The Zach Lowe Show - The Seven Teams Without a Playoff Series Win in the 2020s!

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

Zach is joined by Law Murray to discuss the seven teams that have not won a playoff series this decade and rank them in order of the likelihood that they'll break that streak this season. Then, Luke Epplin comes on to share stories from his new book, 'Moses and the Doctor.' (0:00) Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show! (1:31) Law Murray joins the show! (3:03) The Clippers remain a mess (7:31) Ranking the seven teams that haven’t won a playoff series in the 2020s (9:56) The Magic still have the best chance to win a playoff series (32:33) Ranking the same seven teams based on which ones you'd want to run over the next five years (35:37) The Wizards jump up the list here (1:05:21) Fake Domantas Sabonis trades (1:15:46) Luke Epplin joins the show! (1:16:39) It’s been 43 years since the 76ers won a title (1:30:50) How Dr. J got his nickname (1:34:46) Darryl Dawkins was unfiltered in interviews Host: Zach Lowe Guests: Law Murray and Luke Epplin 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. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Create a Personalized Price Plan® today. https://www.statefarm.com/lp/football/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. where some see heroes and others see egos. Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. Coming up on the Zach Lowe show, it's September. Very little is going on.

Most of it is Clippers-related. And that's why Law Murray from The Athleticist here. He covers the Clippers. What's going on with the Clippers? Why can't they stay out of the news even for silly things like Bradley Beale having Chris Paul's number all of a sudden? Is anyone answering the phones with the clippers? Do the landlines still work? Do they have landlines?

What's chucked the condor up to? We get it all of that briefly. And then the meat of it is we take the seven teams. There are only seven that have not won a playoff series in the NBA in the 2020s. Arbitrary deadline, sure, but it's fun. And we draft them and we do two drafts. draft number one, who's most likely to break that streak this year? Draft number two, even more fun, which would we most like to run as GM for the next five years?

There are seven teams, and I'm going to tell you which they are. You should try to guess them, and that's all coming up with Law Murray. And then special guests, Luke Eplin is here. I'm not sure you've heard of Luke Epplin. You should. He just wrote a great book, Moses and the Doctor, about the 1983 Philadelphia 76ers, but more broadly about Moses Malone, Julius serving, the ABA, their journey to that title, in 1983 for a team that is loaded up to try to win its first title since 1983.

That's all coming up on the Zach Lowe show. Welcome to the Zach Lowe-Murie from The Athletic is here. He covers the clippers, which means he's been extremely busy, but he also covers the whole league. He knows every team's rotation inside and out, which is going to come in handy for a fun little draft gimmick idea I have for today during the doldrums of September. Law, how are you doing?

How are you dealing with the 100-degree heat? both metaphorically and literally the heat on the clippers and the heat in Los Angeles. Man, I'm trying to limit my movements as much as possible. I'm just trying to survive and subsist. You know that September is supposed to be the quiet part of the year for us, chill out as much as possible so that you can actually prepare to cover this lady for nine months. And between this year and last year, that's been a myth, something that you can actually put in practice.

And yeah, we've had some crazy weather out here. I'm, you know what, man, I'm about as ready for pumpkin spices that, you know, the girls the coffee shot right now. So, you know, I need that fall weather to come in real quick. I've never, I've never dabbled in any pumpkin spice, anything coffee-wise. And you don't need to. I assume it's bad, which is why I haven't done. I've tried the pumpkin beer before, which was like, I don't understand.

why we have to do this. Anyway, look, Clippers. Clippers have dominated my last three podcasts. I'm going to take a little break from them. Obviously, I've done all the verdict, I've read the report five times. I just want to ask you this. Have you talked to anyone in any kind of position of power with the Clippers since the verdict came down? I've placed a few calls, didn't think anyone would pick up, nobody picked up, not really even sure who's running the team right now. I assume it's Trent Redden, but it's not like I've confirmed that with anybody because no one will pick up a call? Are they just like no one's answering any calls or is there any business going on? I mean, everything is kind of radio silent right now. Like,

even from a communication standpoint, like Wednesday was a loud day last week and they released one statement immediately and then the letter from one of the many David Kelly's in our lives now came afterwards. And it's been nothing. Even on social media, it's been. It's been nothing. And to your point, they promised litigation. That's the only option they have. There's the board of governors meeting next week. I wonder who is supposed to sit in for that, given that to the people who would normally be in that spot had been suspended. You know who they should have to send? Chuck the Condor. Chuck the Condor should have to come to the board of governor's meeting in his stupid fat shoes with a stupid beak and sit in the board of governor's meeting and give a press

conference afterwards where he just answers no questions because that's the most of the they might as well just have a mascot no commenting because no one's going to comment anyway. That mascot was made for you specifically, Zach, just so you know that. No, Chuck stinks. Chuck stinks. So you started writing about mascots and that's when they're like, you know what, we need to participate. Don't blame me for Chuck the Condor.

Okay, you can blame me for a lot of things, but not for Chuck the Condor. Okay, but the one thing that did, they did make news today was Bradley Beals taking Chris Paul's number. It's like of all the days to do this. First Chris Paul goes on a podcast. I can't remember which one saying he's never been more disrespectful in his career. The one the clippers waved him in the middle of the night, bam one night last year in Miami, I think. And now Bradley Beal, Bradley Beal is a great player, take his number, whatever. I mean, I don't know.

Can they just like retire, Blake, Riffins number out of nowhere for just some dose of goodwill. Can I just say this? Because I don't really make this point publicly. I've made it privately plenty of times because a lot of people have asked me about this team that I cover. This is most A historical franchise in the league, certainly. And I don't, you'd have to involve some other sports leagues.

I think they'd be up right up there too. When I say A historical, obviously it's a bad history. specifically in the 80s when this franchise moved to Los Angeles, but under the current ownership and lead of the business president specifically, I mean, they have not, this is an intentional choice to not really honor any part of their franchise's past, but the way that they have handled things with the recent and successful pillars of their past. I mean, you don't get Kauai here without Lob City. I truly believe that they have shown that they are not very interested in that.

They have not, even right now, they are not showing that they are interested in even addressing their fans in any way possible. You know, everything has been defensive about, what has come out. And I mean, I don't even put this on Brad, because Brad gave up his number last year. He was here before Chris, and they have a great relationship. And, you know, Brad wore zero so Chris could have his number. This isn't about Brad. This is about who makes these decisions to say, we're keeping this number out of circulation,

which they did when Chris wasn't here for seven years. And now the first all-season Chris is done playing. they give this number. So Brad's taking the heat, but let's apply the heat where it absolutely should be. And that's the one of the Clippers team that has been increasingly toned out

for over the last couple of years. I was just Googling now to see what number Chuck the Condor wears. If there's anything embarrassing about it, he wears 213, the area code. So there you go. Yeah, look, I mean, I don't want to talk about the Clippers anymore.

Here's the gimmick for, by the way, by the time this comes out, who knows, maybe Balmer is sued the league. I will be at Board of Governors next week, eagerly awaiting all the fallout, all the comments. I've talked to a bunch of owners about this. They are all kind of like, wow, okay, the report said a lot of stuff that, you know, really solidified everything and like he's getting what he deserves. But anyway, okay, on to today's gimmick.

In thinking of like fun things to do in September, I just started kind of tooling around. And I came up with this. seven teams out of 30 have not won a playoff series in the NBA in the 2020s. So in just the last six seasons, seven seasons, I guess, 23 of the 30 NBA franchises have won at least one playoff series. There's a couple that are just squeaking in in 2020, the Rockets and the Raptors, that's the last time they won, are arbitrary cutoff dates and round numbers, stupid,

or our human caveman brains, stupid and we like round numbers. Yeah, but we got to do something. So seven teams have not won a playoff series in the 20s. Here they are in no particular order. The Charlotte Hornets, 2002, I think, is their last playoff series win. That's a long time, law. You were like, you were like barely born in 2002. The Washington Wizards, the Sacramento Kings, who have the second longest drought 2004,

the Chicago Bulls, the New Orleans Pelicans, the Portland Trailblazers, and the Orlando magic. Those are the seven teams that have not won a single playoff series in 2020. We're going to draft them, rank draft them in two ways. First, we're going to pick, and I'm going to give you the first. You can choose if you want the first pick or not. Who is most likely to break that streak this coming season? And then more fun, which team of these seven again redraft would we most like to run for the next five years?

And run, I guess, is GM. So we got to work for Tom Dundon if we want to run the play. So we got to be, we don't get to be the owner, the governor. We get to be the GM. Okay, you can have the first pick if you want. Let's start again. Orlando, Charlotte, Washington, Portland, Pelicans, Bulls, Kings. Who has the, we're going to start.

Who has the best chance to break their no-series win streak this year? Do you want to draft first in this round or the long-term round? Oh, give me the first pick in this round. Okay. Yeah. First pick, I'm going to go with the team that damn near knocked off of one seat, and that's the Orlando Magic. They have the strength of continuity,

the strength of being a good team that's been in the mix. We are waiting for Franz Botner and Palo and Carol and Jalen Suggs to play a respectable amount of games together in the same season. They have a foundation of defense. They have the things that I think they are well suited for playoff basketball. They've lost, what, two games seven. is over the last three years. I think it makes sense for them to, we'll see how Sean Sweeney approaches that roster.

But I think they have as good a chance of these seven teams to not just make the playoffs, but to get to the semifinals at least. Yeah, they were number one with the bullet on my list. It's an easy call. I'm a little worried about their depth. And particularly since their starters all had histories of missing games, other than Desmond Bain, who's kind of an Ironman for them. But we'll see.

Maybe De Silva makes a little bit of a leap. Maybe the Jamal Kane thing at the end of last year when he had the dunk of the year is like semi-reel. We'll see. But I am a little worried about their depth. But I think their top end talent, their defense is just so good. I think they're going to actually kind of getting slept on as a candidate for like the fifth or sixth seed in the east. It's going to require some things to go wrong on the true juggernauts in the conference. But I think a couple of those juggernauts, Boston and Philly and particularly.

particular, maybe even the calves have a little bit of volatility and some downside volatility to them. So I think Orlando's, they're just like rock solid. And if they get in, they're going to have a chance. So they were my number one pick too. I get the number two pick. This is also an easy one for me. Well, not that easy. But here's what you have to think about. Like the East is harder to get into the playoffs, even into the play in than the West. But we're talking about franchises that are, you know, on the bottom or the upswing, they're going to be seven and eight if they get in most likely,

which means in the west, you're facing San Antonio or Oklahoma City. And so as much as you might want to pick a Western Conference team high, I don't really think you can. I will pick the Charlotte Hornets with the second pick in the draft. They have a chance to be a pretty dynamic

offensive team with Nas Reid at the four. They're super deep. Like they're going to have guys who played last year, both for Charlotte and other teams. teams who are just not even in their rotation. This year, like, Sean James might have to fight for a rotation spot. Grant Williams may have to fight for a rotation spot, although I think based on his play last year, he should get one. T. John Salon, probably like the number six pick, whose team option going

forward is kind of a big deal for them, like an interesting decision. I don't know if it's a no-brainer. He may not be in the rotation. They have Royce O'Neill, Grayson Allen that they added in the Miles Bridges trade. Kobe White for Lamello, probably a little bit of a little bit of. of a step back offensively, but I don't know how much of a step back it's really going to be when you add the added spacing of Nas Reid. They're kind of penciled in his 11th in the east. I think that's probably appropriate. Defensively, it's going to be a bit of a challenge for them.

