The Ringer NBA Show - The Warriors and Bucks Move On, Plus Round 1 Re-evaluations | Group Chat

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

Justin, Rob, and Wos start by discussing the Warriors closing out the Nuggets (1:58). Then, they discuss the Bucks winning their series by routing the Bulls in Game 5 (18:34). Then, they wrap up with some first-round re-evaluations about the Nets, impressive young guys, and the title race (38:31). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Wosny Lambre Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Benjamin Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are you a sports fan who didn't know the NFL draft was this week? Then boy, do I have the teaser trailer for you. I'm Danny Heifitz, and I host the Ringer NFL draft show every week with Danny Kelly, Ben Solek, and Craig Horlebeck. We're doing mock drafts before the draft. We're great in picks after the draft. Now, do we know which picks were good and who's going to go where? No, absolutely not.

We can't predict the future. But people like hearing about it. Yeah, don't you, you sickos. So we talk about it anyway. So come listen to the Ringer NFL draft show. And guess what? If you like the draft, but you don't like me, you can go listen to the ringer NFL show with Kevin Clark and Nora Princeziati and our other NFL experts,

or you can go to NFL draft.com to check out our massive draft guide. So come listen to the ringer NFL draft show and the ringer NFL show on Spotify because they employ me. Or it's also available on all the other platforms that don't employ me. Group chat, I am Justin Barrier. Joining me as always, playoff Big Wise, play off Rob Mahoney. Wise, thanks for wearing a shirt this week. No problem. I didn't want to distract my colleagues with the gun show.

You know in California, you can get a gun license, but I'm not going to distract you guys today. I can't claim that I wasn't. Like the light was hitting the guns just right. You know, it's just, it made me veer off mid-take a couple times. I'll put it that way. That's coconut oil, boy. Rob's never worn pants, but we'll just gloss past that.

Two matchups on the docket for tonight for this rousing episode of Group chat after dark nuggets in warriors game five bucks and bulls game five both close out games and then we're going to get into a little bit of big picture talk in the back end of this podcast a little reevaluation after a couple weeks of play out basketball let's start with this nightcap warriors 102 nuggets 98 uh it wasn't great for the warriors it wasn't decisive but they got the job done and they're going on to round two uh wads how are you feeling about the warriors after this one because I think to start the playoffs, they looked like they were back, perhaps title favorites even, but the last two games a little bit more mixed.

Yeah, it didn't feel like surgical position, as you would have expected them to against Nuggets team that's not really that defensively stout, if we're being honest, like they're trotting out Monti Morris, Nicola Yokic, Will the Thrill Barton, Bones Highland, like, these guys aren't, you know, exactly the 85 bears here. So I expected them to be a little bit more dominant offensively, and they just couldn't get going on that end. They missed a bunch of bunnies close up. They weren't willing to take the bunnies a lot of times

where it's just like, dude, there's nobody within four feet of you. You're seven feet from the basket. You should be able to take a shot that has a reasonable chance of going in. And I thought that was a little disappointing. I thought there were moments with Steph which just wasn't as decisive as I would like to see him be, right? For both firing off of the screen when he turned the corner, which is what makes people deathly afraid and have to send two to the ball and all of that, which then opens up the drive. And sometimes the bigs, whether be boogie, whether be Yokic, were getting close to him on the level and he wasn't just screaming by them off the dribble.

And so there were times where I was just a bit disturbed. Traymond Green had at least two Ben Simmons layups, which were utterly disgusting. Meaning non-layups, yeah. Exactly. That last one would have been a disaster if Gary Payton II didn't drill that three. I just thought they fell out of sorts,

and I think they got to get that stuff shorn up in the next round because here's the thing. Their defense is not as dominant as it once was. This is not the defense from 2015 that had Draymond Green, high level all-MBA style, Agudala, all-MBA level guy, Clay Thompson, you go on down. They don't have that anymore. It's Draymond and a bunch of dudes who are figuring it out. Yeah, let's talk about that because they did roll out the new NU with an UMLAO death lineup here

with Jordan Poole, Steph Curry back in the starting lineup. On the one hand, it has their most talented players all from the jump. on the other hand, you know, a pool wasn't in there late and I think it revealed a little bit of their size deficiency.

You saw Cousins get going. He scored a playoff career high, which was surprising to me, 19 points because you tend to forget that Cousins has like two playoffs under his bell at this point. But I think

if Curry didn't get going late there, Rob, and Gary Payton the second didn't hit, the Mitten didn't hit some big time threes, this could have been a little bit more dicier than it. So I guess the question is like long term. Is there a reason to be concerned? Well, it's

not just those ifs too. If it was just those two things, okay, maybe you sweep it under the rug, but it's if Nicola Yokic hadn't been in foul trouble. If the Nuggets had been missing half their lineup with injury, not only coming into this game, but in this game, they lost Austin Rivers and for a while, Bones

Highland, and Yokic has a bad hamstring. Not great signs that the new death lineup, NU, Oomlaude, death lineup, wasn't a rousing success because I think the crowd at the beginning of the game

was ready for it to be. Like they were ready to explode for a couple minutes and then when it didn't go off the way that anyone thought it would, the energy in the building came down and then it was just messy all game long for the Warriors.

So I think the defensive stuff Waz zeroed it on is really sharp. That's exactly where they are right now. They gave up a ton of offensive rebounds in this game. They didn't protect the inside in this game at all. And then offensively, we saw the limitations of that lineup too

where there are, going to be nights where everyone's hitting their shots and they're just blowing teams out. But Jordan Pool's shot selection can be a little iffy at times. And he's going to hunt shots at certain points in certain games. Clay Thompson is still a big TBD in terms of what is he going to do off the dribble against good defenses? Is he going to be able to convert layups to hit pull up shots? And he had some moments today, by the way, that we're encouraging. And if Andrew Wiggins gets the ball in pressure situations, is he going to make the right read?

in space. And so when all those things are kind of off and Steph isn't quite going the way you want, that's what leads to these kind of ugly games. I think it's good that the Warriors pulled it out, but they look much less convincing now than they did a week ago. And here's the thing, too, about the old death lineup, if you will, right? You had the complete non-shooters in Draymond and Iggy, but guess what? Defensively, you were without a question elite. Like, there's, so you could handle some of the weaknesses that Draymond and Agu Dala gave you offensively and make it happen because you just had some incandescence from Steph Curry and Clay Thompson and, you know, even Harry Barnes,

who I know gets a lot of shit for what he did back then. But like, you know what I mean. Jordan Poole in the lineup today was getting smoked. He was getting destroyed on defense, both on the ball and losing guys off of the ball, not getting. back in transition. Like, all the ways you can be bad at defense, he was doing that. And they're just not used to having that level of drop off on either end of the court

when they go to their best lineup. So, man, there's some unevenness. They had to bring in Looney because he was the only way they could grab a freaking defensive rebound when they finally did get stops. I'm interested to see how this all plays out against Memphis or Minnesota, but we all know it's Memphis. at this point. I know we're still figuring out

a name for this lineup, but I think we might need an alternative just in case for these situations where Jordan Poole does not finish this game. Gary Payton is in instead. They both play 26 minutes.

