potent wing players, without reliable defenders around him and Drew Holiday, managed to turn into a three-time all-NBA defender, a guy who is one of the best

most unstoppable offensive forces in the league. He turned into that in New Orleans, somebody who is an all-around superstar an offense who can do it all, somebody who can defend every position on defense at least in an average level, but is also one of the most devastating, most feared rim protectors in the league.

That's what he turned into in New Orleans. And now he's going to play alongside LeBron James, who is going to be by far the best playmaker he's ever played with, by far the best player he's ever played with. And not to mention, Danny Green, despite the fact he's older is the best wing Anthony Davis has ever played with. So that's where it sort of started.

But then when you're thinking about the state of the league. Let me take a quick time out. Hold on. You really believe LeBron James is a better playmaker than Tim Frazier. I mean, he might, he might, he's better than Tim Frazier, but maybe not better than Elford Payton. Etouan Moore. Or Rajan Rondo.

Solomon Hill. But that's, that's sort of like, I mean. I mean, like, the fact is, like, LeBron's clearly the best player he's played with. The fact Danny Green is better than any wing he's ever played with sort of says it all. I mean, like, Danny Green's really good. But like, no disrespect to Etowen more or Tyreek Evans or Eric Gordon, who did not have, you know, a good year alongside AD. No disrespect to those guys are solid players. But Danny Green's a better fit next to them.

And New Orleans still, you know, over the years, constantly always struggled to find the right pieces. and Gordon in his four, whatever, four or five years. He had one really good season alongside AD in the early years. But point being, that's sort of where the idea started. But then it's like you focus on the state of the league now and how wide open it is. The league changed this summer for really the fourth time this decade. It changed when LeBron formed the Healds with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosch. And then you had a bunch of teams trying to form super teams.

It changed in 24. when the Warriors landed on their death lineup with Draymond at the 5, with Steph and Clay and Igwadala and Barnes. And teams started trying to go smaller. Teams started trying to play faster, and the shooting revolution increased even more. It changed in 2016 when KD replaced Harris and Barnes and went to the Warriors and formed that juggernaut.

And it changed this summer with this wide open league. And so that sort of raises the question, well, in what way is it going to change? How are teams going to respond? And to me, the clear answer in Justin Barrier from the ringer wrote about this a couple weeks back is you have a lot of teams with good big men on contenders, but the team with the best big man and the best teammate by his side and LeBron James is the Lakers. So are we going to enter a stage here where the Lakers are going to be that team like the Warriors,

the Warriors wants forced teams to play smaller and faster with more. spacing and more versatility, will the Lakers force teams to play big? Will you need to have a quality big man to counter Anthony Davis and possibly if the Marcus Cousins gets back to even 75, 80% of what he was before, the Marcus Cousins, because the Lakers can play big. There's other teams that can play big. Will suddenly teams need to have size in order to contend, whereas just a couple of years ago you had to play smaller and faster?

Is that what's next? I actually, I buy that completely because I do think that if you go small, they will pound it into the ground and overpower you. And both of them are so malleable. You know, you can be big. And like, it's not like Anthony Davis is going to get killed on the boards because you went big. You know, like that was the thing with, you know, the teams that had so much success against the Warriors,

they would try to go big when they were small, but their chance was just to grab 100 offensive rebounds and just keep on, you know, slow the game down and keep on trying to pound the glass and beat them in the possession game. And like it feels like both LeBron and AD, if you want to play fast, they could. And if you want to play slow, it's to their advantage too.

And so that's the issue. there's usually some sacrifice you make by going small or going big. Bingo. But this team has that combination of skill and size that other teams just don't. Well, it's because of those two freaks of nature. Yep. You know, like it's like, all right, LeBron's out there guarding your point guard one possession. Like, okay.

He's guarding your center the next. Okay. Players aren't interchangeable like that. They're not supposed to be. And that's why those guys are so great. Here's what I thought when I was reading it. Is there any chance, any, that it's not a devastatingly great partnership, that it doesn't, like we always look at the positive, right?

Like, I mean, I look and I say, geez, man, Kauai and Paul George on the wings, that's going to be amazing. Or, you know, and there's a different circumstance maybe with Hardin and Westbrook that would lead people to say, oh, this isn't going to work that great. I don't think he can work this great. But with these two particular players, we feel like it's a sure thing that LeBron and AD that it's going to be great together. Is there any possibility that it's not?

And I only say that because we have seen sometimes in the past, whether it was obviously that when the Lakers put together that team with Nash and Howard and Kobe and it underwhelmed greatly or, I mean, I hate to bring up Dwight again, but the Dwight and Hardin thing Do you really? To bring him up?

Do you really? I don't think you do. But I mean, that's a grizzly. Okay. Dwight that word. I think he's still actually on the sheet. Can he go to China, please?

