The Ringer NBA Show - What Are the Things You’d Love to See From Each Team Heading Into the Season? | Group Chat

Episode Date: September 26, 2019

We respond to a list of listener submissions about what they’d love to see for their team heading into the 2019-20 NBA season, including: Markelle Fultz getting solid NBA minutes, the Knicks looking competent, the Bulls becoming relevant again, and the Hawks playing at least a shred of defense. Hosts: Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys, it's Liz Kelly. Next week, The Ringer Podcast Network is debuting a new podcast with Vampire Weekend Bandmates Chris Thompson and Chris Bayo called The Road Taken. Here's a quick trailer with more info. Hello, friends. Welcome to the trailer for The Road Taken with CT and Bayo. I'm Bayo, aka Chris Bayo. I've watched Chris bring his sunny positivity and shredding baselines to stages all around

the world for the past 13 years in the band Vampire Weekend. And I'm C.T. Which is short for Chris Thompson. For the past 13 years, you've been my sneakily dark rhythm section partner. We've embarked on a massive world tour and are excited to experience all the thrills and boredom that entails. To help us process our own experiences along the way, we'll be having conversations with peers, idols, and maybe a rand or two. The Road Taken with CT&Bao, part of the Ringer podcast network, coming soon on all podcast platforms. Basketball is very good.

Markell Fultz will win most improved player The only LA champions this year will be the Dodgers The Knicks will play a five-power forward lineup Basketball is very good Hello and welcome to the Ringer NBA show My name is Chris Ryan I'm joined by Justin Verrier The Walt and Jesse of the NBA podcasting scene

Who's who? This is group chat by the way Let's see I would say covering the NBA for as long as I have It's kind of like being tortured by Nazis Yeah but I'm older It's true. Yeah. So I guess that works.

I'm Walt, you're Jesse. I'm giving you the recipe. Okay. For the crystal blue. That means I'm still out there, baby. Yeah. What's up? It's group chat.

Today on the pod, fun little game we decided to play with the listeners. Called, you love to see it. So you may have seen from some of the social channels belonging to the ringer.com and the ringer incorp. That we were wondering what you'd love to see over the next couple of weeks as your team. Perhaps you are a fan of a team. We're not all post-fandum like,

Justin. But what would you love to see from your team over the next couple weeks as we get into preseason? Obviously, the great thaw has begun. So we're starting to get some news stories. We're starting to get some media days. We're starting to get the coaches are talking a little bit. I saw Steve Kerr was talking to Howard Beck about Durant. I think today we had some, there's a couple stories here and there just like people are starting to finally let it go. Presti did a conference press conference today. We said Kevin Durant is anything Kevin Durant ever needs. I got him. nothing but great things to say about him.

But obviously, like, the storyline is starting to ramp up, and over the next couple of weeks we'll be breaking down. I think a lot of these teams more specifically team by team, but today we wanted to play, you love to see it. So we had you guys send in one thing that you'd love to see from your team, and we're going to start with Jeffrey Long, who says, not my team, so we already broke the rules. Not my team, but I'd love to see Markell Fultz play basketball,

really hoping he comes out and begins living up to the number one pick billing and Justin as if as if the fates heard him they provided this is the big news of september 25th this is what we got here it's markelle fultz in a gym with people filming him it's just like yesterday when he first got to the got to philly does it bring back good memories for you i i honestly do wish nothing but the best for this kid yeah it's like a really weird situation i i we still don't really know what happened with everything and uh you know now he's in orlando Orlando signed like they extended him I guess or they picked up his option rather Yep for next season so he's there for two

A month early which was the sort of suggestion that they liked whatever they saw in the summer Now I do think that there's there's some like John Wick three action going on with the filmmaking In this viral video of false shooting But he definitely like is in the right spot I think he needs to be outside of the media clear He needs to not be the person who's supposed to be the deciding factor on a championship contending team. He needs to be like the only good guard on Orlando with all due respect to DJ Augustine and, you know, and he has a really good opportunity

down there. Yeah, I think you're right. I think it helps that he's kind of removed from whatever Fishbowl exists in Philadelphia. Although I would say it's a bad sign that the first time he pokes his head up from like, I think since he's been in Orlando, everyone has a camera out and is ready to film him. I mean, that's just going to be like the rest of his life, right? Which is pretty sad, I guess. The one thing I will say is the videos were encouraging. You could definitely tell that he had made progress. Although as you start to watch all of the videos, perhaps some of the ones that just like didn't get onto your timeline,

there is one specifically of his free throw form. And the hitch is still there? The hitch is still kind of there. You could definitely see where if they had been filming for a little bit longer, perhaps it would have like started to show a little bit more. But I think you're right. I think just what we saw there is a significant improvement, and that's good for Fultz, and it's good for the magic,

because not only could they use him, he really is, at this point, the difference between their current ceiling and them being perhaps a really competitive team in the East because they locked in their team with some of these sort of deals they made the summer. Yeah, he's playing among the ants in Orlando. Right. The tree giants, like Vouch, Bomba, Isaac.

Kem Birch. Kemp, Birch. I mean, you know, we've been running these Tyler Parker team previews on the ringer, which are obviously very prosaic. But he points out that, like, I don't need, he doesn't even know how Ken Birch plays this year. They signed El Faruukamino. Yeah. So he has playing time.

