The Ringer NBA Show - Which Play-in Game Teams Do We Believe in Most? | Group Chat

Episode Date: April 27, 2021

Justin and Rob start by ranking the eight potential play-in game teams by who they believe will be most successful in that format (4:16). Then they are joined by Chris Herrington of The Daily Memphian to discuss the expectations of the Grizzlies for the rest of this season and moving forward (42:07). Hosts: Justin Verrier and Rob Mahoney Guest: Chris Herrington Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

David Chewaker and Kaz host the mass man show every week, breaking down everything in the world of professional wrestling. Check out the mass man show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to group chat during his weekly NBA, group discussion. I am Justin Barrier and joining me today. I'm on. What's going on? Hey, so later in the episode, we have some really good basketball stuff for you.

We talked through the playing teams. Rob and I played a little bit of a faith factor game where we tried to say which teams in the 7 to 10 range in both conferences we most believe in. And then we talked to Chris Harrington of the Daily Memphian in order to have an extended conversation about the Memphis Grizzlies. But first, so obviously we had some bad news on this podcast and just at the company in general. Jonathan Charks, as you probably have seen online or if you didn't, he unfortunately announced that he has cancer. which is, God, I thought I would make it past this intro, but I guess I didn't. Is heartbreaking for a lot of us at the company.

I think I had mentioned a few weeks back here that Charks was going to be back in a couple of weeks. At the time, we thought that was the case. His wife kind of has been blogging about this, and he tweeted out the link, so I think it's okay to talk about now, where, you know, we thought it was post-COVID symptoms. something that where he just needed a rest for a month and he would be able to get back and with us but unfortunately that wasn't the case he went back to the hospital pretty soon after that and and now you know that we don't know what type of cancer it is but yeah he has cancer and obviously it's very tough for us um i've been working with sharks for a very long time um i you know one of my favorite people in the in the world.

We wish him all the best, obviously. And, you know, it's tough. But Rob, is anything you want to say? Yeah, of course. I mean, we're feeling for charks. We're feeling for our friend. And we're thinking of his whole family, especially, as you mentioned, his wife, Melissa,

their little guy Jackson. And we're also believers in his fight and the fact that he's going to get through this. And so I would ask a favor of anyone listening. first, you know, send any thoughts, prayers, positivity, John's way. And if you'd like to, to reach out to him. You know, you can find him on Twitter at Jonathan Charks. And as Justin mentioned, if you go to his feed, you can find a journal where you can

keep up with all the latest in his treatments. You can also leave him the message there. I think that would be great right now. And John, if you're listening, you know we're pulling for you. We miss you around here. And any time you feel like getting some takes off your chest, you know, we got an open seat and an open mic for you. So we're ready for you to come back.

But in the meantime, I kind of want to leave this on two things that Shark said when he shared this news, which is, first, don't take your health for granted. And second, be kind to people because you just never know what people are going through. Yeah. Yeah. And I think one thing he said, I don't know if it was in the blogger in one of his tweets, but it was just like, you know, just tell people in your life that you love them. And like, we love you, John.

you're probably never going to listen to this podcast, which is the ironic thing. But we are rooting for you. We think about you and your family every day. And, you know, we look forward to the day where you're back, you know, trying to push us to talk about the sixth man on the Orlando Magic on this podcast. I think, you know, for the rest of the playoff run, we should urge every team to play small in John's honor. You know, I think it's only right. Indeed. All right, on that note, we're going to take a quick break here. The tone is going to shift pretty dramatically here. So, but we definitely wanted to address that up top. When we come back, Rob and I will talk through some playing teams. All right. So we're getting into the home stretch of the NBA season. I feel like I've been saying that for weeks now, but we're literally, seriously in the home stretch, just a couple of weeks here. So we're going to talk about the play in team. So we're going to talk about the eight teams that are going to be in the play

in which team specifically we believe in the most because you've got to have faith man we're calling this the faith factor do you like that name Rob I mean it could use some work but it's what we got okay I appreciate the support man we're going to talk as we mentioned

at the top Grizzlies with Chris Harrington so we're going to save that conversation to the back end of the podcast but we're going to talk about the other seven teams here well briefly though Rob for our audience, aka me, because I'm still grasping what exactly this play in format is and how it's going to go about. Can you explain what we're anticipating here in the playing tournament?

Yeah, I think the easiest way to think about it is if you're one of the teams in the seven, eight spots, the playing tournament is double elimination for you. Those two teams will play first. Whoever wins automatically goes into the playoffs. The other team will have a chance to play the winner of the ninth and tenth seed game. So, If you're seventh, eighth, your double elimination, if you're ninth and tenth, your single elimination, those are the pairings in terms of the initial games, and then the loser of the seven, eight,

will play the winner of the nine, ten, to decide the final playoff spot. Okay. I think I'm following that. But four teams, two spots. How do you feel about the play in in general? Like, are you excited to watch this? Do you think this is like a good wrinkle to be adding into the mix of the pre-playoff slash playoff experience?

Well, especially as well, especially as we've seen which teams are going to fall into it, I've become increasingly sold on the idea and I just really like the shape of what it looks like. But beyond that, it just gives interest to a lot more games that normally we would be kind of throwing off the schedule. Like last night, you and I watched the Wizards and Spurs play

in a game that if I'm being totally honest, I probably would not have watched at this point last year, if not for the ramifications of the play in tournament and needing to understand on a deeper level how these teams are going to stack up against their peers in this bracket of the conference. And so the fact that we have a reason to dial into those games, that's a net positive for the league. That's exactly what they want to be happening. Fewer teams are outright tanking.

More teams are competitive and have something to play for. And here we are talking about the wizards and the spurs of the world because those teams have something that's really on the line. Yeah. I think I saw Howard back at an article yesterday, I believe, basically saying, you know, tanking has been chilled through a certain agree. I would say that like there are some teams that are just hardcore tanking right now, like the very bottom of the league is doing everything they can in order to bottom out to the point where I don't even know the players outside of Poku that the thunder are trotting out on a daily basis. And like all of a sudden, Lou Dork goes off for 40 or whatever it was the

other night and then all of a sudden he has like a strain or an ache or something like that. And so that part of it still exists, but it has been compressed and these other teams are a bit more intriguing right now. But one thing I will say, I don't have any faith in pretty much any of the teams we're going to talk about because as I was looking at them, I'm like, I was trying to rank them.

And in the team that I ended up putting like second to last or last, I had them like first or second at one point because it's just a morass right now. Yeah, I think it's important to remember that we're grading on a curve. And as we go through these teams, it's not how will this team match up as a one versus eight against, the Jazz or the Sons or the Clippers. It's what do we think of them relative to the 7, 8, 9, 10 teams in the West?

How are they going to make it out of that group? Because the thresholds and the needs that you have to do that are totally different. Okay, let's jump into it here. We're going to follow kind of your loose ranking here, and I'll jump in and let you know how I kind of position them. Let's start with your team that you most believe in. And for just like the sake of clarification, that's like believing that they're going to make the play in first, of all and then maybe get out of the play in afterward. So who's your first team?

I think the first part of that is the most instructive. It's who can actually make it through the plan alive to get to the playoffs. And baked into that is who kind of for the rest of this regular season is positioned to even be in that spot, to maybe be in the seventh or eighth seed, to have a leg up in that. Getting to that point from my number one, I have to say, was an emotional process. It took a lot out of me. I feel like I've aged 10 years. It's deciding.

He's ranking seriously. Very, very seriously. He's a man with much ranking experience, I should mention, but it still does not alleviate him from the anguish of having to put one thing above another. Oh, it's awful. And, you know, at the end of my life, I'm going to calculate how much time I've spent ranking things over my time in media, and it's going to be a very depressing number. We're going to, after this podcast is over, have Isaiah rank us as hosts.

