The Ringer NBA Show - Which Team Is Headed for a First-Round Upset? | Group Chat

Episode Date: March 14, 2019

Now that the Anthony Davis trade saga has cooled down, we wonder whether the dwindling list of potential outcomes means he might just re-sign in New Orleans—and, of course, what that would mean for the Lakers and Celtics (01:30). Then, we speculate about which teams are most likely to be upset in the first round of the playoffs, and which teams are primed to do the upsetting (35:47). Hosts: Justin Verrier, Haley O’Shaughnessy, Paolo Uggetti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Ringer NBA show is brought to you by Hulu. Did you know Hulu has live sports? Watch your favorite teams and the biggest games all season with no cable or satellite subscription required. Get over 60 live and on-demand channels, tons of shows and movies, and watch on the go on your favorite devices with Hulu plus live TV. Learn more at Hulu.com. Basketball is very good. The Wizards underpaid John Wall. AD should resign with the Pelicans.

The Nets actually won the Celtics trade. Basketball is very good. Hello and welcome to the Ringer NBA show. This is the group chat. Joining me today, as always, Haley O'Shaughnessy. Hello? Paulo Getty. What's up?

I'm Justin Varyer. Bobby Wagner is here as well. Haley, you wanted to start the show off. Right. There are a couple things I said before the show that I know we can't say now. So don't tempt me. Guys, when you were discussing Chris Ryan, on email, what do you refer him as, to him as?

That's a great question. Is it balls? We are of course referring to the Los Angeles Time report that came out this morning that a couple Lakers people, Jeannie Bust in particular and some of the business people, I believe one is with MSG, refers to Steve Ballmer, the owner of the Clippers, as balls. With a Z. With a Z. With a Z, that's important.

But sometimes as, but I agree with you that the Z is important. Because balls with an S insinuates it's just kind of like a regular nickname. The Z is like we're clearly... Making fun of him. We're making fun of him. Would it be better if it was just with an S? Like, you know what I'm saying? Because then it would look kind of weird, too.

Because... That's true. The literal definition does come into play in that regard. Yeah. So you don't refer to Chris as... All right. I want to read one particular quote. So these are like...

This came in an evening. that was sent to another person. This is from Jeannie. Quote, didn't Ball see what we did to my brother? Question mark, question mark. What a gangster movie this is turning into.

That gave me town vibes. I just got chills. Yeah. And now, on the other side of things, it does seem like, based on some of the reporting and the whispers that are happening, that Balmer and I guess the state of California,

whoever would be involved in this, sold the lot across from the forum to Balmer, I think, and they told James Dolan, who owns the forum or the MSG company that owns the forum, that they wouldn't turn it into something that would be a direct competitor. It turns out that they want to build a stadium there. That's a direct competitor to all the music interests that Dolan wants to put into the forum or already has. And so there is a lot of shady things going on on both sides.

But I have to say, seeing it play out via email is quite incredible. seeing the punctuation being sent from my iPhone makes it even like 10 times better. Oh yeah. Because it's like, oh, these people are just like just texting on their iPhone and basically like deciding or talking about other franchises and such aander. And like not to be like I'm not trying to sound naivier because I'm sure this happens all the time in so many different forms, but to have it come out in this way, to punctuate a season that has just been from hell for the Lakers is just something else.

Yes. I think Kevin Arviz wrote a very good piece on ESPN recently. that the Lakers just don't really have a good self-awareness, I guess, is the best way to put it. They still operate as if they are the Lakers dynasty of the 80s, and very clearly they are not. As we have seen, our guy Ivaka-Zubach, is our friend Yovanovna put in his lead that they fleece the Lakers for what is, it turns out, is a pretty capable starting center. Yeah. Which I think is really interesting.

All right, let's get to the actual show here, unless anyone else has any more balls talking. want to get into. So the playoffs are coming up here. And this is kind of the theme of the show. So it really fits. We're just kind of, we're still thinking about a lot of things happening in the league that just might not happen right away.

I think the biggest one, believe it or not, even still, they're out of the playoffs. But the Lakers still fascinate me to this day. If only because I've been trying to think about what the Lakers do from here, which I guess is what everybody in the league is trying to figure out, including the Lakers. And I'm,

I was racking my brain and I'm trying to figure out the math and I just don't see how anything works via trade anymore, which feels pretty significant and it doesn't feel like people are talking about this enough. The big things obviously are both Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball were shut down for the rest of the season. Lonza Ball seemed to be just the continuation of the injury that afflicted him over the past month or two of the season. I could have sworn I saw a report or listened to a podcast in which they said that Lonzo, probably could have come back. If there was something to play for, it wasn't like super serious. Do you believe that?

Yeah, if they were still going for the playoffs, I would assume that they would make a stronger pressure to get back on the court. But I don't know, it seemed like the, from the reporting, it seemed like the ankle turned out to be worse than it was in terms of just. And like that raises a lot of question

about why that wasn't diagnosed in the first place, but, you know, whatever, right? I just don't think now, obviously, it's not even worth it to try and, like, you know, bring them back at all. I think that Lonzo and then LeBron's minute's restriction and the news that he's probably not going to play on the second half of back-to-backs

is much more of waving a white flag after the news of Brandon Ingram because that's serious. Right, yeah. So Brandon Ingram was found that he had his blood clot in his shoulder. It's called DVT. I'm not totally sure what that means on a medical level, but basically it's pretty serious. Blood clots have shown up pretty recently. Mirza Toledovic, I believe his career

resented as a result of that. Chris Bosch is probably the most significant example of that. Now you've seen people say that those happen in their legs, which is different than their arms. And I read something recently, I forgot the source, so I apologize. But basically, it helps specifically because of like basketball players are shooting in the shooting motion for some reason. It's like blood clotting is not as bad. Yeah. So I guess the big takeaway there is both Lanzel Ball

and Brandon Ingram are not going to finish. season and both of them go into a pretty critical offseason for the Lakers with injury concerns. The big thing here is that clearly both Ingram and Ball are their biggest trade assets. I don't know if I would say Lanzo is a big injury concern. I think he didn't finish both of his two seasons. Yeah, both seasons have cut off like a good bit. Oh, that's true. I thought he meant into this particular injury, but actually you're right in the entirety of his career that is.

Yeah, the injury itself, I don't know what will happen going forward. but he has been injury prone just seemed like he's a bit I don't want to call him frail but his frame just doesn't seem like it's good for that. He's always not like I'm a school boy's body. Right.

I mean he hasn't had a full summer to sort of work on getting like fully stronger because last summer he had the knee injury as well and again, injury so that's a little problematic. Right. And in the off season I think a lot of teams will just raise any sort of shred of doubt about a player in order to diminish their value.

