The Zach Lowe Show - The Hawks Have Reached Their Limit With Trae Young, and the End of the Warriors

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

Zach is joined by Howard Beck to dive deep into the Atlanta Hawks' options for the rest of the season, including what they might do with Trae Young. Then, they share their thoughts on Giannis’s windmill dunk in garbage time, the most interesting lottery teams, and the Warriors' continued struggles. (0:00) Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show! (1:50) Howard Beck joins the show (4:37) Zach’s Atlanta Hawks apology (11:58) A divorce between Trae Young and the Hawks feels inevitable (16:53) Which Hawks path is the most interesting? (24:30) Do we care about Giannis’s windmill dunk? (31:40) Teams that have the best chance in the lottery (38:20) How should the Jazz handle the rest of the season? (54:49) Clippers were playing below their talent level and have improved (59:06) Wild-card teams: Nets and Hornets (1:06:02) Warriors dynasty continues to fade (1:19:17) Celtics continue to exceed expectations (1:22:05) A potential Jayson Tatum return remains fascinating Host: Zach Lowe Guest: Howard Beck Producers: Mike Wargon, Jonathan Frias, and Billy Gil Social: Keith Fujimoto The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Mickelope Ultra. Playoff season is here. So what better way to get into the spirit of things that with a tournament of your own? Compete to see who can make the best tip. Test your basketball skills with a game of around the world. Even better if Mickelope Ultra is on the line, especially since they're giving fans a chance to win courtside tickets,

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What up, Beck? Coming on to talk about a bunch of stuff going on in the NBA. We left Christmas in the rearview. That was wild. It was followed by kind of a wild weekend. the NBA that we're going to recap, look ahead to, Warriors' existential crisis. Hawks. Oh, God.

The Hawks. We're retiring Kakaa forever for the foreseeable future. At least we're going to have a big long apology about the Hawks and what the hell they're supposed to do with Trey Young, if anything, do they really want Anthony Davis. What's happening? Bottom of the standings got very interesting over the weekend. The jazz are hot. The nets are hot.

The Clippers. Kauai put up a double nickel, the best scoring game of his illustrious career. They're hot. What does this mean for the bottom of the standings? How are the Hawks supposed to value the Pelicans pick that they have? What should the jazz do? The juiciest dilemma in the entire league, the jazz. Oh, Oklahoma City, a top eight protected first-round pick.

What are they supposed to do? Should they keep trying to win? Should they let it ride? Are they going to semi-soft tank again? What do the thunder think of all this? Then we're going to talk some warriors, some Celtics, some trade stuff, a loaded show coming up with the great Howard Beck. This episode of The Zach Lowe Show is presented by Amazon Prime.

The holidays are here and they move quick. Luckily, Prime's fast free delivery is your miracle play getting whatever you need. They're fast. Primes fast shipping is always there for you during the holidays, especially when it's last minute and it just can't wait. From stocking suffers to that perfect gift for the MVP in your life, it's on Prime. Head to Amazon.com slash Prime to shop now. The Zach Lowe Show! Look who it is.

What up, Beck. Howard Beck. How are you? Doing great, Zach. Happy holidays. How are you? I'm good. I'm coming live from the in-laws house in Toronto. You don't know what's going to happen. Like a child could walk in. My mother-in-law has some hot takes on the Raptors. She could pop in and start spitting some fire. I am fresh from Raptors Warriors last night. A disastrous overtime loss for the Warriors where Scotty Barnes looked like Godzilla sets the franchise record for rebounds in a game.

just towering over the small, helpless turnover prone, throwing the ball everywhere, Warriors, who blew a seven-point lead in the last 90 seconds of the game, had a total collapse at the end of the third quarter. We will talk about the Warriors, not even facing an existential crisis, well into an existential crisis and what, if anything, they can do.

But yeah, Toronto, living up to the hype, it's cold, it's snowed, it's rained, it's freezing rain, it's miserable to be outside for more than five seconds. Welcome to Canada, baby. It's not much different in New York, so you're not missing anything. We got our first significant snow in years the other day, and now it's raining and washing all the slush away. Let me tell you, there's a big hill in Toronto.

I have no idea where it is, but it's like the sledding hill, because there's not a lot of hills in downtown Toronto or near downtown Toronto. And we went two days ago with the girls. We have two 10-year-olds with us right now. I went on a couple, it's a steep hill. I went down a couple times myself. and CBC, I guess Canadian Broadcast Incorporation, whatever it is, the big network, CBC was there doing a sort of like fun little feature on here. Look at all the kids sledding.

And I got to tell you, Howard, I hammed it up. I went down the hill. I wiped out semi on purpose. I was so ready to do a man on the street interview. I wanted this to be my Clay Thompson talking about scaffolding on the street in New York City moment. and they just no interest. CBC just just left. I was I was even going to drop an organization into my interview.

Like I had it planned, I was going to have a low Canadianism in my interview. It was terrible. But the sledding, I'm an elite sledder, really like sledding. All right, a lot's going on in the league since the wild Christmas games, which I've already talked about. The calves are back on Cavscom one. I've elevated them up to Cavscom one after getting destroyed by the rockets who are just,

Oh my God, the ferocity of the Houston Rockets. By the way, no Schengun in that game. Warriors, I talked about, bottom of the standings, chaos, clippers on fire, Kauai 55, Utah beats the spurs and the pistons and consecutive games. What the hell is going on? We're going to get to that, but I have to start, Howard. This is a low moment for me, no pun intended. I think I owe the world, the world, like the world, world leaders, NATO, the United Nations,

basketball fans everywhere, and apology. about the Atlanta Hawks. I hyped up the Hawks. I got excited about the Hawks' offseason moves, despite knowing Christophezzis walking question mark. I knew. I knew. I knew better. Despite falling for the Hawks every year, like clockwork. Oh, my God, look at how this new group of long wing defenders,

ball movers, cutters, you throw in Shrey Young. He's starting to evolve a little bit. He set all these offball screens last year. He's never set before. if everything clicks right, the ceiling on this team is super high. Dyson Daniels, 9,000 steals the game. Risa Shea, he should get better. I love a Congo.

He's my six man of the year pick. Quinn Snyder and his glasses, coach of the year pick. The Hawks stink. And I should have known better. I should have known better. They're 15 and 18. They're 10th in the east. They haven't won a game since Trey Young came back.

Their defense was already falling before Tray Young came back. and very predictably has fallen down even further with Trey Young back in the lineup. And I watched these games. They gave up 152 to the Bulls. I mean, just fold it up. If you give up 150 points to the Chicago Bulls, just fold the whole thing up. Take a break, forfeit your next couple of weeks worth of games, and just revisit the season in a couple of weeks. They are allowing, here's their numbers, with Trey Young on the floor, 119 points scored per 100 possessions,

126 allowed. And they were better without Trey. I'm not saying they are definitively better without Trey, but they were. And I watched these games and I'm like, I wonder if all these other guys on the Hawks are like, man, I didn't miss this. I didn't miss this thing where Trey gets switched on to a bigger wing

and like we all have to tilt the entire defense over there and I've got to guard like four people at once or they're hunting Trey in every possession, any hedges and someone slips and now we're in rotation. Like, I just, it's a lot more work now. And without trade, there are mediocrity, 113 points scored, 113 points allowed. There are mediocrity no matter what. And this is like five straight years of mediocrity for them

since the 2021 run to the conference finals, which feels like 9,000 iterations of the team ago. And they tease you with good offseason moves, and I think they had a great off-season. season. A. Sunul's been solid for them. The trade with the Pelicans is a home run, regardless of how good Derek Queen has been, and he's been great. Porzingis fits. Just doesn't play. He fits when he plays. J. Ellen Johnson's made a huge leap. No-brainer. All-Star. He's in the all-MBA discussion. And they tease you with these sort of non-consecutive leaps. Like, this guy goes up, this guy goes down,

then that guy goes up, then that guy goes down. And then for 10 games, it's like, oh, I can see the identity forming this way and that way. And if Trey Young comes back and plugs into that identity, then all these things click right and this team. And then they sink back down for another 10 games of like, oh, Trey is just standing around off the ball again. Too much old Trey Young, not enough new Trey Young. And then they'll tease you for 10 more games. And at the end of the day, Howard Beck, they're just a tease. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry I fell for it. Nikiel Alexander Walker, he's been great. Great offseason acquisition. It doesn't matter. They're a mediocrity. They're 15 and 18. I'm sorry. wrong. If anyone bet the Hawks over because of me, I'm not reimbursing you, but I am sorry for

your loss. I was so wrong about this team. And you can sit here and tell me all they need is time. They need time to figure out Tray Young's fit with this new sort of style they developed of cutting, passing, handoff, random offense, pace with Jalen Johnson and Daniels and Risa Shea. I'm sick of giving the Hawks time. The Hawks always need time. They always need time to figure this out and figure out how that fits with this and figure out, oh, this guy got injured. Jalen Johnson was injured a couple of, you know, the last couple years, he's battled injuries. Well, we had this thing before he got hurt and then he got hurt, but we need, you always need time. I'm sick of giving you time.

Your time's up. You're a mediocrity. And the only thing left to do is accept that you're a mediocrity. I am accepting blame and being totally wrong about you and figuring out knowing that fact for 100% certainty. There's no upside. There's no like high playoff upside here. You're a mediocrity.

