The Ringer NBA Show - Young Core Rankings, Part 2. Plus, the NBA’s Best Blue-Chip Prospects. | Group Chat

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Justin, Rob, and J. Kyle Mann are back for Part 2, where they rank the best young cores in the NBA 15-1. And then at the end, they pick out the 15 best blue-chip prospects in the league going forward. (00:00) Intro (4:06) Pelicans(13:08) Jazz(18:34) Sixers(24:36) Cavs(29:51) Wizards (40:13) Raptors(45:47) Hornets(54:24) Timberwolves(57:46) Mavs(1:03:14) Hawks(1:07:57) Magic(1:17:02) Rockets(1:22:49) Pistons(1:29:52) Thunder(1:35:58) Spurs Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and J. Kyle MannAudio Producer: Isaiah Blakely Video Producer: Victoria Valencia Additional Production Support: John Richter Production Supervision: Ben Cruz Social: Isaiah Blakely and Keith Fujimoto The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠ ⁠⁠www.rg-help.com⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Shopping. Streaming. Celebrating. It’s on Prime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to group chat. I am Justin Varyer and sitting before me, Rob Mahoney, J. Kyle, man, here for part two of the Young Corps rankings, the inaugural Young Corps rankings. How are you feeling after part one? Younger. Oh, I just feel full of energy, Vim and Vigur. You know, I just, I feel the spirit of basketball flowing through me. So I'm really glad that we chose to do this. Vim and Vigor, Piss and Vinegar.

I'm feeling it all, man. I'm feeling stronger by the moment. encouraged by this crop. Basketball's in good hands, dare I say, looking at the talent that we have across the board. We haven't even gotten to the good hands yet. I know. I don't think we got a single blue chipper.

We got a bunch of maybes in terms of our search for the 15 best prospects in the NBA. But we did, just and, dare I say, an hour and 30 minutes into the podcast, finally iron out the differences in what you were identifying as a blue chipper and I was identifying as a blue chipper. So let us move forward with this common ground.

Yes. This should fly. from here. I'm sure there will be nothing to slow us down here. So just to reiterate from the first pot, if you didn't listen to that, you're more interested in the top dogs. I think I thought the first pot was pretty good. So you should go and do that. If you wanted to find out what multiple Kobe's are doing in the NBA and their futures. So Young Core rankings first started a couple of years ago, was Zach Cram doing a stats model. Kyle went and helped him out. Now we're going to do our own version of it.

We ranked the top 30 teams or we ranked all the teams, one to 30, based on their young core. which we're designating as all players under the age of 25 as designated by basketball references age 24 season. So if you are 25 right now, no mas. You're not included. Also, if you are 25 sooner than later, also not included. Doesn't count. So if you're thinking of certain players in your head who. Tyree's maxi.

Yes. Doesn't count. Doesn't count. So if you're mid, if you were angrily, if you were typing that message out. know they were doing it. Like, we could, we could feel it. They're doing it right now. You're doing it right now. You're welcome to send any other angry messages you want, just not that angry message.

There was an angry mob coming up the street. I saw from a distance and they heard this and they were like, and they just turned around and wandered home aimlessly. So you love to see it. So hopefully we don't get killed. We might still get killed in these rankings, but, you know. Just life. We'll also have all of the players for each team up on the screen if you're watching this,

preferably on Spotify and the video app. So you could see which players for each team are going to be involved here. I'll talk through most of them. Other than that, no parameters. You could weigh depth, more importantly. You could weigh one blue chip star prospect more than anything. It's up to you. It's America, baby.

And then at the end of this episode, we're going to go through and discuss, as I mentioned, the 15 blue chip prospects in the NBA will mark them as we're going. But the basic idea is not best players. These are the guys' best futures from here on now. Yeah. Right? We'll also talk about maybes. We'll also talk about guys.

We'll also talk about maybe guys. There's a lot of confusion in the midst there, but we're going to give you at the end of this, the players version, but we're going to do the teams first. Anything else here? We cover everything? Let's get into it. Let's rock it.

If you listen to one, you know, you know the game. You're on two. You guys are smart out there. You know what's going. You're a group chat listener. You know what the deal is. We talk about inane things and young players. The Ringer NBA show is presented by Fandall.

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Number 15 here, just kick us off, the New Orleans Pelicans, the team we just did a mighty segment about that kept Kyle up to all hours. of the night before, unfortunately. How do you feel about that, Kyle? Did you feel like that was a good use of your time and sacrificing of sleep? I just want to emphasize, if you go back and watch that pod,

I feel and look like death. Every time that I spoke, I sounded like Count Orlock. It was like, Derrickoim, I sounded and looked awful. So I'm sorry. In the future,

I'm just going to be honest, because there's a thing about, like, trying to keep it together on podcasts, I think, that it's just kind of bullshit. You know, we were talking about, like, we're going to be honest with you guys from now on. So anyway, yes, it was the lateness and the

sickness. I was in bed shape on that show. To be honest with you, we just lost all of our Transylvania listeners. So thanks a lot, Kyle. This is the debate Rob and I often have because I am very honest with the listeners. I hold nothing back. I'm more honest with our listeners than I am with my own family. Why am I being put on the side of like lying? I'm not pro lying. You're just like, you have more of a brand to manage. And you're very careful with it. I have zero brand to manage. I just don't think you should accost people. No, you're just, well, we could debate it as well.

But no, Rob is very careful about revealing things about it. It's just more of a personal preference. Oh, sure, that's true. Yeah, whereas Justin is just going into parks and trench coats and just opening it. You know, he likes to reveal himself. It's true. Anything is available. But we talked that length about Derek Queen. A little bit about Derek Favors in that one. So, Queen I have as a maybe, we should

mark here. Do you guys have them as a... We talked about Derek Favors? Yeah, wait, what did I say? Then we talked about Derek Favors. Should I take that again? No. No, you should. Because I'm honest. Where did your brain go?

I think because I saw the F. Well, and the Pelicans brain too. Yeah, that's right. Legend. Derek Queen, I have as a maybe, not as a blue chip. Do you guys have a blue chip on him? I think you got to kind of think about it. Yeah.

Which is really saying something for where he's been. Obviously, the baggage we've talked about plenty. But just for, in terms of Biggs coming into the league, he feels like the most promising hub option that could be available of all these young guys in a lot of ways. I mentioned on the last episode that I have some guys who are in the, like, projection volatility range, where I think that Queen has earned the right to gain consideration, have consideration as a volatility that spans all the way up to All-Star, in my opinion, which I think, I know we're being very heavily semantic-driven on this show, but I think he absolutely has a chance to flirt with All-Star, which I think would make him a blue chipper.

He's been sensational. But can we talk about the Pelicans' other maybe Blue-chip certainly highly touted prospect, Jeremiah Fierce, who, despite what Kyle Mann might have told you is quite good. Are you anti-fears? I was worried about him in a significant way. I mean, I think I probably dinged him a little hard on the shooting and a little hard on the defense in terms of his size. I think he's held up and acquitted himself pretty well to this point.

The on-ball stuff is just electric. I mean, his connectivity, like, he just dribbles so effortlessly and gets the spots on the floor wherever he wants to. And the finishing, the finishing is, is, really crafty and really creative in a way that has been impressive, just really, really impressive. He's also one of these guys who's super

young, right? He just turned 19. We talk all about Flag being ahead of his class and reclassifying and being What is? A reclass too, if I'm not. Oh, really? Yeah. So I think he's a December birthday as well Flag does. And so it seems like he, at the very least, he's shown I think glimmers of being a star

and having the electricity that you can't teach. Yeah. That I'm encouraged by. Because that's all I want to see for some of these guys that have a, their starting point is from a much younger, much rar position. Oh, yeah, there's lots that they can learn about how to run a team, about how to like manage time, score, execution, all that stuff. What I want to see from someone like fears is what he's showing us,

which is like, hit this play against the Bulls the other night that was hard dribble to his right, full spin move back to his left, and then kind of like slowed all the way down on the step through so that the shot blocker just kind of goes right by him. It's like the ability to manipulate space and time. That's what I want to see from a guy like him. And he's got it. Like he's got that. He can clearly blow by people and finish well.

He's also got a nice little kind of one-legged step back that's working pretty well for him right now. And if you can kind of get defenders yo-yoing in both directions because they don't know how to guard you, just immensely valuable. It's the, it's the ant man in the inside Iron Man suit kind of thing that you have to have presence of mind that you have about yourself if you're going to survive in the NBA if you're that small and you're not. nailed it. Whereas if you're one of these guards who is A to B, you know, my life as a basketball player as a point guard to this point has been a, it's an incendiary A to B. You get into the NBA and you realize like the bigs are big enough to beat you to point B. You got to have some kind of ability to slow and go into bullet time and be angular and be strong with your dribble and things like that. And I think he's shown that. How do you guys feel about the fit with Queen though?

Do you think these guys ultimately compliment each other? Because this seems like the foundation of whatever is next. And part because they won't have a lottery pick in the serious draft. I mean, at the risk of falling into the easiest possible template, what you want to see some fears is just like, how does he find his Jamal Murray? Right. And that's where I think the change of pace and the kind of ducking and weaving stuff actually kind of could translate pretty well potentially. And all you really need is just their ability to work and handoff together. And I think you can trust Queen to find other shooters to space out into other plays. There's going to be a lot of ways you can expand the offense just through his vision. But if fears can be explosive off the catch

moving really quickly. And I think this is. one of the things with him is like I've been impressed with like some of the cuts he's making. I've been impressed with like some of the moves he's making off the ball. I think there's enough there for them to be a really good pairing for a long time. I also think it's important that these guys are fun, which obviously is not what we're rating here, but for New Orleans, which is just trying desperately for over a decade now, trying to find a foothold in a market. I just think they need something that will attract the every man to get to the arena because right now there's no way to see these promising young rookies or Tray Murphy, all these guys that we like

talking about. But the one time it seems like they captured the zeitgeist of the city was when it was Brandon Ingram and the Spunky Herb Jones era where they just had like a... Pose Alvarado. Yeah, they had an energy that appealed to people. And I think you could build something off of fears and queen

that appeals to just like the common man. You want to go watch that other than go down the street and kind of get drunk off your ass. I mean, isn't this the podcast for the common man? We're making the appeal right now. Well, it's a different common man in New Orleans because right now they're not listening to the podcast. That's unfortunate.

You know that for a fact? You check in the demos? I do check the demos pretty vigorously, but I don't know about New Orleans. You know who else is not listening to the podcast? Jordan Hawkins, so I don't know if he exists anymore. Is he a person in the world? What happened to Jordan Hawkins? It would be funny if nobody could find Jordan Hawkins, but we find him listening to the group shack.

I would love it if that were the case. It's just like, I keep wanting to hold on to the idea that he could be a thing, but that is so far gone at this point. It's just, is this kind of like the, like, Coco except like, or the afterlife thing where it's like, if no one remembers Jordan Hawkins, he's just slowly disappearing off the map. That's exactly the case. Yes. I hate to say it, but it's just where he finds himself and where we find ourselves. Two years of subpar shooting, and he's a shooter who is 100 pounds soaking wet.

It's not going to work if he can't shoot. That'll do it. It's the baseline non-negotiable of his existence. It was the sort of trading thing. We thought that the shooting was going to be the baseline. And then, you know, at Summer League, they started talking about getting him in balls, screens and like experiment and things like that. And it's just like shooting's not there. He's not getting to the basket. We know that he's very much a paper machet driver. If he is, he's kind of a,

if he has an open lane to run, he can get up. He's pretty athletic. But, you know, he just, he can't like create set the table for himself to go do those things. And there are a lot of offense first guys on this team. And if you're thinking down the road, fears and Hawkins playing those together, like, good luck. But I would take a second draft, like, risk on him. Or like, if I can get him on a minimum just to see what else he has left, like see if he could shoot. He's that type of guy, especially if you see what happens with Ice and Daniels getting a chance outside of the New Orleans system, I think you would

give him a shot at the very least. I mean, he'll light it up in Sioux Falls at some point and it's just like, everything will kind of fall into place barely, and then he'll make a roster again and then we'll see. Well, we were just talking about Isaiah Joe. I mean, Isaiah Joe, off Mike. We were talking about Isaiah Joe. Well, on Mike

also perpetually. And he's a little bigger, if I'm not mistaken, but I think he could be a candidate for that kind of thing, getting into the right system. It speaks to the Queen hype train, though, that they're at 15 because it's really fears and Queen. Like we talk about even if he's fine. Hawkins, as we just described, Peev's getting minutes. Like, all these guys are just fine.

