The Zach Lowe Show - The Most Confusing Teams in the NBA!

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

Zach is joined by Rob Mahoney to talk news and notes from around the league, including Brandin Podziemski’s new contract and Kyrie Irving’s return to the court. Then, they draft the most confusing teams in the league for the upcoming season. Plus, Zach is writing about the NBA again! Sign up for his weekly newsletter, The Lowe Post, at https://zachlowe.substack.com/. (0:00) Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show! (1:36) Rob Mahoney joins the show! (2:51) Brandin Podziemski gets a new deal (11:20) Knicks tabling contract-extension talks (21:20) Five most confusing teams in the NBA (1:00:26) Other teams we're confused by (1:08:26) Are the Pistons a lock to be a top-six seed? (1:15:02) Are we not giving the Mavs enough credit? Host: Zach Lowe Guests: Rob Mahoney Producers: Jonathan Frias, Billy Gil, and Mike Wargon Social: Keith Fujimoto and Michael Szokoli The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. #ULTRACourtside could get you closer to the game! https://michelobultra.com/courtside MICHELOB ULTRA®️ COURTSIDE ’26 to ’27. No Purchase Necessary. Open to US residents 21+ Begins on 10/1/26 and ends on 6/30/27. Multiple entry periods. See Official Rules at https://michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On the Zach Lowe show, Rob Mahoney is here for one of my favorite episodes of the year are five most confusing teams for the season. Confusing could mean whatever you want it to mean, as long as it's about this particular season. It could mean we think they're going to win way more than expected, way less than expected. Their variance is huge.

We have no idea what they're doing or if their roster makes sense. We're going to talk about a whole pile of teams, pelicans, blazers, pacer, magic, pistons, jazz, heat, on and on and on. We're confused about a lot of things. We also hit some of the stuff that happened in the news over the weekend. The Knicks tabling contracts extensions with among others, Carl Anthony Towns and Josh Hart. Kyrie's back. How did he look with Cooper Flagg? Jason Tatum made his preseason debut with the Celtics. And we saw our first glimpse of the loaded Philadelphia sixers starting five with Joelle and Bid having eight turnovers, I think, in the game against Brooklyn.

But are there good signs there as well? So we bounce all around the league. also have a little nice announcement at the top. I'm starting a newsletter called The Low Post. That's still a thing. It's still a name. It's on Substack. We talk a little bit about that. We just talk about everything that's going on in the league.

We even talk about the Kings and Maxine Reno. He got injured. So that's all coming up next on the Zach Lowe show. Our annual five most confusing teams draft with Rob Mahoney coming up on the Zach Lowe show. The Zach Lowe show. Rob Mahoney is here for one of my favorite annual podcast, my five. Most confusing teams of the year. We will get to that.

It's an annual tradition. Last year, Mr. Mahoney, you were my guest for a League Pass Ranking's extravaganza podcast. Do you remember this? I do. I recall many things about it. I think there's going to be, oddly enough, a little bit of crossover between some teams I really thought I would love watching last year and am befuddled by at present.

There will be no league pass rankings, Zach Lowe Show, this year, because that is going to be the way that we introduce the newsletter that I announced, today, the low post, we will have the league pass rankings back in written form for the first time in two years, spread over five or six days in the next 10 days or so. So subscribe to the low post if you want to read that kind of stuff. That's my plug. Mr. Mahoney, before we get to the five most confusing teams, and by the way, I prepared a list of eight because I have a feeling I'm going to guess we go minimum three for five overlap between us because there are some objectively bat-shit crazy confusing teams.

the league right now. We have some news to get to. Can we spin through some quick news items from the weekend? I would love to. Where do you want to start? Brandon Pajemsky, five years, $110 million extension with the Golden State Warriors right around his cap hold so that it does not really cannibalize their cap space for the summer. They, of course, do not have quite have max cap space. They have something like $45 million of cap space. I just think they continue to be more set up for some kind of lopsided trade than anything else in terms of free. agency, given that they have all their picks except for one at their disposal and some cap flexibility. As mentioned, I continue to think that the team is dead on arrival this

season and should not go insane trying to trade draft picks, multiple, two, three, whatever of them for a win now move. But that is neither here nor there. Pods, weirdly polarizing player, I guess, among Warriors fans. I'm not really dialed into like the insane Warriors fan, Twitter. I think this deal is totally fine. It's 10 to 12 percent of the salary cap, that's like not even starter money, really. And that's perfect for Pods, who is, I think, like a fourth or fifth starter at best and a six or seventh man, maybe more realistically, does a little bit of everything, plays hard, high IQ player. I don't get why there's any upheaval about this other than there's been some unfortunate comments from Joe Lekha, Van Branden

Pajemski himself, kind of anointing him as a superstar in waiting that have rankled some people. This is totally fine. I like pods. It's a good past. You know, know what he is, Rob. He's a good basketball player. A perfectly fine basketball player on a team that frankly needs perfectly fine basketball player. So I really don't have any problem with the number. It feels like a, we all really want to make this work kind of extension. I think speaking to the polarizing nature of his tenure as a warrior so far, maybe even polarizing in the mind of Steve Kerr himself, he is like he's had such a weird run and a weird role. And it never feels like he has been

given the full rope to investigate like who he can be as a prospect. For reasons that make sense, this has been a veteran team that's been trying to compete. He's been a young guy who's been coming in trying to prove himself. Like, there are obviously conflicting motivations there. But he's so solid that it would be foolish to let him go. And he's so solid that I'm with you that he probably projects more as that kind of like end starter kind of spot. But maybe he pops at a certain point. Maybe he becomes the third best player on a really good team.

And that's a great outcome for him. And certainly at this kind of salary level, that would be amazing. And yes, I am guilty in the past of saying these kind of deals in the $20 to $25 million range or Keegan Murray's deal on the high end of that can sometimes go underwater when they go badly. It should be noted that those kind of deals were signed in a lower cap environment. This one is going forward into a massively higher cap environment and Pods is young. And he's good at everything. Like he's become a pretty good shooter after that.

Remember he had that wave of time where he just would not shoot threes. He was completely shell-shocked. he's like what you said about like downside scenarios like I don't worry about that in terms of like fourth fifth starter on some teams you need that player to have a particular set of skills on other teams you need that player to have a different particular set of skills depending on who your top two guys are he can fit pretty much in any kind of environment do you have any what is I haven't gotten to the group chat power rankings warriors segment yet I'm a little behind what do you have any hope for this team this season where are you on the

Warriors? I'm not very hopeful. I mean, I think a lot of my reservations and concerns are just like, are they going to have enough healthy bodies to fields, an actual basketball team for 82 games? And I mean, like, Brandon Pajemski is a great kind of counterpoint for that. And part of the reason he gets this deal, he has played more minutes as a warrior than literally anyone else over the last three years. And so his ability to be out there is huge. But without Butler to start the year, Moses Moody to start the year, Chris Sophorzingis in limbo, Al Horford being his age, De Anthony Melton being healthy for now. Steph Curry being healthy for now, but all of those things are, are ifs. I just don't see how there's like a good playoff caliber basketball team there, even if in

Steph, in Steph, we trust in all other contexts. And the reason I said, I wouldn't go crazy, like all this stuff about, you know, they're, they're always chasing the next big guy, right? And they haven't gotten them yet. And they've been lamb-based for that. I think somewhat unfairly, but also I think there were real opportunities that I've talked about before that maybe they could have gotten into. I just, I mean, we'll see how they start to. season. But even if they're at 500, I just don't have really any faith in this team as a real like capital T team. And I, and if it's less than that, if it's worse than that, the lottery odds, they may be in the perfect sweet spot in the lottery odds. And boy, could they use a bite at that

apple. Okay. Number two, did you see the debut of the Philadelphia 76er starting five against Brooklyn on Friday, I think. Did you catch any of this? Only in drips and drabs. I mean, what jumped out to you? So obviously all the focus was on how bad Embed looked and the 5,000 turnovers that he puked up all over the court. I actually came away weirdly like they're trying the right stuff on offense. You know, there's a lot of mouths to feed. We all know that. Everyone's going to have to sacrifice a little bit, blah, blah, blah. I just charted their first six possessions. And then I stopped because it's the preseason and I just can't care that much. But they showed me everything I wanted to see in those first six possessions very quickly. Possession number one, they ran a flex action. We go two guys at the

elbow, two guys in the corners. Mbid was in the corner. That's where he's going to have to be sometimes. Good experiment. I don't remember what it led to. Possession number two, LeBron hit ahead to VJ Edgecombe for a layup. Okay, that's great. That's how I want to see this team to play. That's how we want to see them play. Possession three, LeBron, Joel, Embed, pick and roll with Jalen Brown in the dunker spot extended. LeBron to Mbvre to Jail and Brown dunk. Number four, Maxie, Embed, pick, and pop, kick to Embed. LeBron's defender rotates to wave at Embed. Maxi to Embed to LeBron, drive, and then drop off to Vijay Ed's going for a baseline dunk.

Love it. Fifth possession, another fast break that's like Maxie and Jalen Brown exchanging on a dunk. And then six possession, and then I stopped. Another flex action. This time LeBron was handling up top. Embed was at the elbow. Maxi flew off an Embeddead pinned down. went under the screen, Tyrese Macs E3.

