The Zach Lowe Show - Thunder and Nuggets Atop the West, Disasters at the Bottom of It, and Some Happy Surprises With Mo Dakhil

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Mo Dakhil joins Zach (1:54) to talk about the dominance of the Thunder and Nuggets and how they’ve separated themselves from the rest of the league. Next, they look toward the bottom of the standings to discuss five disasters happening out West (25:43). Who’s got the biggest issues right now? What about going forward? And is choosing the worst disaster worse than going on 'Fear Factor'? Finally, some happy surprises across the NBA, including the Raptors (56:37), Suns (01:04:12), and Hawks (01:10:42). Plus, some end-of-game coaching dilemmas, a classic “who says no” fake trade, and a whole lot more! Host: Zach Lowe Guest: Mo Dakhil Producers: Mike Wargon, Jesse Aron, Jonathan Frias, and Billy Gil Social: Keith Fujimoto The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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entry deadlines, prizes, and details. Coming up on the Zach Lowe show, it's Monday. And Moe de Kille and I have a lot to talk about Mondays with Mo. I kind of liked it. It has a good ring to it. We're going to talk at the top of the West, Oklahoma City, and Denver. Oh, my God. They're playing like it's May.

Is the whole season just a collision course between these two teams? We'll talk about how good they are, why they've been even better than expected, maybe at least in Denver's case. A lot of teams are going to have something to say about that Western Conference collision course, including the Houston Rockets, among others. And then the most interesting, really, I just don't remember a time when there were this many complete disasters at the same time. By disaster, I don't mean like the 1 in 12 Wizard who are tanking or the 2 and 11 nets

who are tanking just beat the Wizards last night in the tank off. Or did they lose to the Wizards and the tank off? I don't know. I don't know how you classify that. I'm talking about teams that were ostensibly hoping to win games this year and are in such disarray that they are on the border or totally in disaster mode. Clippers, mavericks, pelicans, grizzlies, kings. We're going to talk about all of them. And we're going to talk about some happy surprises.

The Phoenix Suns in the West, the Toronto Raptors in the East, and the Hawks without Trey Young. They're kind of cooking a little bit. What's real? What's not real? It's all coming up on the Zach Lowe show. with mode to keel. You're listening to the Zach Lowe show presented by Fandul. Fandle now displays your bets directly on your phone's lock screen.

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Call 1-888-7-8-9. 777 or is it CCPG.org slash chat in Connecticut. Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show. It's almost Thanksgiving. That means Moa to Kiel. We can start drawing some conclusions about what's happened in the NBA and we're going to start in the Western Conference. But first of all, how are you, my friend? I'm doing great. I'm riding high off a nice weekend. A little bit rainy. Got soaked at the USC game. Fight on for all my Trojans out there. You know, but we came away with the W. My Rams got a win yesterday. ugly as hell, but got a W, so we're rolling in.

And Zach, we couldn't ask for the games last night. It's unbelievable. It seems like every night there's two crazy overtime games. Even the ones that didn't go to overtime, Hardin gets the buzzer-beater, almost capping improbable clippers come back against Boston, Royce O'Neill with the heave that almost goes in to beat the cacars on the road. Just incredible stuff. Yeah, I want to start in the West because

zooming out, I was in Minnesota all last week. I saw the Kings, I saw the wolves, I just talked to people all week. I don't remember, and I'm not Bill Simmons. I haven't done the deep dive into this historically into the 1960s and 70s. But at the top of the West, and I'm going to apologize in advance to the Rockets and their fans, I'm still kind of trying to figure out the Rockets. Like, I just, they're such a strange team. They have a lot of trade assets.

We haven't seen Finney Smith yet. they're nine and three with the number one offense in the league and a point differential plus 11 and a half that is almost on par with Denver and Oklahoma City. I'm going to park them over here and say you are rock solid. I'm scared of Stephen Adams even from far distances and we'll get back to you. The top two teams in this conference right now, Oklahoma City, despite Jalen Williams not playing in any games yet and a bunch of other guys missing a bunch of games. and Denver, despite Cam Johnson being kind of eh at best for most of the season, although I thought he was starting to pop a little bit

in the ways they needed to him, him to pop before he got hurt the other day. And despite Christian Brown now being out for at least six weeks, these teams, it's not that they are 13 and one thunder, 10 and two nuggets, plus 15 point differential for the thunder, which is a joke, plus 13 for Denver, also a joke. It's not just that they're dominant. It's that when you watch them play,

They look so polished that they're like, they look ready to play the Western Conference Finals right now in November. They look like they've been playing together for 100 games and they're ready to go. And then so that level of dominance we'll get to. And then I just, again, I need Simmons on this. I don't remember any time, at least since I've been covering the NBA, that we have had this many complete unmitigated disasters at the same time among teams that ostensibly should be trying to win.

Like I'm not even including the Nets who got off to Schneide last night against the Wizards for their second win. The Wizards who are 1 and 12 and Joe House texted us they had a players only meeting. They have to be the worst team of all time to have a players only meeting

this early in the season if ever. I'm not even including those teams. I mean like the Jazz are 5 and 8 they're above this. I'm including these are the disasters in the West. Clippers, four and nine disaster. Don't control their pick.

Oklahoma City. Raise your hand. Memphis, 4 and 10, disaster. John Morant just doesn't look so engaged on the floor and also left Cleveland's game over the weekend with cap tightness. Mavericks, 4 and 10, disaster. Fired their GM, we covered it last week, fake Anthony Davis trades galore. New Orleans Pelicans, disaster.

Fired Willie Green over the weekend. About 10 days after I thought they were going to fire him, they've been a dead team walking for a long time now. Don't control their pick. Raise your hand, Atlanta Hawks. Sacramento Kings, three and 11, absolute disaster, do control their pick, as do the Mavs and the Gris. Five teams that ostensibly came into the season with some level of ambition that are in such disarray and look so just off that I just don't remember this many at the same time. But I want to start at the top.

Let's give the good team some love. Denver and Oklahoma City, I mean, am I blown smoke or do these teams just look like it's May and they're ready to go ahead? head in the conference finals. No, you're not blowing smoke. Like when you just, first off, let's just start with Oklahoma City that's not even fully healthy, doesn't have their second best player, or the way Chet is playing and he's ascending to another level in what we've seen when he's on the floor. Like there's no way to look at it other than this team is just head and shoulders

above everybody in the way that they're playing. They roll right through. Everybody steps in. A.J. Mitchell comes in. Most people didn't know him at the start of the season. Have an understanding of who he is now. Like it's just constant over and over again. They keep pulling guys.

Their depth is unbelievable. They're winning games in a way where it's like, they might have a bad first half. Third quarter, they're just going to go on a crazy run. And it might even leak a little bit into the fourth quarter, but they're going to take over the game in the second half. Like it's at that point where you're just watching them going like, yeah, down 15, 17 in the first quarter for a second quarter,

not a big deal. It's going to work out for them. in the way and it's not luck it's nothing this is how damn good they are and i think that's the important thing to understand it i didn't even mention shea she's playing at an MVP level already and and back to the flow of things like i just think when you look at the thunder it's a complete team completely set up and they have the chemistry right everybody understands their role the coaching staff has done an unbelievable like all around no notes on on them the nuggets Well, let's pause on the Thunder.

Let's pause on the Thunder. All right. I don't remember what they're over under was. It was extremely high, and I took the over without even thinking about it. And I said they are more likely to win 70 games than they are to go under this number. I can't. I still am shocked that they're this dominant with the health. Like, Dorts miss games, Holmgren's missed games.

Jill Williams was the entire season. They are fifth in offense. They are first in defense. Mo. They're allowing 102.8 points. per 100 possessions. The second place defense, the Denver Nuggets, we'll get to that. Is that real?

Is that not real? 109.4. That's a six and a half point gap between first and second. That's the same as the gap between Denver and the 20th ranked defense in the NBA. There's so much better than everyone defensively that it's absolutely insane. And you want to say, well, they must be getting lucky with opponent three-point shooting. They do give up a lot of threes. They're 25th in opponent three point percentage.

Opponents are lighting them up from three, and they're still this far ahead of everyone defensively. They have a gear that they get to, and this happened against Golden State, and it happened against the Lakers, two home games in which they just walloped would be usurpers of the throne at home in Oklahoma City. They have a gear they can get to defensively.

When you can see the other team just say, you know what, we just, it's not happening for us tonight. I'm not going to say quit, but I'm going to say all, like, you could see Golden State, all our motion offense are cutting, running around like, oh man, none of this stuff works. You know what? We got another game in a couple days. Let's just pack it in. And unless we get randomly hot or they screw up, we're dead.

I mean, this team is so dominant defensively. And the last thing I'll say, AJ Mitchell, you nailed it. I think that's good. I think this is real and it's going to help them in the playoffs in the non-shea minutes. And when he does play with Shea, it's yet another guard they can throw in of these guard, guard pick and rolls, both ways. Shea is screener, Shea's ball handler, that just absolutely flummox teams. And the last thing I'll say on Shea is, we all know, mid-range maestro, MVP.