Like, just go be a star. Everybody will love you. You get paid a billion dollars a year. Just do it. But that thing didn't work in Houston, right? The other one, you added great players or a great player into the mix in Boston last year.

It's the Kyrie thing. And it just didn't take. It didn't work, right? Blame whoever you want, Kyrie. But it just didn't work. Is there any chance that LeBron and AD

on the same team is not unbelievable? I think it's just health, durability. Yeah. I really think that's about it. I think those two, a couple people in response to the article yesterday tweeted me about how LeBron in the past hasn't had the most success with other

former big men like Kevin Love and Chris Bosch. And that's fair, but AD is a different type of player. AD is in his prime one of the best defensive players in all of basketball. So in that sense, he's better than love because he's not a defensive limitation. That will not be a liability for the Lakers on that end of the floor. In fact, I would go as far to say that the Lakers could have quite a good defense. Even if you look at the Pelicans the last couple years with 80 on the floor, they had the number 13 overall defense in 2017, but they were the fifth best with 80 on the floor. In 2016, they were ninth overall, but they were third best with 80 on the floor. So 80s presence alone will give them an enforcer on the defensive end alongside some of their

other positives that they have, like a Danny Green, like an Avery Bradley, who's a good point or defender, like a KCP, who's a solid defender. They have enough weapons on defense to be solid. So in that sense, the fit works. All right. How about this? Do you think, yeah, you think Davis leads a team in shot attempts? Do you think Davis is the guy that gets the ball when they're down by one with 10 seconds

to go? Sometimes. Sometimes no. And that's the benefit here. And that's where I think these guys can work in tandem with each other. AD is a better pick and roll player than Chris Bosch was on the role. role. He's a better, better, better roller than Kevin Love was. And Kevin Love was a better shooter. Chris Bosch eventually became a three-point shooter in the later years with that trio. But early on,

he was more of a mid-range shooter. So AD comes in ready to shoot threes at least in an average level for his position. And he is one of the best, most dominant, most threatening, scariest, rim running players in all of basketball, who is also just a filthy offensive rebounder, smart cutter, a guy who does so much on him the floor, a guy who handles a ball like a guard or a wing, who has improved as a passer as well this past season with New Orleans. He's a do-it-all player.

And it feels so silly to say this, but I feel like AD has sort of been underrated after this past season, in a sense, because we've forgotten how great he is at his peak. And similar to how... With Kauai Leonard last year, when he played only nine games with the Spurs, we sort of distorted our view of what he was. And I say we, the collectively, not everybody, but after playing nine games, the concern with Kauai was, can he stay healthy? But with that concern, I think we also sort of forgot what he was at his peak with San Antonio in that last playoff run before.

Unfortunately, Zaza-Petulia ended things for them and for him. And for AD, a similar thing has sort of happened where this is a guy who in the 2017-18 season was arguably the best player in the league. He wasn't, but he was in that conversation. He's one of the six or seven guys that you can make a case is arguably the best player in the league or can become the best player in the league this coming season. And the Lakers have two of them with AD and LeBron. And they perfectly coexist on the offensive end of the floor because of LeBron's playmaking ability because of his versatile scoring ability. and with AD's versatile abilities either as a screener or as a guy that can

bring the ball up for you as a guy who can handle the ball. Both of these guys are do-it-all players who compliment each other. But AD is also an enforced on the defensive end. And that's going to help really bring the Lakers to another level where there's no limitation with what these guys can do together. The only

real concern is health. And the supporting cast, of course, needs to step up. You need Kuzma to become a better, more consistent spot-up shooter. You need Danny Green at his age not to fall off a cliff. You need Avery Bradley to stay healthy after he's had some injury concerns the last couple years.

Jared Dudley is old. He's solid, but he's old. You need to mark his cousins to get better than he was for the duration of his time with the Warriors. You also need him to stay healthy. There's questions about this team. But the point is the upside of this team is significant enough that they could dictate what other teams do, building their rosters,

and they are potentially so good that they can dictate what other coaches are doing with lineups that they put on the floor. The upside is there for that. Does not mean they will reach it. But the possibility is there that AD and LeBron James

are a league-changing duo. It only happens if they win the title, but that's certainly on the table that they could win the title. And then you would see them be an agent for change. But that's what forces it. I mean, that's what forced it with the Warriors. You got to win huge.

You know, whoever wins, that's what ends up in many cases getting attempted to be replicated or certainly teams look at it at that team with, that's the team we've got to beat. But they got to get the first one, you know,

they got to win first. And then everybody says, okay, that's the team we have to get past because you truly have to be the team that everybody feels like they've got to get past. And there's just so many frigging good teams now that you've really got to,

to distinguish yourself. I don't, I mean, we know the Warriors thing was aided by a real incredible rarity with the cap going up at the exact time that Durant's available. Like, that should have never been able to happen. But it did. And it forced the rest of the league to look at it and say, all right, we know we've got to beat the Warriors. Like, that's a team we're going to have to beat. And so you got to win first. But if they do, yes, I agree with you that teams will then, like they do with others, change things with them in mind. A couple other quick things before we get out of here today. Tim Duncan, back on the sideline?