That's like we're getting there. Like that's the foundation for how this should work. LeBron is, I've joked that he's kind of like the apex, apex, apex version of old man, Jason Kidd on the Mavericks where he just sees over everything and is throwing these bullets 20 feet to dudes under the rim. And then Embed for as bad as the turnovers were looked like decently mobile on defense to me.

Maybe not upwardly. I mean, the non-lob was a tough look. The hops and on rebounds and contested rebounds, they're going to come and go. And that's just going to be life. I don't know what this team is going to be. I don't know how good they're going to be. I don't know how much Embeddy is going to be able to play.

I do know that Nick Nurse is trying to write stuff offensively. That's kind of what jumped as you rattled off that play sequence. It's like that to me sounds like Nick Nurse, just like noodling through a jam band guitar solo. You know, it's like it's a little messy. It's a little rambly at times, but it's like you can see all of the disparate elements here that are going to come together to something interesting, if not effective, like throughout. What's your, what's your Philly just general optimism, pessimism, scale Rob Mahoney?

Quite optimistic. I just think I think there's almost too much there for it not to work at a pretty high level. And I trust, I think the LeBron component that you explained with Jason Kidd is kind of why I believe in it so much. if it was just Jalen Brown and Maxie and Edgerman and Bede, that's a really nice team. Maybe in some ways makes like cleaner sense, but you need the macro processor at the center of it to help make sense of so many of these possessions

and get the ball where it needs to go and reroute things that aren't quite working. And I just think LeBron is going to make a huge difference for this team. I am higher than I'd like to be on the Sixers. As I said last week, when I forced myself to do my own thought exercise of if I have to pick someone other than the Knicks to make the finals out of the East, who would I pick?

I looked at every team and I was like, well, I'm going to throw up in my mouth a little bit and pick the Sixers because I'm like Fox Mulder. I trust no one. So I trust no one. I don't trust the Sixers. I trust no one. I also don't trust James Dolan.

So item number three, the New York Knicks have announced a rare step that they are tabling contract extensions with, among others, Carl Anthony Towns and Josh Hart and Dusrick Bride until some indefinite point at some other. time than the current point in time. I don't know, man. Like, I guess this all started when Kat said that there is no comfortability in this. And of course, he'd like an extension.

And he made some comments about how we'd like to get something done between, you know, what I would dream to get and what makes sense for the team. And we're not close to that number. I don't know how that went over with James Dolan. But now they're not negotiating at all. And Fred Katz, with the athletic, nailed this. I didn't realize this at the time. If they don't get this extension done before the season starts, it eliminates one particular

route towards a town's extension, which is he opts in to $61 million for next season, 27, 28, and then they can go down from there, which is critical because it's 28, 29, when Brunson's huge deal kicks in, when the second apron really becomes a tough barrier for them. and if they don't get this done before the season, they can still negotiate all sorts of different things, but they can't negotiate that way. I just, look, I've done the math. We've all done the math.

There are ways for them to sign Kat to a fair-ish deal and heart to a fair-ish deal and down the line, Ananobi to a fair-ish deal, and stay under the second apron. I don't think Towns and his people are proposing some preposterous number that vaults them way over the second apron. I've actually heard the opposite, that they're proposing something fair,

although I think if the Knicks offer really is for 200, I think that's on the border of like fair. I've pitched 55 average annual value is like a good place to settle. So that's close. Here's the only thing I'll say. If James Dolan is mad at anything that Carl Anthony Towns or Josh Hart said, and I don't know that he is. I just know that tabling extensions feels like a little bit of a tantrum

and a negotiating play. All Carl Anthony Towns did was very calmly and very factual. answer a question that was posed to him at Media Day. He threw no bombs. He didn't say anything inflammatory. He just laid out exactly what the situation is and calmly explained it. And if that triggered anything, then people need to buck up a little bit. I suspect it did trigger something, but it says more about Dolan than anybody else.

And frankly, like, all of the second apron fear mongering. And I'm with you, I think there's very reasonable constructions for basically all of these deals, although Deuce might get left out in the cold, to get the core of this team back. and be reasonably within range of the second apron down the line. I just don't care about the second apron if you are a championship team. Like the only mechanisms it really imposes are your ability to add more players to the team that already exists. Or I guess to replace if somebody got hurt,

if somebody was on the down swing, if you needed to make dramatic shifts in the core in the future, then yes, it would limit your ability to do that. You already have a championship roster. They just fucking proved it. Like they could have brought back Mitchell Robinson. they could have given all of these guys extensions.

It would have been 100% fine and 100% legal under the second apron because those restrictions should not apply for teams in this position. And yet James Dolan and frankly, a lot of the owners around the league love to put up this boogeyman and hide behind it as if, oh my God,

we couldn't possibly cross this line. Look at the like absolutely catastrophic series of repercussions. What crazy person voted for this in a boardroom? Who did this happen? I'm just, I'm so over it. And frankly, I'm especially over it when the team that just proved they were the best team in the league is crying poor. Like, just pay the guys to bring back proper title defense. It doesn't seem that complicated.

Imagine if they had to pay proper taxes and property taxes on Madison Square Garden. Wow, what a horrible world that would be for the poor billion. I know. Okay, basketball things that happened over the weekend. You can take or leave any of these is interesting to you. Kyrie Irving made his debut next to Cooper Flag, the first time we've seen that pairing. Cleveland played its new starting five with Peyton Watson for the first time. Jason Tatum made his preseason debut in the Celtics started Mitchell Robinson, but not.

Peyton Pritchard. And Reed Shepard grew a mustache and kind of a beard and looks like a middle reliever now for like the Houston Astros or something. Or any of those interesting to you? All of them are interesting. But I did feel most moved contrary to everything I thought I knew about myself by Kyrie being back on the floor. And I think some of it is like, I have become over the last couple of years and change, like a real Kyrie guy after being somewhat of a skeptic, certainly of, you know, his broader decision making just as a person, even who he was as a basketball player at various stops. And just like who he has become and the joy of getting to watch him on the floor has superseded so much of that noise. And I think he has also grown into the kind of person and the kind of leader and the kind of veteran that is just like so easy to respect and admire that having him back.

I was like, it really did feel like the season was coming back for the first time. It felt like a really clean turn of the page in a way that I didn't even know that I needed. I'm just really excited to see how the two of them play off of each other, both cutting off the ball when the other one has it. Both them are good at that. And their two-man game is just tailor-made to generate mismatches. On the other stuff, Cleveland's starting five looked fine. Whatever. They're going to have to figure out Peyton Watson and what he's doing there.

But defensively, you know, you kind of forget these things. until you see it. Like intuitively, you know they're going to be switchier with Watson because of how good he is. And then you see it and you're like, man, Hardin is so good at guarding up. Like that's really his one piece of utility on defense is he's big and strong and guards up. They can switch a lot two to five as long as they protect Mitchell and even he can switch a little bit. I think that's the underrated part of Mitchell's defense.

Is he not a hardened quality to the same extent, but for a guard, his size is incredibly strong and can hold his spot. I think Cleveland's going to be very good. Tatum looked great. The Celtics are trying to run more. We'll see. And yeah, Reed Shepherd's mustache, something to monitor. Last thing, your guy and my guy, Maxine Reno, suffered a knee injury because the Kings

just cannot have any nice things. They get one nice thing. Ben Simmons looks like aggressive and good. And I've heard all summer that he's feeling great and looks great. And he actually did. He attacked the basket. And they lose Rayno to some sort of injury is going to be revaluated. two weeks. I don't know the specifics now. Just, you know, I really, I was like driving the train

of he needs to be first team all rookie. I don't remember if he did win first team all rookie or not because I don't care, but I, it's just fun dude to watch. I want the Kings to have some fun dudes to watch. They're going to need him. Although, I mean, the Darius Aikov stuff out of the gate has been a little, a little more, I don't know how to even to describe it. Like, I am, compelled by it more than I expect it to be. He has a professional bob and weave pick and roll kind of game. There are going to be nights where it's inefficient, miss shots, turnovers, all the rookie undersized guard stuff.

But he's got the feel and the pacing of a professional number one ball handler. Last thing on the Kings, I had a fun little segment last week on what I called a roast by Vivek Rondevi at their team dinner. Kings took some issue with the word roast because, as I said in the segment, it was it was meant to be him sort of reciting all the typical. criticisms of the players on his team and then saying, you know, let's prove all of that stuff wrong. And look, I have no regrets and don't take anything back. I will say one thing I did omit was that Vivek opened it by making fun of himself and calling himself the worst owner

in professional sports or in the history of professional sports. I don't remember. I do think it was a well-intended whatever that did not land as intended with everybody in the audience. Some It did. Some liked it. Some didn't, but that's all. And Vivek did self-roost. I do want to make that clear. Self-roasting is important context, but I do find that people in general love when their boss gets them all in the room and explains the broad strokes criticisms that everyone seems to believe to be true about them. I mean, who wouldn't respond well to that? I hope Bill does it to us. Like, let's have a whole summit.

I would love it. Okay. I think that's it for news. And I do think Vivek generally means well in his stewardship of the Kings, which has gone or That hasn't really been the problem, I don't think. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's like I meant well when I tried to fix our garage door a few months ago, and then it ended up slanted and stuck in some sort of position that was not okay.

