The Ringer NBA Show - What We Think We Know About the 2026-27 NBA Season | Group Chat

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

Justin, Rob, and JKM have finally reassembled and are ready to talk hoops and discuss what they think they know about the highly anticipated 2026-27 NBA season. Now that LeBron is no longer a Laker, has the front office built a team that complements Luka? Is reigning Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg ready to take that next step in his development? Are the Western Conference champion Spurs poised to take the Western crown again? (14:00) - Luka’s Lakers(28:00) - Wolves add Jonathan Kuminga(37:45) - Cooper Flagg in year two(57:00) - Prove-it-year Pistons(1:07:00) - Spurs Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and J. Kyle Mann Producers: Victoria Valencia, Clifford Augustin, and Ben Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to group chat. I am Justin Verrier and joining me. Well, not as always, but back in the mix. Rob Mahoney, Jay Kyle, man, the boys are back in town. You're in rare form today. I know you have the chorus in you, but do you always have the solo in you? That's the next level JV that the people have been waiting for and frankly expecting. Have you ever looked at the lyrics to that song?

No, I can't say. What's going on? I don't know who the boys are. it just seems like they're just hanging out. Like a fight breaks out at a certain point. They're just like, hey, that girl, she's cool. Looks nice. Okay.

And then they go back into the chorus. We're hanging out. That girl looks nice. I mean, that's what percentage of life is that at a certain age? It's like 80% right. We're hanging out. That girl looks nice. It's a whole lifestyle.

And for some people, it just continues a pace, you know? That's right. So we're back after a prolonged break. This probably might be the longest break we've had in quite a while. Maybe historic, maybe of all time. How's everyone been doing? I have to say at this point in the offseason, I'm like really yearning for the NBA news.

I'm like hanging on the Jonathan Cumminga updates with baited breath just trying to get little morsels out of here, which I think means I'm just like ready for preseason and training camp. I'm feeling refreshed. I'm feeling rebooted. You know, we needed to just like shuffle the deck chairs of the league around a little bit in order to feel fully energized and engaged and just like, right? I mean, really ready to get right back to it.

Yeah. I mean, I shift into off-season project mode. So it's a, I'm working on longer, you know, big, it's spinning a lot of plates for things that are going to come out. The real work begins. Well, you know, it's just different types of projects. It's suddenly when you have a little more creative oxygen away from the new cycle, I kind of dig in on those things.

So hopefully things to talk about soon. So there we go. Speaking of said projects, Justin, it was not lost on me that you started posting tomato thirst traps. We need a crucial garden update. We need to know what's going on. What is the bounty right now? So I'll say just to start, most of the garden did just okay, right? Like I tried new things, cucumbers, little corn action, carrots right from sewing directly into the soil. Those did fine. Corn, very difficult. It turns out, I think a listener previously had alluded to that. That guy is right. The tomatoes on the other hand

are fucking rocking right now. I'm eating a bagel tomato thing pretty much every day. I was really in it gym-wise. I felt like I was in the best shape of my life probably, at least as an adult, until about last week where I'm averaging 1.5 bagels now, and I'm just completely full of gluten. It's in my

bloodstream. But those tomatoes, I don't know if you saw them as big as my hand. It's like a breast in Norway. What is happening. There's a pretty highest on average in the world. What?

What? I don't know if you have baby hands that we've never gone we've never gone palm to palm. So I don't that reference point. I don't know if that works for me or not. But it's interesting because I feel like I'm going to have to figure out where I fit on the posting food spectrum because Rob posts like Michelin Star fine dining like, oh, I found this incredible like crepe that's exclusive to this.

I don't even know where you were. what you were eating. And then Justin's like, here's a raw tomato that looks beautiful. So I'm still finding myself on the spectrum of posting about food. Or I may just, you know, abstain courteously from it, from it all. Where do you want to be? Like, what is the ideal Kyle Mann sweet spot on that spectrum? I think I have no choice.

I think the middle point would just be kind of unrefined garbage, which I think, you know, fits my brand also. But relatable, you know? If you're just posting like, like, tri-a-reliable. triple dippers from Chili's every week. I'm gonna, I'd be incredibly jealous. Stop, stop drilling.

You hit oil, Rob, there we go. That's what I need to be doing. I think you're selling yourself short because one of my favorite things of the off season was pulling up a Kyle man social media post because you never know what you're going to get into. I remember at one point, I pulled it up.

There's like caterpillars or something and it was like an exotic caterpillar. I was sitting on my back. Our porch is just a fucking wild animal. kingdom. You never know what's. I'll sit out there at night sometimes and there are just sounds of the of the night of animals. It's crazy. Rural place. Yeah. Louisville, very green city. But I was like sitting on my back porch and I just looked to my right and it was, it's called a Catalfa sphinx Sphinx caterpillar. And this thing was like, I swear to God, it was like six, seven inches long. I may be exaggerating a little bit. But it was so, it was so gigantic. My dog noticed it and he was just

watching it. I don't know, man. It was, it like made the stick bend. when I tried to move it, it was so heavy. Can I just say, I missed you guys. I missed the flora and the fauna, apparently. I missed every bit of this. I know we are not fully back to our regularly seasoned group chat schedule just yet, but it's nice to be back for this one, at least. This does remind me, though, of a situation where I feel like something major happened

with the Pelicans while I was on that beat. I think it was like, maybe they signed Solomon Hill or something like that. Huge at the time, right? And Anthony Davis was on Snapchat, as people were at the time, snapping lizards fighting. And so, like, as his team was being built, he was doing the real work, you know? That's what we're reminded. Like posting videos of it or he had direct access to lizards fighting and was just recording it. Are you breaking that Anthony Davis was running a lizard fighting ring?

Is that what's happening right now? No, I think he was just a, you know, he was like the Steve Irwin of NBA Snapchat. just state of nature really capturing it in its element. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if we know the schedule from here on now, definitely doing power rankings at the end of next month going into the season. But I think we'll be touching go. They haven't really told us.

It just kind of seems like whenever we're available. And I figured Rob was just on a walkabout for about a month after the Phoebe Bridges album came out. Just wondering, he saw Kill Me, the song, what could this be about? I can tell you what it's about. You know what? you're not wrong. The timing was not coincidental. It was all lined up just perfectly for me. And right now, we're in the sweet spot post-album, pre-concert. I just have a lot of time to sit and stew in my feelings before having the cathartic experience with our fellow sad boys and girls in L.A. So I really think

I'm thriving is what I'm getting at. Were you dabbing away tears at that late night performance where she had the kids in the band and then the old people in the band? Was that moving for you, Rob? Be honest. I don't know if it was moving, but it raised my spirits, you know, it brought some joy to my heart. Look, I'm happy to see it among her poppy or entry. So not a time to be sad. Well, last thing before we get to actual basketball, because I've been hearing about this regularly, both from you guys, hearing from other people, also people reaching out to me directly. Do we have any update on the one on one matchup that could potentially tear this podcast apart? We do not have an update.

There is no scheduled one-on-one game, which means to this date I remain undefeated. Right. Same. Yeah. We'll both expect that. I will just point out to the listeners, there was an offer from an NBA team to host you guys having this matchup. That is true. And the excuses that came up, I would say.

Okay. Whereas Justin won't even be on camera playing basketball. I don't want to hear it until you can party up. I would be providing the broadcast for it. I would be walking the listener through it as you guys potentially embarrass yourself in front of real live NBA player. Well, we can't all be like pampered media members, Justin. Some of us are finely tuned to athletes and we have to go out there and perform and perform to our standards. And I have to say, look, sometimes the schedule doesn't line up.

That's just the reality of life in the big leagues. Rob's famous now. I keep saying this. He's like his demo has expanded so much with the prestige and stuff. He barely has any time for us, Justin. I think you've noticed this too, right? I don't know if you, hold on. I don't know if you listened to the beginning of the watchables this week.

Yeah, he's on the rewatchables. This guy's on the big brands. Wait, what was on the rewatchable? I don't even remember what happened. Yeah, because you probably recorded it like a month ago. Bill was like, oh, if you had to drop either Joanna or Kyle and Justin, we know who you'd pick. And I was honestly surprised that he stopped at us.