Yeah, outside of that. And I think Queen deserves the consideration as far as our all blue chip team. But he also has some huge questions. You know, this is all very early and we're all incredibly excited about it. But what is he going to be defensively? How much can carry he carry offensively for an actually good team? They're just guys who are more proven than him. And so it's going to be hard to put Derek Queen on the team.

at the expense of actually good All-Star or fringe All-Star level players right now. So no blue chippers on this next team. The Utah Jazz at 14, but a lot of guys. Like the list you're seeing in front of you right now is a metric shit ton of guys. Eight of these are recent first-round draft picks. Nine of them in the top 32,

the only one outside of the first round, is Kyle Philip Kosti. Could have easily gone on the first round in that draft. It's crazy. If you're a jazz fan, you're probably looking, this is what we tanked for, this collection. And right now it's like, it's okay. It's fine.

Yeah. Who's the highest pick in this group, though? I mean, it's Ace, right? I'm trying to think of other than that, it's been a whole lot of just bad lottery luck. So I think that's probably why they've ended up with this group. Great point. Cody Williams at 10 would be next. And then it's 16 for George and Clayton Jr.

at 18. Yeah. It's a lot in the 20s. You're right. Cody Williams is the one that hurts, though. Yes. I just think he's not good. He's shown no reason to think that he has an NBA player.

And maybe that'll change someday, and I would love to see it. But that's really tough for the 10th pick to get someone who's just showing you nothing to this point. Yeah, what did you think about him coming out of the draft? I mean, it kind of played out the exact way I thought it would. I mean, it's kind of a case of like brother bias, right? I mean, it's just, I think people saw the leap that Jalen made and they looked at him and just said, that'll probably happen, right? And it just kind of hasn't happened.

If you look at the guys that were taken after him, I think there were some like decent swing players who, I don't even think there were huge swings that are going to probably have higher floors than him. I mean, Tobich hasn't played yet, Bub Carying, Hillel Ware, Jared McCain, De Silva, who's become a pretty steady but consistent guy, Kishon George. I mean, you just go on and on, and I think it was kind of an odd swing. I mean, I'm just totally guessing. We could probably find out more details on why they did that, but it just hasn't come to fruition. And BPM negative 7.8 up to his point. So if you, if your head's that far below water, I did a study on this one time,

among rookies and guys like years one through three. If you're still that far below water in year three, guys typically don't get above water. Tough, because other than him, they have some solid guys here. Definitely. Kessler, obviously out this year, but solid. That sucks, though.

Yes. Conte George, though, doesn't suck. Big time. He looks like a real player, a guy even. I know. He really looked like, based on last season, he might turn into a cautionary tale. He might become one of these Jordan Hawkins type,

like, scores who just can't score efficiently anymore. the bottom falls out on their game and then what are they? And then you're watching him and like he's really diversified his game off the ball, I think. And some of it's like the way that the jazz run their offense and how much they enable these guys to cut and move. Yes, Kianti is the pull-up game has been there. Yes, the pick and roll game has been there. But he's also been really good going back door. He's playing off of all of these bigs in like really exciting ways.

I love to see him adding all those elements so that he's everything just like live and die with, are you making your pull-up jumpers tonight? Yeah. I do worry about when he scales into a more efficient role where that becomes paramount for his game. Like, where does he fit in? That's the big concern about these kind of micro-race scores where we've seen now, like, teams are just moving off them and not valuing them at all. Does he ultimately fall into a six-man role?

We want more of a caretaker setup guy at the point-guard role. I don't know. But at the very least, they have a good problem to have because he fits somewhere in this team, I would hope. The guy who's really intriguing to me is Ace Bailey, who still talk about baby deer. like I don't even think he knows what he is at this point and probably thinks of himself as a different player than he's going to end up being. But I just see him out there. I'm just like, good Lord, this giant athlete who could probably be a lights out shooter. Like, if they could just harness that, then they'd be on to something.

And then we're talking about Bailey and Lowry and potential draft pick coming this year. Then we're on to something. Yeah, I think he's somebody that can't really paddle for himself. He kind of has to be towed around to the spots. Like, you know, you have to kind of put him in position to succeed because his handle and traffic has been pretty rough. at times. You don't see him. But if he's active on the offensive glass, those are the little areas where he can add value. It's just him running and one step jumping. I've always said is kind of his strength because he's really big and he's really explosive off of one step. But the movement shooting's

been really solid. I mean, 45.8% on movement three is not a crazy sample, but 42.1 on spot-up. So just him hitting shots. He definitely has probably more, he really, really loves those like, you know, I caught it, you know, one of these into a shot kind of things from the Mellow. Yeah. You don't have a name for that one? You'd like to, yeah, he's just sort of a mid-range maven kind of a guy. Like, he's somebody that he's lived off of those. I would like to see more of those B-3s. But, yeah, if he's a really active cutter,

if he's active on the glass, it's just, you've got to have somebody to set the table for him. I think Will Hardy's done a really good job of channeling, as you're saying, all those like bucket getting instincts into the movement shooting, the spot up. And I think a lot of his role right now is outlined that way. You start with that stuff, give him this structure of this is where, your easy points can come from.

And once you get that down, then maybe you can expand into the bucket getting stuff at some point. Maybe, you know, when you're 23, we can have a different conversation about what you can create. But right now, he does all that. And in addition to it, he just has these moments, whether it's in transition or even just like some really nice plays defensively.

Well, he will flash all that size and athleticism. He will just pop and uncork and block the shit out of somebody. You don't expect him to get. The steadiness isn't there. The consistency isn't there. You can see the. flashes of a really interesting two-way player. So you'll see the difference in perspective here with these rankings where the Jazz had a ton of guys.

But this next team on our list, number 13, the Philadelphia 76ers have one guy and then another maybe guy, right? Because Vijay Edgecombe definitely a maybe in terms of blue chip prospects. I think I didn't have him as a blue, but right on the fucking cost. Because, man, have you seen him lately with Maxi, not on the floor? Yeah. He just assimilates into that role so seamlessly. And this guy is still like, what, 19. 20 years old. Like, I don't even think he realizes who he is in this league, but he just has

something, which is irrepressible. In the midst of Embed going off, in the midst of Paul George getting his, like, he had the same amount of shot attempts as George and Embed in that second game. And he was just as good and efficient as he was, like, playing off of Maxie. It was kind of remarkable. I'm having to, like, pump the bricks for myself with VJ. Edgecombe. Are you in the, are you in the arena with the fog? You're trying to, like, you don't know where the wall is. I don't know where the wall is anymore. And it is this, which is like, depending on who's in the lineup, the circumstances, it's so easy for him to turn it up. Like, he just has his finger on that dial all the time in a way that honestly reminds me

of Maxi a couple years ago, where you just get a little daylight and all of a sudden he has 25. Like, it just looks so simple for him. Everything is so straightforward. And for the level of athlete he is, it doesn't even really feel like a strain to get there. Leads all rookies and plus minus, which plus minus whatever, but, and he plays with a lot of veterans.

But I think that says something about like what a high floor he is. It just seems like he makes an impact no matter what role he's in. I think if we're going to talk about the question of him being a blue chip player or not is the question of, do we think that he can get to do what Maxie has done? Do we think that we can get to the point where he's going to be able to facilitate if he's going to be able to see the floor? I have always reiterated this about what I saw him as. I saw him as a high quality supportive guy who probably you don't want him carrying the heaviest load as a decision maker, but he's just smart.

He always redirects the ball. He's a good steward of good offense. you know, and doesn't have a lot of self-sabotaging sort of habits as a player. But, I mean, that's an exceptional, like, test case, right? Like, what of the caretaker of your offense is one of the most athletic players in the league? Right. And I think he has some of those qualities to him, in addition to just having this pop of scoring. So beyond him, it's really Jared McCain and a bunch of other guys.

What's going on with Jared McCain? I mean, he's been injured perpetually at this point. He's been injured. I mean, let's just, let's just say it very plainly. Oh, many TikToks? Well, an awful defender is what I was going to say. I have no problem with the social media presence. Do whatever you want to do.

I mean, I'm not following him. Go with God, Jared McCain. Have fun out there. You have a problem with him? Justin has a problem with everyone's social media presence. Too many TikToks. Just doing too much. Is that kind of your thing?

Too many TikToks. Also, too many outside interests for Justin. Maybe. His TikToks also aren't inventive. He's just like doing like pretty simple. Like if he was like doing ballet moves, I'd be like, hell yeah. I'm going to follow that.

But it's just like the latest craze and he's just doing. There's not a lot of depth. there to his TikTok dances. Okay. I think for you to have this take, you need to do some of the dances that he's done. I would do that in a second. Do you doubt me?

Let's get Keith on the phone. Let's get Jomi on the phone. Let's put you on the ring or social media and see what you got. I've told you guys. I flirted with the Deniavdia TikTok, which I still wanted to do. I don't like any of this. I don't agree with your take. My only point is like he's so bad defensively that when the shot goes, it looks awful.

And you can see Nicketers just like wrestling with this on an ongoing basis. But there's also the thing with him where they have so many good guards now that the opportunity is naturally diminished. He's clearly out of rhythm because of the injuries and other things. And that just created this feedback loop where he can't get on the floor long enough to really get himself into the right mode. And that just makes him worse and worse and worse and worse. And he just has not gotten his feet under him at any point yet. Yeah, I mean, considering like where they got him, I just think the opportunity to get Edgecombe through a curveball in the way that we were going to feel about him, you know? I just think the Sixers having the blip sort of year, the unexpectedly bad year that put them in the position to get this pick.

I think it's just kind of thrown him into flux that I don't think we're going to be able to find our way out of the flux until we can keep him on the floor and to see him play. It's also tough because what he does is just spark plug scoring. You'd assume he'd ultimately end up as a bench score as his role. I would be surprised if he had, even at the highest moments last year would have been just like a go-to score on a starting lineup. And they don't really need that electricity because as we were saying, VJ has it in. He has it in spades. And so it's tough to really... Grimes, another guy who does the same thing.

And so, like, in a weird way, the depth chart kind of consumed him very quickly. Like, I would love to see him in a role in a different team that needs it. Like, maybe Charlotte or something, you know, who just needs juice off the bench. One of those type of teams. I think that Quick Fire score is still in him. But you're right that they just need it a little bit less right now. And certainly, just like the minutes going to Quentin Grimes or whoever are ultimately probably a little better served. other than that, I mean, Jabbarry Walker's a dog.

I really like Dominic Barlow. Okay. I think he's just like one of the best guys on a two-way contract in the entire league right now. He's the classic, like, forward who can't, I don't think he's ever going to get to the point where he's a starter. But he can handle and he can pass and he knows how to move. It's just like one of these guys you plug in and you never feel bad about his minutes. He's constantly connecting and moving and extending actions. I would love to have him in my front court if I were running a team.

Power rank these Sixers Randos, Justin Edwards, Dominic Barlow, a Dem Bona, and let's say, Jabari Walker. I love all these guys. That's the thing. I really love all these guys. Choose one of your sons. Right now Barlow is my favorite.

Okay. Of this group. It could change any moment. It could change at any moment. Okay. And I think some of that is like, I have a clearer sense of how Barlow makes good players better and makes other lineups make more sense.

For a kind of two-way, that's pretty remarkable. Yeah, he was kind of like a butt of a joke earlier in the season where you're like, oh, my God, this is where we are. Dominic Barlow, I feel like I heard that constantly from people. And it's gotten to the point where it's just kind of like, oh, yeah, there Barlow's out there. So that's a progression. Yeah. So similar category at number 12, Cleveland Cavaliers, except they've got a blue chipper.

Our first blue chipper. Truly. Ring the bell. Do whatever we're doing for the blue chippers. We lock it in. Lock it in. Yeah. We're locking in the blue chip.

Bring the fucking bell. Because Evan Mowley somehow coming off a defensive player of the year season. coming off a big old leap year is 24 years old. All NBA, right? Yeah. It's unbelievable sometimes when you see these guys. Like, we'll get to Cade Cunningham later on. I'm like, this guy is still under 25 fucking years old?

Youth, man. They're just doing miracles. But this is where the conversation, I don't even, wait, hold on. What? We're doing miracles. What are the youth doing this miraculous? Just this stuff? Just being Cade Cunningham.

So the youth on TikTok bad. Yeah. The youth being Cade Cunningham, good? Yeah. All right. Nothing to explore there. No. It's clear cut.

Absolutely so. The conversation almost ends there, though. We can talk about Jalen Tyson, and we should. But this is really Evan Mobley is the youth movement in Cleveland for all intents and purposes. Not necessarily a great thing for where the calves are right now. Here's my question to you. Okay. So Mobley has the big leap last year.

He's been okay this year, at least relative to expectations. Do you think we'll ever be content with Mobley's progression or do we think so highly of what he could be that he'll never actually make that. I'm trying to think of a player who was really similar that kind of kept us in that limbo for the whole career. I'm trying to think, I mean, Chris Weber was accused of that for a while, but he had some moments with Sacramento later on. I do feel like we do this with a lot of bigs.

