The Ringer NBA Show - Urgency Pod! Does the KAT Trade Really Move the Needle for the Knicks or Timberwolves?

Episode Date: September 28, 2024

The Ringer’s Howard Beck and Michael Pina fire up the mics to break down the ins and outs of the Knicks-Timberwolves blockbuster that sends Karl Anthony Towns to New York in exchange for Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo. The guys discuss Michael getting a tip earlier in the day that the deal was going down (2:25) before comparing the trade to the Oklahoma City Thunder’s trade of James Harden in 2012 (6:00). Then, they attempt to answer the all-important question: does this trade actually move the needle for the Knicks and Timberwolves (16:51) before making predictions on where each team will rank in their respective conferences (37:50).  Also, be sure to check out Michael Pina's latest piece: The Karl-Anthony Towns Trade Could Haunt the Knicks and Wolves. Hosts: Howard Beck and Michael Pina Producer: Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Michael Pina. I'm Howard Beck, Senior Writer. The Ringer with me is Senior Writer, Michael Pina, because we have a blockbuster to discuss. Went down Friday night. While some of us were just trying to enjoy a beer and Ozark binging. Trinidad Towns to the New York Knicks. After years, literally years of speculation, expectation, Leon Rose, you reunited with his former client, Cronthony Towns.

The Timberwolves get Julius Randall Dantle done to DiVincenzo and a protected first-round pick via Detroit. Michael Pina, you have already written about this. It's up on the ringer.com right now. Go read it, folks. Hit pause, go read it, come back. Michael, you're saying this is a deal that's going to haunt both teams. The rare lose-lose, the rare maybe meh, me? Ron Harper, legend, is already annoyed with your take,

which I retweeted earlier to Harp's discontent. Michael, we'll get into all the aspects of this, but just right off the top, you clearly have mixed feelings about how this is going to work out for both teams, which considering they're both contenders and considering we saw two high-level all-MBA players swapped for each other is a very tepid response on your part. Yeah, so I don't mean this to be a flex, but yesterday at around 4 p.m., I received a text from a little birdie who said that the Timberwolves and Knicks

were having conversations involving Carl Anthony Towns, Julius Randall, Dante DiVincenzo, and multiple draft picks. My response to this in, I looked at my phone, what I texted back was, that's stupid, it'll never happen for a million reasons. Famous last word, yes, exactly. I, when the news actually broke, I mean, I just don't understand so many elements of it, Howard.

Like, I don't understand why it had to happen now. I don't understand why the Timberwolves, felt the need to get rid of their second best player as a team that just made the conference finals when you could always trade Carl Anthony Towns this summer. I don't understand why this trade. I don't understand the timing of the trade in terms of let this core that just made a very impressive playoff run do it again. I'm a big believer in continuity. I think all the pieces were complimentary. If you look at the data when Rudy Gobert, Anthony Edwards, and Carl Anthony Towne shared the floor, Minnesota's offense was awesome. Their defense was tremendous last season.

And when you factor in how critical, I mean, I know Carl Anthony Towns had his blips, his issues, his brain farts, for sure. But he was critical for them in the postseason, the way he defended Nicola Yokic the way he shot the ball in the first two rounds before it kind of all went to hell in the conference finals. So I didn't really understand it from that perspective if you're Minnesota. I get the finances. I understand his contract was almost always going to have to go off the books. But to do it now made such little sense to me and to get, I mean, I'm just not a fan of Julius Randall, I'll say off the top. And I think that colors a lot of my opinion about this too. Yes, and so I just feel like his game and his usage, the way he needs the ball, the way he plays,

is not necessarily what I would think of in a skill set that complements directly Anthony Edwards in the way that Carl Anthony Towns does. So from that perspective, I mean, we can get into the Knicks in a second, but just from Minnesota's perspective, I know I'm ranting, I didn't understand a lot of why they did the deal today. Yeah. I had similar feelings just on the top line, the top line being, it was always inevitable, I think, the Carl Anthony Towns was going to have to be traded because of the new CBA, because of luxury tax reasons, and second apron reasons, and Rudy Gobert and Anthony Edwards make a lot of money reasons, and Osri just got a big extension reasons. Like, it was, the whole league has expected this for a while, for at least a year, maybe a year and a half, that eventually Towns was going to be the piece that was deemed too expensive,

especially as Anthony Edwards continued to blossom and become the clear number one there. That's fine. I think we always expected it. I think the most important question that we don't have a very clear answer to, and that you kind of touched on this concern, is the why now, right? Like, I get it. Like, there is a, there are penalties coming. There are consequences coming. But you could have, to my knowledge, gotten through one more season. This feels a little bit like James Harden with the Thunder way back in the day, which, by the way, also triggered by what was then a new CBA with at that time all new penalties at luxury tax issues.