My favorite Shay shot is he loves the dead zone along the baseline, like 17 feet away from the rim. He dribbles into that space. It's not just the classic elbow jumpers. He dribbles down into that dead zone where nobody goes. defenses are like, what are you doing here? And he loves that shot. It feels like it's a 60% shot for him. It feels like it's almost his go-to shot.

Anyway, I have no notes on the Thunder. They're unbelievable. But that's his spot, right? Like, teams need to understand that. Like, when you go back to the very first game of the season against Amen Thompson, I think it was end of regulation. It might have been the end of first overtime. Sorry, there have been so many overtimes this season.

It's all, it's tough to keep track. But he gets to that spot. And that has to be the thing. every team going up against him, that's his spot. And you can't let him get to it. And it's a spot nobody else really cares for. Like you said, it's kind of like a dead zone. That's the location you need to not let him get to so easily

because he got there very easily against Thompson and drills it. And then I think sent it to overtime. It's an unbelievable run with what you have. And then just looking at the way they play defensively, you're right. Quit is not the right term, but it's deflating for any offense. We run our stuff. This is our stuff.

This stuff always works. We're the warriors. All our motion. All our cutting. All that stuff. Relocation threes for staff. All that stuff. And it's just deflating.

When you're so used to that working on a nightly basis and you turn around. And it's not just the Warriors. It's every team. But when you turn, when you're done and you go through a possession and this is where you're usually wide open. And they're right on you. It's just like as a players, as staff. like it's just deflating. I think that's really the way I look at it in the term I use when I look at their

defense, just deflates the other team's offense. Chet, you mentioned 19 and 8 a game, 58% shooting, 68% on twos. Ooh. Shout out Hartinstein, who's been unbelievable. 13, 11, and 3 assists, 69% shooting, A plus defense. The whole team is just, and I was actually surprised I looked this up this morning. I looked up their passing numbers. Their assist rate is 28th in the league, and they're

passes per game are actually down. I don't, I mean, there, there had never been a high pass team because of the way Shea plays. And they get a lot of transition buckets, which are one pass possessions off their turnovers, or zero past possessions if it's just a pick six. Kaysen Wallace's nickname should be pick six. We should just call them Kaysan pick six Wallace. They've hit segments of games this season. Those numbers surprised me because they've hit segments of games this season where the

ball has been moving and it's been driving kick, driving kick, and they've been in a blender gear here and there, which I didn't see them get into as much last year. So I was surprised that their passes are actually down, but it's good to know that that gear exists out there. Look, this was my pick to win the championship, duh, to make the finals, duh, like not a tough pick. And it was barely my pick over the Denver Nuggets. Are you ready to talk Yokic and the Yolkich? Yeah, let's go. Second in offense, second in defense, 10 and two to start the season. I mean, there are just no words for Yokic. 29 points a game. He leads the league with 13 rebounds a game. He leads the league with 11 assists a game. He's shooting 67% on twos. It's just

absolutely ridiculous how easy it is for him. He had a play against the Clippers disaster team number three or four, I don't know, where he rebounded the ball. and brought it up full speed, Zubats behind him. And I've said this before. A Yokic defensive rebound when he's ahead of your center is the scariest moment in the NBA because it is a guaranteed good shot for the Nuggets. And nobody stopped ball.

And he just kept on dribbling. I don't know if you saw this play. He kept on dribbling and he got to about the free throw line. And Derek Jones Jr., airplane mode, who got hurt yesterday. We're going to talk about that. That could be devastating for the clippers if that's out for a while. Step into the lane.

Airplane mode can jump. And Yokic was already in the air. It looked like he was going to maybe power dunk it. And then Derek Jones Jr. gets in there. He just drops this teardrop, like as if it's nothing that goes right through the net. The net is like, did something touch us? I don't even know if the string over there. Did you feel anything?

I didn't feel anything. You can see Chris Paul out of the rotation. You can see Chris Paul on the bench. Just look at Chris Paul's reaction to that shot. His reaction is like, dude. Seriously, man? The thing I want to zoom into, though, We know their offense is going to be awesome.

Cam Johnson is going to get going. This defense is number two in the NBA. That's probably a little over their head, given that they've allowed the lowest three-point percentage in the NBA. But there's a lot that I like in the eye test on this defense. And this is even leaving separate, like the non-yokic minutes are so much better. That bench mob of Hardaway, Brown, Watson, Valanchunis with Murray, that lineup was starting to get into a rhythm.

Now it's all scrambled because of the injuries and Hardaway is going to start and Watson started, et cetera. I just like how that group plays. I like how Valenciunis plays. I like how he gives them a fail safe when Yokic is out. But you've been in the trenches with coaching staffs before. What are they doing on, like if this is a top 10 defense, forget number two. If this is a top 10 defense, this is a team that can beat anybody in the playoffs,

including Oklahoma City. Is this real? How real is it? I think it's pretty real. if number two is real. And we also know in the course of the season, sometimes it can drop a little bit, but you know you have that gear in them. I just think when you look at the way they are as a team defensively, they're perfectly well-rounded in the way they all cover for each other. They're always there for each other. They understand the assignments a little bit. Aaron Gordon, I think, is really

the, Aaron Gordon and Christian Brown are like the tip of the spear in terms of the defense, just being aggressive and ready to roll. Gordon's going to be your utility guy. He's going to run through and guard pretty much the toughest assignment most of the time. And if it's a quick, quick, shifty guard, it's probably going to be Brown. And I think you're going to have to. Or now Watson, who's going to have to start. Yeah, or Watson, right, with Brown out.

So it's, you know, I think they just have a lot of, they understand their rotations better than anybody else, where they need to be, what they want to do, how they want to kind of, attack it and get into zones. I just overall just love it's part of defense is a mentality and I think they all have it. Even Jamal Murray is competing defensively in ways we're not used to seeing. And I think there's an understanding where these guys going like, this is how we need to be a defensive team. And if they're making that shift to being a little bit more of a defensive orient,

you have Yokic. Offense is going to be fine. He's the offense. You're fine. Focused on the defense and making sure everybody else. understands it's on the same page in the right spots on their rotations. It makes a massive difference for this team. And I think that's why we're seeing them start this season as the number two defense in the league. What stood out to me is they're just a very smart defensive team.

First of all, they play a lot of zone. And I think that fits their personnel pretty well. It protects Yolkits and it protects Murray. And it leans into like even when they're in the man or in zone, whatever he want. They just, you watch all the players. They move on a string. They have a good sense of what you want to do. They sniff out when a cut is coming. They pass off assignments to each other seamlessly.

They just know when to stunt, when to cover space. They know when to jump switch. And by jump switch, I mean, someone drives on a pick and roll and has a lane to the basket. Corner defender comes in, takes him. Guy on the ball veers out to the corner. They just, like, big to big rotations between AG, and Yokic are just on point. Zone leans into all of that,

just sort of trading off assignments and trading off spaces. When they get stops, Zone, one of my favorite things about Zon for them and any other team is all the matchups are screwy. And so you might have somebody small on Yokkich and then you're toast or you're scrambling around

trying to figure out your stuff, your assignments, and it helps their transition game. And even when they're playing man, sometimes their man is kind of a hybrid defense where Yokic is almost playing a one. man zone down by the rim. So against the wolves, he would just sort of tag Jalen Clark, tag Jaden McDaniels.

He'd be nominally guarding one of those guys with a wing on Nas Reid and Aaron Gordon or whoever on Julius Randall. And they're just their IQ, like, they just cover space when and where it needs to be covered. And they don't, their shot diet allowed is like pretty good. They allow about an average number of threes, pretty few shots at the rim, a ton of mid-range jumpers. Their free throids okay. They clean the defensive glass. Like their IQ is just really, really solid. And I like the Spencer Jones kid who's getting minutes, by the way. Yeah. I mean,

look, when you go to just their IQ, it's that's such an important thing to your defense. And it's feel for each other. It's chemistry is the other side of it. Because this group has been together for the most part. Like we're at like five years now. I don't, the Aaron Gordon trade, I think, was, God, it was during COVID. Bruce Brown backpacked through Europe for a couple years. He came back to campus. Yeah, you know, so it's like, you know, you have everybody, the chemistry level across the board for the most part,

and institutional knowledge is still there. Even with Adelman taking over, you know, he's been with the team forever. So it's not even like it's a new coach bringing a whole new swing of things. And I think that my favorite thing, even with them playing zone, because the hardest thing in zone defenses is a really, rebounding. There's still third in defensive rebounding. I didn't look percentage, but just a raw number. That's solid, right? Like, that's an important thing in zone. Like,

when I would coach and we'd go to zone, the emphasis we would put is like, but we have to get the freaking rebound because you're all mixed up. You're out of positions with zones. It's not so much traditional box out opportunities. The fact that they're still rebounding extremely well when they're in the zone is it shows you their mindset of we're going to be a defensive team. And they understand it too because like you said we get that rebound the matchups are going to be screwy we might have a big on jamal like it might be an opportunity we might be able to get a leak out for errand like there's going to be different things that we could have with that with everything that we get just from our defense being rock solid and and communicating and understand where

we have to be at all times i think two's too high they're not going to finish with the second base defense in the NBA and in fact right now um you know, there's like, they're almost third. There's a bunch of teams bunched up there. They look like a top 10 defense to me. It looks legit to me. Even Yokic has been a little bit better around the basket than I remember him being. He's just so good at being big and getting his arms.