Yeah. And sometimes deserved. Like Cat has been in that space for a lot of time, it's been somewhat deserved. Scotty Barnes' offense, he's kind of really found up footing this year, and we'll get to him a little bit later. But, like, for a while,

it was like if he wasn't just a playmaker, plus, like, the best defensive player in the world, world like we were disappointed. Yeah. I mean, you could see all these things coming when you watched him as a young player even before he came into the draft. It was just like the shot was really slow. It was going to have to, he was going to have to really go a long way to get to that, be that consistent. And you wanted to see him sort of exert his will around the pain a little bit more and just be meaner. And it's just kind of like it's been more present on the defensive

side of the ball than it's been on the offensive side of the ball. But this team is interesting. In the exercise of the core rankings, it's interesting to look at a Utah team who has a bunch of quarters is the way I put it the other day. And it's like, Cleveland has one dollar. And that's just kind of like, that's, okay, cool. We're going to rank you a ad. Because that's what we're looking for. I think the question is, is it even a dollar or is a player like Evan Mobley more like a

20? You know, it's like he's so much more valuable. You just broke my system. So that doesn't work. I'm just saying an Evan Mobley is so much more valuable than a Keante George. Like in terms of what they represent to a team, the kind of load bearing aspects of their game. Of course, I agree that even though he's having a comparable season to what he

did last year, there is a disappointment in that. I think part of the reason it feels off is he's the lone big in a lot of these lineups. And yes, we're wanting him to be a little nastier. We're wanting him to get to the basket and finish with more authority. And somehow he's just like scoring around the basket even less and shooting around the basket even less in what

should be theoretically more space. And so I just keep waiting for that because, to your point, Kyle, about the speed of his jumper, which has gotten a little more smooth during his time in the league, it's still not something that you want to build your entire game around. Like Evan Mowgli's shooting long twos is fine in spots, but it's not the crux of his game, or at least it shouldn't be.

It's always been more of a release valve than something that you go to. And I think that people have just been longing for him to find something that we're going to. And even his release valve stuff like his shot, you're just like, I don't love it. You know, it's just kind of, and I don't know that we're ever going to totally get there. But you do not find encouragement that he's being a little bit more varied in the shots that he's taking. The very least he's stepping out and shooting different shots. Definitely. So the problem I wonder to answer the question we kind of pose here is like I wonder if it is dispositional.

The fact that he isn't going out and getting it and taking it from Donovan Mitchell, who will take as much as he's allowed to. I do wonder part of that is just like innately who he is, just his character. And it works against them that he has all of these ready made veterans who are all stars, literally three of them on his roster at various times who are going to eat first. And he's not going to be the guy who's going to step outside of that. If anything, like that's the problem. with putting a rookie and kind of catapulting them into a competitive position so soon,

you don't build up the reps of like taking that and knowing what is yours versus like what you could just take from someone else because that guy doesn't matter as much as me. And so maybe it comes. Maybe it's a growth thing. Maybe it's a maturity thing. But the fact he doesn't have that, I feel like it's to his detriment because other guys are getting that freely elsewhere. It's true. But the fact that he is still in this group as being eligible as a young player, I think speaks to the way we talk about him is so much more tethered to what he has accomplished, which is exceptional and not actually where he is in terms of age,

which is a 24-year-old. We still figure out all this stuff. So he's a blue shipper. No doubt. Do we need to talk about anybody else? I mean, Tyson's been good this year. Yeah. I mean, and I wasn't sure that was going to be the case,

even as recently as last season. So just to see him like find his driving game in particular. And he's just like such a, he plays with a lot of abandon on the drive, on the move in a way that I really appreciate. I think every team needs a guy like him and the fact that Cleveland was able to find him has been one of the boons of their season. I agree.

Number 11, the Washington Wizards, who are team volume. I actually considered Alexar as a maybe. Now, deep maybe. Like, I don't think he was like a legitimate candidate to vault into the blue chipper. It's only 15 spots, ladies and gents. But a guy who I feel strongly about

is going to have a good future in this league. And so I had to stop and think about it for a while. Sure. Still only 20 years old. It feels great. Yeah. But it seems like he's on the path toward carving out a successful version of himself, which is being more of a big man and then adding this stuff on top of that.

So he's good. On top of that, though, it's a real grab bag. Man, there's just a lot of guys. And to the point where they're already in the process of culling and like and kind of pushing some aside, like AJ Johnson doesn't play. Ken Whitonmore, not playing anymore. Ken Whitonmore got basically got benched for like conduct unbecoming of a Washington wizard, which is really something.

Yeah. I don't even know what that means. Well, not literally, but that was effectively, the message was like, you're not up to our competitive standards. You're too selfish to be a wizard. I have never gotten more text about one specific thing from one specific player than, oh, my God, Kim Whitmore does not pass the ball. It was incredible.

Remarkable. I wanted to just kind of throw this into flex a little bit, though, if we're going to talk about who's a dude and who's not, if I put a gun to your head. Please don't. Kyle, please don't. If I put a water gun to your head. If I put a Bonk, if I put a, a, a, a Gordon Bonk mallet over your head. And I said, for sure, 10 years from now, we're looking at who's a better player.

Five years from now. Alex Saar or Kelle Ware, are you absolutely sure you know what the answer would be? No. No. But I think Saar has the higher floor. Where is more volatile, I guess. I don't know, though, because we were talking about the steadiness of, of, you know, where's shooting and I'm like,

Sarr has always kind of marketed himself as somebody who aspires to that. And I just, those two guys are just so similar to me in terms of their paths. Like, you saw somebody really young in the international game that people really got drunk considering his potential and things like that. Ware had a sort of odd ambling path

to where he is now. I just think those two guys if one, if we definitively said one was a dude and one wasn't, you know, I just think that would be interesting because I actually kind of think they're close. I'm not ready to be definitive about it, but if we want to get really in the weeds, part of the reason I feel so bullish about Sarr from this season. Yeah, the scoring, especially closer to the basket, has been so much better.

He looks like a much different finisher. He also can, like, facilitate and wheel and deal a little bit in a way that I just have not really seen as much from Collin. Better pass or they're than where for sure. And so it's like as a big, if you are a pretty high level room protector, which Sarr already was and has continued to be, plus you can score inside, plus you can facilitate, plus maybe you can shoot. Now we're really cooking with gas. And how much was Sars struggles shooting last season, a result of the? them really ratcheting up the volume on him from the start. He had the green-ass light where he could take a bunch of threes where he probably wasn't ready to do so. Like now he's a respectable

shooter. It's not like a plus shot. But I've always thought like the form looked good. It could be because he's like more boxy as a human than someone else. So everything looks very rigid. But the shot always looked fine. Like it doesn't seem uncomfortable for him to be stepping out there. It's just probably more uncomfortable for him to be doing only that. Sure. I can't imagine why a bad team like the Wizards would want a shaky shooter like Saar shooting at volume on threes. Can't imagine why they would have continued to do that. It would take us multiple podcasts to figure that

one out. And among these other guys, let's take Kishan George out of it because he's on another level. Thank you for acknowledging it. The assist numbers lately. He almost had a triple double, but all like, it was like nine, eight, and nine. Yeah. Pretty good. I love those sorts of games. He can do it. He's got to be consistent.

Am I right? None of this wishy-washy stuff. I just really enjoyed that that I had to go after his consistency. You really did. After like two or three games. Yeah, had to be done.

But he's falling into that, like, my favorite category, which is like power forwards you could pass it. Hell yeah. He can shoot a little bit better than the Gitties and the Ben Simmons.

He can't. Does he handle a little... He's shown power forward? Well, I mean, he's kind of a combo forward. I think the question with Washington is like, who were the power forwards?

I always saw him as like playmaking three. Yeah. I think he probably profiles more as three, but he'll guard some fours. Like, ultimately, I think he's well positioned to do a little of both. So outside of him, What would we feel the best about?

So Trey Johnson's on this list. See, I want to say ball. Yeah, ball. That's the wildest thing in this conversation. Is it? No, I just, no, not what you said. It's just the fact that we're talking about. He's had a really precipitous dive.

Yeah, we've been in this pot a while. I can't see the word precipitous. Yeah, just the falloff in expectations for him, I think, has been kind of crazy. When he can't stay healthy, the shot has just has not come around really at all. And if he's never going to get to the point where he's, he can even take threes with any consistent volume, just changes the outlook of most of his career. So I hope he can find his way into some version of that.

Yeah, what skills has he really kind of developed to the point where they're really super encouraged that those could be elite skills? Yeah. Super athlete. Obviously, the injuries are concerned if he can't get up and down. But like, go-to defender at best, who runs the floor hard, that's a deep rotation guy. Yeah.

That's not even a starter. He's more of an open floor game player right now than he is someone you really know what to do with when the game slows down. And that's a problem. How do we feel about Bob? Are we all out? Because he's finally playing better. Lately. Yeah.

Yeah. Another of these classic shooting better from three than two. The twos were really bad for a while. I just don't know how we've gone so far with the three. This is happening to multiple high-level process. I mean, I think they're trained that way often. and these guys practiced so much three-point shooting now. I didn't think that was ever going to be a problem with Bub

because he does feel like such an instinctive score. But then he had moments earlier this season where he shoots like wide right off the backboard. Like just a complete, like some terrible, terrible misses. That seems to be cleaned up. He just looked so at sea with so many of his possessions earlier in the season. It feels like he's finally settling down.

And I'm really excited to see it. Yeah, I mean, the shooting pressure, I think is pretty, like I think he provides that because he's been pretty dynamic in the way that he shoots you. And he's shooting it off the jury. triple pretty well. He shouldn't end in transition pretty well. She didn't have to catch pretty well. That baseline, I think, will be enough to kind of keep him on the floor to kind of survive and try to figure out if the other stuff can stabilize.

But yeah, it's interesting because I feel like Kishan's sort of like coming on and I feel like adding Trey Johnson, the KM Whitmore stuff that they threw in there. It's been a little in flux in terms of the lineups for him. And I think that probably has played a role too. How worried are you guys about the Wizards right now? Now, they haven't had the big swing at the top of the draft that they were hoping for they ended up with Tray Johnson who was like fifth or so was he fifth but I think he was a little later than that

sixth maybe are we seriously Googling let's do it quick let's do it quick he was sixth indeed fifth on our big board exactly so they haven't had the big swings at the top of the draft which they basically like positioned their entire seasons around over the past few years

Trey Johnson was picked six they didn't end up in the top three or top They didn't get a VJ, they didn't get a con. And so here they are to a certain extent. On the other hand, like, I keep looking back to the Denny trade. And I know, like, put the swear jar of thing up right now. But, like, that's the classic. You're making some kid benefiting from a charity very happy, from all the money.

You're putting it with Denny. I give back to the Portland community. You know, it's one of my favorite things to do. But that's the case where you took something that was good at the time and cashed it in for the potential of something good down the road. Right. And it clearly hasn't worked because the trade package was bragged in the pick that ultimately became Bub

and then a farther away pick. Obviously, worked pretty well for Portland. But it's just kind of like, can we be okay with guys who are fine? Now, did the wizard see this version of Denny? Clearly not. Or they wouldn't have traded him.

But there was more there. I think everyone liked his potential to do more. And his shooting had already started to turn. The playmaking was there. Like, he's already a pretty good defender. It was a weird trade at the time. Yes. But weird for Portland more.

People were turning their eyebrow up. Were they? Yeah, because they traded two draft, two first rounders for Denny, who was an established veteran who wouldn't help them lose. You're so Portland-pilled, you have the local knowledge

before you even lived there? No, I'm just, I'm dialed in. I mean, it's impressed. I'm impressed. That's all I'm saying. Well, they clearly had a higher view of him than maybe consensus. I know Mike Schmitz was like on record

as being a huge, you know, who does their draft stuff now, who was a huge Danny fan. So, I mean, that stands the reason that checks out. I'm not super worried about the Wizards overall. Like, they're a bad team.

Look how many young players they are playing to the point that they can't even play some of their other young players. There's other situations where, you know, Trey would be playing a ton. And it's just like not really the case here. You could make the argument that there's a little bit of cannibalization of opportunity. I look at a player like Will Riley. I think he would be like a really interesting prospect for a lot of teams. And there's just like not enough for him to do with the ball with this particular group.

So there's a cost to that stuff. But ultimately, I don't feel so certain about any of them that I would want. want to be the one to say, I definitively am picking the Bub Carrington Lane and not this other one at this point. So play it out. See what you see you from these guys. Ultimately, Saur and Kishan are showing real development. That's important. Everything else is, I mean, you're playing with house money, just trying to see who develops first. There's a real, like, what's the, there's a real unsellyed vibe going on with all the wings that they picked up where it's like the unsullied. They were like, if he drowns, hood. If he survives, good. I just think there's kind of like

Trey Johnson. And they have a, when you mentioned Will Riley, I was like, yeah, He's always just kind of an afterthought in that sense. They have so many of those guys, Whitmore and Riley and Johnson and Bub. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. The holidays move fast, and Amazon Prime keeps you in control with fast and free delivery. We've all been there.

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Need that last minute gift or holiday essential. It's on prime. Head to Amazon.com slash prime to shop now. All right. Number 10 on the list, the Toronto Raptors. Scotty Barnes. Put the stamp on it, blue chipper, baby. Definitely.