So I hope you're ready. God. Well, now I need to pander to Isaiah. the rest of the pod. But my number one team against all odds and logic and honestly where I thought I'd be is the Golden State Warriors.

Yeah, same, buddy. And I think what it comes down to for me is within this range, again, within this range, the Warriors are just an incredibly dangerous team. And it comes down to if you're playing against them in the play-in, you get one crack

to adequately prepare to guard Steph Curry, who's basically unlike any other player in the league, You get one try to do that and a limited time to prepare for it. I just don't really trust anyone to be able to pull that off. Yeah, I think that's the big difference between the Warriors and a lot of these other teams. Is like, do you have a bankable star in the situation that can carry you?

And I mean, that's kind of the NBA in general. So it makes sense that it would be the same thing in this more just like compressed version of the NBA. So I saw this stat yesterday on Reddit, which just a marketplace for ideas that that website is. since James Wiseman's injury, which was nine games ago, they are seven and two and have the best net rating in the NBA. So that's a long way of saying that James Wiseman is just awful, and he was holding this team. Okay.

Okay. No, but I do think, like, they have leaned into more of, if not like just like the, or like how they were organized as a team before in the glory days, but just like the spirit of that team, it's just stuff like doing shit and like pulling stuff out of his back pocket. I mean, the play the other night where he just, like, lost the ball going into the back court and then just kind of flung it up from, like, halfway between the three-point arc and the midpoint. That, to me, kind of speaks to who this team is now.

And you're starting to see that, like, trickle down to guys like Kelly Ubrae, for example, comes back from injury. I think he's played, like, three or four games, and he's just been killing it playing off the bench. I think that has been nice to see from this team. Yeah, I mean, they're just striking a much healthier balance than they were even a few weeks ago, when we were talking to the light years guys about this team and where they were. It's just it feels totally different in terms of the role that they've been on and finding things that can work for Steph and work for Dremont and work for the rest of the team at the same time. They're getting just enough contributions from, you know, the Jordan Pools of their roster,

who've become a really essential player for them. But really the proof that the play in works and is living up to what the NBA needed it to be is I had the thought in my brain that was, man, the Warriors are really peaking at the right time. And that is the 10th place team in the Western Conference. Sure. All right. Let's move on here. Who do you have in second place?

Second, I mean, number one was already tricky. Number two is even trickier because as we've been talking about, all these teams are flawed in their own delightful ways. Number two, I went with the team that just has the second best player of any of these teams, even though they're a little erratic. They've been banged up throughout the entire year. I don't know what to make of the fact that they can just randomly lose the Chicago Bulls, but it's the Miami Heat.

It's not even the Chicago Bulls, man. That was not the Chicago Bulls. That was a Nikola Vucevich, Daniel Tice, a big two experience last night. But yeah, I had the Heat third. What a mess this team is. It is like every game is a slog. Last night, probably prime example.

This is Monday night where Jimmy and Bam seem really good, but then I have no idea what to get from the rest of this team. Yeah, the offense just hasn't been there. really all year. It's kind of come in fits and starts where they'll have it for a little bit. They'll lose it because that's really all they have going offensively. The rest of it is really dependent on pretty streaky three-point shooters to hit.

They just don't have the infrastructure around those guys right now to be a really good offensive team. And some of that is because the upgrades that were supposed to be coming at the trade deadline and in the buyout deadline really haven't panned out the way that we thought they would, or at least I thought they would, and the way that they've needed, which is Victor Oladipo is not playing right. right now because of that knee injury. It looked for a hot minute like they were going to get Lamarcus Aldridge.

Instead, they get Dwayne Dedman, which is a noticeably different kind of player. And certainly all, you know, they could. That's one way of put it in it. Look, we're trying to be, we're trying to be polite to everybody on this podcast. But, you know, they really just need more support in terms of offensive structure around those guys. And that, you know, the team in the bubble had that last time around between Tyler, hero having some amazing performances, but also Goran Dragich playing at a really high level, they're just not getting, they're not getting that kind of contribution right now.

Yeah, what happened to your boy, Bialita? Man, you're very excited about him. You know, not all dreams are meant to come true. You could just see him last night just looking his chops as he was watching Tice and Vucevic just go to work. Like, it's like the bulls have somehow accumulated with Lori Markinen too, like every foreign stretch big man with like passing vision and whatnot. But Bialitsa is just over there.

Like, I wish, man. I wish. Look, Namanya Bializa, playing or not playing, playing well or not playing well, is not the problem with the Miami heat. Yeah.

I mean, in the defense for the heat, like, they're still without a bunch of guys. Iguodala wasn't there last night. Tyler Hero wasn't there. Kendrick Nunn. And so,

like, there was expected after they got through that rough patch of just like COVID absences that there would be this cavalry, to your point, not only at the trade deadline, but just like, getting their guys back, just having the team that was in the bubble last year,

but they really haven't had it ever where there's just like these fits and starts and they can never really, you know, account for that. And unfortunately, this is a team that's kind of light on shooting in general, especially if you're going to play with Jimmy and Bam is like your two pillars there. And it's just like they just don't have any of that in reserve. And so you're counting on guys like Max struss to be out there, you know, to provide some stretch like Kasiakala is getting minutes yet again. You know, Duncan Robinson is still out there a bit, but like Trevor Areezer, you're kind of counting on him to hit some shot.

So as a result, it's been, as we mentioned, just kind of like a mud fight for a lot of these games. That's Max Struz. Put some respect on his name. Max Struz. Max Strus. Yeah, we'll get you there eventually. But all of these are reasons why they're not number one, right? Why they're not at the top of our ranking.

I think the reason they're number two is you don't want to. underestimate the ferocity of this team in a postseason or postseason adjacent if we're talking about play in tournament setting. You don't want to underestimate Eric Spalster as a coach who can in game adjust the hell out of you, take away whatever it is you want to do and the

preparation of his staff in general. And Jimmy has been unbelievable again this season. He's been so good. He will be most likely be the best player in any play in game they play. And Bam might be the second best player in some of those games. So the fact that you're starting from that place, I think

puts you in a position of strength relative to some of these other teams. But right now, like, they're a cold night from Duncan Robinson away from losing to anyone. And so I think they probably benefit, especially where they are in the standings right now, trailing the Celtics just a little bit. They would really benefit if they can just nudge up into that sixth seed and not have to worry about any of this. Because they're a team that's better suited for seven games. Let's try to figure it out than they are one game we really need to win.

And we have to pray that our shooters can hit shots. Yep. All right. Let's move on to your next team here. Who do you have at number three? So number three is going to be a quick one because we're going to dive into it later, but it's the Memphis Grizzlies. It's a team who, you know, if we're looking at offenses and defenses across all of these teams, I trust the Grizzlies defense more than any of the teams below them, offense on one side of the ball or the other. I just trust what they do. I trust their execution. You know, they've done an unbelievable job taking a young team and making it a reliable winning one, which we'll get into a lot later. But, you know, I think for now we can shuffle on a number four if that's cool with you. Yeah, no, I had the Grizzlies too.

And I think that speaks to, I think, the other part of this. Like if stars are maybe like a deciding factor for us, the other part of this is injuries. And the Grizzlies are getting healthy at the right time. They have Jaron Jackson coming back. And while there are still guys coming in and out of the lineup, you know, having those two guys, him and John Moran is a pretty big advantage. So we'll talk about that more with Chris later. Who do you have at four? Number four, I ended up going with the Spurs.