And we need to call someone who actually knows what they were doing. Just the Zach Levine of Home Improvement Endeavors. Let's take a, you know what? Yeah, let's take a quick break and then we'll start our five most confusing teams. This episode is brought to you by Mickelob Ultra, the official beer, sponsor of the NBA. As this season tips off, boy, would I love to be close to the action of Mikkelow Bultra in hand at Thunder Spurs at Knicks Ring Night, any Knicks Sixers game.

How about Jalen Brown when he returns to Boston, courtside with the Mikhailobotro for any of those? The NBA has got a ton of great rivalries. Plus, great news for fans. Michaela O'Boltra is not only getting you close to the game with courtside tickets, but also bringing the courtside to you through experiences and behind-the-scenes moments we rarely get to see. enter now at michelobotra.com slash courtside mccalobotra courtside 26 to 27 no purchase necessary

open u.s. residence 21 plus begins on october 1st 2026 and ends on june 30th 2027 multiple entry periods see official rules at micklowobleauldrow dot com slash courtside for free entry entry deadlines prizes and details all right this is one of my favorite podcasts of the year five most confusing teams confusing can be kind of what you want it to be but it's really intended to be your outlook for them on the court and maybe off of it too for this

particular season. It could be a team that you look at and say, boy, what a wide variance of outcomes. I have no idea what to expect from this team. They could be awesome. They could suck. I have no clue. I'm just confused. It could be I have actually no idea how they ended up with the roster that they have and how any of it is going to look on the court. It could be, I have no idea how they're going to approach team building in the next calendar year. Are they going to be buyers, sellers, neither. Are their phones not going to work? It happened in New Orleans for much of the summer.

Or it could be all of those. So I have my five, although I have seven ready, because I suspect at least three out of five we're going to overlap. But I will give you first pick Rob Mahoney's most confusing team of the year. Incredibly generous of you. I mean, I'm going to start with the muse of my personal cognitive dissonance, which is the Miami Heat. We are all for, we are oh for one right off the bed.

Go. Clean boards all the way through. Let's talk about as many teams as possible. But my first instinct is to say that the heat, look, that the east is going to be stacked, that the reality is they're going to shake out as like the seventh or eighth best team in the conference, right? There's so many good teams here from the Knicks all the way down. We talked about the Sixers. I mean, you got the Cavs and the Celtics.

You got the Raptors. There's so many teams that are going to be in the mix that it makes sense that the heat could wind up as the seventh or eighth best team. And then there's another part of my brain where the alarm. arms are going off and saying, wait, you're telling me a team with Janus, who is still one of the five or six best players on the planet and bam and good defense and enough shooting and Eric Spolstra, that that team is going to be a playing team. And it's like the war that is constantly happening within me as far as trying to understand what the nature of the East pecking order is and where the heat fall in it. That is what is loudest in my mind at this point.

Well, there's going to be, I mean, all of us are going to be confused about the East throughout the season. There are going to be teams where, like, in one week, it's like Detroit's eighth. How did that happen? And then there'll be fourth a week later and everything will be fine. I think this is a great pick. I didn't have them just because, I mean, I can't, it would be hard for me to see them winning fewer than like 46 games. And it would be hard for me to see them winning more than 50. Like, I think they're just going to be a very good team.

I don't know where that places them in the East. Janus has looked great in his limited action already. They're going to have to figure out some spacing with him and bam. The lack of like pull up off the dribble shooting, as you and I have talked about, is a little bit worrisome. Definitely. And I'm glad that you brought up the heat because I don't know if they are aware of this in Italy. I think we should be famous in Italy because you and I are the president and vice president.

You can be the president of the Simone Fontecchio fan club. And he's still kicking around. I don't know how much is going to play, particularly, Nicole Yovitch transforms from a theoretical player into a real player. I don't know how many minutes it'll be for him, but Simone is still kicking around, baby. As he should be. Look, I hope this gets us some kind of ambassadorship. You know, like, if they want to station us in Italy for a little while, like, I wouldn't

be mad about it. Deep dive on, should that be one of my first newsletter posts? I go to Italy. Just deep dive on Simone for 5,000 word profile. Who knows what's interesting about him? I don't know. It's the feature that the people, or at least the person being me, has been waiting for. I mean, is there another player on this team that you want to spotlight as like this could be an incredible situation for him or like this could go bust for him?

Is there like a player that kind of other than the mainstays kind of swings this for you? I don't even think it's like there's a one swing player X factor kind of thing. For me, it's more like what makes the heat particularly confusing and hard to chart is that you just can't know what Spoh is going to do. Like he's one of the least dogmatic coaches in the league. He's one of the most adaptive coaches in the league. And so I'm with you that I think their floor is like reasonably high, assuming that Yannis doesn't have a major injury. Like they clearly need him to stay out there.

But if things don't work, like I just have a lot of faith in Eric Spolstra to tinker and to continue to like find inroads to something. It's just hard to know what that something is. Like if you told me the style of offense that the heater going to run in November and the style of offense that they're going to run in April, that could be worlds apart. And I think the process of seeing the heat become themselves

is going to be one of the great adventures of this season. And I just like, when Janus is on the floor, his team is good. Like the bucks last year with Janus were quite good, as good as, you know, like the nuggets or the calves or the wolves, right in that kind of mix in terms of net rating. And so thinking that this team is going to be seventh or eighth, I just, I don't know. I find myself like self-flagellating for that a little bit,

where it's like they simply have to be better than that by talent and yet the attrition of the east might be what it is. Well, and we've just got to see, can you get through 65, 68 games, whatever it is, because you're right. When he's on the floor, I mean, between him and David, Matt Mitchell and Wiggins and Bam, this should be a top eight defensive team if everybody's healthy, top 10 at worst. Like they're going to be a very good defensive team. And they may be way better than I'm just trying to be conservative. It's the offense that's going to be the maker break for them.

And you're right. Like, if Janus is on the floor as a one-man fast break for 32 minutes a game, 65 times, with the amount of shooting they have around him and BAM is going to be on the floor for some of those 32 minutes, but not all of them. Like, they're going to be a pretty goddamn good offensive team. I don't know that they're going to be sixth or fifth, but I don't think they're going to be 20th.

I think they'd be somewhere like slightly above average to maybe better than that. So that's it. And that's out to a good team. I'm going to give you second pick because I'm disappointed that we didn't overlap and I'm betting, I'm betting that we're going to, I just don't see any chance now that we've gone over one,

that one of your other confusing teams is not on my list. Let's go with the Utah Jazz. Are you confused by the Utah? This is unbelievable. Unbelievable. The confusion around the league is just widespread. I do think this is maybe

one of the most unpredictable overall seasons we've had in a long time. Like the high-end stuff does feel pretty locked in. We know who the Thunder and the Spurs and the Knicks are, but everything else feels up for grabs. And the jazz feel especially up for grabs for me. I look at this rotation. even with NERC out for the first couple weeks of the season.

And I think, like, is this not a winning team? Like, is this not a team that could break even at 500 or slightly better? Is this not a collection? It's like clearly the most talented collection of players that Jazz have had in a while and a collection of players that make sense in a lot of ways. I just think there's such a long climb from 22 wins last year into being like a team of actual, you know, playoff accommodation. So I don't really think they're going to get all the way that far.

but I just, I wonder about how far they can climb, about how compatible this particular group is in year one, if they're going to have everything figured out, and especially with how much the Jazz have, like, depress their own win totals over the last couple years, how much we may be anchoring on the low end of who they've tried to be, as opposed to who this roster actually could have been. I just don't know who the hell this team is.

I think the Kessler trade is so fascinating for them because they made a very stark choice of like, We're super excited about our team. We think we can play Lowry and Triple J and Kessler together. We actually want to. And now we might have to play NERC in that spot when NERC is healthy. Defensively, Kessler is just on another level from NERC at this stage. Obviously, it's an offensive rebounder, his hands, his feel, all that is like totally

different level. The threes will see. I'll believe it when I see it. And then they got this offer from the Lakers and they decided this is too good to pass up. We will voluntarily take a step back this year to take a bigger step forward at some point because if they had Kessler and they sprinkled in enough a Kogi or whatever on the wing to give them a stable wing defender, like that's a roadmap to an okay defense. And I think offensively this team could be very, very powerful with the young guards, assuming, you know,

Peterson is kind of eased in and not overburdened and he's looked great in the preseason too. You know, I'm with you in general, though, like they were, and a couple of my picks are clustered in this spot. They were my number one pick in the, if some incumbent team, from the West top six just inexplicably falls out of the top six who would replace them. And you get into like the Portland, Phoenix, Utah, are you optimistic about Dallas or Memphis or whatever kind of morass of teams? And Utah was my, if I had to pick one of those teams, I just kind of like the upside of this team. I think Will Hardy is a really great offensive coach who's going to have like you give you give them these bigs who are who can shoot,

who can come off pin downs, who can do stuff off the dribble, who can play a little it like guards, if it not pass like guards, but play like guards. I just think he's going to figure out ways to have this team score at a pretty high level. So I'm, I guess the confusion, what is the source of confusion? Like, are we underestimating them? Is there a doubt, is there like a more severe downside here than you and I are maybe envisioning? I think I'm just, I'm seeing, well, I think there's both.