Yeah. Any disagreement? He's playing in like an all-star, maybe all-N-B-A level, and he has so much ahead of him. Why wouldn't that be a blue chipper? Yeah, really seems to have found himself this year. This is probably the optimal version of a guy. who could do a lot of different things, but his best trait is probably just getting after it,

getting the fuck after in Scottie Barnes's case. Defensively, he's like he's probably going to be in the ballot for a defensive player if he keeps playing like this. But the offense is just what it is, you know? And like the passing really pops in the midst of all these guys. It's great to say. Yes. Yeah.

I think the balls to the wall thing that when he makes those focus, he's just not, he's not a nuanced, like, kind of a chess player offensively because I just don't think he has the consistent offensive efficiency to, like, justify that. But when you get him moving, you get him flying, when he's flying around, guard multiple positions, swooping in for help side blocks and things like that. He had a monster one the other night. I'm trying to remember which game it was. But he does it all the time.

That's why it can get easy to forget which one it was. But I've always seen him as sort of like a high level guy who could be like a perimeter defensive anchor, switch on to some fours, but then he's more of a connector, maybe not necessarily an offensive primary on offense. And that's okay. Yeah. I think what's exciting about the future of the Raptors really. Scotty is number one with a bullet here. Colin Murray Boyle is also a huge

part of this conversation as far as the young court. Not chancosaurus, that's not a thing. It is. I mean, he detonates a ton of defensive place. And so the fact that you're having these two guys who are blowing up stuff constantly, in addition to guards applying pressure, Biggs behind you kind of backlining and all, you can see the outline

of what could be really good for a long time for Toronto. So the ranking surprised me to a certain degree because I like the players on this list. Barnes, obviously, a blue chipper and that's going to put them in a different category. As you you've seen all the blue chippers are starting to pile up here. Colmarie Bowls, we talked about. We like him.

We like Jamal Shed. Not totally sure. I know what they have in Grady Dick. No. Kobe Walter coming on a little bit this year. I like Jacobi Walter. Yeah. Walter and Agbaji, I feel like, are kind of similar propositions to me.

And it's kind of what they are. Agbaji, a little bit older, obviously not on this list. But, yeah, they're similar. There's not somebody on here. There are guys that we have questions about. Like, Mogbo, despite me getting a fist bump in a Mexican restaurant, and feeling really good about that about Mogbo. Do you want to explain that?

So you're at a Mexican restaurant? This person probably heard it. If they are listening to this, no, some dude came up to me with a baby on his shoulder and Megyn and I and Julian were just sitting there eating dinner and he just leaned down. Didn't say anything else. Lean down to me and just went Mogbo and gave me a fist bump. And I looked around and Megan goes, what the hell was that?

And I said, that was a sicko. That was what that was. That was the secret society that I am a part of. Clearly Jonathan Mobo oriented, but he is representative to me of this thing, which is like, All of these guys, I like something about them. Yeah. I don't love everything about them all the time. And some of them are more consistent than others,

but there's something to recommend about almost every young player the Raptors have. Yes. And I think this is an important thing to talk about as we veer toward trade season. And I think a lot of teams are going to be thinking about some of these draft prospects. And I do wonder the Raptors we expect to be very much in the mix at the very least of the room mirror mill. And like, could they go for AD, et cetera? If you're looking at this list of guys, Barnes excluded, like, who are we targeting here? Is it Boils and then take your pick?

I mean, Murray Boyles is really good. I think he would be tough to pry from them at this point. You aren't, say it's an A.B. Oh, way too early to get rid of boils for me. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Wait, so, okay. Well, what's your reservation?

It's more about like if you're going to get something, you have to give something out. Sure. Okay. I think his promise and size are really exciting to me. if I'm to run. I'm curious of your perspective with him particularly, because he's such a funky offensive player. I don't even know what kind of progression I would want from Colin Murray Boyles on offense. Do you have anything in particular you want to see him be able to do? I mean, he adds passing pop. It's just kind of he needs to probably figure out some kind of crafty game

around the rim if he's going to live around the rim. I mean, he's like a cutter. The shooting is probably pretty, I don't know. He's just sort of like a big beefier version of like a herb jump. type. It's like if he can get, no, I'm just saying if he can get no, not you. Justin gave me a look. Chonky. You said chunkier version. Sorry, check, check my language. That's right. He just, he adds so many things. It's like, I'd like to play him next to a big skill five. We need a jar for that. Like, let's get the how many skilled fives are there out there to unlock these types of guys. Because I don't know that you can, can you have two in, three out with, with Murray Boyles? That's the second in guy. He presents some, some problems. But he's smart enough,

man, I think he's going to figure it out. He seems super clever, like really, really sharp already. Yeah, we've talked a lot about with the Raptors in their potential trade packages. It's like, oh, maybe it's RJ, maybe it's quickly. I'm like, just give me contracts and then some of these young guys. Because they're starting to stack up. Yeah. But I think you do need to hit it right where Murray Bowl oils, I think would be top the list.

But like, you know, I find myself really liking Chmall Shedd. Like, that's just a guy who's going to play in a rotation. It feels like for eight years. That's a dog's dog right there, Jamal Shed. And I like a dog. I think the problem with the just give me young guys in contracts formula is for the raptors, most of the contracts are attached to RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quigley. I think Yacca Pertil is maybe the one part of that feels a little more expendable as far as the general structure of the team.

We should also say RJ and Emmanuel Quickly both aged out a little too far to be part of this conversation. And if they were just a little bit younger, maybe the Raptors are even higher on this list. A team at nine now who has a ton of players on this list and their most intriguing players are all on this list practically. That's the Charlotte Horn. It's a team. I was way higher on than you guys. You guys were all relatively high. You had him at 11.

Kyle had them at 9. I had them at 6. Six. And part of it's just like, God damn, Colin Cognipa. Yeah, he's got you.

Like, it's hard to like consider myself part of the hype trim because that was off the rails before the season. You started the preseason. The draft stuff. Like, everyone just seemed to love how

advanced he was to feel and everything like that. But we talked about him to start with like, oh, maybe he's the right guy to put around Miller in ball. Then we're like, oh, maybe he's just the higher floor. Maybe he's just the best goddamn play.

of who was available at the moment because he's just like the best player on the floor when they were playing the calves the other night. It's just like I didn't expect this to come at all, let alone this soon. It's wild. Well, let me ask you about this, because this is kind of a something for everybody collection of would-be stars, right? You have Lamello for the more whimsical among us. You have Brandon Miller. I would say it's like a real Hooper's Hooper prototype. And then you have Khan who is kind of like a connective superstar at a lot of ways. Dare I say. Connective.

No, you may not. I'm saying it. Do something about it. We can edit that out. If you had to bet which of those three guys has the best career, where would you lean at this point? I think sometimes you have to go high outcome, low outcome, and the high outcome might ascend higher in the hypotheticals for like a lamello or a Brandon Miller who are exciting with their size and their live dribble kind of shot making and passing. And then sometimes you just have somebody that maybe is just going to thread the needle. I think is bringing up the word volatility. I don't see Khan as volatile at all in any way, shape. perform. I just think that the basic things and the he doesn't need to be disabused about what he does. He knows what he does. He does it consistently. And I think he's going to have the presence of mind and the skill set that can kind of expand out from there. And I mentioned Gordon Hayward. I really sincerely think. I think like he has that sort of slow mo way that he can get to his spots and score. And I'm excited about what he's going to be able to build. I like the idea of the Hornets like

trying to wishing well their way to signing Gordon Hayward all those years ago. And now they finally got con neck of nipple. Like it just finally cashed in for them. Well, as much as this is just like a love fest for Khan, it is a backdoor what the hell is up with Brandon Miller conversation. See, I don't know that it is. Well, the injuries have mounted to the point where he's fallen away from the spotlight where I think people were just like, Paul George track, I see it, looked good,

ratched the fuck out of the volume on the threes. And we're just like, all right, kind of in between here. We'll see what's going on. And now he's just like floating in the ether. He's played 37 games in the past like year and a half. So it's rough. But do we like, has the star diminished so much that we don't consider him on the same track that he was before? Because it feels that way.

I'm super into it. I got to be honest with you. Look, the health considerations are what they are. If you could put them to the side, I would feel great about a lot of the parameters of his game. Granted, he's come back and look rusty. Like, all that stuff is still true. But he has all of the elements that I want to see. And it's just, like, to me, it's more of a matter of time and opportunity and in this case, health.

So it's tough because that variable. does loom so large, but I still love the contours of what he is and can be. Yeah, I mean, initially, this really has. You talked about this shifting more towards A, like, Kahn's not a supporting guy. I mean, the Kahn and Miller thing, I think, is pretty interesting because I think you've got a sort of a two-prong, movable, mobile gravity kind of thing. I do, I don't really, but he's had some dips in efficiency from three, but I've seen him shoot enough basketballs.

I just feel confident about that, and he's a good passer. I think he and Khan kind of line up together as having similar traits. But yeah, he's, I still believe. So I have Miller as a maybe. I didn't have him as a blue chipper. Yeah, he doesn't quite get to blue chip status for me, but that's all right. Do any of these guys get to blue chip status? I had him on maybes, all three of them.

I think they might all be maybys. It's unfortunate because I really thought about Khan. I can hear you the argument for Khan, but just to put like the threshold in context. I mean, we're going to be talking about can Khan be better than like... Context? Jesus Christ. One too many. I quit.

It's like, can Khan be better than Cade Cunningham is like the conversation we're having? And so the top 15 prospects in the entire league is a remarkably high bar and that he is in the conversation for it is a compliment, a compliment. I almost did another one. I'm not going to do it.

Let me ask you this, though, if we're to redraft like VJ or Kahn. How are we feeling about that right now? We just sang the praises of VJ Edgecom. Don't make me choose. Okay. I'd con ahead of EJ in the draft and I still have him ahead.

Let's go. I just think it's kind of one of those. I think the high outcomes of EJ could soar higher to see his athleticism, obviously. I just think Khan is ahead of him in so many ways. I think he's a way more dynamic shooter. I think he's a better passer.

I think it's close, but I just think what I said earlier really illustrates it honestly. But I do think I have con. I think I have him ahead of you all. I think he's flirting with Blue Chip to me. I think he's pretty close. Can I briefly invoke the name

Dejan Salon? We haven't even talked about La Melle Ball yet. I guess if we must. I mean, he's still on this list. He's still 24. Remarkably. We just talked 10 minutes

before we got to him. You were going to talk about Dejon's long. Before him. I guess that's where we are in the conversation with Lamella. We're just really sick and tired

of everything happening over and over and over again where it's like, what's next, what's new going to happen here to change this malaise we've fallen into? I don't have many defenses

of Lamello left. Yeah. And you were an ardent defendant. I believe in the talent. I believe in the vision and the creativity. He just does a lot of dumb stuff. He's been doing it for a long time, but the balance has tipped, I think. I'll say this.

In terms of talent, just pure talent in a vacuum, he is. He's in the top five of this pool, I think. I think he might even be top three. In terms of, like, his just ability, he's a more talented pastor than Cape Cunningham. He's a more talented reader. He's a more talented ball handler than Cabe Cunningham. But he is just so fucking volatile. And I love him to, I won't say I love to watch him play.

Not always. He chases it a little much for me. If he were a little bit more point five, I think he could unleash absolute hell in the right circumstances. It's just can he stop making me want to claw my eyes out when I watch her? And can he impact winning basketball?

Because there are times, like, I've joked about this with him playing next to the steadiness of Khan. They are just a hilarious con. Contrast next to each other. And you just watch them. And I have to think Khan at times is looking at him just like, what on earth? They're just so different.

I mean, you hear Kant talk, and he's somehow the adults in the room, and he's the rookie on this team in a lot of ways. I still do love watching Lamello sometimes. He makes me want to believe in a way that basically no other player does, and this has just been an incredibly tough season to watch him. Lamello is Johnny Cage. I've said this repeatedly. Lamello is Johnny Cage.

He has all the stuff. You look at him, and we're like, we know that you can pretend to be the guy. You look like you're the movie star vision of a dude's dude. We need you to be a real dude when it's nut-cutting time. We need you to be the real thing. Having said that, I still have him as a maybe despite all of this. I think the talent, I think the talent warrants it. Right?

He's on the shore list. If it ever clicks, holy shit. Johnny Cage guy, shadow kick? No. That felt disrespectful to compare literally anybody to Johnny Cage. It's like the ultimate empty suit fake compliment. No, I don't think it's an insult. I think he's just got a lot of game.

He's got to do it. It wasn't a cage guy. Okay. I was, let's see. I liked a lot of Lou Kang. I was good with Luke Kang. I was really good with rain. I would piss people off and ultimately, because I was good with the, like, fry them with the lightning. We can move on. Anyway. Who is Khan? Sub-Zero? Chun Li. Wrong game, dog. Oh. Kung Lao. Khan Lao. Conlau. Conlau? Very, very, uh... I thought it was Kung Luhran. Mortal Kombat? Yeah, Chun Li's tree fighter.