Like, he has the groundwork to just do whatever you want. In some ways, I think Orlando is like Sacramento East. A lot of interesting players. A lot of guys who are still in, like, various points of their development. And I think it'll be like a fun 40-win season. it just all depends on what else is going on in the east, especially in that sort of lower middle

to lower tier of those playoff teams. I mean, the difference is they play in the East and thus that will probably get them in the mix for maybe even like a five, six seed. I can see them if things break right, if they really capitalize on the defense they played toward the end of last season, if Jonathan Isaac becomes the guy that every freaking media member

just like adores. Seems like he is the new, OG and Anobi for this season. Is that right? You could definitely tell there are things happening there. Is that just because his trainer texted 70 people and was like, wow, Jonathan's just stroking? No, he's the right combination of he was a high pick, but he wasn't like top three. You could definitely see flashes, but he hasn't like had enough time on the court or he's had injuries.

So there's a little bit like you really need to have watched really closely in order to see like and appreciate what he can be. and so there's a little bit of that like I was in on the hipster band first thing going on with him but I think that's the right opinion too because he can be very good so this is good Orlando is going to be the reverse version of like the reverse of the Orlando

that actually you know went to the finals years ago it's good instead of instead of four out with a with a center they're going to play four centers with one guard right it's essentially Vucciovich Isaac Gordon who on any other team would probably be a four right

Gordon at 3. Who's their shooting guard? Fornier. Terrence Ross. Terrence Ross coming off the bench. And then Markell Fultz or DJ Augustine. Right, or MCW. That's right.

So, I mean, this is the type of team where they could be good in the regular season. I've been saying for a little while now that I think Steve Clifford is a very good regular season coach. She tends to get teams to play defense. They don't make mistakes. And that's really what they've set up here. I don't know what their ceiling is in a playoff series, but I could see them being just, you know, at best case, like the four seed in the east? There really just aren't that many teams in the east.

So everybody has got Milwaukee and Philly at the top. Let's do the Eastern Conference playoffs. Just right, like without even seeing a second of practice. Right now everybody's got Milwaukee and Philly at the top. And then what? The Boston Indy Brooklyn group? Yeah. Or do you think Toronto is better than people are giving them credit for it?

No, I would be surprised if Toronto made the playoffs. They could. They're going to be a team. Oh, I think they'll make the playoffs. You don't think they're going to make the playoffs? It depends on whether or not he blows. Like he sells Kyle Lowry in the whole season. That's the thing.

It would make a lot of sense if Lauer and Gassal go. And if things get off to a bad start, I could definitely see that happening. I mean, even if they don't get off to a bad star, I can see that happening. It just makes so much sense because the one, like, the rumblings you're starting to hear now is like everybody's gearing up for Janus. And I definitely think that Maas, who spends a lot of time with Janus and these like Team Africa things, I think he's definitely going to be in the mix. Yeah, that's starting to get sprinkled around. KOC had like a little bit, like he was like talking a little bit about it. I think that it'll be really fascinating to watch how that discourse plays out.

Right. There was a quote. I mentioned this to someone the other day and someone sent me this quote from Maasai basically saying in Teta Kupo isn't Greek. It's actually Nigerian. And obviously, Massa spent a lot of time in Africa and building up that program for the NBA. So yeah, I could definitely see them thinking long term. Okay. So Boston and Philly at the top.

And then, sorry, Milwaukee and Philly at the top. And then a group of Boston indie, Brooklyn. Yeah, I think we're- Miami. Yeah, or- I can see Miami being better than Boston simply because Boston still has to figure out. Yeah, well, there's a couple of teams here that you can just be like, I don't think that the pistons, you know, I guess the Pistons could make it.

Pistons will probably make it. It depends on the health. Yeah. I mean, Blake was incredible last year. It's just going to take a similar season for that to happen again. I mean, the Bulls are going to, they really do have a pathway in order to be really good this year only because they're just competent and they have like veterans and young guys who are reaching the age where they should be pretty productive. Lori Markinen didn't play a lot last

year or he was hurt for a long stretch but I think he possibly could take the leap this season. Yeah. That brings us to a next question. I'm going to jump down just because you're mentioning the Bulls. Wow. David Cruz wants, he'd love to see the Bulls wing player's ability to defend an above average or a better wing player. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if this is going to happened. They finished 25th on D last year. They were 26th when Otto Porter came over in that wizard's trade. Kind of a strange team. This is such an odd team. Yeah, I mean, they have guys, though. They have like a ton of guys, but, you know, I think that there's a Dunn trade. I don't know what they could get for him at some point, but they're not going to need to carry Sataransky

Dunn and Kobe White, right? No, I do wonder what their plans are for Chris Dunn. I haven't seen any sort of rumblings coming out of Chicago about what they'll do with him, but I presume he's just going to kind of be there because they do have enough guards at this point. I mean, Satteransky, you'd expect to start, and White you'd expect to just kind of get in the mix. Perhaps he'll play a little bit more two.

He could be starting by February, though. Right. And Levine is going to take the ball and run the offense for most of it. So I don't know, not a lot of opportunity for a guy there, but like if you look at the roster, they're just guys. Otto Porter, I think, makes a lot of sense on that team.

He didn't work out in Washington, but he fills a lot of the gaps they need, especially if they want to go with a Wendell Carter, Lori Market, and front court to start. Like, he could be your defender. He could be more of a shooter. I don't know. I like the roster.

I don't love that Levine is their guy, though. And it'll be fascinating to see if Jim Boylan is not I drive a Dodge Stratus guy. Right? Because this feels like a very modern team in some ways, because they've got a lot of flexible big shooters. Right. And then on the other hand, they've got a guy who's like, do more push-ups. I have a contrarian take on Boylan.