And the thought then was, could you just have kept on hard, kept harder one more year? Yes, we understand. You were eventually going to have to break it up. It feels too soon, a year too soon. And I'm with you. Continuity, it's becoming a very precious commodity in this NBA. It's hard to keep players together for any length of time to feel like you have any continuity and cohesion. But if you can, every year you can extend it with your core.

If you've got a great core and they do or did, then you should keep it. And like, see how far you can get. And if you win a championship, maybe you reconsider. Maybe you find other ways to keep it together. or maybe you still have to trade them right after the day after a parade. But at least give yourself the chance to get the parade first with the group that just had the best one of the best seasons in Wolves history, only the second time I've ever won a playoff series, their second time ever in the conference finals.

It took 20 years to get back to that point. I, it just, if I'm a Timberwolves fan, I'm feeling pretty down about this. Whatever your feelings about Cornel Anthony Towns, are and it's been a mixed bag with him his entire career there but they just had an incredible season they just went to the conference finals they were i think we've all maybe not all of us most of us have them penciled in prior to the trade as a top 14 right right there with oklahoma denver dallas um and i'm not sure if i still have them there michael like i'm just i'm not sure i would say like I was doing the traditional like, okay, what's the, you know, not just winners, losers, but like,

what's this trade really about? And I feel like the winner is Adam Silver on some level because this is what the league wanted. They wanted teams to have to make hard decisions and they wanted teams to have a virtual hard cap and force teams to, you know, to break things up. If you've got too many max players, you're not going to be able to keep them for very long. The Celtics are going to be in this position before too long themselves. Maybe they get another year before they have to make some really tough decisions. I'm sorry. It's what?

You could just blank out on that one. Just like pretend I never said it. But this is the deal. The irony of it is that these new restrictions, the second apron, all of it, was aimed primarily at two big market teams, the Clippers and the Warriors who were abusing the old system to an extent that made everybody uncomfortable in the league. The irony is now it's a small market team that is getting broken up. And on the heels of, by the way, the Nuggets, you know, letting KCP walk.

So two small market teams, one of which just won a championship a year and a half ago, and another of which just went to the conference finals for the first time in 20 years, are both having to shed high-level talent in the wake of success for reasons that have nothing to do or very little to do with basketball and have everything to do with finances. That is so depressing. I was about to say that point, and that really cuts to the issue here for me. It's so depressing, Howard. It's not ideal.

And listen, once again, echoes of the hardened thing, right? The first team to be victimized by that new CBA after the lockout in 2011 was the thunder saying, oh, there's all these new penalties and a harsher luxury tax and all this. We can't afford to have Durant and Westbrook and I Baca and Hardin. One of them's got to go. We'll trade Hardin. And again, a small market team got punished then and is getting, you know, more or less punished now. I don't want to dwell on that too much because, look, the rules are the rules for everyone.

And it is extra ironic that it's the Knicks of big market team that are the benefactors of this on some level. But it's not because the Knicks can outspend the wolves. We should be clear on that. The whole point of this new system is you can't just outspend your rivals the way the Warriors did for years by hundreds, literally hundreds of millions. There are penalties that affect your ability to sign players and trade players and manage your roster. And that's why teams are running scared. And I think what this trade indicates in part is we're just in this rebalancing period where the system has not found equilibrium yet. And teams are going to have some short-term ability.