There might be games where you need Peyton more than Poole. Well, let me put something in the little suggestion box here. Is the Mitten a better fit than one Jordan Poole in this lineup?

If only because he does give them some of the defensive precision and acumen that they actually need in times like this. Like maybe sometimes they need a little bit more offense and you can lean pool. But if you need more on the defensive end, you go with our friend GP2. If the mitt and fits must you acquit is my question. You tell me. The problem with that theory for me, Justin, is against a team as athletic as Memphis, those windows where he's taking those test the wind

practice threes. Those windows aren't that huge against Memphis. Right? Like Memphis, if one, at the point of attack, they're not going to have to commit that level of help defense, right? Around the way that Denver sort of had to around Yolkich,

boogie, sort of pick and roll coverages. And when they're closing out, they're closing out with gazelles. Okay? It's just those windows for shooting are going to be a lot tighter. And it's not going to be these easy, just walk into an easy-ass three.

That's why I don't know that I'm completely sold on this idea that GP3 is the remedy. But that's the fun of the playoffs, right? Like, the best teams have to make adjustments, try different things, and figure shit out. Yeah, it had been a minute since we've seen this, but there's a point in this game where Otto Porter got such a wide open three and bricked it so badly. He got immediately pulled from the game. You know, I love that instant cause and effect in these games where it's like, we just cannot afford to have this role player on the floor for us right now.

Or the Matisse Taible? The Matisse special, as it's come to be known. Yeah, my conspiracy theory is actually putting Peyton on the floor, Lull's team into, like, thinking they just leave him wide open, which is when he drains those wide open shots, it's such a surprise. This is what I used to call the Luke Babette corollary, where he was actually... That was a good shooter. No, no, no, this is a different thing.

This is when teams used to think he was such a poor defender. they used to go at him, but he was actually a perfectly adequate defender and it actually worked out into his benefit that he was so doofy. Not so much of the case with Peyton as being a doof, but at the same time, like, you know, he's credible. That's not a bad place to be, though,

for people to think you're so bad and you turn out to be adequate, that's kind of, I think, what we shoot for on this podcast generally speaking. I was going to say. Well, long term, though, do you think, Rob, there's, like, a reason to be concerned about,

the size of shoes specifically. I don't know if they'll face much of a threat in this next round. Memphis is already going smaller in order to match up with some of what the wolves were throwing at them, some of the versatility. But, you know, the suns are out there playing two big lineups with Javelle McGee and DeAndre Aiton. Like, there are some teams with some size waiting in the wings. Yeah, I mean, if we operate under the assumption the Grizzlies are going to win that series,

I'm not looking past that one. when you think about what went wrong for the Warriors in this game, as Waz outlined, transition, like stopping the ball and transition defense, keeping guys out of the paint, offensive rebounds. That's a nightmare combination. After we saw what Brandon Clark did last night

where this dude is like, he took a shot on one side of the rim. It went over the rim and around, and he was the one that caught the freaking offensive. rebound over that shot and he put it in like just a one man Mike and drill out there exactly these dudes are relentless on

the boards and I know we're talking about them as if they're already in and whatever but I'm just saying like these problems are going to present themselves going forward because of the things that Rob already mentioned but you can you can flip it and spin it for the wolves too like even if the wolves pull out that series think about how Aaron Gordon was getting

to the basket in this game if that's Aunt Edwards like yeah I know but I'm not worried about either team, man. Like, listen, both of those things are fun and scrappy. That DeLo did last night. Yeah, seriously. Like, where he waves off.

Play offense as if they're getting, like, they wrote their thesis paper. Like, they started it the night it was due. Like, I don't know. The Warriors have too much to just expertise. Rob, that man waved off Aunt Edwards and Carl Anthony Towns. He said, I got this. against Desmond Bain

who actually knows how to guard people is way strong to you. Has quick feet threw up the worst the worst contested to I've ever seen. As soon as you see Dilo do that start to clear people out

or even just consider it to stop and consider that he might run an ISO. You call a time out immediately. That's as much the coaching staff's fault as it was his. I'm sorry to get derailed from that but that just floored because it happened in slow motion from me. Like, no. Did he just use his right on the wave? Is he really doing his slow-ass, has he?

Did he really just throw up slop at the rim? Oh, it was just awful. Anything else on the Warriors here before we turn and say goodbye to our friends, the Deviner Nuggets? No, I think we're going to talk plenty about the Warriors. They're still in pretty good shape, ultimately, just have some stuff to clean up, still a contender, still look formidable. I like the Kamenka Minutes. I just love his energy. He's easily the most, athlete. Well, GP's pretty athletic too, but he's the most explosive athletic guy on the team that really needs this shit. And in the next round, no matter who the

opponent is, they're going to need athleticism and explosion to combat with those guys that coming with. I like the comming a minute. He kind of gives him what DeMarcus cousins gave them a few years ago, or is that like little jolt of energy, the little spice of life, just without like the absolute chaotic part of that, where he might just get two technicals and like be out of game within two minutes. It's like a little something extra there, which is nice to have just

in reserve. Well, to flip it to the nuggets, DeMarcus cousins gave them everything they could handle in this game, like an unbelievable 12 minute stretch of basketball from him and then kind of playing out the string as much as he could. Right, which is encouraging. I guess the question is how much do they need him next year? Because theoretically, they should have two thirds of their offense back there. I don't know. I'm like, I'm looking at the nuggets. I'm trying to find like an offseason question to really consider here, Rob, but like, it seems pretty straightforward. It's just if they get their Michael Porter Jr. back, if they get Chmall Murray back, could this team be on the other side of this? Is there anything else we really need to consider here?

I think it's just the cascading effect of all of that stuff. It's not just losing those two guys. It's the difference between having a really good backup point guard in Monta Morris and then all of a sudden a starter who your season depends on in Monta Morris. And like not to single that guy out because it's really up and down the roster is the difference between like Will Barton being a fun wildcard score versus essential personnel. Those are just, they feel very different in the flow of a game like this, in the flow of a season. So getting everyone back into their natural roles, I think is going to do a world of difference.

