The Ringer NBA Show - Zombie Warriors vs. Young Lakers, the Andrew Wiggins Debate, and Building the Bucks Around Giannis | Group Chat (Ep. 229)

Episode Date: March 15, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Justin Verrier are joined by Haley O’Shaughnessy to discuss the decimated Warriors’ triumph over the up-and-coming Lakers (1:55), to debate the turbulent career of former no. 1 pick Andrew Wiggins in context of the 2014 draft (17:59), and to consider how to reconfigure the Bucks to better complement their superstar, Giannis Antetokounmpo (28:19). Articles mentioned on the show Brew Hoop piece on the Bucks’ struggles with consistency ESPN piece on Julius Randle’s uncertain future Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Ringer NBA show is brought to you by Seekkeek. Seekkeek is the best app for buying and selling tickets to sporting events, concerts, and more. For $20 off your first Seekkeek purchase on any game or sporting event, all you have to do is use the promo code Ringer MBA, download the Seek app or go right to Seatgeek.com. Group chat is also brought to you by the ringer.com, conveniently enough. If you haven't noticed, we are in full March Madness season so you can find a plethora of college basketball content to read on the site. Plus, there is an excellent featureette by a video. our editor at large Brian Curtis on the rise of the online draft guru,

which is a great read on a sports media phenomenon. Also, the Ringer podcast network is buzzing with college basketball fever. Pretty sure you've heard Titus and Tate on literally every show on our network from House of Carbs to draft class, against all odds to Bill Simmons podcast. And of course, their own podcast, one shining podcast. And now group chat. Basketball is very good. The Raptors are the best team in the east.

Phil Jackson actually saved the Knicks. Mark L. Foltz will be an all-star next year. Basketball is very good. Hello, and welcome to group chat. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm joined by Haley O'Shaughnessy. I'm a number one seed. Congratulations.

Justin, are you in the NIT? Shasta Kempa, though. Just the barriers here. It's March Madness, which means the NBA is in somewhat of a hibernation state. You know, like I think that every year this sort of happens, the eyes of the sports world deviate from the NBA and concentrate. fully on unpaid amateur athletes as they strive to make it into the NBA. What's up with you, Haley? How are you doing?

I'm good. Yeah? I'm a little upset because of a college basketball team that might have not made it to the NCAA tournament. But, you know, this is NBA group chat. Yeah. I'd rather just not talk about it. Talk about the NBA.

We want to start talking about what I'm referring to casually as the Reddit Super Bowl last night, which was Lakers Warriors. just a really robust response to this game. This is kind of the fun part of the season where really only the true addicts come out. You don't really see a lot of people staying up late on the East Coast for Warriors Lakers without Steph Clay and Dramond

and Kuzma and Ingram unless they really, really want to be there. And it was a fun game. The Warriors wound up winning 117-106. KD went for 26, 5 to 5. What a weird Warriors team. But you loved it. I like watching Kevin Durant in full flight.

And I think that for the first part of his career, that was obviously run through the Rust filter. And then since he's moved to the Warriors, he's been part of this incredible machine. But I think that he has that capability to basically play like five positions at once. I mean, it's just so wild. He can switch on anyone.

He can bring the ball up the court. He's an incredible rim protector. It kind of brings me to this first question I wanted to ask you guys. And I was playing around with this because I think this starting lineup was KD, Nick Young, Quinn Cook, Kevin Looney, and Zaza. My guy, Quinn Cook.

Pelicans legend. I know. And now also apparently, like Warriors glue guy. Yeah. Did like a new like real chemistry. I have a fun fact about Quinn Cook. Let's hear it.

He has more career starts than average points for game. Wow. Where'd you get that fact? I looked him up on basketball reference today. Wow. Just to see what he had last night. He's a great guy. There was something the other day somebody was talking about like I think it was like Sam

Bradford has more millions of dollars than he did touchdowns or something like that. I believe it. Yeah. Me too. But I was starting to think about with these guys with this really weird zombie Warriors team, which still managed to beat the Lakers. If you had to have one of like the all-NBA, like superstars, that you would trust to win a basketball game with, say, the lower 15 or 20 percentile of NBA players.

So basically what we saw with this Warriors team last night, who would you pick to do that? Who is the guy who you think could win a basketball game with the basically bottom of the NBA barrel? Did you also come up with this question by watching the Celtics game last night? I didn't see the Celtics game last night. But that was also like a weird zombie game, right? Right. The only two normal starters were Tatum and Aaron Baines, so basically Tatum. Oh, yeah.

