The Ringer NBA Show - Warriors Look Impressive Against the Lakers, and the Bucks Dominate the Nets. Plus, What are We Looking Forward To? | Group Chat

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Justin, Rob, and Wos start by discussing the Warriors’ impressive performance against the Lakers and Russell Westbrook’s struggles in his Lakers debut (1:15). Then they talk about the Bucks’ strong performance in their win over the Nets (20:50). They wrap up by talking about Jonas Valanciunas’s contract extension and a few thing that each of them are looking forward to this NBA season (29:42). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Wosny Lambre Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Football is back, and so is the Ringer NFL show. Coming at you five days a week with wall-to-wall coverage from recapping the Sunday games, giving a player perspective, deep dives, and previewing the coming slate. Check out the Ringer NFL show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. With chat, I am Justin Verrier, joining me today on this non-live edition, non-video edition, Wazi Lambray. Big Rob, Rob, Mawoney. Gentlemen, we have basketball. Rob, what did you think about being back in the groove last night? Oh, how sweet it is, Justin, how sweet it is.

I was ready to be introduced to some new rookies I had never heard of before. I was ready to introduce myself again to some superstars we haven't seen in a while. It was a beautiful day. How many teammates do you think LeBron James actually knew going into opening night? Do you think he just got the bullet points and then he just showed up? Well, I mean, they're all guys who have been in the league for 15 years. So they've been around. That's true.

He's probably played with most of them. All right, we're going to get into the two big opening night games from last night, bucks, nets, Warriors, Lakers. We're going to talk about the Jonas Valenciunist extension. And we're also going to get into some things we're looking forward to this NBA season that weren't on opening night. But we have to start with the late game from last night. We're going to go over some things we learned from the first two games of the season

because typically these things don't foretell a lot for the season. But, you know, there are a couple nuggets of information, a couple of things that foreshadow things to come. For the first one, I think it's pretty clear. I have written down the Lakers have LeBron A.D. dot, dot, dot, dot, and a lot of question marks. And the first big question mark was, is one Russell Westbrook. The name is always really tough to say.

Was, what did you think about our first performance in a Laker uniform for our guy? I feel like the people who were supposed to be helping him the most kind of failed him in this first game, namely being Vogel and his lineup choices, which is just like, why do we have to do this exercise? He can't play with Dwight, Howard, and Rondo, right? Like, if Rondo's going to have the ball and Dwight's going to be on the floor,

where's Russ supposed to stand? What's he supposed to do under those circumstances? So Vogel, I think, let him down. And two, I think LeBron, LeBron has to take ownership in making this work. I think in a lot of ways, Kyrie was his ideal running mate in Cleveland because he could just take several possessions off

and just be like, all right, here, Kyrie, take the ball, do your one-on-one thing that you're excellent at, and those would be the possessions that you take ownership of. And I don't really have to be involved in any major way, and it'll work because you're one of the best one-on-one players we've ever seen. With Russ, he's going to have to do more than that.

He's going to have to be involved in picking roles. He's going to have to do some cutting. He's going to have to take ownership and making the Russ thing work. It's not going to be about your turn, my turn. He's going to actually have to be a willing participant in making Russ viable in these lineups. But, yeah, like, Russ playing with Dianne Jordan and Rondo and Dwight. It just doesn't make any sense. Yeah.

It was really shocking that Vogel didn't go to. Westbrook in those lineups with AD at the five, like in the second quarter, for example. Like, it just seems like such a natural place to put him for both sides, both because, you know, Westbrook has a natural running mate, a lot more space. And on the other side of the ball, AD can help cover for what Westbrook can't do defensively

a little bit in some of those situations. And he couldn't do a lot last night. No, he could not. Yeah, no, that's what I have written down right here. Why didn't the Lakers try Russ A.D. at the five lineups? because the two of them seem like such a good match together. And why didn't they just put LeBron on the court with a bunch of riffraff? Because he alone can bring the most out of some of these Malik Monk types that really didn't do much last game.

And even in the second quarter where they built a little bit of a lead, LeBron was just doing stuff. Like he was just making things happening against an overmatched warriors. I think it was their second unit. I will say this. I went back and watched the game. There were a lot of shots that Westbrook just missed that he isn't going to miss. going forward, like a couple of bunnies, a couple of those easy pop-up shots, the mid-range jumpers

from the free throw line extended. But at first, it seemed like he was pressing. And later on, it seemed like he kind of disappeared and didn't really know what to do. And his quotes after the fact kind of spoke to that, he seemed to be pretty frustrated to the point where LeBron told him to go home and just like chill. I guess, like, what is the path forward here, Rob? Is it as simple as, like, pairing him with AD or do they need more shooters yet again we come back to this conversation

well a lot of that is just first game type stuff like the contrast in this game was one of these teams had a much clearer idea of who they are and what they want to do like the warriors looked like the warriors it's just not that big a deal for the Lakers to look like this in the first game of this season because