You think Boylan's like Marcel Proust or something? That's exactly the comp I was going to make. This was a bad team. This was an undisciplined team. And so saying that this team needed more structure and making efforts in order to provide structure is not a bad thing. I think we just, we see these things pop up on our Twitter feed, and the way they're phrased from reporters and scrums when they're typing out on their phone as these people are talking. Are you saying it's fake news? I don't think it's fake news.

Are you saying Jim Boyle in fake news? I think that just people like run to the most explosive, just like weird way of interpreting these sorts of information. I would argue that like what he did is not all that bad. sometimes the millennials just need to run some laps, is what I'm saying. I find that the swings, when you're making coaching decisions back and forth between I want a player-friendly coach versus I want a taskmaster, you're just abandoning the actual tactical thought that goes into like what coaches are supposed to do. Sure.

There's no like one way or the other to do it. I'm sure there are some guys that Brad Stevens is a little bit more on top of and there's some guys that he's like, hey, like let's be collaborative and let's like work together. I mean, if Robert Williams needs to be told what time to be somewhere, I'm sure Brad Stevens has to set expectations and accountability for that. I'm sure for other guys, he's like, yeah, this is a collaboration. Let's talk about the best ways to use you. Just going back and forth between like, oh, we had a, you know, Fred Hoyberg never

wanted to yell at anybody, but now we've got Jim Boylan who wants everybody to do knuckle pushups. Like, that's not a plan. That's just like you're just choosing one, the opposite of the other thing that you had. I had a secondary question, but we haven't really answered David's question. or whether or not he'll get what he wants to see, which involves essentially Denzel Valentine, Thad Young, and Otto Porter defending at a higher level than maybe we are used to?

Probably not, if only because Zach Levine's going to be there and you're going to have to paper over all of his mistakes on that end. It really comes down to Wendell Carter, and if he's the defensive ace, I think people expected him to be coming out of Duke. I think there's a lot of hype of him being, like, he wasn't going to be Marvin Bagley, but there's a possibility that he could play at a sense.

similar level, especially on the defensive end. Like he could be there Horford or something. Yeah. Like a defensive playmaking big, who has a nice touch, who's tough. I can see it. He's a ringer favorite. I see a little sparkle in your eye. Are you interested in the Bulls this year?

I am. Okay. I think I've pretty much ignored this team for several, several years. I mean, going back towards, even the end of the Tibbs era, where I felt like it was just this kind of redundant, you know, running up the, running up a hill kind of activity to watch them. I was curious whether you could think of a team

that you have been gone the longest being least interested in. Not out of like, you know, not abdicating your professional responsibilities to be aware of something, but like, what's the team that you're like, God, it has to be pretty bad for me to turn this on. I would say the Pistons. Yeah. There's just

they've been riding this kind of okay team for a very long time and even when they were bad, there just wasn't a lot there to be. And they haven't hit on the 11th pick in forever. Right. There are only so many, like, Richard Hamilton coming off of screens that you could watch, and now it's...

We're going back. I know, but now it's, you can't really... There's only so much like Blake Griffin just trying to score 30 points a game as, like, Luke Knard comes off a pin down that you could watch. It's just, there's something incredibly sad about a team striving for the eight seed.

And they've been in that position for a very long time. I hear you. What's yours? My team that I've been least interested in for the longest? No disrespect, but I think Charlotte. Yeah, that's a great way. I just don't think that I honestly probably

haven't really paid that like, not paid attention, but like actively watched Charlotte since they were tanking for Anthony Davis. I think there's going to be a lot of what the fuck is happening here, Charlotte potential this year. Yeah. Especially with Terry and Malik Monk, potentially sharing a back court.

Yeah. Also, also just like the again, now we find ourselves of the situation where... God bless Mitch Cupchack, but him being like I was blindsided by Kemba Walker making all NBA is just like, come on, dude. Can't say that aloud.

Use your indoor voice. They're probably in a position where they should be tanking. Yeah. And if anything, that would probably be more entertaining than watching, you know, them make do with Dwayne Bacon

as their, like, first option. Sure. The next, you love to see it. This one comes from Grant. Grant would love to see John Moran and Jaron Jackson wrapped in bubble wrap. Now, my guys.

I think what Grant means here is it's preseason and maybe we have some residual kind of NFL preseason vibes or maybe it's just that we're still coming off like one of the lasting images of the last NBA season. Meaning that the NFL, they pretty much sat everybody. Yeah, everybody sits and everybody is all about like you can get one rep in and then you're out, you know, if that. And then like McVeigh doesn't even play on the Rams guys in preseason.

Check my math. And, you know, the lasting. image aside from, I think even a more powerful image than like members of the Toronto Raptors lifting the Larry O'Brien trophy is Durant going down. So I think there's a little bit of like apprehension about training camp right now, especially also now that it's become like so widely disseminated what people think about rest and what people think about how many games guys should be playing in a year. To Grant's point, I guess he wants his completely untested point guard and his only lightly

tested second year player to not participate in, like, play games? I could hear a tinge vire in that statement. No, but at some point, you got to take the training rules off, right? Sure. I mean, Morant hasn't played since I don't. I don't even watch free season. I don't care. They can play, they can not play.

I'm just saying, like, John Moran also didn't play Summer League. Right. Yet somehow his legend grows on this podcast. I'm excited. What do you think? Do you think, like, should Zion be at, like, full max, like, get him out there? and get him like in shape and playing 25 minutes a night? I think you had the key point there.

I just don't care about preseason. I do think it'd be nice to see some of these guys play for the first time. I am excited for this season and for to see a lot of like these new additions like take shape. But other than that first glimpse, I don't really need much from preseason. And in John Ranskees, you need nothing at all. Right. You need, I'm on board. One, what is it, Murray State?