Where Aaron Gordon was trying to create from 30 feet out off the dribble in this, in the fourth quarter, where they scored like six points in the first like nine minutes or something ridiculous like that. Not ideal. Aaron Gordon with some Draymond green energy in the last two games in particular I loved it I loved it I loved how he trolled him where he dunked it unnecessarily

and stood over him and Draymond grabbed his leg didn't remember that like that's not the sharpshooter I was like what is going on there how do you not get a tech yeah he was about to put him in the bossy crab but I love that though because that's what they're going to need him to play

in a high level playoff series next year. Well, and just a play like this in general. He was chasing Steph all over the floor doing a pretty good job, given that role. I thought this was his best offensive game, but in the previous one was really good too. If you're a Nuggets fan, if you're invested in this team, how

Yokic has scaled up over the course of the series and played better and better and how Gordon settled in, those are two really promising signs. Then when you put all the pieces back together, you can see that outline of the team we fell in love with before it all kind of fell apart due to injuries. You can see them

just kind of falling right back into place, as long as Murray and Porter can be reasonable facsimiles of their previous selves. And I think on defense, too, oftentimes we talk about Yokic's defense. Steph Curry can absolutely exploit what Yokic is bad at. You might say maybe a Dame Lillard can. I don't think Chris Paul is the type of guy that does that. I don't think Donovan Mitchell, Luca Donchitz, to a certain extent, kind of. But like, this, like, you have to guard me all the way.

way out to 30 feet no matter what and I'm quicker than most people's stuff. There's not a lot of guys who present those problems in my opinion. And so defensively, his weaknesses get muted, man. And in crunch time, it's pick your poison with this guy. Some of the shots he was making were so insanely contested. Like most people, like dribbling towards the rim, throwing up a floater. You're like, that doesn't have a prayer. And he's just knocking them down each and every time against

Jemar Green, who's everybody's accepted answer for the best defensive player in the NBA. It's crazy, man. I'm excited to see what they do next year. Yeah, just to put it on the record, Yokic in this game, 30 points, 12 of 18 shooting, 19 rebounds, 8 assists. That's all right. 19 rebounds. That's incredible.

Does he deserve the MVP, though? The jury's still out, you know? So basically, next preseason, just reread the feature that Rob wrote about. Michael Porter Jr. This past preseason. It's ever green, really. Will those guys fit in next to Yokeage? Is there enough to go around?

Et cetera, et cetera. We'll just do it all again. All right. Let's turn to the Eastern Conference here. The Bucks decisively, decisively just blasted the Chicago Bulls. Here's my question was,

I think last week we had just heard about the Chris Milton injury. And we pondered at least briefly, like can the Bulls win this series? Do they have enough to overturn? it turns out not so much. How did the Bucks pretty much make this a non-question and just like completely turn the series around? It's pretty simple. The Bulls can't shoot for shit. I like that's just what it boils down to. Like they have no shooting. And then Zach Levine goes

down and it's like I'm watching the bad news bears out there. It's just brick after brick after brick and the Barks are just like, no, we're conceding these to you. Go ahead. They're just packing the pain on these dudes and there was just nothing they could do. There's like, literally the best shooter on the floor was Vucovich. That was their best option as a three-point shooter. And he's not like some Dirk Novitsky, Chris Taps, Porzenghis, Carl Anthony Towns type of big where that's what he wants to do. He really wants to score in the mid-posts in the post.

He doesn't want to do all of that. He has nice touch, but like he's not the type of guy that just punishes you for packing the paint. And so that's what they did. They just packed the paint, watched them just throw up shots that had no prayer of going in, and they dominated the rest of the series.

Well, and DeMar de Rosen attempted 10 shots as a result of that. They were throwing three and four guys. That's what I'm saying. Like, they're shading his right hand. They're throwing everybody they have to the point that DeMar can't even get shots up. I thought this game was a great reminder

that when we talk about stars not having enough help, we're not talking about scoring. We're talking about shooting. And you could see it in the Nuggets Warriors game, too. When the Warriors went zone, everything the Nuggets were doing clammed up because they just didn't have the shooters on the floor to sustain it. Here's a case where, I mean, they went 15 to 52. 52 three-point attempts from the Bulls in this game, 28.8%.

Most of those attempts came with the nearest defender in, I don't know, two counties over at that point. It was, honestly, this was a, this was, this was mean. This was very cruel to do to professional athletes on national television. It was. It took 16 more three-pointers than the bucks, but only made one more. It got pretty gross there. And I think the one thing that I probably discounted last week is just how hard the bucks play all the time. And if anything, that's just galvanize Janus to just get into world destruction mode.

And there were no survivors here. So let's actually talk about the bucks briefly going into the Celtics series. I think it starts Sunday the first game before we flip to the Bulls offseason. It's an interesting one, Rob. Not as much of a title bout as I think we had expected should Middleton have been there,

but what are you expecting from this one? Do you think the Celtics are the clear favorites or you think this is going to be more of a 50-50 sort of situation? It's tough for me. When I'm thinking about it, there's definitely a part of my brain that is in Celtics and 6 mode,

the way that that team has defended so far. Very tough. The other part of my brain is saying, do not pick against Janus under any circumstances. And you can just imagine him having 42-point games, parades to the free throw line, just marching through, especially lineups that just don't have as much rim protection.

You can absolutely see that. I'm really curious to see what the Bucks do line-up-wise when Middleton can't play. Because they started Bobby Portis, starting a game through in the series. And honestly, shout out to Mike Booneholtzer for doing it. That would not have been

like the button I would push, but it worked super well. Obviously, Portis had 13 and 17 in game five. In the three games, that lineup with Portis basically at the three, I guess, or Janus at the three,

depending on how you want to think about it, played about 30 minutes and had plus 24 net rating. That's great returns on that idea. Can you run that lineup against the Celtics? Are you going to put Janus on Jason Tatum or Jalen Brown

for extended minutes? Or are you going to trust Portis to do stuff like that. I don't know. Or do you try to match, like I'm not sure how you match up given those limitations. And we know now that Middleton's going to miss at least game one. If he's back, maybe the complexion of that

series changes. But it's going to be really challenging for the bucks from a matchup perspective. I think Janus is good enough to overwhelm all of that, but they're going to have to earn it. Yeah. You know, the Celtics like to do, the beauty of a switching stylist theoretically, you don't have to send help defense.

Right. And that's what makes it so that, you know, your guys stay home on shooters. You're not giving up these plumb spot-up looks. Like, it neutralizes a lot of the things that teams want to get up that make up a quality offense. You're keeping guys in front, et cetera, et cetera. You can't do that against Yonis. However, you can do that with Boston's personnel against Drew Holiday.