No, really? You thought Chun Lee was immortal combat? Sorry. Strike it from the record. Edit it out. This is so embarrassing. You never come back from that one. All the people listen to the hornet section. It would be kind of funny.

An hour into part two. No. Chun Lee gets her head ripped out with a spine. I just can't really see that. It's tough to watch, I got to admit. Do you want to talk about salon just to dig us out of this hole? Mostly just, he's finally put together, I would say, maybe some of the best games of his career lately.

Sick. Worthy of note. They don't ask a lot of him. But I do feel like he's been a little less manic recently. And I appreciate that of him slightly more in control, underlying slightly more in control. Okay. Moving on. Number eight, the Minnesota Timberwolves who have Anthony Edwards.

They do. That's all they fucking need. Yep. There are some other guys. So moving on. Next on the list. I guess if you wanted to support their case, Johann Berger qualifies as an asset. I'm in still.

I'm very. Oh, yeah. I don't like, honestly, I like Jalen Clark for what he is. And I like Yohan Barron. As far as big man prospects, I'm in on Yohan. on Barron Jay. Do they get demerits for having Rob Dillingham? I don't want to write him off. I still have him as an asset. That's what I was going to say. I think we are barreling towards that.

Somebody else might have belief in him and that has value. That's the thing. He just can't do the stuff the wolves need him to do right now. And so long as that's the case, he's always going to be really up against it with them. He's probably best suited for a team that has a little more backcourt security that needs somebody to come in and be a lie detector guy who thinks he's Steph Curry and come in and fill it up for a few minutes. but if you're looking for security with him, he's just not proven that he can stability. He just can't do it.

Would you rather have him or Jared McCain right now? God, if I'm the wolf. If I healthy Jared McCain, yeah, just writes the second. Jared McCain be really good for the wolves. You could. Do you solve your defensive issues? No, but you just need anything.

If you could just get a little spice of pop, that's just going all over the place with the metaphor there. Yeah. Spice of pop. We're an hour of three of podcasting, and you can tell. Also, we're going an hour into this show, and we're at number eight, so you've got to pick it up a little bit. All right, let's pick up the pace. But we are at number eight, and we're here at number eight basically entirely, as we're saying, because of Anthony Edwards and the shadow of Yon Barron Jay.

But you didn't answer the question about McCain. Oh, I said McCain definitively. I'd rather have McCain. I don't really believe in Rob Dillingham. I'm not ready to leave him for dead, and I want him to be good, but he hasn't been good yet. And the wolves need players who will actually contribute to their winning cause. Get us back on track. I'm sorry. I'm here to say only that the wolves are ranking this high

because they don't have the depth of the jazz or the hornets or whoever or the nets, but they nailed down the one and most important thing you can possibly do, which is get the franchise level guy to run your young court. And so Anthony Edwards is just more important than basically any player we've talked about so far. And I think his progression plays into a lot of that. I mean, early in his career, and we've just seen his decision-making prowess like expand year over year, his efficiency on like all fronts has gotten better.

I think we've seen him harness. Like, Aunt is not the same level, you know, decision maker or a creative player as like a, like a Cade. Like Cade was like a really smart pick and roll player who was looking for the spacing. But he also didn't have the self-creation tools that Ant had at his disposal. And I think we've seen Ant over the course of his first, you know, first few years in the NBA. We've seen him understand that I can do something very simple with the tools that I have and my job is done. I don't always have to hit a home run. I don't always have to do something spectacular in a ball screen.

And we've seen him, you know, they'll tilt the floor at him and he gets off the ball. And it's been really nice to see him grow as a decision maker in that way. In terms of development, we're talking about all these like small things that guys can do to get a little bit better. And it's literally like calling up Jordan being like, how do you deal with the toughest level of basketball being played? And it's deserved. Completely different. Michael Jordan should take Anthony Edwards call. That's the crazy part.

Yeah. Number seven, the Dallas Mavericks. Similar situation, one blue-ass chip prospect in Cooper Flag, but a little bit more depth. A little, but... A couple guys. Why are the Mavs above the wolves? Because they have more. Wouldn't it be a dream if Cooper Flag is as good as Anthony Edwards?

Yes, but this is where the depth starts to play, at least for me. And I'm curious what you think, Kyle, because Derek lively before this injury, which we should talk about, is getting pretty serious at this point. But Max Christie's solid. Like Max Christie. Obviously not Austin Reeves, but that's a rotation player that anyone would love to have. he's shooting the hell out of the ball, especially from the corners. Ryan Nempard, a guy on a two-way now, he's going to be a rotation guy. We like him.

Pretty soon. Like, those are three guys, whatever you want to classify them that the wolves just do not have. Yeah. Like, all three of those guys I prefer over Jalen Clark. All true. If all those guys become, let's say all those supporting guys become the best versions of themselves. And Cooper Flagg becomes a good player, but not Anthony Edwards. Getting Anthony Edwards is more important than any of that stuff.

I mean, I'm just saying. we're splitting hairs. Oh, totally. Yeah. I'm just trying to make the, like, the depth versus high-end star talent conversation. You're just saying you weighed the stars more than the depth. Yeah. I think if you have the bird in the hand and the bird is Anthony freaking Edwards, it's pretty

valuable. But then that's not the spirit of the exercise, which is just like, let's talk about Cason Wallace and like his development as a dribbler. We're going to get there, brother. I really weigh, this has been kind of my thought process the whole time. I weigh this, even though I had a point system that I was selling you all about that added up and kind of helped me, based on what I thought these guys would be on each individual team, I tallied them up and then ranked them. But Dallas came out a little lower and, you know, reflecting the depth that you all are talking about.

But for me, I think something that is really important is Cooper's young, number one, but also Cooper has in terms, there's some guys on this list. Like, we extensively talked about like Derek Queen, like, what do you got to do? Like the conditions to sort of optimize these guys. I don't feel like the conditions to optimize Cooper are very narrow at all because he is so multifaceted. The range of things that he does is so dynamic that I think it enables your decision making in a way that I think has to be weighted a little bit. Maybe you could say that's a superlative of him and he should have had a higher score. Either way, I just think that he does a lot of things. And I don't know, I think in terms of the way he thinks and feels the game, if we're talking about him versus aunt, even hypothetically, I think he's way ahead of me.

He just doesn't have the same physical tools. I think that's true, but what they're asked to do is so different. And you could see it, you play Cooper at point guard, which is basically what Anthony Edwards plays, and you see the limitations of that. I see Cooper's experience the season is uniformly positive. He took his lumps. He dealt with a lot of noise with the Nico Harrison situation. He filtered out a lot.

He played out of position. And he just looks so clearly excellent. To me, part of what makes me so bullish about him, what makes him so obviously a real deal prospect that could even get to an Anthony Edwards level someday. if he hits like the highest version of himself, is like he has the athleticism. He also has a lot of polish. And he has this intermediate game that I think really opens things up a lot for him.

So yeah, he's going to get to the basket and dunk. But he's got like a little, like a lot of variety in the floater range that makes it really hard to stop him. We should also mention there have been a couple ties that we've just glossed over that Isaiah broke. This is one of them. This is one of them. Where they tied and he picked. So I have Isaiah specifically to blame. Yes.

Okay. Let's not overrope. man as early on ball aunt in his career too. And he was 0.793 in the pick and roll and on a pretty big volume as a he was pretty messy. I'm just saying this speaks to us like being a little bit like the present and seeing what these guys have become can make us sort of discount like where it started. So I definitely think Cooper can get to a high place.

I'm not saying aunt's always been that guy. I'm just saying I feel like the certainty of who he is now is so great that even for Cooper, a guy who's 19 years old and has all this promise and can do all this stuff, you still got to get there. You're still going to climb the mountain to get to the Anthony and the Edwards threshold is like basically can you get on an MVP ballot. That's what we're talking about. I'm pretty worried about Derek lively. Same.

So 55 games is first season, 36 last year. Seven. He's going to end up playing this year because he just had surgery. It's going to shut him down. I think the description is really when I was like grimacing. So surgery on his right foot in July to clean out bone spurs. Then he missed two and a half months last season due to a stress fracture in his right ankle. An injury that was originally misdiagnosed.

At Duke. As a right ankle sprain. Oh, okay. Yeah. I was thinking he... No, this was the Mavs training staff. Oh. Basically initially cleared him to return to play and then at the last minute,

caught that actually, this thing is basically broken. Yeah. Dikes. Not great. Yeah. I was thinking he had broken foot issues all the way back to college. Like, this is something that goes beyond. It's been lingering.

Yeah. The only silver lining is that it just clarified their lineup in a way that flag has popped and is playing with a normal. NBA lineup for two weeks now. Yeah. Like, let's see this two months from now. You'd be talking about flag is on a different level than he is right now. And lively, if he can get healthy enough to play consistently,

I feel like he's just scratching the surface of what he could be as a handoff guy in particular. Like, he has pretty good feel on short roll stuff, working that kind of high playmaking game. There's always talk about like, oh, he's going to start shooting threes. I don't know, man. But he can do this other stuff. I'm going to have to be converted on that one. That's a little rough. But yeah, I agree with you.

A good, decent decision maker in the short role. Well, you quibbled about Dallas being over Minnesota. I'm going to quibble about the Hawks being over Dallas because similar situation where you have the one big old blue chipper, Jalen Johnson, who for some reason Rich Paul is trying to trade to the Milwaukee Box for Janus. I don't really see that. Why? But anyway, just briefly on Jalen Johnson, by the way.

So he's at 22, 10 and 8. So 22 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists right now. 8 assists. Good Lord, just push my wig back. That's only, so I type that into like stathead trying to find who had that this year. and I accidentally did it all time and there's only been five players who have done it all time.

It's Yokic five times, Russ, four times, Oscar three times, and then once. And I was like, God damn. I knew he was up to something, but like, good Lord. He's come along further faster than I ever could have anticipated and we are basically charter members of his fan club. Well, Rob definitely is.

Yeah. I picked him up in fantasy because of Rob. You're welcome. Yeah. Do I get a kickback for that? No, because you recommended Trey Man the next year and that didn't pan out. Well, I appreciate that you take my take seriously, though.

Yeah, I believe in you. Thank you. It's amazing that we think of him as somebody that's kind of come out of nowhere, but it really is just, he's course corrected in a way that is really nice to see because we'll see guys get derailed early in the creed. Such an odd college sample, such an odd start, got drafted late, trying to find his way. It's honestly, he's just kind of righted the ship in a way that I think a lot of people expected him to be here, but it is saying something to do that because guys will get off course

and we just don't see him ever get there, again, like a kuminga, whereas Johnson really has got it together. He also does something that a lot of combo forwards don't, which is he rebounds the shit out of the ball. And it's like he's a big physical force on the class in a way that when you get these tweener 3-4, like they can play make, they can run, they can do all this stuff. They're almost always soft on the glass.

And Jalen Johnson is not bad. He has a real thumper energy to him, which I thought he would be more of a role guy, but obviously this year is developed something completely different than that. The ancillary guys are where it gets tricky, with the Hawks. As the livery injury, I don't think it was as dire

as it ended up being when we did this initially. And so less of a quibble now than then. But like Dyson Daniels is an interesting case study. Like obviously a defensive menace, but the offense is really starting to sour. And you can also say that about Risha Shay

to a certain extent. He doesn't have the defensive reputation. Right. And the chops that backed that up. But, you know, we kind of expected that from him despite going number one overall. They're kind of, they're okay.

I wonder if the reputation is a little bit over the movement. on Daniels just because of last season when ultimately settling back into a pretty spotty offensive player. I think it's some depth. Like you mentioned those key guys. Like, Aes Anuil could also be something interesting. I like Mogey as kind of a filler

defender on this team in particular. But ultimately with Dyson, the problem is he just stopped shooting. Like, he just stopped taking the threes. Taking 44 this year and he's only made seven. Damning. Like really, really damning to just like stop taking them all together. Especially because Snyder was pushing him despite all evidence to take as many as he could last year, in part to push through that.

It's bad to see that's that bad. And now he just looks him off. And it puts him in a very weird spot offensively, even as the hawks around him have kind of like really found their rhythm and their engine in terms of their style of play, he is the guy who's interrupting it a lot of times, which is unfortunate. He's one of the best assignment guys among this age group in this group in the league. I mean, you know, he's still super, super disruptive defensively, you know, repeatedly among the top guys in the league on that regardless of age.

But yeah, that's a flow killer. We talked about that with Anthony Black when it's like when you don't look, it's just kind of you've just stopped everything. You no longer have an advantage on offense and it's going to have to figure something out for that for that to be a long term. By the military. The thing with Reis-Shae, though, he's been good, not great.