What do you do going forward with Trey Young, with Janus trade talks, with Anthony Davis trade talks that Chris Haynes talked about over the weekend, with the Pelicans pick whose value is kind of mysterious to pin down because of all the volatility at the bottom of the standings? Howard, I think I owe you an apology? You and me no apologies. I'm actually just wondering where Hawks mediocrity fits within the Zach Low Insight. into mediocrity. Maybe they took your advice and guidance on mediocrity to literally,

and this is where they've ended up. But they're fitting within that new paradigm very well. Look, Trey Young is in year eight. He's not growing. I don't mean that like figuratively. I mean, like literally he's not going to get any taller. So the size issue. If they could do that, if they could find a way to have him have a 16th gross spurt in his late 20s and early is like, yeah, sign me up. Like, if you can hack that, everything, then I'll give you some time. So not getting taller or bigger. That part of it is just fixed.

But could, you know, I think the question was always, was he going to grow the other way? Was he going to evolve as a, as a teammate, as a ball mover, as a non-ball stopper? And just as a willing defender, right? Like there are guys who just based on build and athleticism sometimes, times. There are guys who just are never going to be great defenders, right? But everybody can get better if you're committed to it, right? That's the premise we like to believe in any way. That's certainly what coaches like to believe that anybody, if we could just get them to try, commit, be consistent, have the effort, work with their teammates. It's team defense is more important than

individual defense in this league anyway. But some guys just max out. And when you're in year eight, as Trey Young is, and to your point, and you weren't the only one who was really high on them after a great summer. Don't exonerate me. Don't exonerate me. I don't want to. I don't. I'm just, I stink. I stink. I'm the worst. I get it. But I think there was a reasonable belief in after getting Porzingus. And look, he's been out a lot. Getting Achille Alexander Walker, great acquisition. Another year of Dyson Daniels, like defensively that they could be really good.

And that maybe with all that framework around Trey Young, that makes up for whatever you are, the, the deficit that you come in with when he is always on the floor, right? It's a nice concept. Sounded good. Some believed it more than others, but I think we all believe the Hawks were ready to make a real move this season in the standings. Your results on how high vary, but I think everybody thought they were going to be pretty good.

Maybe at this point, more than maybe, it's just time for everybody to conclude, including the Hawks themselves, that there isn't a higher ceiling with Trey Young as, a key piece of this. And there's a free agency decision coming up. There's an extension that was not offered prior this past summer. I mean, the writing has been on the wall for a while. There are murmurings, I think Tim McMahon at something today. Jake Fisher had something a couple of days ago. Like, it does feel like we are moving toward a inevitable divorce between the Hawks and Trey Young.

Whether that's by the trade deadline or not is always the tricky part, right? Look, I've said five times in the last 18 months, if there was a killer, Trey Young Hock's trade, or even like a B, Trey Young Halks trade, I think he would have been traded already. And I just don't know. And that's not to say that they don't have the same hopes that I had about integrating a fairly rare offensive force into the rest of this ecosystem. It just hasn't worked in part because he hasn't been that grave of an offensive force. He's not hitting threes.

and he's been like a, if you, I looked at his numbers for his career. He's been like a mediocre two point shooter and very bad rim finisher for almost his entire career. And when he's just not hitting enough threes, the passing is elite unquestioned. But when the shot making, when the passing is the only thing that's really clicking. And yeah, I understand his gravity has value. And when he stands at half court doing nothing and takes a defender with him that has some value, I get all that.

But when the passing is the only thing. that's really clicking, the juice just isn't worth to squeeze. I just look around the league and I'm like, I don't even know what, like, I don't know what the trade is. I don't know because he's got this $49 million player option for next year. If I'm him right now, my plan is opt in. Like the Hawks are not going to give me an extension. I don't think.

I don't think that's worth my while. I don't know why they would at this point if they haven't already. I don't know what unrestricted free agency is going to be like for me this coming summer. Like, I'm probably opting into that. like the kings sure you could easily construct any number of crazy king's trades and never underestimate the kings you know bill proposed this harden for trey young swap that i sort of poo poohed is like i don't really get what the point of that is for either team and now that the clippers are starting maybe to at least salvage their season and hardens been pretty durable and productive

for them i don't really see what that does for them the pelicans would make sense except if i'm the hawks one of the last things i want to do is theoretically help the pelicans win more games this year since I'm in control of their pick. So I just don't know what the trade is. I saw Chris Haynes over the weekend talked about how Atlanta is looking at Anthony Davis, interested in Anthony Davis, and would not include Trey Young in such a trade,

which means Porzingis plus salary would be the trade and the salary maybe would have to be resacea. We'll talk about him in a second. And I get to Anthony Davis saying like their defense is a train wreck. He plugs when he plays again, And he plugs some holes on that end, lots of holes on that end. He can fit with the Kongwu because the Kongu has become such a versatile big man shoots threes pretty well slumping lately, got out of a slump the other day.

But like I get it. That just feels like a sort of last gasp at Trey plus Jalen Johnson plus Anthony Davis with Anthony Davis making 50 something million next year. It feels like a last gasp at what exactly? I don't know. And even though Reese Shea has been a disappointment, and he's only 20 years old, I think. So I think he's going to be, he is a decent rotation player. I think he'll be a good starting level player.

If you look at Alex Sar, Reed Shepard, and Stefan Castle, the next three picks, I don't think it's too early to say that the Hawks made the wrong decision on that pick. And even saying that, I don't know that I'm ready to give up on him just to get Anthony Davis at $110 million for the next two seasons with an extension looming that I want zero part of. And by the way, any team sniffing around Anthony Davis, whether it's the warriors who reportedly have interest, I have no idea how that works, whether it's the raptors who have this huge hole at center with Yaka Perl's back injuries, never going anywhere, apparently.

Like, I'm talking to Rich Paul, the ringer is Rich Paul and being like, you're not getting an extension. We're just like not even discussing it. It's way too much money. If you're willing to take a super discount, sure. But like this idea that we're giving you this crazy max extension is off the table before we even talk about trading for you. I just don't know really what the point is. And you said pretty good about the Hawks.

And I do think their ceiling is pretty good. I think they're underperforming at 15 and 18. I do, but I do think we now know this tops out at like everything clicks from now on. This team's like a 46 win team. The idea that I had that they could be a 50-win team with a high ceiling is over, I think. And so I would just ask you, like, what do you think? Which path is most interesting to you here? You know, what's interesting to me was the second I saw the Anthony Davis thing,

my first thought was, why do that when you are on the fringes of the eventual Janus sweepstakes? Like, if you, whatever you're giving up for Anthony Davis, both in terms of salary and assets and whether Riesin-Shea's in there, obviously you're not putting the toggling bucks pelicans, you know, pick in there. But if you go for Anthony Davis, are you taking yourself out of the potential Yonis sweepstakes? And if you are, if you believe there's a Yonis trade to be had, whether it's before the trade deadline, unlikely, or in the offseason, more likely, I just don't think, you know, what's the rush? What's the rush to go on on a constantly injured, wanting a mass extension, as you just alluded to Anthony Davis.

I think I would rather just, you know, keep my powder dry, hum along with the team we've got, see if there is more of an upside, see if we can get to that 46-win range you just mentioned, see if we can find a better, see if we can get more out of the Tray Young lineups when he's in there, but also explore other options for how to get something else out of Tray Young, trade-wise. I don't, I think there have to be better ways to parlay, whether it's Trey, Reza Shea, the Bucks slash Pelicans pick, all that, there's got to be a better deal. And that's not a criticism of Anthony Davis. It's just there's just too much risk there. And this is a Hawks team that, yes, they are desperate for a breakthrough and to,

to recapture what they thought they had a few years back when they made that conference finals run. But this is a young team. Where's, where's the rush to play? plug in, you know, past 30, constantly injured Anthony Davis. It doesn't feel like the right move at the right time for that team. It's my lead. If you, if you give me three paths and obviously there are more paths and every path has little subpaths streaming out of it. But if the three paths are like aggressively chase Janus now, do nothing.

And Anthony Davis, Anthony Davis is my, that's my third favorite of those, of those paths. The honest one is tempting because if the cost is Trey plus Risa Shea plus this Pelican's pick, which I just don't think they can get it without that pick being in it. I know they want to keep the pick. I understand why they want to keep the pick. If that's the case, then you're just not getting honest in season, I don't think. And that's fine. It's tempting to me because I don't really have an interesting roadmap right now to anything

like super fun in the Eastern Conference, super high level. And Janice at least presents me, although there are spacing, fit, injury, age concerns, all that, it at least makes me interesting and definitely nudges my ceiling toward like, okay, I want to see what this is. And it's also, he's only 31. And yes, he's had these leg injuries off and on. He seems to come back super fast from them. It, like, if you weigh the next three to four years doing nothing and keeping that Pelicans pick, what if that pick falls seventh and and the alternative is Janus like my next three or four years is more fun with Janus but I don't know if that pelican that pelicans pick could also fall first second or third

you know it's something you could revisit after the lottery where you know where everything stands and I don't know what this front office wants to do I know the stand path path is would be interesting to me if I were Ansi, Sala, the GM there, because I can stand Pat, and if we miss the playoffs, and right now we're 10th in the east, and the Bucks missed the playoffs, and right now they're ninth in the east, and if they trade Yon to somewhere else,

they're definitely going to miss the playoffs. And even if they keep them, we'll see what happens. We can have three bites at the lottery this season. We could have three bites at a top five pick, our pick, the Bucks pick, the Pelicans pick. We can just hold all those and take our shot. and add up all those chances.