You know, I think in some cases, again, against my better judgment, with a lot of these teams, you're kind of talking yourself in and out of them all the time. But the Spurs have just been so reliably solid, as you would expect of that franchise. And they're also a team that you don't have to judge by its first five in the way that their bench can win them games, especially relative to some of these other kind of borderline bubble type Western Conference teams. you know, they can start Lucas Sominich and Drew Eubanks and just wall up on the suns. Like, how many, how many teams could we really say that of these eight, even if we want to branch out to both conferences? I think they just have it in terms of reliable execution on both sides. And maybe most important, DeMar de Rosen is a different player and a different level of terror in a play-in context versus a playoff context, right? He's a different, he's a different dude.

you know, we can talk about how teams can pick them apart over seven games, and there's certainly a lot of precedent of that, especially high-level teams. But if we're talking about, again, one night where to Mark can get to his spots and shoot over you, which he can do for a lot of his matchups, I like his odds in a lot of those situations. Yeah, I mean, he did it last night against the Wizards. Like, I think that was a pretty instructive game for both teams where, like, down the stretch, there was a lot of Russell Westbrook pounding the ball, you know, waiting for Alex Lenn to set a screen for Bradley Beal and like trying to make something happen.

Whereas most of the Spurs offense was, you know, DeRosen backing someone down, pull up jumper, you know, in the paint with that just soft touch. She didn't get the one on Russell Westbrook at the buzzer. But, you know, that's a huge advantage for this team. Otherwise, like, I don't know what to make of the Spurs. Like, they seem to just be a very static team, like story-wise where it's just like, oh, yeah, you know, Pertil is a good positional defender.

like DeJante Murray making progress some games and looks pretty good. I don't have like any burning takes on San Antonio these days. Well, again, to the point of grading on a curve, I think for a lot of the teams in this range, they just have a pretty substantial execution advantage. Like we were talking about that Wizards game. Not only did they just run through DeMar down the stretch and get some huge defensive plays from DeJante Murray and stuff,

they just ran the same like little weave action to set up Patty Mills for a three like five times in a, a row and dared the wizards to be able to stop it. And those are the levels of defense that we're talking about with this range, right? It's, you know, kind of iffy. Maybe there's a couple of defenders on the floor you can exploit. I think the spurs are well positioned to take advantage of those teams. One question is, is Derek White going to be healthy?

You know, he's kind of been stuck in the injury spiral and suffered a pretty nasty ankle injury. It didn't look like he could really put any weight on it. So what his long-term situation is going to be, we'll have to wait and see. but if any team can kind of survive, you know, the absences of one guy or another, historically speaking, it's been the Spurs. All right. So you had the Spurs four, right? Correct. Okay.

Right. All right. So let's go with your number five team on your list. Well, the flip side of all this injury talk that we've been going through with these teams with pretty much every team in the playoffs is the hope springing eternal for my number five team, the Charlotte Hornets. who may actually get La Mello ball back, who may soon get Malik Monk back, who may eventually get Gordon Hayward back. That's a team that I kind of believe in.

And I think that, you know, not having your stars in a lot of ways means your offense basically lives in extremes. You know, you're going to have days where just nothing works and you're going to have days where guys are hitting shots and you look great like they did against the Celtics.

James Barago, I think, has really tried his best to hold that thing together and done a pretty effective job. given what they have to work with. Part of the problem is, you know, their two main centers really only work if you have a lot of playmaking around them. If you have these, you know, Hayward and Ball

and all these guys kind of clicking and operating, but they found that otherwise you maybe can't play both Cody Zeller and Bismack Bianbo all the time. They've really had to cinch up that rotation. And I think they finally found something that they works pretty well, which is we're just going to play eight guys for now. You know, these games are really important.

We're going to play a playoff rotation. And that's been kind of working for them. Yeah, so I had the Hornets above the Spurs, but I'm basically following your ranking here. Okay. I, yeah, I want to believe in them. They're such a fun team. And games like the one against the Celtics on Sunday happen, you're like, I love this team. I just want everything to do with them.

I want good things to happen for these guys. Unfortunately, like, you forget a couple games ago where they, like, failed to score 100 points against both like the Lakers and the calves. But, you know, the cavalry does seem to be. coming. We got the report about ball coming back. Everyone seems to be waiting patiently from Malik Monk as if he was like Prime Kobe, but, you know, he'll be there. Hayward one is a little bit trickier. So they said four weeks. It's been about three. And so you would expect him maybe next week to pop up. But that was the type of thing where it's like, well, maybe four weeks. And

knowing Gordon Hayward, like, I wouldn't hold my breath. They've been kind of slow playing that too in the media in terms of their press conferences and stuff about expectations of when he might come back which makes me think there's still some stuff to work out there but I think what the Hornets have working in their favor is they just work differently than other teams they're just such a unique yeah lots of different dudes on this podcast and collections of different dudes

but it takes a different sort of discipline to guard a team that gets so much of their offense off the pass versus the dribble and like I mean the Celtics are case in point for that 39 assists on 47 field goals for the Hornets in that game. That's crazy. And that's a different kind of strategy. It's a different kind of preparation. You really have to gear up yourself in a different way to guard that kind of action.

And one point that Kevin Pelton brought up too is I had been kind of expecting personally that their zone would be a problem. Their zone defense would be a problem in the playoffs because teams would figure them out. But for a play-in format where you only get, again, to our kind of parallel to our Steph Curry conversation, and you get one crack at solving it, I'm not so sure it's not an advantage there. What does Kevin Pelton know, though? That's true.

To quote Jason Richardson, who the hell is Kevin Pelton, you know? Did that happen? Oh, yeah. We'll have to consult KP on what he wrote. I feel like it was maybe something about how Jay Rich was in decline at that point and like kind of on the back end of his career. I can't remember what the exact article was,

but definitely not pleased with Kevin Pelton on that day. Have you been ever called out by a player or a coach publicly? Justin, I spend a lot of my career making top 100 rankings of players. I'm going to let you imagine what some of the responses to that were. Well, I mean, as we've chronicled in past episodes, they once was told by Alvin Gentry that the question I asked was the stupidest he's ever heard. There's video of it out there if anyone wants to check it out. It's a real, it's a real, like, murder scene.

I think we might have to resurrect it as a, you know, a stinger. We can just drop into this pod whenever you present an awful hypothetical or something. I can just tell Isaiah, tell Kerm to run the clip, and we can just get Alvin kind of shooting you down so we don't have to. Yeah, that's what this podcast needs. More, more bumpers, more sound effects. All right. So going on to number six. And our faith factor rankings, tin, tin, tin.

That's the music. All right. Who do you have sixth? Just to clarify, you just said we don't need more sound effects and then you just started making your own sound effects. I could do that if you'd want. I mean, I'd really rather you not. But my number six, I mean, it's a team I'm having a hard time

talking myself into right now, and that's the Portland Trailblazers. I kind of want to put them lower, but I think the teams that are below them have good reason to be there. And a lot of it has to do with the fact that Dame just doesn't, look right now. Since he's come back from hamstring injury, knee injury,

there's just a lot that's ailing him. And I wish judging the team were more complicated than that and we could dive into oh, Rob Covington is shooting so much better and has really picked up

or Norm Powell's fit and how all that interlocks and stuff like that. But this is a team that goes as Dame goes because overall, Portland is a negative net rating team. Their performance says

they should have lost three more games than they have. The only reason they haven't is because they blow everyone out of the water in dame time. And so if you don't have that, if you don't have this crunch time equalizer that's going to make you a winning team out of having an awful defense and cobbling together all these parts, where are you really left? And that's kind of where we are right now with dame, not being at 100%. Yep. So they've lost five straight

coming into Tuesday. They're three and ten over their last 13. And I think it just speaks to a bigger issue with this organization where it seems like they keep budding their head against a ceiling in part because they keep hitting the same problem on the defense event. They're now the 29th ranked defense in the NBA this season. And that is concerning just in general because this seems to be a running trend with them, but also because they made a pretty big trade for Robert Covington in order to maybe solve or attempt to solve this issue. They gave up, I believe it was two first round picks for that.

So it's not like they aren't trying to go out there. and make some high level additions in order to help Dame out. But they just keep coming to the same problem. Then you have to start wondering. Like, I think it's fair to start wondering whether or not this is an issue just with the core. Like with the way this team is built, Core D right down to Dame and CJ and everything and whether or not they could ever get over this. Yeah.