And I think this is going to be a hellish series for Drew Holiday offensively because I think he's lost some offensively. Like he's not the guy. He's not quite as explosive as he used to be. And I think his strength at his position is how he's able to overpower the guards at his position. And that's not happening against Boston. I think you're going to say his strength is as a teammate because he's the Twyman

Stokes award winner, which I got to say, you have to dig up that trip. I have never heard of this award. Oh, really? Which makes me a bad media member. but that's not what I was expecting you to say it's such bullshit that if you watch the video of him being told that he won the award closely he kind of rolls his eyes because Bud's like hey Drew Holiday won this trophy

it's gonna come and he's like oh okay maybe I all defense what did I win and he's like Twyman Stokes like teammate of the year he's like oh okay fuck you guys that one goes in the garage you know that's not on the man Yeah, I don't expect Drew Holiday to have a great series offensively. I think it's just going to be about Janice drawing two, kicking out to shooters,

bucks hopefully making some shots. And, you know, another thing that I think, and it makes me think about the Memphis in the sort of the inverse way. I think Memphis is, they've had to come up with answers in tight spots in a way that they'll be more ready for the Golden State Warriors than they would have if they would have played a team that they just rolled over. I don't think the Boston Celtics offense and the half court has had to do that against Brooklyn. And so I think they're going to have some new problems against the bucks in the next round.

And I think it's going to be moments where it gets really freaking ugly against the bucks. However, man, it's hard because as much as I love Janus, without Middleton, man. And Boston having, to me, what's the best unit in the playoffs? by far, which is their defense, man, it's really tough. I'm definitely leaning Boston right now. The one thing I keep coming back to, though, in Milwaukee's favor is I'm thinking about

when Brooklyn was most successful offensively. It wasn't when Katie was shooting over the top of guys or Kyrie was going nuts. It's when they were getting to the rim. If you can get to the rim on Boston, you can have a great time. You can spray out to shooters. Obviously, Yannis can just score for himself down there.

the idea that like when KD was most effective when he was driving makes it very enticing for me to think about what Janus can do if he can get similar opportunities. Yeah, part of me wonders if they do have the offensive firepower to go toe to toe, especially if Tatum is kind of in the zone like he has been thus far in his playoffs. But like at the same time, the Celtics are going to play these games in the mud. And that's kind of where the bucks live and where they thrived last postseason. And so I kind of feel like this plays to their advantage. If I'm looking at one player just like as a key to this series,

I almost wonder if Jalen Brown has to really step up and be that guy. And like maybe Tatum gives him enough game to game like he did against the Nets. But like it'd be nice to see Brown really step up to be the supplementary offensive player to really bail them out on this. Because he could be the swing player like Middleton could have been had he been available. So we shall see. So let me ask you this though briefly. Rob, if they did have Middleton, would you've gone box here? I think so.

Both of you guys? Absolutely. And so we'll see if Middleton's available for game two or game three or even later in the series if the Bucks can kind of do basically what, you know, it's a little different, but basically survive in the way that some of these other teams have for the first couple games of their series as they get Devin Boker back or as they get Luca Donchich back.

You know, Middleton isn't that level of player, but they need him just like those teams need their stars. And what I like about what the Bucks can do is like, What the Nets were trying to do was go at the Celtic strengths, which is try to score on Tatum one-on-one, and then try to score on Brown one-on-one, try to score on smart one-on-one, all the way out from the perimeter, right?

They were going at Boston Strength. Janice is going to be like, no, I'm going to try to score on Al-Horford, 101, on Grant one-on-one, on even Time Lord, who's probably still going to be on a minute's restriction, but Janice is not going to have a problem going at that dude straight up one-on-one. They're going to attack those guys, you know, from 15 feet and in, which I think is going to be very problematic for Boston and create punctures within the defense.

So that's why I feel better about what they're trying to do as opposed to what Brooklyn was doing, which was literally playing into all of the strengths of what Boston is great at. Boston's just a team of destiny, man. You could hear the drop kick Murphy's in the background. Oh, God. Stop. Please don't make me puke.

All right. Let's say goodbye to the Bulls here because they have a much more interesting offseason than the Denver Nuggets do. Most of their team is coming back. And all of the primaries could be coming back. But it depends on one Zach Levine deciding to re-up. What you would, I think, is safe to assume would be the Supermax of five years to $112 million offer. I guess we'll say that the Bulls are just going to fork that over immediately.

What do you think, wise? Well, let's, I think the question is twofold. Should Levine sign that contract or should he search out other options? And should the Bulls offer that contract and kind of resign themselves to what we've seen over the past season? Okay. To answer your first question, I'll ask you one. Did Zach Levine not be?

able to play in the last game of the series because of a knee injury? I think it was it was COVID related. Yeah. It was protocol. Oh, I thought it was a knee injury. I thought it was a knee injury. Allegedly, reportedly, he has a knee injury that has hampered him over the past couple games and he might need surgery.

So that's what I'm saying. It's been a longer term thing. Okay. So yeah, Zach Levine, who's doing all season knee surgery. Sign a five-year deal that pays you $200-something million. Yes. So, like, that's out of the question. If it's offered to him, he should absolutely.

signing now. You know, I think the Bulls is a different question because do they not have a good idea about what the ceiling of this squad as presently constituted is? Like, they could probably talk themselves into saying, well, Lanzo didn't play another injury guy. Well, Zach went down. Well, this, this and that. Well, you know, our season was disjointed at the end because of all the injuries. Well, but like, do they really think they're at the level of Boston right now? Do they really think they're at the level of, of Milwaukee right now? This is another for my bag of effects. This is the mid-a-hawks effect, where you're happy with moderate success until you aren't. And you're even saying that maybe after one season of this, they're bumping against the ceiling

and wondering what, if not more? Absolutely not. Guys, this is not going to happen. happen. The Bulls have been in the wilderness for years. They have one good season and you think they're going to let go or just low ball their second most important or most important player? I don't think they're going to do that. But my next thing was going to be like because we're in a new era where these guys don't leave in free agency, they get traded in pre agency. I think Zach Levine is a prime candidate of this. And it's not even going to be like, oh, I want to I want to, I want It's just going to be like it's not working at the Bulls at some point in the next two years are going to trade this guy. That's what it feels like his destiny is here.

So he's going to resign and they're going to bring the band back. But I don't think he's long for the Chicago Bulls at all. You got to play it out, though. Like you got to see what you've got with some of these guys healthy again, with some of your young guys coming along a little further. I mean, Pat Williams, 20 years old. Iodosum, Kobe White. Those guys are 22. Lanzo is only 24 years old.

Alex Caruso. is a very spry 27. That was Caruso, 27. That's great. Low key 27 years old. How old are Lonzo's knees? We have to do some carbon dating on that, I think. No, it's tough from that perspective.

Like, will Lonzo be healthy for the games that matter? Is a really valid question, given the career he's had. But when he was on the floor, he was so much of what they needed. To a point where I think you at least need to string this out and say, we have some picks, we have some intriguing young guys. we could trade if the right guy comes along. And then you look at a team like the Boston Celtics, who last year were nothing.