Like, he didn't put like the guy that lets him into the building over. The intern who's just getting him his coffees every day. Yeah, there are no said interns. Look, look, this is my place. This is my family. You say I'm expanding my constituency, Kyle, like, I have a demographic of one group, and it is people who understand the magnitude of the Pelican signing Solomon Hill. That's all I speak to.

I mean, look, this is who we got. These are our listeners. You really kicked the door down to another demographic. Women? Yeah. by going over to the TV show. I commend you for that. What's that like?

Look, many women watch the NBA. Some of those women may even listen to this podcast. I'm not privy to that data. But I'm sure there is at least singles or perhaps dozens of them out there. Definitely not trying to overlook the women that do listen. We appreciate them. Yes, all four of you. We appreciate that.

We also need to get the T-shirt bet settled. We never really kind of... I know. That one's on you, though. That's been sitting on your desk for, a long time. It's just a lot of work. You know? I got to come up with the image. You got to come up with the slogan.

Is that son's blasters? What was that bet? That bet? Yeah. Yeah. The result of the mid-off is, yeah, I have to wear a t-shirt of Justin's choosing effectively. It was supposed to be for an entire week. Yeah. But we might have to figure that out. Maybe during the power rankings. I don't know. I assume there's like some light vetoing that's possible here. Like you can't put me in a shirt that says like, just racial slurs. Pedophile appear with an arrow pointing up.

Like, it can't be that, right? It was going to be me, like my face in some capacity, with a slogan. 100%. For the record, would have bought it and warrant it anyway.

So I'm happy to pay the bet. Okay, great. All right. Should we get to the topic at hand here? Please. So, obviously, not a ton happening. Although, like, the past week or so, there's been like a little bit of news

that's been circulating here, a lot of leftover stuff still to come here. we are going to talk about what we think we know about next season. And now we're at the stage where it's like we're starting to formulate our opinions. We're really like trying things out. And so this is really like a test run for what we are going to ultimately say leading into the season. But like I'm starting to get strong inclinations. I don't know how you guys feel.

Like are you starting like the process to it or do you feel like you have a strong read on the season based off of everything that happened in the off season? I feel like the field, especially. in the East is so deep. It's hard to have like a really firm read on basically anything. But to the strength of your inclination is just and I feel like I am, I'm ruminating, right? Like we've had the initial take. We've had the revised take. We've had the like you talk to your friends or coworkers. Oh, now let me let me adjust my expectations here in this way because they swayed me on this thing or that. Like we've had the full period of stabilization and adjustment to kind of start to understand what we might be looking at. And thus what we might think.

but like I think maybe by preseason power ranking time is when we're a little more dedicated and firm in what those ideas actually are. And right now we're just like, okay, what can we pin down that's on the board? I mean, as much as much as you want to feel, you're saying you have inclinations, which I guess are you have opinions that you feel pretty strongly about. At this point, coming in, I think this is a unique offseason where we had such carnage in terms of major, major players being out in the east and then combine that with. with the turnover and roster shakeup that we had across the league.

I think those two things together combined with we have ascending teams that have a lot of levels to go, like the Spurs, you know, like I think it makes it a little tricky. You know, the Lakers who we're going to talk about shook it up, the wolves shook it up. As excited as I am, like Rob was saying, like I am ruminating with ideas and visions of what could be. I don't totally feel confident about what's going to happen just because of the combination of those two things. which doesn't make it daunting, it makes it pretty fun. Like, I'm pretty, I'm pretty amped to see how this is going to shake out. What's going to happen?

Who's going to be owning these teams? How many of the owners just view their teams as an opportunity for tax abatement? Yeah, no, it's a lot is in the air right now. If you put the three of us stacked on top of each other in a giant power suit, I think we could convincingly buy an NBA team at this point. Like, anyone can do it and where the backing money comes from, I don't know. Seems to not really matter so much anymore. Who's on the bottom?

I think Rob obviously is on the bottom. Justin's probably on the top, I would imagine, right? I don't think you want me trying to talk to people and kind of coax them into giving us. I didn't even think about that. Who's going to be the most? Who's going to be able to work the room, but also not make us fall over. It's a tricky scenario we got here. So Justin's our steady core.

Kyle, man, the folxiness up top, really bringing the people together. Folksiness up top? You think I could shoot the shit with some billionaires or the league office there? I sure hope so. Oh, yeah. You get the twang going. They'll be like, this guy's into oil. He knows what's going.

on. Or at least caterpillars, you know, one of the two. Yeah. So we each brought to team situation, whatever you guys want to talk about, that you feel like you think you know going into the season at this stage. Let's start kind of with one of mine, because that goes off of what we're just talking on here, which is the Los Angeles Lakers, who you thought had the busiest off season after they got done with their actual business on the court and building a roster around Luca after LeBron. They said goodbye to. Then it just got crazier and crazier from there practically every couple weeks. We're now in like chapter 27 of the bus succession sort of prestige drama. I have to say just briefly here as a result of all of this, I didn't realize that not only is there a genie bus,

but there's also a Janie bus. So a genie and then minus the E there is a genie. Like I didn't, how many buses are there? And why do they all have the same first letter in their name? People who do that and they have like six kids, they're fucking science. I'm sorry. There's something wrong with you. See, are they psychopaths or are they challenging themselves? Are they challenging themselves as parents in their advancing ages to be like, okay, we got to pick out the genies from the Janies of the bunch, you know? And I think at some point we all lose that particular rope, but I'm with you that the naming scheme is like, it's a, it's a little much for most families. Unless maybe you're a succession Shakespearean level

feuding family. Maybe there's like a nominative deterministic thing where it's like if you put all of your kids into this similarly named bucket, they're just bound to fight with one another at some point. It reminds me a lot of like if you like one shirt that you have or you constantly are wearing the same thing. People are going to notice, like, it's fine if you do it like once or twice in a week. That's nice. I get it. You like while it looks like if you want to buy the same shirt in a different like color, that's fine. But when you're on like five, six, seven days, then it starts getting weird. I mean, I've known full-blown uniform people who like black t-shirt, black pants, white shoes, and it's kind of like, it's kind of, I envy it in a way. I could see a lot,

a lot fewer. And those people, it's, it's not that they're wearing the same thing over and over again. They kind of come off. They look clean because they're wearing, it's just, it simplifies your life in a way. And I'm kind of like, it just looks, it looks manicured because it's a conscious choice rather than the lack of a choice where a lazy person will wear the same thing over and a, on the name thing. We, granted, we just have the one kid, we did the K middle initial. That's about as far as we took it. Like, we gave Julian a K middle initial just because Megan and I both had it. But right, going to, I know families who have like same full initial setup. And I don't know, it doesn't bother me, though. I don't, I don't know that I would go to full psychopath level. It just seems like it's a

cute branding for your family. Both of you hate it. This is interesting. It's a lot. And I say this like, I have a similar one, at least me and my brother share a first initial. But like, If it's a whole family thing, I think that's, you know, parents on down. It's just a lot. It's just a lot. My dad is a twin and his name's Gary and his brother. My dad's name is Gary. Tell me it's not Jerry.

My dad's name is Gary Dean and his identical twin brother's name is Barry Jean. Oh, no. He's going to kill me for that. Well, probably not. It's pretty good. Yeah, I have a cousin that like got into the A range. and like at a certain point there was an adler and I was like brother let's just give it up anyway so you got the you got the real jays who are who are infighting yet again in order to just

like the last piece that they have the Lakers is now for debate here as Mark Walter bails in order to try to preserve whatever he has left of his reputation but in the midst of all that Luca Donchich hot yet again we got was it last year the men's health cover and now we got the photos circulating with the team all out there in I believe Croatia, Slovenia, somewhere in the Balkans. Slovenia. Just like the divorced dad bod, we haven't seen since like Princess die. He's really going.

How long is his hair? It was like shoulder length. I didn't know if that was real. I saw one where he had a fucking main going. He got a cool guy haircut and he's just ready to go for it. And for that reason, like I'm starting to believe. But last year we said the same thing. I know.

didn't really work out for him and he does has a habit almost like Dirk's hair where he would get a haircut before the season, then never get another one. I do wonder if Luca gets really toned going into the season and then all of a sudden he stops hitting the treadmill. And so I'm trying to to brace myself here with the Lucas situation because I've fallen for that before. Having said that, I have seen some of the photos of like the team hanging out with Luca and like everyone seems like they're having a good time. Okay. And it just reminds. reminded me last season, I thought if they just got to the playoffs that Luca and LeBron together could probably solve some things at such a high level, that anything could probably happen.