They're an arms team. They're a team of arms. They have their arms out and they have their arms in cutting lanes and passing lanes. And they just make you pause and not throw passes that you might want to throw. They're just very smart about all of that stuff. It looks real to me. And look, I said before the season, everyone's healthy, and that never happens.

I get that. We got 82 games to play, plus a bunch of playoff games, nicks and injuries and all that stuff. Oklahoma City, Denver is the finals to me, and I've seen, again, with apologies to the Rockets, who I'm still kind of trying to comprehend, I have seen nothing to dissuade me from that. There's some other good teams in the West.

Minnesota's good. The Lakers are good. Warriors are very good. These two teams are just, I was talking to a bunch of Minnesota people over the last week, and I said it in the live show. Your biggest problem is that you're in the West, and these two teams above you are just so damn good.

I just, the level of play they have reached before Thanksgiving is extremely rare in the NBA. It's unfair. They're like, good on these teams for having that. But it's, we always talk continuity and all those things. All these teams, these two teams have it in that sense. They don't really have to kind of explore it. Like, again, Houston still. has to figure out, you know, you got to figure them out. I got to figure them out.

So does the Rockets got to figure themselves out and figure out who they are in the Van Vleet injury, obviously through a wrench and everything. I think all of these teams are trying to kind of understand who they are or also how are we going to manage the season. We don't even know what the Lakers are without LeBron at this point. And I'm not saying that they get LeBron. They're going to be on that level. I don't think so. I think you're right. This is a collision course. Barring something unexpected, these two teams should meet in the conference finals. It should be another epic conference finals. We should have a lot of fun with this one.

Because I think it's just going to be a completely just slug it out type of playoff game, playoff series. And I'm actually excited for the first time they match up. Like I just think this season, I think they're going to understand that. I feel like I don't know if the Thunder, they should be probably have the odds for every game. They're going to go in and be the favorites for every game. I can see the one game or two games.

games that they wouldn't be the favorites is in Denver. And that will be minuscule. That'll be, you know, like, what, half a point? I don't know gambling well enough, but like half a point or just a point. You know, it's going to be funny is when they turn around and lose into Orleans tonight after we talk about what the disaster the Pelicans are. Oh. You know, look, and collision course, maybe. We'll see. Injuries will, injuries are always there. Yolkich plus 171 on the floor, minus 13 off. Valenciunis is only minus two. So they're basically playing even in the non-yokish minutes, which is a home run. I love the way Murray came into the season.

Like, F all this talk. I want to make an all-star team. F, like, I want to put everything that happened last Canada, all of it behind me. Aaron Gordon, just what a career arc. Can't say it enough. Shooting 47% on 3. Hardaway has been awesome. Cam Johnson, again, was starting to pop a little bit off the dribble.

I think he'll get there. I just, they are the riddle of how can you be an absolutely elite offense without taking any threes. They're 27 and 3s. Answer 1 is have Yolkatch. Answer 2 is just be good to everything else. They shoot well. don't turn the ball over.

They get to the line. They get offensive rebounds. They're just good at everything, primarily because they have the best player in the NBA. And if you're anyone else in the West, you had to hope that by some fluke, one of them dropped to fourth. That some way they would have to play each other in the second round.

And it's, although the Rockets and the Lakers are close to them in the standings, they just seem destined for one and two. The Zach Lowe Show is brought to you by FanDuel. Get in on the NBA action at any time with live betting on FanDuel from the first whistle until the final buzzer. FanDuel is your home for live betting because FanDuel is giving new customers $150 in bonus bets if your first $5.5 bet wins. So just visit fanduel.com slash low to sign up today. Play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA.

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The unprecedented number of kind of sort of invested in winning this season teams that absolutely are either suck without any map to not sucking or are in completely. complete disarray and their only hope is that the amount of disarray in this group, plus does Utah fall back? Does Phoenix fall back? Can we the Clippers, for instance, if we just get healthy? Like Memphis has big things to deal with. Dallas has big things to do with.

Sacramento stinks. New Orleans stinks. You look at a team like the Clippers, like, okay, we can play our way to ninth and at least like salvage some face on this season. But this is just the level of. catastrophicness for all five of these teams, it's really almost admirable how dysfunctional they all are in different ways.

If you had to pick the biggest disaster, like the team you'd least like to be a fan of for the next three to four years, among the clippers, don't control your picks, Kauai investigation, Kauai's hurt, Beals hurt, Derek Jones Jr.'s hurt. Grizzlies, do control your picks.

John Morant, is he, playing his way out of town. Jaron's action just fouled me as I was saying this. Cedric Coward's awesome. Dallas fired the GM. A.D. injured. Kyrie, injured. Trade possibilities galore, but you have Cooper Flag.

Sacramento. I mean, my God. You have your pick and you have a bunch of basketball players that people have heard of. And New Orleans, 2 and 11. Derek Queen looks pretty good. Jeremiah Fier's looks pretty good. Marty Murray's hurt. Spoiler alert, Zion's hurt. You don't control your pick and you're last in the Western Conference in a rebuild mode and you don't control your pick while you're last.

Mode to keel, biggest disaster among those four, five teams, five teams. It's hard because there's a couple of them where I really just want to be like they're like going on fear factor. Do I want the spiders crawling all over me or do I want to like eat a tarantula or do I want to wake up in a tank of snakes? Like which thing do I want to do? Yeah, like I'd almost rather do the fear factor ones than have to pick which disaster we have here in this. I think the easy answer is the New Orleans Pelicans, but I'm going to go with the Sacramento Kings. And it's the thing with the Kings is just, man, what's the future? Like just every team you talked about, except apart from the Clippers, which is just an unmitigated disaster in its own rate.

the Grizzlies have young players that we like and we're excited about. Obviously, the Mavs have Cooper Flag. Fears and Queen look great. We know the future is bleak in New Orleans with the draft picks and everything, with the draft pick going out this year and all of that. Sacramento owns their pick so they can tank and they eventually will have that. But even when they have the pick, like they find a way to screw it up.

Like it's so frustrating with everything that they have, it's like a few years ago we were talking about we were super excited to montesabonis de aaron fox took the warriors to seven games i you know who knows what happens if fox doesn't was it as pinky like it's you know like we're we're in a different scenario against the first round yeah yeah you know the light the beam team all that fun stuff that lasts it like one season it's been dog shit since then and it's been brutal de aaron fox is gone you fire mike brown we we kind of feel like a fire sales coming across the boards. But these are assets that aren't going to necessarily bring you in great stuff.

You know, like I don't know what the market is for Zach Levine, but it isn't going to be high. You know, I don't know what it's going to, what tomorrow Rosen is going to get you. You know, Subonis might be able to get you some stuff in the right situation. But like I just look at this team. I feel like there's no future. I feel bad in that sense because it was so exciting with the light of beam

and everything we had going. You saw a glimpse of, what it could be. And now it's just an absolute disaster. And I feel like there's no way out. And every time they panic and they just fire somebody else and bring in somebody else. And it's constantly bringing in new people. And, you know, we got a new front office.

And it's always like just new coaching. It's just a disaster to me, man. Like to me, they're the worst in this situation, especially coming off just a couple of years ago. It felt like you were breaking through. The answer comes down to the Pelicans and the kids. Kings. Those are the only two candidates. The Mabs have Cooper Flag, you know, that you get a lot of your sins forgiven when the luck, the lottery, when the vision, when the vision comes through as it did. You know what? You could make an argument that actually the Clippers should be lumped into this. I just think they're going to default their way into the playing tournament and be a competent team, but they look awful and they have injury issues galore. Shocker mode, no clear timetable on Kauai Leonard's return. Never, never could see that coming. But these two teams, I mean, the kings are the kings are unwatchable

I mean unwatchable I don't I don't know how I there's there's nothing I haven't said before including before the season when I called them the Hindenburg of the NBA and said they were headed for a disaster season I mean I'm going like over under on two

and a half weeks before the DeMontas Sabonis is unhappy with the kings and wants out report comes out or soft soft launch of that I think they could get something for him. I've done the fake Subonis trades before, but I don't like some of the teams that are good fake Subonis places

like I pitched Phoenix once. They're 8 and 6. They're one of the feel good stories of the season. They have nine centers. Portland just drafted a center doesn't play. He's in the G League but they are frisky, 6 and 7 we'll see. That's a and I've already also said Bulls and Kings should be banned from trading with

each other. I don't want Vucciovich in Sacramento. I don't, they just should, there should be a ban. To put together this collection of players is really to go from Fox and Halliburton to this is just shocking. I have no idea what Doug Christie is as a coach or if he has any hold over this roster. It seems like every game, only one of Damar de Rosen or Zach Levine will be like engaged in the game or playing well. Russ is like the most active player in the team.

I had two separate scouts at the Wolves' Kings game in Minnesota. unprompted, ask me the same question. Why don't they ever play Keon Ellis? Like, I don't know. Did he, like, steal someone's sandwich out of the fridge or something? And then he started last night. They also could have made him, they could have made him a restricted free agent last summer.