Vogel is going to figure out what lineups work best for Russ and all the guys they're going to get some of their shooters back like Wayne Ellington, Kendrick Nunn, Trevor Reza, those guys were not in this game. So the whole rotation is thrown off a little bit. I think we have to take that into account. But the reality is, teams are going to guard the Lakers the way the Warriors did, which is to say they're going to pack the paint,

they're going to put as many bodies as they can between their key guys and the rim. And if they can hit jump shots, I mean, the Lakers attempted more threes in this game than the Warriors did. That's what's going to be a lot of nights. There's going to have to be a lot of shots from the Malik Monks of the world to make this work. And if those shots are going, they're going to look really good. And if not, there's going to be nights where AD and LeBron and, you know, Russell Westbrook,

when he's playing well, are just going to have to gut out wins by force of will, basically. Yeah, I think the concern trolling that we've done with the Lakers' offense for the previous two seasons, I just don't have that. Like, honestly, just watching this game and I tweeted it, I was like, look, AD and LeBron make basically anything viable. Like, they're so freaking good. And there's enough collective, you know, intelligence, basketball intelligence, that the offense stuff is going to come. The ball movement stuff is going to come. What spots people need to be in when LeBron and AD make certain moves and the reeds that they need to make is going to come.

It's just about situating Russ in a place where he's comfortable. Because if you're going to make him central to what you do, do you have to maximize what the guy brings to the table or else what's the point? And I think, you know, if Russell Westbrook was frustrated last night, it's because everybody was right. You can't play with Rondo. You can't play with DJ. You can't play with Dwight Howard. You can't play off the ball because you can't shoot for shit.

Like, I think that's the frustration. It's like, nah, I looked ridiculous out there trying to do these things that I know aren't my strengths. And to you guys' point, Golden State has continuity. You know, Jordan Poole and them, boys, they got to do this last year. Juan Tuscano-Ednesson got to do this last year with Steph. And look, Warriors fans did a lot of the hand-wringing last year of like, Kerr, stop this beautiful game bullshit.

Put the ball in the hands of Steph. Clear out, pick and roll. This guy's one of the best players ever. Stop with this fancy pants nonsense. Guess what they did last night? All occurs, beautiful game bullshit. And the results were what? Wide open fucking three after wide open three because Steph and all of these guys

had an understanding of where to be, when to cut, when to pop out. That thing was moving around. It was singing. That looked like a team, like you said, knows exactly what they want to do, you know. Although, you know, again, this is just to tamper some expectations. I think as we always see with the Warriors, as the season goes on, and teams get scouted, teams are going to get better at guarding that stuff. And, you know, it's going to take a lot more of stuff one-on-ones when teams are just like,

fuck trying to actually guard, just switch everything. You know, because like everybody comes in saying, oh, we're going to execute every single screen, pass off, and doing all of this until they realize, like, no, we're not. We got to switch everything. We got to force them to play one-on-one. We can't actually guard this. So, you know, look, the Warriors,

I think you should be encouraged if you're a Warriors fan by this. To look like this without Clay, to have an understanding about what your philosophy is offensively, you should be encouraged. I think if you're the Lakers, you got Bronan A-D, man. I don't know. It's hard for me to get too worked up about this first game. Yeah, if there's one big tradeoff for those sections of the game we were talking about

where AD is on the floor without Russ, when really he could have been playing with him, the tradeoff for that is they were just pounded in the ball through AD, and he looked awesome. Like, as a creator, you know, they tried to guard him with Wantsasconno Anderson sometimes, was not working at all. Just absolutely destroying that matchup. I thought this was a really impressive kind of individual creating game from AD. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, to Waz's earlier point, this was the first time AD and LeBron have gone for 30 apiece and lost. So on the one hand, I think you can count on AD and LeBron to be there for you. But I don't know, man, it's not a great start for some of the riffraff around this team. Here's my question. Did we see anything from some of the vets out there where you're mildly encouraging was mellow doing enough of what he typically does to provide some hope in the future? Avery Bradley coming off the scrap heap, do we think he's going to be playing key fourth quarter minutes again? What do you think, was?

To me, I think it's just about situating these guys in the right places. You know, Mello and Rondo and Russ, like, they need to kind of be tethered to AD or Dwight on the court, right? Because Dwight, I'm sorry, he looks good. He looks active. Like, he's, he's contested shots at the rim. He's boarding up. Like, he's a solid center.

But, you know, like, you need to make that work by pairing it with a sufficient amount of shooting, a sufficient amount of playmaking. I just think it's really just about matching the chess pieces in such a way. I thought Mello looked engaged. Rondo looked really engaged, which I love. Like, he was zipping that thing up and down the court.

There was some passes that went crazy because he was just so excited. and throwing them like freaking bullet passes. So these guys look engaged. They don't look slow and old. So I was encouraged by that. What I was worried about was that damn defense. I'm like, hold on now.

I'm like, there's some miscues, some just like, this thing needs to get patched up if you guys are going to be a real, real team. Because y'all made your bones on defense for the last two years. The defense looked bad last night. Well, and not just miscues, but outright liabilities. Like there were points where they were trying to hide Westbrook by putting him on like Damian Lee in the corner. But that meant Malik Monk had to guard Jordan Poole or Steph Curry.