Sure. So they are ostensibly their biggest routes to getting a star player via trade. And also, the one thing that I was looking at, is they're the two biggest salaries on the Lakers' books

going forward outside of LeBron. That's insane. Yeah. And so now you're stuck in the situation where... That's crazy. They're both on their rookie contracts. Right.

It's LeBron and then the rookie contracts. Which in that sense, you're kind of like, okay, so the Lakers, like, the one-year contracts that they all signed turned out, horribly and didn't really offer much support. But now that they're going into the offseason clean, it seems in retrospect, not as bad. Yeah.

I guess now that we've accepted that they're not making the playoffs, everything kind of seems not as bad. Just in terms of what they did for this season. But the thing is, like, they could trade those guys because they were bigger contracts, right? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, in the middle of the season. Right. I guess what I'm driving toward here is you have your two.

biggest chips are now diminished in terms of value, presumably. And at the same time, if you need to do anything on the trade market, you need to trade them. Because the only other option you have is to loop guys in on sign-in trades. But that becomes particularly difficult because they can go anywhere they want. And so a guy like Contavius called Walt Pope, he has a $12 million deal. And so maybe he would do it, he would agree to be in the sign and trade somewhere else for them to get like an Anthony Davis in order to get that raise. But at the same time, he has to agree to go to the New Orleans Pelicans at a time when they're just rebuilding.

And New Orleans Pelicans have to agree to pay him to an exorbitant salary in order to make all of this work. I'd be shocked if they engage in trade talks with the Lakers. The Pelicans, too? Yeah, going forward, would you? Well, they need leverage. They need to get, like, they need bidders in the summer, for sure. Yeah, I could see them definitely looping

them back into the mix. But I guess I'm wondering, like, how does a deal even get struck between them because the package going back to the pelicans looks worse than ever. Two weeks ago, it looked like it was going to be better because Ingram was starting to show sort of signs of being that number two pick again.

And maybe he ultimately becomes that. But are you really going to trade for something where the Senate priest is a guy that, like, there's a non-zero possibility that he won't be able to play, like, in his career? Yeah. Well, let's play devil's advocate and say that they decided that they aren't going to trade Davis.

He's not the kind of player who's going to sit out. And honestly, like, for the length of his contract that's remaining, you can't afford it in his career. He needs to play the next two years. He can't just sit them out. So you're saying Davis has to go somewhere this summer. No, what I'm saying is that he would not sit out. He's not the type to sit out, I don't think,

if they were like, look, we're not trading you. Sorry. Yeah. It seems really complicated going forward. Let's talk about the Lakers just specifically before we get on to the Davis thing, because I do want to talk about that. What happens? Like, yeah.

Are there any other options here that I'm just like missing? So obviously, though, the option is to, and really the plan is to acquire, to trade for a superstar and then sign another in free agency. But as the year has gone on, you get more of these sort of certainties, if you will, as much as you can get them before actual free agency of like, oh, well, if, you know,

if Katie leaves the Warriors, he's not going to L.A. Like, if Kyrie lives the Celtics, he's probably not going to L.A. Like, and then you start going, yeah, if Kauai leaves Toronto, he's probably not going to the Lakers specifically. Yeah, and the clippers are operating

very much like Kauai is basically there. Yeah, exactly. And so is Vegas. Right, sure. So you start seeing these options sort of fall off the board and you're, I like, I'm with you. I just don't see what they do. Like, are they, they're probably going to end up with like what, Jimmy Butler?

I don't know how you feel about that. If they can get like Jimmy Butler and then somehow still trade for Davis or wait until he becomes a free agent and then sign him, which is another sort of like black hole to dive into. I guess that turns out okay. Jimmy Miller is worst case scenario for us for a, for a, for a hundred percent. Yeah, 100 percent. Like Chris Middleton would probably work better next to LeBron than then Chene Baller at this point. Yeah. And I think that's what you're looking at here because it doesn't seem like the trade route is all that viable. I started even looking at guys who come up in

2021 just to see if like maybe one of them would would pull a Kyrie and start to start to force their way out. The pickings are pretty slim. It's Janus who, I, I mean, why would you leave pretty much the best team in the league right now? Bradley Beale, definitely an option. I could definitely see that happening at some point, although the Wizards are kind of turning the keys over to him, and he's going to have pretty much... I mean, he's going to have the team to himself in Washington.

And he said before he's not the kind of person to ever, like, force a trade. Right. Right. He doesn't believe in player team creation. So that would have to entirely be on the Washington front office to decide that they want to completely start over. Yeah. And I just can't see them doing that.

They held on to that big three through so much. And then finally decided to let one piece of a go. And the two pieces you have left, you really only have one. We don't know what John Wall is, but his stock has completely just plummeted. As a quick aside, do you think we're going to get to a point where like scattering reports have that now? Where it's like, is this guy a pro player team creation here? Or is he more of a like, do-yourself kind of like, hey, I'm kind of joking, but it's also like very, yeah, exactly. They look at makeup.

and the more that I hear from people around the league is that digging into some of those personality, I guess, scouting reports is definitely more of a thing. I know that one team in particular actually researches how certain guys play together and not only in terms of matching lineups, but in terms of like filling out their roster.

So, and now you're seeing guys like Lee Jenkins go to the Clippers and one of the big things that we've heard from there is just that he knows the right guys for some of these superstars. So if you want to get in with those superstars and know those superstars, well, Lee has direct experience with tracking down the guys closest to them. Yeah. So I do think that that is the case.

Right. Do we believe Bradley Beale when he say that he's not going to, like, create a super team? I would, if he... Well, he didn't say he wouldn't create one in Washington, but he begrudgingly... He said he wouldn't go. He said before All-Star begrudgingly that he was like, well, I guess I have to recruit. I've never been in this position before, and I don't really like how the Lee... league is trending, but I have to do it.

That's what you have to do to win. Bradley Beale strikes me... How successful he'll be is like a different question. He strikes me as somebody who just literally wants to play basketball and doesn't care like about much of anything else. Like I don't want to like diminish his like, you know, interests or whatever,

but like it honestly seems like he's just fine playing basketball. Plus guys were outspoken about that in that way. There's a way of like walking around it. We've seen Carl Anthony Towns do it and even Anthony Davis do it, like saying that they want to stay. And I think even Yannis had a quote like this, where it's basically like, no, I want to stay here. But like, things have to go right.