He is extension eligible in February. I just, the only, like, if they do nothing, if I'm Scott Perry, who just got into this job late last season, I'm like, hey, look, none of this mess is mine, man. Like, I didn't do any of this. and if we do nothing, we are just going to tank organically, and that's our only pathway back.

And yet this team has done nothing but screw up the draft for the last 20 years. And you hit it. Like, people have been all over the league and saying, well, the kings are going to blow it up. Blow what up? What are you getting for any of these players? DeMarre de Rosen, 25 million this year,

partially guaranteed 25 million next year. Okay, I don't know what you're getting for that. Zach Levine, $49 million player option for next season. Is you going to opt into that? I would guess opt into that. It's a lot of money. What are you getting for that? Subon is 42, 45, 48.

You get something. But like there's no quick, there's no four first round picks roadmap in one deal to relevancy. When your best asset is a center who doesn't protect the rim or shoot threes, it's just tough going. If I'm Scott Perry, I'm just like, hey, can we just, Vivek, just like focus on whatever tech thing you're doing right now, let this team suck. Don't get in the way of the suckage and we'll get a top five pick

and then we'll start doing stuff. Don't make me trade for John Morant. Don't make me do any of this crazy stuff. Although John Morant, the way he's playing ain't going to help this team untank itself. Just let me tank. But this collection of players is like, I can't watch it anymore.

I don't either watch the Wizards. Well, the Wizards are fun with Kishan George. I know they're not winning games. I don't want to interrupt you, but I just want to, like, I love. reading, there's this blog called the Kings Herald that every game, that King's game I don't watch, I want their take on the game.

They've completely given up. Every recap they do of every game is, the Kings lost again, we have to watch them play again tomorrow. That's it. It's all recap. Even the Kings fans are like, I can't, even the most diehard fans, they can't even bother blogging anymore. It's, it's, you know, the thing that's also frustrating for, for, for, I think if, for just

the Kings and what I worry about is, even if there's, you know, if there's, in the lottery, even if they get the number one pick. You know how many stories we're going to hear about like maybe agents aren't going to want their clients to go there? Say they have the third pick, fourth pick, and they try to do the shenanigans if we're not going to work out there. We're going to try to steer our players. Like that's the territory they're in. You know, like just in terms of young talent that they've gotten that they've drafted very high hasn't produced or hasn't lasted long enough there. And I think that's one of those things where if you're an agent,

You're almost like worried about your client going there. Is that an unfair characterization? Probably. But like at this point, it's kind of real. It's been real. It's already happened. Yeah, over and over again. Like, this is the problem, right?

You just mentioned Keon Ellis. That's, I, he's a, he's a dog. He can play. They don't, but they don't play him. They traded Davian Mitchell, like all of that stuff. Like, there's, there's just so much stuff. And that's why for me, it's like, I, New Orleans at least has some young talent that I'm excited about.

Kings are 25th in offense, 25th in defense. They have played the toughest schedule in the league, and they have games coming up against the Grizzlies, the Jazz, and the Pacers, the remains of the Pacers. So perhaps they will squeak out a win or two. I just don't know, I don't know what else to say. They don't have a lot of future draft assets coming in. They have a couple 2031 picks,

one of which is a Minnesota pick that could be good. The Spurs get to swap picks with them in 2031, which is bad. They get the Spurs pick in 2027 if it's 1 to 16, which it ain't going to be. So, yeah, at what point does Vivek run a DeVay just look in the mirror and say, Mo? I've been here a while now. Like, this isn't, like, maybe I'm just not good at this. It seems to go badly pretty much all the time. At what point do I just stay out?

Just stay out. You're asking a billionaire to have self-awareness. New Orleans, I don't know what to say. Willie Green's out. Fine, whatever. Everyone knew that was coming. James Barago is the head coach. Fine.

Everybody knew that was coming. They're 2 and 11. Their next two games against Oklahoma City and Denver, probably going to be 2 and 13. And their pick goes to the Hawks. And Derek Queen's good. I like Derek Queen. He's playing a lot of center.

I don't know how he fits with Zion. Does it even matter how he fits with Zion? Is Zion ever going to play 50 games in the season again? Dejante Murray's hurt. I don't even know what. I just don't even know what to do. I actually started thinking last night, Mo. This is how bad the Clippers have looked.

And now I want to turn to them unless you have Pelicans' insights. I like Derek Queen a lot. I like Derek Queen. I like his spirit. He talks a lot of trash. He's got a good spirit about him. I like him. He's not worth what looks like a guaranteed top five pick in this draft.

But, you know, and, and Ace Anul. On the Clippers, I actually started thinking last night is I watched them lose to the Celtics and Derek Jones Jr. who was making enough threes to be like a semi-viable 3-n-D option for them. It's something they badly need. I started thinking about James Harden Trades and Kauai Leonard's.

And then I remembered, hey, Kauai Leonard's always hurt and is under investigation from the NBA. B, the Clippers don't control their pick so they can't tank and I don't even know what deal I tried I tried to make a James Hard into the Rockets deal I tried to make a James Hard into the Buck's deal

like I tried and I was like oh wait a second Wait a second they don't control their pick I don't know pick a team Which one of these teams you want to talk about? I think the Clippers are more interesting because they have more at stake But if they're four and nine The Jazz are five and eight

The Blazers are six and seven and the sons who we're going to get to eight and six. The Clippers are 11th. They can look at the stings and be like, well, everyone below us is fucked. And at least one team above us is going to fall back. We'll make the play in.

I guess that's okay. They can't tank and Balmer doesn't want to tank. But the injuries are piling up. And the team, I've talked about it before. They're just slow and old and their defense is absolutely atrocious. And I just, it's pretty damn dispiriting to be a Clippers fan right now.

I would say. One of my closest friends is a Clipper fan. And let me just tell you, he's talked more about the Portland Trailblazers in our group chat than the Clippers. Like, it's been a tough run for Clipper fandom with everything that's going on,

just on the court. We don't even need to talk about the off-the-court stuff. When you look at the way this team is talking, playing, because it looks so lifeless. And slow is a great way to kind of look at it in the sense of like it's just a movement is slow. You know, CP's not even playing.

I'm pumped to see Kobe Sanders in some of these games. Like, give me a young guy. Give me some, Jordan Miller throw him and can't. Like, I'm pumped to see those guys playing. And that's what I really kind of want to point out, though, because when they made the trade for Paul George and all the picks that went out, they had made a point. I remember it in my head saying, like, this is going to be, we have to do a good job developing young guys. We got to find guys in the G league. All of that stuff.

none of that has come to fruition, except for very few guys here and there, because they don't get minutes on the court. Zubach is their biggest win in terms of development. But really, like, you know, we had that little run with Tams. A gift from the Lakers, by the way. A gift from the Lakers.

You know, they called to make the trade. The Lakers called the Clippers to make the trade. That was just so everybody understands that one. When it's accesses it's a gift, it was just an absolute gift wrapping. But when you look at their, they just haven't developed young guys. They haven't had the mentality of like, we're going to develop young guys in the regular season so we can get going. The minutes have been there.

Kauai doesn't play most nights. Like it's, you know, over the past few years and everything. You know, you can give hard and nights off and things like that. The minutes have been there to try to develop these guys. They just never do. You know, and I think that's a failure for them. The trade, I don't kill them for the trade. I kill them for afterwards, them not standing by.

We need to be a development program. And we need to make sure we develop young talent. They just didn't do it. Let's talk about a different trade then. The bet, and I thought it was a decent bet, was that effectively Norm Powell, in exchange for Bradley Beale and John Collins, would make their team better

with Beale being 85% of what Powell is. And Collins just introducing kind of a new look, someone with size, shooting, athleticism, who could play with Zubots in one role as kind of a floor spacer. And with Brooke Lopez in another role as kind of a pick and roll dive man with Lopez as the floor spacer. And that bet so far has failed. Bradley Biel was borderline unplayable

before his season-ending hip injury. Norm Powell is averaging a gazillion points and shooting the shit out of it for the heat. And John Collins has been okay. And what's happened now is I think even before Beal was out for the season, the Clippers had concluded Hardin Beal is just untenable defensively. We've got to start. I think they were trending toward a lineup that I had suggested, which was Hardin, Kauai, Jones, Collins, Zubots or Dunn in the Jones spot. because they don't want to start Jones and done together

because of the shooting issues. Well, Jones is going to be injured, probably be out for a while. What do you think of the Collins Zubat's fit so far? Because that's sort of, it's a role that Collins has played a lot as a spacer around guys like Clint Capella. Like, they brought him there partly for that role,

but a lot because James Hardin was like, hey, guys, like, give me a pick and roll dive man and I'll make this work. And he can't play that role as often with Zubathe. on the floor. No, it's extremely difficult with Zoo on the floor. Like Collins just can't be also. It's hard in that scenario. I don't think the fit's been bad, but I don't think it's been what they hoped it would be. I don't think they thought it's kind of really materialized. And I think the idea of John Collins is always better than actual John Collins. You know, the whole idea of like,

we need to get our own Aaron Gordon, you know, after that trade. And let me just tell you. It's a great comp actually in terms of like how it's how it doesn't how it doesn't quite work right and it's like also in the sense like i just never felt like john collins was erred gordon or or or in that sense like there's just a lot like i never would describe him that way because of the defense mainly just on that that end of the floor i think it's it's it's been fine but this team has so many problems across the board like there's not john collins can't plug all the holes that they have right, the issues that they have with everything. And Kauai coming out and being healthy makes a big difference for them, obviously, right?