On paper, the talent to me says this team should be pretty good. And yet I'm not sure that they ultimately will be. I think the passing, which you and I have talked about before, could potentially be part of it. The fact that this team does have so many guys who play like guards also kind of bears out in the rebounding. Like the jazz strike me as the kind of team

where it's like, are they a referendum on the concept of rebounding? Because none of these guys are above average rebounders for their position. Will that matter? Is there enough like connective tissue here in terms of the undergirding of what makes a good basketball team

to make the jazz actually good? Or will they just be a team that is like a high-powered offense, is kind of fun to watch, is certainly more capital. than they have been, but doesn't amount too much. That's a good slogan for the team. You come by season tickets to the jazz.

More captivating than we have been. Look, it's all relative, you know? All right, I'm going to make my first pick now because it's in the same universe of teams. And I would be shocked and a little disappointed if you did not have them. Unless they are such a chalky choice that you were bored with them. The Portland Trailblazers are one of my five most confusing teams for the season. Not because I have that much confusion about what their ultimate

record is going to be. I think this is like a pretty middle of the road team. Just how they get there is going to look so different that it did last year when it was the Denny driving show, tenacious defense all over the floor, forcing tons of turnovers, not being able to shoot at all from any position anywhere. And now they've just kind of got it, got to figure it out. Like they started Morant and Dame together in their first preseason game. It looked maybe they'll do that. Mike Anori, who has, let's see, how many more months on? on Mike and Norrie's contract, are we ticking toward here? Hasn't been completely clear that that's going to be the case.

I don't think. She's straight up said this combination of players does not make sense. This is what I'm rooting for. And then they're also a day one starters. This is what I'm rooting for from Mike andori, not to spoil my own league past rankings because this is a joke that's in there. You know, there's a conventional school of thought that on a one-year contract, you kind of spend the whole year worrying about your job security and, like, saying the right

thing and like placating the superstar and doing the thing. I think he needs to go the other way. just fucking let it fly. You want to bench John Moran, bench John Moran. You want to say that this guy stinks or I love this guy and I'm not listening. I'm getting edicts from this person and I'm not listening.

What do you have to lose? Another one year contract with the laser is at the 30th ranked salary in the league. Mike Anori, let it fly. I just think they had one identity and they have remnants of that identity, right? I think you and I are both very high on Klingin as a potential two-way player. Kamara is an awesome defender. Denny should be much better without having to carry the entire offense.

But the wing depth is a little, well, I mean, depending on how you classify Drew Holiday and scoot and him are coming off the bench now. The wing depth without shade and sharp is a little iffy. Time Lord is a backup big as good as it gets if he plays. I just think it's going to be a very strange brew for a little while of like, oh, John Morant's over in the corner. But then like when they got rebounds in their first pieces of the game against the words, they would, John would run up the court, hit guys for trail threes.

Denny's shot catch and shoot three at a reasonable rate last year. It was the pull-ups that really dragged his average down. I just am interested to see how they play. I don't know where you are on them, but I think they're over-underers right around 500. I think that seems appropriate. I think they'll be in the playing tournament.

They strike me as a team that's going to remind us a lot of maybe Timberwolves teams passed as far as like offenses that will just completely lose their mind for eight minutes at a time. And I don't mean that in a good way. just like horrific turnovers, terrible spacing, zero flow. And then they'll come out with plays that are so mind-boggling and so singular that they pull you back in and maybe even give the team and the game some momentum. Like the high-low swings of the Blazers are going to be really, really intense.

And maybe nauseating, I think, for some people who are tuning in night after night to watch this team. But the talent is clearly there. The composition of the team is weird, but is weird in a way where I think, like, this could be good for Denny's development to kind of find. find this sort of secondary, if not tertiary sort of role again. Clearly a very capable player can be very productive. But I don't think anyone would come off of last year's run, especially into the playoffs and think, like, okay,

this is exactly how much Denny Avdiah should be doing. He should scale back a little bit. He should find kind of the happy medium between All-Star Denny and purely supporting player Denny. And this is one way to do it. Like it's one way to fast track that sort of slot in development for, I mean, just the best two-way player that they have on their roster right now. It was cool to see Dane back in a Portland uniform when I was peeking in on that game.

Like coming off split cuts, jacking open threes. Like he really, look, the shot is going to be the shot forever and ever. And it is like you got to guard him everywhere. And it does open up spacing for everybody. And it makes it a little bit more workable with Morant who's going to be treated as a non-shooter and Denny, who will be treated as an okay shooter and a big man who's going to be around the rim and clinging. I just, I can't wait to see how they play.

Okay, I'm going to make my next pick because what you said about Portland alternating between euphoria and like what the fuck is happening with this team. I think that is going to describe perhaps at a lower level in the standings, a team that I think has to appear on this podcast almost annually, but especially this year. And that's New Orleans Pelicans. Yeah. I have no idea what this is. I just don't, I don't, I mean.

Do you think they do on any level? I think they appear to have decided that Zion and Queen cannot start games together because they've started Eves Macy at center in the preseason. And I think if you have any hope for your defense, that is the appropriate stance. But at this point, I think they are more invested in Derek Queen than they are long term in Zion Williamson. And they will have to play them both together at, at some point. I mean, they're starting five of DeJante Murray, who I heard you on group chat correctly saying that like, boy, did he look like the stabilizing force down. This team needs.

He'll never make an all start team again. But wow, competent point guard play kind of just orders everything in place. Him, Tramere for the third, who doesn't love Tramor for the third, Herb Jones when he plays, who doesn't love Herb Jones needs to shoot it better, but whatever. Zion, Misi, makes some sense. And then you just come off the bench with some. many dudes who need the ball, like Jordan Poole, Sadiq Bay, Ben Matherin is here for some reason. Derek Queen wants to run the offense. Like the names are all interesting. I just have absolutely no idea what it's going to translate to on the court on either end of the floor. Like literally what it's going to look like other than Zion does feel like it really does feel like the days

of point Zion, post Zion, heavy doses of pick and roll Zion are over. Like obviously he's going to do a little bit of that stuff all the time, but like he's in the dunker spot just hanging around much more than he used to be. That's weird. They have, I think, all of their draft picks, including I think they get the best of their own pick and the Bucks pick this year, which is a very nice pick to have. But it does resonate with me what you said, because I do think we're going to like, we'll be watching Pelicans Kings or Pelicans Blazers.

I'm like, did the Pelicans just score 48 points in that quarter? And like Zion's dunking everything. And Trey Murphy is Dunkin' Allie Ups or it looks like he's going to touch the top of the backboard, Herbs deflecting everything in sight. And then you're like, oh, yeah, they did. And then they lost the game. I don't, I, I would rank this team behind Portland, Phoenix. Who else?

Like, probably Dallas, probably Memphis. I would think so. TBD, but I don't know. You could talk me into like, hey, the pelicans are 500. What's going on? They're going to have those stretches. I think for group chat, we had the ranked as the 25th best team in the league, which might be

a little down on them, but we just empirically cannot trust the pelicans anymore. We've gone through this way too many times. I did hear you say that as the one and only fundamental rule of group chat is never trust the pelicans. I wonder what it's going to take to reverse that

to reverse their rule. ownership change, regime change, full roster turnover. There's like a ship of Theseus thing here where we're going to need to remove every single board that composes this franchise and rebuild it before we start to put trust back into it again. But in the meantime, you're right that there's like a lot of individual players who have really high approval ratings among basketball fans, among front office people, a lot of guys to really like and yet the holistic view of the team is so hard to place. and it's so hard to place in part.

It was really striking, looking back at their season and seeing how many lineups for them kind of worked if it was like three solid wings in either the youth movement of Jeremiah Fears and Derek Queen or the Dejante Murray-Zion Williams and pair, but then you get into mixing, matching them, and it gets weird real fast. And so it's like, clearly there are two paths here

that they could take if they really wanted to. Which are they inclined to do? It's hard to say they're investing in Derek Queen if he's coming off the bench. That's fair. You meant like the quartet of the group of players that I most want to see play on this team as just the neutral like what's happening here for the next three years fan or whatever is fears. Herb Jones, Tray Murphy the third and Queen. That's what I want to see.

I like Jeremiah fears a lot. He's got some spunk. He's got some fire to his game. He's got passing vision with both hands. And he plays. And I mean, this is a compliment. Carries himself like he thinks he's the best player on the floor all the time, which is exactly what I want from a young guard. They were minus 10 per 100 possessions last year.

I'm just throwing that in the garbage. I don't care. That's sort of like that makes sense to me. But then like you throw in all these other dudes who just need the ball who are playing for contracts. Like Jordan Poole, that, I mean, that trade made absolutely no sense from day one. I don't care that it also got them, Sidique Bay who got like a contract extension. I just don't know what all these guys are doing on the same team. And I don't know, you know, I heard Bill talking about the Zion zone.