But I think on some nights, they're going to pour in like 130 points. You're going to be like, wow, the hornet's just like shot 53s or 63s and made 24 of them. So just pure upside. If they get in, someone on the calves or the Pistons is injured, like, who knows? So they were my number two pick. I think that's an interesting number two pick because I feel like they're going to miss Lamello a lot this season coming up. I just, I want to see how they play basketball pretty much. Because when you have Lamello, you have a guy who naturally draws, you know, double teams, absorbs that.

And then you have, I feel like that made the game. pretty easy for the rest of those guys, especially January on. They were, they weren't just beating teams that they were demolishing them. And it was good teams that they were beating. I mean, they put it on some of the best teams in the league, West or East. And I want to see how Charles Lee reestablishes how he's going to facilitate creating advantages. I can see if they figure it out with the group of guys they have. I think they're going to be relevant in the East, but I can see the floor keeping them in that bottom five in the East as well.

Like I said, I think 11th is appropriate for them. I am like a Lamello top 1% like media supporter, so to speak, I guess. I think he's very good. The playoffs will challenge him if he ever gets there physically, defensively, all that stuff. Regular season, when he's healthy, another big question. question. No question. He was like, he was their best player last year. He was their offensive fulcrum. And I think part of part of their bet is con and Brandon Miller have can both level up a

little bit. Kobe White can be 80% of Lamello. We'll see if that's true or not. I like the Steinbach kid they drafted by the way. Okay, make, you get the third pick. Yeah. So Charlotte would have been my third pick. So I'm going to have Portland up here. Portland had a very weird year last year, which is appropriate because it's Portland. Anyone who's been in Portland can understand that. They got better as the year went on. And they have a core there where I feel like over the last quarter of the year, they were the best defense in the league.

Donovan Klingin is a real presence there. Drew Holliday, when he played, they were really good. When he didn't play, they looked like a team that was going. going to be like most of the Blazers teams that we saw in the 2020s. They have way too many guards who in one aspect or another need the ball. I really want to see how Mike Anori figures add out. But there's something to work with there, even with Shadden Sharp being out until February. There's something to work with there.

I don't think, again, you already got one injured guard. We don't expect Jha, Drew, Dame Lillard. Those guys have all been injured. Scout missed a bunch of last year, but they're going to have a bunch of guards who neither of them need to do more than necessary because your best own ball player is Denny Obdia. You know, like we have to treat Damian Liller like an Achilles tendon patient,

not like the franchise legend who was doing things the last time Portland won a playoff series. That's why we're in this conversation now. So if they can retain the kind of defense that they played last year, if they can just organize their offense. I think the biggest issue with their offense last year is it was thoroughly disorganized. Maybe that's a thing that happens when your head coach gets arrested and banished one game

into season. Could be. Also, no one can shoot. They are a bad shooting team from all over the floor. Maybe that gets better this year with Dame back and with some of the young guys developing and without Shaden Sharps long twos. Look, like, quality-wise, they would. be that if the league were a conference list playoff structure, they would be the number two

pick in this draft. I had them actually fourth just because of the Oklahoma City, San Antonio, even if things break right in their six, they're going to face Denver or somebody like that. Now you put them against a team like Houston, who's got some, you know, volatility in it as well. That could be different. But I like this team. Defensively, they're going to be really hard to play despite, well, I don't know if that's true anymore with the guards that they're going to start, but there's something here. I had them fourth, though, which means I get to pick now with the fourth pick, the team I had third. I can't believe I have them third. I have the Washington Wizards now that I will take in this draft. And look, it's the East. It's the East.

And if you draw the right team in the 1-8-27 matchup, and you have Anthony Davis healthy if he's still on the team, and you have Trey Young healthy if he's still on the team, and you get some development from your young guys. Like, who the hell knows? I don't know. I don't think the Wizards are going to be very good. I'm not sure how long Anthony Davis is going to be on the team. I know the defensive limitations of Trey Young.

I have absolutely no earthly idea why they signed him to a max contract with a freaking player option at the end of it or a borderline max contract, whatever it was. But there's like some quotient of actual NBA talent here. Super excited for DeBanza. Will Riley year two, Trey Johnson, year two, Kishon George, year three. three. I just look, if everything went right and they draw an opponent who's got a guy and a half injured, who the hell knows? So they're my pick and I'm sticking with it. And I think we've hit the right top four. I don't know. Where did you have Washington? Yeah. Yeah, I had

Washington in that four spot as well. I mean, fit is a complete theory. And we just, you know, but improvement is one thing. Like, we're not talking about, hey, we, we, you improve they'll be they'll be better they're trying to win games they have veterans um they i don't think they've won 20 games in the last three years like they're going to clear those very low bars um like for me we didn't you didn't like j devonsa i'm i'm so intrigued to see what kind of player that dude is going to be in year one you know like how much of a workload will he need to have being at this isn't cooper flag you know Cooper flag had to come in there and jason kid was like, hey, I made Janus a point guard.

We're just going to do that because we have a complete dearth of any other play start her options. Like, AJ doesn't have to do that. And then defensively, they are, their roster is trying this year. Because besides AD, they have Alexar. I forgot even to mention Alexar, who have always been pretty, pretty probably higher on than consensus. Kulobali is solid defensively. I think he probably comes off the bench this year.

But to your point on DeBanza, everything he showed on the ball in Summer League was like, whoa. Now, he's not going to be on the ball as much because Trey Young is going to be on the ball a lot because that's what Trey does. Can he can he do the off ball? He's going to make enough jump shots. He's going to do the off. But now he can do some screening and we'll see how that fits with AD and Sarr, who are also screeners. It's kind of like we talked about Portland. If Denny doesn't have the ball, how much is he diminished as a player?

And if he does have the ball, what is John Morant doing off the ball? Can he still be? So these are all the equities. These are why these questions are why these teams are in this conversation. But I think we've hit the right top, top, what are we, four in? Yeah, we're four in. So you get to pick fifth. Yeah.

Now we're down to the pelicans, the Bulls, and the Kings. And again, the question is most likely to snap their streak of not winning a playoff series this season. I think number five is pretty clear, and it's depressing the bottom three, but who you got at fifth? I got the Pelicans at five. It's got to be the Pelicans. I got the Pelicans at five. It's another team that didn't really do much with their roster at all. We're waiting on the official acquisition of Benedict Mathron.

That's obviously just a formality at this point. But, I mean, that team, they, expected to be better last year. They weren't. We'll see what Jamal Mosley has to do. Jamal Mosley inherence a lot of the same issues in New Orleans, right down to a normal one overall pick out of Duke at Powerford, you know,

trying to figure an offense around that ball-heavy player and go from there. So we are not saying to you folks. that these teams will, one, make the playoffs or two win a playoff series. We're just ranking a set of teams. And New Orleans is a team I feel better about with that specific endeavor than the other two teams we have to choose from. Look, New Orleans just sheer talent has to be the pick here. It's actually, I would probably even place them higher.

Again, there's just a conference thing where if we're talking about winning a playoff series, they're just not going to beat the best teams in the West. But, you know, you put Dejante Murray, who looked pretty good in his brief appearances last year, Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, Zion, you've got something there. Those players have barely played together. That's something. The starting center thing, you would assume they would like to start Derek Queen. He and Jeremiah Fears are the two most important young players on the team.

Like both of them a lot. Queen and Zion together looked pretty unplayable defensively last year and forced Zion to kind of figure out. And you throw Murray in it, this is doubly. So, like, how do I exist without the ball as much as, without having the ball as much as I used to have it? And, you know, there was like more of Zion in the dunker spot, more of him just trying to figure it out. Maybe that's healthy. Maybe it's not. But even coming off the bench, you know, you've got fears, Matherin, maybe Queen, maybe Yves Misi.

Sadiq Bay, who started a bunch of last year. Sadiq Bay, who was just bullying dudes one-on-one all year, making mid-range jumpers. There's just enough talent here where they should out-point the bulls. and the Kings, and we don't need to spend a lot of time on the last two teams. I think in all the excite... I will take the Bulls sixth, by the way, over the Kings, and neither of these teams has any shot in hell of winning a playoff series, so who cares? I just think, I will keep it brief.

I think in all the excitement over Caleb Wilson, just if... Like, I can't wait. Caleb Wilson's awesome. Norm Powell's here on a two-year deal. Buzellis made a big leap last year, kind of fringy, most improved player conversation. Guy could be in that conversation again. Nick Claxton is on the team for some reason.

Giddy is just kind of what he is, which is an 18 and 8, but how much is he actually helping you win at the highest level? The bench is going to be pretty inexperienced, I would say if they play the guys that I hope they would play, except for Trey Jones, who had an like sneaky really good year for them last year. I think for all the excitement about their team, they're going to be pretty bad this year, and that's completely fine. I just think there's no world in which I can take the Kings anywhere other than last year.

So you get the honor of taking the Kings last and we will revisit them later. But anything you want to say about these two teams? Yeah, I'll just I'll just say about the Kings, a team that I didn't have last actually. Oh! I had the Bulls last. I just feel like the Bulls are on, I feel like they're going to fire sale in mid-season. I'm glad you brought that up because part of this discussion should have been, and I should have mentioned it with Charlotte in particular early,

is they do the Hornets. If they're way better than expected or even a little better than expect, like, oh, we could be seventh or eighth in the east. They have everything they need to go out and get a big time player, if any big time player that fits them becomes available more so than any of these teams. Portland is right there with them too, but not quite as much. we'll talk about all that stuff in the second draft. But yeah, like the fire sale, so who do you see is the fire sale guys in Chicago?