I did see Andrew Sharp, my buddy from old Granite days, tweeting that if the Wizards lost to Aaron Baines, that he would do some bodily harm to himself. It took a double overtime for them to not lose the Boston's bench. What did Marcus Morris have, like 30? Yeah. It was insane. And then Terry Rozier ended up playing like 50 minutes. Terry Rozier had like 21, yeah.

If you had to pick a superstar and then surround him with trash. but still win an NBA game. Who's the guy you'd pick? Well, this is kind of my expertise. Yeah, I know. I've been in New Orleans for two years. It's funny. Someone, I didn't tweet at all yesterday,

like throughout the entire day, and yet some guy went and found me and tweeted at me and was like, this is basically what Anthony Davis has been doing for two years. Right. Now, they haven't made the playoffs both of those two years,

so I think that's important context. But I would probably say LeBron, and we're kind of getting to see it now. I mean, his teammates are probably league average, so they're not Quinn Cook, Nick Young-esque, but he's the type of guy who can make a lot happen with less. Well, I think that Sepsiegoon pointed out on Twitter about some, I can't remember what the context was,

but he did point out that LeBron did take Boobie Gibson and a group of guys around Boobie Gibson's level to the finals. Yeah. So LeBron is definitely more than capable of it. So you would say LeBron. Yeah, Danielle Marshall. Key to that team. I'm also saying LeBron.

And with the idea of KD doing it, I do think that definitely last night you could see like this is a guy who is going to make everyone better and not necessarily have to do it the Westbrook way because he took 19 shots last night. He had 26 points where the couple games before without Curry, he had 39, 40 and 37 points. But then last night he had 26. And the quotes after the game were like, yeah, he made us a lot better. Like he's doing the things that we needed him to do. But he's just a self-proclaimed not alpha. He doesn't want that role. He's not going to come in and have that role every night. So I wouldn't give it up to Kevin. He's George Harrison. Like I think they like, like, person.

Personality-wise. Sure. Like, I think he's much more, like, chill than, you know, I think it's Steph and Drey are John and Paul. These are Beatles, by the way. I was like... Who's Ringo in the scenario? Bival characters? Clay is Ringo, for sure.

Yeah. I think Draymond's Lennon and Steph is McCartney and Durant is George. That makes a lot of sense. And Clay is Ringo. Okay. These are just personality types. It's not necessarily... Yeah, no, I know.

I just don't have anything to add. Are you into the Beatles? I know some of their music. Okay. You listen to the White album. Like the... Chopped and screwed version. Yeah, T-Pain does a cover.

The reason why I think that he would be the best player to do it is because somebody like Steph ultimately needs a couple of guys around him who can shoot, right? Because he's not going to be able to get down low and get his own shot all the time. And part of what makes Steph good is like he attracts so much gravity from other parts of the court. But his ability to find people or turn the ball over,

which is sometimes the case, to find other shooters is key to his value as a player. I love watching him play, but it's not like he could pull up from 35, although Davidson fans may disagree with me. Davidson fans may be like, have you ever heard of anybody else who went to Davidson on that team?

Steph would be the most fun person to do it. It would be like watching Colin Sexton play 3 and 5, because that's essentially what you're doing with Steph. Right, I'm sure Russell Westbrook is listening to this right now, and I'm sure he's just like, challenge accepted. Hardin would be interesting too. I know, but we've literally seen this exact experiment with Westbrook. Hardin would be fun.

Yeah, just because, like, like, I mean, they did a certain version of this last year where they basically just went out an overpaid shooters to be around him. Yeah, right. I mean, you'd have to get guys a little bit better than Quinn Cook and some of these other ones. But like, he basically operated an entire team for an entire season. Can I throw another guy out there who I'd like to see do this? And sometimes you can make the argument is doing it on some nights is Ben Simmons. Because physically, well, not unlike the LeBron thing. Like, he can't shoot, obviously. But I do think that physically he poses a unique threat to the opposing defense.

defense. There's just not a lot of seven-foot guys who can move that quick and see the court that way. And he can do things underneath the rim that I don't think somebody like Steph can necessarily do on a consistent basis. Just a thought. Sure. Anybody else you want to nominate? Anybody else you want to say, I don't think they'd be good at this? Well, I think I already said Russ. Yeah. Which he did get to the playoffs. So kudos. But. Andre Drummond. Yeah, that's not. Well, I mean, Blake. Blake. Blake could not do it. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about this Lakers team. They were without Kuzma and Ingram last night, but we haven't really spoken about them in a while, and in that time, they've become pretty decent.

You know, they're 20 and 9 since the famous LeVar Ball saying that the team is quitting on Luke Walton Peace, apparently. They're 20 and 10 now, I guess, probably. They've had a couple of guys have their moments this season. Like Kuzma, obviously, Kuzmania swept the nation earlier in the season. And now in the last, I don't know, like 15, 20 games, it seems like it's really been Julius Randall's moment, which is convenient for Julius Randall because he's got a contract coming up.