We're an irrelevant Eastern Conference team and look how quickly they came along with just the right sequence of events. And so if you're the Bulls, absolutely you should keep trucking along. Absolutely you should resign Zach Levine. And if it takes a lot of money to do it, that's kind of the price you pay for not giving him the kind of offer he wanted last time around

when you were talking extension. Yeah, I mean, he wasn't worth it at that point. Let's just be clear. But yeah, I would be surprised if they'd, didn't make this offer and Levine didn't accept it. Just considering their basic MO ever since changed in the front office around was to just get in as much above average players no matter what the cost is and kind of just roll it. It's like they, in a certain sense, they kind of took advantage of a market efficiency where teams just want to get out of the middle and they're just like,

just send me all of your mediocre players and we'll just roll with this and just excel with it. And I think it's fine. It's great to be competitive that market needed a team like that. I guess, but the question is, like, is there enough internal improvement here where they could take a step where we're like, yeah, they're actually better than Boston? They're going to be better than the bucks. Or are we looking at the same ceiling as they have this season? That seems like a Patrick Williams question. How high are you on Pat Williams' future? If you think that guy can be a star in the next two years, I think that's your answer.

And if you don't, then maybe he's a trade candidate for that exact reason. And you try to find a front office who is a little higher on him than you are. I ain't seen a single thing in Pat Williams' life that would indicate that he's going to be a star in the next two years. Yeah. So I don't know. It's tough. Just to briefly go over Levine's options, should he decide to go elsewhere, teams that have open max slots, Detroit, Indiana, Orlando, San Antonio, Portland. And I don't expect him to really jump at any of those offers.

I don't think he's dying to just go to Indianapolis and spend his days there. Although, I don't know if you guys have checked out the housing market lately. You could really get a nice deal in Indianapolis. But I think the question, like a fair question to ask is what the Bulls have appreciably better than what Detroit is building, what Indiana might be building with Tyrese Halliburton and Buddy Heald and all these guys, with what San Antonio, for instance, has. Like, if he just slotted into San Antonio with our guy Pertil and Murray, like, is that team not better than the Bulls? I don't think he's going to do it.

Like, this would take like- This Bull's disrespect is out of control. This is a good team. They were really freaking good when Lanzo and everybody, when everybody was playing, they were really, really good. Yep. But DeRosin's how old? The Detroit Pistons won 23 games this year, Justin. 23 games.

I know, but like, these guys don't think about it. that. I mean, De Rosen's... What? You don't think Zach Levine who just played his first playoffs ever cares about that? Well, I mean, I've also mentioned in this in the past. He is kind of sharing top billing with the Rosen right now. And I do wonder if a guy like that wants his own team. But you know, the thing is, the Rosen is doing the stuff that this guy doesn't do. Like, he doesn't do shot creation for others. This, like, he is, he's a, he's a hired gun. He's like, all right, When I get the ball, I know what I'm being at task to do. He's not the offensive hub, create for others type of guy.

So I don't see how he can be like, well, I want to be the guy that's setting up my teammates. Boy, you don't want to do that. And I mean, not for nothing. Injuries aside, Zach Levine seemed to have a really good time this season. He seemed to really enjoy playing for this team and playing with Damar and their partnership and working together. So all these questions from a global perspective are valid. Like, DeMar's age, at some point, the Bulls are going to need to figure out

what the next version of their team looks like. The young guys, whether they can develop, obviously there are question marks there. But if you're Zach Levine, you've got a good thing here. And you're going to have a lot of money coming your way. I have a very hard time imagine he's going to turn that down. You got Lonzo and Caruso garden the best perimeter guys

doing that job for you. What are we missing here? I mean, it's a good situation. But he's 27 years old. And I'm just saying he's not going to turn down that much money to go play for Detroit. But if I'm thinking long term, like playing with Cade Cunningham,

a guy who could set me up, playing with NBA Pete Davidson, Jet Holmgram, or whoever they get in the draft, it's not a bad situation. Like he could be the final piece to the next good young team or he could just run it back

and be a good team in Chicago. I don't think that's like crazy to say. I think it is. I think the idea of him going to Detroit. Again, at this juncture, If there was a team that was like very clearly about to pop, then maybe it's a different conversation. But you don't turn down like Chicago is a sure thing playoff team next season. If the good young team that was, you know, opening up cap space,

we're in say Los Angeles or Miami or something like that. It'd be like, okay, yeah, I could see him being like, all right, he played at UCLA, blah, blah, blah, L.A. Connections, this, this, this, that, and the third. Hell yeah. Get them over there. good young team building a nice, cute thing in the Motor City. I'm just saying if all things were equal, if he was in Detroit right now, and Chicago was the team we're talking about with Katie Cunningham and Pete Davidson,

we'd be saying like, oh, should Zach Levine be going to Chicago? How much is the Detroit Tourism Board paying you, Justin? I've actually never been to Detroit. Thank God. All right. Let's turn now to a bit more big picture on some of the playoff basketball that we've witnessed as far. I'm calling this round one re-evaluations because a lot of these things have been discussed before. But you know what? I've just been sitting here not doing the big picture and some of these other pop culture podcasts that you guys have been doing and just like thinking and just like assessing the landscape.

And I have some thoughts, you know, on hot button issues in the NBA. And I just want to I want to ponder a little bit with my friends, some of the foremost thinkers. an NBA Twitter sphere or wherever calling it. Let's start with the Brooklyn Nets. Huh? A team that hasn't been discussed at all in the past. Right, right, right. I'm going to offer you, my friends, a zag here,

because we've read all the obits on the Nets, how this is an absolute disaster. And I'll be honest, I don't necessarily disagree because it all comes down to how much you trust Kyrie Irving and to a certain extent, Kevin Durant. And like at this point, who the fuck knows? Right?