They ultimately ended up getting to the second round with LeBron doing just that by himself, kind of cutting up a much more talented Houston Rockets team. Fortunately, they faced the Thunder in the next round. But like, Thunder didn't have J-Dubb. If they had Luca in there, who knows what would have happened at that point. This team is a little bit more different. It's a little bit simpler. a little bit more easy put together specifically around Luca.

And I got to say, like, I think we forget how much just like weirdness it must have been. Yeah. With LeBron being there while still pivoting over to the Luca generation. Like, what do you think about Austin Reeves? Like, Austin Reeves starts hanging out with Luca more. Don't you think like LeBron was going to feel a certain way about that? And so, like, the cleanness of the fit of what's going on at the Lakers, I'm starting to have more hope than I thought. after the team they put together considering that it seems like

kind of the same sort of team ceiling-wise as they were the year previously. See, I think the ceiling is a little different and maybe, frankly, a little lower than it could have been, right? Like the best version of a team with Reeves and Luca and LeBron, that was something we barely ever got a glimpse of. And so we never got to see everything that it could manifest, everything that LeBron could have been as that kind of like tertiary creator he was settling into before Luca got hurt. this is, as you said, JV, like a simpler construction,

something we kind of have seen before that we understand. You can see like, okay, you got Matisse Thibel in there now to kind of plug in as a wing defender. You have Quentin Grimes to add as a shooter. It's like a lot of turnover for the team, but turnover in a way that feels recognizable and understandable. And so it's like, I look at this group, I see the cohesive hole,

I see how everyone fits into it. It's just something you can get on paper and can get behind. Will it be enough to challenge any of the elite teams in the West, specifically San Antonio and OKC, I would say there's probably not really a chance of that at all. But to be firmly in the next group is no short shrift to anybody. And this is a good quality team with a superstar who could be poised. I say yet again, even as someone who is legally barred from choosing Luca Donchich as a preseason of VP, because I've tried to do it so many times and failed.

Could be poised for the best season of his career potentially. Yeah, there was an off-season. I wanted to pull this up. Maybe it's from Slovenia, but there was an off-season photo. of them at a dinner where it's blanking Luca at the table. I was, it kind of, it kind of sobered me up to what this is going to be like, kind of putting me where you were what you ended up describing just now, Rob Ware, and I'll send this in the chat where it's Dalton Connect, Zaire Williams,

Bronny, a dude the air hope, Matisse Thibel and Jared Vanderbilt around him. And I was, I originally thought it was Kevin O'Connor with them at the table, but it's Jake LaRavia. I was sitting there looking at it though and I was just like, Luca, you poor bastard. It sucks that we saw the highest version of before he got, you know, booted inexplicably from Dallas. We saw the highest version of what like an optimized Luca Donchitz team looks like. It's like this is an optimized version of what a Luke. And that's a nice thing about having a Luca as he creates, he's a band leader that creates very clear jobs.

It's like we know that Luca writes the songs and we need a guy who can play a solo when it comes to that part of the song. we need a keyboard player. He just, he kind of creates answers for questions. There's not a lot of guessing. But my thing is, if you're going to lean on an optimized roster around Luca, you want to at least have some outs in case you have to pivot because what teams start to do inevitably is load up. I don't see any pivoting strategy away unless, because we saw what like load bearing Austin

Reeves look like. Granted, he was coming back from an injury, you know, with OKC. I just don't see what the, what the, pivot moves are for this team. If they do come up against a good, let's assume that they get into a playoff series, it just seems like it's pretty limited and there's still some things to, some questions to be answered about who they're going to, how they're going to level up to compete with the rest of the West.

Yeah, I don't know if I, I haven't really ranked the West or the league overall. I don't know if I would change where I put the Lakers, but it just feels like there's more of a breath of fresh air and you're starting to appreciate things a little bit more. I just like, it just must have sucked to, for both LeBron and Luca, both guys who want things their specific way, don't must not have friction, but they're definitely like stepping on toes that they're not

used to doing. And I have to imagine that just like compounded. And I think just having that release will make it easier because like they made it very clear from the jump that they were pivoting to a Luca-centric worldview. LeBron was pretty outspoken in his own sort of like behind closed doors sort of way about like, that sucked. He wanted to be appreciated. It seemed like that was the one thing in addition to oil and hanging out with clutch players he wanted for his next destination. And so I have to, I just feel like renewed with the Lakers. And I wonder if that has a compounding effect that may overcome sort of the same sort of issues that we're going to talk about with them. The defensive concerns, the lack of depth, the lack of defense outside of Walker Kessler if he does get hurt.

And so I'm starting to feel good. Also, I was just looking up all MBS. stuff the other day for some complete other reason. Do you guys know that Luca not only has six all-MBA nods in, I believe his eight seasons? The two times he didn't make it were a rookie year and then the season he got traded.

They're all first team. He's never not made the first team when he's made all-em- That's wild. He's a fucking ace. And every six months for some reason people either decide to forget that or get pulled into some weird debate about like his weight or his injuries

or like who isn't happy playing alongside him. He's one of the best players in the world. He's been one of the best players in the second he stepped on an NBA court, and frankly, maybe even before that. And so getting to see what this version of the Lakers can finally be, I think what we're talking about and dancing around is like, this is really the first version of the Lakers that is actually built around Luca, that is built with him and his strengths in mind. It has been a gradual shift in that direction. But I think what I'm gathering, JV, from what you're laying out here is like the biggest addition of their offseason is not even Walker Kessler, is.

not even any of these guys, you know, Sandra Mamukalishvili or whoever else they brought in, it's just like the breath of fresh air of getting the final turning of the page that this group actually needed. And that is no small thing. Like that can be a really powerful transitional force for a lot of people, not just on the court,

but in the organization more broadly. Like the LeBron era had run its course. That's not to say he wasn't still really effective, even at the very end of it. It's not to say that team couldn't have done something. They had their time. They won a championship. Everyone is moving on.

And moving on is probably, healthy and happy for everybody here. You, like, would you say how many of the past, I was going to say the past five years, you were talking about him being the best player in the world and people like tending to like ebb and flow and remembering or forgetting about that? It's like you could honestly with a straight face. I'm not saying that I would reach this conclusion myself just because there are some pretty strong candidates for this, but you could make a pretty straight faced argument that he's

the best offensive player in the world. I would say in the past. Yeah. three, four, five years. I mean, he has, he's just had such an odd go of it recently that I think it causes people to forget that. And his rigid style of play can kind of has, it didn't sour people in the beginning. You could kind of start to feel that creeping in as we win.

It's like, is this ultimately going to always hit a wall because of the way that he insists on playing? But I think he, I think he has that, he has a case for that even now as the best offensive a player in the world. Just to be clear, like, that insistence to play a certain way is a flaw. And, like, that's something that, like, he's had to overcome and teams building around him had to overcome. He kind of had, like, a child star sort of trajectory where, like, he immediately was successful

and then all of a sudden had things built around him. And I think he started to lean into that with, like, how he expected things to be built around him. And that's something you have to contend with your team. Also, we should mention, like, the fact that there's a new ownership coming in, like, after he just got adapted to the new owner. We don't even know the people that they just hired They're going to stay there. So that's like an unknown.

And so we'll see if that stability is there. But it seems like team-wise, there's the very least a clear vision for what's going. I'm happy to see it. I'm eager to see how this group kind of comes together. I share some of your concerns, Justin, about like the balance of the defense, about and I think some of what Kyle laid out too in terms of, I would almost say it's not that the roster is like optimized around Luca, but maybe streamlined around Luca. Like everything is very simple in terms of, as you said, what they're being asked to do.

But there isn't that like variable pop. There isn't like the young star here who's just like waiting for their opportunity. It's like Luca and secondarily Austin Reeves and then we'll wait and see. I think there's still going to be a really high level offensive team, but they're going to be maybe even better than that to overcome some of the challenges

they're going to have on defense. All right. Do you guys want to do one of yours? I would love to do one of mine because it's been rattling around my brain in light of current events. I think I think I know, or really in this case, I would say I worry that the Minnesota Timberwolves

might be flying a little too close to the sun right now. They have signed Jonathan Cominga, as Sean's Tarania reported. Look, on its own, no harm, no foul. Like, two-year deal, player options, $6 million in salary. Like, that's a rounding error in NBA terms. If you can get a talented player for $6 million, you should probably do it. He's apparently going to be starting for this Timberwolves team.