Yep. What timing. Yeah, right. Convenient. And then last night, after he has this ESPN feature about how it's his moment, Isaiah Thomas tries to like put him back in the young player box. Didn't go well. Credit to Isaiah didn't seem like he was backing down, even though he had, there was a

slight reach advantage on Julius Randall's part. They got into it last night on the sideline. Have you been enjoying watching the Lakers recently? Yeah, sure. They've actually been better in my eyes than like the beginning of the season where watching them was like fun, but also you're like, well, they're definitely. still the Lakers. And with Isaiah Thomas, it's interesting to see those things still come out after like it went so badly in Cleveland when he like confronted Kevin Love. You know what I mean?

And like kind of everyone was like, well, you're the poison from this team. And then he comes to Lakers. He's doing the exact same thing. That's fun. I really enjoy watching Lanzo. It's so funny to go back to the beginning of a season and like listen to what we were saying about him, what everyone was saying about him. But Lanzo actually is really impressing me on defense too. Am I missing the part of the internet where they're just really ethering Lonzo for a shooting? No, like the niche basketball fans that you're talking about who are coming out now. At this point in the season with March Madness going on are the ones who love Lonzo. Okay.

It could be just a straw man, but there is this just belief that because Lonzo is such a lightning rod for everything, that he's just catching flat constantly. Like even just anecdotally in like our office, like people are ready to shit on Lonzo pretty readily. I think that one thing I'd love for him not to do is take 113s game. Sure. He's not good at it. You know, like one for eight last night, one for seven the game before that, one for six the game before that, one for eight the game before that. It's just like stop shooting so many threes.

You can't make them. Yeah, he had a moment. Yeah. And we've been talking about it where it seemed like he'd kind of course corrected to a certain degree, but he's kind of going right back to where he was before. So it seems like that was the outlier, the good shooting. Yeah, I would say shoot or shoot, except for him. I mean, tell that to Ben.

Yeah. But he doesn't shoot threes. That's true. Yeah. Literally zero. I think he's not even attempted one. Yeah. He knows who's good at.

I'm not like shots in general. Oh, well, I mean, he does like a lot of weird runners in the lane and stuff, but most of his shots are like open baseline dunks. Who do you think could be the better shooter at the start of next season from deep? Ben or Lonzo? I'm not even joking at this point. I think if you gave me good odds, I'd put money on faults. He wasn't even in the question.

I know. I'm saying a guy who has missed all of this season because he destroyed his own shoulder and possibly mined with his shooting. I think might be a better shooter than Lanzo and Ben next season. Are you saying that because... Because I've seen iPhone footage of him shooting without a hitch. I guess in theory, like, we've seen these other two guys be bad shooters, and we've never seen Markell Fultz shoot anything.

Except in college. There is that whole thing. It's kind of like Michael Porter Jr. If he just never played at all, maybe he could be the next LeBron. We don't know. I know. I think it's like, I mean, at this point, though, I mean, Lanzo also the thing that, you know,

what everybody says is just that like the free throw shooting is always like a good indicator of your natural shooting ability. And Lanzo is like a 40% free throw shooter this year, right? Yeah, he's been fine. I do think about all of these guys in the context of like, will they fit next? Well, this is where I wanted to go with this. It's because everybody has been getting,

people are getting pretty affectionate about the Lakers. And like, we always say this, and I think it's a cliche, but it's true. Good Nix teams, good Lakers teams and good Celtics teams kind of excite the league. it gives the league a sense of like a connection to its past and a connection to its history. And I think everybody would love to see a Lakers team in the playoffs that wasn't like a Kobe zombie squad like this anymore. Next season, obviously, they're being linked heavily with LeBron, heavily with Paul George,

to make that happen when we require it to be a different team. And there's obviously also rumors that LeBron has zero interest in playing in the ball family circus here. So if you're a Lakers fan, after this nice second half of the season, albeit beating some teams that are tanking. Would you rather have Paul George and this core of guys, Coosma, Ingram, Lanzo, maybe even re-signed Julius, or LeBron and Paul George and whatever the bare minimum that you need to keep, keeping in mind that LeBron typically wants older players around him and that might mean the end of Coos or that might be the end of probably Lonzo, if not guys

like guys like Josh Hart and Zee and all these other guys. What do you think? I think that if you're a Lakers fan, I would want LeBron because you have not won in such a long time after being the team with the player, you know, for like a really long stint in the league. So you like really want to get back to winning. But you immediately become the most fascinating experiment in basketball, like immediately. Sure. Like everybody watches every Lakers game all of a sudden. Sure, but people are going to watch them anyway. And especially if like Paul George comes. And that's what I would say to do, not only because it makes the league more interesting, LeBron going somewhere else. But I think that this would really build up the team that they have now. And we've