And a lot of that conversation comes back to the fact that they haven't had use of Nurkich for at least the start of the season. at that time where these really formative games and training camp, and that's when defenses start to come together a lot of times is at the beginning of the season. It takes time to figure out your rotations and stuff like that. But on some level, you've got to be able to overcome these issues, these injuries, these limitations, this guy's out for a week, that guy's out for a month.

That's what the regular season is about. And I think the problem with the way the Blazers are constructed is they don't have an ability to move guys around positions, to adjust this slide. this guy over here, move this guy in there in a way that their defense could prop up. And so even if they are effective with use of Nurkich on the floor, which they've definitely been better, how are you going to survive the games where he's in foul trouble? Or the matchup doesn't work for him.

Or your style of defense is victimized by whatever it is the opposing team is doing. There's just not a lot of give there in a way that you would want for a team with one of the most exciting and electric guards we have in the league at the top of the roster. Yeah. And the Norm Powell trade in retrospect seems kind of like a move of desperation where they probably realized that they were going to have to win games with offense. And so they brought in another dynamic guard in order to fill out that back court with CJ and Dame. It's been okay. But now they're in this weird situation where they gave up Gary Trent Jr., who will be a restricted free agent this summer.

So maybe he'll get paid way too much. Maybe they saw that coming. Maybe there's something they knew about early negotiations there where they wanted to get away from it. But like Norm Powell is not going to be cheap. you'd expect him to make more than Gary Trent Jr. So they almost compounded their issues. So they didn't get much in the immediate and long term. If they really want to make the best out of that scenario,

like they're probably going to pay a pretty penny, which is what, you know, this has been the story for the Blazers over the past couple of years. They've been willing to like go into the tax to pay to keep their own guys, but just hasn't really resulted in anything substantial. And I think it begs to a much bigger question about, you know, how to build around stars in this era. I think Dame in particular has been held up by a lot of people as the guy that stayed put,

the guy who wanted to win it with the team that drafted him. He is very much a unique player considering just the constellation of stars is constantly rotating and moving these days. But, you know, if you're looking at just like the bottom line, like Anthony Davis just won a title by forcing his way out of a situation, Damien Lillard is now yet again playing for the play. And I think that's important. And I wonder if it ultimately is going to start to bite the blitz.

is pretty soon here. It's important, but the beauty of this stuff is every guy getting to decide what they play for, right? Like, AD has his title. He's in a great position in L.A. Dame is going to go down as the greatest blazer to ever live. You know, like, given his time there, given how good he's been, and they've already had some great playoff runs, you know, been to the Western Conference finals, made some

deep pushes, beat some teams, no one thought they could beat. And, you know, who knows what the future is going to hold for him there. But I think there is something to the value. of setting roots in a place and building a relationship with a fan base and a franchise and all that. It just depends on what you want and that's what he wants.

Yeah, there will be multiple food trucks made in his honor. Can you imagine the novelty, you know, the Lillard novelty sandwich? I don't know what's going to be on it at these food trucks, but it sounds like,

I'm trying to think, maybe like a grilled cheese with a lot of accoutreement, something like that. Something made very quickly, right? Dame time, waning seconds. Now that does that not work? I guess.

Maybe it's the kind of food you throw 24 seconds up on the clock and they have to scramble together whatever dish, you know, to have it prepared in the time. I think we got a concept here. I think we have something to work for, you know, if you're a restaurateur, get at us. Right, right. We're just like we're auditioning for Top Chef is basically what we're doing, which is actually in Portland this year. So this is just perfect synergy. Somehow I think we'd be neither good at the cooking nor the drama of Top Chef. if we would fail on both counts.

Great. Yeah, nobody wants to see my life and how I'm handling, like, those situations. All right, final two here. I have an idea of who you're going to go with. I had the Blazers where you ranked them, too, by the way, at sixth. Yeah.

Who do you have a seven? I have the Washington Wizards at seventh. Same. You know, they really had to climb to get there. They're, you know, really coming from the bottom of the mountain, especially in terms of their defense. But they're there. This is a team that has really leveled itself out over the course of the season.

And I think a testament to the way they've been able to stabilize the rotation, especially in the front court with some pretty modest additions to their roster, guys who were cast off other teams. They've really been able to cobble something together since Thomas Bryant's injury. And that's a credit to them. And especially, you know, Russell Westbrook getting healthy, I think, has helped them out a lot and just looking a little bit more explosive. But they've really managed the season.

well there. Yeah, I know. Like, you look out there every night and there's a new center that I've never heard of before. Like Justin Gafford is there. Gil was getting some minutes. Alex Lenn was starting last night. And I think that is honestly a credit to Westbrook being able to kind of make do with whoever is setting screens for him.

I think he's had a little bit of resurgence here. And I think, like, in a way, he's kind of the poster child for poster boy, poster child, poster boy, right? Both. I mean, it could be. I could see it. Okay. He's both of them.

For the play and exercise, so Tyler Parker does these tank diaries for us every Friday, just about his OKC fandom and like what it's like as the team kind of plays to the stretch here. And he had this one section on Russell Westbrook in which he had a stat where whenever Westbrook had triple doubles, like the team had a very high win percentage. And, I mean, there's a lot at play there. I don't want to get too far into it.

But I do think it speaks to how Russell is probably at his best elevating a team who's on the fringes just ahead, right? He is the king of being able to build an identity with a team in order and like organize them in a way that makes them just slightly better and makes them relevant, which I think is a skill and an important thing in the NBA where people are more often just fighting for eyeballs and attention. and like, you know, to be frank, like the bottom line for trying to make money. And he does that for a team. But I think the problem with him is always like the step farther, right? Sure. You talk about him in the MVP discussion. When you talk about him, like, can he lift a team in order to win a championship,

yada, yada, yada. But right now, like, he's doing some good stuff and the wizards are okay. I think that I've come to an acceptance. I've gone through the stages of grief where it's like I was mad and now I accept this. Well, he gives you a way of being, right, that a lot of teams in this range might not have, especially if they're injured, especially if they're dinged up,

especially if they had to trade away players who are important to their team, what have you. You know, coming off the conversation about their centers who, you know, apparently Daniel Gafford is so anonymous, you don't even know his name is Daniel Gafford.

I call him Justin Gaffer. Yeah. Just my creator player. Yeah. Everyone is adjusting to you. But, you know, one thing I've been thinking about is Alex Lenz,

specifically, who's coming to give them good minutes, but was just not useful in Toronto, another team that really needed center minutes. And so I've been trying to figure out what is it that's different about these two situations that led him to be successful here, but not there. I mean, my working theory is just that his role has been streamlined and simplified in a way that just makes him a more helpful player. And Russell Westbrook is a big part of that, as is Bradley Beal. Like having those two guys to take up oxygen, to sop up usage, to be the moving gears of your offense, changes what you need from the surrounding role players and lets them slide into more comfortable spots sometimes in a way that Toronto just moves the ball in such a different way

and is balanced in a much different way that those asks of him didn't quite work out. So, you know, anyone out there who has theories as to why Alex Lenn is suddenly reborn in Washington, I'd be eager to hear them, but that's kind of what I've been operating from. And I think a lot of that is a testament to Russ. And what he gives you, even on the nights where he isn't quite working, you know what kind of team you are when Russell Westbrook has the ball. Yeah. Fred Katz, friend of the podcast, wrote on The Athletic just about how Robin Lopez has kind of been reborn as this hook shot maestro, basically just doing like one thing, right? And I think that speaks to a lot of what you ask for players around Russell Westbrook is just like, do this one thing well and he will do everything else.