to have super expensive, super talented rosters with a bunch of stars, and then eventually they're going to have to start making harder decisions and break it up. For Minnesota, it came immediately. For the Celtics, it may be coming less than a year from now. You know, the Sixers just went all in on a big three. That's a throwback. We don't usually have big threes anymore. But anyway, I don't want to get to, you know, we'll leave the CBA talk behind. But I think we need to be clear up front. I don't think this was a basketball trade. This was a payroll trade. This was a CBA trade. This was a second apron trade. This was an Adam Silver trade. For one of the teams, yes. And for the other team, I find it to be equally fascinating in a different light because

the New York Knicks sought Carl Anthony Towns for quite a while. You know, you mentioned at the top, Leon Roses's former agent. Gerson Roses was the... the vice president of basketball operations in Minnesota. I'm not exactly sure what his title was, but he was the one who was making the big decisions there a few years ago before he was fired. And that is, you know, this comes on the heels of Isaiah Hartenstein leaving in free agency because the NICs, because of the rules, we're not really able to match the amount of money that the Oklahoma City Thunder offered.

And Mitchell Robinson's body continuing. to just break down on an annual basis, unfortunately, and he's going to be out until December, I think, reports have said. And so their solution here is to acquire a player who is, you know, I'm a Carl Anthony Towns fan. I always, I always have been if you just look at, you know, how, just look at the context of his career, the dysfunction at the top, the multiple coaches, the regime changes, the just in and out the door of all types of teammates and personalities. And if you look at just like the on-offs throughout his career, the offense is always elite when he's on the court and it's always better when he's on the court than when he's off every

single season of his career. So he's awesome. He's a great shooter. I don't know if he's the greatest shooter shooting big man of all time or not, as he likes to claim. But, great, great offensive player and I think easy to fit beside almost anyone in the NBA because of his ability to space the floor offensively. But to get him at this juncture, if you're the Knicks, as he's about to start a four-year, $220 million extension, I think is curious because, first of all, it cost you Dante DiVincenzo. So if you're the Knicks, you broke up the Nova Boys before they got to play a game, which is kind of funny. And also, you know, I wanted to watch that. I'm not going to lie. I think he's, Dunday D'A. D'A. was a really good basketball player who was,

I think he led the NBA or was second in spot-up threes last season and made over 40% of them in the playoffs and regular season. So really good player, two-way player, got rid of him. And, you know, Carl Anthony Towns also throughout his entire career when he has not played beside Rudy Gobert at the five has been a sieve defensively. And so I'm just really curious to see what happens to New York's defense. And I think their offense is going to be incredible. And you can do a lot of creative things with him, Jalen Brunson, McKell Bridges, O.G. and Inobie, they'll have a lot of spacing.

They're going to be awesome on offense. Defensively, particularly in the playoffs. I think it's just like, okay, what are we doing here? There's a tried and true method to attack Carl Anthony Towns on defense, and there's a lot of teams in the Eastern Conference that can do that really well. So I don't know if this makes you a better basketball team. Yeah, I know. It's funny, too, because I think you and I had this conversation at some point, and I certainly said it on our podcasts here somewhere over the summer, one of our shows, that, by the way, is this the first time you and I have ever potted together? Like, even in our time at our previous employer, I don't think it's ever been just you and me, has it?

We can count it on one hand, I'll say. I'm enjoying myself, Howard. It's like we're just, it's like we're just shouting across three neighborhoods in Brooklyn. That's true. It's like, you know, I should have just hopped the subway and come over. You didn't invite me, though. That's true. I didn't. It's interesting.

Like, even with the informal swap, if you want to call it that, of bridges in Hartnstein out, right? those were the two major, you know, in, out of the summer, right? Lost Hartenstein. And that wasn't even a second apron thing. That was a, that was another wrinkle of the CBA that was preventing them from paying him as much as the Thunder who had cap room could. But losing Hartnstein and just the unique quantity that he brought or unique qualities that he brought, the skill set he brought, obviously the size and the offensive rebounding, all this stuff. Even whatever they gained in bridges, I thought on some level it might even be a wash. and now we've got, you know, layer upon layer of, wow, like, Bridges is a really good player.