Yeah. Yeah, you need one like Murray State highlight reel on YouTube. And you're like, this guy. I watched 10 minutes of an NCAA tournament game this year, the only one. No, a lot of these games or some of these games aren't even going to be like locally broadcast. So I do. Is that true? I knew in New Orleans there was an issue.

I don't know if it's still the case where it just wasn't on local TV. But isn't there like a regional cable network that carries all the Pelicans games? Yes, but for some reason the preseason one is not part of that package. How about that? Yeah, but I got to go to. Is it because they're like too busy breaking down two lane football tape? Right. Yeah, that's probably it.

I definitely did go to Shreveport. Lovely Shreveport, Louisiana wants to win a scene. What's the Pelicans preseason vibe? Sad. Is it True Detective Season 1? Kind of. I actually made the drive from New Orleans to Shreveport, which is several hours. And I ended up with like 30 bugs on my windshield.

Got a ticket on the way back for speeding. What's the Louisiana State Trooper vibe? It's like, you have a Connecticut plate. Fuck you. You have to pay this ticket. we're not going to let you leave the state but there was bars up in Shreveport that I went and visited after the game

where they were still smoking indoors oh fuck really yes I know this excites you well I don't even smoke anymore but that is it is one of the great experiences in like Western civilization is to have a cigarette with a beer indoors yeah it was I stayed at like I think a Marriott or one of those like low level Marriott chain

that was attached to a strip mall and the strip mall didn't have all of the regular stores. They were just like tweaks, like the Kroger brand version of the stores that you know of. So instead of like urban outfitters, it was like... City clothes? Yeah, right, exactly. Okay. I don't know where we're going with this.

But the point being is, you know, Grant would love to not see John Morant and Jaron Jackson, Jr. I think that in Memphis's case, that's fine because what he's saying is, you know, this is about their long-term development. I don't want to see John Morant roll an ankle. As somebody who has lost multiple high draft

picks in summer and preseason workouts and practices, shout out to Ben Simmons' broken foot. Sire. Yeah, I get that. But I think that

for John Morant, especially, the more, the better. Let's start playing some hoops. Let's go to these two questions. One is from the Benchwarmer and he says he would love to see if Mitchell Robinson can shoot more threes and

his peer in Knicks fandom. At least I hate the Yankees. He says I would love to see any sort of reasonable offensive hierarchy from the Knicks can't just be everyone trying to get theirs. If people look like they understand their role on the team I will be happy.

I don't think he's going to be happy. No, I don't think so either. I'm going to call up the Knicks' depth chart because it is like brothers Karamazov long. I mean, they have guys that you've heard of before. Yeah, definitely. Which is an upgrade from last season. There's like, okay, so there is a world in which these guys are fucking geniuses. Oh, no.

No, I'm telling you, like, they have a lot of guys that could be incredibly useful to teams going forward. And they have, I mean, they have all on pretty reasonable two-year deals, right? Like, that's the, most, most of these are two years, right? Mm-hmm. I think a lot of them are one year with, like, a team option for a second year. Right. So whether it's injury or a bunch of these teams that have gone in,

I know Zach and Kevin kind of talked about this, where there's a couple of teams seem to have signed all the, Zach Lowe and Kevin Arnavitz talked about this, but a couple of teams seem to have all the power forwards. What if this is just like your friends from Philly? Well, I do know Zach, and I also know several Kevin, so maybe I don't mean to be too casual about it. But on the low post, they were talking about how it's strange

that there's just like all the power forwards are either in New York or Orlando. Yeah. And that teams like Portland are, you know, Sacramento has a bunch, but teams like Portland are just like they have centers and guards. Right. And when you look at this next depth chart, depending on who they actually decide they like, which I would imagine includes their Mitchell Robinson, whether or not he can shoot threes,

Kevin Knox, R.J. Barrett. I think everybody else is like up for debate. Everybody else is in the mix. And they could do lots of interesting things here if they have the creativity. We're at Galaxy Brain here. where they've cornered the market on the biggest trade asset? Is that where we are? Well, I don't know what they're trading for,

and I don't know what they're looking for. I mean, I don't think they're going to get first-round draft picks for Julius Randall. But I think that they could get somebody who's someone else's Reclamation Project. You know, they could get somebody who's somebody else's like, you know, we draft to this guy, but we don't know. And look, but he's pretty good. The other Dennis Smith Jr., is basically what I'm saying. Yeah, it wouldn't be a bad option,

especially because they've pivoted to this weird rebuild situation. it is a sad state of affairs where you have to just like you have to acquire veterans with the hope that you can get somebody's trash like someone's failure. Yeah, I mean they're dangerous. They're in danger here.

They're a win total. Projected wind total is like 27 and a half. They're in danger of eclipsing that. Yeah. And I say that with all sincerity because there's too many relatively competent NBA players on this team to not win maybe 30 games.

Right. Yeah. Perhaps they put too much emphasis on just like trying to seem competitive to the casual fan. I don't know what their, their, like, approach was here. I think it could go the other way pretty quickly. So just so people know, like, because I don't think I've listed these guys, but they have Alfred Payton, Reggie Bullock, Marcus Morris, Bobby Portis, Wayne Ellington, and Todd Gibson,

Anelonza Trere, all on the bench here. It's a team of guys that you drafted with your last pick in your fantasy draft. I think it could flip the other way where there are a lot of veterans who are on functionally one-year deals who are going to want playing time. That was the, at least I hit the Yankees question. Yeah. Am I going to get a bunch of guys trying to hit, like,

incentive numbers or put themselves in the shop windows so that they can get picked up by the warriors in like the buyout market or something? Right. These are a lot of grouchy veterans. You have Bobby Portis, known mostly for punching his teammate in the face. Taj Gibson, also a guy who's a little no-nonsense. Marcus Morris, another guy who probably wants

another deal in the NBA after this. I think it can flip the other way. That'd be dope if Marcus Morris is like, I'm good. Right. I'm a Nick for life. No, or just like, you know, it's like all, like, basically like Marcus Morris was just like, this would be the last contract I have. Pulling Andrew Luck. Yeah.