I think that was with you on this podcast about too good to trade, too risky for anybody to trade for him. I legitimately, like, had no idea what's going to happen with Zion. He's on a semi-expiring contract. I don't know what team's going to roll the dice on him. If you're a team that's, like, trying to find a win now move to round out your roster because you think you can make the finals, that can't be the, that's too much of a risk. Like, I don't know. It's too much of a, you have to do so much to accommodate what he does and doesn't do well that I don't know. It's a mystery to me.

You would almost need a circumstance like what the Bucks were in with Yannis last year. Not that Yonis and Zion would be compatible players, but like a superstar who's such a flight risk that you're willing to take a desperate leap at some kind of talent. Like at end of first Cavs run, LeBron, like, let's bring in Antoine Jamison, let's bring in Shaq, let's just put like people here who he knows and might be able to produce in some capacity because you're right. The stakes are too high for Zion to play for anything that really matters.

and too hard to rely on him to be a load-bearing member of a team like that. It just doesn't make sense. And last year, the irony was it was the most durable he's been in years. He had a streak of like 50-something consecutive games played. And also the most confusing, like exactly what is he on the court now in this sort revamped Pelicans universe. Like, we're all going to look back on that Lakers play in game. I mean, it's like I remember exactly where I was watching that game when he was going

absolutely crazy and decimating the Lakers by himself. And it was this like, yes, it's here. It's happening. By the way, he shot a couple of catch and shoot threes in one of their preseason games that I saw. That's perhaps a way of him expressing like, I've got to find other things to do here. And it will also, I remember exactly where I was in his first game ever.

Was it a preseason game or a regular season game against the Spurs where he made like five threes in his first game? And everyone was like, oh my God. I didn't know this guy has this in his game. He doesn't, it turns out. I assume you had them on your list. I mean, there's no confusion list without the Pelicans. I mean, they just earn a spot on this list year every year over year.

So congratulations to the reigning champions of the most confusing teams. Maybe I'll just rename it as like the Joe Dumars, Gail Benson, most confusing teams list. I have to work out of a better name. The honorary King Cake Baby, most confusing teams. Don't bring up. Now this whole podcast is derailed because I'm going to have the King Cake Baby's terrifying face.

I think I've told the story before, but the King King King Baby and I have met many times. He knows that I love mascots, and he knows that he is the scariest mascot. And so he snuck up on me on sets at ESPN, at games in New Orleans. And he doesn't talk, like most mascots, he doesn't talk. So this giant baby head just suddenly appears behind you.

He's not wearing any clothes. I think he's wearing a diaper. That's it. As one does. Every year when Marty Gras starts, day one of Mardi Gras. I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets this streambed. I get a DM on Twitter from Kinkake Baby. That's just a skull, a skull in crossbones. That's it. And let me tell you, I don't exactly have Mardi Gras like tracked in my calendar of exactly when it starts. So I get that

message. And the first couple times I got out, I was like, oh my God, is he here? Is he behind me? Is he in the house? When you, when you started saying he knew, I thought you were going to say he knew where I lived and just started showing up there, which I wouldn't put past the king cake baby, but I pray for you that's not ever the case. I don't have a Halloween costume yet this year, actually. I wonder if there's a kingcake baby costume that I bet they could hook you up. They got an alternate mascot kingcake baby head, and you can provide your own adult-sized diaper. And there you go. Then you're really cooking. Yeah, it's not a good cold weather costume, though. That's true. I will, I do have to say, I do have to unfortunately say we've gotten the news and a low

household that for the first time in Halloween history, we are banned from even trailing from a distance our daughter and her friends trick-or-treating. So there's that. Sounds like you just need a better costume, more incognito, and how could you ever be tracked? Or I do, it could be a good way for me to transition into giving out candy. Because let me tell you, if you're a fucking lazy teenager and you come to my house with no costume, you are not getting candy. You're getting turned away. I will risk whatever. I never vandalism. Teenagers are too on their phones to do any vandalism anymore. They're going to go to chat GBT and be like, how do vandalize mean man's house?

And then they're going to just give up because the answer is too much work. I'm not afraid of them. What are they going to do? Okay. Pick your next team, please. I would like to pick a team that I'm hoping you might be able to talk me down on. You're too high on them. I'm a little too high and I'm feeling dangerous.

I feel out on the wire. And that's the Toronto Raptors. please talk me down on the Toronto Raptors? Sure. Their best player has not finished the second round playoff series since 2020. Done. End of talking down.

I mean, I'm with you. I think they're going to be a really good team. Their depth is, I think, just good enough. And they have a top eight that I really like. And beyond that, I get a little antsy. I think they have some interesting fit questions at center and in the perimeter rotation

with Jacobi Walter. Colin Murray Boyles, are they just like nailed to the bench as reserve players or do they get a crack at maybe starting? I mean, they're both very good. You and I love Murray Boyles, I'm sure. Definitely. And I could see them being a top four seed in the Eastern Conference. I just think everyone who goes from that step to this team could be in the finals has to just reckon with the fact that Kauai Leonard has not finished a second round playoff series since 2020. And you have to win three to make the finals the last time I checked. And so I don't know if that's talking them down as a regular season wins producer, but I just, there's no universe in which I could pick a

Kauai Leonard team to make the finals if they are this, if they are relying on him to be their best all-round player, whether they are by the end of the year is an interesting conversation because I think Scotty Barnes is going to be sniffing the top 10 player conversation by the end of this season. But I just, that's, that's my talk. That's my, that's my, that's my, that's my, that's my Do I need any more? No, I think that's sufficient in a way, but it's like the intellectual part of my brain understands everything you're saying,

understands the caveats with Kauai and his health, understands where this team might need a little more depth, understands if Kauai does get hurt, what that does for the regular season, how they're going to manage the rotation, all of those things. And yet the heart wants what it wants, and it wants the highs of watching the Raptors in the playoffs last year

bolstered with one of the best half-court creators in the game in terms of his ability to manufacture his own shot. The exact thing that this team seemed to need at that point in time, plus getting Emmanuel quickly back. Plus, as you say, with Colin Murray Boyles, you're like, I mean, I'm just irrationally

irresponsibly high on at this stage. And I think like he absolutely should be starting for this group. I think he looks to me like an all-defensive guy for years to come. I just think this team's going to be really good. And I look at the rest of that east, which is quite formidable and you just start talking yourself into, okay, like, what if the calves just kind of are who they are and they're going to run up against the same ceiling even with Peyton Watson?

What if Jason Tatum, who has his own health considerations in the season, doesn't hold up in the ways that we expect? What if the Sixers thing go sideways? What if, like, I think the Knicks we expect to be there, but what if the Pistons, like, they're kind of in a weird regression state potentially, both in terms of win total and down, like, downgrading, frankly, from Tobias Harris to John Collins. every team in the mix there has their reason for apprehension.

This is why I'm Fox Mulder. I trust no one. Is that the Martin Landau character that tells him to trust no one? I can't. But whoever says it. The cigarette smoking man, yeah. I think it might be, but he embodies it.

Whether he's told and he does this, he's told in that one and only case. God, I love Fox Mulder. What a guy. I mean, top 10 on my list of if I could be friends with this person from a television show in real life, he would be in my top 10.

See, I don't know about that. I love watching Fox Mulder. Doesn't seem like a great friend, you know? Doesn't seem like he's going to show up to your barbecue. Doesn't seem like he's going to be there to support you. That's fine. Is Fox Mulder giving you a ride to the airport? Absolutely not.

I don't want any of those things. And I don't want any of those things from my current friends. I really just want, like I'd almost rather you not annoy me by being too much of an intrusion in my life. And if you're addicted to your crazy work, I understand that. I can relate to that.

It's very true. I want to go on some adventures with him. I want to get to like, I want to follow like a freight train that's in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico that he thinks has aliens in it. I want to be all part of that. What we were talking about the East? Yeah. Good luck scoring any baskets when Kauai Leonard, Scotty Barnes, and Colin Murray Boyles are on the floor

together. Kauai purely added it, like adds everything the Raptors need, shooting, free throws, everything. And adds also to everything. good at, like forcing turnovers and switching and all that stuff. He's like purely additive. Yeah. Look, you could talk me into them being the number one seed in the East when the playoffs start.

Like that's how many games I think they could potentially win and how crazy the East is. This is my way of saying, including them in this list, that I have them ranked quite high as far as where they're going to turn out in the East. And I am acknowledging here in front of you and everyone else that I understand that that's insane on some level. I understand how foolish that is. but I just can't help it in looking at this collection of players. I think part of it is seeing them in the playoffs without Brandon Ingram,

first because he was struggling and then because he was out, without Emmanuel quickly, and seeing how good they could still be makes me think, okay, if they do need to pace themselves without Gawai for stages of this season, they seem fully capable of that. And a lot of that has to do with Scotty. Well, it's not just like the numbers Scotty Barnes put up and the defense that he played as a shop locker as a, hey, mid-series,

we now want you to guard James Hardin and Donovan Mitchell and all of that. It's that to win at the very highest level in the NBA, there's just a physical and mental urgency you need to play with where you have nothing left in you at the end of these games, where it's just all out all the time. And he hit that level. Like it's a very rare gear to see a player. And you can almost see it in person and through the screen.

like they hit a level of intensity that they even sort of realized like I've never been in this zone of intensity, sustained intensity and work before. And I can do it and I can impact the game all over the place. He hit it. And that was like one of the three or four most important developments league wide of the entire postseason last year. I completely agree. And it's what it's what we're waiting for with so many other guys. And it's just like it's hard to expect someone to learn that or acquire that.