You know, and Carly the Day Towns is a great player. It still might be a wash. I'm just, I'm still not sure after all the bells and whistles and fireworks and all of the headlines and us screaming emergency pod, which, by the way, is a very dumb phrase and I hate myself for having even used it. It's not an emergency. I guess maybe it's an urgency. see pod? Like, it happened and it's big and we need to talk about it because it's what we do. But like, no one's, no one's injured. No one's like bleeding out. Like, it's, it's not really an

emergency. Anyway, um, has the needle moved for either of these organizations? Like, I don't think it has. I think the Knicks might, if I had to, to judge us at a snap, uh, to Ron Harper's, uh, discontent. Shout out to Ron Harper. He's the best. I've covered him for obviously a few years in LA in my Lake Rapids. Ron was awesome. But I get it why he doesn't want us to do the snap judgment. My snap judgment is I think the Timberwolves are slightly worse and the Knicks might be slightly better than they were. I think the wolves maybe are taking a step backward and they might not, right? We'll see how Randall ends up fitting. But like you, I'm a little bit of a Randall skeptic, not entirely sold on him. The good news for them is they know that they've got Nas Reid there.

who operates perfectly in that grouping. Whether Randall's even there, by the way, after, like, he's got a player option next summer. I don't think they want him to be there. I don't know if they do either. They might just want the flexibility. And by the way, sorry, one more CBA note. In this CBA flexibility, I don't want to say it's as important as talent,

but it's the next biggest thing after talent. Like, you need talented, then you need flexibility. Because what you don't want, if you're going to be completely locked up, as the Celtics are right now with a lot of really expensive players while bursting through the second apron and paying massive luxury tax, you better damn well be a contender, and obviously in the case of the Celtics of the defending champs, so you know it's worth it. But it does have an expiration date on it. There is a point at which when players start to break down or injuries happen and you can't make any moves because you're too locked up, that's a problem. So flexibility is super important.

And I do understand the wolves taking the long view here with a young burgeoning star in Anthony Edwards. you've got Rudy Gobert anchoring your D, and you've got Jaden McDaniels, and you've got Nasreed, and you've got some other interesting young pieces. I get that Randall and Devinchenzo, who combined don't make as much as towns, gives you more roster versatility and more flexibility to flip one or both or let Randall walk or whatever it may be. I get all that. The long view is important here. Managing your roster is important, but in the short term, you might be a little little less good than you were five minutes ago or yesterday, and then you were last season.

So that part of it does worry me. By the way, you mentioned towns and defense. He and Tibbs obviously had two plus seasons together before Timbs was fired in Minnesota. It felt like longer, by the way. I was looking it up. It was not a full three seasons. But the wolves were in the bottom third of the league in defense every year, despite the fact that we know Tom Thibodeau is a defensive-minded coach.

And that was a different team at a different time and a different Carl Anthony Towns for that matter. So I'm not judging that. I'm just pointing it out as a data point to say that, like, I don't think Tibbs's first run with Towns was all that enjoyable for Tibbs, aside from the time that he had Jimmy Butler there to help prop them up a little bit. And that didn't go so well either because Jimmy Butler was spent too much time destroying Carl Anthony Towns's self-esteem. So I guess I'll just say this for the Knicks. defensively I think they'll be fine because around the perimeter, they're so good with Ananoi and Hart and Bridges and Bruns.

Like, they're going to be so tight that maybe this is not a team that needs the traditional rim protector, a Gobert type, for instance, behind them. Mitchell Robinson went healthy, decent rim protector. Carl Anthony Towns has his moments defensively, but it's not his calling card. maybe they're okay because they're not going to get beat on the perimeter as much as some other teams because of the personnel they have. And offensively, they're going to be incredible. They may be the inverse of what we usually think of a TIPS team. They might just be offensively dominant and defensively taking a little bit of a step backwards.

We'll see. I can't blame the Knicks for making this move. I don't like it for the wolves purposes. I can't blame the Knicks for making the move. what you said was really interesting about how talent is super important, but flexibility is the next best thing. And when I look at the Knicks, they seriously lack flexibility, right? They went from being one of the most flexible to being one of the least because they went all in on these moves. They went all in on McHale Bridges and Carl Anthony Towns.