And not good at all. Getting totally roasted. One dribble blowbyes. That's not going to work. All right. Now to go from the ugly game to a little bit more on the beautiful game, the next thing I have down here for what we learned, the Warriors might have found the right depth pieces. Well, as you were kind of alluding to this before, but I think we were kind of mixed going into the season about some of the, veterans that the Warriors had assembled this offseason auto porter,

Manga Bialica, Andrea Gwadala back from the dead. I think all looked pretty good last night, including Bialita, who seemed like he was on par with Anthony Davis for multiple stretches of that game. It just seemed like they were a little bit more like the Warriors of Old. And they had enough guys to do what they had typically done in the past. Yeah, Bialitsa is not going to be asked to, you know, turn into like Akim Olajuwon or something, right? about exploiting, you know, just little holes in gaps in the defense that are constantly being created by the amount of attention that Steph gets.

And he stepped up to the plate. Iggy made some wide-ass open threes. Like, these are plays that you have to make for the Warriors' offense to be what it needs to be to get them to this championship level, right? All of us remember 2016 where Harrison Barnes was bricking wide open threes. Iggy was missing wide open threes. And, you know, we all remember those moments. But, like, that's what it takes when Steph, Clay, and Draymond got this thing looking

the way it's supposed to look. The others are just going to have opportunities that quality, decent NBA players just need to convert, right? And last night, they looked great. And, you know, I think Jordan Poole has gotten enough ink and oxygen between the offseason and every single Warriors preview show. but he looked apart last night. You know, he was four of 11,

but the point is this man got up 11 threes. That's a big deal. Confident threes. Yes. Confident threes. No hesitation. So if he's doing that, staff's doing what he's supposed to do,

and we know what we're used to seeing from Clay Thompson, yeah, yeah, I understand why people were really excited about what this team could be coming into the season. Now, granted, Wiseman didn't play last night, so he wasn't able to show. show off his stone hands and, you know, his lack of... No comminga. Barely any moody.

Yeah. Barely any moody. Like, these guys didn't play last night, right? And so we'll see how those guys figure in. But the veteran pieces, the guys that made, you know, positive contributions last year, they're back. They look like they belong. This is good stuff from the Warriors. Well, and part of the reason Poole got up so many shots is Steph already has a really good

sense of how to find him, how to track him, which is for guys, I mean, they only played 250, 275 minutes together last season. They really didn't have that much of a chance to gel, but for Steph to have that kind of awareness, especially as a player who he attracts so much attention, he has so much gravity, his ability to locate Clay was like very quickly on an instant was a big part of their success. And if he can ID where Poole is and get him the ball open in those situations, Fool's going to let it, let it fly. Like he's going to get those shots off quickly and he can be pretty effective in that context. We talked about pool, not shooting well,

but Curry also didn't shoot well. And it was at one point during the middle of the game where I wrote down something to the effect of like, oh, they need Supernova Steph to make this work, that they don't have the guy to take him over the top. Well, it wasn't Steph who took him over the top. It was a couple big pool shots, a couple Bielita, nice passes.

Like they were doing a lot of good big to big passes between Looney and Dremon. And then as soon as they went super small, get the big off the court, let Draymond do his thing. Like the ball was pinging, man. It was real like Star Wars phasers like all over the place. Phasers?

Yeah, right? No. It was beautiful. It really looked like the Warriors of Old. I think the question going forward is like, can you count on some of those guys to step forward? If Steph isn't there every night, I guess it comes down a lot to pool,

but like, I don't know. I'm not certain that we're going to get a lot of those Equidola performance. some of those Tiscano Anderson minutes that I think they've been counting on in this first game. Yeah, it seems unlikely. But, you know, to circle back to your stuff point, I always say that he's the most selfless superstar of my lifetime. And I don't just mean, you know, you go back to what he did when KD came to the team and just freaking just gave it up to him. Rolled out the red carpet, like set all the right things.

Like make sure that, like, KD felt like he was the number one option and all of these things. And that's part of what I mean when I'm talking about LeBron and Westbrook. Like you talk about Steph just understanding where Jordan Poole is going to be, understanding where all of these guys are going to be, and making it a point to be like, no, not only am I going to feed you, I want you to shoot it with no hesitation. And I'm going to make it my job to constantly be setting you up and putting you in positions to win all the times.

That's what it takes, right? And I think Steph last night was a mirror to live. LeBron and like, yo, LeBron, you're going to have to take that ownership of your teammate's success the way Stepp is so clearly doing in Golden State and which he so clearly demonstrated last night where, yeah, he's in double digits and assists, you know, like, because he's getting the attention. He's giving the ball up early. He's getting guys their shots and their spots.

And it was pretty dope to watch, man. And when he plays that way, it's not a matter of can Iguadala be great every night. it's like, can you cobble together enough from this mishmash of guys? Like some nights it's going to be Iguadala or Bialitza. You know, everyone's going to have their opportunity to do this kind of stuff. And I think what gives you optimism

about this particular construction is they have some guys who are kind of unique within the concepts that they've run. Like they've never really had a five like Bialitza who can shoot and make plays. They've had one or the other. You know, they haven't had a shooter, you know, again, like Kevin Durant

in his own very separate category, but like a role player shooter like Otto Porter with those kinds of percentages. So like there's stuff to work with here. Are all those guys going to click exactly when they need him, need them to? Probably not. But you know,

you just hope that they're there for the moments when you really need them to pay off, at least on a somewhat consistent basis. Here's a question. What do we think is most likely to carry from this game? Do we think it's the Warriors looking particularly good? Or do you think it's the Lakers looking particularly bad? The Lakers aren't going to look like this all the time.