Just go traveling for the rest of his life. Yeah. And I don't know. Like, because some of the young guys that they're kind of banking on here, other than Mitchell Robinson, like, I don't love. Like, I'm not a big RJ Barrett fan. I thought like. You, you crushed a lot.

RJ Barrett tape. I watched like a couple minutes of an NCAA game. And I read... I just want people to know. Justin is one of the most knowledgeable NBA people I know. But there is no reason whatsoever for him to say he believes more

in John Morant than RJ Barrett at this given point. You don't know what I've been doing in my free time. I do. You've been rewatching breaking back. And I haven't been going to CrossFit lately because I've been cram and Knicks tape. Okay. At the end of the day, though, I do think that they have a little bit of a problem

of two fully separate teams on the same roster. A team of veterans who are probably looking to show that they still have something in the tank and wouldn't mind getting picked up by a contender

in the Eastern or Western Conference and a group of kids who are like, hey, I don't know whether I'm going to be the one, two, three, or sixth option on this team going forward,

but I'm here to prove that I want to be one of the first two. Right. You know, and so for guys like Knox, for guys like Dennis Smith Jr., who probably doesn't want

to find himself on a third team in four years or whatever, this is going to be a pretty crucial season. There's a timeline where Julius Randall, perhaps their best move of the offseason, just kind of picking him up and giving him an opportunity to be the guy, there's a world where he makes the all-star team,

where he's given the opportunity and he just... Are you predicting that? No, because I think it's completely at odds with what's best for them long term, which is they give RJ Barrett those opportunities, or give Dennis Smith more opportunities to fail, which he will indeed fail. But I think Randall could have a very good season, all of a sudden, we're like, yeah, Julius Randall. He's kind of like, back in the day when the Knicks got really excited,

about... Chris Depp's Porzingis. Lance Thomas. Lance Thomas. He's the new Lance Thomas, yes. We know you're in the pocket of Big Jim Boylan. Right. You bought and paid for.

How are you feeling about Fisdale? Do you think he's going to be sacrificed for the front office's mistakes? There's a couple of guys out there that I'm a little worried about. There's a couple of dudes out there that I'm like, I don't know if you've been given the right deck of cards here. Right. the right hand of cards here. So Barago, obviously, in Charlotte, you know, like in some ways,

like Luke Walton has an impossible job. He's got, like, 12 dudes to, like, divide 48 minutes among. Right. I don't have much sympathy for Luke Walton these days. No, I know. I wasn't talking about him in terms of his personal life. But I just mean, like, there's a bunch of coaches who are in tough spots right now.

Right. And I think that Fisdale, who a lot of people were really tapping for, like, really big things in the league, for some reason, you know, like the New York Caldron is not like John Beelan in Cleveland where it's like, hey, I can just kind of experiment and let Darius Garland and Colin

Sexton go nuts here and bring some college flash and then we'll trade love and probably hit the number one pick again because we're Cleveland and everything's going to be fine and we'll have the Monty Bates. It's like, you know, Fitzdale kind of is got to serve two different

kind of visions of this team. One is like the back page of New York Post like you guys got embarrassed. And the other is the sort of more online Knicks fan who's like tank, tank, tank, tank, tank. Yeah, he's in a possible situation. I don't know how he comes out of this with his job, even if like next year.

Because it doesn't seem like there's a clear pathway for this team to get better. And I don't know. It just seems like based on history, the Knicks fire their coach every two years or so. So it's really against me. I mean, at this point, he's looking at a career of just like hanging

out in New York. That was like the main advantage to taking this job. It's really something to keep in mind because I think there are a lot of coaches. We constantly weigh like, especially with college coaches, like whether or not they should make the leap, right? And a lot of people sit on their hands until they have the perfect opportunity. You have a guy like John Beeline, I think is a classic example. Like he made the jump, but he is on a Cavs team that you could see in two years, they've pretty much set him up to perhaps fail with two guys who are pretty redundant in their last two draft picks in Sexton and Garland. So you look at the opposite ways. Like, why don't some of these coaches ever make the leap? But on the other hand, here, you have guys who are potentially just

destined to not succeed. So I don't know which is better. Let's go to another you love to see it. This one comes from Logan Bean, I think. And Logan says he'd love to see the big ragu taking the next step. He's talking Dante DiVincenzo and he attaches a photo from Twitter of Dante basically has like a Super Mario mustache and he's holding the plate of sport.

So, Big Raghu. I love the dramatic interpretation of that. I would love to see Dante DiVincenzo be a contributing member of the Milwaukee Bucks, but this also prompted another question for me is who are some of the possible cult heroes for the upcoming season?

So like this is basically the Deon Waiters Award, but not the rewatchables version. It's like guys who are like all of a sudden going to have like this cult following like this. First guy on my list. And I have a long list here because I love this question. Bruno Caboclo. Let's go back to the Grizzlies, our new favorite team. I think there's a chance that Bruno coming off of a World Cup coming off of...

This is two years away from being two years away, Bruno, right? I think we're like in three years away from being three years away at this point. He's been around for a little while now. Life starts at 40. Let me tell you. Right. Definitely starting to see some signs from our guy. You finished the season shooting 37% from three. I could see it. I could see him being like an actual contributor, like, finally. And I could see it, him just having a big game and all of a sudden we're talking on Twitter. Like, did you see Bruno?