And, you know, they have a gift that was given to them by Jalen Brunson in. in terms of the massive pay cut, historical pay cut that he took with his extension. McHale Bridges, I believe, is extension eligible. I don't know if he's already extension eligible, but he's extension eligible this offseason. And it'll be interesting to see how much money, if at all, he leaves on the table. I think there was some talk of that when the trade was initially made. So we'll see about that. but Mikhail Bridges on the open market would get a lot of money.

He is plug and play, three and D, but more, as he showed with the Brooklyn Nets, a couple years ago after he was traded from the Phoenix Suns. And, like, you know, you're tied into this roster that is, I think, really good, but when you, you know, you said flexibility is really important because, you know, if you don't have it, you better be a contender. Okay, so when I watch the Knicks. and I look at their roster and I'm matching them up against the best teams in the Eastern Conference, I'm a little nervous with Cat at the Five, you know, like against the Celtics,

Celtics are kind of their different beast right now. And as you said, they could look very different in, you know, two years from now, and the Knicks could look exactly the same, and the Knicks could have their number. We don't know. But right now, the Celtics just are kind of perfectly, built to just puncture that defense. And you might have to play cat off the floor in big minutes, hypothetically, if these two teams were playing in the playoffs.

You know, Carl guarding Joel Embed, are you going to put O.G. and an Obie on Joelle Embed, and then, like, do the double thing and you're scrambling. And this is kind of me assuming that Mitchell Robinson will not be 100% in the spring, which I think is honestly a fair, Yeah. And the other team there that I think a lot of people are forgetting about is the Milwaukee Bucks. And you need rim protection against the Milwaukee Bucks. You do. They have a guy who wants to dunk the ball every 10 seconds and he basically can do it if he wants. So I just think they have a lot of questions when you talk about, you know, the margins between making the playoffs, having a great regular season and winning a championship. And I just think that Cat at the five, as Tim Connolly knew, when he made the Rudy Gobert trade, you can't win a title with Cat at the Five.

Or it's very, very, very, very, very difficult. Yeah. And all the challenges that came with Kat in Minnesota are now the Knicks burden to bear. The good news for them is, as you mentioned, Gerson Roses, who is part of the Knicks' front office, knows Kat and all the pros and cons very well. having presided over the wolves for several years. Tom Thubedo knows all of it very well. I think that Cat is at a different stage of his career.

This will be the most, all due respect to the Timberwolves, I think this is the most across-the-board talent that Carl Anthony Towns will be surrounded by. I agree? Yeah, I think I can, yeah, I think I'll say that, yeah. And I think certainly defensive, like, Gobert, you know, Gobert's the one-man defense, right? He's a one-man top-10 defense.

So if you have him, despite all the, concerns about awkward fit with towns or whatever. They got more or less what they wanted out of that pairing. In this case, whether it's towns at the five while Mitchell Robinson's out, whether it's towns at the four when Mitchell Robinson comes back, and you can do that because of towns of shooting, you can still spread the floor. Having all of that perimeter, that great perimeter, I just, I feel like that puts less pressure on towns. Like you can find ways to whether you're quote unquote hiding him or whether it's just not having as much pressure on him. especially when he's at the five,

because he doesn't have to try to be Rudy Gobert, not with this Knicks team. And so, you know, we should see the best of him. Just a quick tangent flag here. I don't know what that is. This is a little side thing. I just want to throw this thing on the side. Homecomings are often go very badly in this league.

And towns from New Jersey, like, you know, New York area guy. it often doesn't go well when you're actually playing in your home market. We've seen various versions of this over the years where it's just a little more pressure and more of your friends and family who are around. It's sometimes better that you're playing nowhere near home. Except for Kyrie when he went to play for the Brooklyn Nets. That was awesome. Roaring success.

That was fantastic. But I mean, just in this market alone, Kyrie with the Nets and Marbury infamously with the Knicks back when I first, got here. So just just just flagging that one little thing. It may be nothing, but just just noting it. Look, I I do think the Knicks are going to miss Dante DiVincenzo. They were they were almost too deep at the wing and now they are it's like they're by no means thin at the wing. They they are now they don't have a ton of wing depth anymore. It's funny how the difference of one player can make there.