Yeah. You know, they've all had quotes that kind of say that. Like, I'm definitely paraphrasing and it was not that blunt. Whereas the guys like Bradley Beale, Russell Westbrook, Demar de Rosen, are guys who have outright said, no, like, I don't believe in that. And they don't talk about doing what's best for them. Yeah. I could definitely see a situation in which Beale starts to get frustrated because Wall is out for an entire calendar year, and you look around the rest of the team. Isn't that preferable for him? I'm serious. I genuinely think that he enjoys playing more without him. He's more successful without him statistically. He looks like he's having more fun playing without him. Yeah, I agree.

I think individually it's way better for him, but in terms of just like success, I don't know what they have around Beale at this point to even compete. If they don't do anything this summer, then that's a huge disappointment. And they have a lot of free agents that are in the starting lineup. I'm looking at right now. Trevor Reza, I believe, is a free agent. Bobby Portis, I believe, is a free agent. Satiransky, I think, is this restricted maybe, or just a regular free agent. Thomas Brian, our guy, just fucking along.

I think he had 2110 last night. Incredible. Off the bench. Double, double machine. I mean, just could use him. It's pretty much going to be Brad and Jabari Parker. So I guess that's a long way of saying that I think there's a situation where Bradley Beale could be the next frustrating that are.

Just the rest of the list is Damien Lillard, who is getting up. they're an age and I don't see him doing it the same point you're making about Beal. It's the same kind of vibe as... Outlook as the deal. That feel is like at least giving off right now. Also Portland's very good. Way better than the Lakers. Lord and LeBron is actually a team that I... That's something I would sign up for. Yeah. That's a good pairing.

And it sounds like LeBron is a fan. And Victor Olatipo, who's coming off an injury. So we don't know where we get there. It seems like the Lakers, at least their core, is what they are. Like going forward next year, I'm at this point, like there are things that happen

that we just don't foresee Prazingas going to Dallas being a shining example of this. I don't see how the Lakers right now change themselves all that much besides just like adding one player on top of it. The one thing I would say is maybe LeBron turns on recruiting mode

and like goes to Kyrie and Kauai and maybe even KD and it's like, hey, like, and like really sells them on it. because he knows he has to. Like that's the only thing I could see that that could sort of flip this around. And I, for one, I'm not going to doubt

LeBron is capable of that, but at the same time it does like pretty bleak. Do we think that there's one guy in particular that would do that? I mean, Kyrie would 100% be the guy would do that. Lately, yeah, lately it seems like, and when they recently played when the Lakers played the Celtics, they had that,

they did their old handshake after the game, and then they did the Jersey thing where they talk forever. I always think it looks like they just think something really smells for like 15 seconds on the broadcast. Apollo is miming this for us right now. Like, recommending to the bit. LeBron, like, he does that often with players,

but actually, like, I think back to when he did it with Lanzo before he went to the Lakers, AD, before AD requested his trade. So. Oh, you think this is a tel-tip? This is like a poker tell. Yeah, yeah, it's like rounders. It's a good sign.

I also, I don't know why they feel the need to do that. Like, if you, you must have such a not-close relationship that you can't just, like, text them to hang out after? That's the thing I always wonder about. Like, what do they actually have to talk about? It's all about the showmanship guys. Come on. Like, it's about, like, being in front of the cameras.

This is how I know that LeBron is messy and loves drama. That's why I know we're very good friends. Yeah, 100%. Like, it's about being in front of the cameras and, like, letting everybody know, oh, we're talking about. But we don't want everybody else out there to know what we're talking about. Or, like, really to prevent a lip- like, hey, have you ever thought about coming in the Lakers? Like, after the game and the carrie's like, that's crazy.

I have thought about it. Like, he's just saying a good game. They're probably just talking about like where they're going to go to dinner after. Yeah, it's like, what are you thinking? Steak? Yeah. Pizza? So, I don't know.

I'm just confounded by this entire situation. Just to go over some of the free agent options. It gets pretty bleak after the bubble. I just want to say this before you list those. Because that will put those in this context. I think that their best case scenario, if they are going to trade Lonzo and Ingram

is to trade them for the kind of filled out roster of role players that we see like on the clippers now and then to sign a star. I don't think it's,

I don't think they're going to pull off two stars. So similar to what the Cavs did in that last LeBron season but just like better players just high value role players. Right, because those two packaged together. I mean, Ingram, that's the thing is like,

the pelicans might be worried about the blood clots and like they should be worried about the blood cuts and balls injury history other teams that are just giving up role players might be more willing yeah high caliber role players i mean if you really want to sort of commit to the lebron window like hard then you go and maybe go for like a mike conley in the trade you know what i'm saying because he's going to oh that's interesting you know i like that right right and like i would be fun because conley is a great point guard who i guess i should include him in stars but that's kind of what I meant. I meant a guy who you wouldn't think, like not the flashy names that we're about to bring out. Yeah, like sort of, you know, come up with a package for Conley and now

because the grisies are going to deal on it sounds like sooner or rather than later. So, you know, I don't know. That's maybe an option. Then you assign, again, maybe you end up with Jimmy Butler, Mike Connolly, and LeBron. Not terrible. It definitely commits to a certain window. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like you really have to. Which is his window. There's only one window. That's the thing. The Lakers don't have an option for another window because they chose a person as their franchise for the next four years. Right. So this is their window.

That's the problem. Yeah, they're balancing identities and that's why this season sort of, I mean. Right, because they don't have, they realize they don't have time anymore for a ball and Ingram to catch up. And it seems like Ingram was actually going to catch up, which is kind of unfortunate. I mean, I think you try to keep him. I think at this point, like, I don't know what you could get for him given the situation. I think you probably try to keep him and then maybe try to deal the other guys.

Right. Yeah. And I probably should have this at the jump, but like it gets a little gross when we're talking about Ingram. Like, is he diminished simply because of the legacy's boat? Like, I mean, this is a reality to that the Lakers have to face at this point. But, you know, we all wish for the best for young brain. Yeah, that's scary.

But tangential to that discussion is obviously the AD thing, which Haley, you were getting at earlier. Again, where is he going? I think there are a lot more options But it does feel like we're in this place Where we settled on this reality Based on the fallout of the trade deadline And now I'm starting to rethink it

And I'm like, wait, how does this, this and this happen? And now if Kyrie leaves Boston and goes to New York Or goes to the Lakers This seems inevitable Which seems likely at this point Although it doesn't seem like the franchise Would want him back

I don't know why he would want to go back. I still think the East is at a point where we're not 100% sure of any team in dust. Like, if it's something to get to the finals and, like, I don't think they can obviously beat the Warriors, but if they sort of give them a tough series, like, I don't, I could see like Harry being like, okay, like. With some posts and success. You know, like, yeah, there's a lot to be decided here. And, like, guys have definitely been wooed back based on playoff success and all this stuff. Yeah.