But I have to say, as I'm sitting back and just viewing what we have here in Brooklyn, I can't imagine this gets worse. Like, yes, it was very, very, very, very, very bad this year in Brooklyn. But next season, Ben Simmons will theoretically play basketball. They will have Joe Harris theoretically back healthy to, the very least trade, either him or Seth Curry or Patty Mills in order to get some depth in the front court. They have more picks because of the Ben Simmons, James Hardin swap. They just have stuff now. And I feel like there's been a lot of talk about the death of the super team era, which I want to

get to in a little bit. But like it all feels a little premature here because they do still have Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving and stuff. And that's a better starting point than a lot of teams in the NBA. I would say even rob most teams in the NBA. I don't disagree with you, but Isaiah, can we mark the timestamp here and just clip Justin's saying, I don't, I can't imagine how this gets worse so that when Kyrie retires to be a full-time voice for the voiceless or whatever ends up happening, I just want to be able to play this moment back for our listeners. And make sure you record over when I said the Nets will make the NBA finals and also beat the

Boston Celtics and all that stuff. Don't, don't worry about that stuff. Yeah. No, they still have a phenomenally talented core. They still have good shooters, which we've just been talking about the importance of having that around your stars. The skeleton is there for a good team. They need to figure out who's going to play center. They need to figure out who their bigs are going to be. They need to figure out if Nick Claxton will ever hit free throats for the foreseeable future

or what they're going to do with some of these position spots. They need to maybe get a wing in there. That would be nice. Like any wing, you know, a lemon pepper from wing stop would even be. nice. Like, they need to get a wing in there to, like, try to guard some of these perimeter, you know, behemots in the Eastern Conference. But, like, just look at what they're dealing with roster-wise around their two big stars

and what, say, I don't know, a team in Los Angeles, the Lakers are dealing with. Who, like, when you try to come up with ways to improve the roster, it's like, wait, what? You have to attach two picks to Russell Westbrook in the future? to get Gordon Hayward's contract or whatever. It's ridiculous, right? So I think it's not dire. I think they're going to be really good next year. I think everybody, and, you know, part of it is like you have to count on them being

smarter about their approach to basketball. And the people you're counting on to do that are some of the most hard-headed, self-assured people in the NBA. And so that gives me pause, because I think that's. in the biggest moments, they have to play better and smarter than they did against Boston on offense. But they're going to be good next year. Like, they're going to be a really good team next year.

And people are going to talk themselves into how great they are again, whether Ben Simmons figures out his life. The man has, yo, this dude is three years and $112 million left on a deal. And we don't know if he's ever going to hoop again. Should he go to Detroit? Low states, my friend. Do they have a G-League affiliate? Yeah.

Would you even play there? With nobody watching? I have been thinking for some reason about the simpler days when the Nets' biggest problem was that Kyrie Irving was on a live stream telling Kevin Durant he wanted to post up eight times a game. And Katie was like, are you sure? He's like, okay, fine, seven times a game.

Yeah. But they do need to play smarter. Like, Kyrie was not good in this series. And KD, like, struggling gave him a lot of cover for giving up defensively, giving up in possessions. They need to get back to the energy they were playing with as much as anything

in the season prior. Whether you're looking at the series against the bucks or even in the regular season, this was a team that was moving, that was moving the ball, that was cutting. They had a nice flow to their offense. And I'm just wondering what happened to that version of the team because a lot of the personnel is either

kind of adjacent to where it was or slightly different. Obviously there's some different skill sets rotating in and out. They had that situation where they just had like so many low contract guys. They had to flip over a bit of their roster. But how can you get back to that place where you have this healthy offensive ecosystem around these stark guys? That's probably a Steve Nash question and a front office question, but it's it's a big one for the Nets. Yeah, I was just going to ask about Nash. Like, does that mean that they need a new voice in there? Not because Nash did anything particularly

egregious, but maybe they just need new blood. Maybe you've hired D'Andre Jordan as you're head coach and you just like hope that the vibes will just permeate over this franchise and then that would be enough to fix things. But I don't know. I do wonder if a new voice is warrant. Give this dude a chance to coach a normal team, please. And maybe the Nets would never be a normal team, but they can be more normal than they were this year. Let him coach a normal team. Get him some actual fucking assistants in there. This time like he lost Adoka. He lost MDA. He lost like some actual guys on the bench. You know, it's not like he was, he did any coaching before he came over here.

So, you know, get him some help. Like Joe Si, I hear Alibaba is a pretty successful company. Pony up some bread for some expensive assistance, man. Like, you know, invest in the team's infrastructure. So this brings us to the super team question. I'm curious what you guys think about this because there have been a few people writing off just this general idea of aggregating stars. And I guess the biggest distinction would be handing the keys over to your,

of your franchise over to them. Was, what do you just think about this idea that maybe we've run the limits on the idea that your best players should dictate a lot of things, if not most things, as it seems to be in both L.A. and Brooklyn. I don't want to sound like I'm hemming and harm, but like Donovan Mitchell? No.

The fuck out of here. Kevin Durant? Perhaps. Yeah, I probably might count out to Kevin Durant and LeBron James and even somebody, even though this is not in his nature, Nicola Yolkich. Like, people who have that outsized level of impact and actually deliver for me. You know, KD, maybe you could say he hasn't delivered for the Nets, although he was insane last year in the playoffs,

and he's done it for other teams in the past. Like, we know he's a franchise guy. Maybe don't do it for guys who have never gotten you out of the second round of the playoffs. Maybe, perhaps. Or have never won an MVP? Well, you know, like, maybe perhaps. But, like, you know, if it's Luca Donchich and you're like, all right, I might have to get rid of some guys,

or I might have to bring in a dude to keep this guy placated. Shit, man, I don't see anything wrong with that. But again, when we're talking about the Bradley Beals and the Donovan Mitchells and some of these other cats who, you know, you hear this stuff about franchises being like, oh, we want to make sure Zion is happy. It's like, what have these jokers done for you or your franchise that you need to be, you know, sucking up to them?

So the answer is yes and no to me. need a Kyrie rule in the next CBA that you need an MVP first team all MBA in order to be an asshole. I'm not doing something because Kyrie said to do it. I got to hear it out of K.D.'s mouth. KD., this is what you want? This is what you want? You're asking for this?

Okay, cool. Kyri? No, no, no. I don't, I don't count out to Kyrie. No. And yet, Kyrie is under the impression and saying so publicly that he is a co-manager and steward of that franchise. Yeah, he's what you can call it?

Sean Marks is his underling. This really is the thing, though, like as soon as a certain class of superstars gets anything, whether it's the max contract, whether it's the supermax, whatever it is, there's a class below them that is saying, I'm just as good as that guy or better.

I'm good. Like, I played against that guy and beat him. Therefore, I'm that guy for you guys. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I do wonder if this is an issue that the CBA is going to have to clean up. This is, in a large sense, like, an ownership issue.

They've allowed certain players to get certain benefits, which has forced other owners to give those other players certain benefits. And it's just going to keep piling, piling it up until someone stops it. And nobody's going to say, like, hey, giant superstar, who's going to make me a ton of money and possibly win me a championship, don't come to my franchise. We're not going to give you everything you want. They're going to actually need government interference here in order to take that opportunity

to wait. Remember when Sacramento told Boogie Cousers to go to hell? They were rewarded for that now. They're dysfunctional and they can capitalize and all of that. Like, you know, but like in the long run, they made the right decision. Like, Boogie Couser, you've never done anything for us. We don't need to be sucking up to you all day, every day. Buy, we trading your ass while you at the All-Star game.