The presumed starting five for the Knicks right now with Mitchell Robinson on the shelf getting healthy is Jalen Brunson, Mikhail Bridges, Josh Hart, O.G. and Anobie, Carl Anthony Towns. And the bench becomes McBride. I'm looking at it right now. This is a bleak. Yeah. It's funny because we've been talking about the Knicks is one of the deepest teams in the league. And suddenly it doesn't look all that deal. Like, McBride's fine.

Chew is fine. Campaign. And then eventually when Mitchell Robinson's back, like I think those are your top four. bench players are Robinson McBride, Achua, and Payne. It's okay, but the good news for them, Michael, is like, you know, Tibbs loves to ride his best players anyway, for better or worse. And at any given time, a couple of those starters are probably on the court, and those guys are all really good. And, like, they'll be fine, but Devin Chenza was freaking awesome. I mean, like the two revelations of last season for the Knicks, the two guys who,

who just out of nowhere, suddenly are having career years and becoming really, really good, important players where Devinchenzo and Hartenstein, and they're both gone. Devinchenzo on a great contract, like one of the best contracts in the entire NBA, and I looked this up for my column that I just wrote, but he was their second leading scorer in the postseason. Isn't that remarkable?

It is. I mean, obviously, you know, like 17 different Knicks were injured in the first season. But still, listen, it's out of necessity, but not for nothing. He rose to the occasion in a major way and did it pretty efficiently, too. Like, it wasn't just by accident. It was like the points just fell to him. He earned those points.

So that's interesting. And I do think, like, look, to toggle back to Minnesota for a minute, Mike Conley is like 73 years old or something. I didn't look it up. I think that's plus or minus a couple decades. Devencenzo, not a traditional point, but somebody who obviously can handle the ball a lot, and obviously Anthony Edwards himself can too. But I think to the extent that it gives them some back court depth, obviously great shooting,

toughness, defense, all that, and it lets them maybe lessen Conley's burden just a little bit in the regular season, is certainly a huge plus for Timberwolves. Kevin Pelton graded this deal on ESPN.com, and he was way more positive about. about it than I am. But he wrote something interesting about the Timberwolves saying that they might have the deepest bench in or best bench in the entire NBA now, which I thought was really fascinating. And not something that I considered or, you know, I could go through the league and maybe name a couple that I would put in that conversation.

But you have the sixth man of the year in Nas Reid, who you mentioned him already. he's like critical. Like they need Nasree to be better than he was last season, I think. They need him to up his volume as a three-point shooter. He's probably going to play more minutes. The defense that he played against the Denver Nuggets was spectacular. He's going to have to do that for an entire 82 game regular season. And DiVincenzo coming off the bench, I think.

I don't know if he can be a backup point guard. I would still like to see Rob Dillingham. give him some minutes and some opportunity to develop the rookie that they traded for. But, you know, Nikol Alexander Walker is an awesome player and an awesome wing. They have just a lot of really interesting pieces all of a sudden, and I still fundamentally am down on them because of Randall. I'm not going to lie. But the depth factor is interesting in a Western conference.

it's just going to be so competitive. Randall had one really great three-point shooting season a couple years ago, but most of his career has been average to below average. And the analytics guys will tell you, too, like having one great three-point shooting season is not usually a sign of a breakthrough. It's often a sign of an outlier. And that certainly seems like the case with Randall. So now you have a non-shooting center in Gobert and a not-three-point shooting

or not great three-point shooting power forward in Randall. It makes the argument for Nasree playing more over Randall, but like you you flagged this earlier, Michael, like Julius Randall, not a, not a great body language guy and not a, not a great, um, like he's, he puts up the assist. So you can't say he's a bad teammate in that regard. But he is a guy who can dominate the ball sometimes and a guy who if he's not, if things aren't going his way, sometimes, uh, pouts a bit and does dominate the ball and is a little bit of a ball stopper. Like I don't know. Chris Finch maybe gets a different, like you, you always think like every coach thinks they're going to get the best. out of a guy in a different environment sometimes changes things. Randall is in a virtual free agency type of year where he could opt out next summer, so he should want to put on the best face. But is Randall, like if they started Nasreed ahead of Randall, I think you already have problems on day one.