And then when Shrey Young comes off our books one way or another, instead of flipping that into another $50 million salary, just vaporize it and have all this salary flexibility, young players that we draft, young players that we have now and move on to sort of the next era of Hawks basketball, I think that's a perfectly reasonable path. And about the, like, the bucks continue to message. Like, we're not trading on us.

We're buying, actually. We want to buy players. So if that path is off the table for the season, I'm, I just, I'm cool just sniffing around the trade trade market. If I find something that gives me salary relief and a token asset, maybe I do it. If not, we have to revisit this in the off season. But I'm looking at that salary slot as free money going forward. I think the wild card here, Zach, and I don't know what, you know, what the stance is now.

but we have seen from that Hawks ownership group, they're not the most patient in the world. That's how we got here in the first place to a large degree, right? Like multiple front office changes in the last five years or so from Travis Schlang to Landry Fields. The horrendous DeJante Murray trade that this front office was able to dig out, or actually that the Landry Fields was able to dig out. Yeah.

I almost said Landry Shammit. I was like if Landry Shamma was also acting as the GM of the Hawks, like kudos to him. But just a. lot of kind of impulsive moves over the last few years trying, again, to recapture what they had with that conference finals run back in 2021, was it? 2020. Yeah, COVID messed up our timetables and understanding of anything.

But yes. Yeah. But that was one of those moments where it was, is this real? Is this just this one-year aberration? And is this going to send the wrong message to ownership? And it did. It made them think that they were further along than they actually were. and they've been chasing that ever since,

and they've been really antsy and making front office changes and everything else. So have they learned from all that? Does Ansi and his staff now have a little bit more latitude to tell ownership, listen, we're on a really great path here. We've made some nice additions the last couple of years. Jaylon Johnson's only getting better. We're eventually going to move off Trey Young,

but let's wait for the right deal. And yeah, like I said, I just all in for an Anthony Davis move at this stage of Anthony Davis's career does not feel like the smart move in today's NBA. I think the Hawks have time to do this in a more methodical way.

And I don't want to just completely punt on Risa Shea for little to no reason. Like he's been disappointing. Three ball unreliable. Defensively, okay. I think he'll get better. I think he's going to be

a very, a good three and D kind of versatile defender player and even if that's quote all he is and Sarr becomes an all star and Shepard becomes an all star and Castle is definitely going to become an all star that's still a good player like we made the wrong pick but it's still a good player

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the whole thing done. So you have more time for the work you actually want to do. For me, that's breaking down SGA film whenever I want and then talking about it and do a microphone. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. This episode is brought to you by men's warehouse. So you've looked at all the data, you've looked at your lineup, and yep, you need to freshen up your wardrobe. So check out men's warehouse. They've got you covered for every occasion with a huge variety of clothing and styles from tailored clothing like suits, sports coats, dress shirts, tuxes for more formal events to casual clothing like polo, shirts, shorts, and jeans for everyday wear.

The men's warehouse experts can help you find the right look while they're on-site tailors guarantee your clothes have the right fit for your body. Men's warehouse has over 600 locations nationwide. They are here and nearby when you're ready to love the way you look. On Janus, what do you think of Windmillgate against the world the other day? I'm really mixed on these things, Zach, going even all the way back to my youth when I actually cared about baseball for a while. Apologies, I know your Mets fandom is reaching new heights every week or low-up. The Mets corner. We need a little cooling off period because the Mets are, I don't know if you saw this. The Mets are now embroiled in like a full-on political

like controversy might be too strong, but there's a lot going on on Mets Corner that we need to figure out how to address. But baseball's the sport where it always had the unwritten rules, right? You know, you can't style going around the bases after home run and all this stuff, blah, blah, pitcher's going to throw it the next guy. All this bullshit. Like baseball's just stupid and Neanderthal sometimes. But the NBA, like basketball doesn't have a lot of the unwritten rules, but there are some.

And one of them is that whether you're on either end of the blowout, a memo to Derek Queen as well on this, you're supposed to just run the clock out and that's that. So Derek Queen violated this unwritten rule a few weeks back, got a talking to Janice, who's been in league for 13 years. Like, Derek Queen, you're going to chalk it up to youth. Janice has been a league, as he noted in the post game, I've been in this league for 13 years, as if that it kind of entitled him to just like do whatever. On the one hand, intellectually, I don't give a fuck, frankly, that these unwritten rules exist. I don't care about running up scores.

I don't care about people's feelings getting hurt. I really don't. On the other hand, it is kind of the way that everybody understands this, and it's kind of pointless. So forget whether or not the unwritten rules are logical. They're not. It's all macho bullshit. What I took issue with, to an extent, take issues even too strong of a term, but what I kind of just like turned, you know, my, my, I turned something.

Janus explaining this as we're 13 and 18. Where are we? Where are we? We're just a bad team. We're just trying to claw our way out of this thing. and we're going to fight and this and that. What the hell does a meaningless windmill dunk in a game you're already winning by double digits and that the clock is just running out have to do with digging your way out of this?

Like I get you're in a really frustrating position individually. You've got this trade stuff hanging over. He got pissy about a question about that in that post game as well. You have created this. You and your representation have created all of this. So he's edgy about that. He's edgy because he just got back from a long injury. since again. He's edgy about the fact that frankly, this, this roster is just not good enough,

which is why Janus trade speculation is in the air in the first place. None of that is resolved by going and violating these stupid unwritten rules with a windmill dunk and getting Vooch all pissed off. And then Vooch with the fun little dig in his post game with our buddy Casey Johnson saying something about maybe Yonis was upset that the Bulls rebuffed, reportedly rebuffed. Janus's representation on a potential trade to Chicago, something like that? I don't know. It's silly. I just think that Janus's explanation for why he did it rang hollow.

First of all, of course the bulls are going to rebuff these, this whole idea. The bulls are exactly where they want to be. 15 and 16. Throw a parade, baby. Ninth in the east. Like, why would they shake anything up? This is exactly where they're, they always are exactly. where they want to be. Why would you risk, why would, why would you risk breaking the 39

wind barrier? Why would you risk that? No, you can't, you can't fail and feel pain if you don't try. So why try? You could just be content with what you have. And look, like, I, I love the windmill dunk. He dunked like 17 times during that game. All he did was dunk all over the Bulls. Why not punctuate it with another dunk? I did not care. And I actually watched the Bulls broadcast. I watched that game after the fact. So I, wanted to hear what the Bulls broadcast and Stacey King said about it. They were team Janus. They were like, in real time right away, Stacey King was like, hey, if you don't want

him to do that, foul him. You see him starting to rev up. Go tackle him. Fall him. I don't care. I didn't care either. I enjoyed the Vooch thing. And about the Bucks, their roster isn't good enough.

We know their roster isn't good enough. They know their roster isn't good enough. That's why they're sniffing around these like, you know, we've talked about all the names that might make sense for them. If I'm them, I almost perversely get it because the Celtics are third in the east. The Raptors are fourth. The magic are fifth. The Sixers are six.

The heat, I've been slumping. They've won two in a row, but they were slumping before that. The Cavs are on Cavscom one. As good as the Knicks and the Pistons are at the top, I can see the bucks sort of talking themselves into, I don't know, why not? Like, maybe we sneak in and can we get up to six? we're only five games behind six. Can we get like, are the Sixers going to pull away from us? Or the Magic and the Inc.

going to pull away from? I kind of get it. I love the windmill thing. I have zero issue with the windmill thing, period. It's fine. It's silly, but it's fine. The other thing, though, when he was then asked about the contracts, he was asked about, do you see yourself staying or trying to win a championship with the bucks or whatever the question was?

And he gave the quote about, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. Don't ask me that question. here. It's disrespectful towards me and my teammates. Like, if you, I wear the jersey every single day, like, if you want this to go away, just say, I am, I am going to finish my career with the Bucks, or I'm going to sign an extension with, like, he could make this go away anytime he wants to, and he hasn't. So saying it's disrespectful or being upset that someone's asking about it, like, again, you created the situation. And I love Yannis. Like, he's awesome. And look, if he stayed with the Bucks his entire career, that's a great outcome, too. I think it's great

for the NBA, for small markets, for stability. There's all kinds of reasons, but there's all kinds of reasons why it's reasonable for us to expect that he won't want to be there if they can't contend. That the Bucks now believe they can make another, yet another patchwork type move and somehow salvage this thing and convince him to stay by the spring. Listen, I admire the audacity of it and the self-belief. It's great. I don't think it's realistic, but I can't wait to see what they do between now and the trade deadline to prove that premise. What I like about Janus and what the windmill sort of emanates for me is, I think he legitimately believes I'm the best player in the East. It's not close right now.

And I'm just saying his opinion. Like, I'm so good. I'm so good. And I am such an irresistible force going to the basket. Nobody can stop me. If these dudes around me could just make enough threes. Like, I'm not afraid of anybody in these. I really, I legitimately think he, he believes, I think he believes both that and I'd have a much better chance in winning a championship in like 17 other places right now. I think he believes both of those things I had to guess at the same time. Let's talk about, I mentioned the Pelicans pick that the Hawks control and the difficulty in valuing that pick. And it seems to change in value with every week of the season. This has been a fascinating five days at the bottom of the standings in the NBA.