Man, Norman Powell, first of all. Yeah, I just feel like Norm is going to get buckets. I think he's done a great job in the first half of seasons the last two years. And some team is going to be interested in him. it behooves the Bulls to see what they can get for him then. I think that his values to that team decreases significantly after the trade deadline. So I don't, you know, not saying he's definitely going to get traded, I can just see him being involved in teams saying,

hey, can we get Norman Powell around January or February? Nick Clexton, to a lesser degree. same thing. And then you mentioned Trey Jones, like, Trey Jones is a real good basketball player, man. Like, he's solid. Like, he's just not exciting

because he don't jump high and he doesn't really like shooting threes, like, at all, you know? But this is a dude who as a, as a non-exploitive point guard makes 55% of his field goals and, you know, that, you know, that assist the turnover ratio is in his jeans.

when you saw Tyos for years not to turn the ball over and facilitate good offense. Like, what does that look like for a team? You know, if some team takes on Trey, Trey's got a team option for 2027 as well. So again. Eight million bucks, like really good money for like a backup, like a top, top level backup point card who can fill in as a starter anytime you need. a lot of different dudes.

He played next to Giddy last year as a starter, two non-shooting guys, but Trey makes it work. So what does that look like come February? We'll have to see. The Kings, I think, I'm just giving the Kings just a little bit, I mean, credit that they don't really deserve, but I'm just intrigued by Sacramento from the standpoint of,

they had a bunch of dudes who just didn't play last year. The Monis basically had the year off. Zach basically had the year off. DeAndre Hunter gets there, gets scratched in the eye. He's done after two games. Keegan basically had the year off. Those are four starters. That's fair.

You know what? That's fair. It's a seventh pick in the draft. Ben Simmons is coming back. They drafted some and in Dylan Cardwell's case, not drafted, but found undrafted. They found some contributors. Again, we're not saying these teams will be good in the playoffs or competitive in the playoffs if they find a way in there. But I do want to see with a more respectable amount of games played what that team looks like.

Because, Jack, I don't know about you. I did not see a 60 lost Kings team this time last year. Did I think they'd be a playoff team? No. But they had been in the mid-40s, not mid-40s. around the 40 win range the previous few years. Everything that could have went wrong last year went wrong. Are they a 60 loss team or are they closer to a 50 lost team?

I'm intrigued to see what it looks like with maybe a more cohesive roster. That's a great, that's a great slogan for the 2026, 27, Sacramento Kings. Maybe we're just a 50 lost team. Come out and see the Kings at the Golden One Center. Like the Bulls, by the way, the Kings are a bad team that controls their own draft pick in a new lottery world where it behooves them to maybe try not to be one of the three worst teams in the NBA and go into the relegation zone where you get one less, one fewer ping pong ball. So they're incentivized, as are the Bulls to try to win. On the flip side, they have a guy who has all but put a trade me t-shirt on in DeMontas Subonis, who fired his agent, hired a new agent at CAA. and, you know, I think it's an open secret that would like to not be on the Kings.

He's an elite floor raiser. Whatever you think of his limitations defensively, the lack of shooting range that just hasn't really come along, you've got to kind of play through him on offense and mitigate him on defense. He's a hell of a player. He's an all-star. He's a floor-raiser, both for the Kings and we will get into this in part two for maybe a team that starts off slower than expected.

get scared off by the new lottery rules and it's like, hey, this guy's got only got one more of your left on his contract. Yeah, he might, we might have to pay him his next deal. It might be a little too much, but he's going to help us win 38 games or 35 games. And now that's a bigger deal to us. We don't want to actively suck. But you're right, you know, you put in Levine. I don't know how much he wants to be there. I don't know how much if any trade value he has. Boy, did they need Keegan Murray to have a bounce back year. I like Nick Clifford as a bench guy. I like Maxine Rayneau as a bench guy. And I am proud to say, you brought him up first. I am proud to say the Zach Lowe show leads. This is an official

statistic. Leads all NBA podcasts that are not Kings podcast in mentioning Dylan Cardwell's name. I am like a Dylan Cardwell super fan. I'd like to be friends with Dylan Cardwell. I feel like if he followed me around, everything good that I did, even something simple is like picking my daughter up from school, driving the carpool without any sort of beeping or incident, he'd be pumping me up and cheering for me and raising the roof. And I'd be like, I like having Dylan Cardwell around. He gets rebounds and he makes everyone happy. So thank you for mentioning him.

All right, that's our draft. So in order of breaking the playoff streak this year to review, Orlando, Charlotte, you took Portland, three, Washington, New Orleans, Chicago, Sacramento. Let's take a quick break and we'll do the more interesting discussion of like which of these teams we want to run for the next five years. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Every player brings something different to the field. Some at speed, some at power, some have their own podcast.

That being said, no two players are exactly alike, and the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right. New draft. We're taking the same seven teams, the winless in the playoffs teams in the 2020s. Now, instead of just focusing on this year, we're zooming out. Next five years, which of these teams from best to worst, most want to run to least want to run?

Would you want to be the GM of? I get the first pick in this draft. And to me, this is a pretty easy pick. And it's the Charlotte Hornets. I have Brandon Miller. I have con can'tipple. I have a whole ton of extra draft picks, starting with the Mavs top two protected pick this year. I have a heat lottery protected pick this year that becomes unprotected if it doesn't convey

this year. And I have these 2033 picks unprotected from Phoenix via the Miles Bridges trade and from, I believe, Minnesota via the Lomelo Ball trade. I'm just so rich with assets. I'm pretty lean cap-wise. Like I could get room if I need to get room, particularly in like the summer of 2028 before Khan Canipal's new deal comes back. I got to figure out Brandon Miller. I can get a decent amount of room that year. I can always maneuver, you know, to get more room if I want to not bring

back Tejan Salon, if I want to not resign Musa Diabate, who I think they should resign, if for some reason I don't want Cian James down the line. I can cut Finney Smith and all that stuff. Like I got just a ton of flexibility. And I got a pretty good team that's pretty exciting right now. the Lamello trade, you and I kind of both agree. We like Lamello more than most. It's going to be a step back. But long term, I didn't think that hard about who I would pick first in this draft. I really would like to run the Charlotte Hornets.

They're in a good spot. I would have picked Charlotte number one as well. I mean, the Lamello ball trade, it hit me in the, hit me right in the starting, man. Just because I really wanted to see that team take a step. But you know what? they determined that they were selling high. They got a great year out of Lamella because they managed him, right? You said, hey, health is a thing for him.

We'll see how he handles physicality if he makes playoffs, which he better. That Minnesota team better make playoffs next year. But, I mean, they sold high. Maybe it's a short step back this year, but they are setting themselves up to be the team that they want to be for years to come. And even now, they look deep. I'm worried about the ceiling of that team in the short term, long term.

I mean, they have a lot of flexibility. And to pick a team number two, I find is really difficult here. So, so, so to your, to your point, I had number one with a bullet and number seven with, like, whatever the opposite of a bullet is, like a Nerf ball. two to six. I actually think six is pretty clear too, but let's just be generous, say two to six, you could really order any way you want,

depending on what kind of GM situation you'd want to walk into, what kind of moves you'd like to make right off the bat. I'm very interested in, I switch teams around multiple times. I'm very interested to see how we do this. I had a number two pick I liked a lot.

Let's see if it's the same team. Yeah. And I don't feel great about this, but I'm actually going with Washington here. Oh, I did not have them number two, but I had them, I had, well, I won't spoil where I had them. Yeah, don't spoil it. I think the reason it's difficult is obvious. Like, they pay trade.

They might pay Anthony Davis. And even if they don't, they gave up, they gave up draft capital to get him. And the fit is like, okay, what does it look like? So that's not as great. But they are a team in a pretty good market. They just got the number one pick. They've had draft picks that they've been developing for the past few years. So they have a core of prospective role players ready to go that they have decisions to make on.

And I don't, yeah, I want to see how good AJ can be because I think the best thing that you can have as a franchise is a blue chip guy, a difference making guy. We talked about this draft for a long time. And we saw that teams tanked aggressively in a way that made the NBA change their rules for this draft. And the Washington Wizards got the number one guy in that draft. I think that even with Tray's contract, the lack of success in recent years, what you gave up to get AD, what you might get to keep him, what happens if you don't keep him. I think those are massive questions, but they're number two because I like their number one guy more than the other guys here. It's interesting.

I had the Wizards three, which means I had them above teams that are like objectively. way better than them. And in the case of Portland, I don't want to spoil it, probably has better draft equity coming from other teams than the Wizards. The Wizards have some stuff. They have an extra pick in 28, a couple of swaps here and there. That could be good. They could be not good. We'll see. But just like, it's just about AJ DeBonsa. Like, I have a 19 year old who was a legit number one pick in a great draft, has a chance to be a franchise player. We'll see. Like, Orlando has a couple of really illicit. elite borderline all NBA if everything's going right and they're healthy guys in

Paulo Bencaro and Franz Wagner. Maybe AJ DeBanza never even gets as good as Paolo Bancaro is right now. And Paulo Bencaro is still young. I just would bet on the upside. And I've got like, I'm even factoring in like I'm even holding the following things against the Wizards. A, they may not have any cap room at all until December of 2029 because of Tray Young's giant contract and all the other deals they have to negotiate or renegotiate.

and God forbid they pay Anthony Davis and dip further into their cap room. I even just like, in trying to be pessimistic and realistic in my assessment of them, I'm like, let's assume Bala Kulibali like doesn't quite make it. And maybe they resign him to a deal that's like, you know, fair for him around the mid-level. Maybe they don't. Maybe he's not part of their core. Let's assume Bob Carrington, who I don't really love and hasn't quite figured out his role in the NBA, although he shot the three well pretty well last year, very much.

well. Let's assume he doesn't make it. Let's assume one of Will Riley and Tray Johnson, both of whom I really like, end up kind of being empty calories, you know, gunners that don't quite fit. I actually don't think that's true. I like that both of them on my team. I like DeBanza. I like Saar. I like George. I like the extra picks. And I just think DeBanza is, is that enticing. I actually had the Wizards third, as I said, which means I had a team ahead of them, which I will now take with the third pick for the exact same reason. And it's the Chicago Bulls. I have Caleb Wilson on my team.