And then what's his brand, though? You just think it's Bruno? You just think it's two years away from being two years away. And time is the construct here. Time is the thing that he has to sell? Yeah. Yeah, I think he's you know, he's the guy that we all discounted. I'm going, I'm going Lonnie Walker. Okay.

Now there's not a guarantee that he, a lot of this depends on Dejanta Murray and his health and, you know, Derek White and they still have Patty Mills, right? Yes. So there's a lot of guards going on in Spurs land, but Lonnie Walker has

next level Kyrie vibes. And if his game is at all highlight real worthy, this is a dude who is Like the earth is not flat, but the earth is an illusion. So like, get your fucking game up. Take your peyote. And let's get on this Lonnie Walker train and go into like a real psychedelic experience together. Bring back 1969.

The dead and hate Ashbury. Let's feel it. I have been watching the deuce as well. So I can contribute to this experiment if you want to. Really? Yeah. They're in the 80s now, though. Okay, right.

But you get it. You get the, the Maya. I'm kind of going for here. Right. Can I throw out a few more names? Of course. Time Lord, you mentioned earlier. Oh yeah, Rob.

Yeah. Yeah, our guy Robert Williams, I think, well, here's the thing. Was he a cult hero last year? I don't know. He's going to play more. You got to play. So that's the thing about cult heroes, at least in terms of the group chat definition,

is that you can't just be a cult hero completely in imagination. You have to sometimes show it on the court. Right. And it's better if you have one freak out 24-point game and then get benched for two weeks. Right, which is probably what's going to happen. Yes.

Because he has a clear pathway to time, to playing time this year, because the center rotation in Boston is just a little weak. And the only guy really standing in his way is Ennis Cantor. Daniel Thais is also there. And they also sign this French guy that I'm not really sure what they're going to get out of him. But I could also see where he makes a mistake, like, in the second minute of the game and just doesn't, like, isn't hurt from again. Brad's just like go to Maine.

Right. And the other guy I had down here, Jackson Hayes, with the Pelicans. Yeah. So Zion is the guy we're all going to talk about. And the guy that people are going to want to say is like the hipster champion. But he's just too mainstream at this point. They play like just a ton of like national TV games, especially from the start. They're literally the first game of the season.

Yeah. Jackson Hays has this huge dunk in Summer League. Yes. And I think he's going to probably only play garbage time or spot minutes because Derek Favors is in there. I forgot that Derek Favors. What a weird team, man. It's a great. I mean, I think Favors can be really good this year.

You think they're going to make the playoffs? No. I just think they have too many young guys. Let's do the thing that we did for the Eastern Conference. Let's go through the Western Conference really quickly. I want to just keep doing this. I know that it's like, it's random and it feels like off the cuff, but I think it's like a good temperature check for how you're feeling about a group of teams.

So we know Denver. We know the Clippers. We know the Jazz. We're pretty sure about the Rockets. Mm-hmm. So that's four. The Lakers? Yeah.

Okay. So that's five. Blazers? Yes. Six. Mm-hmm. I would say that the... Warrior 7, right?

Yep. Yep. Did we say clippers yet? We didn't. Spurs? No, we didn't say Spurs. I think the Spurs are going to make it. So Spurs, Wolves, Kings, Pellies, Mavs are like that group, right?

I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same field as last year with the Lakers replacing the Thunder. That would be my guess. I think the Spurs are the only other team that could potentially drop out. They'll probably be in the mix for... the 7-8 seed. And I could see a team like Dallas. I could see a team like the Timberwolves, perhaps like push them for that.

But I would just give the spurs the edge at this point. This is a good time for me to ask you this. So there's two different versions of the way the spur season goes, right? One is an inspiring revival with Dejanta Murray coming back, Lonnie Walker taking a step forward, Derek White being good, get a good season out of DeMarcus, good season out of Lamar, DeMarc, and a good season out of Lamarcus. and you get the seven or six seat or eight seed or whatever it is.

The other one is that it's a catastrophe that there's injuries that they get rocked on the road, that there's not a clear plan because they're building around these two ancient, you know, back to the basket Lamarcus and long two, Damar, and things are just kind of falling apart. They've got a bunch of assets. But institutionally, the Spurs are not like a selling team. Even though I think they have interesting players to sell around the deadline to a lot of different. teams.

Do you think that they're going to hold on to what they have and try to go out like gracefully, if not full of glory because it could be pops last season? Or do you think that they're like, nope, we're always looking forward. We're always thinking let's keep to keep it going. I would imagine it's the latter, if only because that's what we've seen thus far. I think we were talking about this last year at several points or even the year before that, whether or not they should just pack it in, whether or not like losing Kauai that season was enough for them to think in the long term.

it just doesn't seem to be in their DNA. I'm actually a little surprised that there's been as much pessimism about the Spurs as there has been, or at least burbling. To me, it's because I think what happens is the Spurs and the Patriots get talked about in the same way, which is like there's going to be a point where it just falls off a cliff because of one player.

And that's not the case. I mean, the Spurs are always going to be competitive, but I think that last year was the first year where I felt like they started to drift a little bit. Totally. I would just look at the roster, and to me it looks more encouraging than last season even. I think that we expected them to be in the mix

based on how many veterans they had based on their history of success. But I look at the roster and a lot of the guys that we were kind of big question marks coming into last season, if anything, I'm more excited about. Jonte Murray was hurt before the season even really started and all of a sudden they half him back. He could potentially be maybe not their best player, but one of their most important players.