Because if you try to tell him to not do everything else, he's not going to do it and it's not going to work. But if he does everything, you will have some success. I mean, Robin Lopez, master of hook shots, lover of beats, the runaway MVP of our room service feature we ran earlier this season where he, you know, detailed his agonizing, ongoing battle with staring down to Snickers across his hotel room. It was a really touching story. It really hit me where I live. Sure. And we should probably mention Bradley Bealheel here. Oh, sure.

Yeah. That guy. Yeah. Who just passed F. Curry in the scoring title race here. He currently has 31.38 points per game, where his staff has just a measly 31.26. So that helps when you can get a guy getting 31 a night. I mean, if nothing else, this period of time in which Beal has been playing with a team that is just completely outmatched in a lot of nights, I feel like has done wonders for him as a finisher. Because he goes to the rim now, he's met by three guys and somehow is getting great looks off the glass, great touch, great

balance. He's kind of entering into, he doesn't have the handle of Kyrie Irving, but in terms of the variety of angles he can finish with is getting into that space. I mean, Beal is unbelievable. He was the only player of these teams that made me really think about, you know, as I was talking about, Steph is the best player in the plan. Jimmy Butler was my number two. Beal was really the only player to me who could really challenge where Butler is right now in a potential like winner take all one game situation. I want no part of having to guard Brad Biel. Yeah, I think it speaks to the limited expectations

that we've thrust upon the wizards considering recent history with them, that they have Bradley Biel, one of the best players in the world today, potentially an all-MBA guard this season. They have Russell Westbrook, who's playing reasonably well, looks reasonably healthy these days,

and yet we have them second to last amongst the playing guys. And that is like an exciting, hopeful thing for the wizards. This is a nice story for the wizards, but I'm sure if we apply that to any of these other teams on the list, we'd be like, wow, what a train wreck.

Set expectations low, overachieve. Good lesson for everybody. You know, manage expectations at every turn. Story of my career, certainly. Definitely this podcast. All right, last team, the Indiana Pacers.

Can you name the five players who started for the Indiana Pacers in their most recent game? it's gotten really bleak when you get into the O'Shea Bresettes of the world. You know, like, it's,

we knew it was going to be tough for them with Miles Turner's injury. They were already without T.J. Warren for the rest of the season, but to have Sabonis out at the same time, it just guts the team. And I think what worries me about Sabonis's injury is the specific injury

he has, which is a back injury. That is not something that goes away, especially when you're a high usage, every play, dribble handoff, post-up, like you need to be involved in moving every possession. I really hope, you know, DeMontas is able to get as healthy as he possibly can

and back in the lineup and working for them. But when he's your best player without these other two really vital pieces already from your rotation, it's just asking a lot. And this is a team that wasn't, this is a team that wasn't very good even in the best case versions of its games. Yeah. So to answer my own question, it was O'Shea Berset, Jekar Samson, Edmund Sumner,

and then Liver in Malcolm Brogden. Brogden, who's somehow become the paragon of just health and lack of injuries for this team. But one question I had

is how does Aaron Holiday not breaking into the starting lineup or playing at all for this team because it just seems like they've completely wiped him off the map. Oh, you've really stepped in in my friend. Oh, no. Aaron Holiday is,

I mean, he's had such a bummer of a season. I think the Aaron Holiday in theory is exactly the player you just described is a player you want to plug into that starting lineup especially now of all times where you need a little more explosion somebody can get you going downhill to the rim and give you a scoring punch

he's been underwhelming bordering on bad in a lot of games and the only reason it hasn't been a bigger issue for them is they have so many other issues and the fact that T.J. McConnell has been kind of awesome within the role that they need him to play but it's been really

painful to see what happens to holiday because I think this is the kind of season that alters the trajectory of his career a little bit. There is kind of an expectation he would grow into being, if nothing else, like a really good six-seventh-man bench scorer type. That player does not seem to be there right now.

So many holidays and yet none of them are in the starting lineup for the Pacers. It's definitely getting bleak and that's probably why we have them last on this list. I just, I don't know how they get the bodies back in time in order to really make any noise here in the plan. Yeah, I mean, the defense is managing right now, but I'm just, I'm too worried about their scoring, especially in a winner go home format when you're looking at a mash unit version of the Pacers.

I just don't think they're going to have it. Yeah. All right. That is it for Faith Factor, but we are going to continue this conversation about the play in with Chris Harrington. We're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, you'll hear that interview. All right. Joining us now, a Memphis legend, I would say, from the Daily Memphian. Chris Harrington. What is up, friend?

Things are going well here in Memphis. It is a sunny spring day, and my dog is currently not barking, and my kids are both at school, which is not the case every day of the week. And so we're golden right now. Yeah. I think Rob and I both know that life. My dog will probably at some point interject into this recording, so it's only a matter of time. I think all we can hope for is a chorus, that we're getting a little call and response going here between the three dogs. Mine's a hound, so he could do the baritone. I guess. I think that's how that works. I've also got a hound behind me. I've got a little gyppy dog upstairs on my daughter's dream, but we won't hear from her. Okay. Okay.

So Memphis Grizzlies, all of a sudden, very interesting here. Let's start here. It's been a weird season. Like, I think there were expectations at first, and then the injuries set in. Where are you on the season just as a whole? And maybe, like, what would in your mind be a successful season from this point forward? I think, you know, last year they made, they exceeded expectations in the regular season last year, doing so again this year. It's like, just like old times again, exceeding preseason expectations, different style, same sort of outcome.

Last year, they made it to the play-in and they lost, and they lost a tight game for the play-in. So I think a repeat of that from a distance might still be a good outcome for this really young team who was the consensus projection was to miss the play-in. If you go back and look at the preseason overrun, They were consensus 11th in the West. So that was missing the play-in. And so making the play-in and losing and not making it to the final eight from a distance would still be a good season for this team. I don't think it would change their ultimate trajectory.

But I do think it would be a disappointment. I look at it now, and I think they are one of the eight best teams in the Western Conference. I think they've gotten themselves to that point. I think if you look at the fundamentals, I haven't looked at the numbers since last night. I mean, they lost that, they had that schedule loss in Denver, which I'm sure sort of wrecked a lot of their numbers. but you look at the fundamentals, like, they've been better on the course of the season, I think, than a little bit better than Portland and San Antonio and Golden State. To me, there may be a little bit closer to Dallas.

You look at the depth top to bottom, you know, positive point differential in the season. You look at the way they played post-all-star break. I, you know, I did not predict them to be this good before the season started, but I think they're one of the best teams in the West. And I think if they fall short of actually being one of the eight teams in the playoffs, that'd be some level of disappointment. Yeah, I think the expectations here are an interesting metric for calibration

because when we were going into the bubble last year, I was talking to people in the league for a bunch of stories, and I think there was a consensus that the Grizzlies, at that time, you know, the suns were surging, the Pelicans were this exciting team who everyone expected to get even better this season. I think a lot of people peg the Grizzlies as a regression candidate as a team that was going to fall out of that mix

just by the sheer number. of good teams in the West. But they've dug in and become, like, in my opinion, one of the great spoiler stories that we have in terms of all these glitzier teams. You know, everyone's talking about Steph Curry. And here we have the Grizzlies who are just consistently night in a night out, putting in solid basketball, beating the teams they're supposed to beat, figuring out how to be a really high-level defense.

Like, what they've been able to do this season, in spite of everything going around to them in the conference, I feel like is really impressive. Well, I think so much of the story of this team has been depth. The game against Denver, you know, the schedule loss at end of that road trip was actually the first game all season where they had an empty injury report before the game. That's the first game all season. The first game all season, everyone's been available. But even with one or more projected rotation players out all season, the strength has really been their depth.

And I think it's been. And when I went through the ceremonial process of talking yourself into the home team on the eve of the season, like after I'd made, I'd done like the. Nate Duncan podcasts or whatever, and I predicted, you know, 31, 31 wins or something not very good. And then I started talking myself into it after that. And I do think, in retrospect, the reason I talked myself into them has been sort of the story and its depth and competence and sort of a general sense of purpose. And the way those things can carry you across a long regular season, especially one as weird and compressed as this, they've got maybe 12 or 13, like legitimate at rotation caliber players on that roster.