No, I think in the short term, the Lakers are going to look bad again because what they're trying to do is harder. You know, again, like, there's all of these new pieces that they're incorporating, right? Like, at the end of the day, Stefan Dremont and Kerr, like, they are the continuity. This has been there. Like, this, and it's not just incorporating them, right? It's, like, sometimes you might replace shooters within the LeBron's. system. And all they're doing is just, all right, back into the corner, back into the, like, you're just plugging and playing them. Russell Westbrook is not a plug and play player.

This is something, there needs to be a synergy developed. And that's going to take a lot more time. I think what the Warriors did last night is going to be replicable because we've seen this shit for seven years now. Right. Yeah, I do think the answer is maybe a little bit of both. Like, I do think the Warriors might look this good on a lot of nights. But I also think might take a little while for the Lakers to figure this out. I mean, it goes back to the question we'd be talking about all fucking off season, which is like, where are the three and D guys going to come from?

Because that is what they need the most. It's just like, I kept thinking about Buddy healed during last night's game. Like, what would Buddy do? And like, if he just made two or three threes just to stretch out the defense just a little bit, I don't know, man. I just seem like it would have been a much better situation.

Well, but the reality is like the Lakers could have looked this disjointed. And like going uphill. in the way they did in this game and the Warriors could have looked this good and if the Lakers had just made a couple more free throws and Ress made one more mid-range shot

they win anyway. It's like that's their reality is there's going to be some ugly games where they still win because they have AD because they have LeBron. Like they have a huge advantage on those merits alone.

Although AD needs to make free throws which apparently he doesn't do anymore in addition to not making threes. Can I float an AD thing by you guys? It seemed like in this... This is the podcast. It seemed like in this game it was like in the scouting report for the warriors that when AD falls down, we run every single time.

Like if you go back and watch this tape, like look at Draymond every time AD tries to draw a foul or gets tripped up. Like they are out there on, you know, out to the races every single time. I will just say that I was text by not one, not two, but three people last night asking me how many times has AD hit the deck? So I think people have caught on. And yes, he does it a lot. Well, and your brand is strong. Yes, exactly. Right.

This is the only thing I'm known for. Let's flip to the other game. The earlier game, the Bucks were feted as the 2021 NBA champions, got the rings, et cetera, et cetera. And then they proceeded to blow the fucking doors off the nets. I have written down, if we're following our prompts of what we learned from opening night, the Bucks have championship big ball swagger. And like, I don't know what else that come away from that game was. Because not only, like, was it just the confidence they played with, they also looked swole as hell, especially compared to this, like, really thin, finesse shooting Brooklyn Nets team. I had written down the Nets look like art school participants and the Bucks are football school participants.

You know, it was a real, like, the Nets do coke in the bathroom of a club called Rain while the Bucks drink Miller light in a parking lot sort of vibe. Like, they just kind of brutalized them. Yeah. And again, you know, we said this before the season started. It's like, sure, you can say whatever you want about the championship that they won, but they did it. And with that comes a certain level of confidence in what it is that you do because you won with it. Right. And so they're going to come out.

They're going to play with more force than, you know, the average team does and understand that the outcomes are going to be. much more favorable. And look, Nets were playing regular season, Nets defense. And that was my main takeaway from this. Was this like, oh, okay. Yeah, y'all didn't come out here with the level of resistance

that was going to take to stop these guys on championship night. And it's understandable. It's a long season. They understand what they're working towards. And look, they played this team the seven games while being extremely hobbled. I don't think they feel like they have anything to prove to the bucks.

Where's the bucks? Like I said, like everybody's been kind of ragging on their championship. They know that. They know that they want to show people that they're actually the best team in the NBA this season. And so I love the way they came out. I love that Yon has shot the ball 25 times, right? If only because I picked them for MVP and I want to look smart.

I just love the way they came out. It was just a level of aggression. And like you said, swagger. That was just evident to put up basically 130 points on open and night. It's just, you know, it shows you what they're about to be about. So 32 points, 14 rebounds, 7 assists for Janus. And this might sound crazy, but relative to what we've seen from him, he wasn't even that good.

Like, it was just kind of an okay Janus performance, which doesn't bode well for the matchup with the net specifically if they can't even deal with the okay version of Janus. But as you said, Waz, like, in terms of defense, they were not there. You know, James Hardin was playing Ben Simmons opting out of a defensive drill level defense in this game.

Well, that used to be the James Hardin. Like, he's claiming that territory back. You got to take it back. Does James Hardin have his iPhone and his jersey in his jersey pocket? I mean, I thought Janus was particularly good at finding shooters off a doubles, too. Like, he had one play where he was like,

standing up Katie in the Post, kind of wrapped around him and threw like a one-handed pass underneath the basket to Pat Conninton and like Conton missed the shot. But I was like, holy shit. Like he's just getting good at that part of the game where he's drawing so much attention because of how much force he plays with. And he's finding all the other shooters. I mean, I think their shooters had particularly good nights. Like even Rob's guy, Jordan and Noirah just like kind of took over the game for like really short stretches. But this is what won them the title.