already seen so many of them improve, like Ingram and Randall. And so that, I think, is better long term. It kind of gets to the heart of the question with all these young Lakers players is, like, LeBron and Paul George are stars. They are bona fide all-star caliber players every single time they step on the floor. Whereas we don't even know what these guys are on Lakers still. I think there have been flashes and there have been like good signs. Julius Randall has played particularly well. since the beginning of the new year since the All-Star break. But at the same time, are we sure it's not just empty stats? Are we sure that Lonzo Ball is going to be more than just like a ball mover and an occasional, like, good defender?

Are we sure that Brandon Ingram can stay on the court? Because he's dealt with some injuries over this past couple games. And so it would obviously be great to have the two stars in there. But I think the bigger question is even if they are there, what are these other guys? They have to play ancillary roles. And is Lonzo Ball, the type of guy who could play off of LeBron if he can't shoot? is Julius Randall, who's shooting is come and gone, can he play off of those guys? Do you think that this is sort of an example?

Because the Lakers obviously don't have their pick this year, their first round pick, so it's either going to go to Philly or Boston, depending on where it falls. And in all likelihood, it'll go to Philly now. Do you think that this is an example of sometimes psychologically, the Lakers don't have to worry about, like, they can kind of play free. You know, they want to get these younger guys better. They can go out and compete every night. It's not bad for them to finish 10th in the West,

although I'm sure they'd love to finish better. Is there something to this where it's better than like what the magic, even though the magic beat the bucks last night, or the magic or the kings or the Mavs or the sons, are kind of faced with this almost a second half of the season of misery? Yeah, because the Lakers history grants them this kind of allowance, but also I think for L.A. fans, Magic and Rob Polinka inherited what's going on now.

But they changed ownership. So if they're like, oh, well, it's going to be different. if they have a sign to get them through the rest of the season. You know, they have a big summer coming up. They're going to be able to make room if they want to. So there is something to look forward to. And at the same time, you have a lot of young, exciting, promising players. Like you said, we're not sure, but it is fun to see the flashes from Kuzma, from Ingram, from

Lanzo, and now from Randall, who, honestly, I always thought it was strange that they were like, this is the guy who we're going to trade. And maybe they haven't said that out right, although I think that they might have. hinted at that. I think he was in the mix. It was like in the summer he was in the mix and then he became more of a... Well, then they didn't extend him. Yeah.

So actually, it's easier to look forward for them because, A, you guys have the history where it's like there's a lot of pressure on a team like the magic. They're like, oh, we're awful again. Crazy. But with the Lakers, they have a future ahead of them.

Yeah, I think there's just a point where if you're going through your second cycle of tanking, and I know the magic are in there also their second front office, you're starting to look at the whole Ponzi scheme. You're starting to look at what the people were criticized. the Sixers and Sam Hinky for, but both Sam Hinkie and the Lakers, they actually nailed their picks. And they also, by the way, they tanked properly. They didn't just finish with like the fifth pick or whatever. And so they have guys going forward. Now they also screwed up with DeAngelo Russell.

That was a mis-evaluation or just an improper like development of him. And now they're faced with the same thing. But it's good to see signs of certain things because at a certain point, like you can't just keep doing this, especially if you're the Lakers and you're going to be on national TV regardless. Guys, I want to talk about Andrew Wiggins, but first let's take a quick break to hear from our sponsors. Today's NBA group chat is brought to you by Yahoo Sports Torny Pickham. March is here, which means one thing.

It is bracket time. Yahoo Sports Torny Pickham is the best place to fill out your bracket all through their Yahoo fantasy app. You can join a public group. You can create a group with your friends or you can join Draymond Green's group for a shot at $25,000. And if you don't know college hoops, don't worry. You can choose one of the auto fill brackets.

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But you know what's really interesting about him is his draft class. You've got Jabari. You've got Randall and Gordon, all top 10 picks from that 2014 class. all not extended, right? And Bede is Embed, and he's obviously, at once a generational talent, but also you're just never sure if he's going to play what more than 50 games, right? And then you've got guys like Wiggins, who's been in the news a lot of reason. We were going to get to him later, but I think we could talk about him now if we'd like.

Like Wiggins, who now we've got this really strange report out of Minnesota, that Wiggins is unhappy as the third option behind Towns and Butler, which is weird because Butler's not playing right now. And Wiggins is having a decent enough March. I think he's averaging like 28 games right now, Haley, right? Since Butler's been gone. Or at least in March, yeah. Yeah, he's definitely stepped up and taken more shots.