I think they do have a lot to figure out. Murray's not a shooter. Derek White's not a shooter. So they'll have to really, like, figure out the combinations. But I don't know. Like, we just came off a playoff series against Denver in which Derek White was, like, going head to head with Jamal Murray. Like, these are guys that, like, could raise their ceiling.

I think there's a potential, if all things go right, they could be, like, a six seed. They never should have gotten rid of Kyle Anderson. That's what I think. Well, they have to Mark Carroll now. McGrudy would love to see a Luca Donchurch that doesn't eat junk food and a Chris Stap's Porzingis that doesn't go out at night. So McGrady, Chris Stapp's obviously a pretty touchy subject, his social life. We will not necessarily comment on that as much as to say,

this is an interesting pairing because it's not just about what they can do on the court, but also like whether or not these guys can kind of just keep their shit together off the court. Has our guy been on Instagram lately? Because I don't know if you've seen Luca Donchich carrying the trap bar thing where he does squats ostensibly or apparently across his driveway

our guy is looking cut yeah he's looking sharp okay he's ready to go to Cabo and just like see what's happening

and also that's not what you want him to be doing maybe if he's staying off the salt yeah yeah he brings a chef

with him also Christos Porzingas just yesterday a photo of him also looking quite cut and very prominent in the chest

Yeah, but Christophebrzingis, who has had like multiple, like, devastating lower body injuries always looks like he's like taking the ad out in the back of the comic book about kicking sand in a guy's face or whatever. I'm just saying that like, these guys are not exactly Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, right? Like, they need to like kind of just tighten it up a little bit. I don't know. I'm looking at him right now, man. I'm seeing the definition.

Delon Wright. Luca Dantcher, Tim Hardaway, Jr., your Chris Stapps and Dwight Pall starting, Jalen Brunson, Seth Curry, Justin Jackson, Dorian Finney Smith, and Cleaver off the bench. That is a very thin team. That is a very thin team. I like it, though. I think it makes a lot of sense.

If Luca is who we think he is, if Chris Dops just like regains form to what he was before the injury, like you have two of the best players, two of the best young players in the NBA. And I think the roster they've assembled around them won't step on them becoming who they should be, which I think is important because they're still trying to figure out what this team is and who, these guys are. Adam Palio

would love to see league average defense from Atlanta. If the Hawks keep their opponents to 100 every night, man, they are going to be so good. How many teams are being kept to 100 in 2019 to begin with? Not very many. Definitely not the Hawks.

I don't see this happening anytime soon. I mean, it really begs the question, which is something we might get into this season, and if not this season the next season, like how far you can get with Tray Young and John Collins is your two guys. Because defensively, they're going to be rough.

Why are you dissing Hurt her, she wrote? I think he'll be fine. The Eternal Flame, always lit, as Tyler Parker says. I don't have much of an opinion on Hurtr, if only because everybody else on our staff has a very strong opinion on him. Bobby, do you like Kevin Hurter? Of course I like Kevin Heter. I'm the producer

of the Corner 3. I like what they've done. The roster makes a lot of sense. It just seems like they've settled on who they are very quickly. I don't think so. I think they're interesting. And also, I mean, like, first of all, they've still got draft capital. It's not like they're going to be that good with this team.

And we're going to find out exactly. Like, I don't know about John Collins, but the Tray Young conversation is a really interesting one to have in year two. And they, like, no, he's not even starting, but they got Cam Reddish, too. Right. I mean, somehow they got both Evan Turner and Jabari Parker and they're trying to cram them into this team. And Vince Garder, yes. So, yeah, so the backups are a little questionable. But I could definitely see this team making a, we thought they were going to make the leap two seasons from now, but actually we're here early.

Like the Thunder team that made the playoffs and everyone was excited about their future. I could see that happening this year. You see this like being like a wild eight seed? Yeah, totally. I mean, they can put up like 150 points every game. I can't tell if ESPN.com's depth chart is broken, but I see the name Alex Poitris as the first. Fifth string power forward. I think he's still around.

I never gave up on Alex Poitris. Were you a Poethras head? Yeah, Poitris and Archie Goodwin. Okay. Some of my favorite Kentucky players. You have some interesting corners. I like Kentucky players. Okay.

That's my corner. It's not that deep. It's like getting journalists from Harvard. Yes, exactly. Let's talk a little bit about the Sixers because Eric Robbins would love to see Zyers looking like a real scoring option off the bench. Yeah, I think...

I want to talk about Zaire. I think I'd love to see that. Should we turn about his fair play? Should we do the Ben Simmons propaganda machine ramping up? Yeah. So I got to read you some Brett Brown quotes. They're just unbelievable shit. So Brett has been talking about his...

Ben Simmons' development is a jump shooter and how he's not going to play him in the dunker spot. You're not going to see me put him down there at the start of the year. I want to give him a chance to be spaced. You're probably going to see him one of the corners, but I'm going to start there. We're going to encourage him to shoot threes, and we're going to encourage him.

If he sees a straight line drive, take off and eat it up. I think I can help him use the space in both of those ways. With Ben, we're not going to hunt threes. When they're available, I want him to shoot them. The reckless use of threes doesn't tie into my initial statement of our team being huge. I do think we can play a style of play that is just smash-mouth defense

and bully ball offense. I think this team has the ability to do that, and so it leans more toward that, then let's come down and crank out threes. Die slow, Mori-ball! Let's go! Feed the Beast! Am I going to have to watch this this year?