And it looks like that formula stills in existence. I mean, it was striking. like the looks, Grayson Allen, who is like a 40% NBA three-point shooter was getting, he's going to have great looks all year. Yeah, the Dante DeVincenzo's, the Jordan Juarez, the George Hills of the world, those guys are going to be eating. They're going to have lots of great opportunities. Yeah. On the flip side of this, though, Waz talked about the defensive concerns with the Nets. And also just seemed like, I don't know what was up with them on offense. They were just kind of shook a little bit.

In particular, I was focused on a lot of Nick Claxton because clearly wasn't going to like stand up to Brooke Lopez or Yanis physically, but it seemed like he and Hardin were just a little off chemistry-wise on the pick and roll. And for those hardened minutes, uh, that relationship is going to be key there. I don't know. Like, I think there is a concern long term. If we're saying the bucks are their biggest competition, and there also are some really big teams in the East, the Sixers in particular, like I wonder if Claxton is going to be a very good defensive center against a lot of teams just because of his versatility and his ability to switch out.

I wonder if they're big enough and they have that go-to center when they need him against specific teams. Well, not to be a broken record on the small ball stuff, but this seemed like a weird game for the Nets to go as big as they did. Like, the reason the Claxton Pick and Roll was a little bit stunted and a little bit problematic was because Blake Griffin was also on the floor and Janus was rotating over to help in a lot of those situations, which clogs everything up.

So, you know, the lineup questions in these two games are pretty interesting because for the, for the Lakers, it made sense for them to go smaller to counter the way the Warriors play. But for the Nets, it made sense to go smaller to better establish their own style against the Bucks. Like, that's how they need to play this particular matchup. So I don't really get playing all of these bigs together as much as they did. But again, it's game one. They got to figure out which of these pairings work and which ones don't. Yeah, I'm not going to hit the panic button on the Nets. offense, okay?

This was the best offense in the history of the planet last year. They bring everybody back, excluding our friend. But I just, I can't be concerned about what they do offensively. This team is an explosion waiting to happen. And James Harden didn't, like, wake up yesterday and stop being a master of pick-and-roll offense. Like, he just is, right? So I'm not worried about that. I'm more concerned about what level of defensive intensity they're going to, you know, put out as the season goes and figuring out how switchy they want to be, figuring out how they want to defend picking roles depending on the matchup.

Getting that stuff down pat is what they need to do. But this is the first game of 82. Their offense against 90% of the league is going to win the day. So, like, I just, you know, I can't. I can't get concerned about the fucking Nets. They're too good. I think the bigger question is more about the rotational choices that they need to make. And, like, they have a lot of them to the point where they pretty much played everybody

and yet still couldn't really find Bruce Brown minutes until really late in the game. I just wonder if they have so many choices that, like, this is going to be much more of a feeling out process than we initially expected because I think everyone was like, oh, depth and like Patty Mills in particular shut the lights out, seven or seven for three. but it's like I think they need to find who their guys are and maybe that takes another month or two of experimenting. But this is what the first step of that looks like

is let's play everybody and then we'll start picking and choosing. So I think there's room to work here but we really can't gloss over the fact that they were playing against a Bucks defense that's great on its own, totally juiced up by the ring ceremony. Yeah. They just came out really ready to play.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I'm not concerned. I do think though, like maybe the center thing is something to watch here. Rob, do you want to do anything on Jordan Noirah? I know that's your guy. Were you celebrating last night with his parents? How did I back myself into this corner? The Jordan Warra corner.

I didn't realize I had staked out this plot of land. You were the only person I've ever heard include him in an article. And so thus you are the Jordan Noirah guy. Well, I mean, he's definitely the prime beneficiary of all the injuries they have right now. And I think it's smart to kind of overfeed him. a bit right now to see what you've got, to see if he can be a rotation player for you, because they don't really have a lot of guys off the bench

with his size. So if you can have a bigger wing like that, who's a natural score, who can shoot, who can fill it up, that could be a potentially valuable player. But the thing with Warra last year, I mean, he was basically spent the season under Chris Middleton's wing, trying to learn how to be a little more subtle,

a little more refined because he's just a let it fly kind of guy. If they can, if they can rein in some of those instincts and make them really productive, I think that could be a nice piece, for them. All right. Let's move away from opening night now. Talk about some news that we got right before this podcast. Our guy, Jonas Valenciunus, the other JV, as I like to call him, gets extended two years, 30.1 million according to ESPN. Obviously, the Pelicans trade for him in that much

maligned deal involving Eric Ledso, Stephen Adams, draft picks, etc. I obviously have thoughts here, But, wise, what, like, what do you think? I, I, again, I don't know what the Pelicans are doing. Like, the idea that Jonas Valenciunis needs to be locked up before he ever plays a game for you. It just seems strange. Like, look, I think Valentunis is consistent enough and a known enough commodity that 15 mil per

is not like some exorbitant number. But why? At a certain point, it's just like, why do I have to lock this dude in right now? It's just, I don't know. It's just strange to me, right? Like, maybe this is one of those things where it's like, you know, we'll get them into a good deal and this makes them a more desirable trade piece or whatever. I don't know.

I don't. The Pelicans' moves have been the strangest moves basically. since they fired Stan Van Gundy. It's just been like, all right, we're getting with Alonzo. We're making cap space for Kyle Lowry. He's not coming. And we're doing Devante Graham.