But the Wiggins situation is interesting because I can understand why he would be upset. You went from two seasons as this guy who was doing whatever he wanted on offense and had to share with Carl. But Carl wasn't even in his position. And so it was like, I'm just going to do whatever I want on offense. I'm the guy. and then he also got paid a maximum contract. So if that doesn't allude to, yeah, they're confident in me being the guy,

then he could be like getting mixed signals. But at the same time, Megan Schuster said this on Slack, and she's absolutely right. If you don't want to be the third option, you have to not play like a third option every night. And even last year and the year before, like he's so passive sometimes on offense

and then most of the time on defense. If you're that passive, I don't know how you're expecting people to go to you more. And also, he's not a great assist guy. He's not a great, like, let me make other people better type of player. So I don't think he can fit that role that he wants to fit. There's always been something around his rule at the Wolves. There was that whole thing when Glenn Taylor was like,

I want to give this guy the contract that he wants, but he has to show me that he wants it. He was like, you come here. It was like this long standoff with his contract this summer. and Glenn was basically like, I have to wait and shake his hand in person and make sure that he tells me he's gonna try. Like see if he was properly motivated.

There was a weird play like the other night that was very, I think, indicative of Wiggins is where he was against the Wizards and I think it might have been actually towards the end of the game, but Wiggins like split a double team and he's like slashing towards the room and you're just like this guy is like

really, really, really upper echelon like athletic slasher. Maple Jordan. And then he just passes it off to Bielika, which is fine. But it's like, you're the guy, man. Like, throw it down. Like, don't go for a weird corner three here.

I mean, I can't remember what the score of the situation was, so I don't want to, like, misconstrue it. But it was like one of those times where I'm like, you have all the tools to be the person you think you are, yet there's this thing that happens at the last second where you're like, let me give it off to Jeff Teague. I think that that actually is an unusual situation in two aspects. First of all, Bielitsa has been really good filling in

in the lineup and them shifting while Jimmy's been out. And he was also hot that game, if I'm not mistaken, if you were talking about the Wizards game. I am. And the other thing is that if Wiggins is going to drive to the basket, if he's going to do a little ISO, he rarely passes it out. That's just not his move. So I do think that that's unusual. But what you're saying about, like, you're the guy, like, that's like one fourth of his performances. You know what I mean?

It's like he shows up and it's a good Wiggins game and we're like, oh, like, this is him. This is what he could be. The problem is, is like, he's not that guy all the time. Yeah, I spent some time with him right before the draft. ESPN had this like photo shoot thing I went to and I had to do something for it. And he was like headstrong, but really passive. You're right. He was very tame. And I feel like that's kind of borne out over the course of his career. But like Haley's saying, I think if you're a wing in today's NBA, I just don't think you can be just a score. You can't just be like 2005 Ricky Davis.

Like you have to be able to get guys involved. And it's an interesting parallel to in juxtaposition with Jimmy Butler because Jimmy is just doing so much for this team. Whereas Wiggins can almost like his duties were streamlined and it still wasn't working. He still wasn't scoring efficiently. He still wasn't making the extra pass. He still wasn't getting down low and like rebounding with some of these guys, which is what his athleticism kind of like points to you should be able to make those effort plays because you're just so much bouncier and better than all these guys. And he just doesn't do that. And so it's almost like he's, he's so concerned with the superstar aspects. Yeah. But he doesn't realize that the like the dirty work is what

makes someone a superstar. Yeah, and this 14 draft class is really strange, because I think that there's a couple of guys like that in there. Like Aaron Gordon, you have all the tools. Now, granted, like, Aaron Gordon's been in a really, like, I think probably like detrimental situation in Orlando where you have that kind of coaching and front office upheaval and like a lot of trades. And like, you've been playing with a point guard who can't shoot so this floor doesn't get spaced right. He only in last season has turned into an outside threat so that that adds a whole element of his game. But you go through this list of guys and it's a lot of like, I still don't know or you know, it never happened or what if. Wiggins, we were just talking about Aaron Gordon, we were just

talking about Exum, just battling injuries throughout his career, smart who's kind of had, I know he's a folk hero in Boston, but, you know, this has been like a really tough post-all-star break second half the season for him between the punching the glass and now like this finger problem that might keep him out of the playoffs. I want to just ask, do we ever find out what was on the picture? He finds. Was it a mirror or was it like just a portrait? It was John Wall. It was a picture of John Wall.