Genius take their mo. But like I think the level of like there's too many things for Collins. Like he's not a guy that fixes these things. He's not a guy that plugs a ton of holes for you. Whereas I feel like Gordon, we talked about as a utility guy. John Collins isn't. He's not going to guard smaller guys. He's going to have a hard time with athletic wings in that sense.

I just feel like the fit with Zubotch, like it's just not much there. Like I don't feel like we're getting what we thought. And I think that's really the frustration for the Clippers. Look, I thought this exchange, this three player exchange will work better for the Clippers than it has. And Collins will make enough threes. He'll make enough threes as a floor spacer, but he won't take like a tremendous amount of them. And he's not going to be guarded at the three point line. and he's not

he's not like a quick attacker of closeout so if you load off of him Hardin kicks it to him on a Hardin Zoo pick and roll he's not like a blender guy like a catch go two dribbles make the next pass he likes if he doesn't shoot he kind of pauses kind of pumps a little bit and then we'll just sort of dribble into his guy

and maybe try a pull up two over his guy the blender kind of stops instead of continuing and that's where I think the fit is an issue occasionally you'll see like a Hardin, a Hardin Collins pick and roll with Zoo in the Dunker spot and a nice like Hardin to Collins to Zoo finish. But what's really happening is defenses are just swarming Hardin. They're swarming Zoo.

Like teams are doubling Zoo in the post and being like, dude, Derek Jones Jr. is over here. Chris Dunn's over here. John Collins over here. We don't care. Like someone else shoot. And it's going to be interesting to see how they adjust without Derek Jones. And on Hardin, Hardin's averaging 26 points a game.

That's the most points he's averaged since. 2019, 2020. Can he keep it up? That's what I'm worried about is this guy's been super durable for almost his entire career. They are dead in the water when he sits on the bench right now. It's like Chris Dunn was actually running the offense against Boston in those minutes and had some of the most horrendous turnovers you'll ever see.

And he's just, it's not, that's not the role for him. And I'm actually, you know, Hardin never seems to wear it down. But the burden on him is absolutely enormous. and, you know, the zoo fits been all right. And that exchange hasn't worked out for them. And by the way, they owe their pick to the Thunder. The Thunder can swap picks with them next year. They owe their 2028 pick to the Sixers.

And the Sixers can swap picks with them in 2029. But the reason, though, I think I didn't pick them as the biggest disaster is all the cap space coming to them in two years. And that's also why they traded Norman Powell, right? Like, I think that's the context of that. trade, like at least in the sense of like, we're going to have cap space. We have a great owner that's going to be willing to go spend. And they've been very careful of protecting that cap space.

And I think you've said this a ton on all the podcasts whenever you're talking about the clip. They weren't expecting to contend this year. Obviously, they weren't expecting to be this bad. But they weren't expecting to be, I mean, they weren't expecting to try to run for the championship. They thought they'd be competitive to a degree. and I think their main focus is the cap space coming in a few years. And I think that's really kind of what they're looking for.

And it sucks for the fans because it's like, yay, cap space. But that's the thinking for them. And in the medium term, like the short term, it sucks. The medium term might get better. I hope they know how much cap space they're allowed to use. Oh, boy. And bad, by the way, is the right word. They're a bad basketball team right now.

Yeah. She's bad. By the way, I wanted to get into. to this with you for two minutes. Fun coaching dilemma at the end of that game last night where Boston is up by two, I think it was 118, 116 or something like that, with 1.6 seconds left, Peyton Pritchard is at the free throw line for one more free throw. Clippers have no timeouts.

I thought they were going to miss the free throw on purpose and just say by the time this clanks all around a bunch of hands, you're not even going to get a shot off. Peyton Pritchard made the free throw to put Boston up three. And they do a late in-in-er in-bounds pass, basically, full court to Zhu at the foul line, Zhu kicks the Hardin, and Hardin gets a clean look with 1.6 seconds left at the buzzer at a game-tying three just misses it long.

And I texted a few coaches afterwards, like, what would you do there? And I know the Celtics discussed it in the huddle, in the moment, like should we have it miss here? And I would say most of the people, and not most, a slight majority would lean toward making the free throw because worst case scenario is overtime. And there's some chance you miss the free throw while trying to make it and you get the same benefits of missing it on purpose.

Worst case scenario if you miss the free throw on purpose is you lose the game on a three. Now, I would argue that if you missed the free throw on purpose, there probably with one point, and I had a couple coaches say one second is my cutoff. Anything over one second I'm trying to make the free throw. I'm like, point six second. Okay, I guess it makes the difference. If you miss it in almost any way, one tip in the game is over.

Like you can't even get the ball gripped in your hands, let alone and shoot it. You do have to work in the contingency of if we fuck up missing the free throw and don't hit the rim, they get the same clean inbound pass from the baseline with a two point deficit as we gave up with a three point deficit. I don't know what I would have done. I probably would just try to miss it

and just I think I would lean toward missing it. I don't know. What would you do? Well, you, your, your risk, aversion is higher than mine. Because I'm just making it.

Because like, you're, you're, you're calculating right. It's probably, but you're calculating, like, and you're not wrong,

right? And more times out of not, you're, you're going to be fine. You're going to miss it. Ball's going to get, batted around. They're not even going to get a shot,

not even a chance to heave it. Right? Like, there's going to be that, that scenario. But there are going to be moments where they're going to get the rebound clean for whatever reason. And then you've just put yourself at risk to lose the game. My problem with the end of this game, and it's actually, is you don't guard the inbounder after you make the free throw?

Like, this is the Christian Leitner play all over again in the sense of like make the passer have to work. And that's the thing that frustrates me and all that stuff. And this almost exact scenario, more time almost played out in the Hawks Phoenix game. Oh, my God. It was three seconds, so there was more time. The Hawks conceded the rebound. Like, they didn't fight for contest for that rebound when you go back and watch it. And it almost, I mean, like, I watched it.

I was tired. I didn't want a double over. I didn't want more. I was tapped out. I was exhausted. I was ready to kind of just do some light work to prepare for the podcast and then go to bed. And I mean, this shot goes in the air. I'm like, God damn, he might actually make this. So three seconds is different than 1.6, obviously. But I think there's an element of just like,

worst case scenario, the only thing we get is overtime. And I think that's an important thing that you have to kind of watch for with that scenario you're talking about. And I think that's that's why I lean towards making it. You know what, Mo? What did Nico Harrison say when they won the lottery? Fortune favors the bold. Fortune favors the bold. One point six seconds. left. Fuck it. I'm missing the free throw. I'm trusting you to miss a free throw. No one's getting a shot. I actually would like a study of what percentage of intentionally missed free throws are missed improperly in a way that the clock doesn't move. Like you just hit backboard or all all all air and no rim. Because that would that might sway my that's what. Okay,

briefly on these other two disasters we haven't talked about. Dallas, I talked at length last week on a podcast. You can listen to all my fake Anthony Davis trades on last week's Zach Lowe's show with Kyle Mann. I talked about the Clippers. I talked about Milwaukee. I talked about Toronto. They're good. We're going to talk about them.

I talked about Miami. Detroit. Houston. I hated the Detroit fit. Talked about Chicago, which may be like my internal mental clubhouse leader trade now. Two teams I didn't talk about that were thrown at me as suggestions, Mo. A couple people suggested the Knicks with towns going out.

And I'm just like, I don't, like the Knicks are good. AD's hurt all the time. I get that Towns is going to be doing. contract so is AD. I'm just, it's not worth the risk to me. And Phoenix, I totally forgot to mention as just say, are they, can you talk them into a win now trade with the Booker Davis connection? It's interesting. It's interesting. They don't have draft picks, really, and they do have a lot of centers. I, I should have thought harder about them. Someone through this to me today, Moe. Who says no to use a Simmonsism? Kyrie Irving for Jalen Green. Wow.

That's actually a pretty good one. That's definitely phone calls meetings being had with all that. Jalen Green has 33 this year, 36, and then a player option for 36. So maybe he takes it, maybe he doesn't. Probably thinks it. I don't know. Who knows? Your hope is that he plays his way out of that.

But I think the challenge, I think Dallas just says no. Kyrie has 36 this year. injured for at least part of the year. 39 next year, player option 42. The argument for Dallas is, well, we're not trying this year. Kyrie's heard.

We get younger. We take a shot. The argument for Phoenix is, we have to kind of try as long as Booker is here. We're pretty, we've been playing okay without jail and green anyway. Kyrie's a legit point guard who kind of fits the age time too. I think I was,

I was like, initially I was like, don't throw this at me. When it got throwing to me, I was like, you know what? That's not bad. It's not bad. Do you want to talk about some happy teams now? Or do you have anything to say about Memphis, who is 4 and 10 and has some winnable games coming up to try to write the ship?