Noah Senge will see what he becomes. Dalen Swain will see what he becomes. But I have Caleb Wilson and I have Matas Puzellas and I have all the cap flexibility I can need going forward. Now, again, kind of feather in Washington's cap is that cap room is not like the years of cap room getting you like superstar free agents and being used in that way. Kind of over. And so Washington not having cap flexibility, not a big deal. I'd still rather have it than not in the position of these teams because I can be predatory,

taking on some bad contracts to get picks, taking on a player nobody wants, but I think is good, whatever the situation, facilitating trades, whatever it is. They've got a lot of that. They control all their first round picks. They don't have any extra first, which I don't love. I like to be able to short some other teams like Portland is going to be able to do. Washington's going to be able to do Charlotte, as I said, certainly can for many, many years. They've got decisions to make, like, I don't, I don't think Rob Dillingham is really slated to be part of this core long term. We'll see.

He could prove me wrong. I think his team option is sort of like another interesting up-for-grab's decision. They've got some, they've got a potential, you know, long-term, a hole at center. I like Jalen Smith. I might be interested in extending him if I were the Bulls, but I'm not sure he's a starting starting center on a good team. Claxton's all right as a placeholder. But just to me, look, it's Caleb Wilson, Matas Buzellis at the three and the four,

figure out the rest. And the rest of the way, Giddy is still very young. If Giddy is a good player and if he's, if you want to throw him part of this core, too, that's fine. But figure out the rest. I've got all my picks. I got cap flexibility. And I'm, and at some, at some level law, I would just like to save the Chicago Bulls.

They're a cool brand. They mean something to me. an old 49-year-old, old basketball fan, the Allen Parsons project theme song from North Carolina. Like, that'll still get to be pumped up. I would just like to be around that. So I'm taking the Bulls, and that's it.

So we're three in. What do you think? Was I too high on the Bulls? Well, the Bulls, for the reasons you outlined, were a team that I was not like. This will make it difficult with the Washington decision. The reason why I basically, basically went with Washington or Chicago, besides AJ.

The Bulls are so owned by someone who just doesn't take full advantage of the fact that they're in Chicago, literally the biggest market in the league outside of New York and Los Angeles. All right, but so by alternatives, though. I feel like that's a challenge. But my alternatives are, well, if you, so I had them over Washington, and you get Ted Leonston as your owner. My alternatives for the rest of the draft are Tom Dundon, the DeVos family, Gail Benson and or whatever becomes of the Pelicans,

and that market, which has struggled to really sort of develop a big following. And Vivek Rana DeVe. So I feel good. I feel good taking the Bulls in the third spot over, even despite the Rhinestorf concerns. Right. Should we go into number four then? Yeah, you got the real hard pick now.

Number four, I am very curious to see what you did here and whose fans are going to be insulted by this pick. Yeah, I'm just going with the Orlando Magic. I think they should be, they should feel like they should be higher. So when you pick the Atlanta Magic here behind some of the teams that we've had, we are obviously saying that we don't love their future situation.

But that's up to the players and it's up to what happens this season. I think the question you have with Orlando is, are they stuck or are they in a good spot? I think it's a little bit. I think it might be a little bit of both, which is a weird thing to say. But go ahead. That's why they're here. Like, Franz has a long-term contract.

Palo has a long-term contract with a player option. Desmond has a, I think the way you have to talk about the NBA these days, he has a long-term contract. And you gave up pretty much your last assets. to get him. Desmond Main is a very good player who absolutely fits not just a need, but, you know, just in general,

good player, you know, I like, I like that trade for them, despite the risk. I like them kind of going for it on that trade last year. I like it a little less a year later, but that's life.

Yeah, like that's, they are a team that is supposed to do their best work. While these, while these players are under the contracts that they have now, Even Wendell Carter has a team option in 2028. You know, like I'm interested to see what's going to happen with Anthony Black, the decision that is going to be made there. Does he get paid?

Do they play the restrictive free agency game with him? You know, I can argue for either. They don't have a lot of ways to improve what they have right now unless they break the team up. they changed the coach. So they made it clear that this is going to be on these players. And it's going to be on the players now more than the coach. Like you have like bullets. You can buttons you can push, right?

You can push the change the coach button. They've done that. Then if this doesn't work in the next year, then someone among those core players has to be removed somehow, especially since you traded so much to get Desmond. I'm intrigued to see how it works. I don't need to be overly optimistic about it. No, you're not.

You picked them fourth. You picked them fourth. I actually will insult the magic fans even more. I picked them fifth, and I'll tell you who I picked ahead of them in a second. And again, it's no insult. We all just drafted them number one in the Who's Most Likely to Win a Playoff Series this year.

It would seem incongruous to now knock them down to four, in your case, five in mine, for the next five years rankings, especially since their two best players are 25 and 24 years old, respectively. No one in the rotation is over 28 years old unless Javon Carter really cracks the rotation or Voochavich does or somebody like that. It would seem incongruous, right? And they are not like totally out of picks because of the Bain trade. They can treat their pick obligations stop in 2030.

They have their own picks in like the intervening years, although some of them are swapped so they're going to be the worst of whatever. It's not great. It's not great. but starting in 2032, I can trade picks. I can trade that pick moving forward. I just, like, we both picked them to win a playoff series. It's hard for me to see this core, given what we've seen of them,

both health-wise and chemistry-wise, winning two or three playoff series. And that's why I have them fifth. And I could be dead wrong about that because defensively they're going to be rock-solid. They're going to be well-coached. I just don't know. I guess I would have to see the Wagner-Bankero pairing amount to a little bit more than it has for them to amplify each other a little more than they have. And I understand that if you look at their numbers with Jalen Suggs, is he the skeleton key that unlocks the whole group,

the whole lineup? And maybe he is. He just doesn't, he just doesn't play that much. And so I, the out they have, though, is if they conclude it doesn't work. Look, they're going to have to make a trade at some point. They can't pay Black, Bain, Wagner, Bancarrow and Sugs. They just can't. It's too much money. And the out they have is if we do get through this year and we're a 44 win team and we're just another, we're a mess offensively still. We're 18th, 19th, 17th, whatever at best. We can trade Wagner or Bancarro for a pretty good amount of stuff, I think, because even again, like the new lottery rules, teams are going to look at those players, be like they're young, their floor raisers. They might be flawed, but they can really help us.

And then I get a team that may still be a decent team to a good team with my picks replenished. But, you know, that's a hard road to host. So I had them fifth. And I had the Portland Trailblazers fourth. I flip-flopped Portland and Orlando a bunch of times. And what ultimately really swayed me is for three straight years, 28, 29, and 30, the Blazers essentially have the rights if the thing, if it breaks that way to Milwaukee's pick. They're shorting the bucks three straight years. And right now, that looks like a really good

place to be. They've also got some other, you know, swaps and things like that. I don't know what's going to become a scoot. I don't know if this Morant thing is going to work. I'm kind of pessimistic. I'm really intrigued by Klingan. I love Kamara. I love Obdia, who's still only 25 years old, same as Van Kero. Don't love the market. Don't love what I, I don't really care that I have cap room in the summer of 2028 when Obdia's deal expires, but it's such a low deal that is cap hold is really low. And then Klingin comes in on top of that. But I just like three bites at the Bucks Apple.

I just, I feel like it like maybe I get my version of what we're talking about with DeBanza and Caleb Wilson. And I kind of would just, again, I'd happily run both these teams. With the magic I get, I get to enjoy my team now because we're going to be a good team. I get to enjoy winning. I get to walk around town and be like, yeah, the magic are 50 and 32. We're gun in for the 60, whatever it is. That's cool.

I also like the Blazers jerseys and there's stuff like that. That would be fun to wear around. I just like, I like the sort of like lottery ball upside I get with some good talent already in the door. So I took Portland to, took Portland at four. Yeah, I can't get there with Portland. Like that ownership. situation upsets me greatly.

It just, look, it's upsetting. You know, who should really be upset is Mike Anori, who's like already coaching for his job in the season at training camp has even started yet. That thing, that contract is an embarrassment and the Blazers should be embarrassed. And they probably aren't, but some people there are. And that's the thing that we're talking about here. Over the long term, how much will that impact that team and the people whose job it is to be the stewards of the.

organization. And that means Joe Cronin had to make statements because his two-way contract players didn't travel in the playoffs. That is a unnecessary distraction in a league that, you know, distractions are excuses, but whatever. Like, you don't need it. And all of a sudden, that's what you do when you're back in the playoffs for the first time. Imagine, imagine checking into a hotel in some random Western Conference city. You get there earlier, flight lands early, no traffic. Get to the hotel. It's noon. let's see if my room's ready. You know, I might have to hang out in the lobby for a bit.

And you just see a bunch of tall dudes hanging out in the lobby waiting for a bus that's not going to leave for four hours to go to the game. You're like, what's going on here? Is this an NBA team sitting in the lobby instead of getting late checkout so he could be in their room? It's like when the Denver Broncos were on Homer Simpson's front yard when he got gifted to Denver Broncos by Hank Scorpio. Like, what is this team doing here?

That's what we're dealing with. You could be a random person like, oh, the Trailblazers are here. They're just killing time. Man, we got the Simpsons and Maskos' most on-brand, Zach Pod. And Dylan Cardwell. Don't forget Dylan Cardwell. Dylan Carwell, too. Who might come up again. Who knows? So you're just, is it what else besides the owner, which I agree, is shameful and it's going to constrain me and it's going to be super annoying and he's going to yell at me a lot about whatever.

What about the talent? Yeah. What's your take on the sort of state of the team? Who's going to be here long term? What questions do you have, et cetera? They have a lot to figure out, man. I mean, the dude who's got the biggest long-term number on that team is Shaden Sharp. Sharf's injured.

I don't think he's happy. And I don't think he's in a position to really do a whole lot. Like, even when he comes back, like, what does that team look like? You got Denny. I mean, that renegotiation is going to be fast. You have just a lot to sort out. Scoot is a guy you drafted high, and again, I don't think he's getting extended. He's, I don't think he's happy.

Like, you have a lot of those things going on. The culture of your team is at stake in a lot of ways in this next year. Like, Dame is back, but Dame is also, you know, this next year will. inform what Dame wants to do. You know, he can be a free agent in 2027. I forgot that before I started looking at their contracts again, that he has a player option for 27, 28, and he's 36 years old. Man, he has a no trade clause because.

That's right. Yeah, man, like, I, there's just, there's a lot of variables and there's not a lot of things that make you feel good. That's, that's, that's my thing. And the variables are on the court as well. I mentioned that they play really. good basketball, especially in the last quarter of the season. They earned their playoff spot. They very much earned it. They knocked the clippers into a spot. They took over the

sun spot. They even found a way to win a playoff game in San Antonio. Like, how much can you go off? Victor fell on his head, but sure. Yeah. I mean, they also had double digit leads in game three and four before, you know, going on to get gentlemen swept. So how much does that carry over? how much, how do you assess these roles? And again, I don't know if the coach is going to be there long term. And the front office. You might be the coach, Law. You might be the coach of the Blazers next year.