It's like I love Evan Mowbly as a player. I have never once seen in the playoffs that kind of edge and intensity and consistency of effort from Evan Mobley that we saw from Scotty Barnes for all the good things he brings to the table for all the ways that he bolsters Cleveland's defense like still an excellent player but that like that ability to show up in that capacity

in the games that legitimately matter most for your team season is such a unique skill and it's one that is so easy to take for granted especially as we look at oh they did this in the regular season they put up these numbers I love this guys talent on paper. Like what Scottie Barnes did wasn't on paper. It was like on the hardwood sweat equity, like fucking in your face, dunking on people in transition, turning every borderline loose ball scenario into a Raptor's advantage.

Like that stuff matters to me. And I thought he proved about as much as you can prove in that kind of playoff run. So so far we've courted diplomatic positions in Italy and Canada on this and this podcast as I have failed to talk you down from the Raptors. All right. So so far we have named. as our confusing teams. Toronto, Miami, New Orleans,

and Portland, I think, are the four teams we have talked about at length. Let's take a break and we will round out our confusing teams lists. All right, my turn. I'm going to stay in the east, perhaps a lower tier, definitely a lower tier. I don't know what to make of the Atlanta Hawks.

We've hit the Hawks section of the podcast. Blitzed the entire league to finish last season. They might need to hang a banner for this because everyone has to say it now. It's obligatory to mention that they are the only team to beat the Knicks twice in the playoffs in the same series last year.

That's a banner for the Hawks. And yet, I'm just sort of, and they have a great coach in Quinn Snyder. I get it. I'm just sort of unconvinced that it was that real, in part because they fattened up. up so much on the tanking teams who are now gone in the league. And by the way, just hovering over all of this and I'm doing overunders with Bill

tomorrow in the house. I think people, if anything, are underestimating what a sea change is coming because of the lottery reform. Just how much more competitive the league is going to be on a night to night basis, having removed that incentive to lose almost completely. I think it's going to be like a borderline revolutionary kind of change in how the season goes. and, you know, they pick up Dort.

They also pick up Aaron Wiggins and largely bring back everything that happened well for them, everyone that played well for them last year. I just, I don't know if they caught lightning in a bottle. I worry about the collective shooting when they have Daniels and Dort and Jalen Johnson on the floor together, even with Anyeka Ongu having turned himself into like an A plus spot-up shooting center, undersized, undersized. I worry like, can Nikiel Alexander Walker do that? again. I think he actually maybe can. And then, you know, this all presumes that they're going to

bring C.J. McCollum off the bench again and start Alexander Walker, Daniels, Dort, Johnson, Akangu, even though the CJ's starting experiment worked like gangbusters that turned around their whole season. It just feels like they're going to have some puzzles to solve. And, you know, their reserves are like Kisperts all right. Mo Gay is injured, but he's all right. Zubi is okay. A. Sunu is okay. Jack Landau's okay. I'm a little worried about their depth. I just have the heart I guess I'm doing the opposite with you as you did with Toronto with me.

I just like sell me on why this is actually a threat to be a top 16 because I frankly don't see it. I don't think they have one. I mean, we listed all the teams that are like in Miami's way of being a top six team. And I think with Atlanta, you have that group plus Miami plus Orlando. Like it just feels a little too cluttered.

Even if they do ride the highs of exactly how good they looked over the tail end of last season. and even for the start of that series against the Knicks. I don't know if you heard they did beat the Knicks twice in that series. They did. You know, I have heard a little bit about that. I do want to commend them for beating them more than anyone else seemed to be capable of. But you're right that the puzzles are like overlaying in a way for the rotation that are just a little too overcomplicating.

Like I actually, I will defend Dyson Daniels and his effect on the floor, even their ability to survive what he can't do offensively. Like I think he does enough for you as a connecting passer and in some other capacities on offense where he, offsets some of what he is and does a shooter. But him and Lou Doort together is just like kind of a dead on arrival premise for me. Now they're going to be, I mean, when they have Alex, the flip side is Alexander Daniels Dort,

they're going to be really hard to, like perimeter ball handlers are going to have a hard fucking time dealing with this team. For sure. And Thorough Kingston Fleming's in that group too, as far as like the tenacity that they can maintain on the ball. I just want to see it spaced out in the rotation a little bit more. And maybe that's something that gets resolved over the first couple

months of the season. But part of why I'm nervous about that initial starting alignment is like, I want CJ in there, in part because Nikiel is such a good off ball shooter. And the more ball handling responsibility you give to him, the more I think degrades his impact in that way. And if you don't want to do that, then you're making Dyson Daniels your de facto point guard and teams just aren't going to guard him as a shooting threat, which then clogs up everything else. And so like, this team needs to be free flowing and democratic and able to tap into all of these component pieces in order to reach the best version of itself. And I think the more you are playing your best defenders together, the harder and harder that premise is going to be to meet. Yeah, I mean, that's what, that's,

they hit this glorious gear of randomness last year where it's like, here's a miss. And here comes Jalen Johnson bringing the ball up. And wait, is this a Jalen Johnson, Dyson, Dyson, Dyson, Daniels, two-man game? And it's flowing into a C.J. McCollum, Nikol, Nikol, Nikol, the Kee, Alexander, dribble handoff. Wait, that's like, all of that stuff is weird. And where's their actual center? What's he doing? And they just got a lot of mileage out of being random. And weird. Like it was hard to load up off of their non-shooters because they played fast. They used those guys as screeners all over the floor. They just had a randomness to them that was hard to grasp. And I think if you throw that on top of we're playing half of our games against

teams that are just not going to be dialed into what we're trying to do and really care about the result, they got a lot of mileage out of that. Now, they can, they know how to hit that gear. They'll hit it again. Dorrit doesn't strike me as like a good fit in that kind of system. He's not like the most intuitive mover on the ball, off the ball. But then if you start CJ, who do you bring off the bench? I think Alexander Walker is now too good to be a six man. Daniels and Dort are, I mean, the argument for starting them would be, in Daniel's case, everything you just said about his all-court game on both ends of the floor.

The argument for starting Dort would be, well, the whole point of him being on your team is to guard the best player on the other team. but do you have it? I just don't. It just feels like there's a lot of puzzles to solve and some depth issues that make me a little nervous. I think I would like for them to start Daniels and bring Doord off the bench. And I feel comfortable saying that because it feels like every team in the league is trying to stagger at stars, is trying to space them out in the rotation, that there's some stretch where it's like, oh, we expect our second star to hold down our offense for this crucial second quarter,

you know, these five minutes in the second quarter. Congratulations. Now you have to do it with Lou Doort in your jersey. And I think that like I want to see the Hawks leverage. that part of their depth. You're right that when you get into ninth, 10th, 11th men, things get a little shaky for them. And I say that as somebody who fully likes

and respects Mo Gay, but that's just the reality of what they've got cooking. But they really do have the capacity in terms of the 6, 7, 8 deep to be really versatile on defense, really flexible, really relentless. And the more they can lean into that

without totally taking away their offensive identity, I think the better off they're going to be. They won 46 games last year. tied with the Raptors, six seed, probably played the last half of the season at like a 55 win pace.

Yeah. I guess that's what's confusing to me because I don't look at this team as is right now and see in the new world of the Eastern Conference, anything like that. I have them probably closer

to like Charlotte in Orlando in that lower tier of like you can be eighth, ninth, I mean, Orlando will see. They may be on their list. But that's my source of confusion. All right, do you have any other other teams you want to hit real quick? I do.

Can we talk oddly enough about the Los Angeles Lakers? Everybody wants to talk about the Lakers. They were not on my list. Yeah, but you go ahead. I'm hesitant to put them in here because what they did is very clear, right? Like they built a Luca Donchage team for the

first time in the like 20 months since they've had him. All the component pieces make sense. Why you get Walker Kessler? I get all of it. I think where my confusion is, is personally is understanding and calibrating like this is a simpler premise of a Lakers team.

Does that simplicity and the straightforward way that this team is going to play make them streamlined for regular season's success where they're going to rattle off 50 plus wins or does it oversimplify them to a degree where look if you lose LeBron James you lose the ability to route around

some of the problems that arise. And one of the unique catches of building a Luka team as we've seen in teams past specifically with the Mavs, is like if he is out, the team cannot really function without him. Like he's so unique in what he brings to the table that his absence is especially painful.

And so I'm looking at the Lakers and wondering how much I should be trusting them, how much I should be weighing the reliability of what it seems like they've built relative to, you know, the variance of Minnesota or of Denver or of Houston, these other teams that are going to be in their mix.