If you had to tier the lottery right now, tier one, best chance at a top three, top four lottery seed, Washington, Indiana, Kings, Pelicans are kind of right now in a tier by themselves. Of those three teams, I think Washington, Indiana, and Sacramento, have no hope of exiting this tier and no real ambition to do so. I think those are the safe bets to finish with the three worst records in the NBA and be very hard to quote catch for anybody currently above them in the standings. The Pelicans, although they have lost three straight, have been pretty frisky. The number is when they have their best players on the floor, like Herb Jones plus

Trey Murphy plus Queen, they actually have a positive scoring margin. They're trying to win. They're trying to stave off the embarrassment. of potentially sending a super high pick somewhere else. I could see them climbing into the next tier pretty easily if they continue to play with this effort level and stay healthy, which brings me to the next tier of teams. And this is a crowded tier right now.

So we had four already in that first tier, right? Next tier of teams, Charlotte, love watching the Hornets. Bill was right about Charlotte. When I tist him for having them super high in the league pass rankings, he was right. They're really fun, especially not if they're healthy. fun Charlotte's stat for you. Plus 32 in 164 minutes with Lamello,

still not given up. Brandon Miller and Khan Kinniple all on the floor. Now, Canipal had a nasty ankle injury of their last game. We'll see. But that's like, I like watching those three play together, figure out their chemistry, figure out how to play off of each other,

like all that. Okay, it's continuing tier two. Charlotte is currently, let me bring up the standings. 11 and 20. Brooklyn, 10, and 19. number one defense in the NBA over the last month. How are they doing it? Allowing the fewest threes in the league and allowing also the most shots at the rim,

but defending the rim pretty well, they're switchable, they're interesting. Brooklyn 10 and 19. Dallas 12 and 21 AD's hurt again. Clippers, 10 and 21 have won four straight. Kauai looks like he found the fountain of youth. The level of zip and hops he's playing with is crazy. we'll talk a little bit about the Clippers who beat the Pistons last night

rather handily, beat the Rockets rather handily, had a nice win over the Lakers and at Portland. Those are four quality wins. Dallas, I mentioned 12 and 21, Clippers 10 and 21. Utah, 12 and 19.

That's nine teams. A tier above them in sort of like, who the hell knows what's going to happen with these teams? Portland, 13 and 19. trying to win, don't have any guards, point guards, that seems to be a problem. Bucks, 13 and 19, clearly trying to win. Grizzlies 15 and 17, kind of stabilizing over the last couple of weeks, despite some endless

health issues, Hawks 15 and 18. Just tons of volatility all over the standings. And to me, the most interesting brewing story in the NBA is we talk about why some of these teams are starting to win and how interesting they live. is Utah, who owes a top eight protected pick, but it's top eight protected to the Oklahoma City Thunder, i.e., the jazz keep it if it's in the top eight. Let me just bring it up.

And right now they'd be nine. And then if they do, yes, if they do keep that pick, their obligation to Oklahoma City is gone. So this is like a black and white situation for them. Yeah. They are currently have the ninth. worst winning percentage in the league.

Here is how stark the odds are for them. If they finish with the seventh worst record in the league, if they enter the lottery with the seventh seed, so to speak, they have an 87% chance of keeping their pick. If they enter the lottery with the eighth seed, so right at the break-even point where they owe that pick, they have a 60% chance of keeping the pick, 61 technically. If they are one spot above that night,

where they are right now, they go from 60% chance to keep the pick to 80% chance they lose the pick. That's how stark this is. And the reason this is such an interesting dilemma to me is the jazz are actually pretty good and pretty fun to watch. They're sniffing a top 10 offense in the NBA right now. When they have George, who's made a huge leap and I've talked a lot about him before, he's a real guy. He's a real dude. And marketing, they're a competent offensive team. And I don't really see that changing if both of those guys play the entire rest of the season. They just beat the spurs and the pistons consecutively poured in a million points. When at Wemby, hard down the stretch of that game against San Antonio. So, but they also have this, like,

it's a very stark cliff between seventh or eighth in the lottery, ninth in the lottery. But they also have to look at themselves in the mirror and say, hey, we tanked so blatantly last year the league find us in our GVM, Austin, A, to come out and say, we're not going to do that again. B, no matter what we do, we can't catch the wizards, the Pacers, the Kings, and maybe the Pelicans. So is our absolute lottery ceiling the fifth spot?

Well, what if Dallas goes in the tank and Portland goes in the tank? Or the Clippers, Kauai gets injured and they go back in the tank. Like Utah's future is very blurry, and they could very well be choosing between, like going into the lottery with the seventh best odds or keep or or for giving Oklahoma City like the 10th pick in the draft. In other words, this idea that Utah is, it's like either a top three pick or nothing.

It may be closer to like the seventh pick or giving Oklahoma City the 10th pick, which hurts, but the average value of a 10th pick is like a nice reserve in the NBA. So this is clearly the kind of situation that the league wants to. address as they continue to look at tanking. What should the jazz do, Howard? I don't even know what they should do. It's become a quandary and in part it's become a quandary because they should have traded Lowry Marketing 50 times by now and haven't. And look, as I say that, I'm laughing because like they're actually pretty good or they're competitive at least right now. And you can start to see the outline of the thing that I didn't think was on the table. My feeling and why you

should trademarking and was. He's already in his, you know, whatever, late 20s, 27, 28, 29, where is he? Late 20s. By the time he, by the time that jazz, my premise was this, by the time the jazz are relevant again, he's going to be more in the mid to late part of his prime, as opposed to the early part of his prime, and that's burning years. And he'd be better off elsewhere. You'd be better off being worse. That's been my premise the last couple of years that they've had him, but they've held on to him and they've extended him. And they took themselves out of being able to trade him a year ago during that season. Now that you start to get the outline of what actually looks like a functional team and like,

oh, maybe when Walker Kessler gets back next year, you know, that kind of helps anchor the defense again. And we've got, you know, a one, two punch with George and Marketing. And like the pieces are starting to look interesting. There's an upside here. And maybe the future that I didn't think was there is, or that I thought was further off is closer. the being relevant again with Markinen. So this is why the quandary is there, though. It's because he's still there.

So if you want to get out of this particular quandary, we can't really blatantly tank again. The league's going to be all up our asses and finding us left and right. We can't make up injuries. They're cracking down anyway. Injury reporting is getting tighter. All this stuff, right? This is a bad time to start, you know, messing around with that stuff.

maybe the answer is doing the thing that they haven't wanted to do in trading marketing. I cringe even as I say that because I usually would only advocate that if you have no hope in the next year or two or three. And now it's starting to look kind of fun. That would be a severe bummer for the jazz. And I just think for basketball to do that. As a practical matter, maybe it's the move. And maybe it's the move anyway. Maybe it is still the best thing for them long term to build on a different timeline.

and to not hold on to him. But I don't know. What do you think? You know who's also watching this, not just the league. I guarantee you Oklahoma City is watching this. And if the jazz start messing around, and they've, you know, marketing's been out a couple of games recently, I guarantee you Oklahoma City will be on the phone to the league being like,

what's happening here? Because this is, they want this pick. I'm sure they want this pick. and they stay as rich as they are in picks, they've got the Clippers pick and a Sixers pick and on, potentially and on, no, definitely and on and on. This would be just another thing in the,

another arrow in the quiver. And they just went through this last year with the Sixers doing everything possible to deny them a pick that they owe them, which ended up becoming VJ Edgecombe. So, yeah, this is part of the vast morass of moral hazards created by tanking and pick protection

and this entire system. which the NBA is once again looking to tweak. It's why I think one of the proposals that the league will look hard at is something like you can only protect a pick top four or top three or lottery protected. This in between stuff goes away in some of these proposals. But okay, so let me just like, it's hard to conceptualize because the lottery has become so much more random with the odds changes that we've seen with Dallas winning it and the Spurs moving up every year now.

If Utah just sort of rides it out and just let the chips fall where they may, they just, they may be choosing between paths where path one is we are not very good and lose a little more than expected. We come into the lottery with the seventh or eighth best odds, which the most likely scenario is we keep our pick and it's number eight or number seven. And it's not one of the top three and it's not one of the top five. But we get a good player and a good trade ship, but not DeBancor or P. Peterson or whoever. Now, there's obviously the chance that going in at number seven and number eight, you win the lottery or move up in the lottery and do get one of those guys. You just don't know and you play the odds. Or we play it out. We miss the playoffs. We're competitive and frisky. And we give Oklahoma City the 10th or 11th pick in the draft. Are we okay with that scenario? Because yeah, it's going to hurt. But the average return on that pick is not awesome. And if those are my two choices, as much as I want to look at the lottery odds machine and be like, well, that seventh pick, I still have a whatever chance at a top limit. I mean, I can bring it up right now. If I come in in number seven, I still have like 15, 30 percent chance at a top four pick in the draft.