Man. Are you ready? I'd want to work with Poo Jeter. I will say that. Poo Jeter's awesome. That's a great call. But, you know, they lost my guy Mike Schmitz. You know, we worked with Mike Schmitz for a good while, you know.

That's what you're talking about. We're talking about long term. and everything that has to do with what makes you feel good about a team in terms of, you know, the stability parts of things, I need to see any reason to think that anything Blazers related will be stable. Head coach, front office, star player and the supporting players, the market itself, I don't feel great about it. And yet we found two teams at least. We did. To break below them. So part of my Blazers' optimism, like, I get all the questions about the roster.

We've done it to death, the jaw fit, and all that. I'm not even factoring John Moran in to my long-term prognosis about the Blazers. It's great. If it works out, I can't sit here and expect it to. I'm not even, like, I'm not even factoring Scoot in. I have hope for Scoot. I think Scoot's pretty good. he's just been so snake-fitten by injuries and like he just can't nail down the starting spot.

And then there's a million guards. There's something there. But I do think we have enough information even as a scoot optimist. I don't think there is ever going to be commensurate with where you took him in the draft. And at number three, like he might end up being a really good bench player. And by that, I mean like a 25 minute a game core bench player or a fourth or fifth starter on the optimist again. I think Star is getting a little distant.

I'm a believer in Klingin. I think Klingin is legit good. And the increased range and sort of dexterity on offense he showed last year was super intriguing. Kamara is good. Obviously, Obdi is good. And then I just like the picks, I'll tell you this, though, like when you start projecting things long term, Yang Hansen's $7.5 million team option in 28, 29 is going to be an interesting little piece of business if he doesn't show some development in the intervening period.

But anyway, so we have two teams left. You get the sixth pick and you get to pick between the Pelicans and the Kings as the team you would most like to run for the next five years. Yeah, that's a tough one. Is it a tough one?

Yeah, I know you don't think it is. But New Orleans is the team I'm going to go with. So we have the same. We might as well just draft them both right now because I had New Orleans 6, Sacramento, 7, and I didn't really think that hard about it. Yeah, yeah. Like long term, and I'm not going to get into the team business.

It's part of things that's above my, yeah. I'm out of my depth there, to be honest with you. I'm just going to look at the basketball team. Obviously, what happened in the drafts in 2025 was not encouraging. in terms of your trust in the Joe Dumar's Troy Weaver front office. But you know what, man? Like, I think you got two people there who are going to let their coach work. I think they know that they are probably at the end of life stage as far as Zion Williamson's tenure there.

It's either going to work really well this year or it's, you know, probably like it's wild to think that he's going to be. in his eighth season there, and he's got one year left on his deal after this one. I think that it's, you know, this is, I'm intrigued to see what happens this year and then long term. I don't think they have a lot of messy contracts. I think that that kind of helps. They have a messy contract, but not a messy contract. Sorry, I'm sorry. I'm a dad.

They do have that. They have Jordan Pool. And Jordan is not in my rotation right now. But the good thing with Jordan is that he's an expiring. So I can see that going a number of different ways. The point being it doesn't really impact you long term. I think there are avenues for this team to clean things up long term. They need to maybe not be so reckless with their, with their, you know, pick situations.

But I think they might have learned a lesson in 2025. So that's the that's the kind of hope for New Orleans. They're not committed to a whole heck of a lot. Like the guys that they are are worth it. Like herb, Trey, like those guys have value both for the team that you're playing for as well as if you ever want to decide to move on. Like everyone in the league would want a player like those guys, especially for the numbers that they're making on their team.

So yeah, that's enough nice things about New Orleans. They're very strong. like, I mean, like the Trey Murphy thing that's, that's been talked about a lot. Does he want to be there? Does he not want to be there? Where would he be? How wide would his market be? Very wide.

Same with Herb Jones. I like Fears and Queen. I like fears a lot. I think Fears had kind of an underrated rookie season. Inefficient like most young guards are, but he's got something to his game. He's got a vision. He's got, he does things just a little bit differently in terms of his rhythm and his cadence.

And I just love his fearlessness. I think Queen is going to be a really good offensive player. That's like even if you sell off both Murphy and Herb Jones and I'm not sure they will or should do that. I've still got those two guys. I get the best of this one draft, this coming draft, I get the best of my pick or the bucks pick just in case that flips. Atlanta gets the other one.

The bucks get neither somehow. Now the Zion question is also tied to the DeJante Murray question. Johnthe Murray has a player option, $31 million for 27, 28. That's the same year Zion's contract expires. You know, on the one hand, you cannot let those two guys walk without getting any assets in return. I'm not sure what assets you could get for either of them, especially given Zion's health record. Should note he was as durable, more durable than he's ever been last year, played a ton of games and a ton of consecutive games. But I still don't know how much trade value either has.

But I can't let him walk for nothing. but if I bring them back at big money, my risk is I'm now paying them into parts of their career at salary amounts that maybe I didn't want to. And my cap flexibility kind of goes out the window if both of those guys are on one and not the other, I can get to decent amounts of room and major room if I make some other moves.

Both I can't. But I do like Fears and Queen as sort of like cornerstone is probably a little strong, but interesting guys to have around. I just don't know, I don't even know what you do with Zion at this point. Like I just,

I didn't know how to project him at all. I don't know what their plan is. They've kind of stiff-armed any trade discussion, but I'm not sure. I think teams probably need another year of him playing to be like, oh, yeah, we'll give you a lot of real stuff for Zion, but maybe I'm wrong.

I don't know. Yeah. I want Zion to have the kind of season where, you know, like, we talk about Luka and his fitness. Zion made a commitment to fitness last year that actually mattered. It actually stuck. I mean, he got, I think, one hamstring injury or whatever. But other than that, like you said, like he stayed on the floor. That team, and I know we're not talking about just, you know, this is another discussion.

but that team has so many mouths to feed. You know, like, who will they start at center? They were starting Erb Jones at center last year. You know, like, if you start Queen, if you start Zion, DeJante's your point guard. Trey actually is way better when he doesn't have to dribble. You know, like, how does that work? To your point, there was a small stretch toward the end of the season where they were like, let's try Zion at the three with Misi and Queen together because we need some rim protection.

It's like, that doesn't seem sustainable. Yeah, like, that's, that's, there's, there's, there's, to just suggest what will happen with Zion if he plays on another team? Because there's the expectations for New Orleans is capped somewhere. I think Derrick Queen was picked. Honestly, we're just, we're just going to be blunt about it. Those two are duplicative in ways that suggest that you see what you can get for Zion and move forward with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, we're just. with Queen and figure out how to form, how to get guys who can defend because you know Queen is not anchoring a defense.

So all of these moves we're talking about, Zion selling one of Trey or Herb Jones off to the highest bidder on the trade market, DeJante's future. Underneath that is the reality that tanking is not a fail safe for me anymore the way it used to be. So where am I going in that sense? What is my market and my ownership going to tolerate? is it where is it going to go the other way? Are they suddenly going to become buyers somehow to sort of stay afloat?

I don't know, but I know that like this team going 15 and 67 in two years because they've traded it, whatever it is, they're not going to be that bad because queens and fear, queen and fears, queens and fear, queen and fears are very good rising on players, but you get what I'm saying. Yes. And the same applies to the Sacramento Kings who came in last in our rankings, only have one extra first round pick coming into them in the next six or seven years. And it's a, it's a good pick. It's a Minnesota unprotected 2031 pick. And they have all their own picks and swaps and stuff

like that. But they also, you know, again, this is the world of the relegation zone. And, you know, I like Maxine Rayneau a lot. I had him first team all rookie. Is he a long term starter? I don't know. Neat Clifford is a clever, clever player. Just herky jerky, arithmic, staccato kind of game. I like his feel. roundedness. Is he a starter or is he a seventh guy? I don't know. A-Cuff, obviously, is going to be handed to keys. He's going to put up numbers. I like him. I don't know if I love him. I just don't. It's a tough, they have as much cap room as they want for whatever that's worth. Historically, not much. It's historically meant overpaying guys who, you know, didn't have as deep up a market as they wanted. I just, it's, it's been,

since 2004 that they've won a playoff series, and it's a long, long road ahead. Yeah. And with that, I think a guy likes a bonus is just as interesting to me as Zion is in New Orleans. That contract is prohibitive. I think if you're a good team, like a really good, we're going to do something in the playoffs type of team. I think your concern is what kind of player is the bonus in that.

setting do you give up assets to have that player take up the space on your cap um even for a year or two and that i feel like is limiting on you know he's he's a very good player he's going to reestablish himself this year but what does that mean and what is the value of that um the one trade idea i had was what if you swap the bonus in zion Oh, that's interesting. That, that, that, that's the one I've got. I'm not the biggest, you know, when we were at ESPN, we, we did these, we did these things. Me being an editor, mind you.

So very, very behind the scenes, but the whole trades he'd like to see. And I'm like, I don't want to see these trades, but I don't like Kevin Pelton would, come out with like this 14 monstrosity. You'd be like, man, that is like, it's a piece of art. I couldn't know, I didn't be roped in this team because they have cap, and you're giving him a second. I'm like, God damn,

KP. And that's why KP's doing what he's doing now. Shout out. And we're sitting here. Shout to our guy, Kevin Pelton. That's what I'm,

that's the one that I kicked around, right? Because they're very similar in some ways. They're bigs. They're left-handed. You have to adjust to them over the course of the game. They like to play bully ball. If Zion's brand of bully ball is a whole,

lot more considering his 285 pounds with that kind of handle. But Sabonis is a big skilled player, right? Who is not as much of a liability outside the paint. He's a reluctant shooter, not necessarily a poor one.

Like, would those two teams be interested in flipping things? We know Sacramento, who has not just Maxie Marine Aud, but Dylan Cardwell, they do not have a dearth of center options, right? Right? So, you know, you put Zion there and let things free themselves out.