So I should say, we don't know what's going to be. to happen with Kyrie. But let's just assume that he ends up leaving. So the Lakers are functionally out, I think. I think because of all the clash between the front offices and as, like we just kind of talked about with Lonzo and Ingram, would the Celtics be willing to deal Tatum at that point knowing that you would really only have AD and whatever you can kind of cobble together? They shouldn't. They definitely shouldn't. Right? Because think about it. With Kyrie, Irving, and the Gordon Hayward that they traded for,

they are a win now team. They are right now, this is what we have team. Not anymore. If Kyrie leaves and Gordon Hayward is this, no. Like, you have,

then you have AD, then you've just, I would keep Tatum. And now they've been lusting after AD for years. Yeah. And I don't think they've really veiled that all that much.

No. So maybe they're just like, this guy is just too good. We just want him in our system and we'll figure it out later. Okay, I'll add an addendum. I would, not just get AD.

They'd have to have something else coming in. Yeah. I mean, yes and no. Like, I think a team, are you saying in this scenario of Kyrie Leaves? Yes. With Kyrie gone. Yeah, that's a bigger,

that's obviously a huge risk. Yeah. And we don't know if Horford's going to come back as a player option. Right. So it'd be 80, let's just say theoretically 80. Hortford maybe you'd probably keep jail in.

You'd probably bring back Rosier if you didn't have to trade him. Yeah, probably. That's still a good team. It reminds me You would essentially switch from We're building a dynasty To we're doing the The Maasai move of let's get him into our

Our program And then maybe we convince him this day And then if he leaves I mean Well I guess that's the thing right is if you're sending Tatum Then it becomes like a weird sort of like half rebuild that you have left Of like a couple young guys like Jalen Well just Jalen really

And then like Rosie here and Smart in this kind of band of other guys. I think that that's why the AD trade just depends on so many things. It depends on if he is sincere when he said that he was open to other teams. Would he give a verbal commitment to another franchise? Would he give a soft verbal commitment?

Would he say, like, I'll at least give you guys a chance? And honestly, like, their ownership kind of has to play into this too. Like, it's, Justin, you know more about this than me because you covered the beat for so long. But their change in ownership and then it seems like they've had some issues within that family. It just seems like ownership also might have a lot to do with their willingness to trade to the Lakers.

Yeah, and the thing you hear from there is just, well, one thing is it seems like it's galvanized the fan base to really push back on the Lakers in the way that they have. And I don't know if you want to kind of wash away the goodwill that's come as a result of that, as we talked plenty of times at this point, that they've had difficulties kind of building a fan base from. in that market. I think just, I know Tom Benson in particular was a bit, I don't want to say hot-headed, but, you know, he could run hot a little bit.

And in business negotiations specifically, he was known as being cutthroat. I don't really have a good read on Gail. I would assume, based on how everything is played out, the way that clutch is kind of strong-armed the organization, how a lot of the executives

come from the football side of things, and they don't really take kindly to that in football. I would assume that they would want to get rid of him regardless. Yeah. But you're seeing this momentum here, and I think this is what we're kind of getting at here. Is there a route where they just resign him? Because if the Celtics are out and the Lakers are out, you're starting to get into a situation where you're in Kauai territory, essentially,

where unless a team really wants to bowl you over and you just need to get rid of him, what if you just kept him in house, said to him with all this cap space that we have, pick any guy on this list that you want, we'll bring him here, and it's you, Drew, and let's say Jimmy Baller. Even if he doesn't resign.

That's a fun team. Even if he doesn't resign, they have so much time to then trade him. Yeah, he doesn't even have to commit long term. He just needs to commit for the season. It is too. What a finish though this entire. shit show.

I don't think this is like completely unrealistic either. I was thinking about this too because you're not going to tell a player in his prime. Okay, well, you have to stay here. So what? You're going to sit the next two years? There's no way. He's not going to give up two years. And there's precedent here is the thing that I'm driving toward because Dwight Howard was basically a Brooklyn net.

And the story goes that he was telling his teammates on the team plane that he was ready to leave, that the trade was basically finalized, but everyone was getting along and they had his favorite candies or whatever that story is, and he ended up staying. Now, he didn't stay long term. He ended up going the following year to the Lakers.

And AD does seem very impressionable. And that's the thing. He seems very impressionable. The thing I hear about AD is like, there's definitely a lot of Dwight in him. I just, I don't think he's a bad guy. I don't mean to cast him in that light. I think, if anything,

everyone will talk about like what a sweet, gentle person he is. but I just think he is so far over his head that he's saying all these things in interviews he's making himself look like the villain he's listening to LeBron he's listening to Clutch I just don't think that he's really I just don't think he has the experience

quite frankly life experience or just the experience in this business in the spotlight against like some of these harsh criticisms that he's facing that he's like thinking clearly right the image backfire could really affect him And that was one of the big driving forces you saw in him going to clutch to begin with because he saw or people around him, in particular his father, who is a very big personality. They saw him, they saw Janus getting these shoe deals with Nike and getting love from Nike.

They thought that he didn't get the same shine. He wasn't getting cast in Space Jam 2 maybe. But. Coded property. It just, it just seems like. it seems like he might be able to be swayed. I don't know. Man, I don't know.

That would be crazy. It would be hilarious for one. But also just like, I just don't see it because I don't think he would ever, like he's so far in one direction. He's already committed so hard to that one path of getting out of there that I don't think that,

like you said, maybe the people who are influencing him, influencing him would let him even sort of go down that other, Right, that's the point. Like, he's already working with clutch sports, which means, like, yeah, he's working with LeBron already. He's in the same. Like, network, if you will. He's in the same network as him, exactly.

So, yeah, exactly what you were saying, Paula. They might be in such close proximity to him that they wouldn't. He's in too deep. Yeah, he's in too deep. He's off the deep end. It's never too late to say you're sorry. It's the one thing I've learned about the NBA. No, I just, I don't think.

I think there's a non-zero possibility that he could end up staying. Just given what I know about him and just the situation that's playing out. But if not the Pelicans, who? Who? Right, we have to think about the tricky teams that kind of sneak up and do and pull these trades. Well, we don't expect it that aren't the Celtics, which is like, you know, the Thunder. Sure. The Raptors.

Mm-hmm. The Spurs. Spurs. That's one that I have listed there. Spurs would be fun. Spurs would be fun. And if Danny Ferry is still in charge. She has a long history with the Spurs organization.