I'm just trying to understand like what the simplicity of what they've accomplished here gets them. And I really don't quite know. So in the non-Luca games, however many there are, what is it about Reeves that you, that you don't trust quite as much? It's just size and he's obviously not as good a passer as Luca. But like, he was awesome. He was like averaging almost 30 a game last year before he got

hurt. And I think he would be my number one pick, maybe by hair over Cooper flag for most likely first time All-Star. But is it just that? Is it the playmaking chops? It's the playmaking job. he'll have incredible scoring games. And I want to be fair, like, he'll even have your eight and nine and ten assists games on occasion. I just think the way that Luca creates threats

and sometimes like imaginary threats in the minds of defensive coaches and defenders on the floor is part of what makes him such a difficult problem to solve. And so, yeah, if it's a temporary thing, a couple games here and there, Austin Reeves fully capable of managing that spot. I just have like the visions in my head of Derek Jones Jr. turning back into a pumpkin because Luca Donchich isn't out there to turn him into a threat.

And then you look out here and you see Zaire Williams or Matisse Thibel or like, are they going to try to squeeze Jared Vanderbilt into the rotation? Who is Walker Kessler as an offensive player without Luca Donchich on the floor? We really have, I mean, we're trying to figure out who he is as an offensive player, period. And so I think all of it makes total sense to me as constructed. It just feels like linear in a way that maybe they run into their ceiling quickly or maybe they don't, but I both get what they're trying to accomplish, and I'm not sure where it takes them. Are you more or less confused about the Lakers than Dalton Connect was when he failed to run the play

that JJ Reddick called out of a timeout and forced the anger, number one, angriest time out of the year? And I think both the end of Dalton Connect and the really the end quota of the two weeks when the Lakers were hailed his geniuses for, quote, stealing Dalton Connect in the draft. I'm not confused about the Lakers. I just think they're going to be really good, not good enough to make a finals run, too good to be out of the top six. I just think Luke is that good.

Look, if he misses a ton of games, it's obviously a game changer. I think he's that good. I think Reeves is that good. I think the ecosystem makes sense. Kessler is going to have a big year. I was going to say by his standards, he didn't play last year

and has played no meaningful games in his entire NBA career. But I think he'll be good. I just think they're going to be what they always are, which is like a 50 win team who isn't good enough to challenge the spurs or the thunder. And that's totally fine. Like they're still kind of in phase two of a three phase plan to reorient around Luca, although they've used almost all the assets that they have.

Even like Colin Sexton is a third ball handler. I do like it in there. Yeah. I just don't, yeah, I had something else to say about the Lerick because I forgot. I just don't have a lot of mystery about them, I guess. I think some of my mystery is, like, how these combinations of supporting players work. Like, you know, in the Quentin Grimes, Colin Sexton, Zaire Williams, Jake Laravia, Sandra Mammo Kellyshvilly, like, cohort.

Just naming some guys, baby. I mean, this is what we do. But, like, who are the two, three, four, or, you know, I guess Austin's going to be plugged in at the two, but, like, who are the forward tandums or the wing tandems that actually make sense, that have compatible skill sets that aren't just like, oh, this guy makes sense as a spot option for Luca, but are bringing something unique to the team. I think there's some potential there,

and maybe that's a Zaire Williams question as much as anything, as somebody who maybe has a little more upside to explore than those other guys, but I'm eager to see how the rotation shakes out and who J.J. feels comfortable, kind of putting out there in specific combinations. Yeah, I think Cam Carr will get chances.

Definitely. A new hero could get chances. Like, they're going to have all these guys. It's not just like the thiable Zaire Williams' reclamation projects, although Batisse really has. a great year in limited action for Portland last year. I just think if Luca plays 65 games,

the floor is just too high for me to be all that worried about them. All right, I'm going to give you a couple of teams that I have, and you can pick one or two to talk about. Because as I said, I prepared many, many teams that I thought wrongly that we would overlap. Here are four teams that I have that we haven't hit yet. Indiana, Orlando, Detroit, and Dallas. Oh, okay.

See, I'm not confused by Indiana. Okay? I think maybe for the same reasons that you're not confused by the Lakers. They have a little bit more change. I mean, the Lakers have a tremendous amount of shift in continuity given all the new pieces on their roster. But we know who the Pacers are and how they play. And I think incorporating Zoo is going to be a fun wrinkle to that.

One that I'm eager to see how what Carlisle does with it, what Tyrese Hallibor does with it. I just expect the Pacers to be really good. And I feel more confident about them than almost any other team that's in that kind of middle, upper middle class of the Eastern Conference. I'm very curious about their first 20 games because what my confusion is is basically like when Vegas spits out an over under number that is just way lower than I would have expected for a team that is, you know, a year and change removed from almost winning the championship

and has its best player back healthy, I think to myself, what am I missing? And when I talk to people around the league about like, what am I missing? Because I'm just higher on this team that is reasonable. And I just may be over-indexing on like the place they found as a team, the magic, the rhythm they found where the ball's just popping everywhere. Everybody, they have the mind meld where like you cut here, I cut there. Everything's we're running all that. And the answers I hear back are, well, you remember, Halliburton's coming out for the Achilles Ter. We'll see how the first 30 games are.

Zoo, spacing, hiccups. I had Ty on my pod last week. He kind of downplays. Like that's the kind of thing you guys talk about. We'll be fine. We know how to play basketball. Bench, like T.J. McConnell wasn't quite the same guy last year. Is Jaris Walker ready?

Is Kelly Uber going to fit? Do they have a backup five or is it just topping? I get all that. I just think what I say the first 20 games, I really mean like, how does Ty look? Like if he's like how like almost 100% I think they're just going to be really, really good. And they just, they're a team.

They know how to play as a team. They amplify each other. But I'm just, that was my source of confusion. What about the other three? Can we talk about the Pistons? Yeah, because I'm surprised that I had them on my list, but I do think they merit a spot here. So you go ahead.

I also was considering them. And I think some of it is just the idea of the Pistons as a 60 win team already feels like a relic. of a moment that kind of went by. And I think part of that is just like their roster is changing shape a little bit. Part of it is whatever lingering feelings may be happening around Jalen Duren and his role on the team and how prioritized he is or is not. And then some of it felt like that was a great window that they seized on.

And now it's kind of back to the reality of an East that's a little deeper, a little more competitive, that understands what the Pistons are trying to accomplish and is ready to challenge it in the way that we saw teams do in the playoffs. I'm just not sure where their upward momentum is. And I say that and I fully acknowledge it's a weird thing to put out loud about a team with this many young players. Like clearly Cade can be better. A SAR can be better. Even going down the line like Ron Holland, his best basketball, I would think and hope is still ahead of him at some point.

Like there's so many guys individually that should be better. And yet I think the pistons are going to be decidedly worse as a team in terms of a regular season product. And where that leaves them, I really don't know. I mean, on Ron Holland, his team option for next season is $11.5 million. I haven't, having not talked to anybody about this situation because it's Ron Holland, it's not the biggest priority in the world. Yeah. I don't, that strikes me as the fourth year option. That's like not a no-brainer to be picked up.

That's a lot of money for a guy who couldn't play in the playoffs. And we'll see if he's able to play in the playoffs this year. I think, John, go ahead. I think based on who he's been, there's no way he has validated that, that, that, We live in a world where Jamal Shed just got like $8 million a year. I think Jamal Shed's been a better player than Ron Holland. I'm glad I didn't get a chance to talk about that contract. And I know the world is dying for Jamal Shed content.

I thought it was a great contract. I actually had when I was penciling out the Raptors future finances, just tinkering around a couple of weeks back, I had him at like 12 a little close to the mid-level exception. And I think that's a good deal for the Raptors and also shows that the players who are facing restricted free agency or they're just kind of reserved guys are kind of looking at what's happening, getting a little like, all right, let me secure what I can secure. Yeah. I think the John Collins thing is a real interesting wild card for them.

Can he make enough threes and kind of dial into how they play? And, you know, I talked about this last week with Steve Nash, about the Gell and Duran deal and, you know, the piston sort of now betting on a, on a core that has two total non-shooters as part of it, and Assar Thompson and Gieland. Duren and how, you know, does that disqualify you from like inner circle title contention? I actually don't think that it does. But what you really need is a lot of other things to go exactly right. And you need those two guys who are non-shooters, if they're going to continue to be non-shooters,

to just get better at every single part of their game. And more specifically, the on-ball parts of their game. That means a Sarr Thompson's going to have to do more ball handling, more screening. Jail and Dern already does a ton of screening. can you unlock him as a passer a little bit more, is always going to be cade as the center of the universe. But like the universe just has, it's got to be a little bit more varied with those guys.

And like that's part of the adventure to me of this team and part of why they're confusing because I don't know how ready those guys are to do that. I don't know, you know, is Paul Reed ready to just be like true blue backup center? Isaiah Stewart's not here. How does John Collins fit? Can Dennis Jenkins do it again?

Can Ron Holland even get minutes? for this team. How do they sort out the Duncan Robinson, Kevin Herder, Isaiah Joe, Shooter, Shooter, Shooter, Shooter, minutes. There's a lot of questions. There's a lot of people, not a lot. I've heard from several people around the league who are like, hey, I don't think the pistons are going to be a top six team this

year. And you want to recoil from that because, I want 60 games last year. All right, but in a regular year, that's like 55 when you take out the tanking teams. And now the East is so much better that that's, let's let's say they're 52. Like, it's not impossible to see that happening.