And we're calling Jonas Valanchunis to stretch five. And I'm just like, yo, I don't know. Zion broke his foot and is also 300 pounds. Brough. It's bruh. It's bleak. It's bleak. It's just, I don't know what they're doing.

I don't know. Well, I think if there's a reason to do it, and this is just me guessing at it, it's something you said there was, which is they made cap space for Kyle Lowry and he didn't come. And I think that's kind of how they're thinking about their team is like, we can carve out this cap space to try to lure the next star, to lure good players here. But what are our guarantees that when Jonas Valentunus's contract expires at the end of the season, it's going to be worth anything to us. And we may just lose a good, valuable player when he walks out the door. I think that's a reality if you're the pelicans you have to embrace. Not to say they absolutely needed to do this, but I think it can be understood from a certain frame, especially if, I mean, we don't know when Zion's going to play.

We don't know what his future with this team is going to be. And so all the questions about fit, about who, you know, how do these bigs fit next to Zion? I understand why you ask them. But I'm just wondering when Zion's going to be on the floor, frankly. Yeah, I think that's a fair point. I'm just a little perplexed why they didn't know that during the offseason. and they know it now and why they needed to fall on their faces during the off season when there's like a decade plus of Pelicans like free agency failures or just like not being

able to attract anyone to that market where really could have just gone and looked at that. I mean, I think the contract is actually not bad. It's like $14, $15 million for each season. I think to Waz's point, I think it is tradable in the worst case scenario. I just one, he hasn't played a minute with Zion Williamson, which is the biggest question. Which might matter a little bit, right? Right. And they did this with Stephen Adams before he got there and played along Zion, and that did not work out well. And while like maybe they've seen things in practice, just with like maybe him showing a little bit more stretch, I don't know if Valanchunus is a definite

fit there in particular. And this brings me to my second point, didn't you just draft Jackson Hayes like in the lottery to be the big to play next to Zion if you wanted? him to play with the big. And so aren't you conceding basically that we screwed up with this draft pick by blocking him with Valenciunus? No? Am I crazy? No, you're 100% right. And I think last year, you know, the Adams thing, they were sort of undercutting Jackson Hayes last year with Adams because like Adams is kind of redundant to Hayes in the sense that he's the same type of center. At least with Jonas, you could say, all right, he moves out, right?

So they're complimentary to each other at the position, and you could go matchup based or whatever. With Adams last year, it was like, all right, you just found the center who functionally behaves exactly the way Jackson Hayes does on offense. So what are we doing? I don't know. I hate, I wish I had something else interesting to say

about what they're doing over there, but I just don't get it. It just feels weird. Yeah, I think the flip side of this is that Griffin thought he had a longer runway than he had, and now the expectations are really breathing down his neck, and he has to provide some semblance of a step forward immediately. And so he doesn't have time to wait for Hayes. He needs to get someone in now, like Valanchunis, who still has some upside, but gives you some cost certainty at the moment, which you could say is more of an ownership issue,

than a Griffin issue. Having said that, Griffin said one of the most wild things I've ever seen someone in front of the mic say where he basically lied. And it was like, oh, I didn't actually say that Zion would be ready for opening night. In fact, you guys misheard me. I just said the regular season.

That was some Hall of Fame level GM bullshit. Like I have never, ever, ever heard before. And I've been doing this for 12 years. That was so fucking wild. And he deserves no benefit. out here and he will never get it from me or I think a lot of people after that. The whole Zion situation is, I mean, I don't know if it's a problem with what's going on behind the scenes or the way it's handled publicly, but just the whole question of his availability is

so strange. There's so much uncertainty about what he could potentially be for this organization or not because we know what kind of talent he is. We know what he can do on the court. But the fact that there's always so much consternation, whether it's like kind of behind the scenes reporting or statements like that about whether he's going to play. Who knew what in terms of when he was getting certain procedures or surgeries, like how he's being handled by members of the organization and like how they're communicating with him. It's just such a mess.

And there's that kind of stuff all throughout this organization in terms of individual cases. Like we were just talking about Jackson Hayes. He's involved in his own kind of like domestic situation. We don't know the resolution for yet. And there's all these different variables the Pelicans are juggling where I mean, it's just it's as messy as any organization out there right now. At a time, as you laid out, Justin, where there are big expectations. Like, they are expecting and hoping to make a step to make

progress. It's just one of the worst situations you can find yourself in as an organization to have all of that kind of colliding at once. Yeah. I will play devil's advocate on this as well. Just to show you that I'm trying to look at this from both sides of things, it seems like Zion, and in particular Zion's family and the people around him are very, very difficult to deal with. to the point where, like, it might even be worse than the AD situation because I think he expected to be treated like a number one superstar from the moment he got there and has been causing concerns in particular about what the organization can say publicly and how they're managing some of his injuries and his body and all this other stuff.

Having said that, don't blame the fucking media because you told them something on the record in front of a microphone and then change what you're saying. Like, you can easily get around this if you're just like, more skillful about lying. Just be like, well, we thought one thing, yada, yada, yada, yada. It didn't really happen. That's all you need to say. Because otherwise, we think you're lying specifically not to tell us stuff about what is actually

going on there, which makes us wonder, like, how deep does this shit go and how bad is it? And two, like, you start to wonder, like, are they just trying to get people to the building? And then when Zion's not there, are they going to pull the rug out from under them? I don't know. It just makes it way worse. So honestly, like, again, you do not deserve the benefit of the doubt, even though, like, I'm trying to.