And I have many thoughts about that. My first thought is you never really want to put your roster or your team in a position where you need Jonathan Cominga to start for it. I think that's probably like a bad premise from the jump. But if you're going to be in that position, it's better to have the guy who can play plausibly good forward minutes than just have a roster that doesn't have enough forwards on it. And so the wolves needed to do something.

They needed some kind of filler. They needed some kind of stopgap. Post Julius Randall, post-Naz-Reed, like the whole front court has been remade in a dramatically different image. I just like, I was very on board for the energy. surrounding the lamella ball deal. And now I'm sitting around looking at this team and I'm like, the enthusiasm is still there.

They're probably going to be one of my most watched teams over the course of the season. They're going to be like top five on my league pass dial for a lot of very obvious reasons. But having to talk myself into Jonathan Cominga impact power forward is just, it's not something I wanted to do. So what you, what you're saying that you think you know which specific thing, that it's a problem from the jump to have him in that situation? That's what you think you know.

I'm saying what I think I know is that stacking chaos on chaos by bringing Lamello in in the first place and then bringing Jonathan Cummiga in to play a critical role for your team might be like a little too much wild energy even for me. I can understand it if you're the wolves because, you know, at this stage of my life, I'm getting deeper and deeper into my dating life, you know? I've used a lot of all resources. You've been pretty deep. That's good to say. Well, it keeps getting it getting better. You went from what depth to what depth? Snorkel to scuba.

I've used all of the resources available to me. I've really just left with what I have on, like, the options that are so few, especially up here at Portland. You've exhausted all your resources. And I look at it. It's usually down to a steady vet at this point. Yeah. Or someone that you really have to take a fly.

on and I can understand considering where the wolves were that maybe they needed to go and get Garrett Temple out of retirement because they just needed a steady vet but I understand that it's more fun to go and get the someone you could build into something else you know you see a vision who is a steady vet are you like dating like a lady with with kids or like what and then yeah like talking about you're like I'm just trying to a woman who has a woman who has a little bit. their life together, but, you know, maybe coming out of a divorce, you know, just like, there's a lot of baggage you have to work through, but you can count on them to do all the base level things that you need. Yeah. Please tell me we've had Justin Veyer meeting divorce

kids. Please tell me. I just want to, I would pay money. How have we not talked about this? Can you please wear some Rayban glasses so that we can, I would, those numbers would be off the charts. I just want to see Justin Barry. The social media video of me meeting children. No, if anything, I've tried to avoid those situations. I definitely have seen people with kids, but I've known in the back of my mind that there is a time limit to this because there's no fucking way that kid wants anything to do with me.

So what you're saying is you're skewing away from the vets in favor of the projects is what I'm here. Right, right. Well, sometimes depends on the week or the month. But I can understand the wolf's perspective trying to reach, especially if you saw something in Kaminga to begin with. And it seems like a lot of teams have that where it's like coming out of the draft, like, oh, if we just got our hands on this guy, we could bring out X, Y, and Z.

Kamega seems like the clear cut case of that. I don't get it as well. I would have leaned to the Garrett Temple type, even though I know he's on an assistant coaching bench at this point. But like, I could see where that led them to that, because the options were so few considering what they had on the table. Yeah. When I was kind of brainstorming on this, the question that I kind of kept circling back to

like a drain was a simple one. And that is, what do we think that Jonathan Cominga is coming into this situation, assuming? Oh, yes. Well, clearly he's assuming he's going to start based on the reporting. Clearly, by the length of his contract. And he turned down reportedly a three-year, $36 million deal. offer from the Lakers to also start for them.

So it's the one plus one player option flexibility of like, not only does he want to play, he wants to play and prove it immediately. And if we've learned anything about Jonathan Camingo over the course of his career, it's a this dude is just like jumping out of planes and trying to negotiate a parachute on the way down every single time. That's good.

It hasn't gone great to the point that I'm curious if you guys have seen this quote from, from his agent that's been going around. This is a quote from the San Francisco standard. This was after the last round of negotiations with the Warriors fell apart last year in which he was offered. What was that? Three years 75 million. Jonathan Kamenga turned down with the Warriors.

And this was the quote from his agent where his agent said, hold on, did I fumble something? Because fumbling would mean like next year if JK is making $10 million a year, you could say I fumbled by not taking the three years for 75. But you can't say I fumbled because I haven't fumbled anything yet, end quote. very like what are you going to do stab me energy coming out of the post-johnerick commission. That's a very will-fairil as George Bush, like, quote, none too did. I will. Yeah.

I mean, listen, this is reaching Dennis Schroeder levels of like contract management. But at the same time, like, I don't care how much he makes. And so if he would prefer to bet on himself, like, I get it. It is probably one of the worst fumbles of doing so in recent NBA history. I get it. I ultimately don't think he matters much in terms of the wolves because at this stage, like,

I think I would assume he was probably going to close, if not just start or supplant him in the starting lineup. And then when Dante DiFincenzo comes back, if he comes back, I think he's going to play a major role. That's a big if, though. I think he's done for you. They're definitely heavy on two or threes,

rather than someone of Kaminga's type, and especially if you don't want to wear Jada McDaniels down over the course of the season, I can see where you can lead to Kaminga. But I just don't think he's going to matter. because every stop of the way, he really hasn't mattered to high-level basketball. And so for the wolves themselves, it's whatever. For him, it's just unfortunate.

But this is his career. He can do whatever he wants. I just think he's going to end up playing by process of elimination, whether Desuma finishes games or not, and I suspect he will. Like, Desuma is just going to be a better option on a lot of nights. But this was a team that even when they were playing big was not a very good rebounding team. And so it's like, he really can't afford to play so many guards all the time. and expect to get away from it.

Lamello can actually help a little bit there, like a pretty good defensive rebounder for a guard, if nothing else. So, you know, they're going to try to plug holes as they can, but I would be very surprised if Jonathan Gamengo, whether he starts by the end of the season, but he's coming off the bench by the end of the season, whatever his role might be, like he's going to be a critical part of what the wolves are doing.

And that makes me nervous as someone who's just like trying to chart where the wolves are going from here. I know you're saying that he ultimately is going to be immaterial. You expect that. I just kind of see that and I'm weighing that against the unstoppable force of his expectations for himself. And, you know, talking about making big bets on himself. I just think in order for these bets to pay off, I think he's going to be trying to fulfill some vision of who he thinks he is to try to get that money back where he thinks it should be. And to me, that just when I'm wondering about what he assumes, if he looks around that lock room, I think there could be a key point of conflict.

if he thinks that he's better than Jaden McDaniels. You know, Jaden had a huge, you know, uptick last year in terms of creating for himself. I do, that's a guy who has really has a lot of sweat equity in the way that this team has been built.

I know that the Wolves coaching staff, their fan base, that city adores him. I don't see him being pushed to the side. I just could see that being interesting. And, you know, it's obviously Ant's team.

They bring in Lamello to kind of take the pressure off of like, okay, we can't load up on Ant anymore. or I just think that if he sees himself as earlier in that pecking order than the rest of the team does, I just could see that being a problem where maybe they're forced to kind of remove him and make him immaterial. Yeah, because he's going to just the way he's wired and the way he plays, he's going to just kind of paddle in that direction, I think. Yeah.

Sure. Ultimately, his contract being so low doesn't really give him much say. And I think that happens. And so if they have to move along, just like, trade him or whatever. It does become easier after that. Yeah. Kyle, do you want to do one of yours? One thing that I think I know is that

I think that Cooper Flag is going to be an all-star this season. I like this. This past year, I was kind of going through and looking. I think we all knew that with the absence of capable ball handlers on that team, this team was long and athletic and electric. They're one of the best transition teams in the league. They could run and jump and dunk, with the best of them,

but when they had to sort of navigate space and create scoring, shooting gravity, it was just a lot. He played point guard and 26% of his reps this past season in his minutes were at point guard.