Back. He's back, baby. Well, I mean, here's what you know. Who knows how long pop's going to be on that sideline, but he's got this group of people, Emuadoka, Becky Hamm and all manner of people, like these long-term people that have been around the Spurs and that, quote, culture, as it were, for so long. And so I do think it is a benefit to have, as it was for so many years, to have Tim Duncan around and just, you know, when you're walking through those halls and you see those trophies and whatever else, like there is somebody there besides Greg Pavich that could say, this is the way we do things here. Like, either get with the program or don't.

But this is, this is the standard. This is the way we do things at the spurs. The spurs have pulled that off for years and years, you know, that this is just the, way it is. The same way that Patriots guys can listen to Bill Belichick, but having their quarterback be there forever and be the guy in the locker room saying, look, yo, this is the way we do it here. And this is what's expected here. And it ain't like every other place you've been. I do think that there is, forget the basketball instruction side of it, just having somebody there that is the, you know, standard bearer of this culture that we have always talked about with

the spurs. I mean, it's clearly helpful, you know. It's also just going to be flat out cool to see Tim Duncan sitting on the sideline and a suit every single night. I'm just, I'm just excited. I'm just excited to see him out there, man. He's not going to be playing, but the fact is that this is probably the best player to ever be an assistant coach ever, right? Patrick Ewing is about the only other one. Jason kid now with the Lakers as an assistant coach. Most great players become. head coaches immediately. Like Larry Bird, like Magic Johnson.

It's very rare to see an incredible player like this, like top 50 all-time guy, become an assistant first. It's not often, right? Yeah, Ewing certainly fits that bill and you would see him around. That's not much. No, I was trying to think off the top of my head of guys that I have seen. Yeah, even you mentioned, did you mention Mikhail? Mikhail kind of walked into the job.

Was Mikhail an assistant before? I don't think so. I think he was... Yeah, so he's a head coach first. Yeah. It's odd. Like, most guys don't become assistants first. Yeah.

I mean, Isaiah Thomas was never an assistant. He's obviously a great NBA player. So, Mikhail, for what it's worth, he was vice president of basketball operations in the Wolf's front office and then became the head coach. Yeah. And that was back in 2008 with the Timberwolves after Whitman was fired. So not an assistant, but an executive. but a great, great player that then was an assistant coach.

I mean, Rashid Wallace, again, he's not the level of Duncan, but he has been, he's been an assistant. I mean, I'm sure there's names that we are forgetting, especially with some greater players of yesteryear. But even like the recent ones, like, you know, there's always these guys that we say, oh, that guy's going to be a head coach one day. You're probably right that most of them do just go into. the job rather than be an assistant coach. Assistant coach is, I mean, I have immense respect

for those guys. Those guys work their asses off all the time. Like that is not an easy job at all. And so most NBA guys, they don't want to do that, you know, they don't want to do. You know, like they've, they've seen what those guys do. They've seen the hours they put in. They've seen the amount of hours they have to spend on laptops, cutting up film and, you know, doing preps for the games and all that kind of stuff. Like, it's not, unless you really love it, I mean,

you gotta love it. I think you're probably right there. I think that is one of those where you can say it off the cuff, but even so it will check out because seriously, how many players in NBA history can we name better than Tim Duncan?

And then we've just got to go down that list. So if it wasn't one of like the five guys we think had a better career than Tim Duncan. Exactly. Slim Pickens out there. And that's what made the press release by the Spurs so especially funny. They did not mention any of his accomplishments at all.

They just said, Duncan, a 1997 Wake Forest graduate played 19 seasons with the Spurs before retiring in the summer of 2016. And they also had him listed after Will Hardy in the press release. He was listed second, second. There are times where I see that. And I wonder if they're laughing when they do that or not. Well, you know, Popovich was with the quote. the quote for one of sorts of others

are listening who didn't hear it or read about it, Popovich said in the press release quote, it is only fitting that after I served loyally for 19 years as Tim Duncan's assistant that he returns the favor. So at least he was funny about it. It's so great.

It's awesome. I love it. Last other tidbit, Zion Williamson, the shoe decision has been made and he signed with Jordan Brand which there's There's a Duke guy going to Jordan Brand. But look, I cannot remember, I mean, maybe I'm not kidding, since LeBron, in terms of sought

after shoe free agent that somebody would go and open up the vault for and in terms have not been disclosed yet, but this has got to be just a absolutely absurd. Rose with Adidas at the time was enormous. Like the deal he got from Adidas was huge. but my dear friend Sonny Vicaro, he told me even a year ago that he thought the Zion one could really break the bank and break records and that he would get. So, I mean, I suppose at some point we'll probably hear what he got, but this was going to be the war of all wars. And Jordan Brand wins. He's going to be wearing the shoes and representing that brand.