And this is how you know, this is how you know it's gotten really, really bad in New Orleans. The media never turns on its own. Griff had built up so much goodwill from his time in the media and the relationships that he's made that he got so much incredible press. From the minute he took that job,

it was like, oh, the might is touch and, oh, they're doing this. and oh, he held firm in the AD. He'd get pushed around and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was nothing but griff, griff, griff, griff, griff, griff, griff, griff. And to watch how it's turned from that nola.com piece to just everybody being like, yo, we're kind of sick of this shit right now. This looks like a mess. That's how you know this shit went bad because, you know,

Darry's still getting his shit sandwich is polished up in the media. You know what I mean? Like, there's certain people that still getting their love. Danny Ains, you name it. They always going to get their love in the media. For Griff to get to this point, where everybody's kind of putting their hands of like, you know, there's some fucking bullshit.

It's tough what's happening over there. But just so we're all in agreement, this is Jonas Valenchunis's fault, right? Right, right. No, I think part of what isn't working in Griff's favor is he's still doing the things he was doing before, where he's going and calling every media, member and trying to work the behind the scenes narrative in order to curry favor.

Like, I could tell you for a fact, multiple media members are like Griff said X, Y, and Z after this all happened to try to massage the situation. It's just like, it's not going well. I will say this again. I think I said this when we talked about that Nola.com story before. The most telling detail about that one was how he was just like talking shit about Alvin Gentry to someone he hadn't apparently talked to in a very long time to the point where the person was like, why is he telling me?

this, that is a much more telling detail than the piano thing or whatever hell got picked up from that story. That's just like something that really undercut the culture and is a very specific detail that describes like what particular mess that they have on their hand with him in charge. It's all say. Do you guys want to be a little bit more hopeful now? Sure. Please. Yeah. Rob is waiting for some positivity out here. All right. We're going to turn now to with the NBA Most of the teams getting started now, looking ahead to what we're looking forward to. We talked a lot about the good, the bad, the ugly. I want to focus on what we're excited to learn.

And Rob, you have a couple things. You want to start us off? I do. Number one, I want to see the best offensive teams in the league, try to figure out what the hell they're going to do with the heat this season. I want to see them roll into Miami or see them on a road trip. You know, the Bucks play the heat on Thursday. The Nets do next week.

And then there's a big West Coast swing where they're going to see. some of the best teams in the conference out there. I want to see these teams try to crack that defense with just how aggressive it can be, how switchable and flexible it can be. They seem like one of the biggest puzzles in the league on like a single night, we have to actually figure out

how to beat these guys' bases. I'm looking forward to see if Jalen Green can set the rookie record for shot attempts on a per 36 basis. Let's go. I can't think of a rookie who's had like a bigger green light. I really honestly think since Alan Iverson, no joke.

Because, you know, you think about even Carmelo and LeBron and even KD to an extent, there was some like tamping down of what was what they were expected to do as rookies, right? LeBron was famously deferring to Darius Miles and Ricky Davis, right? And Mello had a pretty veteran-laden team when he came into the league. And, like, Colby, of course, played next to Eddie Jones, Nick Van Exel, fucking Shaquille O'Neill, right? Like, these are guys who would end up being top scores in the NBA. But as rookies, they had to really, like, put the fucking restricter plates on what they could do out there. Jalen Green has none of that.

He's going to put shots up. So I want to see if he could break the rookie record for shots per 36, because I think he's He has the green light to do it. And more importantly, he possesses the will to do it. This man likes to shoot the rock. Yeah, not to compare their talents, but in terms of situation, it kind of feels like Kevin Durant rolling into the Supersonics

for his rookie season where there were just no impediments between him putting up lots of points, lots of shots. The only impediment was PJ Carlis Simone. Quite an impediment, actually, as it turns out. Right. Kevin Durant's shooting guard. That one didn't take so well. I guess like he doesn't actually play a position now.

Right. To a certain extent, he was right. Well, I think it's an interesting question, though, just like philosophically, because I think the NBA in like how we perceive it has turned a little bit because I think for a while when the Thunder were successful building slowly via the young guys and just letting them play through mistakes, they're like, oh, well, that's the way you do it. But then I think the logic kind of flipped. In particular, when the process hit a skid and everyone wanted them to at least.

at least show a brave face and to win a little bit more games, but also because they had way too many young guys, they brought in veterans. Like, Rob, do you get a sense of, like, where the league is on that or, like, where you are personally? Like, you think it's a good thing

that they're just giving the keys to jailing and he's just going to put up 50 shots a game? Or would he have been better served by playing with a couple more veterans? Just to, like, hold this hand a little bit. Well, it depends on what position we're talking about. Because part of the problem with the process Sixers is they didn't have any point guards.

They didn't have anyone who was handling the ball getting them into NBA offense. But with Jalen Green, part of the appeal is putting the ball in his hands and seeing what he can do, seeing how much he can be an on-ball creator. So I think players like him lend themselves more to these situations, him, Kate Cunningham, like these guys who are going to be asked to facilitate and create, you want to see what they can do.