It's a little difficult to come up with like the proper contracts, the match, because the two guys you would probably be looking to move are Damar and Aldridge. And Demar is, I think, 29 and I think Aldridge is 33. So it doesn't really fit. But I guess if you wanted to hard reboot immediately, you basically just do what the Spurs did with Kauai. You bring in Damar and like a prospect. And all of a sudden you go forward with that and Drew.

Nick's straight up for Mitchell Robinson. See, I think he's untouchable. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. I forgot. According to James Dolan, as he was reading, did you watch this clip of Dolan on, I think it was WFAN or, no, it was the other one, whatever station. I don't know, New York.

But he was, he was talking about, like, the guys on his team that have so much promise, but they do that thing where they have the video on the podcast, like the, on the, I was going to call it a podcast, on the radio segment being filmed. And he's like, he's just, he's just. He's reading off of papers. Like, oh, Mitchell Robinson and Kevin Knox. He's losing off like block percentages and all this. He definitely had no idea who Kevin Knox wasn't until that day.

That's worrisome. But the next would be great. Like, if they're going to end up with at least the rant, again, it goes like this concept of like the window shifting, right? Where you have a young team right now. You're not sure what the identity of the team is or whatever. but once you get a star like that you push the window forward

like to now and that causes stress on the young like we've seen with the Lakers on the young guys so might as well double down on that and see if you can package those young guys for somebody else right and they do have a good collection on these young guys the next do they have Knox

they have Dennis Smith Jr. They have Noel Kina they have like... Fine good well it's about as good as they had a good young guy yeah it's about as good as The Lakers, if you're considering all the potential risk involved there now,

and probably not as good as a Celtics package, even if you take them off the table. But if the number one pick comes and you're willing to deal that, that's pretty damn good. It's probably the best asset on the table. Even if it's like a top four pick plus those guys, pretty good. If it's the, if it's Zion, if it's the number one pick,

like the Pelicans should 100% do it. What franchises are you, would you guys give a pass to deal the number one pick knowing that it would be Zion Williamson? What do you mean? What franchises do you think it's like a legit thing for them to say, okay, like, great, we're going to put this in a trade? And seriously, not draft him. Well, I think this is the perfect example. Yeah. Would you trade Zion for Anthony Davis?

I would 100%. Like, it's not even a question to me, like to me. I don't think you can take something that you already know is arguably a top five player in the NBA and be like, oh no, we're not going to try. trade for that guy because we think that Zion and yeah like there is a chance of Zion is... I think it depends on the team if you're the hawks do you do it? The Hawks aren't ready to win now. They don't have the timeline for Aege.

It totally depends on the team. I'm talking about if you're if you're the Knicks and if you're a team that has a start ready and that is pushing that window there's no like I don't even I'm dumbfounded by the comparisons of like oh you can't trade Zion for essentially number one big Zion for 80. Who's the next star is pushing that window? Well if they get

Kevin Durant. Right. Like we all sort of expected to happen. Oh, sure. Okay. No, yeah, absolutely. If they get Kevin Durant, okay. You already know, you already, it's not like this known quantity as some like, oh, fringe like 20, top 20 player. It's like Anthony Davis, the top of our, arguably top our player in the NBA. Why

would you trade that for a chance that's seeing if Zion is like the next, you know, whatever. It's cost certainty. Yeah, yeah. It's just like, it's just, you you already know what you're getting in one, in one, one area and then, you know, what if? Like, I think we're also working on this sort of basis that, like,

Zion has no chance to, like, be a bus, which I don't think is true. Like, there's very much possibility he's not as good as we're all sort of making him out to be. I had a scout tell me before the season started that he thought R.J. Barrett was going to be far superior in the league. Well, it's just the, yeah, I mean, the way the league is going. That's bad take. All time.

That did not work out well. Yeah, I don't know. the more I think about it, like, maybe the Celtics can get this done even without putting Tatum in the deal. Like, I think about the, do you remember the first, did you guys watch Succession? Yes. The first episode where, uh, what's the son's name? Kendall. Kendall is, like, you can't get the deal done.

And eventually he just gets really, like, resolute. He's like, I'm going to stuff you so full of a, full of stock options that you're not going to be, whatever. That reminds me of, like, the Celtics and all their draft picks. Yeah. We're just going to give you so many first round picks that you cannot say no to this. I like how Kendall is Danny Angel in this situation. Well, I wouldn't say that. All right.

Let's take a quick break. And I want to talk about actual basketball teams playing actual basketball. All right, we're back. Our producer wants us to talk about Spencer Dinwiddie for 50 minutes, I believe, was his request. But we're going to rage against the establishment and talk about some deep cut teams here. Specifically, the Warriors and the Houston Rockets. No, so the Rockets and the Rockets and the World War II. Warriors played last night. The Rockets lost that game at home. I believe it was, that was the only

loss to the Warriors this season. They almost swapped them. Swapped them in the season, yeah. Pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good for our guys. DeMarcus cousins looked incredible at times, although... Yeah, we looked incredible. We looked like so slow. Yes. And there was even a stat last night. I believe it was ESPN stats and info that was like they played at like a 91 pace when he was in the game, but like almost 100 when he was not. It's all about variety. It's all about it. It's all about perspective. If the points are going in.

Yes. And I guess it, I thought two things about this. One, I thought it was a good sign that Steve Kerr was clearly leaning into DeMarcus cousins and what he did. It reminded me a lot of the way Pop kind of like changed up his offense a little bit to work the Marcus Alder's back in after he tried to force him to be who he wanted to be. And they had that nice little coming to a Jesus moment. and they ran a lot of post-ups, which Kerr doesn't often do.

So on the one hand, that's good. On the other hand, it did feel like it took a conscious effort in order to work cousins into what they do, which I wonder if Kevin Durant plays, which he didn't last night. I wonder if that's a little bit more difficult. I think it's a situation where it's nice to have him,

but that part of the game will never be their focus. I don't know. I think Kerr likes playing. way. Like, I think we think of him as like... Posting up with cousins. Yeah, I think there's an appeal to it that maybe, you know, the people who are in the camp of just give the ball to Stefan, let's go, are not a fan of, but like, if you're thinking about Kerr's not just a coach, but a manager

of people, right? It's the other side of his job. It makes sense that he uses a regular season game to sort of boost DeMarcus's confidence. Like, that's maybe all it could be. That's a great point. And I think that's fine. Like, that's just how the Warriors are going to have to treat the rest of the regular season because they can't seem to get up for a lot of games. They'll always get up for the Rockets, I think, because it's just

there's a thing there. And just to see Cousins sort of take on this role and show that he can still more or less have a big influence on a game. It's good for his confidence and it's good for them going forward, I think, because they might come across

a matchup where they're actually going to need him. Where they need him in the playoffs. And that's what he came for, right? So that's keeping him happy. All he wants to do is show case what he can do so we can sign a contract next summer. Right. I will say though, that may tie to another point where it's like, at what point is that costing your core, the core values of your team that had taken use to these finals and whatnot?

