Most Intriguing Headlines Going Into the 2026-27 Season | Ringer NBA

0:00What up? This is the Ranger MBA Show. Our best senior writer for the Ranger with me. Fresh off of signing a $48 million no-show contract with a fake green bank. Dranger senior writer Michael Pena. I'd say how are you but I know how you are because we just had drinks last night in beautiful Carol Garden and I paid because of that's right my no-show deal. No I was the no-show I left early and stuck you with the bill. Okay. I'll then owe you. Fair. It's okay. We'll be fine. Pena we've got mirror weeks to go until training camps open to immediate days start that September 28th for most teams. That's like two and a half weeks away as we sit here record this the Mavericks and Rockets because they're playing overseas are starting September 23rd so like we are less than two weeks away from like basketball things actually

1:03happening and dispensing with a very wild off season first preseason game. Reena half weeks away that's Miami and Toronto in Quebec City and yeah there's nothing happening though otherwise. Let's see to sum up recent events Ben Simmons back kind of Jalen Durin still in limbo Kauai still a clipper practicing with his Toronto Raptors possible teammates in Miami according to reports but still a clipper as we record this on Thursday afternoon New York time. So who knows maybe news will win will this nightmare end when can we send him to Toronto I'm kind of enjoying this like weird I'm not enjoying it. It's so emblematic of this whole saga though right we we spent a year wondering what was going to happen of lawyers doing lawyer things and waiting for a verdict and then we finally get it and it's still like okay now what do the clippers have a front office did somebody somebody authorized to like push the button or whatever happens when the trade is made

2:04I don't know. All right so we've got a couple weeks until real basketball until then we still have some time to kind of marry in this in this strange offseason where a lot of shit has happened and so we thought we would we would address today maybe the most intriguing storylines most intriguing fill in the blank right it could be team could be player could be referees for all I know we don't know each other's lists but we're going to to get into the most intriguing fill in the blanks for 202627 but before that Pina I texted you a couple days ago while we were kind of kicking around ideas for this show and it occurred to me as I was thinking about what teams were intriguing to me that part of what is also intriguing to me subcategory of intrigue here is that we've got a lot of guys in new places and some in their same places who are the recent finals MVPs and I started like wondering like man how many of these guys are going to win another championship in an era where we've got eight champions in eight seasons and there are no dynasties and nobody can repeat nobody

3:05can even get back to the finals for that matter and so I gave us the assignment let's rank the last that it's not 10 years of finals MVP it's actually nine guys because we have a liberal on a couple times Durant a couple times the nine players who have won MVP in the finals since 2016 or starting in 2016 we decided we should we should rank them most to least likely or least to most likely to win another championship in an era where no one ever wins again yes there is a probably an obvious answer for who is the most likely so we're not going to start there let's start at least likely in the list by the way I should just for the for the sake of the listeners the nine that we're going to be discussing here that we're going to try to rank here Kevin Durant won a couple LeBron won a couple we've got Steph Yokech Kauai Janis Jalen Brown not Jason Tatum though I mistakenly put his name in the text initially and Shay Gil just Alexander who is your least likely

4:08recent finals MVP of the last 10 years to win another championship before his career first of all if you have a referee on your most intriguing characters for the upcoming season you need help it it pains me to say this but the answer is Steph Curry yeah and my calculus in doing this was looking at everyone's age because obviously if you are older you have fewer opportunities to get back to the finals win a championship he's on a team that will be lucky Steph Curry is on a team that will be lucky to make the play in I feel like I think that they will be bad this season unfortunately and it's really sad and short of Jimmy Butler returning and kind of looking like himself in the middle of the season like an all-star caliber player I just don't think that they have the horses um he turns 39 also in March so he's really he's really