If Nasreid is finishing games ahead of Randall or playing more minutes than Randall, you might have problems. So I think those are things, like, I don't want to say it's a definite, but just like, you know, those are things you have to keep an eye on it. Those are things that I think the Timberwolves front office certainly had to consider as they were formulating this deal. And, you know, look, the bench is great, though, by the way. So starters Conley, Edwards, McDaniels, presumably Randall and Gobert. And then bench of Dante DeVincenzo Nas Reid, Joe Engels, DeKeele, Alexander Walker,

and a bunch of other young guys who they could assemble in there. Like, they're really strong. how much they've pushed themselves ahead of last season, obviously, remains to be seen, which brings us to Ron Harper. Because Michael Pina, I did retweet your story, your tweet on the town's rental trade, a deal I do and do not at all understand, to which Ron Harper, owner of five championship rings, former teammate of Michael Jordan and Shaq and Kobe, said, you don't need to understand. No one asked you.

Just cheer for your team. Just cheer for your team, Pina. All right? Matt Dollinger asked me, but for the record, if we're for throwing that out there. Someone did ask you. Yes, our editor asked you. With the point that I was trying to make to Harp on Twitter, I love Harp. Again, like covered him for a few years in L.A.

Great dude. I think I got on his nerves a few times back then, too. Harp could confirm. I have that tendency. I noted it's our actual job to write about these things. And Harp said, I understand. But with trades, like some work and some don't. to which I rudely pointed out the deal that sent him from the caps to the clippers,

which worked out very badly for him. Unfortunately, on the other hand, he eventually did escape the clippers and got to go in a bunch of rings with Michael Jordan and then Shaq and Kobe. So Harp did okay, Michael Pina. What a great history lesson that was also. I appreciated that. Howard, can I ask you a question before we go? I'm putting you on the spot a little bit, but I tweeted this, and it's just something

that I've been kind of thinking about since the trade happened. But it's a little media inside baseball type of question. I've seen since this trade came out a lot of tweets, a lot of, I don't know what the word is. I guess I'll just stick with tweets. Sure. From media members who cover these teams. pushing forward the rationale of the trade and what the team was thinking according to leak sources,

et cetera. And I just thought that was like such a... I can't recall ever seeing that at the volume that it was after this trade came out and it made me think like, is this like a red... Like I kind of took it in as a red flag. Do you know what I'm saying? That they were so eager to...

Explain themselves. Yeah. That's interesting. I think there are some deals that are more self-explanatory than others, where maybe you don't have to give as much context quietly. And listen, quick off, you're just an explainer here. The GMs of both teams, whether it's Tim Connolly, who is often accessible to the media, or Leon Rose, who is never accessible to the media,

in both cases they can't talk anyway on the record right now. And their front offices can't talk on the record because the deal is not official. So the news breaks and immediately there are questions. The fans, media, it's the same questions, right? And so you're trying to make sure your fans understand what it is you're trying to accomplish. Why did we do this? Why do we do it now? I get it.

And if the news is coming out, the sooner you can explain it. Some would say spin it. Exactly. Exactly. But I don't, like, this is somewhere in between those things. Like, spin is too pejorative for my taste right now because I'm not convinced that either of these teams made a bad deal. I think this is, this is a deal that has a lot of questions. It's wild that a team between two contenders involving two all NBA players being swapped for each other. It's wild that it is as ambiguous in some ways or needs as much explanation from both teams as to their thought process. because it should be a no-brainer at least for one or the other. And I don't know that it is. And some of that's the two primary players involved, right? These are both guys who have really nice resumes with a lot of caveats.

A lot of baggage. Yeah. Yeah. And so, look, in my position, I'm never going to argue that the teams shouldn't be, that the teams shouldn't be explaining to us quietly, whispering here's why we did what we did. We need those explanations. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Our readers need it. We need it. Is it a red flag? I think that's a really interesting question, an observation. I think this deal is more complex than most and probably needed more explanation on day one than most. And within a matter of days, it'll become official, and Tim Connolly will be sitting on a podium explaining it. And unfortunately, Enrose will not. So the off-the-record stuff that the Nix are explaining will have to suffice.