Because Kerr has been reluctant to your point of running pick and roll with Steph and Katie. Because that's just not what they do. It's more of a motion, ball movement offense. Yeah. So, I don't know, I just, I may be trying to do too many things at once, right, trying to keep the mind. is happy. Trying to sort of fit him into the system is another process that they're taking on. And they can't take it on because they have so much talent. But does that at some point get conflicting? I guess that's the question we're all trying to answer. It's a big, it's a big,

big old jumbalaya, is what I would say. And going back to what we were talking about last week, that Steph quote, where he was basically like, yeah, we should probably be figuring this thing out by now. I think that was really telling. And it just seems like there's a lot of moving parts going on here. I guess the optimistic side of that is that what Haley said, like, this is why they brought DeMarcus in in the first place. If he only plays against the Rockets, that's a good signing. Because DeMarcus was a killer against the Rockets last season. I think he tore as Achilles against the Rockets after coming off of a triple double. Like he just, he just has the perfect combination of Heft to really kind of go at Capella without sacrificing some of the

the shooting and playmaking that you need because the rockets are always going to be smaller than most teams. He's also an interesting matchup with the Thunder and Stephen Adams too. Yeah, that's how that is going to pan out. So there you go. Those are probably two most threatening teams right now.

Now, my conspiracy theory is this. The rockets sat Nenei last night. And Mike Dantone, if you look at some of the quotes, specifically the ones from Tim McMahon's game story last night, It was basically like, yeah, we think Nene would do a good job against him. And Nene is obviously a much more physical player, a bigger player.

Do you think that they rested him specifically in order to not show them what they could do against Bougie? Yes. Yeah. 100%. Oh, my God. That is completely different. Oh, my goodness. No.

But. Wow. I'm really hurt. We're going to have to talk about this happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's table it. Yeah, I mean, I could totally see them doing that. Like, we try to take so much out of these games.

But really, the coaches are probably, like, one step ahead of us and trying to sort of plan for the games that actually matter. So I could totally see that happening. And the Rockets know that they can beat them. Yeah. Yes. They've already shown in the three games. games that they can kind of hang there. Well, let's talk about the Rockets briefly here.

I want to mention that Nenei also didn't play the game before. So I'm with your conspiracy. I didn't look that up. He didn't play against the hornet. Look at that. Look at that. Little research. So Neney.

Little in the middle of the bottom research. Little analytics. You can't get this everywhere. The people on Reddit will love it that we actually look something up for a change. So Neney. 33 year old Nenei No he's 36 Is he 36?

There's no way There's no way To undercut what we just talked about My internet My internet wasn't working So I just made up his age If you Google Nene Neenay leaks

I don't know who that is But just throw out So 36 year old Nene Is the key To beating the Warriors Is what we're saying That's the NBA in 2019. That's how we go.

I love to see it. That's kind of been like, I mean, that's honestly kind of been the rocket season is like finding weird ways to make players work though. No, you know. Because they're not sure what's going to happen. That's a great point. You know who's going to stay healthy. Right. I think the actual player that is more important than everybody else is Chris Ball, who's had like a better, like he's looked really good.

I watching him and since he returned from the injury, he's been just a very like, smooth and very Chris Paulie, if you will. And it's just like, oh, like, yeah, you're really good. And it's like, you almost forget about that. And I think obviously the way Game 7 ended, you know, with Paul having a hamstring injury and whatnot, like, hey, maybe that's the sort of deciding factor there. Yes. Although a distinguished NBA blogger, Jonathan Charks, would vehemently disagree with you.

And I was getting into an argument with Danny Chowell in the office yesterday because I I agree with you, Paolo, that I think that even though Paul hasn't looked right, especially over the past couple games, I think just the breadth of like his entire game and like certain moments have been really key that show that like how important he is to this team. I thought last night was the prime example of that

where they needed a bucket late. He basically was just like, I'm going to get this basket and just buried his way down at the rim and got an A&1 and all of a sudden it's a different game. Yeah, they have two guys that can do that. Right. And the fact of the matter is is James Harden

has a way of falling asleep in the playoffs. And so it may be very important. But I think we'll actually find out Chris Paul's importance when the inevitable health issues arise. He's at a certain age. He's coming off a hamstring injury. He missed 23 games this season. I don't think there's any way he stays healthy throughout the entire postseason.

Or it feels good enough to stay on the court for the entirety of games. Yeah. Everything intensifies. That's true. I just don't see him. I just don't see this keeping up. And like you said, he's already not like 100% himself.

Yeah, some of the numbers have diminished. He's definitely, he doesn't have the same burst as he has before. But I just think there's like, there's a certain headiness that he has that just really has defined his MBA career and it shows up in times like late in that game.

It's a nice contrast to the way Hardin plays because Hardin is obviously very efficient, but he's also kind of... He's not efficient, though. Well, in the sense that he's taking three's and short shots to the laps. Like, he's a very specific type of player. He's like 25% over the last like 10 games. But the manner in which he plays is almost like purposefully lethargic. Whereas like Chris Paul, when you watch him play, there's like an intensity to

the way he plays. And also within that intensity of control of the game that hardened, you know, that's not his game. So it's a nice sort of contrast to that that I think would help them in when the game slowed down in the playoffs. Yeah. And I think the one thing I came away thinking about the Rockets from that game last night is just in addition to the fact that they're hiding Nene who's the key to their success in the NBA finals is just how many reliable guys

they have on that roster especially now I think like I almost like they don't have the Ariza like kind of B level guy but they just have a lot of solid dudes is what I would describe them as Shump, Gerald Green Eric Gordon

Austin Rivers they just like do exactly what you need I would almost disagree with you with everyone on that list except for, well, did you say PJ Tucker? I didn't say Tucker, but you definitely deserve to be there.

But like, Eric Gordon's had an up and down very, he's been streaky for two years straight now. I would not put Shumper in that boat as like a solid, reliable guy. And while I think that we underestimated

what Gerald Green could be to the team two years ago when they signed him, I think that that might be overestimating him a little bit. I don't think that that's somewhat, I don't think that those are like playoff guys, deep, deep playoff guys.