Smart. Randall, we've talked about, being up for, you know, he didn't get signed an extension. Now he's going to be hitting the market. Stouskas. Stouskas. Stouskas. Von Lane never turned into the stretch for God that people thought he would be. Alfred Payton on the sun's like kind of like out there in the desert. He'll also, I think, be up for a free agency this season, correct? McDermott, bouncing around the league. Sharich, awesome as like a third or fourth guy.

but like, you know, Zach Levine, injuries on his second team. And was feeling the same thing that Wiggins was feeling last year. Yeah, I mean, you could make an argument

that the two or three most consistent guys in this draft after M. Bede, and I guess Wiggins, but Wiggins comes along with all that number one pick stuff are Nirkich and Yokic.

You know what? And Gary Harris. I would actually disagree with you and say Clint Capella. Oh, interesting. Down it, yeah, okay, so let me ask you if Clint Capella's on the magic.

Like, what do we? We don't know. You're right. We actually don't know. Because Yokch to me is fascinating because Yokic is that. Like, if Yokic was on any team, I think hopefully a coach would be like,

well, I just got to give this guy the ball in the high post of repossession and just watch him be basically frigging Jason Kidd in a 7 foot two body or whatever. But I see what you're saying. Capella is turned into this awesome player, but I have no idea what Capella looks like. Yeah, he's very much a beneficiary of the situation he's in.

But yeah, this is like a lot of guys, Rodney Hood, up and down, second team. You know, Shabazz finally coming good on Portland, but probably going to be. be Jemir Nelson for the rest of his career, right? That hurts. I'm sorry. I just find this class to be kind of fascinating. I mean, Kyle Anderson, again, not extended, probably going to do pretty well for himself in this offseason because he's gotten way more usage without Kauai in a weird way. He's like a big beneficiary

of Kauai being out. Fascinating class. Yeah, Josh Eustis was that weird experiment that the Thunder had with the jury. Oh yeah, that's right, where they were like, and they could have drafted with Eustis, they could have had Kyle Anderson, they could have had KJ McDaniels. I remember people were killing them for not drafting KJ. McDaniels. That season, whoops. You know, G-Rob 3, Jeremy Grant, guys who are basically role players. But, you know, Yokic and Nurkich and Gary Harris wound up being three of the most consistent, at least, contributors in this class. Yeah, the Nuggets have done a really good job of just, like, picking from low and then, like, being early on these international guys.

Yeah, for sure. And now, having said that, they're probably not going to make the playoffs. I know. We're going to talk about another player from this class and another team that's trying to figure out what they are as they hit the postseason after a quick word from our sponsors. Today's NBA group chat is brought to you by Coca-Cola and Powerade. If you're into sports, then it's your favorite time of year. It's the NCAA March Madness. With so many games, you never know what's going to happen.

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I know that personally, I don't have a dog in this fight this year, you know? I'm a Temple guy. Temple didn't make the tournament. Justin's a Yukon guy. Yukon didn't make the tournament. Nope. What Justin and I do is we get together. We get a ton of Powerade. We get a ton of Coca-Cola.

And we watch for the NBA draft. We're watching for Trey Young. We're watching for DeAndre Aten. What are you watching for? Who's a guy you were looking for? Colin Sexton, New Kimba. Bama. Yes. I love it. That's what Justin and I like to do. I'm sure you guys, if you have a team that's still in this fight, you're just going to be glued to the television the whole time. The NCAA March Madness, it's not just about one game. It's a whole tournament. So make sure you're ready. Refresh every round by heading to Walmart, picking up Coca-Cola, Coke Zero Sugar and Powerade. NBA group chat is also brought to you by the homies at Hotel Tonight. Fun fact, unlike flights or other travel. Hotel Tonight, partners with awesome hotels to help them sell. There are unsold rooms, which means you get

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whether you're a planner or like to leave things to the very last minute. And with the Hotel Tonight, H.T. Perks program, the more you book, the better the deals get. So start scoring amazing deals at incredible hotels and download the Hotel Tonight app now. All right, guys, we're back. I want to talk a little bit about the bucks. This is very odd season because they started out.

They had an MVP candidate, if not an MVP favorite after the first like 30, 40 games or whatever. We wrote about Yannis three times a week in the first. in the first half of the season. And they made some win now moves in terms of getting blood so. They also fired their coach. And they didn't go get like a big name after that. They went and just promoted an assistant,

made him the coach the rest of the season. They've been in and around as high as the third seed for a while, right? And now they are in eighth, and it is only by the grace of the Detroit Pistons that they are not struggling to stay in the postseason. They're three and seven, their last 10. They lost to a team in Orlando that is actively trying not to win.

Not only that, we have to say this. Orlando flew in on game day. They arrived at 2.36 in the morning. The night before, they had a vicious beat down by the Spurs. Vicious! Vicious! They were returning from a 10-day road trip in which they went zero and five. All of that, they came in and did this to the bucks.