And ultimately his ceiling is just so much higher than someone like Max Christie if we want to do the Mavs comparison. Like there's a potential for him to explode and become, not Jalen Johnson, but an even better multifaceted version of a large wing that is knifing through and doing.

doing all this interesting stuff. It's tough because every time I want to express how cold I am by him or left cold by him, it's just you look at the draft that he was in. It's like, was there like a clear definitive answer? Like Castle would have been the clear definitive. And we'll talk about him later. But like other than that,

unless like, SAR would have been better. Like that would have been great. But now we're like splitting hairs through a certain extent. Like I just don't, I don't see, I would like to see a flash from what you should say of something beyond just rotational way. Defender potential shooter.

He's not really a shooter at this time. I think we saw some of it over the back half of last season. It's just this year has not been full of those kinds of flashes in a way that I was certainly hoping for. And I thought even in the preseason, he was looking a little more assertive. And it kind of opened my eyes to it. But he hadn't really paid it off. So we talked about Anthony Black. So let's get to number five, the Orlando Magic.

This is when it starts getting serious. We're talking about multiple blues, baby. The question is, how many blues? Because I have a couple of maybies in the midst of the blues. Apollo and Franz Oh, I love it. Yeah. Are they minted

Blue Chip prospects? I have one on my final 15. Because we're talking about this point forward, by the way, not based off of track record and success. Right. Who will kind of end up the best? Prospects, not production, yes. I think we all know, I mean, I think we all know who the concern guy is at this point, right?

I mean, if we're talking about... Jet Howard? Jet's been scratch. He's a little feisty lately. He's actually been shooting, which is an important part of being a shooter. Back on track here. Well, yeah, he attacked a spot up the other day against Brunson, took him to the basket. I liked it.

I was happy about it. No, in terms of blue chippers for this team, I obviously, blue chipper's tough because it's like, blue chip hard means top 15 for you is what you're saying. He's saying like a lock for the top 15. The Palo thing, I think, is probably more of a recency worry. I don't know. It's hard to It's hard to sort of just like separate him from the way that this situation

The challenges that they have where it's just like in a vacuum Do I think that Palo Van Carrel with a roster that is built well? Yeah That is tailored to him and optimized to him Granted I don't think it's not as wide as like a coup of the highs It's tough I think that's probably what's driving it and I assume right Powell is the guy right that we're talking about as opposed or just Franz

I think there's some of both to be honest with you I think what's complicated about this conversation to your point is there's not really the debate we're having is whether these guys fit. That's what we're always talking about with the magic. Like, do, can they fit together to be a contending level team? I know who the pieces fit.

I have no idea what you're saying. That's tool. I'm not, I'm not on the ear level recognition of random tool lyrics. That's just not happening. That was, uh, that was schism. That was a hit. We were at the Taken Back Sunday.

Yeah. Slightly adjacent, you know. I like three tool songs. A little too much. in my rock if you ask me. Wait, so you have Apollo in, in Franz out? I thought it would be the opposite. To me, I have, like, a very slight group of absolute locks,

and then they're in the next group of probably, they will probably end up here, but am I 100% certain? I'm not. Okay, and you had Franz in, but Paulo out? Yes. See, I had flipped. Franz third team for me. I don't disagree that Franz has looked better, even in the solo role with the complement

of the roster around him. It's just if we're leaning on potential going forward. Yes. I can't bet against Paul in that. And to kind of crystallize that idea, it's not just potential going forward. We're basically saying is there will be a point where Franz Wagner is like one of the 15 best players in the world. And I don't know that that's ever going to be true.

I think he's, I think Franz is awesome. I really like Powell. Are we saying that? Not exactly. With this exercise? Because I'm just saying this age group. I don't know about it. It's not exactly because there's still the veterans in the mix.

but we're saying he's one of the most like one of the most vaunted prospects. I think that's largely true. But has he been validated Franz or Paolo in the way that Anthony Edwards has? Or even Evan Mobley has. I think these other guys have just proven a little bit more in terms of individual accolade but also team success. I just couldn't do it with Paulo. I think I'm a coward. But I just, I've seen it work.

And obviously hasn't been super efficient. But like, God damn, the skill at that size. Yeah. And when it, he's done it in. the playoffs, which few of these players actually have. We talked at length about Jalen Johnson. He had the moments against the Celtics like Paolo had just last year. They have some, a lot of things to figure out there. Palo in particular is probably near the top of the list at that point. But if they were so, if the Hawks were as clunkily kind of had the same kind of fit

issues, if Jalen Johnson were just flaw machined over into that scenario, do you think that that would affect? And Palo was on a team that had a little bit more space with some, I don't know. I mean, Palo, on a more streamlined team, I think, would be something to really behold. And we would probably talk about him completely differently. The difference is Jalen Johnson, to me, is such a natural facilitator of flow. Like, if you have any movement to your offense, he will fit into it, he will accentuate it, he will, like, enhance its best elements. Palo has always been, like, a little too deliberate for that. And even Franz can be a little bit too straight line direct in terms of the way he attacks.

They're both awesome players. but how they fit and the breadth of circumstances that really suit them, I think is part of this conversation. Yeah, could you lean into the lineup that the Hawks have now where they're emphasizing their defense and just getting up and down in the flow as you're mentioning? Like, Powell disrupts flow and he doesn't contribute to high level defense. Like, they built a good defense around him despite him in certain instances. And so let me ask you guys this. I mean, we're talking about the way that they play off each other and what the best circumstances would be. As you are ranking young cores, does the synergy of Powell,

and Franz matter? Or is it just which are the most talented collections of players? I didn't think about them like playing together. Yeah. It's almost like does an all NBA team need to be able to play like an actual NBA team? I think the only difference is if you're conceptualizing it as a young core, then the idea is this is like the nucleus of something, right? In that case, it's Anthony Edwards playing off of Jalen Clark, you know?

I mean, they're a pretty good pair. One of them scores, one of them stops, you know? I think if we're going to agree that, like, in like sort of genusiqua things like asset load or you're talking about you know if if i did to even ding one bring mine into question about like cooper's sort of like long-term build versatility i think you do probably i mean if you if you hit on something like i do think there's something to be said about evaluating a player with the player that you have and like projecting how they fit with them because we've seen that happen where guys get drafted and we're like that'll fit that'll work and then it doesn't

So, yeah, I think that should go in the criteria of maybe we'll have that for next year. Yeah. So I didn't think about them all building into something. I thought it was more about the collection of talent. So a man is an island to you. Sure. Yeah. I made a tracks.

But the good thing is beyond those two guys, they do have quite a bunch of interesting guys. Jalen sucks I have as a maybe. We love Jailen Sucks. I wish I could make him a blue. I just want him on my moves. I had him a maybe also. I would make a whole new team just to put Jailen Suck. feeling sucks on it.

Like, I don't care what the exercise is. I don't care what we're doing. Let's just reward him with something. The maid is breaking his hips for us, you know? I really hope he's okay. Anthony Black? Yeah. Guy or maybe?

I think he's a guy. Okay. But on the way toward maybe perhaps? A maybe blue chip player? Anthony Black's really good. What are we talking about? I don't know about it. Yeah, blue chip level I had hit him.

And I actually had Tristan De Silva as like a potential like top 100 level guy. Okay. It could. It could. This is also your program reminding. that Tristan De Silva is older than all of these other guys. That's very true. Franz, Paul, Jalen sucks, everybody, older than all of them.

I just like him. He's just a good player. Yeah. And they have Jace Richardson asset and then obviously Jet and Noah Penda rounded out. This is the stage we're getting to where it's like... You know what? I'm also a Penda guy. Great.

Team Penda. This is a stage where there's like, there's very few misses, right? All the guys are like recent first round picks and are interesting in their own right. You had the magic pretty high, though. You had them third. ultimately. Yes, I did. And a lot of that was weighted on.

I had, I had sogs rated pretty high and my belief in De Silva and what I said. Yeah. Okay. Let's go on to number four then. Actually,

can I make one proposal before we do regarding Noah Penda? Okay. You know, we had our beef pork and yon conversation a while ago. I think noa Penda

might be our beef porkignon. Big stocky dude, plays with a ton of energy. Looks like he might wall you up. Yeah. Knock you out for a little while, like a good beef Orignon will?

He's in the, he is in the, I'm blanking on, he's in the Yavaseli, like, trunk. Yeah. Like, that dude is just like, people bounce off of him. He is just such an impressively big person. Watching him, like, run in transition in the NBA has been, I've been like, ooh, I don't know if this is good. But he does a lot of stuff, man, he's interesting.

He's got a little, yeah, the mechanics of his run are not great. It's a little, like, quoppy, if you know what I mean. Oh, yeah. I have referenced quop. pop a lot with runners. What's the steak or the meat that you put a layer of of like baked good on top of it?

It's not a London broil. Oh, oh my God. Yeah, Beef Wellington. It kind of reminds me of a Beef Wellington. I mean, I like that. Okay. Wrong country though. I know somebody's going to tell us the answer. They always do. Did you prepare that going into the evening or did that just come off the dome? No, I flagged

it. I was like, as soon as I was looking at their core, thinking about how much I actually do like Noah Penda. Maybe that is the answer. This is the Frenchie, the Frenchie, the French beefy guy we're looking for. I like it. Number four.

No Frenchies on this one. But a little beef, we'll heft. I'm talking about the Houston Rockets. I had them at three. Rob had them at four. Kyle had them at four. All in agreement. I have two blue shippers on this one.

Shangoon and M. Thompson. I think that's right. Okay. I think that's right. And I think Reed might be a maybe someday. reads it maybe i also had to think about jabari smith as a maybe tarry easton as a maybe how crazy is it that a team with all those guys is not even in the top three i know and yet it's right the kids are all right man yeah i'd read as a but like it could be a top 100 i mean is he in the top 100 right

no yet not as of yet but we're due for an update fuck you guys uh i was and then uh yeah let's see jbarri tari i said had potential to do that and then i'm in and alpi we're my two I'm curious where they end up in terms of the list because we're going to break these down into three teams. But we'll get to that later. It's just wild to think about like a couple of years ago when James Harden was just like getting fat and forcing his way out. Like bit birth this, which is really something.

This happened in short order. Like they have nailed picks in a way. And most of the teams we're going to talk about have nailed picks in a way that like I think we don't stop down and think about enough. Right. Like teams don't do this. But a lot of teams have recently. Well, and for such a funky team.

This is a chord that makes sense together. Shengun, Aman Thompson, and Jabari and Reed, they kind of cover a lot of the basis as far as thinking about the future of this team is going to be. Like, they complement each other really well. They fill the gaps really well. Yeah, maybe you would prefer a little more spacing than that combination. But if Reed turns out to be as good as he can be, that might not be as much of a problem.

And so it's not theoretical. It's just a good collection of young players that is currently today carrying water for one of the best teams in basketball. fault. Pretty awesome. Yeah, I wonder, I mean, I did have some deliberation at times about, you know, like, what would, like, Hughes, what would Orlando look like if they had had the luxury of, like, landing a Kevin Durant because he's definitely elevated what they do. And we're seeing them apply to winning in a way that is really interesting. But yeah, I mean, they've kind of just gone through. They really leaned into the, the, like, sinewy. We're going to, we're going to make your life hell wing defender. And they sprinkled in some skill with the Jabari and the Reed stuff. So. And Shinggoon, too. And Shingoon. and it works. How hard did you have to think about either Shengun or Men for that top 15? I feel like Ahmed is the kind of prospect, too, I just am willing to rule nothing out at this point. So I value him very highly.

Shangun, the question is he already has made like three jumps. How many more jumps does he have in him? And is the player he currently is good enough to cement him into that blue chip conversation. I think it probably is regardless. You know, this year in particular, his ability to manage and orchestrate offense, I think it's just hit a totally different level. He's in that Jalen Johnson category of just like ho-hum seven assists a game all of a sudden. Really mature, sophisticated stuff where he's just kind of driving and maneuvering within an offense that is really hard for a big to do.

Did you like him coming into the draft, Shangoon? I wasn't high enough, I'll say. I didn't hate him. I just kind of, I definitely, once I saw him in an NBA context, I was like, oh, yeah, this is going to work. It was kind of the reverse of Young where I just kind of had a hard time. I wondered if he was like a bully, like, if he was a below the rim bully guy, his like technique in passing. He's manipulative. The seven assist thing doesn't surprise me at all.

Because when we were coming into the season when I was like kind of just going through figuring out how they would figure out the Fred Van Belit thing. I was like, Shingun's their best passer. And I don't even think it's arguable. So this hasn't been a surprise on that front. Yeah, the defensive leap last year was when I bought in fully where it's like, oh, if you're going to just solve that, like what can you figure out? And then obviously he went on to have the EuroLeague experience where he was just dominant in a way that, like, a few players are. Even in that league, like the top Kremdala Krem guys are the ones that dominate in that sort of setting. But you're right.

Like, I don't want to put a ceiling on him. Ultimately, I will get into this in the list, though. But I'm curious about like whether or not you guys put a men over Shengun in terms of like ranking within the list. It's tough. But Jbarri, I got to say, like the more I watch the rocket, the more I appreciate is how much he stitches together everything that they do in the first. fact that he's guarding like hardcore scoring wings at this point, at his size.