I see your point. I would disagree if only because they're just like veterans who would be able to hit open shots, which is really all you need from these guys. The one thing I did notice last night in particular was how much bigger the Warriors are. Good Lord, like even like not

including cousins. You're basically, the Rockets' base lineup is like three guards almost all the time. For us at some points if you really want to go super small, Tucker. And now that's an advantage and they played that to their advantage a lot of times, especially last season. But if you're putting cousins in there, it's your front line is basically cousins, Green, and Durant, all of whom are bigger than PJ Tucker. Like, PJ Tucker might be

as big as Clay Thompson, maybe not from like a growth standpoint, but like just from like an overall physical standpoint. Uh, they, they could just crush them. Yeah. Well, that's the thing I was thinking about too, you know, watching this game and sort of seeing what was happening is Durant is the ultimate term card for the series because there's probably nobody on the Rockets who can you know they can probably like limit him

to what 25, 28 but nobody isn't going to stop him just because of his sheer size and the way he scores and I think that's where you see a game like last night it's close and ends up almost being a win for the Rockets without Duran I think that game would be like a 15 point game if Duran had played

Yeah and we're at this point in the season where I don't don't know what's real and what's not. Like, do we really put a lot of stock in this win? They didn't have Durant. They didn't have Manet. Like, dude, like, how much...

You're really going with that. How much were the first three matchups indicative of what's going to happen and how much is this? I think about that a lot when I'm watching these days. And I think this is kind of leading to where we all are as like a basketball viewing community where it's just like, does this matter? I think the Rockets have changed more than the Warrior. have, even though the Warriors have incorporated

have incorporated a boogie because they've had the injury issues throughout and then they've gone with this rotating cast of like nobodies and oh shout out Daniel House who they just yeah Daniel House yeah huge justice he's back actually I think he is important I have to be honest I couldn't tell you one

thing about Daniel House like I know his impact on the team just like seeing him hit a three every so often. But like if you're saying like, oh, he will do this specifically. I got nothing for you. But you, it's the thing you're talking about earlier. He would do that thing specifically of just being a guy around there to make shots. And that's part of it. They just have so many of these similar types. They do. Yeah. At this point. And that's the thing that really could cost them, I think, is that the warriors have different ways in which they can play, as we saw last night. Whereas the Rockets, if it doesn't work out the way they play, they have to resort to what? Like, Chris,

well, mid-range jumpers. You know, there is not a real lot of variety there. They'll go as far as hard and we'll probably take them. Yeah. Which, you know, considering all the other options isn't a bad one. I wanted to check his house's three-point percentage because that's like his thing is 39%. Yeah, he's a good share. We got a lot of solid dudes.

That's the take way. That's the Rockets right there. A lot of solid dudes. Rockets, colon, solid dudes. All right. I just want to talk about one more thing before we go here. A lot of the teams are kind of set for the playoffs. I think the last seed or the last two seeds in the east are pretty much up in the air.

We don't know if the magic you're going to get in, if the heat are going to get in. So get excited, Florida. But besides that, we kind of know who's in, who's not. It's really going to come down to seedings. And from that, I'm really intrigued to see if we have any upsets. I looked this up last night as I was watching Property Brothers on HDTV. There is an average over the past 10 years. You could be the third property brother.

You think so? Wow. Yeah. You're wearing flannel right now. Guys. You have the beard. What would my role be, though? Like, they already had the construction guy.

They have the real estate guy. They have somebody to, like, run their website. Like, just like, you know. Oh, yeah. Do the content. I'm IT. They actually have a third property brother. Did you guys know this?

That sucks. Can you imagine being him? I think he's... Can you imagine being trivia for your two famous brothers? He is, uh, he's like an impersonator from one of those like American Idol guys. Wow. Yeah. Wait, he's an American Idol impersonator?

Yeah, like there's a specific American Idol character that I just don't know his name. But he's a guy with like kind of a rocker guy. A little, little, yes. Judging off a Google administrator should appear he's an Adam Lambert impersonator? Yes, thank you, Bobby. Wow. There's a lot here. We need to be like that.

Property Brothers are over exposed. So we need to figure out my specific role there. But specifically about round one upsets. How's that for transitions? This doesn't make sense Past 10 years There's an average of 1.9 upsets In the first round specifically

Over the past three years There's just been one What's super interesting in a very nerdy way Is that the 5 seed has upset The 4 seed in the West 9 over the past 10 years Which is like Interesting factored

It's very like March Madness of us Right there Because we always talk about the 5 in the 3rd 12 and the 6 and the 13 and whatnot. So based on these deeply researched findings, which was just me going through the brackets over the past 10 years, it seems like if you're the four seed in the Western Conference, you're probably going home.

We'll see how the standings end up playing out. Right now, the Rockets are four. And as we just kind of alluded to, we think they're pretty dangerous in the playoff series. Five are the Portland Trailblazers. After that, it's the Spurs at 6, the Jazz at 7, the clippers at eight. It seems like those teams are set, but they're pretty much, they're within a couple games of each other, so there could be a lot of movement there. The Thunder

could also fall. They're the third right now. Thunder could definitely fall. It seems like Warriors, Nuggets are pretty set in the one-two spot. Next year would probably be Thunder, Rockets, Blazers, and then Spurs, Jazz Clippers, but again, they're all within a few games. Are there any of these teams that you think is particularly vulnerable should they end up in, like, let's say the 14th scene? well paula you think the nuggets right well the nuggets are not going to end up in the four seed if we're talking about a four seat theme probably probably the blazers out of the thing yeah it hurts me to say that because i i enjoy them but i think they're probably the the ones with the case of like i mean we just literally saw that happen last year you know with the them playing pelicans just getting swept uh so they would probably be there as far as overall the west i just i think the nuggets are a little especially if

it looks like it could be either the spurs jazz of the clippers right now I think all those teams are really solid and for a team that has not been most of its main players are and haven't been in the playoffs before I wonder how that could go I've been telling people I've been talking around with the idea of predicting an upset there like especially if it's like the clippers or something like that where I just think it's a team that is so deep

and solid that you know putting matchups aside could give them a little trouble but yeah I don't know I would say like just keep it on the nuggets. You hate the nuggets. No, that's the translation, yes. Well, they did just get rid of Isaiah Thomas from the rotation. So perhaps, yes, I think there's a bit of addition by subtraction going on there.

I want to believe in the Clippers. I went to the game on Monday. I thought they were just super impressive. Just Zubach, sham it, I love. Like, I didn't realize, because I don't really follow college basketball that closely, that he was a point guard in college. And you could definitely see it when he plays. Just the way that he's always like moving the ball

and getting everyone involved while still doing his JJ Reddick thing. I was just blown away by that. I think the downside would be that a lot of their key players are young guys. They're functionally starting three rookies if you want to say that Zubach's first... Zubuch isn't his third year, right?