That's atrocious. And let's just go over their starting lineup real quick. DJ Augustin, Jonathan Isaac, Jonathan Simmons, Mario Hazzonia, the God, and Nicola Busevich. And let's talk about that starting lineup because they helped the magic jump all over the books, 3620 in the first quarter. And this is, Bruhub has like a pretty cool article about this. I think it was from a couple days ago before this magic game even, where it's just like the bucks are getting smoked in a quarter per game. Like there's a quarter where they just are not there.

And there's a lot of cool stuff in this piece. I can give it to Isaac to put in the show notes. But it's basically about like, you know, whether it's the starters who are getting jumped on or the bench players and it's happening in the first and third quarter. quarter, but this first quarter against the magic was an interesting example because you could tell they just took their foot off the gas at a certain point. Like they kind of get the game going and it's back and forth. Not great body language, honestly, like across the board. Oh, terrible body language. Like even Janus, like, who is still putting up great numbers and I think is the only reason, like, I think that they're, they're on off numbers with Janus are astounding in Janus's favor. But even him,

just like a lot of like every time a magic basket would go in, his shoulders would drop and his head would go down. I think that's a product of realizing where his team is. Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that going forward, like, what can they do to fix this? I don't know. And this is what I want to talk about. I think so much of it is like wanting to play.

Like, we were talking about their defense and how awful it looked in the first quarter. I mean, it helps that like Simmons was on. He was having a good night. But at the same time, like, they could have any shot they wanted. And they did. Clearly, it was 3620 at the end of the first quarter. So they're three and seven of their last 10, and they are nine and nine since Jabari Parker. came back on, I think, February 2nd.

Their numbers with Parker on the team are pretty mediocre. They're like, they're fine. They're about 9-9-9-9. That they're like the numbers you'd expect from a 9-9 team. On-off numbers are almost uniformly better with Parker off the court. Now, granted, like, he's probably playing the second unit players and everything. But they're not going to have to worry about this much longer. They're not going to resign Parker.

They don't think Parker really wants to play their file accounts. I don't know if you've heard otherwise. No, I just, I wonder what his next contract is even going to look like. I do, too. I wonder whether, I mean, the problem with him is that a guy like Aaron Gordon or a guy like Julius Randall, if you're Randall, like, you could even be like, you know what, maybe I'll sound like a one and one or two or three year deal with the Lakers and then be up again for free agency in my prime. With Parker with these two in the injuries, like he's going to have to hope he can find somebody who can give them like a five-year deal, right? Yeah. Randall has the foot thing that he had early in season two. So it's going to be fascinating because I think he does contribute. Gordon's had injuries too. Yeah. It's true. Yeah. I just think Parker contributes to their biggest flaw. which is on the defensive side.

I think everything we said about Jason Kidd was like, what is he doing with these defensive schemes? Why is he so aggressive? And they got rid of him and they played better for a while, but we look at it here. And over the past couple games, they've just been getting blown out on that end. 126 points to a team like the magic is just incredible.

And I wonder how they fix that. Just because they brought in Eric Bledso, a guy who you would assume would be able to help on that end. Jabari is just not that type of guy. Chris Middleton. And it's just like a lot of the pieces don't really fit together. Yeah. And they've sacrificed picks.

They've sacrificed cap room. And now they're in like this weird middle state where they're in the Anthony Davis zone way too soon. Yeah. So this is what I wanted to ask is typically with, let's say, like LeBron, right? Like LeBron, Russ, Hardin, whoever you want to take from the upper part of the league, the best players in league, they're known quantities. And we have enough tape and numbers and anecdotal evidence to talk about who plays

well with LeBron, who doesn't? Who plays well with James Harden? Who doesn't? What does Russell Westbrook need? A bunch of guys standing to the side and applauding him when he gets triple double, I guess, whatever. But like, we know what these guys need. With the unicorns with Anthony Davis, although I think we know what Anthony Davis needs these four shooters, but with Janus, who is still almost every game growing, changing, evolving, showing off his pros and cons of his game, we don't know what he needs as a complimentary player. And it's not Parker maybe, but this goes back to what we were talking about

with Wiggins, where it's like these young guys who come into the league at the same time. And I'm actually thinking about this in terms of the Sixers, too. They're having a great season, but we don't know that Embed and Simmons are like perfectly complimentary players, right? And like, even let's say Fultz was better than Malik Monk this year, but not

God, not Donovan Mitchell. We don't know how that all would have fit together. It's very telling to me that the Sixers are having some success playing like Ilysova and Bellanelli and all these veterans who were just kind of like, I know what to do. I know my lane here. I'm not going to like overstep what I am. With somebody like Wiggins, right?