You know what I mean? Like, I don't see how that's not the model when again, And it's not like, you know, I was talking to somebody the other day about Luca and they're like, well, you know, he hasn't gotten out the first round. I'm like, can you look up this man's numbers and who he did it against? Kauai Leonard and Paul George for two straight years? This man averaged 33 points on splits of 50%, 40%. Like, excuse me, eight assists, nine assists, eight rebs again?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I might have to start orienting my franchise around a dude that does that. in the second and third year in the freaking NBA. You know, some of these other guys, not so much. Yeah, I don't think there's any reason to legislate against superstar equity or involvement at a higher kind of ownership level in terms of the influence they have over these franchises. I think it's just an organizational decision. There's some teams that are going to allow it because they want to get

Superstar X in their door. And there's some teams like the Miami Heat, for example, who are just saying, even if you are LeBron, there are limits to what we're going to allow you to do here. And they're going to pay the price for that in some ways and they're going to benefit from it in some ways. It's just your choice as an organization how you want to function in that regard.

And yet Pat Riley was like beaten down LeBron's door in Vegas wanting to drop his bag of rings when LeBron was threatening to go to and ultimately did go to Cleveland. I just don't think a franchise is going to stop itself. And there's one two rings since, which is kind of crazy. Yeah. I think the King's example is a good one because that's like, that's the alternative. You can kind of resign yourself to the future where you just don't really have much.

I mean, the Pelicans may be a probably better example. They got rid of Anthony Davis and they've managed to recover and they're a fun young team. Right. That wasn't for lack of incorporating that that wasn't for lack of wanting to incorporate and elevate Anthony Davis as much as they could. Like he just decided times up. I'm out of here. Sure.

But if the, the situation is star or, no star, like, that's the difference. It's relevancy versus, like, something below that. And I don't know. Like, if I'm an owner, like, I'm telling my front office, like, get the fucking star. And if not, like, I'll find another front office because that's not only going to help us in the wind column, it's going to help our bottom line. It's just like there's too much power, I guess, is what I'm saying, with the individual star player in the NBA. And I do wonder if owners in particular are going to make that case in the CBN and be like, help us solve this issue. I think it's, it's a matter of background. and knowing who you're getting into business with.

It's a matter of knowing when you're drafting, when you're recruiting a free agency, like who Yannis is, who Steph Curry is. Like, what are these guys' makeups? Are they going to allow us to do their job? Or are they going to want input in certain ways? Which, again, I have no problem with, but it's just about knowing who you're getting into business with in these capacities.

And so you have to know if you're the Nets. When you get Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving is coming along with him. And with him comes everything else. All of the noise, all of the issues, and then some unforeseen variables in terms of this vaccination stuff that there was just no way to anticipate

something that would prevent him from playing games on that level, or where he would prevent himself from playing games on that level. But here we are, here they are. And I think every franchise has some version of those questions with stars in this nebulous zone of, is this guy worth

elevating to the highest levels of the sport not only in terms of finances and contracts, but input in our organization's functioning. All right, let's flip to the other end of the star spectrum because this playoffs, if anything, is seen a couple breakouts of some potential guys here. I'm calling this one the KOC corollary, where there are so many young players and teams who are breaking out and the impulse is to say, this guy's going to be the next XYZ, the next big young thing, the next defensive player of the year, the next MVP,

the next Def Curry, et cetera. But at a certain point, some of these that actually can't happen because there's too many of those things. And so I almost wonder, like, which of these breakouts are going to matter long term? And so my question to you guys is which one of these matters the most long term? I wrote a couple of these guys down here, Anthony Edwards first and foremost, Jordan Poole, Herb Jones, and professional pests, Jose Alvarado, Jalen Brunson, Tyrese Maxie. Am I missing anybody that, that's like jumped out from a young player standing. Gary Payton the second.

DeMarcus cousins. Producer, his hand Blakely says Grant Williams. Let's give credit words to. Get Grant Williams's bag, man. William's been doing his thing, though. So that's the list. So I guess, was, which one of those guys you're like are going to matter the most long term?

Look, individually, I don't see anybody on this. who's going to actually, who has the ceiling that Anthony Edwards has? And it's like not even close. So to me, it's not even worth comparing him to those guys, right? Like, he's shown flashes and moments against, you know, these are legitimate world-class NBA athletes that he, his athleticism and explosiveness jumps off the chart. Like, you see all of these dots on the chart and then his shit is way up there, right? And you're like, oh, shit, that's Anthony Edwards' dot, right?

So, yeah, I think that, like, I don't even know that we even need to waste breath on what Anthony Edwards does. I think what's interesting about Herb Jones and Jose Alvarado is that they're the type of guys around B.I. and Zion where you're like, okay, these guys are overqualified at their position. They're high-level role players in the way that, you know, you're watching it play out in Memphis. Like, you're watching Brandon Clark. You're watching Jones, who is probably one of the best backup point guards in the NBA, right? Like, you're watching Dylan Brooks in the playoffs. Like, these guys are high-level ancillary parts, you know. And so when you can produce that around guys that you've decided are your star-core young dudes,

I think that makes a world of difference, especially when they're pretty close in age. You know, like, that's the cool thing about Memphis, too, is like, these guys are pretty close in age. So they're like, there's a togetherness there in what they're doing. And so I like the Herb Jones and Alvarado thing because they fit beautifully around, like, they're not ball-dominant guys. They're going to go out and guard the shit out of people and hopefully make some wide-open shots. And that's what you need around ball-dominant superstar player type of guys. I kind of have my eye on Jalen Brunson in this conversation. and it's because it cuts both ways for me

where him playing like a star, I mean, let's be real. Last year in the playoffs, this guy was getting pulled from the lineup, had not proven that he could score against length in a postseason setting. His future would, if that happened again,

his future would be looking pretty murky in Dallas right now. And really the future in Dallas in general, kind of the worst case scenario when you have a player of Lucas Caliper, is like, who do we have around him who's going to grow into anything? And if not Brunson, is that going to be. They have some good role players, but nobody who was creating at anything

close to the level Brunson is right now. That's great for Dallas that he looks this good. But because Brunson has played so well, it also opens up the possibility that he'd get a pretty huge offer in free agency, say to Justin's favorite Detroit Pistons, for example, a team that could throw a lot of money at him. You know, Tim McMahon wrote a great article about this, about Brunson's kind of contract situation in what he called an eight or nine figure subplot. And I thought that is a great way to describe what's going on here because there's a lot of money on the line that Brunson has earned for himself

and a lot at stake for Dallas if he decides for whatever reason he wants to play elsewhere or just wants a bigger contract than they might offer him. I was going to say Bronson too. Because he potentially played himself into a max, near max money.

A lot of money. A lot, a lot of money, especially when teams like the Knicks are just salivating for anyone. And that article Rob's referring to also talked about the connection between Brunson, Brunson's father and Leon Rose, who now runs the Knicks. And so he's going to have suitors.