So it's clearly a huge win for Michael Jordan, who can at least be happy about that while he watches the Hornets. one other note speaking of Jordan there was a report just before we started our podcast today that the NBA at the owner's meeting earlier this month Michael Jordan was one of the people

outspoken about a little bit of tampering that had occurred and Zach Lowe and Brian Windhorst reported that the NBA opened an investigation into how free agency operated this summer possibly to figure out how much tampering may have occurred, how many deals were agreed to ahead of time.

But more or less, how to address this moving forward. That's what Jordan and all the owners discuss earlier this month. So that'll be something that we'll find out more maybe in the coming weeks or coming months. I'm interested in these findings because I have always been fascinated with how people agree to everything within one second after the deadline. How does that happen? How does that happen? Within one second of the deadline, we have a stream of tweets from Adrian Wojianowski.

And I'm like, wow, you want to talk about quick work? Within 30 seconds, they negotiated an entire deal. I mean, what are we talking about? They know, they know that everybody has negotiated everything before their goofy deadline. It's just, are you really going to do something to enforce it? like, really? You're going to make everybody play dumb? Or, you know what?

How about this? How about just tell Woj to do it a day later? Hey, you know all that news you're going to break? Just do it 24 hours from now. So it doesn't look like everybody's been negotiating for the last month. Well, no, I mean, if Woj waits a day, then RD ambition comes in. And he reports the news. So as I mentioned, I am in Memphis.

this week, a big golf tournament going on, our ringer buddy. Joe House has been with me throughout the week and has been chronicling everything that has been going on in between golf and he's in here in conjunction with Callaway being in town. And then the golf tournament's going on. You have gone back to Massachusetts. And I know that since you did the Dunk on Cancer charity that started during the NBA playoffs and spoke very openly. about your father and everything going on, that many people have been interested in updates on dad and how everything's going. I know you have been going back there very frequently to visit. And so want to give us an update? Yeah, sure. You know, it's funny. You mentioned that people

are interested. I had somebody last week or the week before just say to me, how's your dad doing? They didn't even say hello. It was pretty cool. It was pretty cool. Yeah. So, I mean, I've appreciated all the thoughtful comments and questions. And the fact is, dude, like, it was amazing to see so many people donate and share their positive thoughts and everything about the dunk on cancer. Raising 75K was pretty dope. But I don't know. My dad's doing okay. He had a procedure this week. He's doing fine. I think we're doing, we're collectively doing well, considering myself, my dad, and my mom, my mom, who's been a superhero through this whole thing for sure. Yeah, we're doing pretty good. It's good to be back here the next couple weeks or month or whatever it is to hang out with my family for a while. Missing L.A., for sure, and hoping to be in L.A. for plenty of Lakers' Clippers action this season. But it's good to be back in Massachusetts for a little bit with my family and see my friends as well. Well, send our wishes from everybody to your father and know that we are still rooting on.

And everybody's like super interested, right? because now, you know, you created a scenario where everybody's got stock in this. You know what I'm saying? Like, I mean, your story became the story of so many of us that have gone through this with the loved ones. And so there's so many people that relate and know what it's like. And so to see you and through the courage and everything and your mom and everything through this, which is not what anybody wishes for anybody.

And then your dad, powering through and keeping a great attitude and smiling all along the way, it's good and it's great for everybody to see. And that's why you've created this situation where people are so interested and they just want to know, hey, is everything going okay? Definitely. You know, I think you and I might have talked about this before, you know, whenever the story went up a couple months ago. But like I think for me, it's like all the love that has been shown to me and my family, I think that should be the default setting with the people that you meet because everybody's going through something in some form or another. And that was the thing that was most mind-blown. to me through the story I wrote with Dunkin Cancer is the amount of people who were just opening up and being vulnerable about like their own family situation, whether it had to do with cancer or relationship with a parent. It's like every person does go through something at some point in their life. So I hope that love and transparency, you know, not to sound too much like a hippie sometimes, but like love others and be kind and genuine with others. I think just as some have been with me, you know, do that with others as well. Because that's been, um,

That's been most powerful of all, it's just to feel all that love. So it feels good. Feels good to love. Fantastic message to say the least. Kevin, it's always fun, and I will catch up with you next week. And I love you too, Chris. Don't worry. I got love for you as well.

Have a good one, man. Thanks for listening to another Ringer MBA show. If you dig what you're hearing, go give us a rating and review on iTunes. Five stars, five stars. It really helps. And we will talk to you next week.