I think Keegan Murray could be a three. He's a three or a four. Right now he's a four. Him and DeAndre are pretty much interchangeable. And for the Pelicans, the Pelicans would just have, you know, they already know, like I said, what does it look like between Zion and Derek playing together? They can be duplicative. You'd have similar issues, but at least it's a different kind of fit. And so that's my own. I'm not the best of trade ideas. Zach, I think that's your wheelhouse more to

mine. Well, I'm pretty good. I'm not great, but I'm pretty good. I have 10 teams on my Sabonis fake trade list, and they're all incredibly unlikely. And I think, first of all, you said one thing that's important. A year ago right now, part of the issue with trading Sabonis was, if I'm the Kings, I need somebody to play center. So I need to get a center back in this trade. And that limited to market. right away. I'm not such a believer in Maxine Rayneau that like that question's been answered for me, but I'm also like a little bit less concerned about it than I used to be. But look, 45 million this year, 49 million next year is going to want an extension or to get paid as soon as he's on a new team. Doesn't, you know, you mentioned New Orleans. They weren't really on my list because the

queen's a bonus thing is like kind of funky and interesting as a double center look for a team that in a previous universe had DeMarcus cousins of Anthony Davis. But if I'm going to have two centers and no rim protection, I just don't want two centers. Then if like my double center look offers no defensive upside and like limited perimeter shooting, I don't like it. So here are my teams that I listed. Are you ready? Ready.

Phoenix. I don't think so right now. They've got the midsize contracts. They can cobble together. Their center position is like Mark Williams, Malawachigado. I think they're kind of want to see what Mala Watch is, and they just re-signed Mark Williams. I don't see it right now.

Chicago, we talked about them as a place that has sort of a whole long-term at center. That's too soon, too much too soon for the Bulls, particularly, like, again, another shaky perimeter shooter with Giddy and Buzellis, who's going to be a good shooter, I think, and Caleb Wilson, who was an amazing shooter out of nowhere in Summer League. We'll see if that's real. I don't see it. Charlotte, we know they talked, right?

and I don't think the price was ever close to what Charlotte would be willing to pay. Diabate plus Kalkbrenner, plus a little bit of Steinbach and Nas Reid, is that all a long-term answer at Center? Obviously, Musa Diabate, guest on this podcast last year, was a revelation. Doesn't seem likely.

Orlando. Orlando's on here is like, if this season doesn't go well for Orlando, is the major shake-up swap, one of their core players. I'm not even going to say who, I don't know. for Subonis and Wendell Carter Jr. goes to Sacramento is just like, hey, we've got to shake things up.

Portland was my favorite Subonis team a year to 18 months ago. I've heard he feels good about that market. I know he had fans in that front office. I just think Klingin got good enough soon enough that that's out. Atlanta has to be considered a wildcard for pretty much anything. I think they're sitting biding their time with assets with a good team. hoping the rest of the Eastern Conference in their frenzy to make the finals, spends all their assets,

and they're the last team standing a year from now or something like that. And I don't love the subonious, Jaylon Johnson fit. Dallas, you know, they've got some center options. They need to sort out first. Golden State kind of fits the curry handoff, moving motion, read and react. I just don't know, like, the salary is so high. Am I trading Jimmy Butler? Am I trading, like, Jermont,

pus for Zingas and am I using any of my picks that I'm hoarding? I don't know. And then lastly, law, do your hometown LA Clippers? Do they want to just win more games and Niederhausers injured and Brooke Lopez is hanging around and what do they have? They have Isaiah Jackson. Like, I don't know how many picks they're going to have. If any, once all this comes, comes once the Kauai deal is finished and the penalty becomes

enforced, I don't think that's, I just don't know. Contractually, it's hard to get there. but you know, you can do Ingram. Ingram for Subonis. I mean, is there anything there? That's the biggest thing. He makes so much. And it's so much money for that kind of a player.

So it's like, you know, you have to match salaries to make these trades work. And there's teams. Ingram is the same length, about $6 million cheaper this year, $7 million next year. it's an interesting idea. Yeah, it's interesting. Assuming Brandon Ingram is a member of the LA Clippers. Yeah, there's that part too. Like, I just, there's just not enough there.

And, you know, previously I could say things like, yeah, I don't think the bonus bonus is that kind of player for the team. But I mean, the people who are running the team and having opinions on certain players are currently not, position to do anything right now. So, yeah, that has to be a factor, too. Like, the Clippers loved playing against Domana's a bonus for years. You know, that's typically not the kind of player that you try and bring into your team,

you know, the kind of player that you took advantage of for years. Like, the Clippers, yeah, Visibati's love playing against Devonisabon. Like, I don't, yeah, I don't see them treating everything they got to get the end of that contract. I don't think it would be everything they've got. And that's the reality that the Kings are going to work with here is like, I just don't think there's going to be a deal that knocks their socks off. And I think they need to realize that. They probably do. I think Sabonis and his people will need to realize that because it's going to make it harder for him to get out of Sacramento.

Law Murray, are you still doing your epitome games? Have you been doing that? And I've missed it. It's one of my favorite little things that you did. Yeah, that is done. I got to go back and watch them. Yeah, I did the whole 2026 series across August. I'm repopulating because there's 30 days in September

and I'm starting to put my rotation charts out every day. Today's the 10th day of September, so I don't know. This is why I have you on because you don't just cover the Clippers. You literally do a YouTube video on here is the most representative game from how this team played last year, I'm going to project them this year. It's like all 30 teams are up here rattling around your brain. Yeah.

So that's the part of the season where it's like I know that there's dead space. There's 1,230 games in the regular season. Okay. It's exciting for like a week or two and then things can kind of get a little blurry in there. But when we have no games, this is when I look back and it's like, okay, I want to to take a picture of what this used to look like because it's going to change when we get preseason games, early regular season games. We're going to get a new season. So I'm glad that you noticed that. And yeah, it's a nice little passion project for me in the dead of the all season.

There you go. Law and Murray, we all need passion projects like drafting the seven teams who haven't won a playoff series in the 2020s. Read all his coverage of the athletic, especially since he's covering the team that's at the center of shitstorm right now in the NBA. That doesn't seem to end anytime soon. Law Murray, thank you so much for your time. And now we're going to bring in Luke Epplin, special guest. He just wrote a great book about Moses and the Doctor about the 80s, the ABA, the 76ers. We can talk to Luke. Law Murray, you're the best. Thank you, bud. Thank you, Seth. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMGM and Game Sense remind you to play responsibly.

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I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem. Where some see heroes and others see egos. Bloomberg sees the era of billionaire athletes.

A fad to some, the future of money to others. We see crypto's trillion-dollar swings. The end of jobs or the end of human struggle. We see the endless funds fueling the AI hype. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. All right, let's bring on a special guest, another in the series of Zach Redson books this summer over vacation.

Luke Epplin, who has written a book about baseball. He's had essays all over the place and prestigious outlets that you know the New York or the Atlantic, wrote this book right here on the 76ers of the 1980s, Moses and the doctor, two men, one championship and the birth of modern basketball about the 1983, fo, foe, foe, Philadelphia 76ers, but more broadly about, I think a team that often gets overlooked sandwiched between the Lakers championships and the Celtics championships and pre-Jordan championships in the 80s and two players with very unusual journeys uniting on that team. And I just, the book is really good. It's if you don't know a lot about Moses Malone or Dr. Jay or the Sixers or the ABA, it's like all a great history book full of fun anecdotes all in one.

What made you, what made you choose this subject matter for a book? Which, by the way, you must have been delighted that LeBron James and Jalen Brown are now on the 76ers, the year you published this book because it's been 43 years since this championship. And boy, is this city starving for something. It's a real great coincidence. I only wish my book would have come out like in November now because it's even more relevant than ever. I think the LeBron signing is very equivalent to Moses Malone's signing. Thanks for having me on, Zach.

As terms of how I came to this subject, my first book was called Our Team. It was about the second black player to come into Major League Baseball. That is, of course, Larry Dobie. He joins the Cleveland Indians. What I loved about that book was this idea of two leagues that were sort of running parallel to each other. And they were developing different styles of play. This would have been the major leagues. in the Negro leagues and different ways of sort of approaching the game, different ideologies,

all that sort of stuff. My favorite sport is basketball. And I wanted to see if there was any sort of equivalent. Of course, there's no real equivalent to the Negro leagues. But what I hit upon was the NBA and the American Basketball Association, the ABA, and how they developed about 10 years in parallel to each other. They had different styles of play, different ways of approaching things. And what I really was interested in was what happens when the streams cross?

how does it change, you know, the league, how does it change basketball? How does it change the way people look at it? I approach things through character-based instead of plot-based, and so I needed somebody to front the story. And I mean, who better to front it than Julia Serving? He, in his very look and the way he played, he was the ABA. And so that's where I started with him. Did you talk to him?

Did he sit down with you for the book or no? He did. Yeah, he was pretty nice about it. I mean, one of the main sort of points of the book is that he is sort of the foremost ambassador of basketball at that time. He's really sort of booing a league that is mired in drug and image problems. And he's going out of his way to talk to as many people as possible. And it still seems like that pulls for him. He was not that difficult to get a hold of. Moses Malone obviously passed away before. Did you have, did you get to interview him just like

separately when he was younger or is it all posthumous? No. And I was nervous of taking Moses Malone on as let's say the sort of co-protagonist of the story because the only thing that I really knew about Moses. He was a little bit before my time when I started watching was that he never said anything and that he didn't talk very much. And I was like, how is he going to come to the forefront? But what I learned about Moses is that when he did talk, he made it count. He didn't waste a lot of words with platitudes that authors generally talk about. He was to the point. He said things of substance. And he was really funny. I hope that this book gets across his humor. because he could be, he could sort of say a sly line in there that would just have me cracking up while I was reading the newspaper archives.

And yeah, he's obviously knowing is perhaps the greatest rebounder and certainly the greatest offensive rebounder in the history of the NBA. And Darrell Dawkins has a quote about him where he says it's like trying to box out an octopus. I really like that one. They talk in the book about how he shoots balls on the way up, which people do still now, like on the way up in their jumps to try to fool shop lockers. but he did it not only to full shot blockers, but because he knew his best chance of scoring was just going for a rebound, jumping for real, before his defender could jump for rebound.

Yeah, he's one of the great, like when he passed away, there was so much sort of remembrance of, hey, like, this guy is one of the great forgotten soup, not forgotten, but overlooked, like three-time MVP, iconic figure, both the ABA briefly and NBA in NBA and multiple cities. Like, played for nine teams. Charles Barkley speaks so lovingly about him as a mention. tour during his years in Philadelphia. And I think it's just great to put kind of a shine on what he meant to the league.

But what was cool about this is like the framing of the book is, and I didn't really think of it, I hadn't conceived of the 83-6ers in this way. It's sort of like validation for Dr. Jay, who has multiple ABA titles, but comes to Philly and they right away lose the 1977 finals to the Blazers, which is viewed kind of than you're telling as a referendum on the NBA versus the ABA. And also in a dialogue that has some pretty blatant racial overtones, too, and people celebrating the Sixers losing that series. Then they lose the 80 finals and the 82 finals to the Lakers.