But it just seems like something in the water is tainted over there. Yeah, I'll just be real brief. I like Coward. I like that was a good pickup. I think the move was great. Obviously, the situation with Jha has become, it's not untouched. but we're heading there. And I think that's kind of the situation.

So it's like I just don't know where we're going to go with that. And for the love of God, can Jaron Jackson Jr. just stop fouling? I will say with Jha, teams that are watching Jha, and I talk to one of them over the weekend, they are throwing his current level of play into the trash and just say, this looks to us like a guy who wants out. And we're going to judge him more by his long-term track record, whatever that is, given his games played issues over the last few years, than this. I mean, he's averaging 18 a game, 36% shooting, 17% on threes, and just looks disengaged for half of every game on both ends of the floor. Do they not, my question, I guess, to these teams in that,

and I understand what they're, this is a, I want out situation. But does that not also factor into like, cool, well, if he's unhappy here, this is what we're going to get? If it doesn't work, it's just what we're, like, we're just, there's an element of just like, I can fix him sort of thing that like every team feels like they have sometimes. and I worry about that depending on how much you're going to give up and all that stuff. Because, yeah, at Jah level, like, yeah, that's awesome.

Great helps every team. But we also haven't seen that guy in three years, it feels like. Well, also, if you're trading for him, you're not a team that has a strong infrastructure bringing him in. You're a team like, I already have a joke like I'm ordering my, I'm pre-ordering my Kings, John Morant, Jersey. You're that kind of team. I will say Jop, career high and assists per 36. minutes. Worth noting, like it's not total disengagement. This episode is brought to you by Panda Express. Look, it can be hard showing how much you love someone. But if you can't say how you feel,

just say, let's get some food or hey, takeouts on me. And if you really love them, pick Panda Express for delicious, authentically cooked American Chinese cuisine, whether it's game night or date night. Nothing says, I love you like orange chicken, honey walnut trim, Kung Pow Chicken, and Black Pepper Sirlloin steak. Have you eaten yet? Order now or is it a Panda Express near you? This episode is brought to you by Service Now. Look, I have my dream job. I get to watch basketball, think about basketball, talk about basketball, but even dream jobs have the stuff that nobody dreamed about, the busy work that gets in the way of the actual work. Service Now's AI specialists tackle that work. Request handled, cases closed, the whole thing done. So you have more time for the work you actually want to do. For me, that's breaking down SGA film whenever I want, and then talking about it into a microphone. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. This episode is brought to you by Men's Warehouse. So you've looked at all the data, you've looked at your lineup,

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You get to pick which one we talk about first. In the east, the Toronto Raptors, 8 and 5, they are sixth in offense. One of the more improbable early season statistics I can remember. 13th in defense, seventh in that rating. Scotty Barnes playing a splendid brand of all-around basketball. the Phoenix Suns, 8 and 6, with the worst strength of schedule in the NBA, and some toughies coming up. But 9th in offense, 12th in defense, 11th in net rating, even despite blowing a huge lead against the Hawks last night in the thriller. Which one you want to start with?

I'm going to talk to talk about some happy tunes now. Yeah, I want to talk, because I haven't had a chance to talk happily about this team for a while. I want to talk about the Toronto Raptors. All right, baby, T-DOT. I love it. I love the way they're playing. playing offensively. I had a lot of concerns that going into this season, right? I was very negative on the Raptors going into the year, just thinking like, how's the offense going to work? I'm not a

big Emmanuel Quickly fan. The ball's going to stick with a lot of guys. Like, I'm not very confident in all this stuff. You gave Brandon Ingram this massive contract before even seeing him play right after the trade. Like you have all this stuff. I love Scotty Barnes, but I haven't really seen him kind of he's taking leaps, but not like the leap. that we kind of want to see that we're dying for. I love this team. I love the way they play offense. I think it's a lot of fun.

One of the fastest teams out there, I think they're plus 10 in transition, you know, against their opponents. Like I enjoy the pace in which they play. I love the speed of their half-court offense, right? It's not even just transition, but they get into their stuff quickly. They're running and they're cutting and they're moving off of all of those,

you know, the actions that they're running. with all that stuff. I got to give credit to the coaching staff. I thought they've done a great job. Like, and then we have, I know I'm going long, but then we have guys like Jamal Shed, who I'm absolutely, I get excited when he's in the game. I'm just sitting there going like, let's go Jamal.

You know who doesn't get excited? The point guard on the other team. Yeah. He's like, this guy's going to guard me 94 hours. It's so annoying. It's already cold outside. This guy guarding me 94 feet. Darko Ryakovich, early season coach of the year,

for how this team is playing. They look like a team. Every year there's one or two teams like this, Mo, where there's this feedback loop of, all right, we all got to buy into playing a little bit differently, a little bit out of our comfort zones. Maybe we have some reservations about that. Maybe we don't.

And then we start winning, and the feedback loop kicks in of like, oh, this works. The buzz is building. All boats are lifted by winning. I'm going to lean even more into playing this way. they have found the right rotations where like Scotty gets his minutes alone with a bunch of bench guys and he gets minutes with the other perimeter guys other than Ingram plus shed plus a center and B.I. gets the inverse minutes and B.I. gets to kind of cook in those minutes. Scotty Barnes numbers don't jump off the page.

28 and 5 pretty equivalent to what he did last year. But 50% shooting 40% on threes. I just, I love the, he's playing, something is happening here where he's playing better than his numbers. He's playing incredibly unselfishly. Just the last game I watched, I can't remember who they were playing.

They were playing Indiana. Well, so whatever. Brandon Ingram was posting up Andrew Nemhart and Scotty entered the ball to him and Brandon Ingram drew some help, kicked it right back to Scotty. Scottie had an open three. And Scotty was like,

you know what? No, I'm going to give it back to you. He's throwing extra passes around the perimeter. He's active in the dunker spot underneath Pertil, pick and rolls, cutting and skulking around there and get, and he's defending his ass off. This whole team is flying around on defense. They're completely bought in.

They're making teams go late into the clock by running them up to three point line. Scotty Barnes is guarding the Siakam Janus types. Like, that's his job. Quickly has sort of stabilized and hit a hot streak right now. Barrett's been great the whole season. And they just like, you know, you never know who among their backup guards, whether it's Grady Dick or Jacoby Walter, Agbaji's been out for a bit, is going to contribute.

But they seem to just get enough minutes out of them. I like Murray Boyles. But they are something, first of all, they played a very tough schedule. They've played only four home games, nine road games. Here are their next games. Charlotte, Philadelphia, Washington, Brooklyn, Cleveland, who they've already beaten twice, once with most of the B team, Cleveland B team. Indiana, Charlotte.

it. Like this team could be, I don't know, do the math, like 13 and 7 after 20 games. Something interesting is happening here. This is working. This is a real thing. They found stuff. Like this is finally like, I felt like the past few years they've been kind of rudderless. This is like, all right, we found our rudder. We know which path we're going. We're wrong. One other guy, we didn't even talk about Mamu. Oh my God. Mamu, I'm glad you brought him up. Mamu has been, look, I haven't done the research on this. I'm just going to let it fly, Mo. Mamu who's been bang for the buck, maybe the best value free agency signing of the entire offseason. I mean, best value, like low value, low dollar value.

He has completely changed their team. Yeah, no. I mean, they're getting, they're bringing guys off the bench that you're like, yo, this dude can play, this dude can play. You mentioned Murray Boyles. There was a play in the Indiana game. It was in the second quarter. It didn't result in a bucket.

But it was, you know, he came off the short roll through a one-handed pass to the corner. to Mamu. Mamu missed, Mamu pump fake, two dribbles, got to the rim and missed a contested layup. But the pass itself from Murray Boyles, this is the nerd I am. Like I saw that and then I rewound it and watched it four more times.

Because it was just catch one hand perfectly placed. It was the way you're seeing these things from these guys. Like there's a lot of talent there. Grady Dick's been a lot of fun. They're getting out in transition. They're understanding to like we want to run. He's leaking out. He's the perfect kind of player for that.

leak out, kick ahead, pass, all of those things that we have. It's just the most important thing about it, it's pleasing to watch. They're busting their ass on defense. They're playing so incredibly hard on defense. Quickly's not shooting the three ball. He's struggling in the past few games shooting the three ball. He's shooting 37% for the year. But past few games is a little bit off.

That's going to come up. They're going to have fines. I'm not a huge quickly guy again, but like you can see the way it works. You can see him trying to run offense more, which I appreciate. I love everything they have. going. Yeah. I mean, they're playing really well.

They are getting a little lucky with opponent jump shooting. Opponents are only hitting 32% on three. That's the second lowest number in the league behind Denver. But I do think they're making opponents think about those shots with their length and their speed and their effort. Something has happened in here. Like, like, they just, the way they cut and move in unison, like they do that, the thing that kind of Memphis and Cleveland were doing last year, where the whole.

wheel kind of shifts around like everybody shifts around in the same direction sometimes they make up for their lack of spacing you mentioned the pace they are number one in transition frequency according to cleaning the glass there's something fun happening here and i love the way scotty barnes have been playing this year love love love okay phoenix and this will get us to the hawks too uh eight and six uh they have already played the clippers three times the jazz twice one against dallas indiana in New Orleans and Sacramento. Here are their next 13 games. We're going to find out real fast how real this is.