It's just like any look that they're hoping to accomplish the fact that they've unlocked this big ball that has trickled down to the rest of the league where they're just like creating a new trend where teams have to size up to stop them on the boards says something. I think Jpari is like a big part of that. I think the question for so long in the NBA was

where do you find your Harrison Barnes, your guy who's like kind of a three but can guard Zach Randolph. Now it's very much the opposite. it's like how do you find your Zach Randolph that can guard Harrison Barnes and Jabari is not Zach Randolph but in terms of having an actual four that can lock and trail that is a modern NBA invention that's not a thing that existed 10 years ago and yet here he is taking those assignments so Kevin Durant doesn't have to sparing one of the most important teammates from having the burden of those assignments it's like immensely valuable to be

able to do that and it's just kind of quietly happening on the edge of every Rockets game yeah it's interesting his defensive sort of versatility and malleability does it doesn't always flesh out on the offensive end. He doesn't get low in a stance and dribble the ball, but he doesn't have to. The touches are spoken for. The facilitating is spoken for in a way that has taken pressure off of him. He's not going to kind of hit the highs that I think some people hope that he would offensively just because of that. But you're absolutely right on the defensive end, his physicality and athleticism really pops.

Who's a better shooter, Tara Yason or Reed Shepard? Well, Tar Yason is leading the league in three point percentage. He's been out, but still was before he got hurt. Numbers never lie, right? All right. We've reached the top three, number three. Probably guessed it at this point, considering the teams on the board. The Detroit Pistons, no shame there being number three on this list.

You had them, though, number two. I did. Explain. I mean, for two reasons. They're one of the only teams that has a comparable amount of, like, good young depth to the Thunder, which, spoiler alert, the Thunder are going to be one of the two remaining teams. They also have the single most important kind of young player, which is a guy who is not just a franchise guy,

but currently like one of the 10 to 15 best players in the world. So if you have both of those things, aren't you number two? I just think the depth of the thunder ultimately tipped them. And if anything, I had the Pistons at four, and you had them at five. Yeah.

Why are you all disrespecting one of our fine, great American working cities and the team that plays there? I think the question is like, so they have the top two. So I have blue chips on Cade and Joan Dern.

Blue chip for Jalen Duren too, Locke. He's going to make my list. Yeah. I could see the case for the maybe, but he was like probably the last guy in for me. He's awesome. After that,

especially in comparison to the last two teams on the list, there's good young talent, but I think there are more question marks. Ivy as just considering the injuries, Ron Holland, what is he? Assar Thompson. What is his offense? I would love to have all of these guys.

Yeah. But if we're like really splitting hairs here, I think that's ultimately why I went with the other. James. Will you allow me to make the case for? Obviously. Asar Thompson, I can't think of a reason why he wouldn't be the best perimeter defender in the world

for the majority of his career. Other than his brother existing. Maybe. So, you know, one of the Thompson's. Is he a maybe? I think he's a maybe. I think he's that good defensively. And on terms of his offense, yes, he can't shoot. And who knows if that will always be the case or if that'll eventually come around.

But he does so many other things and his feel, what really makes me positive about him is his feel working off the tick-tac-toe stuff with Caden Duren. He knows how to cut off of the pick-a-old. Very smart cutter, and a very smart pass or off of cut.

Incredibly. And so if you can do all that, you can kind of fake the spacing. And if you're that good defensively, you are changing the game period. Jalen Duren, whether he's a lock for the blue chip category or not, currently younger than Cedric Howard,

Ryan Kalkbrenner, Ryan Nemhard, Janek-Konan-Neederhauser, the project himself. Like, he's already this good, and that young and has so much room to grow. And all of those maybes, like, you have the maybes, but you have the certainties.

And one of the certainties is Kate Cunningham, who is dynamic and an incredible playmaker, and has shown and proven he can carry an offense as the primary engine of it. And so if I have all of those things, why would that not be enough? I had three in the tiers of like levels, layers, whatever you want to say,

three guys that I thought fit the MVP potential MVP mold. It was Anthony Edwards. It was Wimbonyama. We'll talk more about him in a little bit. But Cade was one of them. I mean, and I think I think you're right. Honestly, I'll hear that argument. I mean, I think that that's really fair.

I mean, I would be, I think you could, I could swap these and not lose any sleep. One more thing about Cade, too, in terms of these like do-it-all offensive engine types. if we are currently really in like a weak link era of the NBA, in which if you can't guard, you're going to get picked on, and that's a huge liability and problem. Cade is one of the first players of his kind that is not that. Very true. Right.

He's not Luca on defense for everything wonderful that Luca does offensively. And so he is doing a version of a heliocentric thing, but he's an awesome defender and will make impact plays. And so if he's both of those things, I mean, he really is like a unicorn. horn in himself. Listen, if we were just ranking the players, Kate is, I think,

especially in comparison to the guys left on this list, he's number two behind Webby in terms of players, right? But I think this is where the diversity starts to impact, like where they are, the rankings. I saw them as a collection of talent. And I just think Kate and Duren, for sure. And the Duren age thing is so funny because I was talking to Tyler Parker back here in the office.

And we were like, just trying to think about what his age was off top of our head. It's like, oh, he must have just made the cut. I think Tyler guessed like 27 or 28. Tyler gets 27 or 28. I forgot what he said. To be fair, I wouldn't know how old Tyler is. If you told me to put a number to it, he's an ageless wonder.

He's been living in a cave for 50 years. Or he was a newborn baby. I honestly don't know. It's a rec contour. Truly. But the fact that he's only 22 at this point, and he's just like kind of scraping the surface of like some of the skill there. Like he clicked in on the physical stuff and now there's just like a world of possibility. Like this is scary.

Oh, yeah. And I think if we're going to talk about like finding things. fit really well together. I mean, just your, your projected star, I think putting Duren with Cade, it was really great. I just think that it's been interesting to watch, to watch him, them come in, the new regime come in and start to alleviate some of these problems because the spacing things were so tough. And in his five-year arc to date, this is the highest pick and roll efficiency that Kate has had. But I think that if you're going to have, if you're going to have an assar, if you're going to have a jail, and you've got to figure out the shooting stuff. And I think

they've done a good job of doing that. Ivy I have as a guy Holland I have as a guy Holland feels like maybe a guy He's a rotation player He's not an asset Well no I'm just saying They're already

There's no other categories What about beef stew? Is he a guy for you? He's a fucking guy I mean didn't bigger staff Just call him the best defensive center In the league I doubt he's quite that at this far But like the rim protection numbers all are

In limited minutes we'll say But they've always been They've been Sterling He's been that kind of guy It's certainly one of the best like undersized gets up there and just erases everything kind of for improtectors. And between that and just the strength he plays with, he blocks things that he's just like a humbee on a trampoline. Like you just watch him. You see that body type get to the get to the heights that he gets to at times.

And whoa, it's just kind of like almost Zion-esque at times. I had four guys other than Jalen and the K that could be top 100 to me. And it was Holland. It was a SAR. It was Jaden. And it was beef stew. So that's a good group. And I don't feel like that's super volatile.

Like, I think those are, I don't think you have to really strain a whole lot and do gymnastics to argue that those things could happen. If you value all these things clicking together, I could see where you end up. Totally. With the distance over some of the distance. We didn't even mention the name Dennis Jenkins, who's, again, among the best two-way guys in the league. Probably All-Star. Yeah, right, I think. Among the best two-way guys in the league.

I mean two-way contract guys in the league, not two-way players in the league. I wouldn't put it past you, honestly. Well, that leaves two teams at the top here. You probably guess where are we in. it up, although this has nothing to do with the cup game that just happened. We ranked these before it. So not recency bias here, just hardcore analysis and synergy deep dives. Well, nobody thought those young cores were good before last night.

No, they had to prove it on the Vegas stage. Right. But number two is the Oklahoma City Thunder. Two blue chippers, no arguments. I will hear no arguments. The j-dub chat combo as a one-two punch, just in. sanely tough to beat for the purposes of any like young core bullshit that we have concocted like how again how are you supposed to be that

and yet the pistons did bullshit well it can be good bullshit um yeah i mean the depth of this the you know we're talking about houston nailing picks it's just a really fascinating uh triumbrate really here between okay c and and and houston and then you know we'll talk about the team uh yeah that was number one but i yeah i mean Chet has another, I was talking with Tyler about Chet, he was saying he thought that Chet really took the ceiling off of this team. I think you even

kind of go down into the depths, just go down the list and other people that they've hit on. Jalen obviously has more to show, I think, and then you start hitting on Gaisen, I think, on another team, I think we'd be having a different conversation about him about how he could expand and add more things. I'm already having lots of conversations about him.

I don't know what you're talking about. It's an absurd Scrooge McDuck amount of embarrassment of riches. And then you start getting down into the weeds of, you know, Jalen Williams is a really important in fasting guy and then Topich obviously in Sorber who we haven't even seen anything from those guys. I think the Topich Sorber and this isn't part of this conversation but Clippers pick yeah. That's like a shadow generation of talent that's just like lurking behind this already crazy deep group. That's what kind of I think pushed them over some of these other teams that we just

mentioned. It's like the abundance there. It's unbelievable. And the thing with Chet that kind of, I mean, I think we all know this, but it kind of goes unspoken. He's taken this leap, but it's such a streamlining of what he already did and is just doing better he just doesn't go outside of the normal like constraints that okay C puts on all their players because they're not constraints they're just like they're putting in them in the exact role that they're designed to be in yeah but like if he was on another team just exploring a little bit more like he would be putting up like 20 more numbers 10 and seven we like more numbers we do like no way more of them if

possible but I think that's just goes to show you like perhaps even like think about him even more if he had that opportunity. Yes. I think that conversation exists with almost every one of these players. You mentioned case involves him on another team. AJ Mitchell is another case in this of like, I don't even know how good he is because his ceiling is capped at a certain point with this group. Like for as good as J. Dub and Chet are,

they are somehow nowhere near the best player on the Thunder. Like Shea is in a class unto himself. They are so good. Everyone in the supporting cast is capable of picking it up on the, right night. And AJ is like, by force of will, inserted himself into that pecking order. Right. But if you put him on a different team where he got starter level opportunity, who knows what he could do? And this is one of these areas where if we're talking about this as like a holistic exercise, does that matter for a young court that you have so much talent?

Like, how do we, how do we judge AJ Mitchell? Do we, do we judge him based off of what we believe to be the whole of his talent and who he could be or who he is for the thunder within this role, which is a guy coming off the bench for the best team in basketball. Both are valuable. I come back to the idea of just, I think you have to give credit. I don't think that, you know, when a guy's in a limited role, you can kind of look at it as like, well, that's, you know, the subservient to the cause kind of thing. And, you know, really, I do, I think, I think it's the opposite with, with a guy like Chet and with a guy like, a guy like AJ.

We've been sitting in front of these lights for too long. I don't have any names at hand. But I just think that the ability to discern where the boundaries are and how to do that without losing confidence or getting mad. I think it's just a greater understanding of what makes a team great. I think that's why we're seeing the Oklahoma City Thunder be so fucking goddamn good. Is the competition and his ability to blow through that in order to be something actually also making those guys better? Is it pushing them to unearth? Oh, absolutely.

The reps you're seeing on an everyday basis. That's a factor for sure. It's classic like we're in practice going against the other best guys. Yeah. And is that also creating a new advantage on top of the advantages? It's crazy because, yeah, it's like the, like, I'm trying to think of the right metaphor, but it's like you put a bunch of mice in a bucket together and they're supposed to eat each other and then pile up the bodies and climb out.

But instead they just built a little mouse ladder and they're just all climbing out together and somehow they're all brilliant little mice. I don't even understand it. Chaos is a mouse ladder? Apparently. A lot of unsullied Game of Thrones. killing people to develop kind of thing. But the thunder are the survival of the fittest team.

It's just they only draft the fittest somehow. And so they all survive and they're all good. And now you have way too many guys to even give them minutes they deserve. To that point, though, I am perversely curious about if AJ ends up getting onto another team, whether it's via trade because they just need to make things happen with the contracts and all that. Or someone sees an opportunity and overpays for him. Because I'm curious how these guys are going to exist in different environments. And I wonder if there's going to be sort of a New England Patriots Bill Belichick thing,

where it's like outside of the system, are they going to be able to do the same things? Or did the system actually bring out the best of them and people are going to be disappointed? I would be surprised. I could see like a Brogden arc for A.J. Mitchell. But I don't know. And I kind of want to see it play out.

I'm just looking at this list of guys and I feel confident in all of them in basically any circumstance. Even someone like, well, I mean, look, you get that far down the list. It's maybe a different conversation. He plays though. He does play.

That's crazy. Jalen Williams, big Jailen Williams. is maybe like the fifth to seventh most important player in this group, and any team would be lucky to have him. And like that's just a testament to what the Thunder have built. Cason Wallace, I think, is just getting pretty scary at this point, even within this role. He's not even doing all the stuff that another team would ask him to do.