5:09getting up there uh contract extension eligible has not signed as of this recording and what are you applying I'm a well you know there's also I know but uh I just I I think the this is kind of the obvious yeah um number nine with the bullet unfortunately um as you know I am as much as of a reliable warriors apologist as you are a clippers and various other teams magic apologist I'm I'm I'm forever glass half full with the warriors but I can't I can't get there either I think if if there is some scenario where Jimmy Butler beats all expectations as a guy in his mid-30s coming off of an ACL and can get back soon enough then I would like look at that starting five at least and go like okay and then maybe you know maybe some some yaksal in there or something like there's the outline of like a respectable team but like they're not going to stay healthy there's the core guys who too old yes it pains me to step is is uh ninth last on this list and still too

6:11much burden on him besides forget ages and injuries and everything else is just still too much burden on him to carry this at an age where he shouldn't have to uh who is eighth then on your list and by the way I similar framework for me the ages factoring hugely into this but of course the whole reason for this exercise is not so much not about the superstars that we're talking about it's so much about context so much about who is around them yeah and who will be around them for the foreseeable future so who's eighth Lebron James wow um not a sixer believer no no I'm not um turns forty-two in December obviously this could be the last season of his career joe island beat is on his team uh which is really tough and I just don't think that the sixers if I thought the sixers would could win they can but I just don't think they will win the championship this year so yeah there's makes no sense for me to have Lebron high on this list yeah fair I did not have him in this slot we will get to him okay eventually uh I'd come and Durant next yeah after

7:15after stuff um turning thirty eight at the end of September the rockets are good not great they're their young guys kind of plateaued last year uh Thompson and Shengoon like there's some upside there Fred Van Vleed is back speaking of the not young guys um and and Durant at least in his context he does not have to carry it all right like Steph is still having to carry it all um there is some share that Lebron still has to carry that some of the other guys on our list will have to carry um Durant does have the luxury I think of having some really good young players around him I just don't know that they're gonna get there in time considering his age so not necessarily knock on the rockets really good team just not sure they can get to that next spot uh all right seventh for you Katie uh kind of obvious there yeah age related reasons I think the rockets can win the title but I don't like yeah he's he's old yeah fortunately um still really good

8:17excellent but yes um my seventh slot like I struggle with this I kind of reshuffled this like three through seven a few times um but I landed on Janice and it's you know you're not laughing because I said Janice you're laughing because I who I haven't said yet um I know you will you know me too well um he's Janice the 32 in December so he's got more runway than some of the guys we've just talked about but a full 10 years in one case yes in one player yes um but not nearly the supporting cast of that other player right now so right now yeah so the Janice question really comes down to how much belief you have that the Miami Heat are going to find at least one other super impact player right doesn't have to be like a superstar top five to top 10 player but somebody else who can like do something with the ball on his hands at a high level and we know we haven't yet seen Bam and Janice together and how that's gonna fit in the spacing on offense

9:20they'll be awesome defensively but this heat roster I think the Miami Heat would be the first to say this roster is not complete and they didn't get Janice just for a year they got him for what they hope is the rest of his career how much you know progress can they make and building out that roster around him and Bam over the next few years like that's that's the real question but they've got time to get there they might get there but as of right now it's it's hard for me to rank him any higher fair I will give my honest thoughts when we get to Janice all right list so who's your sixth sixth is Jalen Brown he turns 30 in a month and look I'm just down unfillied help you I don't know what to tell you this is more of a reflection of Philly than than Jalen I assume 100% and I think also if we were to rank these guys maybe not in terms of how good they are right now but just kind of just like echelon of player he might be I mean I think there's a reason why you had that little slip and

10:23you thought that Jason Tatum was the finals MVP he seems like no disrespect to Jalen Brown who is phenomenal but it's like if you had to pick one guy who doesn't belong here like he would be the guy I feel like he's he's a star who's a notch below star wise the rest of these guys I think that's fair I don't think that's a knock on him and yet by virtue of the fact that Tatum is the guy still in Boston while coming off of Inakilis yeah and Jalen Brown is not another just not that we need proof of this but yes Tatum was always the more important player to them yes brain fart when I was texting you about here's the list of guys the finals MVP's I was there I remember specifically watching Jalen Brown except that finals MVP be nice as well I still I still botched it um I'm not gotten to him yet for the other guy know you're loving this um that was your six that was number six for me all right still working away from nine to one here my six is in fact the aforementioned co-ilinard okay