And this is what the Clippers are banking on in their race to survive the playing. Next 13 Suns games. At Portland, home against Minnesota, home against the Spurs, home against the Rockets, at the Kings, better win, at Oklahoma City, home to Denver, at the Lakers, at the Rockets, at the Wolves, Warriors at the Warriors, home against the Lakers. It's about to get brutal for the suns. But there's a lot to like here. I mean, they've been, well, you tell me, what is there to like here?

The one thing that stands out more than anything else that we haven't seen over the past few seasons is how hard this team plays. Like, they are playing incredibly hard. There was a play. I know they lost yesterday. I knew they blow a lead and all that. But there was a play where I think it was Gillespie. Sorry, I can't say that name for whatever. Colin Gillespie.

He's in the Mamu conversation for like Best Bang for the Buck right now. Right there. But like hustles for a offensive rebound flying out of bounds kicks it over. Forgive me who scored it. But they hustle in gets that rebound and gets a bucket off of that. Right. Like it's the small hustle plays that we did not see at all last season. There was none of this last season.

I like what the, I like the way Booker's playing. He's having a bounce back year in my opinion in the way of just kind of getting back to being Devin Booker. And I think Brooks has been good for them, really dumb technical yesterday, besides the point. But everything they have going, it all starts with being competitive and you got to give Jordan out credit because that's what he had to come in and do first. If he had to kind of get them to play harder and not just hard, but compete in a way

where it's aggressive. And I think that's the first thing that stands out anytime I watch the Suns play basketball all right now. Booker has been really good as the point everything for this team. Let me look up his numbers. 28 and 7, 50% shooting. 34% of 3% of 3 is just okay, but he's taking a lot of difficult shots. The story has been that they've been just as good with Booker off the floor, which was my big, big worry for them and doubly so when Jailing Green got hurt or started the season hurt and then got hurt again. Who's handling the ball for these guys when Booker's off the floor? Well, Colin Gillespie's you didn't know about me?

Like that guy's not just making open threes. He's not just doing like the classic backup point guard, extra pass, hard defense. He's making pull-up mid-rangers in crunch time. He and Booker together have been great. Jordan Goodwin's been great. Grayson Allen runs a lot of the offense when Booker's off the floor. He's having the best year of his career.

And they're getting this three-headed center monster of Mark Williams, Nick Richards, and also I Godoro, is giving them enough and enough different looks. Like they'll switch a lot with Igodora at the five. Mark Williams' defense is still up and down, but he's just got a verticality to him that you've got to account for. Nick Richard just like hits people

and makes plays now and then. You know, their shooting is probably going to cool off. Their fifth and three-point percentage, seventh and shooting percentage at the rim, eighth and mid-range percentage. So they're shooting really, really well from everywhere. Brooks has been on fire. My God, he hit back-to-back 30-point games.

Royce O'Neill's shooting 40-something percent on threes. and the schedule gets tough. You know, I took the under on them at, I think it was 34.5 just because the West is so good. You know, they're making me look foolish for that now. They are, again, if some of these teams behind them are just dead in the water, they've got a chance to get into this playing tournament this year to finish somewhere seven to 10, eight to 10, nine to 10, which like, hats off. That would be an incredible outcome for this team. based on where they've been the last few years. I mean, we thought they were a team that was dead in the water to start the season.

Right? Like, we just kind of thought like, all right, what are you going to do? You know, it's tough, you know, the center rotation, we weren't sure was going to be enough. You know, we're looking at, we're still have to see what the Jalen Greenfit looks like and how does that all incorporate itself. It only played a couple of games, so it's not enough of a sample. It's, it's, again, it's just fun to see a good basketball being played or a competitive basketball. But that stretch is scary, Zach.

When you lined up those next games, that is a scary, scary stretch where the wheels can come off pretty quickly. And I think that's where we find out. Here's what they're hoping for now. They're eighth in the west at eight and six. Portland is nine, six and seven, jazz are 10, five and eight. If you're the suns, you're hoping, well, Utah's got to fall out, right? Like, the loud marketing can't score 4,000 points in every game. He'll try.

You're hoping for Utah or for Phoenix. Yeah, Portland's probably going to hang around. Maybe we can hang right around with them. And the clippers replaced the jazz, and we're still one of the ten. Now, that hope depends on we're just not going to hear from the Grizzlies, the Mavericks, the Kings, or the Pelicans. I don't think you're going to hear from the Kings. I can take the Pelicans out. You're not going to hear from the Pelicans.

It's hard for me to see a scenario where you're going to hear from the Pelicans. That's not like Zion plays the last 60 games of the season, and I don't see that happening. I would like to think we're going to hear from the Grizzlies based on they're going to get healthier. Scotty Pippin Jr., Ty Jerome, eventually Brandon Clark, eventually Zach Eadie came back over the weekend. But the vibes and the just effort level from their best players, and I'm including Jaron Jackson Jr. It has not been as bad as Morant, but he has not been as super engaged as well. And just all the stuff you hear about the, you know, do they like this coach? I'm not optimistic they're going to be heard from on a high level.

And the Mavs you'd like to, again, think we're going to hear from them because they have AD, they have Kyrie coming back at some point, lively just came back. But all the incentives to me point in the other direction of like, let's get a high pick in this draft and reorient the whole franchise. So that's the level of optimism you'd have if you're Phoenix. They've been great. Okay, let's talk about the team they played last night. The Atlanta Hawks, this is getting interesting, Mo.

And I don't know what to do with it. The Hawks are 9 and 5. Five home games, 9 on the road, so road heavy. Decent schedule. 18th in offense. Okay, fine. Sixth in defense. The Atlanta, the Hawks?

They are 7 and 2 since Trey Young's injury. They have the 11th best offense in that span and the fourth best defense. Here are their nine games to just to let everyone know. Like, how real is this? Like, is this a real thing? And what does it mean if it's real? That's the interesting part to me. Beat the Pacers on the road.

Eh, fine. At Cleveland loss. Beat the magic at home. Magic had everybody. Lose to the Raptors at home. Beat the Lakers at home. No Austin Reeves and no LeBron. Win at the Clippers, no Kauai.

That's normal. Blow the Kings out on the road by 33. Beat Utah by 10 and squeak out Phoenix also on the road. That's four straight road wins for the Hawks. and the 11th best offense without Tray Young in that just mini nine-game span. Their next two games, Tuesday and Thursday, buckle up. This is going to be fun.

Home to the Pistons. Detroit fans, I know. Why are you not talking about us in happy surprises? Because I ain't that surprised. You know, I'm not that surprised, but we're going to get to you. Like, you've had a bunch of injuries. Like, I've talked to a bunch about Jalen Duren being unbelievable and beef stew and Ron Holland.

We'll get there. And then at the spurs on Thursday. what can we take away so far from this stretch? Like what should the read be? Should the read be they don't need Tray Young? They need to move on from Tray Young. They should move on from Tray Young. Or should the read actually be,

I talked about the feedback loop teams, right? Like the teams that just the buy-in happens. Should the read be, he's watching this. Our ceiling without Tray Young or trading Tray-Young for youth and picks is not very high. Like we can be a solid team, frisky team. But if there's any world, whether it's,

whether, which part of the multiverse it is where we can reintegrate Trey Young who's bought in. Now I'm not talking about Trey Young becomes Marcus smart on defense. I'm just talking about he tries, he moves off the ball a little bit more,

he sets more screens, he buys into the equal opportunity stuff that's happening here, the passing, the cutting, the movement. Our ceiling can get pretty goddamn interesting. Where do you land on this? Yeah, this one's really difficult. with what you're, you know, when you look at the way they're playing,

because I think the thing that's really interesting, and it was watching that game yesterday, there were two different possessions in my mind where I'm, you know, I think it was in the third quarter, within 12 seconds of the shot clock, they already had five passes. It went to Luke Kinnar 3 wide open and then he missed it. There was one late in the game that was six, seven passes,

and it was Nikiel Alexander Walker bucket when he circled around the restricted area for a big bucket for them. But the ball is just, ping, pink, pink, it's just flying. There was not a lot of dribbles. I didn't have a chance to look up dribble and passing stats

and all that. Would you like them? I would love that if you have that. Pre-Trey Young injury, 282 passes per game, about 20th in the league. Post-Trey-Young injury, 301 passes per game, ninth in the league.

So not a huge jump, but a jump. But a jump. Now, pace about the same. defense better still forcing a ton of turnovers they were doing that with trey young their own turnover rate is way up which is part of the downside of not having any me you can see like oh that's a lot of dribbling from dyson daniels and the kill the walker in jalen johnson they get picked every once in a while but they are moving it more for sure but actually i would like to ask you as a coach like this offense has been so much

about trey young for so long trey young picking rolls treyong lobs trey young floges Floaters, Tre Young passes out of the pick and roll. How are they scoring at an above average rate without, like, who would you even say is the number one option? It's probably Jalen Johnson, but he's a very non-traditional number one option. What are you seeing? How are they doing this? It's honestly, it's just they're running actual offense and getting plays in that are

beyond just the pick and roll action with Tray Young. Like there's actually movement across the board. And it's, you know, you're creating shots with your ball movement. They're getting a lot of clean looks with that stuff. And it's guys like Vic Creachy, you know, who's going nuts and hitting big shots. Jalen Johnson is probably the number one option, but that's kind of by default. Like it's more just like whoever has the best look. And they started the third quarter with a cross-screen action to get a Yakey and Kongu a post-up, right?