When you look at, you know, you look at lineups now with everyone healthy. We're like, Ty's Jones, just not playing. And Xavier Tillman, who's been great this season is not playing. John Conchar, who like shouldn't be more than the 13th man,

but like is a pretty good 13th man. It's just not playing. A guy like Anthony Mountain, I mean, he's playing like 20 minutes a game this season, even though he's the best net rating on the team. And, and they have guys who are just so solid.

Like, Yodas Nautis, maybe one of the most consistently good, non-all-star players in the league this year in terms of just reliably good every single night. And so they have great depth. I think they're well coached. They play well together, like the pieces fit together. And then, like, you've got these two guys in John Morant and Jaron and Jaron and Jaron who give them sort of a ceiling that they haven't quite hit yet.

And Jah, I think this month is hitting at maybe, like, he hasn't had a great second season relative to his first season. It's been a little bit of a consolidation year probably for Jah. but this last month, he's sure to showing signs that maybe he's going to, he's going to step it up a little bit down the stretch. And now, and then Jaron just got back.

Right. I do want to talk about Jha just a little bit here because I love these just like rookies that kind of just take off and they instantly become the guys that you know you could build a franchise around because then you get to see how different teams approach that idea, right? Especially in small markets, I think it's interesting because there are so many disadvantages.

And so you get to see like how a team works the fringes, what type of pieces go well with this guy. And so in a lot of ways, this is kind of like a case study in that. And so I wonder, like, when Jod took off last year, was there any, like, conscious effort to surround him with a certain type of players? You look at the roster, there's, like, a lot of big defenders and versatile players. Was that, like, a conscious decision? Or do you think this is just, like, good drafting?

They just win every pick, and this is just who they have. Well, I mean, they had Jaron already in place. And so they had, who is, you know, that's who, that's sort of who you'd want with Jai, right? Like this stretch big. It's sort of, they have this invert, invert the floor situation where their point guard is the guy who attacks the rim. Their biggest guy who stretches the floor and it sort of fits. And so they were lucky where that piece was already in place. I think, you know, I think there's some things they did, you know, I think investing in keeping

in keeping Valenciunis, who I think has been good to sort of usher Jha Morant like into the NBA, good to sort of picking, a guy who said solid picks. and a guy defensive sort of have to stick with. I think he has helped Jha, and I think investing in him is probably along those lines. I think they went out and invested a three-year contract at a pretty high level for backup point guard and Tyos Jones to sort of give Jha a caddy

and maybe more of one than he's ended up needing. I think a lot of the rest that they've done has just been your basic front office talent accumulation, and they've been good at finding value, like, you know, finding good players, right? whether it's late in the first round of Brandon Clark, late in the first round in Desmond Bain, second round in Xavier Tillman. I think they have things they like in players generally.

I don't think it's specific to how they fit with Jha. I just think they have their idea of the players they like, and they've done a good job of identifying talent, you know, in the kind of players they want and what they value in players generally. I love the way those two conversations intersect, too, in terms of Jha as this central figure of the organization, if not the central figure of the organization and all of this depth that has been accumulated that really buys him time to develop,

to find his game. Over the course of the season, we've touched on that Jaws been exploding lately, and that's absolutely the case. He's playing some of his best basketball over these last couple weeks. But going into that, one of my favorite things about the Grizzlies

was you could look on a night-to-night basis and so often it was other guys leading the team in scoring. It was Valanchunis having big nights. It was Dylan Brooks popping off here and there. is Grace and Allen, you know, making a bunch of threes. All of those performances strung together, they help a player like Morant to relieve some of that pressure that we see on guys like Zion on other young players

where the conversation around the team can change very quickly if you're the young guy who's not quite putting it together on some random night in the middle of the regular season and your team is losing. And the Grizzlies relieve some of that through this depth because they just win a lot more games than teams of their age bracket probably should. Well, I mean, one of the conversations locally of late. Maybe this has changed the last few days since he's really taken off.

But one of the conversations locally has been that there's been an inverse relationship between Jaws scoring and team success this season. Interesting. And I think people have confused sort of the, you know, the cause effect relationship in that. I think there are a lot of games where he starts to exert himself more offensively because it's not other things are working. And it's like nobody else has got it. So I'm just going to try to score. I don't think that is his, that's not the way he approaches the game generally. I think for all of the Russell Westbrook comps and the Iverson comps, and the kind of comps that Derek Rose comps, the comps he got because of his athleticism,

he is more, he's a little bit more of a pure point guard. To me, he's always been sort of that sort of attack the rim athlete crossed with more of a Chris Paul kind of mentality. Obviously nowhere close to the defender that Paul is or the mid-range shooter. But I think his sense of presence and sense of, his personal sense that I am a point guard first. That is the way, that is, that has been his mentality coming into the league. And I think that's the way he generally approaches the team. And I don't think he's a guy who's, you know, I don't think this guy is ever going to average 30 points a game in the NBA.

I don't know if he's ever going to average 25. I think he, I don't think that's the way he really wants to play for the most part. And so I think he is pretty content being the leading man in a very large ensemble and not being the guy who feels like. like I have to go out and get 25 to 30 points every night. They don't ask that of him, but I don't think that's necessarily what he wants either. Is that been the biggest transition for him

or maybe even your just like idea of him, is that he's fallen more into that role than perhaps something we thought of he might be in his first year when he was just like dunking over everybody and making these exhilarating plays and maybe shooting a bit over his head at the time? I mean, I think when I first sort of watched him play, I mean, I think the first thing that jumped out was just the speed,

just the quickness. And there was an electricity. When I first saw him in person, it was a little shocking, just because Mike Connolly was very quick. And I watched Mike Connolly for 10 years. There was a different level of sort of almost lightning quickness or a shot. There's more of a shock factor in watching Jha the first time after having gotten used to watching Connolly. It was a little bit more explosive in the quickness. But I think after that it was vision.

It was, it was his passing vision and his interest in being that. And from a Memphis perspective, it almost brought more Jay Will like comparisons than my Connolly comparisons. And so, I mean, I think I always sort of saw him as more of a past first playmaker kind of player than a pure score kind of player, I think, from the beginning. Yeah, in terms of that, you know, I think the past first part of that is kind of his approach. That's his philosophy, his mentality. When you watch him, what do you see in terms of the way he reads the game? Because I think that's what makes him so special as he attempts plays other people don't make. He just is operating at a different

frequency than even some of the NBA's other incredible athletes or incredible point guards. I can't quite put my finger on on what it is that he's doing differently, but there's something very tangible about it. I actually think he tends to play better when he plays a little looser. And there are moments where that gets a little too loose. There was a game recently. I can't remember which one it was. It's one of these late losses they had recently where he had a, maybe he was against Denver,

where he had a really bad, like, double dribble turnover, like in the last minute of a game and just, like, tried to go Rucker Park a little bit, and it blew up on him. But I think for the most part, he actually plays better when he pushes the envelope a little bit and plays with a little more nerviness. I think when he's trying to find the extra gear in transition and just run past guys even after made baskets, when you see him like really whipping out like some of these passes, I think playing with that kind of energy actually elevates him and elevates the team. And it's hard to do that. You don't do that for 48 minutes, you know, for 72 games or whatever. But I actually think he's at his best when he plays with that.

I saw the same thing with Marcus Hall. Like he was at his best. With Marcus Hall, it would be anger. Like, he played best when he was angry. With Jha, I think he plays best when he sort of, when he plays with that level of sort of chippiness or edge. And he's a guy who, who tends to go and go out and look for motivation. Like he has that, that like, I'm going to invent, like, enemies to go attack. He sort of has a little bit of that to his personality anyway.