But if we're talking about, you know, young star bigs, if we're talking about even young star wings who are more off-ball players, you really need more of a professional ecosystem around them just to even get an accurate read on who they are. Yeah, if in the future, you know, Jaylen Green is going to be quarterback in this offense, don't give me that shit. Oh, Aaron Rogers sat and Pat Mahomes sat.

Fuck that. Those guys were going to be amazing no matter what. And they got better because they freaking played. They got to play against live defenses, the best players in the world. And they got to figure out how defenses wanted to treat them. I feel like ball dominant wings is the same thing. Don't tell me,

Kudansk would become a better, you know, ball dominant wing because he got to watch somebody else do it first. Like, fuck all of that. Give Jalen Green the rock. Let him learn on the job. The point of this season is to suck anyway. Why not give this guy the reps that he's going to need? Because, you know, I'm honestly really high on him.

I just think his physical gifts are just so obvious and incredible. And once he gets the mental part of it and he develops the skill. that it takes to attack defenses and how they're playing them, sky's the limit for this kid. So yeah, put the rock in his hand. Let him become the next Mahomes. Yeah, I'm excited to keep saying Shengoon and to listen to people over-pronunciate Shengoon throughout the season.

So that's on my list. Rob, do you have any others? Oh, I've got plenty. I mean, for one, what the hell do the Raptors, who, as best I can tell, is just a roster full of six, eight guys, actually look like on a basketball court together? That's one thing that's at the top of my list. I mean, one of the most innovative coaches in the game has one of the weirdest rosters out there.

That's worth watching. That's exciting. Yeah, another thing that I think it'll be cool to watch is what Rick Carlisle does in Indiana with that weird-ass team. I feel like this is like his wet dream, right? Like to cobble together a group of people, there's no players on this team who can pretend to be as entitled as Luca Donchich so clearly is. And that's whatever. Luca has a right to do that. He's generational talent.

I think he should be asserting himself that way on the franchise. Like he should be taking ownership. But Carlisle is clearly somebody who bristles against that to the point where he was trying to micromanage Jason fucking kid at point guard 16 years into his career. Like that just shows you the mind of Rick Carlisle. So the fact that he gets to go to Indiana and he's going to be allowed to do his Carlisle shit. So I want to see how it turns out up there because it's a team. that needs the level of creativity and management that he brings,

and it's going to allow him to be the, you know, Carlisle to the freaking exponent. I love the idea that what Rick Carlisle wants more than anything else is a roster that's, like, kind of impossible to solve. It might be, like, fatally flawed. You know, in terms of contending and, like, really being a great team, just, like, does not have it so he gets to tinker all he wants. That definitely checks out. Well, I mean, Brogden in particular, seems like someone.

that he would love because all these improvisational guys like kids, like Luca, Rondo to a certain extent, like he couldn't get behind. But they call Brogden the fucking president, man. This guy is going to fall in line and knows how to take orders. He's going to love him. What else do we got here, Rob? How about, I mean, we talked about this a little bit on the live show yesterday, but the Carl Towns, Anthony Edwards, the Angelo Russell Trio finally come to life. I mean, when we're talking about the cores of teams and how we want to see them grow and flourish and demonstrate something together,

they've barely had a chance to play. I mean, really about 300 minutes together to date. And we've seen what a little space can do for Edwards. We haven't really seen how Russell can make those other two guys better yet. And that's kind of one thing I have my eye on is like, can he make Carl Towns's life easier or not? Can he be the playmaker they need him to be or not? Because if not, all of a sudden, things start getting a little loud on the trade rumor

front. Yeah, that was going to be my question. Like, can he? I actually am a fan of DeAngela Russell. I think I've been higher on him than most of the consensus. But I think making guys better is something that he typically falls short on. I don't know. Where do you fall on that?

Is he one of the best passers in the league who doesn't actually help other people that much? Like the angles and stuff he sees are definitely impressive, definitely at a high level. But I think some of it is the fact that he doesn't actively break defenses down off the dribble. why it's not as valuable. I mean, even contrast him versus what we saw from Steph last night. Like, Steph was getting to the cup off the dribble. Steph is not like a super explosive athlete. Like, I would say they're probably kind of comparable in terms of their physical gifts.

But for whatever reason, Curry, using the threat of his shot, using his guile, using his creativity, is able to get there where Russell is not. And so he becomes so much more of a perimeter player and lives and dies with some pretty tough and often contested shots. You know, and look, what I'm really. looking forward to is a Wednesday slate with like 10 plus games. I have shit to start watching at 4 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, right? Like, I love that this is back to being our reality where every single night I get to watch my favorite league and there'll be something fun. And every single

night I get to ignore games like today's Orlando Magic San Antonio. Hey. I mean, those are the games at 4 and 430, man. The Kelden Johnson Hive will not stand for this. It's true. It's true. I have to say, 430, first game, or no, one of the first games, Wizards Raptors.

Let's go, baby. I'm excited. What a beautiful little bow to put on this podcast. Let's end it there. Thank you, everyone, for joining us. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely for production. Thanks, sir, everyone for watching NBA Preview Palooza

and the 30 videos that we, on group chat did, particularly. We'll be back next week. Same time, same place. We'll see it.