We can go back to the Bucks in a second. Does he know who he's supposed to play alongside? Well, I think that that's part of the reason that he was so upset when this quote came out and Butler was gone. Because the quote included he's the third guy behind Butler and Towns, even though he wasn't playing with Butler at the time, is that when Jimmy's out, he's realizing he's still not the guy. it's still Carl Anthony Towns and it absolutely should be. I'm someone and I think you've said this before

who has kind of criticized Kat sometimes for like grabbing empty boards like getting things that getting high these like crazy sat lines because things come to him but he is absolutely closed fourth quarters for the wolves and for a wolf's team who lost

the veteran that was supposed to be doing that he was the guy against the wizards. Exactly yeah he did that against the Warriors as well so I think that that's kind of what's fueling Wiggins. And I think that what Wiggins wants is to be surrounded by guys who will shoot, but also give him the ball

regularly and let him do his thing. But I'm not sure that's the recipe for a successful team. I don't even know if that team exists. Yeah. And I guess with the Bucks, there isn't that sort of hierarchy problem. We all know that it's Yonis, right? It's all about what pieces go around him. I think they made the right bets to a certain degree. Middleton makes a lot of sense there. Thon

Maker in a vacuum makes a lot of sense there. It just seems like Everyone is always in a rush in order to take advantage of these growing superstars. Obviously, Davis is the prime example. And like you said, we don't know what Janus is going to be. He's still figuring out his shot. And I would argue right now is his adjustment period where he's taking a lot of mid-range jumpers trying to figure out what he can do on that end.

It might also be people getting tape on him and being like, let's keep him there. Yeah. Let him take that 15-footer and live or die off that. Yeah. And I guess if you're being an optimist, you could say that a lot of the moves that they've made this season don't really screw them up too long. Like, they don't have to resign Eric Bledsoe. They could let Javari Parker walk.

They can let Henson expire in two years. But it just seems like from an ownership, front office side, there isn't the disability there that they used to have. You don't know if they're going to hit on the same sort of picks like John Hammond did back in the day. And you wonder if this is what they're doing in season, what are they going to do in the off season? It's just way too sad too soon.

It's so interesting because even at the beginning of the year, we were like, the bucks have drafted their way to being this team with a lot of potential success. And even the blood zone move seemed like it made a lot of sense at the time. And so it's just interesting how the script has flipped so much by the end of the season. And Chris, it kind of goes back to what you were saying about. We don't know what these unicorns need to be surrounded with to, you know, have ultimate success where it's like Janus is clearly the first guy. Yeah, there are certain guys, like, I feel more confident that Porzingis can play with almost anyone. it's not that I don't think Janus can play with anyone

I just don't even know what you do to compliment Janus You know what I mean? Like Janus is a force of nature And he can be so many different guys He can be Carl Malone and Magic Johnson You know like in any given quarter In any given possession he can do that

But what does he need around him And maybe what he needs is just shooting Maybe that's what the answer All these guys needs Is just get as many shooters as you can And let the rest work itself out I don't know That might very well be what the modern NBA asks

Yeah and I think that's the problem with all these unicorns is that they're so versatile. It creates problems like maybe not in the second or third chair, but like that fifth chair where you almost need someone just as versatile to be next to him. Whereas like, so unlike Anthony Davis, who's more of a traditional big man in air quotes, Yannis is probably more of a guard on offense who can't shoot. He's probably more Ben Simmons than Davis from a skill set standpoint.

And so you almost want to pair him naturally with the center simply because you need someone on the block, someone who can do some dirty work. But on the other end of the court, That's the complete opposite. You can't get that guy to do that. Imagine, like, subbing in the Rockets role players on a team with Yannis. That seems like it would be absolute success.

But then again, you could say that with every team because the Rockets' role players are so talented and can also shoot so well. And I think also maybe in the flow of the offense, like, would Janus be treated basically like the Capella roller? What would he be on that Rockets team? Because the one thing about that Rockets team, with the exception of Chris Paul is a pretty good three-point shooter. So you basically have, like, all these guys surrounding Capella, Janus is three-point. point shot and a couple of these guys who are still learning to shoot. You don't really know what they are until they can figure that out. You're right about the bucks going forward though. They're on the hook like 19 million for Delhi and Henson next year. Like that's, that's brutal. Like it's 29 million for

Delhi, Henson, and Snell. And they just lost Toledovich. Yeah. I think he's just like an injury wash and they might get an exception for him. But other than that, it's like, what are we doing here? Yeah. It'll be interesting to see what happens for them next year. All right. So we'll be back next Thursday to give you more group chat. Until then for Haley and Justin, take care. Basketball is very good. Basketball is very good.