Like, that's not nothing. Like that really means something to me is Utah. I'm tempted to just be like, let it ride. I'm sick of the losing. This is fun. This is competitive. And to your point about marketing. I don't think they want to trade marketing. And I don't think they're crazy to think George, Markinen, Kessler, year two, Ace Bailey, some competent supporting cast. We have a ton of cap space. We could be competitive next year. And it's funny, I've been thinking about this. I think it was Winhorse and Bontemps in one of their Friday, like, Intel pieces, talking about the Janus trade landscape and the general superstar trade landscape and stuff we've talked about before about how you and I have talked about specifically about how these deals often don't

work out as well as the team acquiring the superstar expects. The Suns as cautionary tale, they talked about how, and we've talked about how other teams look at what the Suns gave up for Durant as this just, this is the, in addition to the Clippers and the SGA, Paul George Kauai thing, the Sun's aging superstar totally went bust, have to dig out of it. That's who we don't want to be. And that's all true. The Flings. side of it is the sons are good again already. Now, I know they had Devin Booker sort of sitting there waiting to lead the franchise, but I think the happy subplot of the Suns as cautionary tale is if you hit some acquisitions, if you get the right kinds of players and play really hard

and hire a good coach, you can be a competitive team in the Western Conference pretty fast off the heels of being a complete disaster team. And yeah, the Suns aren't winning the championship they're not being the thunder, the spurs the nuggets, but they're fun and everyone there seems happy. That could be Utah next year pretty easily. So look, as tempted as I'd be to go for the pick, I think at this point, the way the lottery has unfolded the last couple of years and how well my, not well, but like how competitive my team has been, I'm just, I'm letting it ride. I'm letting the basketball gods decide my fate.

I'm cool if we end up giving the 11th pick to the thunder. It sucks. It's not great. but it's at this point. And the other thing about trading marketing, the last thing I'll let you sort of respond is, that sounds great. Bottom out,

play the lottery for real. The Jazz have won 37, 31, and 17 games in the last three years. And this will be a fourth year under 500. If you trade marketing and kind of bottom out again, you are looking at, you could be 10 years in the morass of being a losing team. And that in that market is probably not palatable. Yeah, and there's no guarantees in the lottery and less guarantees than ever because of the new system.

And so, you know, your worst case scenario here where you trade marketing in, and we don't know what you're getting back for him, but you trade marketing in, it's probably going to be, you know, pick heavy, maybe some young players, but not another all-star because that would defeat the purpose of being worse in the short term. And then the worst case scenario goes, the lottery balls don't bounce your way. You slip to wherever. you get an okay player, but not a franchise changing superstar. And now you're just that much worse off for it and that much further off from becoming a winning team again. The thing I always try to remind myself and remind others is that there are bigger forces at work sometimes in these decisions than simply, how do we get a superstar? Well, we can't trade for one. Well, we could try to trade for one, but we're a small market would they extend?

We can't get one in free agency because we're a small market. We got to play the lottery. That's the way to do this if you're a small market team. in the NBA. Okay, great. It doesn't always work out. You can try it repeatedly and have it not work out. And in the meantime, the other force that we all overlook sometimes is you have to sell tickets. You have fans who you have to keep faith with. And after you've had a few losing seasons, patience starts to wear thin. You know, fans are much savvier now than they ever have been. We all are in terms of like this very cynical framework that we've all bought into. For the last decade,

really. I can talk about that in a second. But like the tanking era and the era of us all discussing it this way, Zach, really didn't start until about 2013, 14, the Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Joel and B draft. That is where this all begin. I'm not saying tanking never happened in the NBA, but tanking as a strategy that we all discuss openly, that teams discussed, that the media and fans discuss, and that we all kind of buy into and we are complicit in is this idea that this is a path. It's a viable path. It's not great. There are moral hazards.

But hey, this is the system. If the NBA didn't want it, they could do away with it. So we all end up endorsing this, right? You and I can sit here and both say feeling just fine about it. Dallas would be better off because they own their pick this year and they have all their picks are encumbered for years to come. They'd be better off being as bad as possible right now. Get another piece next to Cooper Flag. That's the timeline you're on.

And by the way, I think the constant. I said this last week. I think the constant Anthony Davis health issues are enabling a sort of organic. Again, you're not going to catch the three or four worst teams in the league. Fine. Go in, like, let the season play out. You'll probably get a lottery pick. And I, like, if I'm not trading Anthony Davis for peanuts, when I can come back next year,

same thing I just said about the Sun's cautionary tale applies to the Mavericks. Karee, A.D., Cooper Flagg, lottery pick, Nemhart, some other, PJ, Washington is, so now they've got some different issues and salary issues. Like, you could easily be a feel good story next year. Again, not a contender, but a feel good story as you pivot to the next iteration of your team. Yeah. But it is this. Only three teams are picking in the top three.

That's it. Like, it's not seven teams. Don't get to pick in the top three. Yeah. And then listen, look, you even if you did everything possible to try to get the high pick and you end up at fourth or fifth or sixth, we know how this goes. We, you know, everybody, all the draft experts can do what they do in the scouts and everybody do what they do. and there may be a franchise stud waiting at eight instead, and one of those top three guys ends up becoming just a good player instead of a great player, right?

Again, everybody wanted a tank for Andrew Wiggins once upon a time. He's just become a very good, solid starter, not a superstar. So I just think that it's a complicated framework, complicated calculus, and if you were a team like the Jazz, you still have to have in the back of your mind. We have to sell tickets. We have to keep faith with our fans. we can't lose that many years in a row. At some point you have to turn the corner,

and maybe this is the time that they're doing it organically, and maybe that means that you are giving up this pick to the thunder wherever it lands. I also think, let me throw this at you. This is going to sound like the most naive premise slash question ever. But I'm just going to ask this. Now that we are once again in a moment where the league is considering all these new potential measures,

and you and Goldsbury talked about some of this last week, to try to curb tanking, eliminate tanking, eliminate tanking, whatever it may be. Do we actually need it? And the reason I ask is this. I'm looking at all those teams you just listed at the top of the pod. Who's actually tanking, tanking?

Like Washington? Yes, absolutely. The Pacers have the worst record in the league. They did not plan to be here. Are they leaning into it? I don't know. They've been injury racked beyond belief. They did trade Miles Turner after, you know, losing Halliburton to the Achilles.

But like, I don't think the Pacers are tanking. Somebody within the league strongly suggested from another team that they that they were but i don't believe that um the pelicans have no incentive to tank as we know the kings the kings uh the hornets are are you know like fun as you mentioned but like the hornets are just who they are because just they are um the clippers have no incentive to tank they would much rather not be tanking or losing and we sometimes lose uh use tanking and losing interchangeably and we shouldn't um and there's some confused teams here right the nets as you mentioned They're seven and three of their last 10 with the number one defense in the NBA in that time.

The Mavericks are trying to win. They should tank, but they're trying to win. Jazz trying to win. Portland trying to win. Like how many teams truly at this moment are tanking? Like Washington indisputably, yes. And the Kings, they were crappy anyway, will lean into it. Some of these teams were crappy anyway and lean into it.

But like, do we really have a tanking crisis at the moment? Or do we have certain instances like the Sixers last year, like the Wizards. now, the nets were, the nets are designed to tank, but Jordi Fernandez is just like refusing to allow it to happen. I don't know. I'm not, I don't mean to be naive. I'm just saying it's a really interesting array when you look at the top and a bunch of the teams that were supposedly tanking or winning a bunch and some of the teams that are high in the lottery at the moment don't actually want to be there. So how much of a crisis do we really have? We will get to the net shortly. Another team I was, I was semi wrong about. I joked that the front office had Jordy proofed

the roster and they have not to already prove the roster apparently because the credits are again winning more games than I think they intended to win. I think it's a great point because I like the new lottery odds. As I've said many times, I still think the worst

teams should have the highest picks by and large. And that doesn't mean that we should go back to the old lottery odds. But I like this is just, the cycle of sports. And I don't like an unweighted lottery. I don't like all 30 teams get the same odds at the number one pick or whatever because

I don't like the best team should get the number one pick because I just think that that extends the polarization of the haves and the haves and odds for too long. I believe in a semi reverse order draft, semi. I think this odd system has actually done its job of, yeah, if you're the wizards or whoever, your worst case, you know, this happened to the pistons. multiple the pistons we're picking fifth every year. Your worst case scenario is you pick fifth. You still get a good player.

It's not like you're picking 14th. It's not like you fall to the back of the lottery if you're the worst team and the second worst team. You still pick top five, top six at worst. And in a lot of years, you'll win the lottery or come second or third or whatever. And yet, it's clearly more random than it used to be. And I think this is a nice sweet spot the league is found where if we let this sit for 15 or 20 years, I do think it will change behavior at the low end a little bit.

because the payoff just isn't there anymore to be abysmally bad on purpose, separating out the Sixers Jazz protected pick situations that we're talking about. I kind of like where the league has landed on the lottery odds themselves. It's back to the jazz. The only thing that would sway me on like the let it ride, keep marketing path is if a team not only bold me over

with like a crazy offer for marketing, I'm talking like a four first two swaps. But if that team's picks or the picks I was getting had a reasonable chance of actually being high picks in the next five years. In other words, the pistons for marketing. If I'm just getting pistons picks, they're probably going to be bottom 10 picks

in the first round every year for the next five years, barring catastrophic wave of injuries. That's just not worth it to me, given all the other variables we've talked about. This episode is brought to you by Panda Express. Look, it can be hard showing how much you love. someone. But if you can't say how you feel, just say, let's get some food or, hey, takeouts on me. And if you really love them, pick Panda Express for delicious, authentically cooked American Chinese cuisine, whether it's game night or date night.