But I don't know. I think he is this combination of being able to play sort of a pure point. or in style, but play with like a real edge to his game that I think is unique. I think there are other flaws to his game that or works in progress that limit, you know, that in terms of his shooting and his defense. But I think just as a, as a guy with the ball, as a playmaker, as sort of the guy with the hands on the wheel, I think he's at his best when he's when he's got it full throttle for the most part.

Justin, you also invent enemies to go at, right? Oh, totally. I don't even need to invent them, actually. They're just existing. No, but Jha had a play, even last night, where he can go from zero to a hundred so quickly. And he had that one play where he went behind his back and then contorted his body at the rim to get around,

I think it was Michael Porter Jr., where his hands were almost at the same level as his feet. So he looked like a clam in mid-air. And I'm just like, it's incredible. Like the words I used to often describe him, are same as you, Chris, where it's like explosive. or just electric. Like I feel like I'm talking about an NFL running back, like, draft prospect.

It's like one of the more exhilarating just, just like entertainment value. Yeah, go ahead. Everything has to be about superheroes and comic book characters now. It's almost like, it's almost like, and I may be mixing Marvel, D.C., I can't remember. But it's almost like a little bit of flash and a little bit of plastic man, because there's like an elasticity to his game. And there's still, there's still a lightness in good ways and bad. There's like a lightness to a sort of slight a build.

And sometimes it seems like he's sort of floating around the floor. Like, Jaron's like to say he gets knocked around a lot. But he, there's an elasticity to his movement. And maybe that's helped him on some of his landings, which I think people, people worry about. But there's a, there's an elasticity to his movement that I think in combination with the quickness and the speed and the explosiveness is kind of, you know, it's kind of unusual. Yeah. Well, I mean, so Great and Grine obviously was one of the most like identifiable teams and errors in recent basketball history. It was definitely a true feat of branding, not to say enough about just the team success and what they put together.

So where is like maybe locally everybody on the Grizzlies these days? Is there like an excitement, Aranja? I know it's probably tough considering everybody's in their homes these day. But do you feel like people are getting behind John, this like young, scrappy, exciting team? I do. But to your point, it's sort of hard to gauge this season because, I mean, I think the Grizzies probably have more fans in the arena than most. teams around the country, but it's still like 2,000 people in like an 18,000 person arena, right? And so you just don't have that atmosphere anymore.

I think the test is going to be going into, to me, going into next season, and they were always set up for that to be sort of the moment where, okay, now it's real in terms of expectation. I mean, they may make the playoffs this season, but they weren't, there weren't playoff expectations this season. I think next season was always going to be the first year, the John Morant era, where you begin the season with playoff expectations. You also begin that with, I think, probably back to full capacity or close to it.

We'll see. And I think that's when the anticipation sort of all comes together. In terms of like fan identity with team, I think to your point, the grit and grind thing, it was a marketing triumph, but it was a marketing triumph that trailed reality. It wasn't something that was dreamt up in a boardroom. The phrase grit and grind was an accidental utterance by Tony Allen. I call it the sideline soliloquy. It was just him just talking on the sideline.

at Oklahoma City, and the fans embraced it before the team did. And it's one of the things that the team followed this organic thing that happened. They've been trying to create it now, obviously, and they've done a good job with it, but it's still like a marketing thing now. They call it, you know, instead of grit and grind, it's Gris Next Gen. So you keep the GNG and like you change it, right? It's Grizzly's next generation. And it totally works.

And I think that's ingenious marketing on their part. It's still marketing, though. And so in terms of what the natural connection is between this iterative, of the team and between the city. I think the obvious seeds are there for, like, you know, a younger generation of players, a younger generation of Memphisans, a different energy, you know, culturally, like maybe, you know, the grit and grind was sort of the Gen X team, sort of my generation, and maybe this can be, you know, or millennial team at this point, or maybe this can be

sort of a younger generation's team. I think, I think at this point, all of that is just imposing narratives onto the thing and not how they have naturally occurred. And so we'll see what they, I'm a fan of letting things become what they're going to become, right? Yeah, I'm going to already put in just in my travel expenses for the 2022 playoffs. I want to be in the building for that Memphis playoff run because, I mean, there's just nothing like it in terms of a Grizzly's home playoff date. And, you know, we'll have to see if this team has the same passion and energy behind us we've been talking about as those

grid and grind teams. But that building hops in a way that not a lot of other ones do. Yeah, I mean, it kind of begs the question then if we're looking ahead a little bit. Like, what is the next big move? Because as you mentioned, they have a lot of guys. They almost have too many guys where the rotation gets a little tricky at times, especially now that Jaron Jackson is back in there. Is the next move

consolidating some of these guys and finding maybe a third or fourth big piece? Or what do you think? Well, it's, you know, going into the season, there was some debate, you know, locally about, you know, is it better to be in the playoff hunt this year or let's look at

this draft, right? Let's get one more lottery pick to go high lottery pick to go John Jarron and then take off. Well, they answer that question. It's not going to be the draft. Or if it is going to be the draft, it's going to be a Golden State pick in 2024, which is a long ways away. They are well positioned

to make a consolidation move. They have, they're finally positive with future draft assets. They don't have the cupboard of New Orleans or Oklahoma City, but they're plus two on future first round picks. They have all their own picks. They have the Utah pick in 2022, which

probably won't be very good. And then they have a very lightly protected golden state pick in 2024. I think it's top four protected and then top one and then unprotected. And who knows what that's going to look like. But you can easily put together a trade with lots of first-round picks. You have, you look at the team they have now, setting aside Tim Frazier, who's on, you know, some 10-day rest of season contract. The other 14 guys on the team are all under 30 years old and they are all under team control next season.

All of them, every single one. I've never seen that before. I was looking at their page last night and I'm like, who is leaving this team? Right. And so, like, you can sort of take your pick, right? You know, Yohus Valanchunus on expiring contract. Kyle Anderson on an expiring contract.

Justice Winslow, if they take the team option on an expiring contract. Dylan Brooks on a good contract with multiple years. Anthony Mountain on a good contract for multiple years. Brandon Clark on a rookie, you know, whatever. You could pick two or three of those guys, cobble them together and add a couple first round picks, and that's a pretty good trade package. Now, is that the best trade package for some star that's available?

maybe not, but it's a viable one, is the right deal even going to be out there? That's the problem. I think they're in a very good position to try to take multiple players they have now and multiple contracts. I mean, multiple players they have now in multiple draft picks, some combination of all of that asset stuff and try to consolidate it into who's the third guy. Because the question is, like, if this becomes a real contender as John Jaron hit their prime, who's the third best player on that team and are they on the current roster? you know is Dylan Brooks the third best player on a contender in three years is is Desmond Bain is Jonas Fallon Chunis I think most people's answers probably no like on all those series of questions right so the question is do you need a third player who is if not at the level John

Jaron is that a level higher than anyone else you have how do you get that player and it seems like trade is the most likely path draft is unlikely three agency given in the market you're in is unlikely. There are paths to cap room, but that doesn't seem to be the most likely scenario. The other question is, is it possible to have a team where you don't have a third all-star level player?

Like, do we, well, could John Jaron be good enough that John Jaron with good depth around them that plays well together? Could that be a viable path? And I think that depends on what the ceiling, how close to the ceiling those guys get, and we just don't know yet. But I do think to your point,

I mean, you look at the depth they have, that's great, but you can't keep it forever. You know, contracts are going to come up. You're not going to be able to resign all these players because you've done such a good job drafting, acquiring them. They're going to cost more coming off the contracts than they have coming in. So at some point, they have to sacrifice depth to upgrade quality at one or two rotation spots at a minimum.