He's better probably as a three who can sort of moonlight and toggle into that pick and roll kind of situation. He also shot an unbelievable, let's see, at 44% of Cooper's field goals were jumpers and 41% of those

were dribble pull-ups. Just for comparison. He was very lopsided towards pull-up threes. At Duke, he shot 32 dribble threes and 100 catching shoots. So what I'm seeing is I'm seeing a low three-point percentage. I'm seeing that affecting the way that he was guarded. I think that with another ball handler, Kyrie's brilliant. He's going to come in, create a few of more.

I expect that percentage to come up. I expect him to be in the elbow isolating more. I think his game is going to find equilibrium. And I think that he's going to just explode because I, I think he's a driven fucker, and I think he's going to be out for blood, and I think he's going to be an all-star. I'm of a really similar mind. Like, whether he makes it or not, I think he's going to have an all-star caliber, all-star-ish kind of season. It's just like so many parts of his game draft off of other talent.

Like, if you have other good players, if you have ball handlers, as you're saying, Kyle, it will create open shots for him and better opportunities. If you have any kind of backline defense, how competitive he is in, like, staying down and contesting people is going to pay off that much more. If you have any real offensive threats around him, he wants to connect those dots and get those guys involved. It's a really good facilitating passer. And so it's like, I think throughout his career, he's always going to be the kind of guy who is additive to other talent. If you have the baseline, if you have even an okay roster, it's going to amplify what a lot of guys do well. And this is kind of the start of that for the Mavs. It's having a real deal creator in Kyrie, as you alluded to, but also just like hopefully a healthier season with like a rounder team overall and lineup around.

him. Yeah, I mean, they removed a lot of the friction that existed from the remnants of whatever was left from the Lucidantajara and obviously getting rid of play recently kind of was like the last door to close outside of Kyrene. It seems like at the very least they want to keep him around only to see what these guys look like together. I doubt he'll last the entire season there, if not like the entire year there. Honestly, I was wondering if you were going to say instead of All-Star, All-MBA,

because... Whoa. Didn't go far enough, huh? Yeah. I think, like, that's in play. I was looking at this historically. It's definitely rare, but it has happened with players of Cooper's caliber. It's a lot of, like, Tim Duncan,

like, guys who are successful would probably be the one sticking point. Although there are a lot of, like, outliers in there, too. LaTrell Spreewell apparently did it in his second year in the league when he was in Golden State, and I was like, I don't remember that at all. And so, on the one hand,

I think he'll have the opportunity to put up the numbers that would put him in contention for both of these honors. All NBA typically leans more toward team success. Like if you have to start from a place of being in a playoff team typically. But I don't know. I think at the very least he's going to be in the running for perhaps both of them. Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back to school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced Ellie Me products for always 375.

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Get tickets now. Well, the Mavs are going to be fine, I would think. They're going to be kind of like in the mix, in the play in bubble group. But the West is not as stacked as you might expect based on the strength of that uppermost tier. The rest of those teams are not that far separated. You know, the Lakers and the wolves, the Nuggets who have lost Pade Watson, like the Mavs are a little cut below them, but they're right there with, you know, the Blazers and

the Sons. And, you know, we'll see kind of what the Grizzlies are capable of or how good the Jazz are exactly this season. if those are your peers, if that's your competitive group, why not the Mavs? And so I think the question for all MBA as you're talking about Justin is like, how high would they have to climb? How good would the team have to be to justify that kind of candidacy or to really just like propel that kind of candidacy?

I don't think they're quite there, but I don't know. It's not impossible that the Mavs could end up with the sixth best record in the Western Conference. Like that's not outside the realm of possibility. It seems a little strong for me. But I mean, they're definitely going to be, you're talking about streamlining. with the Lakers. They definitely did streamline with their moves.

But it's interesting. You said Latrell Spreewell in his second year. Latrell played some college, but I just looked it up on Stadhead here. Seasons stopping at age 20 who did all NBA. It's only three guys. LeBron did it in 0405. Luca did it in 1920,

and then Kobe Bryant did it in 98-99. So that's a pretty elite group of guys. But I think what we're ultimately saying is Lag has suggested that he might be on this level. We might be talking about a historic guy. And I think this is the year that we'll probably find out for sure because the first year is usually the prelude. The second year is usually they get enough underneath them that they can kind of hit the ground running and do all the boxes that they need to in order to get into awards consideration. All right. Do you want to do another one here?

Yeah, what you got? I think I'm up. Okay. So the Cavs obviously made a pretty big trade here. Honestly, this whole Peyton Watson situation, the big takeaway I have from it is the calves behaved like the team that the Denver Nuggets should have. And especially in this time where, as I alluded to before, teams are treating their rosters and their constructions more about as assets for their future earnings or whatever it might be. It was very nice to see the calves go out and spend whatever they had to do in terms of assets in order to build the appropriate. team to really hit the ground running this year. It really reminded me of how you could hold two

ideas about one thing or one person because I think nobody really like threads the needle more than Dan Gilbert who on the one hand just writing like hate screed about a player. Like, let's put that in the not great category when LeBron leaves. What about the predatory lending practices? Like where do those fall for you? Well, apparently that's part for the course. I don't know if he's a real outlier. in that regard. But routinely, he has been willing to spend first LeBron era going out and getting a guy practically every season. It didn't work because it usually was like past his prime Anton Jameson or like J.J. Hickson. But he was at the very least willing to spend in that regard. They went over the second apron more recently. And now yet again, dealing a 2031 pick in order to

get Peyton Watson. And we could talk about like where they are in the ease as a result of that, how the fit is all that other stuff. But just the move to go and do that, I love it. Like, this is how NBA teams should behave. And yet we have all of these rules that are suppressing this very thing. The Cavs went out and did the exact thing that Denver should have done with with Yokic on the last year of his deal, needing to go into this offseason, make a big splash. And so we should be applauding. We absolutely should be applauding it. I would say more than anything because Peyton Watson is a bit of an unknown. Because this is not like someone that, that everyone in the league fully understands

or his talent has been maxed out and you can put a very clean number on what you think he does on a basketball court. There's a lot of disagreement among basketball people, among, like just on what Peyton Watson might become and how good he might ultimately be. And for the Nuggets,

a team that is desperate for that kind of upside, desperate for just like anyone on their roster who could overachieve beyond their role and circumstances to balk financially at paying admittedly deep into the second apron and tax and hamstring themselves in all those ways, while the calves take on some version of that same risk, admittedly at their lower tier in terms of the aprons and all that,

I'm with you, Justin. This is exactly the kind of gamble you want a team like Cleveland to take, especially because they have so many things nailed down. Like the other four guys who are starting, we know who they are, we have seen so many wings cycle through here at this point in various iterations. None of it has quite worked.

None of it has quite clicked. I don't think Peyton Watson is an airtight fit by any means, but he's exactly the kind of interesting fit I want to see if he has a shot to pull this team together and give them some new life. Yeah, for the Nuggets, it's really an undermining

of the miraculous nature, the miraculous circumstances that caused them to get one of the best players of all time and for them to not, you know, honor that miracle that they were gifted by, you know, spending,

choosing sort of like an aggressive mindset to sort of help him. Yeah, it does suck. And it makes you wonder if the, the basketball gods are going to strike them with lightning at some point and make them pay for that. Maybe they already have with just the, what's coming up. But in terms of Peyton Watson, for the Cavs, they are in a position here where if you're going to build your team around, you know, Donovan Mitchell and James Harden, you're asking a whole lot of the three spot with the way that this team has been built. You know, you need the guy, you need whoever your three is to be able to slide down and guard ones and twos.