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Same-day delivery, it's on Prime. Visit Amazon.com slash Prime to find millions of items delivered fast, available in select areas, terms apply. All right, let's talk about some of these other teams at the bottom of the lottery that are frisky. The Clippers, I think, of all of these sort of teams right around the jazz record-wise. I think the Clippers are the one that's most clearly incentivized to try to keep winning

and may actually be able to keep winning at a reasonable-ish level to sort of nudge their way up toward, I mean, there are only two games out of the play and race in the loss column right now to nudge their way up toward 500. Like they were always playing way below their talent level. Hardin and Kauai look fantastic. This Niederhouser kid who's now their backup five with Zubots out is really interesting. Batum has been a godsend for them. I don't, Derek Joan Jr. is back and plugs a lot of holes for them defensively.

They've been playing well, and I don't really see any reason why they should not be, let's say, at worst. I don't know what they should be because they were so bad at the beginning of the season. But if you told me the Clippers are three games above 500 for the rest of the season, and so they finish, what would that be, eight games below 500 or maybe a little better than that and they're in the playing race, that's totally reasonable. Yeah.

Their team should just be way better than their record, just based on talent. And Kauai was all-time legendary stuff last night against Detroit. Yeah, no question.

And, you know, the Clippers, as we said, never had any incentive to tank. It's shocking that they were losing as much as they were in the first place. Everything belied their talent level, their results from last season when they won 50 games. And it was,

wasn't like it wasn't one of those health issue for once. They've had some health issues, but not to the degree they've had in the past. And they've won, they won a ton of games without Kauai last year. So I didn't know, it was hard to explain what was happening to the Clippers early in the season. I heard chemistry was a little wonky and whatever. Maybe that's just ironed itself out. And Kauai looks awesome. It does beg the question again, though, where if you're the clippers and you have designed this entire era to expire in about a year and a half from now? Can you sell high on Kauai? Could you sell high on Hardin?

I think you've dabbled in those discussions on the pot already, but like they're finally looking like they could turn the corner on this season, at least be competitive, be in the play in race, maybe make the playoffs. I'm not sure that for the long term, that actually is their best pass forward. But again, this is where we get into these moral hazards and all these quandaries of short-term versus long-term planning, banking on the lottery, you didn't expect to be there. In their case, it doesn't even matter because it's not your pick regardless. So they have no incentive to do that. So I'm not saying they should tank. What I am saying is selling high on some of your better players

might set you up for the future that you are clearly already planning for in 2027 and beyond, because everybody but Zubots is going to be a free agent by then. And you're clearly not re-upping, Hardin and Kauai. So if the era's already over, the draft pick is a sunk cost and Kauai is is just freaking killing people right now. I don't know. It's an intriguing thought between now and the trade deadline. Yeah, I mean, I've made that the sunk cost thing argument before. I just don't think there's anything like selling high on Hardin or Kauai. I think Zubots is the one guy they could sell high on. Sure. I'm just, I want to see what the next month looks like for me, if I'm Lawrence Frank and the Clippers. I want to see how well the team plays and what Balmer wants.

to do. If the team is in the play and race solidly in two weeks, which they could easily be, I probably just think they stand pat and do nothing because I don't think there's a great hardened dealer. Certainly, I mean, Kauai, who, no one knows what to do with Kauai's trade value at all, given everything. The also thing like the, the thing about them is, you know, this era was set to expire in a year or two. The hardened trade pushed that expiration back. They don't control their pick in 2028 or 2029 now. So they're kind of in an interesting spot. in that sense. I think they're playing really well.

And they've turned a little bit of a corner. We'll see how high they can actually get. But they should be a competitive team. The more wild cardy teams to me are the Nets and the Hornets in the Eastern Conference. The Hornets are 11 and 20. I have no idea what they want to do. If they want to take another real bite at the lottery or if they're fine, just sort of, hey, if this team ends up being a 30,

three-win team. We're cool with that. And the Nets, you know, having lived through this idea that they were going to tank their way into the Cooper flag sweepstapes last year and ending up with the eighth pick and the draft among their many first round picks, they're 10 and 19. And again, like, super competitive. We talked about their defense. And I think both of these teams have some veterans who could, who you could easily trade. Sexton being the headliner, I think, for Charlotte. The Nets have, Cam Thomas, who just came back and has played well for them all season and Michael Porter Jr. Who should be in the All-Star conversation despite the Nets record.

Those are easily movable pieces. I'm just kind of fascinated by what the Mets, the Mets, the Mets, oh my God, what the Nets do. I could see them trading Porter and if they got value for him. And I liked, Bill and I completely disagreed on the initial Porter treat. I liked that trade for the Nets at the time. I thought they got decent value for it for Cam Johnson. And Camp Thomas, like, I just don't know what kind of trade value he has on it, expiring whatever million dollar, six million dollar contract or something like that.

He's only, he just turned 24. He's been legit productive for them and gets better as a player every year. I don't think any team is going to, like, blow the doors off Cam Thomas and unrestricted free agency. I don't hate the idea of like bringing him back on a reasonable contract as part of this team going forward. But they've been, I don't know what they do. They could trade all these vets and try. Like Claxton is going to have a lot. We're going to talk about the Warriors in a second.

Claxton's going to have a lot of trade interests from teams who need size and centers and defense. And they could definitely like Claxton and Sharp both have been very good for them. And trading one or both of them is another easy way to buy him. about. But again, like, they're, I mean, there are seven games ahead of the Pacers in the Los Column, four ahead of the Wizards. It's going to be hard to get where they, I think, kind of intended to go. And I like watching this team play. They're fun to watch. Yeah. And I'll be watching them at Barclays tonight against the Warriors. I'm not saying this for tanking purposes. I'm just saying this for practical long-term

planning purposes. You might as well sell high on Michael Porter, Jr. right? Like he's a guy, like the reason Bill was down on that trade, and I think some others were too, was like, you know, Michael Porter Jr., huge contract, back issues, all of that, and some other things that are mostly to do with off-court stuff that he has had to rein in a little bit. But Michael Porter Jr., definitely like a dicey proposition to have for various reasons. He's got another year left after this season. his value has probably never been higher. I don't think anybody thought he could do this as almost a solo act, right?

On a team with very little off. I think the nets are like 19th, 20th, somewhere they're an offensive efficiency. They're dreadful. They've actually been pretty solid because of their defense the last month. But Michael Porter, Jr., you know, shouldering a much bigger load, no Yokic and Murray to play off of. He's acquitted himself pretty well. And I think his value probably is he,

even higher now than it was at any point during his Nuggets career, minus maybe the moments after they won the championship. So why not? And not necessarily for tanking and lottery purposes, although that could be an added benefit. And if you're not going to, listen, you make a very good point. Mathematically, it's going to be hard to reach the top three teams, bottom three teams and the odds. But every slot is a little bit better odds at jumping in, more or less. The odds are weird and they're intentionally weird. but why not? Why not just, again, take the step back to take the step forward later. It's not, again, it's not as though the future Nets team that is competitive and relevant again

involves Michael Porter Jr. anyway. And who knows what happens between now and the end of that contract. He's 27 years old. So he's not like, you know, ancient at all. He's in his prime. He has next year at $41 million left on his contract. It's not like the Nets are, you know, starve for cap flexibility either way. Who knows what his contract after that looks like. MPJ is a legit awesome offensive player. He cuts, he moves off the ball, he can take two dribbles and make a play now. He's crafty and sort of in between spaces when he catches the ball on the move.

And obviously the shooting is A plus plus at his size. Nets are 115 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor, 104 without him. Now maybe Cam Thomas will kind of lift those numbers up below. little bit. I, like, I wouldn't be in a hurry. I'm just, I like, I wouldn't be, and I like his fit. You drafted all of these young sort of on ball-ish creators. Yeah. Who could use a guy like that to pass to and play off of. Like, I don't hate the idea of keeping him either if the offers aren't great. Um, he, again, he's 27. He's not 32. I, I, I, they're just fun to watch. And I, again, we've learned this thing about the last.

lottery is it's it's no it's no guarantee and charlotte again same boat like i just if i'm all these teams i'm just let it ride i'm let's have some fun and you know by the way i just want to say i just want to say this about charlotte deep cut howard beck t john salon is kind of starting to happen a little bit um he's had a really encouraging month for them that picked look like it was going to be a complete bust he started out the season horribly they sent them to the g League. You know, they had offers from teams trying to move up and get Klingin and EDI to get that pick in the draft.

It was the sixth pick, I believe. He's been pretty solid lately, and they might have something, at least a good rotation player in him. That's all. I don't know. All these teams are interesting. And it just, it just, it complicates Atlanta's calculus, these of you, the Pelicans pick.

It compilates Utah's calculus. Like, where are we going to fall? when all the chips are down. I don't know. I just think it's really fun to have all these teams competing. That's what the lottery odds minus this protected pick thing that Utah is staring at are designed to encourage. I like it. Let's have some fun.

Any parting thoughts on any of this before we go to the Warriors briefly? Nope. Good to go. So I was there last night. That's as rough of a loss as a team really reaching to find itself can have. and the turnovers, again, it's been the story of their season. They're 26th in turnover rate. And these are just like abysmal turnovers.

Half cord trap. They go up seven with a minute and 40 to go. Curry hits a three. He's talking to the crowd. He's talking to the bench. We've seen this movie a lot. The game's, though. He didn't do night night.