Or maybe Tom Thibbido will break it all down, even though the front office is the one that should be doing that. But it's interesting. All right. Before we go, how about this? Where are the Timberwolves in the West Pecking order? I'll ask you about the Nix in a second. Where are the Timberwolves in the West pecking order right now, Michael? And is it any different than where you would have had them 24 hours ago or a few days?

ago when I was making my clarity rankings, thank you teams for holding off on this trade until I got my clarity rankings out. Go look that up on the rigor.com. Also, it's not a power rankings, just a clarity ranking. I'm not sure how this affected the clarity rankings. I think that, you know, I have OKC at the top, like pretty much everybody. And then I don't know if they went down a tier. I don't know if I'm willing to say that. I think that... Are they still top four? I have a lot of respect for Anthony Edwards, and I think he's going to have a monster season. But it would not stun me if they were not in the top four. I will say that.

I think that a team that I'm really high on could crash this party is the Memphis Grizzlies, for example. That's just a team that could come up and finish second or third. And then you have Dallas, you have Denver. You have another team. There's a lot of teams in the West that could rise that we're not seeing right now. Sacramento, who knows. And I think that they could be in that, in that tier, honestly. And if Anthony Edwards, who never gets hurt, sprains his ankle, it's trouble for Minnesota.

And in the same way you have an irrational confidence, as you've written about recently in the Clippers, I have an irrational confidence in the Warriors. And that's another team that I think could potentially. Everything goes right. Yes, they lost Clay Thompson, but they filled his salary slot with, you know, an array of guys who are all going to make their rotation better. And they've got young guys who are making rapid strides. So I'm going to say benefit of the doubt.

I still have Minnesota in the top four. Same thing with the Knicks. Where did you have them before the trade? And is it any different now before we go? I think they're about in the same spot, which is why this trade is so, like, mid and unnecessary to me. Like, I think that they're still not better than Boston. I think that they're still like neck and neck with the Sixers.

and I'm going to keep the bucks there. And honestly, in the regular season, there's some other teams a little lurking below that I could see, poke their head up a little bit, you know, your Orlando's, your Cleveland. So I think it'll be really interesting, but I don't think that they move the needle with this trade, which is, that's a fascinating one.

Yeah, you're not supposed to make a blockbuster deal for, like, a top 15 player and have it not move the needle. It should not be an open question, but I feel like it is. I don't know that I, there's a difference between regular season and playoffs. Like Boston is still the clear favorite in the East. The Knicks and Sixers and Bucks in whatever order are still the tier behind them that are chasing them. And one of those three will likely be in the conference finals against Boston. But I will say this, as I said prior to this trade, I think the Knicks are going to have the best regular season record in the East.

Wow. Okay. Because Boston is going to be dealing with championship. ship hangover and, you know, however long it takes for poor Zingas to get back, nursing Al Horford through the season, all that stuff. Most defending champs slip a little bit. I don't think they're winning 64 again. And the Knicks, as we know, Tom Thibodeau, as we know, every game, the fate of the

universe depends on it. It's pedal to the medal, and they're very talented. They're very good. And I think they have, even with this swap, they have more continuity. then say the Sixers who are trying to incorporate Paul George. The Bucks have plenty of continuity, but they also have a lot of age and health issues across the board. I'll stick with what I had a couple weeks ago,

which is I think the Knicks win the regular season. It doesn't mean I think they're going to win the East, but I do think that they end up at the top of the standings when all said and done. So when you said the Celtics aren't going to win 64, you meant they're going to win 66, 67 games this season? Is that what you were going for? I think like high 50s. Okay, that's fair.

And like the Knicks maybe win a game or two more than them, in part just by treying every game as if, you know, the fate of all humankind depends on it because that is the Tom Thidvito way. All right, that is enough emergency potting or urgency potting. We need a new name. People come up with a new, I don't know who is to blame for starting that. I hope it wasn't our boss. but whoever did the first ever emergency pod in the pod era, you might have overstated it just a tad. But this was a pretty damn big deal worth getting together on a Saturday.

Michael, great seeing you. I'll be back in a couple of days talking about this and much more with Rajabelle on the real ones. Look for all of Michael's stuff, including the story on the trade on the ringer.com. And we'll talk to you all soon.