be on the ball a lot. You also need to be somebody that can create some for yourself, hit open shots. It's just you start to, when you start to check filters, I don't know, it's like you're on Zillow and you're just like, okay, I want a 3,000 square foot house for this amount of money and it needs these amounts. And you just kind of watch the map, go down. Let's chill on this square footage, all right? I'm just saying you start to just watch the dots on the map go away. And it's like, okay, we've created a market for ourselves or circumstance for ourselves to succeed. That is just very, very tricky. And good for them. It's a coup that they could get a guy that not only kind of could. I agree with you that the jury is very much out in terms of like he did show some things in terms of some on ball

creation that I raised a lot of eyebrows, a lot of like hitting threes, hitting pull up threes, being like incendiary, athletically. All those things are awesome. We want to see more proof of that. But for the calves to put themselves in the position to be the beneficiary of, okay, if this next iteration of Peyton Watson does turn out to be a superstar. Like, considering the circumstances that they're in is a pretty big, is a coup for the Cavs. So even though it might not go great, but for them to have the opportunity to see

if it's going to go great is a huge, huge win for them. Yeah, considering the way he's been talked about on podcast, you would think that Peyton Watson has been a five-time All-Star. He really has 54 games, if that, like really the second half of that before he got injured, where he just lights out. And so we'll see how much he needs to tap into that. But I think he fills that void in a way that the calves have been searching for practically

since they got Donovan Mitchell. We were saying that before, where it's like, oh, they have these four guys before it was Garland before Hardin, where you just needed a three type in order to thread the needle. He seems to fill that. If he's just the defender that he has proven to be, and he adds all that other offensive stuff as a bonus if you allow him to explore the studio space, I think he just fits great. there's like shooting concerns overall because you're expecting between watson allen and mowgli like is there enough shooting there to compliment there but like i do think you have insulated and provided the best

possible support system if your team is hardened in mitchell ultimately if you were to say like where do i think the calves will finish in the east i still am dubious because of the hardened situation it is unfortunate that they did that because it seemed like it also prevented them perhaps from getting in lebron derby and earnest but this is what they had available to them and i think watson is is the absolute, like, best case scenario that they could come up with. I could also say the same things about the Denver Nuggets. They need that defense and just the stability there, especially with all the concerns that we have about Aaron Gordon,

like the teams that are like split between front court and guards, which a lot of teams ended up doing, like they need to have this exact type of player. The Cavs have him and they were willing to spend to get him. That's incredible. Like this is exactly what teams should be doing. Yeah, especially to try to pack all of Payton Watson's talent between those bookends of the guards and the bigs.

And it can be narrow, it can be defined in some ways. I'm with you, like, who Peyton Watson is as a defender or at least has shown to be. I believe in that player. But as Kyle kind of brought up, I'm curious about not is he a good defender, but is he good at the defensive assignments that the Cavs need him to take, specifically that, like, switching over to defend guards. And the other part of this that we're not really talking about yet is making this addition is not only a swing for the kind of wing that the cavaliers need,

but it's a move that keeps the door open if they ever want to more dramatically change the shape of their front court. Like, this is, Payton Watson could be a full-time starting power forward for the Cleveland Cavaliers in two years. That could be a thing that they, you know, explore down the line if the needness, like, if that need arises, it's just nice to have a move that is like a big financial investment, a swing on talent that doesn't, you know, pull up the ladder behind you in terms of your ability to have some kind of a skate plan from this thing if it doesn't work out.

It just feels like a well-considered move all around at a cost of the 2031 pick. But that's what you do when you're a good team that's on the verge of contention and been knocking on the door and trying to break through is you trade your picks for good players and hope for the best. Yeah, I think the hinging on like what he could be if they choose to make a move, granted he's going to have to prove some things, I guess, to instill confidence that like, okay, we can go ahead and move a Jared Allen and we can kind of move Peyton into this role. I wanted to pose a question to you guys because I was thinking about the superstar orbiting kind of thing that's gone on in his career. It's going to be very different in terms of

the touch time, sort of the way that you exist in the flow of an offense with a Nicola Yokic as opposed to a James Hardin. They're just very different. Like James is going to linger on it a little bit more. And a lot of his game is predicated on, you know, my, we'll run as we kind of do our checkdowns of like, can I score as the initial checkdown for James Harden. Yokch is not always the case. I'm just kind of wondering, how much do we think that played a role in Peyton thriving? Granted, his picking and roll numbers,

his catch and shoes were amazing, 161 attempts at 46%. I expect those things to translate. I just kind of wonder what his offensive life, assuming the defensive stuff will work. I wonder what his offensive life is going to be like next to these two guys compared to Yokic. I think it's going to be pretty streamlined because the Cavs offense,

often functions that way, whether it's starting with Hardin or Mitchell. And Harden, I will say, over time has tilted a little more. He's always been a perfectly willing playmaker, a really prolific passer to say the least, but he can't get to the rim the way he used to. So it's not always like, can I dribble penetrate anymore? Sometimes it's just like, let me bail out of this at the first sign of any advantage. And if that ball swings to Peyton Watson in the corner, all the better. Like, to me, it's not about the creativity or the touch time for Watson so much as like,

how real was his like somewhat low volume three point shooting last season that was excellent. Like is he going to be a 42% three point shooter or a 34, 35% three point shooter? Because it's one of the most unstable stats anywhere in the NBA, guys very wildly season to season. Who Payton Watson is as a shooter is not nailed down yet. And so if he can be someone who actually is a threat who actually is drawing defensive attention while playing a pretty simplified role operating out of the corners on a lot of of possessions. I think that's, I think that's well within what he seems to be capable of. Yeah, I also wonder if it's a regular season versus postseason sort of thing. Like, if you have

someone at the advanced stage of the career like Hardin, are you selling Peyton Watson on the opportunity to have these sort of reps over the course of the regular season where you're not necessarily stepping on him? It's more like letting Peyton watch and explore. And then we get to the playoffs and you're playing a more streamlined role. And then when Hardin kind of advances out in maybe retires or whatever happens, like Watson becomes more of a essential player. road sort of thing because he does need more time. Well, and as a bit of a personality counterbalance to Evan Mowgli as well, right? Like I think the Cavs have been hoping that over time, Mowgli would be more and more aggressive

offensively, that he would impose himself more and more. We see flashes of that, we see moments of it, but it kind of comes and goes. Peyton Watson wants to shoot. Like he wants to be the guy who, as we saw last season, could just like light it up from midrange in a given game. It's not consistent enough yet. It's not the baseline of what he's giving you from game to game. But when you get into those bench lineups,

when you get into those like mid-second quarter, late third quarter kind of situations, I think he's going to want to take some of that authorship in a way that the process with Mobley, which has been promising at times, has just been more touch and go. I was going to say, if we think back about like the Donovan era,

the Donovan Mitchell era builds that the Cavs have had, I mean, he's probably the most creator upside, like, three that they've had, I think, unless I'm forgetting, if you look, I mean, a coro obviously was just like, you know, shit in his pants. Hope if the ball was smaller. It's like, my life is, I'm living or dying based on these catch-a-threes. I just don't think he was nearly as dynamic as Watson. And I think you're right, Rob where it's like, as you wait for Mobley to essentially be somebody he's not. I know he's in the garnet body and everybody wants him to be. Personality is just such a huge part of the way that

these things play out and temperament and things like that. And it's like Watson gives them a little bit more that unbridled wild and woolly confidence that maybe we'll push its boundaries and have to be like a chill a little bit kind of but i think they need somebody that is willing to kind of walk up to those boundaries and on a given night if somebody doesn't have it going you know Watson could give you 30 could give you 35 could you know i'm not saying consistently but um i definitely think that he's probably the best prospect that they've had in that spot in this era for the calves meanwhile the nuggets have Demar de Rosen. So that should be fun.

Going great. All right, Rob, do you want to do yours? I would love to. I think I know who the pistons are because their roster is very similar to what it was last year. Caviot, Jalen Dern's just sitting out there without a contract right now.

It's just dragging on and on. This happens sometimes in free agency. Like, everyone is doing what they're supposed to do. I get why Jalen Dern is holding out for the biggest deal he can possibly get. I get why the market forces allow the pistons to squeeze in just this way and kind of wade out the offer or, you know, the ultimately middle ground that they might want after the kind of playoff that Jalen Duren had.

But anytime this stuff gets into like September, October territory where they're restricted free agent, I just think you run a lot of risks like relationships fracture, feelings get hurt. Like there are cases where everything goes fine from this point. But I think part of the reason I am concerned in sort of circling the jail and during situation is not because like Penn hasn't been put to paper yet on this particular deal and what that means for tomorrow. But the fact that Penn hasn't been put to paper is like emblematic to me of the larger issues within the Pistons of like, you have this very promising young player who just had an absolute nightmare postseason in which he not only had some limitations, as all young players do, but didn't do the things he's supposed to do well, well against basically any of their opponents or any matchups.