They blow a 3-1 lead in 81 to the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals. So it's validation for Dr. J for the Sixers. But I thought this was a really cool conceit, kind of validation for the ABA as a whole. Like, not that the league really needed it, certainly not now, given the Pacers, the Spurs, all the books that have been written. But then, like, a central ABA draft pick right out of high school in Moses Malone, a seminal moment, and the ABA's, like, franchise player, Dr. Jay, win in the NBA in the era of the Lakers and the Sons. I'd never really thought of the Sixers as, like, an ABA redemption project, but they are. It's really interesting.

So when the leagues merge, Julia Serving Hold on. up for more money. He doesn't get it from the Nets. They have to immediately send him to the Sixers, who are confronted by a guy in the name of George McGinnis, who had been an MVP in the ABA, he'd been a champion in the ABA. And because of that sort of pairing together and the way that like it was almost like a mercenary play on Julius Irving's part, the Sixers gained this reputation of being a sort of renegade team full of rebels and things like that. And eventually, if you sort of read the coverage carefully, it is very much the way that NBA chauvinists thought of the ABA, that this was a league that was a little bit outside of the bounds of fundamentalist basketball.

And whenever Irving plays Bill Walton's Blazers, it's almost like a morality play between these sort of ABA playground inspired style of basketball versus this sort of top-down, coach-oriented, everybody sharing the ball style that Walton comes to be known for it. Dr. John Bramsey. Yeah. And so Irving himself never quite shakes off that odor of the ABA as he's going through the next seven years. The Sixers at that time win more games from 1976 to 1983 than any other franchise, both in the regular season and in the playoffs. They are the elite team, but they just can't get over that hump.

And it becomes almost a point where it's not only about Irving's legacy. It is about the ABA that Irving stands for. And he never goes without being on a team without at least two other ABA superstars. Whenever McGinnis leaves, you have Bobby Jones coming on. You have Caldwell Jones there. And then, of course, Caldwell Jones leaves and Moses Malone comes on. And so really, through that whole period, he is the stand-in for the ABA. And I think it's fitting that when he plays the Lakers in 1983, there is nobody on that Lakers roster who played even a minute in the ABA.

And so it really is the last stand in 1983 of the ABA versus the NBA. And it's a narrative that we kind of lose track of because now we just think of as the Irving Malone team. But if you look at it back then the way people are talking about it, the Sixers really are standing in for that league. Well, it's, I had even forgotten like Bobby Jones becomes a defensive stopper for the Sixers, a Glue guy, Six man a Year, though a year they win the title. I had forgotten that he and Dr. Jay played against each other when Bobby Jones was a nugget in the last ABA finals. I thought that was like a cool, a cool little nugget. And speaking of the Lakers, Lakers Sixers, they play each other in the finals, what, three times in this span of this book. And boy, is it fun to go back and reread how much Kareem absolutely hated playing against Moses Malone, who I believe in the 83 finals has more offensive rebounds by himself than the entire Lakers team has in this.

series or some crazy stat like that. And everyone knows the story. This is why books like this are so great because your brain can't hold all this information. It can only absorb so much. So like everyone knows the story about Paul Westhead and the Lakers and Magic being unhappy with the way they were running their offense through Kareem and playing slow.

You have an anecdote in this book that either I had never heard or I had forgotten that players on the Lakers had match books on which I guess they wrote trade. Karim and they would pass them around the locker room, maybe in jest, maybe half in jest, maybe seriously in some cases. I had never heard that before. Is that in newspaper articles or did someone tell you that? I can't remember how you got that. It wasn't in newspaper articles.

It was told me by Steve Springer and confirmed by Scott Osler. They were both writers in Los Angeles at that time. And I think that it was meant ingest, but it was also kind of almost like a club that younger Lakers players would form like Magic Johnson and Michael Cooper. And while they were like at airports, they would flash these things at each other. And it would say trade Kareem on them as in like, yeah, this is this is our ideology that we're going to try to implement here. It's funny. You mentioned George McGuinness, who's an ABA legend, Indiana Pacers, ABA legend, among other things.

He comes to Philadelphia, plays with Dr. Jay. And they do not mesh at all. It's two ball dominant guys with shaky jumpers. And just like it would be today, like the offense gets a little bogged down. there's an ego struggle. But the quotes in the book are just a reminder that, man, it used to just be a free-for-all in the media. Like, players would just say whatever the hell they wanted.

And it was unbelievable. So I'm just going to read some of my favorite ones from the books. George McGinnis said of Dr. Jay, when they're teammates in Philly, I always felt I never got my due in the ABA. I was always Julius's league. So does this become Julius's team? Imagine if Dwayne Wade had said that about LeBron or something when LeBron. came to the Sixers.

Then there's all this stuff about how everyone on the Sixers teams in the late 70s is so unhappy that the team actually has to find people for publicly demanding trades in the newspaper. And Dr. Jay's wife gets involved and says to the New York Times, I think, no one here respects Jean Shue, the Sixers coach. How many guys wanted to win one for Shoe, not one, and sometimes not even for themselves? Imagine if a player's spouse came out and said that today, there's more.

And I'm sure. Can I interrupt you. Yeah, go, go, yeah. Turquoise Irving, who is Irving's wife, not old, she didn't say that. She wrote that. That is a ghostwritten article that she published in the New York Times. And it was ghost written, I believe, by the writer that Julius Irving eventually sire as a child with, Samantha Stevenson.

And so it's just the sort of level of dysfunction on that Sixers team is off the charts. By the way, I had forgotten that Alexander Stevenson, the tennis player's mom, was also a sports reporter. Like, that's like, we don't need to get too into it, but that's like Rusini one, Rusini Vrabel 1.0 is chronicled in your book. And you don't shy away, by the way, from the various marital issues in foibles of both Moses Malone and Dr. Jay. In fact, Wilts' 20,000 women thing is wildly famous.

You have a line in the book that Irving openly talked about, I don't know exactly where, that for a brief, some period of his career on the next, Nets in New York. He experimented, that's the word you use, with sweeping with a different woman every night. Where did that come from? That comes from Dr. Jay himself. He admitted that as much in a biography. Okay, I'm going to read some more. They would never say this now kind of stuff. 19, I think it's the 19, it's the 1977 Eastern Conference Finals when the Rockets were in the Eastern Conference and the NBA between the 76ers and the Rocket. So they actually face each other. Moses Malone's on the Rockets after being shoved, like tossed around the league as if he were no good, several different.

He's on five teams in a two-year span. And Steve Mix, who's at Philadelphia Forward, says this of Moses Malone. Malone doesn't play anybody. He only concentrates on rebounds. We've gone at him a lot and we've been successful. He's such a bad defensive player. We were moving everything through him. He's terrible.

Now you get versions of that. Like people have talked about certain NBA players is like we're tariff. targeting him on defense. And then Moses Malone responds after a good game. Steve Mix, he don't know what he's talking about. Mix probably had something to drink when he said that. How does he know a defense?

He'd be on the bench. That's like what these guys would say way back when was, was. Can I mention that I, of course, talked to Steve Mix for this book and I read him, I read him that quote. And I said, what were you thinking whenever you said that? And he says,

exactly what I meant. Moses wasn't that good of a defensive player. So I think he'd say it again. if given the chance. And you have in the 80, 81 finals when the Celtics are playing Moses Malone's Rockets, 80,81 rockets is one of the only, maybe the only sub 500 team ever to make the NBA finals. They were 40 and 42. He says he could beat the Celtics.

The mighty Boston Celtics with Larry Bird, me and four guys off the street in Petersburg, Virginia, where he's from, could beat the Celtics. Then the Celtics get incensed when they read the quote in the paper. It's in the paper. and beat the Rockets. And he says after the game, there's still chumps. Like Moses was an all-time quote guy.

Oh, yeah, he was. And I mean, that's the thing. Everybody says, oh, he's the silent guy. But I think that one of the sort of things that I show in that book is that even though Irving probably talked more than any superstar at that time, just because of all the interviews he gave, Moses is no, is better known for things he said than Irving is.

Like, if you look at the faux, foe, faux quote, or the, I could beat the Celtics on my own with four guys from my hometown. Moses actually had better quotes than Irving did. It was easy to find quotes from Irving talking. It was harder to find quotes from Irving actually saying anything. Well, and go into, I either again had forgotten this or never knew, the origin of his nickname, the doctor, is kind of from that. Can you tell readers, I don't want to spoil that part of the book,

but it's at the beginning about how he got his nickname. Well, he knew somebody that a friend, in high school it used to play basketball with, and they were best buddies. And Irving was just such a diplomatic, you know, kind of even-spoken person that he would call him the doctor, not necessarily in a positive way, but in a way that it was like he was cerebral or intellectual or something like that. And Irvin nicknamed that guy, the professor. And so, yeah, it wasn't that he was like operating on the court.

It was more about his demeanor. Is there anyone you didn't, anyone alive who you, who you. tried to get for this book that you were not able to get to you're like damn i wish i i'm sure there's several like um bratt larry bird is really hard to get um like is there anyone like that and and the obvious yeah beyond the obvious you know bird magic they they they they're people just laugh at you whenever you whenever you try to talk to them but i would say marie's cheeks i tried so many different ways to get marie's cheeks to talk i went through the chicago bowls where he was working i went through the mail i went through the phone i went through email i

tried everything and every time he was very nice about it. I even talked to him. He just said, I don't do this. And of course, Zach, as you know, Andrew Tony has not given an interview since he retired, at least not won on the record. And so, you know, he wasn't about to start with this book. Well, his body, I'm glad you mentioned him because you tell his story in this book, how much he changed the Sixers. I believe he's a rookie in 81 and then made the conference finals right away against Boston. Obviously, people know the nickname the Boston Strangler, one of the great nicknames in NBA history.

His body falls apart pretty fast. There's some arguments as to why and how and how severe it actually was. And he kind of peters out. But to hear the opposing players, Robert Parrish in particular, talk about Andrew Tony. It's like they're talking about Michael Jordan. Like he wasn't that good. There's only one Michael Jordan.

But Robert Parrish has a quote. I'm paraphrasing it. you probably know it by hardware. It's like, you know, there are some guys you can guard. And then there's like Andrew Tony, whatever we game plan for, it's out the window immediately. Like, did we just have no answer for this guy? Yeah, yeah. He, you know, it's interesting.