Even if you're not going out to get a third star, you need to sacrifice some of this depth to upgrade quality because you're going to lose the depth eventually anyway. Yeah, I think the wings are the place where I come to on that, not because their wing players are bad, just because they have so many of them. And you could look at, you could look at these years roster and say they probably could be playing, whether it's Anthony Melton or Desmond Bain, like some of these guys even more, or especially in the long-term future of the franchise, probably will need to play some of those guys more. How do you organize and prioritize the wing players that they have right now?

Like, who are the guys you would bet on if you're making the long-term wagers for this franchise? I think, I mean, the first tier of players I would consider would be Brooks, Melton, and Bain. I'm president of the Kyle Anderson fan club, but he's a little bit older. He's maybe better at the four, really, than on the wing at this point. He's played the four pretty much all season. And I think while he's had a terrific season, there's still a question about his long-term fit with this roster

and with this style of play. You know, Dylan Brooks, Dylan Brooks is a guy who gets both overrated and underrated because his personality is so strong sometimes. You know, a guy, a six, six, six, player with his skill level shouldn't be shooting as poorly from the floor as he does all the time. The efficiency is not great with him. Defensively, he is a really good individual defender, one-on-one defender.

Like you put him on another team score and he locks into that score. He's really good. He has limitations as a team defender. Like he's pretty bad rebounder, especially when he plays the three. Doesn't really make a lot of sort of defensive plays off the ball. But he has nights where he can get into a Damien Liller, get into it of Marta Rosen, like really get into those guys and really be disruptive. I think even with his limitations,

a wing who can impact both ends of the floor on a good contract at his age is pretty valuable. Melton, I'm a huge Mountain fan. I'm ready for him to play more minutes. I don't know if he's a long-term starter given his size. Bain is interesting because he is in the first year of the four of the cheapest possible of rookie contract, right, the 30th, 30th pick, the cheapest possible four-year rookie contract. contract and he's shot like 45% from three.

And while he's not incredibly multi-dimensional, he's not one-dimensional either. Like he's very strong physically. He can hold his own defensively because of his strength. I think he's a pretty good passer so far, not a creative passer, but a guy who can move the ball and make good good passes. And he showed a little bit, you know, a guy can get in the lane and hit a floater and get to the rim sometimes. Maybe there's a little bit more off the dribble that you can develop.

But he's a six-five guy who's got a pure, a pure. your stroke and given the level contract he's on, I think he is someone you look at as someone who could be a long-term starter. I think if he's a long-term starter, you want a more dynamic player at the three that they don't currently have. And they traded for Justice Winslow hoping he would be that player. And there's no indication Winslow is going to be that player, that he's going to be that core piece to go of John Jaron.

And so to me, like, I'm not convinced Winslow is part of the long-term story. Grayson Allen's had a very good season. I'm not convinced he's part of the long-term story. I would bet on Bain and Mountain much more so going forward. But, you know, Bain Mountain Brooks is a pretty good, like, offguard wing rotation. But I don't know if your third guy is there. I don't know if you're the third player in your team still may not be there, right? Yeah.

I was under the impression that DeAnthony Melon is the third star. If anything, he might supersede John Moran. Hey, if you play around with like stathead enough, you can find some stuff that may convince you of that. If you do everything at the exact right levels, you can find some. crazy stuff on the Anthony Mountain. I think if nothing else, he is the head of the if you know, you know, first team all NBA. Absolutely.

100%. It's true. Well, one of the things that Robin and I are doing on the pod today is talking through some of the play-in teams and how much faith we really have in them. It sounds like we're all pretty in on the Grizzlies being in the play-in. Well, I think if you look at the, if you look at the schedules the rest of the way, obviously

it's tight right now. They lost last night as we're talking the Spurge won. And so they're basically tied. The Spurs have a much tougher schedule the rest of the season than the Grizzlies do. Portland as well. It's been on this long losing streak and it's now about to hit the road for a long road trip against mostly good teams. I think if you look at how all these teams are playing and then project it through the rest of the schedule, I have no idea what the math guys say, but me eyeballing schedules, I think the Grizzlies are a much better position through the rest of this season. They're coming off what was supposed to be their toughest part of their schedule.

Seven game road trip and 11 days. They went four and three on it. Their schedule lightens up. I think the Grizzies are just much better position going forward schedule-wise relative factoring to how they're currently playing than the Spurs or the Blazers. And so, like, I see a Grizzlies Golden State 7-8 game as the most likely outcome here. Right. And so the next question is how much faith do you have in them to advance past that round? Well, I mean, if, let's say, you know, the Grizzlies in the season at Golden State. As I project out the schedules, I see both those teams getting in the plane and coming right back to Memphis for the 7-8 game in Memphis to start the plane.

in, you're playing a one-game elimination against Steph Curry, which is a pretty rough spot to be. But, you know, even if you lose that game, you get another game to play in terms of making the playoffs. And then you then you, then from a grizzlies perspective, or whoever loses that game is going to be hosting, you know, the final play-in game. And so if you're the Grizzlies, you find yourself in the 7-8, you lose the Steph. You're still hosting either of the Spurs or the Blazers for a chance to get into the playoffs. And so, I mean, you know, if the Grizzlies find themselves in the 7-8, in the 7-8 games instead of the 9-8. I mean, I'll trust the math that they are likely to make, to either be the seven or the eight seat. When you get that double elimination, you got your home court, home court at least for the second game against a spurs or blazers.

And so I assume the odds are, you know, probably 70% or so in their favor to be a playoff team. And I would, I think that would be good, that would be a good number. I love the way these matchups have kind of broken out just from an intrigue standpoint, if we're talking about the Grizzlies. You know, you have these electric guards that they're going to have to deal. with and Memphis has this perimeter defensive talent to throw at them to chase them around potentially. You have a team like the Spurs who always has such a strong second unit. And now in Memphis, especially lately, I mean, that's a bench group that can just really put the clamps on team. If you're talking about Melton and Tillman and Winslow coming off the bench altogether,

really formidable. I like the way all of these little micro matchups are kind of shaking out. Yeah, well, we've got a buddied rivalry really in terms of Grizzlies Blazers. And they'll play once more in the regular season. You know, maybe right after people listen to this, depending on when they're supposed, so Wednesday night back here in Memphis, after the Grizzlies beat them twice in Portland, after Portland eliminated them in the play-in game last year.

You know, a John Morant, Damien Lillard, is a made-to-order sort of match-up rivalry. The last game in Portland, the Blazers got really hot at Dylan Brooks. You know, C.J. McCollum hit him with a, hit him with a shoulder block, and he got a flagrant. Pamela Anthony was drawing at him.

That's a pretty fun matchup, but a pretty fun rivalry. We'll get it at least once more in regular season. And there's, you know, not a small chance. We'll get that in the play. It's definitely fascinating, especially with Jaron Jackson being back in there. Like, it feels like something is simmering in Memphis.

And like if things just break right, maybe they can kind of be this little team of destiny gone, maybe a little bit of run and maybe even push whoever they face in the first, or, well, I guess it's the second round now. I don't know if we're doing like the NCAA tournament where the first couple is the first round. And then the first is a different one. But, you know, especially if the jazz or wounded or something like that, it could be pretty fun.

As someone who's tried to find the stats from the Grizzlies playing game against Portland last year, like you can find them, but it's treated as something that exists in a dimension that's not quite real. And so I think we're not calling that the first round. No, there's a dead zone of basketball reference somewhere that hosts those stats and no one can access. It's ridiculous. I guess it's similar to our reality over the past year. It's true. It's not all that different.

All right, Chris, thank you so much for joining us. today. All right. Thanks, guys. Yeah. We can catch your work, Daily, Memphian. Anything else? Do you want to plug? No. I mean, if you're on Twitter, you follow me on Twitter at Chris Harrington and anything I write, I'll post there. But the site is daily memphian.com. All right. Thanks, Chris. Thanks. All right. That's it for this episode. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely on production. Charks, get well soon, even though you're never going to listen to this podcast.

Until next time, we'll see it.