Like that's a red flag, but he's 22. And so it's like you can talk yourself into that. But then you look down the roster and there is also very good 23-year-old to Sarr Thompson on this team. And the playoff track record says every second that those guys are on the floor together, you have to solve a puzzle. And at what point is that financially not viable for the Pistons anymore? At what point is that more trouble than it's worth for the Pistons?

These are problems that are going down the road. But a huge reason why we are here and Jalen Dern does that have a contract is because of that like fundamental thing within Detroit's roster. And I don't know how to make sense of it just yet. Yeah, I think one thing that the Lakers did in addition to every other thing that they've been doing this off season is completely fuck the center market because Jalen Dern is probably arguing credibly his agent that we should be paid more. Walker Kessler who has not proven virtually anything as opposed to Jalen Dern, who's a

22 year old coming off of an all NBA season. But the Pistons rightly sell are saying, look at the fucking postseason that you just had. We cannot give you that. And so I understand why this has become the new, like, just dug in all-out war in terms of restricted free agency. This is dragging past even like Josh Giddy territory from before. I have to imagine that they will eventually come to terms because both sides need each other. Yeah. But you're right. If they don't, then all of a sudden this is going to be lingering over the season. And I just, I just been really disappointed what the Pistons did. they did get a lot of new names in there, but functionally just to replace similar roles that they had before.

There's no like added spice to this dish anymore. Like maybe they use a Saur in different ways. Maybe John Collins being able to flex four or five. Like it gives them some versatility. I don't think so. But I just, it just doesn't really move me in a way. And like, listen,

they won 60 games with what they had before. Maybe like a personality switch will just like get them past that like, like a little bit of a hump they needed to not stretch out a first round series with the magic to seven games. I don't see it. I don't feel much optimism for them. And if they don't get this durn thing settled and he's playing on a one year make good deal, that's just going to completely corrupt them to the point where I would be worried about them, even get out into the first round this year. You raised an interesting point for me, Justin, a question that I had not considered until now, which is what spice is John Collins? What spice does he bring to the table?

I'm tempted I think that he might be too robust I think he might be like a marjoram or something Wait what was that Margarine Marjoram Okay I don't know marjoram Yeah it's like floralish Okay

Kind of bland to be it's like when If you wherever like a college student Or a young adult who got like The pre-assembled spice rack or whatever It's the spice you never ever use Under basically any circumstances Because it's a little conditional never really seems like the right time.

And yet here it is. It's just there and available and I guess going to be a prominent part of this particular Pistons team. I was revisiting some of Duren's playoff exploits. Exploid is probably too robust a word for his playoff. But just looking at the things that he did during the regular season, it was just like it seemed like the moment that he wasn't against like

league average bigs doing the things that he did during the regular season. He just had trouble. as much as I was kind of teasing Evan Mobley's personality, Evan Mobley flat out punked him. Any time that Duren was like, I'm going to go create something from myself here, Mobley. It was just like, absolutely not. That's not going to happen. And those are the inevitable sort of steps that they're going to have to take if they want to improve or even recreate the success they had last year. The East is going to be better.

And I think if you look at him, I know that we're saying, we always kind of reiterate with his age. We're like he's 22, he's 22. but the reality is that we want to have the patience of the, you know, R.C. Buford-Popovich Spurs and say, like, you know, don't panic. You know, let's not, even though yet a bit, like, teams will panic and get off of something that could improve. But the league's just different now in terms of the timetables and like how much, how much time they're going to have and how much runway they're going to have to figure this out. And I just, another thing I wanted to say is whenever you hear, I think the,

the kind of thing in the air, that is going to hurt is the, you didn't want me. It's just there's a total lack of trust that's going to hang over the, in the air. I wanted to note, though, people whenever they talk about this, they always say you can't put the toothpaste back into the tube. You absolutely can. I just wanted to say, if you had the right syringe, like the pressure,

I've seen this because I had a situation where you ever going to a Mexican restaurant and you're like, how did they get the sauce? Like the sauce is always at the top. I'm like, how did they do that? And I sat and watched this dude with a, syringe put the sauce back into the thing so that they were level at the end of the night every night. All I'm saying is that it can be done. That's all. Okay. Can I chart where we're just were? Yeah. So we're talking about Jalen Duren. People, I don't know who are talking about

toothpaste. No, people always say the toothpaste is out of the tube with Duren. It's like there's no going back. You haven't heard people use that expression with the Duren situation? I've heard I've heard the phrase. Yeah. I just wanted to be clear that you can. You can put the toothpaste back. But you have to be psychotic enough to put it in a, anyway, syringe. There is not a syringe that's taking on the consistency of toothpaste. It's like glopping that shit up. That's not a syringe. That's not true.

You could do it. It could be done. Are you using a baster? What do you do? We have cock guns that could push, like, you could do it. So you want to, you want to use the intake of a cock gun to, like, reverse pull up the toothpaste to then shoot into a tube? I think that we could use if it was the right type of syringe. All you need is the, the, the, the,

the pressurized tube to pull it up into it and you could get it back into the tooth. I'm just saying it could be done. This is like tech bro level innovation. You're like, I've reinvented toothpaste by putting the toothpaste back in the tube. The question for the pistons is what is their version of the syringe that could fix this? Yes. I don't really know what it is. I don't really know what skill development is going to be, you know, required for them to solve this problem because the clock's ticking.

And I'm really, really dubious. You identified, I think the key thing is it feels like this year, despite the fact that they still won 60 games last year. Like, this is where the page turns on them being the precocious upstarts who have the world in front of them. A lot of the recent draft picks are starting to get big boy money. Like, I believe a SAR is still up for an extension. Duren obviously has this contract situation.

We'll see what, like, Ron Holland is after two season. I still don't really have a true sense. of what's going on there. If anything, he feels like a second draft candidate where he'll probably have to figure himself out on another team because the pistons are at a certain level and he needs a little bit more rearing. But it does feel like things are starting to cement themselves.

And I am worried because on the one hand, you could make the devil's argument. The devil's argument. The devil's argument. You know what the devil's argument is that you can put tooth face back in the tooth. Don't listen to the demon on your shoulder telling you that. It can be done.

With a syringe. We're not into the training camp, yeah. I haven't got my idioms down yet. The devil's argument, this fall on O-A-N starring Kevin's basis. You can make the case that if the right move wasn't available to them, they still have their powder in order to go and do that, right? But time is kind of ticking. I would like them to make that by the middle of the season.

That's what I said. Time's ticking. Did you? I got lost with it around the salsa. You're rubbing your temples too hard. No, look, the time is clearly ticking on this. We all agree. There's just a lot of really good teams in the East.

And the idea that the Pistons are going to roll out with a version of the same roster plus John Collins and Isaiah Joe here or there and win 60 games again, not only is not a foregone conclusion, I would say, is actively unlikely to happen. This is going to be a team that's quite good that I expect to be right there. you know, the 50s somewhere, I don't know exactly where, but they have to prove they're

better than the Knicks. They're going to have to prove that they can beat a veteran team like the Sixers now. They're going to have to prove they can beat the comebacks of Jason Tatum and Tyrese Halliburton and things they didn't really have to contend with on a regular basis all throughout last season. And so the standards are constantly rising, the expectations are rising. And if Jalen Duren goes through another playoff in which he does that again, where he is not a defensive factor where the physicality isn't really a part of his game, where he's getting beat on the glass by other good, but not exactly like super start, like the Wendell Carter juniors of the league, those red flags are going to amount to a point where you are limited in

your options as far as what you can do. And so everyone here has a lot to prove. I think the pistons have a burden of proof as far as like putting a roster together here that can feel balanced and make sense given the limitations of their very talented young core. And certainly Jaylen Duren has a lot to prove to validate really whatever contract he signs, if it is of any length, of any substantial amount. Like, he needs to prove that that all NBA, like, appearance is not a fluke, that this is something that can be sustainable, that I don't even care if he ever has, like, a corner three or whatever. I just want him to play like a big. I want him to be a roll, a rolling factor in an actual playoff series. And we have yet to see that. All right. Kyle,

we wanted to do your last one. Uh, yes, I do. This one would seem. I don't know how hot this is, but I think I know that the Spurs are going to win between 65 and 70 games this year. 65 and 70. So your take is that the team that won the West is good. I just think that they are going, I think that they're going to have a season akin to the one

that the Thunder had a couple years ago where they went nuts. I think we're on the verge because they answered a lot of questions. I think their second unit is not going to be. It was interesting, too, to revisit some of the final stuff where you would go through and be like, man, the spurs are kicking ass right now. And just the ups and the downs of their depth, the depth would just kind of like put them in a hole that they had to climb out of.