11:2735 years old don't know how much he's gonna play don't know where he's going to put it down no a team he's on technically I don't know what team he's on I will say this in koai's favor one like the raptors have a lot of really good interesting players and assuming this trade goes through the raptors are going to be in the mix to win the east yeah I think that's fair and if if not now then maybe even a year from now whatever his runway remains the best thing about this for koai Leonard he's back with Alex McKecney the genius you know director of player care not director he's like uh some like president of player care whatever he's got a very very high title uh that I don't want to diminish uh but Alex McKecney knows what he's doing Alex McKecney's the one who got koai to the point where the raptors would ride him as much as they need to in the regular season and still have enough koai left to win a championship in 2019 I think that's going to be very no disrespect to anybody on the glippers medical staff I just think there's nobody better than than Alex McKecney and the league um this will be good for koai so there's a possibility of it

12:29there I'm not ruling it out I just in in trying to figure out these guys compared to each other in their current context not knowing what koai's longevity is his ability to play enough games right or where he's playing sadly uh all right who is number five for you uh koai all right so with that same zone yeah they're reasonable I pretty much echo everything you said I think that if slash when he goes to Toronto uh I think Toronto is very good and very um intriguing one might say good so I have to step on anything later um but no I think the age the availability I just struggled to put him higher even though I think he's exolent he's coming off a second team all in b a season and I think he was like fifth on my actual MVP that valid or something like that so he he's still playing in an exceptionally high level but I just couldn't go higher because of

13:29how much longer he has I think left yeah yeah the the games per played uh for the last however many seasons is just not all that encouraging um all right so that was your number five correct my number five again I struggled I struggled with some of these um and this one was tough I've got jalen brunson wow oh hey um he's one of the younger ones on this list he just turned 30 but I'm the nicks you're making enemies on this pod oh I know yeah it won't be the first time nicks fans have been mad at me it's okay I'm used to it by now um it's not that I don't think the nicks can win another championship or that brunson won't be the the the reason that they do I think like he's logged a shit ton of minutes and and just hard minutes right like the load on him as a as a championship foundational player that's the guy who drove you to the title the load on him for the last few years has been immense they don't have another like their second star you know

14:34was Julius Randall then Carl Anthony Towns these are gotten and now they're most important players after jalen brunson are in an oebian cat but these are not your prototypical co-stars who take some of the the offensive load the playmaking and scoring and everything off of you because they are more complimentary store yeah they're playing off jalen brunson when jalen brunson they look at the finals in a nutshell five games they win four out of the five that's you win the title uh the four that they won every single one of them was basically jalen brunson saving them in the last couple of minutes or in the last quarter and or the spurs farting well that happened to me just these things were kind of uh you know part and parcel each other there's just been a lot on him and I do wonder because he is undersized as as as a guard and as a as as the superstar of this team there's a reason why becky ham and I even had to bring it up she's taken way too much shit over this but there's a reason why she and others had made the point about small guards right there had been

15:35a few in history right you know steph if depending on where you want to make the cut off I say a Thomas back in the day and so I just think there's a lot on him I think there's not a lot of like they have depth but not depth that can help him help preserve him um and they really are like one jalen brunson injury away from just you know I'm not saying fall off a cliff but they can't function without it um also by the way not a dominant team in the regular season had a dominant playoffs and I still am trying to process what that means for us were prognosticating for this coming season like you know where are they in the pecking order in the east I don't think a lot of people are going to pick them to repeat partially because of recent trends in the NBA broadly partially because it's hard to kind of reconcile them being a pretty good regular season team like 53 wins they were like they're the sixth most wins in the league yeah last year they were dominant they were just very very good and then they were dominant as fucking hell for two months and that's all it took um but they're hard it's hard to figure them out because of