I came to realize two things when I was doing this book because I did talk to a lot of teammates and opposing players. And I would ask them two different questions. One, give me your best Andrew Tony's story. And everybody had one. And generally, it wasn't about his personality because I think that he was pretty serious and quiet behind the scenes. It was about him on the core just like saddling up to Michael Cooper, the greatest defensive

player of his generation and just being like, say, aren't you supposed to be the best offensive player? And like just absolutely refusing to back down to anyone. And then I would say, give me your best Daryl Dawkins story. And that was something that happened off the court. And most of those could not be printed. And so, yeah, those two were sort of the characters of the book. I will say that getting to Tony, like, it's tough.

I think a lot of people have maybe, because of the potential that went unfulfilled, have maybe exaggerated what he was actually like. So it was a little bit tough to get to the heart of him. I'd say the best interview I did with him was his college coach, who I don't think a lot of people talk to. His name is Bobby Pachel. And it was just, he didn't have a lot to say beyond just the fact that Andrew Tony was at the gym at six in the morning and left at 11 o'clock at night.

It was just he, he shot, shot, shot, shot, shot. The guy, you couldn't get him out of the gym. That's just what he was doing. Speaking of Daryl Dawkins, I mean, I just, you know, love him, hate him, lament his loss potential or unfulfilled potential. He is one of the all-time great characters in the history of professional basketball. And I've just, to give people a taste, if people don't know, they know about these broken backboards and all that stuff.

They might not remember planet Lovetron, which is a planet that he claimed to be from. I had forgotten about his van. Do you want to talk about what was the name of his van written on it, I believe? Was it love? I can't remember now. I think it was like getting it or something like that. Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Again, the van, yeah. Then he moved planets from Lovetron to Chocolate Paradise, and he was the chocolate thunder with a queen called Juicy Lucy. a whole universe that Daryl Dawkins made up that didn't exist. And then he named his dunks, in your face disgrace, turbo saxophone delight. And then one of his backboard breaking ones is over a guy named Bill Robazine, I think, the chocolate thunder flyin, Robazine crying, teeth shaking, glass breaking, rump roasting, bun toasting, bam bam, bam, glassbreaker, I am jam. This was written in a newspaper by a columnist that like Daryl

Dawkins kind of ghost wrote columns with Fran Blindberry back. Like, this is the thing that happened. And there's a version of it now with like the Players Tribune or the ads like the diaries that Mark Spears does. They're nothing like this. Everything is so anodyne and watered down now. This is like unfiltered Daryl Dawkins in the mainstream newspaper. So to give some context of this, there used to be, there used to be a Philadelphia Weekly that decided that they wanted each of the major sports, hockey, basketball, baseball, football. They wanted a superstar to write a weekly column for them. And they chose like, you know, Mike Schmidt and Bobby Clark and all these other big names.

Julius Irving turned it down. And so they chose Daryl Dawkins. And if you read the other columnist from like Mike Schmidt or something like that, they're very anodyne. Like we played the Cardinals today. It was tough. Boy, is Ozzie Smith amazing. If you read Daryl Dawkins, he sat down with.

the ghostwriter named Fran Blindberry, and they would huddle together at the practice court, and Dawkins would just go off onto some science fiction, like, tangent about being from the planet named Lovetron and having these sort of women by his side and, like, ruling this universe and coming down to Earth to play basketball. It's just wild stuff. And it is unlike anything that you can imagine a player doing today. And Dawkins is just kind of wonderful. And, at creating a persona for himself that, you know, attracts enough attention that he can get a Wheaties advertisement. It all kind of comes to an end whenever a guy named Harold Katz buys the 76ers

and recognizes that Dawkins has never been an All-Star, never been in the top 10 in rebounding, and is actually better known for his off-court antics than his on-court feats. And it really is necessary to offload him for the Sixers to take that final. stuff. Well, at the start, you have sort of in your head a general idea that Moses to the Sixers in the sub-offseason of 1982 going at 82, 83 might end up being similar to LeBron to the Sixers 43 years later. I kind of get what you mean now that I've read the book and kind of refresh my memory, but spell that out for people. So basically, the Sixers are at this point where they've

they've gone through, let's say, call it a process where they, they start off with a team with a bunch of superstars and a bunch of sort of parts that don't go together. It doesn't work. They shed all those parts. They bring in new people like Tony, Bobby Jones, Maurice Cheeks, and they're trying to win with that sort of thing. It doesn't work either. And it looks like you're at the end of the line. Julius Irving, one of the, I would say, the best scene that I came across in the book. book, and it's only really a small paragraph in the archives, is that after the

1982 NBA finals, when the Sixers lose the Lakers, Julius Herving breaks down and cries in the locker room. And he is so cool and collected that it shocked the Sixters so much that they closed down the locker room. They didn't want anybody to see it. They didn't want any sort of photographs going on about that. And Irving kind of recognized that that was it. That was the end. This whole sort of process that they've been going through. It's going to end in heartbreak. And it isn't until this very unexpected signing of Moses Malone teaming together the last two MVP's on this team that Irving gets his second life.

And if you look at the Sixers now, they've gone through this long process with Joel and B. They had Ben Simmons. They get sort of heartbroken by the Toronto Raptors. They, you know, add some new people like Tyrese Maxine, VJ Edgecombe. It still doesn't look like it's going to be enough. And then, bam, this off season, they get Jalen Brown and, LeBron James, it is an equivalent of if they are to pull this off, I guess you'd have to put, you know, Embed in the same chair as Julius Irving. But it could be this unexpected resurgence of the,

of the Sixers just when it seems like they're dead. And I think that's one of the reasons why Moses Malone is just, again, there's like a very, it's less than 10 guys who have won three MVP's, and a finals MVP as well. In 83, he is the finals MVP. I think one of the reasons why he's just not remembered in that group as much as he should be is, A, his game was kind of workmanlike. Like it wasn't glamorous. It wasn't pretty. He would have told you that right away.

And one of the great things about him in this book is he just, he comes off. He says over and over again, I'm just here to work. I work and I work and I work. And people who want to come see me play, they should know that I'm going to play super hard every single night. But also in less than two years, he goes from the Utah stars of the ABA who fold. he goes to the St. Louis spirits of the ABA in the dispersal draft because another team, the Hawks or the Atlanta team, stupidly trades their dispersal draft. No, he goes to, I'm sorry, he goes to the St. Louis Spirits.

Then he goes with the ABA folds. He goes to Portland because Atlanta stupidly trades their draft picked to Portland. Portland, Dr. Jack Ramsey just doesn't like him, trades him almost immediately to the Buffalo Braves, aka the future clippers. Buffalo, after barely even letting him see the floor, trades him to him. to the Rockets and it's like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. He's on five teams in less than near app. It's crazy that one of the all-time great players was like passed around like damaged goods

or something in the early part of it, not even in this prime, like the early part of his prime. Then he goes on and wins what, two MVP's with the Rockets, takes him to the finals. And then he's, then the Rockets aside, they don't want to resign him either. Yeah, it's almost confusing. And he's just, there's this sort of idea of. Moses Malone on the Rockets that he's a little bit limited in what he can do. He's an amazing rebounder, but maybe he doesn't run very well. Maybe he doesn't make his teammates better.

It's very mistaken. I think that he's just kind of like surrounded by, by players that he almost has to drag into the playoffs year after year after year. And even though whenever he gets traded to the Sixers, he's only 27, he feels like he's a lot older than that. And I think it is just the travel and the sort of like, you know, bouncing around that he's had to do and then dragging a sub 500 Rockets team to the finals, he sort of recognizes that if his career continues on that way, it's he's going to get worn out by the time he's, he's 30. And of course, he goes to the Sixers and gets a new life. But even then,

he bounces around at the end of his career, too. It's almost like he doesn't really have, a home, even though if you really sort of think about who Moses Malone is, he's a very sort of homebody person who is very comfortable around a very limited number of people. And so you would think that he would just want to root himself in one place and stay there. But instead, out of all the people that have win three MVPs, he's the one that gets shuffled around the most. Does he have, does he have a statue anywhere? I know that the Sixers at their practice facility have like a line of statues, like smaller statues leading up. but I don't know if he's one of them.

I don't know if he's in the smaller one. He's certainly not in the bigger one. And, you know, the book, I don't want to give away the end of the book, but I guess I will. He, you know, the Sixers come to him right before he passes and asked if he wants to have his number retired in Philadelphia. And he says no. And they say, why? And he says, well, if you're going to retire my number, then everybody should be up there. And so he won't let them go through with it until they've stitched the names of every single person he played with in Philadelphia.

onto his number. Oh, not just the 83 team. Yeah, every single, every single person, 84, 85, 86. And so it's all up there on the rafters. And that kind of, you know, I thought that personified really what he was as a teammate. All right. Yeah, I don't want to give away the rest of the book. People just do to buy NBA fans. You need to have this book. It's, it's awesome. It's fun to read. It's full of anecdotes. Just to what your appetite? You're three things that just pop into my head is like stuff in the book. A what if with Dr. Jay and Pistol Pete Mare, potentially on the same team. I had also forgotten, like, the last ABA All-Star game is famous for the dunk contest between Dr. Jay and David Thompson, which you get into. I had forgotten that they tried the gimmick of defending ABA champions versus All-Stars

from the rest of the teams in the ABA, Denver against, or was it a team with the best record? I can't remember what you was. Is it the team with the best record? And because the NBA All-Star game happened to be in Denver, it's the only time an All-Star game was also a home game. A gimmick that, like, the NBA is trying every single possible gimmick to save the All-Star game, and they may have landed on one that works now with the world stuff.

That's a fun one. And just, if you're familiar at all with 1970s, any prep to pro kind of book, you're going to know that there's wild Moses Malone college recruitment stories. There's even more wild Moses Malone college recruitment stories than I had even remembered or read about before in this book, which is Phil. How many people do you interview for this thing? Oh, I don't, I mean, 100 or so. I don't know. And actually, a lot of them did pass away. Lefty Dreisel, who is the coach of Maryland, passes away.

Moses's agent Lee Fentris has Alzheimer's. Harold Katz passes away. Pat Williams passes away. It was the right time to write this book. It's just shock full of good stuff. Luke Eppelin, it's awesome talking to you. I really enjoyed the book, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It's a great, it's a team.

there are certain teams that I've been yearning for like a deeper book that looks at them. This is one of them. I can talk about like late 70s, early 80s spurs. I think they need a book. The Hawks of like the mid-70s, they need a book. This is an essential book for any sports library. Luke Eppelin, thank you, sir. Hey, thanks, Zach.

All right, that's it for today's episode. Thank you to Law-Murray. Thank you to Luke Epplin by his book. 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 early next week. We're back to two episodes a week.

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