Yeah. 82 games of smash-mouth defense? Yeah, it's going to be like the 0-4 pistons. That's what you have. No, it's not. We have Joel and Bid. We have... Right. According to Brett Brown said Joel in Breedish is shack with a soccer player's feet. Okay.

Are you ready for that? Is he trying to get a blog job? Yeah, I'm not that interested in this team this year. Are you serious? Yeah, it's a weird chemistry experience. You were all like, oh, they're big, big is back. Yeah. How much does it depend on Ben being able to shoot?

A lot. On not being able to execute a pick and roll and being able to step back and take a jump shot. I just hate the Sixers for robbing us of Peek Ben Simmons. I've talked about this a lot. So you want Ben Simmons open court? Open court. Point center. That's the Ben Simmons of my dreams.

I don't want him like navigating around like 30 like giant people. It's just like not fun to me. This is going to be more like sumo wrestling than basketball. Especially when their coaches leaning into that as your identity, I'm out. I mean, Brett's just talking. I worry about that. The thing is is that I think that there is, combination that they can come up with on this team that kind of fits what you're talking about.

There's a combination of guys. Ben Simmons, Josh Richardson, Zeyer Smith, Tobias Harris and Matisse Thibel. Let it rip. Okay. Let's go. Long, weird, fast. A couple guys who can shoot. My concern is a lot of the wings that they need to provide shooting don't actually shoot. It remains to be seen. It remains to be seen. Okay. Right. And Zaire is one of these guys. Right. To get back to our guys's questions. I mean, he looks good. He seems like he can make an impact. He looks like he will dunk a lot, which is fun.

I love the dunks, as you know. But I don't know if he's shown much in the way of shooting threes. One more. Peter Bell would love to see Michael Porter Jr. It's a very minimal. Would love to see it. But I have to say, I'm really interested. This is actually of the preseason stories that I want to follow.

Does he show up? And did Denver luck into that scoring punch that maybe takes them over the top and makes them a serious title contender? I'm going to take it one step further. I think this has the potential to be the inflection point of this season. Fuck yeah, Justin.

Let's go. What's up? Let's double down on this. Tell me about it. Because if Porter is good, if he is just serviceable and playing minutes for this team, now you have all these trade assets

that you could potentially package together. And if you're interested in a guy like Bradley Beal... What? If the Wizards are all the sudden. The Wizards all of a sudden are like, yeah, this team is, it sucks. We're playing Isaiah Thomas 30 minutes. So Sashi Brown is like, wow, this team sucks. Tommy Shepard is just like, have you seen these fucking guys?

I mean, for the long term, it makes sense that they do want to suck, but this is going to be rough. I think this is going to be one of the worst teams in recent history, especially at Bradley Beale leaves this roster. if they kind of accept that and if Bradley Beal is tired of putting up 40 points a game and losing by 30 I think we could see a situation where the nuggets come calling and all of a sudden they want to take a next step. That would obviously involve,

I would imagine, Jamal Murray? If not him, then Gary Harris. They have a lot of these kind of interesting young guys. They have Wancho Hermann Gomez. Plumley is there if you want to make the contracts work. They have draft picks. in the future. They just have guys, Malik Beasley. Or if Porter ends up playing well, why don't you

just trade Porter? He's the guy that, like, you don't know if he fits into what you're doing or what was successful for you last year. Why not just give him away? So you think the ceiling for them is that much higher raised if Porter can be a 16 to 17 point in that guy? Yes, I think they're a better team, but more specifically, I think it provides them more options. And it's good to have options, especially in a market where there are going to be one or two guys still out there. And so if they want to take a next step. I agree with your thinking about the market.

I don't know who the guys are. Deal. Love would be the next guy up. I don't know if he's like a perfect fit for that team. I mean, isn't Love like, if you could put Love and Millsap together, you'd have a Hall of Famer. But I mean, what do you do with that?

I don't know necessarily that like love fits on the Nuggets. What if Love was your sixth man? what if you have such a good starting five that everything has come together, you have consistency from last year. What does love cost me? At this point, I don't think it'll cost you much. I think the Cavs might be lucky to get contracts and draft picks.

Just because Love is locked up for a very long time, and we're still not totally sure how he fits on to most teams, including the Denver Nuggets. But if you look at him more as he comes off in your second unit and plays with Jeremy Grant and love is like functionally your four or five with Grant. I think that's really intriguing.

I don't know. There are options. And that's what Porter provides them. Boy, he's expensive. Yeah. I'm just looking at the trade machine right now. I mean, Denver's too good at this because they have a lot of really interesting players

on relatively inexpensive contracts. Tori Craig on one year two million. You know, when League Beasley, 2.7 million, it's like they don't have a lot of, cap, like, salary filler. Plumley? What's Plumley?

Yeah, Plumley's got a big expiring coming so you could send him out. I mean, does Jeremy Grant move the needle? I think if you're Cleveland, you want the good young players in return. I mean, Will Barton. Will Barton is a good piece to have. If you're Cleveland, you've got to start

with Harris or Murray, and probably Harris, right? But, like, if you're Cleveland, why do you want Harris if you have Garland and Sexton already? Right. I think they're going to have to break them up regardless. So I would just get Gary Harris in there. I think that might be too much, though. I wouldn't give away Gary Harris for love because of the reason we talked about.

If they can get him on the cheap, if the Cavs just won a draft pick and to get off the contract, I think that would be interesting. Okay. All right. So Michael Porter, Jr. could be sort of one of the deciding factors of the NBA season. You heard you hear first or probably third. Well, last.

Honestly, this is the end of the podcast. For Justin, I'm Chris. Thanks to Bobby. This has been group chat. We'll be back next week. Basketball is very good. Basketball is very good.