16:41so I'm not really downgrading jalen brunson I'm not downgrading the nicks I'm just it's it's all of all of that trying to get my head around it well it sounds to me like you just think the sixers are better than the nicks that's what it sounds like I mean that's what you're saying I think didn't we already have to address the nicks versus sixers was that in one of our little round tables uh potentially I think yeah after after they got lebron I think our editors did force us to uh uh you know gun to your head right now who wins the series of sixers and uh yeah so next fans ready uh who's there for on your list you know I have y'allness and uh turns 32 in December I don't think the heat are a championship contender right now as presently constructed although I did a pod with um cowman and we ranked the team power ranked the teams in eastern conference and I had Miami controversially at 11 and I would like to say in exact I would like to somewhat

17:42apologize for that because at the time I was I was operating with the information that I had and a full week ago clay tomson was not on the heat and honestly I'm not saying that I think that that is gonna change their universe um he is like the exact type of piece that they would need to be better than say the charlotte hornets a team that I had ahead of them and that power ranking so everyone who is a Miami Heat fan in my mentions please stop talking to me um so I don't think that they're I don't think they're a championship kind of tender right now I do respect the Miami Heat organization I think if he were to sign a long term contract there and in particular if he were unfortunately I say this because of the apron era and all that if he were to sign for not as much as he can make which is still a possibility um and they were able to you know have better resources to build around him financially um and more room and that sort of thing I would just

18:44just I I put a lot of stock in their ability to to build around y'all and I say I have a lot of respect for that organization um and that coaching staff in particular um and I still think that they could be pretty good this year particularly on the defense event if not elite um so to your point they still need to add ball handlers they need to add more shooting etc I think that they will be able to look at this season see what went right what went wrong and adjust from there and that's why I have him as long as we're clarifying to Miami Heat fans let me just say um while I have Janus lower on this list than you do today that's about winning winning it all in some span of time yeah but where I would have the heat and I have not done the exercise gotten like real into the nitty gritty on it yet I do think I'd have the heat higher than um I I I will be shocked if they're not a playoff team whether that's via the play in as maybe a seven or eight seed or whether I like I think they absolutely have the chance to grab the six seed because there's some serious volatility up top which we will of course uh be getting to shortly as well

19:47um and I like you I would echo ultimate faith in the heat's brain trust to figure out because it's tough right now it is tough for any team especially when you have a couple of max guys to build out a roster around them because of aprons and all the stuff in the in the salary cap um I think they can do it but it will take time and some opportunism and some some luck probably along the way um all right that was your number four yes my number four you're ready to fall out of your chair Howard there's a reason there's a rationale nickel yokech oh god I know I know you say it's me this is that's me I'm fully aware of how much I have paint you now and this after you bought me a beer last night that I need to repay you more um look he's 31 so his runway is also longer um then mostly guys on this list are then some some other guys on this list uh but the nuggets just keep bleeding talent you wrote about this very uh

20:50inteligenly and detailed a couple weeks ago about the nuggets awful summer and just the trend of the last few years they just keep losing guys and now patent Watson is not quite the same um as some of the other people we've we've talked about since their championship year but they just keep losing key pieces and it's it's basically down to yokech and jimal marie we had we had a phenomenal version of jimal marie last season and yokech like just never fucking dips like the dude is just a machine so i ultimate faith in him i have a certain amount of faith in jimal marie air and gordon's hamstrings um a lot of volatility there and they just can't seem to find a way to either retain talent or backfill once they lose the guy and so it's hard to wrap my head around i hate to keep using that expression it is hard for me to understand what exactly the nuggets are trying to do uh broadly here save do money probably possibly um not the way you want to build around an all-time great true um it's criminal

22:00and be cut and they've changed front offices like three times along the or they've had three different front offices along the way right from from you know uh tim connelly early in yokech's come up which is the cranky way yeah yeah to yeah to calvin booth and now uh to the to the tensor and uh and uh and company but it this the the through line is no matter which air it is no matter what front office it is they keep running up running into this brick wall of ownership and spending and it's costing them talent and i just like this is a case where this has nothing to do with nickety yokech this is everything to do with the context around him yeah and just not having the confidence and especially in a smaller market that they're going to find a way to get the right pieces around him to turn this thing around again all that said like you know there's there's a scenario where the nuggets somehow make it to the finals again even without any of that right like i don't think anyone's getting through that brick wall of oklahoma city in san antonio but we're gonna all say the nuggets are an outside chance if things break their way yeah and we