He's just one of the most terrifying defenders in the league. Is he vaulting Daniels and the Dyson Daniels in the pick pocket category? Best hands in the league? He's up there. Best hands in the West. Ferocious. Very strong, accurate. Yeah.

All right, number one, San Antonio Spurs. You may have guessed. Yes. I have three blue chippers on this. Three. Yeah. I got a little wild after watching the other day's game. I saw us to find Castle.

I'm not mad at it. Yeah. We're going to have to get down to brass tacks about, I mean, look, Wemby, I think we're all on 40s among the bluest that a blue chipper could possibly be. Castle and Harper are going to have to beat out some real guys. And they have put themselves into that conversation deservingly, Castle with pure guile, performance, I think just blowing away any baseline for what he could be already. And then Harper just has that, like, inimitable quality for a ball handler where he can do all the stuff that nobody can

really do. And everything else, we kind of, you can kind of pencil in to come along at some point. So the hard, the hard part is out of the way for Dylan Harper. So I get what you're saying. I'm just going to need to see the list of the 15 names to fully understand who you're leaving out. Dylan Harper is the highest. He's the guy who climbed the, he, is that right? Well, Cooper is probably is ahead of him still for me, but he's, he's, he's in the top 15 for me in terms of the blue chippers. I think the big, the big thing for me is the points wise, I would, you know, I was saying how like Cade and how, the guys who were MVP level, I didn't, I don't even, Victor breaks that in a way where I don't even think you can, I think his

strongest MVP's way more than the strongest MVP's for some of these other guys. Like I say I had 10 points was an MVP for me in my scale. I was like, I have to give Victor like a 13 to accurately represent this. The only thing that kept me, I actually ended up having this first second because of the worry about the availability. That was the only thing that kind of tilted me. Because they came out to the exact same score and I just lean towards O.KC just because of that reality. I think. Or worry, I would say. I get what you're saying. But if you gave every GM in the league a player to kind of reset their franchise with, I think there's a decent chance you go 30 for 30 Webby.

I think every team might pick Victor Webonyama as the guy to restart a franchise with. And that's the starting point and then you go through and the Spurs have every kind of young player you could possibly want. They have that guy. Multiple other players as we alluded to in Castle and Harper who could be All-Stars.

They have incredibly streamlined role players. They've got the garbage men who can just fill out a rotation. It's just like a stunning collection of talent and it's all within our age bracket somehow as a young core. And it's so funny to have these conversation as like the Janus chatter just kind of heats up where it's like, why? Yeah.

You're kind of just building a dynasty in house. And I mean, obviously think very highly of harboring castle. But I just the more I see about those guys, the more I just feel like they're just like rock solid title pieces, like high level superstars sort of guys. And it's like to have three of those, let alone have Fox just like hanging out being like, remember me? Like it's unbelievable. So I have those three guys as blue. How many blue did you end up having? I think Wemby, absolutely, the other two, maybe hopefully blues.

We'll see. And you had Harper. I had Harper Blue, and I have Castle. Castle's in my top 15 also. And I had Carter Bryant and Sohan have the potential to be top 100 guys at some point. Did you see this for Castle? Especially after last year, we saw some setbacks. We saw like the potential, but it seemed like you would be someone who was digging offense

out of the dirt a little bit more, but doing more off of activity rather than being what he is now where it feels like his activity just like makes like amazing things happen. I think he's always kind of given he he always had the off like the shooting was always a thing that stopped me from being like, okay, this guy could carry and facilitate an offense. But the sort of the grit, the get into the rim, he's such a he's a two way play. He's always had kind of point guard sensibilities without ever winning me totally over with the scoring. So yeah, I always thought the point guard sensibilities were there to answer your question. So on that level, yeah.

So he just needed to be. He's leaned on to the right extent. He adds an awful lot in terms of, like, quality decision-making. I just love this team. You mentioned Carter Bryant, too, Kyle. He barely even plays for the Spurs. A little baby, yeah. I think he would be the most interesting prospect on maybe 10 teams.

Yeah. And he barely plays. Barely even a factor in our, like, weighted analysis of making the Spurs the number one team here. It's ridiculous. I had him as an asset. Also, Jeremy Sohan, as an asset just because he was highly drafted. Yeah. Where do you have Julian Champany?

not guy I have him as nothing because he was in guy he's a guy he's a guy he didn't quite get any any like tier label for me but I don't dislike him well it's funny we're agreeing on a different scale because before words like Jake La Ravia just the fact that he played rotation minutes yeah was a guy but like Jake LaRavia wishes he was Julian Champany Justin Champany wishes he was Julian Champany wow what about David Jones Garcia I mean you know I love them yeah

again one of the best two-way players in the league to contract players. The other lie detector guy. Jones Garcia, you watch him out there, man. He's like, he's like, I'm the captain on this possession. He's a madman. He's also in the vein of these guys who are kind of on random two ways, a little young

in the tooth for the young core rankings. He's 24 going on 28 all of a sudden, but I love watching him play. Should we figure out our blue chippers right now? I think we simply must. Get the knives out? Yes. Who are the like lock, lock throw away the key blue chippers right now?

So remember, if you're listening at home, this is prospects. It's not production based on what we have right now. This is in best players. This is the best long-term potential. It's a little bit of proven. It's a balance, yeah. It's a potpourri. So I'll give you my first team, and you guys can go from there. I have Wembe, Edwards,

Conningham, Mobley, flag. I did not have Mobley top five. Rob? I'm wondering if Chet needs to be on this team. I have Chet Popop. Okay. And I'm open to... But not J-Dub. I think J-Dub is great. I think Ched is already, like, in a similar

class and has a lot more he could potentially do in a way that really excites me as we're talking about like the long-term prospects of these guys. So I'd put, I'd put Chet as a prospect slightly ahead of J-dub. Can we leave Evan Mowb off though? He's one of a defensive player of the year. I had this exact conversation in my head where it's like, yes, we ding him for this and that, but ultimately like what he is already.

And then plus you add the potential to develop into that and it's actually a pretty easy path to get there. Yeah. Not easy, but like, you know, a couple. Did you guys make them as teams? Like, did you try to fit them? Okay, because I did. We're doing that in real time right now. Okay, so, but no, I need, like, you made like positional.

Oh, no. You just, you just did top. I think it's all NBA style, five guys. Five, six, six or ten. I leaned a little more towards sports team kind of thing, but it might honestly be close to that anyway. No, I had Mobley on the second team. Okay. But you guys all had flag. I don't know.

I had flag first team. Okay. Like, what do we think the best version of Cooper flag? I guess. Is he the best player on a contending team? Or is he the player that ties it all together on a contending team? You watch it more than anybody. I think you're asking, that comes down to can he be a high-level self-creator

facilitator? Yeah. I just have a hard time betting against him in that. And he is more out than like any prospect I've seen in recent memory. If that's true, maybe we do put Mowgli's second team. and we put flag and Chad first team.

I think Flagg's ultimate ceiling is somewhere in the Tatum range and you might need a brown to compliment him. Yeah. But, you know, math are setting themselves up

at least for this draft in order to drafts. I also don't think that he necessarily has to be like a championship level primary to crack this top five because I think the only guys

in this group to me that fit that bill at this point are Vic, aunt and Kade. Yes. I don't know that there's another guy the group. I mean, you could maybe argue yourself into Jalen Johnson. I'm not quite ready to get there. But Harper is somebody that I think has a high, high ceiling in terms of self-creator.

Well, if we're going to go to the second list, I have Harper there. So I have J-dub, Harper, Chet, Amin, and J-Len and J-Lan Johnson. We're close. We're not, I had a couple that are off. I had Mobley second and I had J-Lan Johnson, J-Dub, I'm in, and I also had Dylan on the second team. I mean, the Dillon question, I would say, are twofold. One, the three-point shooting, if and when it will come around, and if that matters. And I guess, too, how does his version of attacking translate to running offense? How does he become not just a creator who's getting to the basket at will, but somebody who is manufacturing a coherent system around him? I think that he has the power to do that stuff in time, and I believe it.

do I believe it to the point where I'm willing to omit these other really good already more accomplished pros like this is where it gets tough I think with guys like Dylan so who do you want to see on that second team like can you put him over scotty Barnes yes and I did I think I mean put him over Alper and shangoon it's much easier to project in hope than it is to nitpick someone who has had multiple years of nitpick I had Scotty just outside my top 50 I don't think that's unreasonable I mean like we're gonna have to come down to

brass tacks and really good players are going to be left out. Maybe it's Scotty Barnes, maybe it's not. Dylan Harper just looks a step ahead of veteran NBA players in the way that he's able to craft his way to the rim. He does. It's unbelievable. And just to like work around them, to step through.

He just has all of those nifty little footwork things that Kyle's been talking about for years. And then you add all the stuff on top that he could be. God, it's just so goddamn attractive. I'm just going to say the shooting stuff is not horribly dissimilar from where Shee was when he came to the league. She had a similar thing of just like, this guy just manufactured. factures paint touches at will. Will the shooting ever come around?

You're right. You're right. I don't know. It is a little stilted and weird. He had a couple in the cup game where I was just like, I don't think that's going in. And he's going to have to win me over in that sense, but in every other year. Like, he can pass the ball too. Yes. It's good stuff. I mean, I'm down for Dylan Harper on one of these teams. I think it's just a matter

if you're putting him second or third. Yeah. So I'll give you my third team. We can go from there. I have Shengoon. I have Scotty Barnes. I have Paulo. I have Stefan Castle and I have Jalen Dern. So we're leaving out. Edgecombe, leaving out, Khan. And no Franz for you, right? Franz was my last, last cut,

and it was Castle vaulting in and Franz going out. I think when we started to focus more on prospects than hardcore, just production, I think that's what tipped it. I think you would have to feel overwhelmingly positive about someone like Vijay Edgecombe to justify it over these guys. So I'm like, I think Shangun, I feel like Barnes has to be here. Kyle, who do you have third team to nudge out Scotty Barnes? My third team is Shingoon, Duren, Castle, Wagner, and Khan Canipal.

Khan. Khan will be a better player than Scotty Parkes. So you have Paolo and Scotty-O. Yeah, the Palo one is more I, the more I look at it. I'm just like, as we were having that conversation, I'm just like optimized. I think you have to kind of take that grain of salt and consider it. So I could, I could, you know, tomorrow, change my mind on that one, honestly. So,

all right, so can we agree on for third team Shangun, Scotty Barnes, Dura, and Paolo? Is that a reasonable

for four? Why don't you give your team and then we'll just all go our separate ways? You don't want to come up

with a consensus list? No, I want to do my own. Okay. I want to stand by my own convictions. I'm going to go, okay,

so I haven't really rattled off my law. First team, Webbenyama, aunt. I'm going to put Moble, Chet,

and Kade, first team. Second team, Amman Thompson, J. Dub, Coop Jalen Johnson

I'll put Dylan Harper there Okay Third team Shangoon Barnes Duren Paolo The last spot is agonizing I think the candidates Are really

Stefan Castle Franz Wagner I want to get there With Concanipple But I can't You know I've been on such as Stefan Castle High lately

I'm gonna come ride with you Justin Let's go You see Oh wow Now the real allegiance has come out I love his castle. You know he has a big old like pendant and it's just a castle? That's fucking sick.

That is pretty sick. It is pretty awesome. You should get one of just like men. A man. What is that? It's just a man. That's what I say about Rob. I can't believe you don't want to do a collaborative list.

It just seems a little messy. We're three front offices here. We don't need to, you know. Honestly, we're pretty close. We're one front office, but we're all giving our recommendation to the GM. I guess. In that case, first team, Kishon and George. I feel good about this.

I like this exercise. It was fun. It's the type of thing where you roll your eyes at it at first. It's like, oh, another ranking. But when you get in the weeds of it, you're like, you learn a lot about the league and like young teams and where teams are from doing this type of thing. And as you said, with trade season, which guys are worth building around, which guys are maybe ancillary to what you're doing.

I think it's telling a lot about where a lot of these teams are in the grand scheme of things. Yeah. And if you listen to all two parts, power through a one. four hours probably of this. Make sure you email Robin. Tell him that you did it. I would love to hear about it. If you have takes for Justin about how he thought

Chunley was a member of Mortal Kombat, I would love to hear about that too. I know that's going to be the takeaway. She should have been. I mean, you can put Chunley in any game. Let's see her roundhouse kick someone's head off. That'd be a good fatality for her. Before we go, we have to say thank you to our lovely producers

who powered through multiple hours of this with us. Victoria Valencia, who's here with us in studio, Isaiah Blakely on the dials and Ben Cruz, who put together a lot of this information for us. So thank you very much for going on this ride with us. First teamers, all three. Absolutely.

Unanimous, first ballot. Absolutely. We'll be back on Sunday, as per usual. We'll talk to you then. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in present in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem.

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