He knows better now. I can't do night night until there's like one second left and we're up by 10 with this team. and then they collapse in a haze of turnovers. And I went to watch Steve Kerr's press conference after the game because I wanted to see what he said. As despondent as you will see him in a post-game press conference, considering they had to fly to Brooklyn, New York right away for a game tonight. And he took the blame for a Draymond turnover late in the game

when they called a classic Warriors play, a variation on their cyclone play that they've run a million times and Draymond threw the ball away. he's been insanely turnover prone this year. He made a lot of threes last night. He played great, still one of the 10 best defense players in the NBA. They've really been at an existential crisis since they won the championship in 2022. I wrote about them a lot at ESPN.

I wrote about them when they lost to the Kings in the play in, whatever year that was, I think the following year. And just like the feel good ending was the championship. And the most likely story for this team ever since the Wiseman whiff, ever since the two timelines thing, which was an accident, kind of didn't, you know, hasn't borne the same relative of fruit has been exactly what's happening now where you compete like hell around Steph and you're a good team. But the young guys aren't ready in time for the old guys. And the young guys really don't have the kind of ceiling to carry the franchise after the old guys are gone. And I wrote, I remember writing this in that column talking about Clay's free agency that was upcoming, that there's honor. There's honor in being a good team in the Western Conference and not being contender.

There's honor in raging against the dying of the light. There's honor in giving Steph a competitive team with the resources that you have. And they tried to get Paul George. I tried to get marketing. They tried to get the Raptors. They ended up with Jimmy Butler on the cheap and went 23 and 7 or something like that down the stretch last year. They're a good team. And they're not a contender.

The windows closed. There's honor in being a good team. And when Steve Kerr gave those comments last week, I'm sure you saw this, when he said, we're a fading dynasty. And there's beauty in the struggle. I thought of the column that I wrote three years ago about how there's honor and how this next few years are going to unfold. There's not going to be glory, but there's going to be honor.

And it really sounded like he was saying the same thing. When he said beauty in the struggle, fading dynasty, there was a level of acceptance that it's just not going to happen again for us. And all we're trying to do is squeeze every last thing we have out of Steph, Draymond Butler for this year, for next year, whatever, hope to get hot, hope to catch a team that has an injury in the first round, have fun, have some fun playoff home games, give Steph a real kind of send off to his career. And that's where they are.

And this game against the Raptors, it was just like, Draymond, Draymond at center is not the same weapon it once was. Scotty Barnes just got 9,000 rebounds and towered over all of them. Draymond's more turnover prone than he's ever been. Nobody on this team wants to shoot twos. They are like, I think only one team has taken fewer twos than them. And obviously that's partly because they take lots of threes, but they shoot twos horribly.

They pass out of layups all the time. They're just so starved for ads. athleticism and size. Quentin Post ain't it, just doesn't do enough stuff, doesn't make enough shots, doesn't do enough big man stuff. Forford's been mostly out of the lineup. I don't even know what they do, but beauty in the struggle, the way they looked last night, seeing them in person,

it feels like they've reached the phase of acceptance. And that's okay. I just don't know, I don't know that there's any move that changes their life, like the Butler move changed their life last year. No, it feels like that was the last real card to play, right? The last big bullet to fire. And like, even when I hear them linked to like Anthony Davis discussions, and again, we know all the risk to doing an Anthony Davis deal just on his health alone to say nothing of contract. Getting to the number that you need to to get an Anthony Davis or anybody of impact almost automatically means Butler or

Draymond Greener going out in those deals. It's really, really, really hard, if not impossible, to make any significant deal for another star level player without that. And I don't know that they want to do that. And people can say whatever they want about Draymond and the stuff that happened last week and everything else. Like, Draymond's not going anywhere as long as Steph is there. Steve Kerr is not going anywhere as long as step is there. Those three, I believe, are walking off into the sunset together, or at least that, I think,

is what they would like to do. So I don't see a scenario here where there's a last gas effort to, you know, breathe some new life into this fading dynasty by trading. one of the key pieces of that dynasty to get somebody else. And then it would be Jimmy Butler. I mean, would they do that? They obviously don't have any real, you know, long-term attachment or deep ties to him. They could do that.

It just doesn't seem likely. I thought the more likely scenario would be the proverbial Jonathan Cumminga trade, the fantasy comminga trade, which may become reality soon enough. But Cominga plus whatever. pods, moody, picks, whatever it is. To what end? That's the question. I know. I know. I know. At minimum, sorry, I'll let you finish, but like, to what end?

It's at minimum to not be what they were last night, right? Or a lot of these other, you know, just devastating heart-crushing losses. To what end is to at least not squander. I say this all the time. I said this about LeBron a few years ago when the Lakers were flailing. all over the place. You cannot squander the last great years of a superstar who still has greatness left in them. And Steph does. But his usage right now is at like 33.9. I looked it up real quick and then I lost the thread here on my screen. But like the number of players who have had

a usage of even 32 and above at age 37 and above, it's like LeBron a couple of times, Kobe, and I found like an Eddie Johnson season in Houston. I don't know what was going on then. This is highly unusual. This is too much of a burden on Steph's shoulders. It really was hammered home watching him in person last night. I mean, how hard he has to work to get any space. And the Raptor's entire defense was we're top locking you everywhere on the court and making you be a cutter and making you shoot twos.

And he took a ton of layups, a ton of twos, ton of flailing reverse layups that he missed. It's just so hard for him. And one of the reasons that's hard for him is because Draymond's older, the whole team is older. Steph drawing two on the ball and Draymond in open space with a four on three is just not the same level of fear that it was five years ago, four years ago, three years ago. It doesn't inspire the same level of fear. It doesn't inspire the same level of panicked rotations. It doesn't open the same level of space for everybody else. Jimmy Butler has just been good, good.

he's never going to be a huge score. That's just not how he plays. They need more from him. He's just been good. I've heard he really likes it there and wants to stay there. It wants to time up his contract with Steph as it is right now. And yes, to get AD, it has to be comminga plus a big salary or Jimmy Butler alone. And if you're going to get AD and we keep saying this about all these teams, number one, there are two realities you have to accept.

One is he's injured a lot. And number two is his jump shot is broken and has been broken since the bubble. And so the idea that you're going to put him on a team, like there's these fake trades with him going to Detroit, which I just never understood on a team that already struggles for shooting. And the Warriors, when they play Draymond and Butler, it's hard to throw another non-shooter into that equation, which is why Kaminga hasn't played. And by the way, I'll take another L on Kaminga. I've been a big Kaminga optimist.

He's certainly shown flashes. I don't think the Warriors have handled his career very well. I say that even knowing being the kind of player he is, sort of athlete first learning to field the game out, doing that on a team with championship aspirations and veterans was going to be very hard. He has not played well enough this season in the opportunities that he's been given, period.

And he's going to get traded. I don't know what they're going to get for him, but there are two kinds of trades. There's like the we don't give up much of our trove of assets, and they can trade three picks right now. For, you know, a small upgrade, like a Claxton, a decent center who can help fortify our front line and prevent Draymond from having to play center so much

and get brutalized on the glass like last night. They're 26th in defensive rebounding for the season. Or the big trade where we do expend a lot of our assets for a big, big fish. A, I don't know who that fish is. And B, they have talked, including Draymond, I've talked pretty openly about, you shouldn't do that if it doesn't put you in the title conversation right away.

That's what he talked about with Markinen and Paul George or Markening alone. He talked about it on his podcast. And I don't see a deal like that anywhere. So I don't know what they're going to do. But this was always it, man. And I still love watching them play. The crowd was super fired up for Steph last night in Toronto. It's like that everywhere he goes.

They're a good team. And on the right night, they can beat anybody. And that's fine. There's honor in that this is what happens to old teams. And this is just what it is. It is. A quick correction to myself for a minute here. The Eddie Johnson season was three games.

This is what happens when I'm glancing really quickly down at basketball reference too quickly. But no, so the 32 usage and up at 37, age 37 and up, it's a few LeBron seasons, a Carleone season, a Kobe, a Jordan. And that's it for guys who played at least, you know, 50 games and up. And then there's some, you know, a Dominique at 27. games. But relevant to our discussion, they're playing at Brooklyn tonight on a back to back, not optimistic about the worst chances winning in Brooklyn on a back to back. I just, you know, they could lose the game. They could lose again tonight. I would pick Brooklyn to win

this game probably the way Brooklyn's playing. I'm just hoping Steph plays because my daughter's home from college and we're going to the game tonight. I'm bringing it with me. And Steph put on a great show when I managed to get her to a game during her spring break last season, hoping for an encore. So I'm just fingers crossed that that Steph and the vets play also not. guaranteed. I think that there are various places you can draw the line for what's worth it, right? And yes, you should not mortgage the entire future to try to infuse a few breaths into a dying dynasty. But I do think as much fun as it is still to watch Steph and to watch Steph and Dremont do their thing or just to watch whatever version of the Warriors this is, if you could get a Claxton or if you can get, you know, one other ball handler playmakers so that everybody who's getting

trapped isn't coughing the ball up as they were repeatedly last night. I'm not saying Steph was free of that either, but every time it seemed like anybody else at the ball, they were getting trapped on the sideline and coughing the ball up, whatever you can do to make these games more meaningful and to keep Steph in the running for the playoffs. And then, yeah, punchers chance. As long as it doesn't mortgage a ton of the future, I say go for it. He's still freaking awesome. He is awesome in a way to allude back to the stat. I was just mentioning about usage rate. He is awesome in a way that guys at this age never are or never have been in the past. It's basically just him and LeBron right now.