23:04should i just i don't have enough faith that enough things are gonna break their way enough times the next few years unless they find a way to to stem the flow of talent out i think hey i don't really disagree with anything you just said there with regards to how the nuggets are doing business and how they're bleeding talent and um cutting costs etc i i just you know in doing this entire exercise as i got to number two on my list i was like i don't think you know any of these guys are gonna win another championship and that's like kind of the whole point of this thing it's just very unlikely it's really difficult so i don't know if you wanted to meet a spoil my number two and jump a spot right now but i mean i had yoke itch two yeah and it was just because i think you know he's the best player and i also i have a lot of faith in his on court relationship with germal mary i think that if they were to get i think there's an outside chance that they could win the championship this season i think if you know they need health they need

24:08air and Gordon to be healthy and i'm not sitting here being like he's gonna be healthy i don't think anyone could say that i think that that should be priority number one for the team and the organization throughout the season is to get through the regular season in in in just keeping his body as right as possible if that's no back to backs if that you know whatever it is make sure he's as healthy as possible for the postseason and then you know you need seeding luck that's another thing like you need to be in a bracket situation where i only have to play the spurs or the thunder yeah i don't have to play both because playing both of them it's just you're not gonna beat both of them it's just not gonna happen so they need luck and i you know julius the julius randall's gone so they don't have to really worry about the minnesota timbrilves anymore no it's just it's just it's just really doing nothing kominga thanks um so i just gave you my two yeah yeah of course so so so who's your three before you would have gotten to you my three is branson and i think that the case

25:13for him is everything that we saw last season but like look processing the next is so hard and every time anyone comes up to me and wants to talk about the next like winning the title um i'm like i still haven't really figured out how like i can't it's just like what the hell it's not it in not honestly not in like a disrespectful way it's just like it was such a magical out of nowhere run that i've never seen anything like it no and so if that were to happen again look crazy it would be like lightning striking twice in the same spot and a year apart and i think that if you look at how important michael robinson was i don't think that they will be able to replace that with andrade rumand i just don't i think they had a lot of health-related luck and you know it's not saying i think like bekel bridges is gonna get hurt or anything like that but they had a lot of health luck they had three point luck um historical three point luck

26:17and this isn't to take anything away from the championship at all but this is just the reality of it and i think that other teams in the east stocked up and are better and it's just going to be really hard for them to repeat in a lot of ways and also like pat as the number two he is eligible for an extension and that is a really i don't want to say it's like undercovered we haven't really because you know it's like we're in the summer doldrums a little bit but like that's that's like a pretty big deal in terms of the potential for a cantankerists yeah thing to happen there it's it's kind of looming there right and this is not to like you know uh you know throw a cloud over them at all but like this is a normal part of the mba for every team and especially teams at when championships and for specially for teams any team that has great success your stars want to get paid they want to get extended they want to be rewarded um cat had a transformative few weeks there himself in the playoffs and and i think even just the back half of the season right earned a

27:20lot of praise deserved it and yeah you can damn well bet he wants that extension and you know i'm reminded of the bold pat riley axiom about the disease of more mm-hmm that's the concern that follows every championship team which is everybody wants more with us more money more touches bigger role everybody thinks they're the reason you want it and i'm not saying that the nicks are going to suffer from this i'm not saying they're going to come apart because of egos i'm just saying that is a concern for every single team that makes it to this point and it has to be a concern for them as well especially when one of your most important players is still presumably waiting for that extension and it had it's been covered a little bit james that words did a whole break yeah i think a few weeks back um it's there and and by the way if if there's no extension before media day that's going to be one of the first questions i would expect yeah and i think the point that i'm trying to make here is that this is sort of the team too like the next time changing yeah they win all in and they won the title that's how you do it like they have no pick first round picks available to trade um you know Josh Harters extension eligible right now we'll see what happens