I mean, I think especially if you're talking about not just regular season results, but playoff quality. Like who are the teams that were really going to trust by the end of the year? I think it's perfectly realistic

that the Pistons are not in the top six of that group. Even if they do have, let's say, another season where they win in the mid-50s, that would be a really nice result for them under the circumstances. But I'm kind of,

I'm still waiting for a lot of things from them. Like we have the proof of concepts of who they can be as a regular season juggernaut in the, context of last year. I want to see them make life easier for Cade in ways that they have struggled to do. Like, it's nice that he can carry the weight for so many people that he can be that sort of ball dominant primary playmaker, high pick and roll usage.

It's a really fun style to watch. And seeing his assent in it has been great. I just don't know that I fully trust like a Kevin Hurter bounced back shooting year. John Collins, a guy who like multiple teams have taken a look at and said like, you're not really giving us the things that we actually need in terms of this spot that he's going to make a meaningful difference for them. Like I like the Isaiah Joe pickup, but is that enough to save a team that has this many spatial considerations?

I just think they have some real systemic flaws, and those are still there and they're unresolved, and it'll be easier to live with them if, like, Jalen Duren is a more effective playoff performer and understands how to play through physicality a little more or has, like, some mid-range counters or other ways that tap into his game, But even that doesn't feel like it solves everything.

And even their playoff run is kind of in the eye of the beholder, right? Like you would say, if you're a pistol fan, say, hey, wait a we got to the seventh game of the second round of the playoffs, despite a guy who made all NBA in the regular season in Jail and Dern, kind of crapping the bed for the entire playoffs. And then you could also say, well, you were down three one to the magic before Franz Wagner got hurt and in major, major trouble in a one-eight series. I think Detroit's floor is pretty high. they're just going to defend the hell out of everyone to be super physical. J.B. Bickerstaff is super demanding regular season coach. Yep. But I don't consider them a contender to like win to make the finals next year, I don't think.

I just, last thing as a Texan, a former Texan, spiritually still, you know, we never really leave. I, recency bias, all of that, just watched Kyrie's first game. Are the, are the, are the mads a little bit better than they're giving credit for, for being like, I just, Like, Kyrie looked like Kyrie, just, just pit or bad dribbles, first step. You know, the shooting is always going to be there. If they have two of the top 30 players in the NBA, do we need to just sort of like, all the, all the mad stuff has been, they turn the page on Anthony Davis. They have Cooper Flaggit, who's taller now, and they have a million power forwards.

They're a weird team and like, blah, blah, blah. Are they going to trade Kyrie? Let's everybody do their fake Kyrie trades to all these different places. I'm not saying they're like world beaters. but in that sort of 7 to 10, 7 to 12, whatever conversation in the West, I mean, if they have two of the top 30 guys in the league, are they just better at, are they better than we think they're going to be? They feel like a pretty clear shoe in for the play end to me.

I think the high end is going to be a little tougher with this collection, but they're also a type of confusing we haven't really hit on so much, which is just there are so many potential trade pieces here, and there's so many different ways they could approach their roster if they decide they need to make moves, and they do kind of need to make moves to clear room for some of these guys. But on the Kyrie front alone, the Mavs needed guys last year who could literally dribble.

Like, Naji Marshall was running point for them as a matter of life and death. Cooper Fly obviously had instantly. Najee Marshall was ready to kill you while running point. I love this is a Naji Marshall friendly zone. I love that dude. You have your rules on group chat. Yes. One of my rules on the Zach Lowe show and I have a lot of rules.

One of my rules is you're always happy to have Nogie Marshall. Marshall around. Just like whether it's at a party in a basketball game, like it's always, it's always a pleasure with Najee Marshall's around. As, you know, as a slasher, I'm, I am over the moon about having him as a piece of any team. But I think that the needs and the requirements of last year's roster were so egregious and so outside the bounds of what a normal basketball team looks like, that just getting some normalcy at the point, even if it's like, you know, more of a scoring guard than a playmaking guard in Kyrie is going to make a huge difference for so many of these. guys. And so, like, seeing Cooper set up off the ball to take, like, get more actual scoring

opportunities that he doesn't have to create for himself, seeing some of the bigs tapped into his lob threads again, seeing these forwards. And they have like a lot of really good forward depth right now. They're all like good basketball players. Like they all can do a little bit of everything. PJ Washington, Santay all dumb. I mean, that Najee Marshall, Merez Johnson Jr. will see what Risa Shea can give them. He didn't look particularly good to me when he got on the floor in preseason. But there's like those guys are all players. But they're in the. at Memphis class for that reason, where it's like there's a lot of depth here, and we're going to see what it means. I think what separates them from the Grizzlies is, as you mentioned,

like having Kyrie, having Cooper Flag, like, that's a degree of high-end talent that we usually attribute to, you know, a lower playoff seat. And if there's going to be enough here to cobble that together, I'd be a little bit surprised just given their competition in the West, but it wouldn't be altogether shocking. I mean, the X factor is obviously like, where is Derek Lively? Like, what is his health status? When are we going to see him? because, you know, we all love the longest-tenured Mavericks since Dirk Novitsky in Dwight Powell. But like, I just, I don't think there's really a place for Dwight Powell backup center

on the court in a lot of meaningful games anymore. They could play PJ Washington Center, whatever. It's funny you mentioned the Grizzlies because when you were, when you were saying before, I need you to talk me down about this team. Yeah. I knew you weren't going to say the Grizzlies because you are, I think, a little calmer about the Grizzlies than the rest of the ringer.com universe. I will say as someone like when they're over under came out, it's 29 and a half.

I was like hammered. They're just too deep. They have too. And I, having watched them play in the preseason and they blitz the Hawks and then they lost to the magic. Who cares? It's preseason. I do worry about the top 30 player issue for them a little bit more having watched it play out on the. There's just a lot of tie Jerome.

Like I just a little bit more tied Jerome than I'm comfortable with. And I do wonder if we're all getting a little ahead of our skis on the Grizzlies. But then I also wonder, like, is Camboos are going to be a top 30 player right off the bat, at least offensively. I don't, I don't, I feel less wildly optimistic about Memphis than I did 10 days ago. It's something that I think we talk around and talk through a little too quickly when we're thinking about teams like the Hawks, right? like the magic that they were able to find

in the balance of their offense and the flow of their team, it's so easy to just say like, oh, these deep teams are going to find their version of that, right? Like the ball is not going to stick with Tidrome. It's not going to stick with Scotty Pippen Jr. It's not going to stick with Cedric Coward on the wing, like trying to establish himself as a high-level player.

Of course it is. Like, it is until it's proven otherwise. And so like for all of the depth there, I think it gives them the ability to overwhelm teams over the run of a game, right? Like they're just going to be a better second quarter, early fourth quarter team than the vast majority of their opponents because of it. But the high end, like their starters are probably going to get outscored on balance for the season.

They're probably going to lose those minutes unless Boozer looks great or Zach Edie is dominant. Like there are avenues to do it, but it's just a lot to put on them to say that they're going to be a winning or like a high level or even a playoff team right out right out of the gate. Edie is the other one where you would say, well, if you're betting on the Grizzlies, you're betting on maybe Edie is the guy who emerges as a lot. like a top 30, 35 player in the NBA. And then you're like, well, he's going to play 23 minutes a game or whatever it's going to be because they're going to be very careful with him.

He's going to only play X amount of games. And as impactful as he is, I mean, he changes literally everything about how their team plays when he's on the floor. You know, I'll be interested to see where I end up tomorrow on the Over Under's podcast with the Grizzlies. Because I think their line is bumped up to 30 and a half. And I, we'll see. We'll see how that is. All right, Rob Mahoney, thank you for being confused with me. We got group chat.

You guys are roll out. How many are out now? Where are you in the power rankings? You've recorded all of them, but where are you? Yes, I believe four of them are out, which would leave us with the final 10 teams yet to be unveiled. So we're really getting into the meat of it now. All right. That's going to be my Peloton ride today because I think I've listened to the first two.

So what does that mean? I'm through the bottom 10. The bottom 10. I'm making my way through the dregs and into the meaty middle where a lot of these confusing teams lives. And Prestige, CB, you're doing a lot of slow horses, which I'm jealous about. Anything else? Slow horses right now.

We're about to launch into the Gilded Age later this month. So, you know, come to us for all of your costume drama needs. There's, I got to tell you, I just, something about costume drama. I just see it and I'm like, no, not for me. Like, I just, I don't know. I don't know what it is. Like, really? All of the palace intrigue that exists in the NBA among these, like, ultra wealthy people

sniping at each other for our. reasons. It's just the same thing transposed over the early 1900s. I guess I'm not, just not for me. You know? But who knows? All right. Rob Mahoney. Thanks, bud. Thanks, I appreciate it. All right, that's it for today's edition of the Zach Lowe show. Thank you to Rob Mahoney. Thanks as always to Mike, Billy and Jonathan on production. Thanks to you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe show. We'll be back later

this week, likely on Thursday for our second episode of the week. In the meantime, I will be on with Bill and House tomorrow doing our over unders. Stay tuned for that. Thanks, everybody. 21 or over and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and over and present in DC or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or 1-800-800-Mai reset. Call 1-888-88-789-77-777 or visit ccpgaggat-org slash chat in Connecticut or is MD Gamblinghelp.org and Maryland. Hope is here. Visit Gamblinghelpline, MA,

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