I want to see those guys on good respectable teams that have a chance to do something. I would rather not just see, oh, we got to see a couple of logo threes and a couple of night nights. And, you know, they're going to finish with 37 wins. Like, that's just too much of a bummer. I think they will do that. And I think they will be patient as they were last year. and if there's something that falls into their laps, like they got Jimmy for not much, right?

Like I don't think there's going to be a deal at that price for that quality of player. That was obviously like he kind of forced his way out of Miami and drove his price down a little bit. But I think they'll be patient and see if they can steal somebody good on the cheap. And you said something else interesting and I can remember what it was.

Anyway, I know you wanted to talk about the Celtics before you go. Do you want to talk about the Celtics or do you need to go? No, I'm good. I've let the folks from the other pod know I'll be a little late to the meeting. I, the Celtics are absolutely fascinating, partially because going back to the tanking discussion, we all talked about gap years, whatever. There's another modern construct we've all created, right? It's a gap year.

It's gap year for the Pacers. Gap year for the Celtics. Take advantage of the one time as a really good team or a great team to get a high pick. Might as well. Shailen Brown had other plans, clearly. Joe Missoula had other plans. To an extent, I think we should, like, here's a lot. the team, we should all be mea culpa-ing, if I can create a really obnoxious verb that doesn't

deserve to exist. We have completely undersold them. And now they've been so competitive, and Jalen Brown's been so freaking good, that the, should Jason Tatum, I don't want to say rush back, come back as soon as possible from the Achilles, is in play in a very real way. I guess there was a footage of Tatum working out with Brad Stevens. There's an unusual scene. Your superstar and your GM team president doing the workouts as you're rehabbing from an Achilles. I mean, I don't know if that's a sign or not. It certainly will be interpreted and is being interpreted that way that he's going to be back this season. The Achilles usually meant at least a season out. Although I did reach out this morning to our friend Jeff Stats, who of course does the great

in street clothes blog and all of his other social. media feeds. It's not unheard of, right? For a guy to come back this soon. Coming back in less than a year from the Achilles, Elton Brand did it. Kobe did it, West Matthews, all did it in about 240 days, according to Jeff Stott's. Average time lost is roughly 10 months. So given when Tatum went out, it's a close call, but maybe he's back in the regular season.

Certainly there have been advances in, you know, medicine and rehab and everything else. It's mid-May, right? Because I think it was the same night as the lottery. I think it was all that one night was Tatum injured flagged to Dallas was like a seismic NBA for three hours. So 10 months is like mid-March that would give you a month of regular season to get going again. I think we all naturally, especially all of us who are not in medicine, we just recoil at the thought of it like, oh, man, don't get, don't get drawn into this. Don't rush back just because suddenly the Celtics are better than expected and risk something. but one, I don't think any team is going to risk adjacent Tatum, not the Celtics, not anybody.

They're going to make sure that every last doctor on earth has signed off before they clear him. Sometimes you come back and you're not yourself. This is the other note from Jeff Stott's that, you know, listen, you may come back at the 10-month mark. That is on the quote-unquote early side, but you may not be 100% of yourself in terms of your explosiveness and your movement and everything else, but it doesn't necessarily mean you're at risk of hurting yourself either. It just may mean that you are not absolutely back to your full powers. Even that version of Jason Tatum would be an asset to a Celtics team that has a window here. So then it becomes, is it worth it not only with the win, lost, lottery, draft, all this, whatever.

This version of Tatum isn't enough. I think we also need to remember, too, that like these windows are finite and sometimes they're a lot shorter than you think they're going to be. They've been to two finals. They've won one championship. No one's guaranteed another finals run. how great Tatum and Brown are. We've already seen them have to shed all these key pieces for salary cap purposes and apron purposes and those are forces that are always bearing down on you. Tatum and Brown salaries are just going to keep going up because that's the way the system works.

If you've got an opportunity in this East is wide open year, maybe you're the team that should be taking advantage of that, as much as the Pistons or the Knicks or anybody else that we've discussed. Maybe it was the Celtics all along, having played this well without Tatum, and Tatum now having a realistic chance to come back. If it's not going to risk his health, why not? I think it's one of the most fascinating things to watch in the second half of the season. I, out of just my own caution and my pessimism about the Celtics, which was off base, kind of just wrote him out in my brain for this will just be a loss season.

Yeah. Here, I feel very confident about two things in this situation. Number one, the Celtics will not rush him back and, in fact, will be prepared to say no to him if he feels ready to play and there's the least bit of caution that maybe they should wait a little bit longer. They're going to be fine with that. Number two, he will not be Jason Tatum that we know any time this season. All the history of Achilles tears and recovery would suggest that he will be,

there will be a time where he's 80% of his. himself, rediscovering his explosiveness, his lateral movement, all of that. And yet, even that player with his shooting ability, his size, even if he's a secondary playmaker, screener, whatever, he's an elite defensive player and a very good rebounder, even that guy taking all some of the minutes that are going to some of their backups is a huge asset to this team and one that can play that role given that Jalen Brown has leveled up as a ball handler. Patent Pritchard has leveled up as a ball handler. I'm not sure Derek White has leveled up as a ball handler, but I do want to shout him out for this reason. He's shooting 39 and a half

percent overall, 35 percent on threes, 46 percent on twos. I don't even care because that dude plays so fucking hard every second he's on the floor. He might be having his best defensive season of his illustrious all defensive level career. He's a maniac and it never wavers and it never turns off. And he takes enough threes that that 35% on volume like that almost makes up for the like what look on the surface like traditionally bad field goal percentage stats. He has been like the best 39% shooter that I can remember in the history of the NBA. And you throw all that together.

And Simon's like maybe they keep it. Maybe they dump him. He's another ball handler. I don't know. Jason Tatum doesn't have to be like running 30 pick and rolls a game and 10 isos and that Jason Tatum anytime this season, this team is actually constructed for him to be Apex role player Jason Tatum for two months. And yeah, like I don't think, I think there's just too much uncertainty for me to say

they could do, you know, beat the Knicks in a playoff series, win the East or whatever. But like, again, like who are they scared? They're third in the East as is. Like it is one of the more, I mean, I can hear Bill right now. Oh, this is why I wanted to say Bill, speaking of Bill, he texted me and he demanded credit for this talking about the Warriors. He wants to talk a Jimmy Butler for LeBron James trade into the into the ether. And it's his trade. Actually, might make more teams, both teams a little bit more entertaining.

But anyway, look, hats off to Joe Missoula. I'm not sure he's the frontrunner for Coach of the Year. There's always a lot of candidates, but he's been unbelievable. Jalen's been unbelievable. They're a great story and they play super, super hard across the board. There's something that I think has become evident in this version of the NBA, this hyper parity era. And it's the same thing when you mentioned earlier with the Sons. They didn't take this massive step back because they still have Devin Booker. Because of the way the NBA, this talent is spread around right now, if you have one elite offensive guy, Devin Booker, Jalen Brown,

at least one or two other guys who are competent and you play your asses off and everybody, defense, you can be pretty competitive. Like, we are long past, I'm not saying there are no super teams. I'm not, this is no disrespect to the Thunder or anybody else or what the spurs are becoming, but we are long past the era where it was like, you got to have your two absolute studs or three guys or whatever. In this version of the NBA, because of how the talent is spread around and how many just good teams there are, just average teams or to below average teams, you can make a lot

of hay in the regular season by having one elite offensive player, which Jalen Brown is, a Derek White, a Peyton Pritchard, a little bit of a leap here from a CADA and a Minot or whoever. Like, you can, you can play your asses off around the one Supreme Offensive player and win a lot of games. Howard Beck, I got a couple more takes. I got a, I have a scorching heat take. I think I'm going to table it for today. I don't think I'm ready to say it out loud yet. No insights to mediocrity this week that may have gotten back to my.

family. This is the thing about the internet. I was worried. I was worried about that particular insights to mediocrity chapter. Like, could they overhear it in the background? Did they watch it later? Did you walk downstairs and suddenly everybody's like just like staring through you? Like what? How did that play? Look, I'm not going to comment on this, but there will be more insights to mediocrity in the future. We're not going to overdo this bit, but it's a good bit. I'm an elite mediocre person. Howard Beck, uh, uh, real ones, the ringer.com. What else? Anything else we got to plug? Just General Brooklyn Life? Just general Brooklyn life. Looking forward to Nets Warriors tonight. And yeah, if anybody wants to find me on social media, hit me a blue sky.

Howard, thank you, sir. Go to your meeting. Sorry, you're late. Always a pleasure, sir. All right. That's it for today's episode of the Zach Lowe show. Thank you to the great Howard Beck. Thank you to Mike, Billy, and Jonathan on production. Thank you to everyone out there for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe show. We'll see you later this week. Must be 21 or over in President-Select States for Kansas in affiliation with the Kansas Star Casino or 18 and over in President D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming, gambling, problem. Call 1-800-gambler or visit RG-Helphelp.com. Call 1-888-7-9-7-7-7-7 or visit ccppgat-org in Connecticut or visit MDGamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit Gamblinghelpline, MA.org or call 800-3-27-50-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-7-8.

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