I just think that they have so, you know, adding Tobias Harris, which, you know, spring, you know, springboards off of the Pistons conversation we were having. You know, they keep Harrison Barnes around. They add Terrace Reed, still have Carter Bryant, who has. upside. I think the Dylan Harper thing is, my God, I was just, I went through, I was just for the, just for the pure fun of it as a basketball fan. I was like, I just want to watch a bunch of Dylan Harper drives from the finals. And I just was like, we did not over, we did not overreact to that at all. I was like, Jesus Christ, he was just, they had no answer for him.

I guess a big question here is just going to be, is the Fox, you know, the Fox Harper thing is going to have to find a better balance, I think. But I think this is a team that could potentially have the best record in the league this season like that. I think they could have a pretty special season. You know, as I'm just like scrolling through NBA player photos and like catching up of what they're doing the off season, kind of figure out the spurs. Spurs kind of like catch my eye every so often. I saw Wemby like looking a little bit more tone. And I was like, yeah, that's good. Love to see that he's in the gym, especially after last offseason where he didn't get to do that. That's a one positive case for Kyle's whole theory here.

The next one, all those guys show up to France. And it's not just like some of the team. It's like most of the team, including Deer and Fox. And this is really what sold it on me. So seven of his teammates, including Kelly Olinick, not even on an NBA roster showed up. Love that. Seven of his teammates show up to a gym in Nantir, French.

Definitely got that right. Which is where Wimby played ball for a while. Yeah. Yeah. So here are the names. Okay. Carter Bryant, Darren Fox, already off to a great start. Fox is involved.

Love to see that. Dylan Harper, Stefan Castle, Harrison Barnes, free agent signing Tobias Harris, new guy already in the mix. And Jordan McLaughlin. He knows how to take care of the little guys. He's like, Rob, with the interns. He knows that it's a collective effort. and I appreciate that about Webby. He just has things dialed in.

I don't know why he gave up a lot of money in order to build out the rest of his team, but sure as hell is going to help them continue to have this depth. If you want to smash on Jordan McLaughlin, that's fine. But the fact that he appreciates that 12th guy, that matters. So I'm high on the Spurs as well.

It does matter. I'm glad they all got together. Look, I'm sure it was very hard for all of them to justify taking a trip to France. That seems very tough, you know? What is not just a, typical destination. You know, you probably have to take a plane to get to France.

Say the place again. Say it one more. I don't hear it. Just once off the top. Oh, okay. You have to probably take two flights just to get to France. And then you're what, taking a bus, a subway? You're going through a lot of effort in order to get to Nantia.

I'm just telling you. Look, I appreciate anyone who crosses time zones. Certainly an ocean for the sake of basketball. Let's like, let's do it. I'm glad they all got out there. clearly this team is going to be awesome. I think the question is, like, after they have gone on a trip to the finals, do they have any more or less reason to approach,

like how does that shift how they approach the regular season, where Wemby is playing 29 minutes a game as a baseline already. Yes, you have a lot and you need to figure out. You want to get your core guys on the floor as much as possible together. You want to work Tobias Harris into the mix, but you also want to find time for Carter Bryant to expand his role. You want to find, like, is Jaden Quentin's going to be a part of this road in any meaningful way.

Like, well, any, either of their, like, I think they're rostering, like, three or four rookies. Like, well, either of those guys on two ways find their way into the rotation at any point. Like, it is such a broad democratic operation in a way in the regular season where I could see us having an OKC type of conversation by the end of the year about like, oh, look at these developmental success stories with the Spurs. But that might mean that they win 62 games as opposed to 68 games. Yeah.

I think the other thing in play here is that. they're, we as the ringer, are obligated to point this out whenever it's true, whenever it could potentially happen, and that is FU energy. I think they're going to be pissed off about that finals, even though they, the Knicks won, 4-1, and they were brilliant,

and they were the more mature team, and they executed, and they punished the spurs every single time they made a mistake. But they probably saw a lot of just, like, lost opportunity from that finals, I think. granted they're younger, so that doesn't sting as bad. But I think they're going to have a lot of FU energy. So I think Wimby MVP, I mean, I think that could be him hitting the sort of games in minutes threshold could be another question because they do have to take him slowly. But he has that

personality. And if they are a cult of personality that is driven by Wimby, he is a big FU guy. That's just kind of why I feel like I could see them having a historic season. I would be surprised if they weren't the betting odds favorite, the team that gets picked the most to be the title winner next year, that Wembe is the front runner for MVP. I also think like they're probably best insulated to withstand injuries to anyone outside of their top player. We just assume every team probably can't win the title without their best player. Like I think they could withstand a number two, number three injury in the way that even like OKC clearly couldn't. Um, they just have so much depth. And it seems like every,

Wembe can cover up for so much that as long as he's there, like, I believe they can do it. I was kind of struck by that. We talk about with the guards all the time, you know, Harper and Castle and Fox and kind of how they interchange and work together or don't. But even just looking at that front court rotation, where it's like the Devon Vassell or I guess if you include the wings,

like Devin Vassel, Carter, Bryant into, you know, now Tobias, Julian Champany, I would guess is going to come off the bench, or maybe they'll bring Tobias off the bench, who knows. And Harrison Barnes is just chilling. Harrison Barnes, who had given them some good minutes last season and still can in spots here and there. It's like, that's just a formidable, really stable group.

It's not, it clearly wasn't enough to withstand everything that the Knicks threw out them in the finals. You saw the limitations. I would think of Champany in particular in that kind of spot. But if Tobias Harris is anything resembling the guy he was for the Pistons, that's going to be such a great stabilizer for them in terms of some of their half court operations. I think what's interesting is, like, Tobias is going to be sort of ported into a situation that is going to be less demanding of him to, like, be an overly aggressive score. I think it's going to be,

I don't know, it's like stunt casting on a, on a, like, bit part on a show. It's like this guy's overqualified to be like a background character in this situation, but that might be the right thing for him at this stage. It's like, we're in this situation where the offense didn't, the scheme or whatever normal flow or methodology we have of trying to score, didn't yield a good look in this situation, to bias in these situations create for yourself. And I think that could that could sort of elevate the efficiency of what they do overall. All right. Why don't we wrap it there? Guys, great to be back. Can the, yeah, so what's the export capability of your tomato farming right now? Is this like a thing that you can ship? Is this a thing you could put on a plane or a

train? Can I come get some in some way? Are you responsible for a, cyclospora or whatever it's called. I imagine I can transport it, but I would need like one of those little dog carriers and I would have to put it underneath my seat. Yeah. And I would have to consider it my one bag allowance and I need all my stuff, you know? You do. It might be tough.

Look, for those preseason power ranking pods, we're going to need some fresh produce. That's all I'm saying. Like if I don't have a Justin barrier grown carrot or cucumber or head of lettuce, I'm just going to be a little mift about it. You're going to try to make a nice capraise salad for us? Is that what's your, is that your plan, Rob? Like with the adjusted barrier tomato? I think it pairs beautifully with a bunch of like, here's our conversation about the Milwaukee Bucks, you know?

I see. I'll do my best, but we're a month out from power ranking seasons. So I don't know what the yield will be at that point. Although I specifically trim the bottoms to create airflow so that there would be more later in the season. and it has worked out because you see those bigans, my boy. Those things are big and juicy. I do see the bounty, but like that sounds like pseudoscience, what you just said. I don't believe a single word of what you just laid out, but I'm not the expert.

Rob has no belief, any. He has no vision for us, Justin. We're just, we're visionaries. We think toothpaste can get put back into tubes. We think that airflow helps biggins and maters get juicy and squeezable. And Rob is just small-minded. It's just facts. Fact-faced person.

Yeah. All right. Thank you to Cliff on production for filling in here. Thank you to Victoria Valencia. We'll be back. I'm not sure. Probably one more time before power ranking season, but we'll talk to you then.