And they score out of that. Like they're, the way they're playing on offense is they're just, just saying like we got a lot of different guys that can score in different ways. And now you got to defend these different ways. Whereas before it was very not just tray-centric. And we got to give Trey a little bit of credit over the past, you know, last season and this year he bought in, worked off ball a little bit more. But it was still pretty much like, we got to lock down Trey.

We do that. We're going to be fine. Here you can't pin down one guy. And I think that's kind of the challenge with that because like while you, it's a thing where, you know, you have a flooding, you know, you're in a boat and you're, plug one hole and then the next hole kind of pops open and there's water rushing in and you plug that one and then a third one. It's, that's kind of the deal the teams are, having a deal with. And then it's the fact is just they're play fast. They're young,

they're athletic. They're running up and down the court. They want to run with you. They want to fly up and down the court. Like I think there's a lot of that stuff there. I think that's the beauty with what you get with the Hawks right now without Young is just like you're not, there's not one guy you can focus on. And it's challenging in that sense sometimes because now it's like this guy can hurt us and this guy can hurt us and this guy can. You know, with his Dyson Daniels with cutting and his movement can be a problem for teams. You know, there's just so many different ways. It's not absolutely amazing.

And I do worry without Trey Young in crunch time. I think that's where you're really going to miss Trey. But I think there's stuff here offensively that I like where they're going. I just think they're difficult to guard because you kind of can't pay. one guy down. Yeah, the best way I would describe it is that they exchange places and the ball a lot. Like there's a lot of handoffs, pitches, like place exchanges off the ball. Guys are just moving a lot.

And the reason it works is because everyone is pretty fast and pretty athletic. And you look at this Hawks team and they're pretty switching on defense, but you would also say, we can probably switch against them on offense and just sort of clog everything up. And it doesn't work because here comes a handoff in a slip screen. Here comes the hand off a fake screen and a backdoor cut. They're just moving in unpredictable ways coming together, bursting apart. And then all of a sudden, you do switch yourself into a matchup that Jalen Johnson can exploit or Anya Kango can exploit. Or Christopps Porzingis when he plays can exploit at the high post.

And Dyson Daniels can back cut or Dyson Dyson Dyson Dyson Dyson on pick and rolls. He and Jalen Johnson, Jailen Johnson will set one screen for him like at the foul line so low that if you go under it, Dyson Daniels is at the rim. Then they bring in canard and they have this like subset of just canard offense. They have Keaton Wallace is coming off the bench running pick and rolls. They're just like they're hard to grasp. But I do agree with you that a dialed in playoff level defense will have who's scouted them and is prepared for them. This stuff gets a little muddier in those moments. I just, I'm just fascinated to see when Trey Young comes back how this looks because I look.

like it's it's real easy for the hawks and their fans say we okay we don't need them like we have resa she we have jellan johnson we just signed a keel alexander walker he's been outstanding a kangaroo um we have this pick coming from new orleans we can just go that way and use the 50 million dollars a year we'll have to pay trail going forward split that amongst a whole bunch of different things and duck the aprons ducked to tax stay lean stay nimble all of that and if we get lucky enough in a draft, you know, we'll be fine. Maybe on the other hand, like I would like to see Tray Young with this team. I'd like to see Tray Young bought into this style of play because all those exchanges I talked about get real dangerous when one of the guys on the floor is a little guard who can beat

anybody who's a big guy off the dribble and shoot threes from 30 feet out. And they have the length to cover for him enough on defense. There's no question to me that they're sealing is much higher with Tray Young bought into this offense but there are a lot of universes in which Trayon comes back and says no we're playing my way or you know

the team just doesn't find the right sort of synergy between styles. I guess I would just come out as like if I'm the Hawks I'm cool riding this out toward the summer. Like I'm not going to trade Tray Young unless I get a home run offer. I'm not going to trade them just to trade them

and reorient my team. I kind of want to see what this looks like and if I lose them for nothing or I have to trade him in the summer for whatever reason or he opts out and leaves I you know if we haven't done well in the playoffs I'll be cool with that because we got all this other stuff going on and if we do really well and I resign him for what I think is a fair deal I'm cool with that too even if it cramps my apron taxed whatever situation going for which isn't so bad anyway I just think this is one of the more interesting situations in the league right now this team is playing well and with a little verve. Yeah, I mean, the fact that they're still, you know, without Trey and they're in the play and rate, not the playing race, play off race is kind of a, baby, fourth with a bullet.

I mean, it was easy to kind of just say like, and I know the schedule the past few games is not not the most amazing, but it was easy to just kind of look at them going like, all right, they're going to drop off a little bit. I thought if they just played 500 ball, they'd be in a great situation. And they've gone well past that at this point. Like I think that's the thing you're you're looking at if you're the hospital. And I think that's, you're right on in the sense of like, let's just play it out, see what happens here. And we'll figure it out in the offseason because not a lot on the line for them in that sense. The young guys are playing great. Jaylon Johnson is really kind of developing into a great ball player. Dyson Daniels has been fun. Like I like what they have in that sense.

And we haven't even mentioned, they probably have a top five pick coming. Trey is watching all this very enthusiastic on the bench. you saw him last night. I think he was wearing a Mookie Blaylock jersey. I couldn't remember whose jersey it was. I think so. Running up and down on his sideline, cheering people on. I mean, I hope he's watching and just says, you know, it's not a sea change for him.

Like, you can still run 30 pick and rolls a game like Nikiel Alexander Walker is doing. Or maybe you don't run 70 anymore, but you were per 100 possessions, but you run 30. And he's already done things like started to throw hit-ahead passes a lot more the last couple years. I've talked ad nauseum about how he set more off-ball screens last year than I think all prior seasons in his career put together. Just lean more into all of that stuff and just do enough on defense to like try. And that's their ceiling if all. And again, there might be a 10% chance that all those variables flipped the right way.

I don't know whatever chance it is, right? Because other things could happen. Someone could get injured. Trae Young could not buy in. Trey Young's return could, you know, complicate life for Jalen Johnson, whatever. it is. There's a whole bunch of scenarios where this doesn't hit like that. If it all hits, if all the dominoes fall over, their ceiling is pretty freaking high and high enough that if I'm the Knicks or the Cavs, I'm like, man, I hope that doesn't work because they're a little bit scary.

Yeah, you got to be aware of it. That's all it is. And it's, it comes down to, it's, the biggest thing right now is it's going to come down to Trey. And how does he respond when he comes back to what he's seen so far? Mottekeel, any parting thoughts here? We covered a lot. I just got it. We started it from the beginning. These games have been phenomenal. Like we've had so many close games night in, night out, multiple nights. Last night, you know, a couple of games go down to the wire, two overtime games,

one double overtime game. Like, it's just constantly, it's hard to keep up, Zach. To be honest with you, like, with how great these games have been. And I love everything we've gotten so far from the league. I'm fired up this early in the year with everything we have. and you know, got more to go. Where can we find you, Mo? Hit us with some promotion.

Yeah. Going to be on MBA TV on Sunday with Zach Harper and Alexis Morgan on the association weekend edition. We're going to have, make sure you're checking out offside. It's the platform I'm doing a lot of videos for. It's basically one more thing has kind of come back in a different version using this, this platform. Eventually, we're going to have our own app and one that's open.

Please, everybody sign up. You can sign up for the wait list on offside.g. Got a ton of great creators out there. Make sure you're following us there. And then, you know, I'm going to have some stuff coming up on Bleacher Report and then listen to the double-dribble podcast with Jared Dubin and I. Look at that. Mo DeKiel, thank you so much for expertise.

I always tell people he just gave you the whole list. You want to know what happened into basketball games. Go to all those places. Maul. I'll talk to you soon, bud. Thank you for having me. All right, that's it for the Zach Lowe show today. Thanks to Jesse, Jonathan, and Mike.

as always on production. Thanks to Moa De Kiel for his time and a special thank you to everyone who contributed to the first ever Live Zach Lowe show or Live Zach Lowe podcast of any kind in Minneapolis last week, including Jesse Jonathan and Mike.

We had Billy Gill, Elizabeth Fehrman, producer extraordinaire, Charlie Finan, Tessa Herrick, Allison Turner, Booker extraordinaire, Megan Schuster. She was super helpful organizing everything there. And Rob Mahoney, he came with me to Minneapolis,

Dante DiVincenzo, Chris Finch, John Krasinski. It was awesome. We're going to do more of them. Who knows who I'd be coming to a city near you. We'll be back with the normal Zach Lowe Show later this week. Thank you all for listening or watching. See you soon. Must be 21 or over in President Select States for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and over in President D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming gambling problem. Call 1-800-gambler or visit RG-Halt.com. Call 1-888-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MD gambling help.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline, ma.org or call 800-327-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts

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