So three youngsters, essentially two rookies and Zubach. and then a lot of their best players are coming off the bench. Yeah, that's kind of, now that I think about it, it is a little backwards to say, like to harp on the nuggets, we're not having playoff experience when the kilpers are starting a few young guys

who also have not have playoff experience. But I do think their bench is just ridiculous to a point where like that cancels some of it out. And the nuggets are deep themselves. But yeah, you know, there's a certain foundation there and identity that they already know who they are there. you know, Lou Williams can come in and drop 20, you know, on any given night, mantra cell out can be forced, you know, near the rim.

So, yeah, I don't know. I just think knowing who you are going to the playoffs and sort of highlighting those skills is what could make for a dangerous offset team. Well, speaking of a team further down in the Western Conference standings that has a lot of playoff experience, there's the jazz. I mean, they are a team that is headed by Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, who is actually 26. But they're built on veterans, Joe Engels, Ricky Rubio, Derek Favors, Kyle Corver, Jay Crowder.

And they did it last year. And they've seen like a team that's beyond their years together, mostly because they did a really good job of incorporating Mitchell as the centerpiece and running things around him last year. And we literally saw it last year. So against a young team, they could be dangerous. Especially with the way that Gobert is playing right now, that would be an interesting matchup for the Nuggets. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's interesting. They've played a lot of point card lists this season.

You're starting to see Ricky Rubio kind of work his way back in there. He started last night. And it seemed like it had a cascading effect to where Rubio himself did not play particularly well. He was one for seven from the field, which is not great going forward in terms of like that being a viable option. But you did see other guys seeming to have more because they weren't always on the ball. You could do a little bit more with your. rotation. So I do think that that's a little bit of a curveball there that they could play with. And obviously, the defense is always going to be there with Rubio. But the jazz, they just, we wrote

something on the site recently, Dan Devind did that maybe they were the sleeping giant in the NBA, just like they were last season going into the playoffs. They had just such a incredible stretch run. And it seemed like analytically that things were aligning themselves to happen again. Unfortunately, over the past few games, they've kind of struggled. They let the suns hang in there, the other night. They lost to the Pelicans. And I think like tonight's

matchup against the wolves at 6 p.m. Pacific, I think that's a really interesting one. Just because I think the wolves have played really feisty lately. I think Carl Anthony Towns has been very good. He's starting to play like the guy

we all kind of hoped he would be. I caught a lot of flack from Wolf's Twitter because I called him Nikola Vosovic Ultra. Oh, man. In our blurbs. But I mean, I just, I've always been a fan.

I've just always been disappointed because I think he's the type of talent that should be in the MVP conversation. I've been saying this all year. I just, I think like you get the right solid guys around him. I think there's a chance that like they could be a frontline team. I think he should be competing for the MVP every year. So they're playing the jazz tonight. All right. We're going to call that one our watch of the night. We do this once every podcast. If you want to watch every NBA game, subscribe to NBA League Pass on NBA.com or your local cable or satellite provider. All right. So any other teams that you think, could be upset ready. Yeah, let's turn the ease.

Let's do some dinti talk. I fucking love the net. There you go. Haley, tell us about the nets. Okay, so this is actually, it's kind of sad because they have the toughest schedule going forward and seating

will depend a lot for them. I think if they can avoid the seventh or the eighth, which would mean playing the bucks or the raptors, they have a real chance of upsetting someone. And I even think

this is how common I am, I even think that they would make those interesting series. The 7 and A. See? Yes. I agree. I agree.

Maybe not with the bugs, but with the Raptors. Sure. The net's core of, well, I mean, Dimmies is a six-man, but their top, their three best scores

had not played together since November until Dinnwitty came back in late, late February. And Karris Levert is still getting back into it. You know, Dinwiddie returned from thumb surgery.

So him, Lever, and Daniela Russell are now the unit that they can be. And while they went through all these injuries, that's not even half of it, other players on their roster that might have not been as important before came into focus and became pieces that are really, really going to help them.

One of them, crooks, crooks. Crooks? Cruoks. One of them, Kourukes. I like pronouncing a guy Rodney. That's incredible. Yeah, yes. Roddy.

Rodney Kirk's That actually has been a recent change He started him into like Aalband or something Before I'm throwing it back to a previous podcast Where I called them Rodney Kirk's Oh I was going to say that he

They actually just moved him into the starting lineup Into the power forward position And it's actually really helped one of their major issues Which is rebounding So Kenny Atkinson is still toying with things. But I do think

that even though they are inexperienced, I think that experience is the one thing that they're lacking for a team that could upset another team.

Their defense, especially over the last five games, including the Thunder game, has been, has the makings of a very solid defense. Over the last five games,

they've had the best defensive rating in the NBA. It's 95. Jared Allen is a good defensive player. That is my take. So what do you think about the Nets? Are you a believer?

Yeah, no, I think I agree with Haley that the 7-8 will be tough. But I do think even if they get those, we're going to watch a lot of games be like, whoa, like, this is a lot closer than maybe a lot of people who expect it. Because they're going to give these teams a tough game, like just the way they play and the way they fight, if you will, it makes it so that every team has to be on their A game. to, you know, I think with the Thunder game, we saw Thunder had to turn it on a little more to get away from them. So, yeah, it's a tough matchup for a lot of things. I think they're the one team in the East

who's the only team who's really got like upset potential. They put a lot of pressure on teams. They play at their own pace. They really, like, force teams to kind of run with them. They shoot a lot of threes, so you need the team that they're playing against is going to maybe have to hit threes and also have to be able to keep up

with what they could do there. They also have a go-to finisher. Also have a go-to finisher. In that regard, I'm a little dubious. They have had injuries, so some of their season-long statistics aren't particularly reliable. They have a minus 0.1 point differential, which is like, it's not great. It doesn't suggest that they're like a sleeping giant or anything.

I also don't truly trust D'Angelo Russell. I know he's come a long way this year. But I saw, even in that Thunder game, I remember one crucial possession. and he essentially airballed it just coming down those court and just like jacking it. I think he has the ability to shoot them into games

but I think more often than not he might shoot them out of them. Yeah, the young person problem but I do think that having Levert and Dinwiddie there and the attitude and the aggression that they have is really good backup.

And the thing is like this is all icing on the cake of an already successful season just the way they played and the fact they're going to be in the playoffs even, you know. But hopefully they can stay in the sixth seed.

To make it interesting. To make it interesting, yeah. And also I checked over the last five games, including the Thunderloss, they've had a 95.5 defensive rating. That's insane. It's pretty good. All right.

You want to say pretty good podcast? You want to say kourous one more time? Kudukes. On that note, for Paulo, for Yelie. For Bobby and for me. Basketball is very good.

Basketball is very good. You know,