And I think the question becomes, do you want to pony up that money if you're the Mavs and basically suggest that Brunson is going to be the number two guy for Luca going forward? And if not, what's the alternative? You know, like, it's a really, really tough conversation. I don't think there is an alternative. I think you have to resign him. I'm hesitant to say at all costs, but kind of at all costs. You absolutely need to retain that guy because he's very important to your franchise one way or another to have him on the books.

And the fact that he was a former second round pick and because of his contract structure is actually going to be an unrestricted free agent. The MAVs don't have any capacity to match an offer on this. He gets to choose where he plays next season. I think it works in the MAV's favor that it seems like another guy who seems like he's having a great time with his current team. He's been given a lot of rope by Jason Kidd to explore the, you know, the full limits of his game, which is great. Is that going to be enough to bring him back? You know, maybe the length of this playoff run will determine that. If Dallas goes on a great run and Brunson is a huge part of that at every step, maybe that's enough.

But otherwise, who could blame a guy for looking at another team and saying, I could be the guy on that team. I could run that offense for myself the way Luca does here, especially when you're looking at some of these fourth quarters. And it's like, Luke has the ball in his hands, every possession and rightly so. But Brunson is is busting at the seams of what his role is right now. What do you think, Wals? I mean, you know, again, the trend has been signed to guy, figure the rest out later, figure out if it still fits, if it's still redundant, whatever.

If I got to package it with future picks, if I got to do X, Y, and Z, I'll figure out how to move this thing if it ever becomes onerous. And so I don't see how they go with anything else when that's been the trend. And maybe they're just so visionary, they'll buck the trend and be like, well, you know what? It'll be a lot smarter to let this clearly let this asset walk right out of the door. Maybe a contender or a better team will be like, hey, why don't you help us sign and trade the guy and they can get stuff for him? Because somehow, like, when did the league decide signing trades were back?

Because remember we snatched them away because Dan Gilbert was mad? LeBron took his services to Miami. I'm confused. one day somebody's going to have to explain to me how we let signing trades back into the NBA. Well, everyone decided to cash in because they knew they could sign for more money with their original team,

and then they got the trade. That's partly why it happened. But no, I mean, it's an interesting discussion. It's an interesting discussion specifically for the MAVs, a team that was just in a lot of trouble paying a lot, a lot of money to a player who was more of like a B, maybe even the C-level star and hitching him to Luca.

And I mean, the reason why this is so important is Luca's top five player in the NBA. He's one of the precious assets in the league in like recent league history, even. He is Larry Bird without the dirt lip, man. So whatever they do now, like has ripple effects, not only just for their franchise, but just like the title chase for years and years to come. It sounds like hyperbolic to say that, but like these little things do mean the difference. Absolutely. And when Luca is that good

and you have a guy alongside him in the series who's averaging 29 points a game small sample size, it is the Utah Jazz perimeter defense, all caveats and asterisk apply, but I don't think you can let that guy walk. Yeah. All right,

let's talk briefly about the title race kind of big picture here because going into this, I thought we had a good handle on things. We thought Sons, bucks, probably the favorites to get back to the finals. And then the injuries happen.

you're like, oh, Sun's a little shakier. Oh, Warriors are looking great now. Now they're the healthy team. Maybe they're the favorites. Then Chris Milton goes down. Luca comes back. Devin Booker is like, apparently his return is imminent. Game six, game seven is the recent reporting.

And so now my head is kind of spinning. I'm like, who is actually the title favorite now? So, so, as you sit back here, who do you like now? Is it still the Suns? Are you default in who you had going into the playoffs? Or has anything changed in your mind? It's tough because watching Golden State do what they did tonight, I'm like, man, are they really this stout team that I thought they were

with all this championship pedigree and equity? At the same time, like, it's a game where they were up three to one, right? Like, I don't know. I got to stop overthinking it at a certain point. And they're the most healthiest of the contenders in my mind outside of, I guess, Boston. but to me, give me gold estate when push come to shove, to find a gear, to find a level, to do magical things in their building because Janus doesn't have all of his horses with him. And the sons are in for a whale of a series in the next round.

And they're obviously not operating at the highest level because they don't have Devin Booker. Yeah, I hate the flip-flop like this, but give me Golden State, man. I was Bucks all year, but their second-best player is messed up. And so give me Golden State right now just because of the health reasons. Yeah, if you had to pick right now, I don't know how you could pick the Sun's sight unseen with Devin Booker. I don't feel great about it. But instead of flip-flopping, I'm just going to, like, fade to black. We're just going to, like, cut the signal for this portion of the program.

We can fast forward to next week when we know more about what him and Middleton or doing. Because if those guys are, even if they're not fully healthy. We don't support cop-outs on this podcast. We will run dead air for 20 minutes until you make a pick.

What am I picking West or am I picking NBA fine? Like the champion. Why not both? At this moment and time, I think the Celtics are the team best prime to be the NBA champions, which is a crazy thing to say. I don't,

I don't think it's going to feel that way in a week. But at this, at this juncture, seeing what we've seen from all these teams, knowing who's injured and who's not, the Celtics feel like the most confident and surest pick on the board. I'm going to bet that's going to change.

I think that's going to change within a week. But I don't know how else I'm supposed to judge Devin Booker in whatever state he's in. He would be the case for the Sons that Booker coming back within a couple games. He went out in game two could be back by game six, game seven, suggests at the very least that the hamstring injury

might be mild enough, right? And that while the sons have looked pretty bad at times against the Pelicans, the Pelicans might just happen to be the worst possible early matchup for a veteran team that is run by a 37-year-old point guard who just does not want to deal with any shit. And the Pelicans throw so much shit in Chris Paul's way to the point where he was like exhausted, frustrated at halftime of that last game. And I do wonder if it's the case where it's like, in the NCAA tournament

where like the two or three seed who has the dominant players just happens to run into Vermont who has like a bunch of guys that shoot threes and it's going to push them ways. And they're running a zone press and it's ridiculous. Exactly. And I do wonder if we'll look back on this and say, oh, the suns are actually

in good shape. They just ran into a bad matchup. I do think they're in good shape. They just are constructed in a way where having Chris Ball carry a heavy burden for four consecutive rounds is a non-starter. That's just not going to work against the highest level teams in the NBA. He's going to not just be this level of exhausted,

but he's going to be full on stifled against some longer defenders who are really small. I mean, look what the Celtics said to Kevin Durant, for God's sake. Chris Paul is a foot shorter than him. Yeah. And now they have to guard Luca Dodges. It's going to be, it's going to be brutal. All right, let's wrap it there.

We'll be back next week. Same time, same place. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely production. Thank you to Ben Cruz for lingering in the background. We'll be back next week. We'll see it.