28:25there also um and so brunson this time next year will also be extension eligible he obviously took that uh famous pay cut is he going to do that again probably not ogie and anobi also extension eligible next summer so yeah what are you gonna like and i feel like all these guys are kind of immortalized you know so it's like you're not trading them would be really really difficult no it was bad enough that they let Mitchell Robinson walk because dolan all of a sudden side to draw a hard line about the second apron the guy who for most like the one thing you could never criticize him for and you could criticize him for literally everything else but the one that you couldn't criticize dolan for was spending yeah and now the second apron is more than just a spending it's more than just luxury tax i don't think he's cheaping out i do think that maybe they were operating in a way that extremely unusual for the nicks and i think um counterproductive the one time you should be in the second apron and not worry about the restrictions that imposes on your roster of optionality is is when you're a championship caliber team and or have just

29:30one one and are trying to win another one they absolutely should have kept Mitchell Robinson there is a downgrade there not massive but a downgrade going from him to uh i mean from him to under drummond is is significant enough i'm saying it's not a massive downgrade overall for them as a team i don't know that's a big enough loss to prevent them from winning uh i i do think that it's those it's those little little um bits of that you know you take a little you know papercut here in a papercut there a strand here in a strand there and a championship team suddenly doesn't look like themselves anymore and so that would be my concern for them but i will say at the end of all that because i've i've had this text conversation with some of my friends who were like hardcore nicks fans and i'm like but you're fine regardless yeah i say you don't actually care that i'm making this argument they're like no we want it all it's like they're like they're good for life especially like the nicks fans of a certain uh age bracket um are like yeah of course we want to win another one we get all the doubts or or uh you know all the reasons why they might not fuck man we're good like all of them it's like and it's it's it's me nicks and five jokes have not

30:34abated uh they have not slowed down all the nicks and five like keep them coming uh social media has been awesome nicks fans are creative as hell it's been fun um all right so you we've give it we've had your three and two which means it's time for my three and two and time for you to just kind of just shake your head with sugar in and and uh keep doubting um my sanity look lebron and jalen brown are here in tandem because they're on the same team um at least for the next year or two i'm going to say it's probably two i'm like the sense i'm now getting is like lebron's in this for like it was a two year deal right i think his option on the second year i'm going to say it's two i think the chances of them winning a championship one of these two seasons are pretty decent much more so in the next two years than some of the guys i had lower on this list the sixers have a much better chance than certainly the warriors or the rockets i think down there the heat until further notice um i'll put them over the raptors even with kawaii as of right now over the nicks is like a debate right uh and that's going to be something we're going to be watching

31:37all season nicks versus sixers everybody versus the nicks pistons versus nicks Celtics versus nicks casers is nicks um but if i was going to have one guy in this tier i had to have them both mm-hmm i'm defending my sanity as well as i can here peanut while you're giving me that i'll make the case that i think i made when you and i last potted together um a few weeks back which is all right yes lebron's 42 in december lebron is still i think playing at a very high level offensively defense is another story he doesn't have to carry this team for the first time one of the rare times in his career he doesn't have to carry this team he can lean on on maxi then vj edgcomb and ambide and jaylen brown um this team has as much star power that doesn't always work but as as much star power as any team in the league for the next year or two and that gets you a lot of the way that is like 90% of the game is do you have more talent than the other teams making that talent fit playing some defense along the way staying healthy yeah those are all other considerations but start with front line talent top level elite talent they have it a luxury of it

32:44an abundance of it um and so if i was going to have one i was going to have both so i put lebron third and jaylen brown second um i i just think that i have to defer to the to the um the concept of it until we see otherwise and it may well not work we'll get we will probably get back to the sixers that are next segment um we almost certainly will but for the time being yes i'm do i'm playing this on paper and on paper i look at that team and i think this is a team that gives jaylen brown and by virtue of that lebron james at forty two the chance to get back to the finals and win another jame you saw the taco fall news and you were like you know what this team is bulletproof who's more likely to still be on their opening night roster taco fall in philly or bency and i knew you're gonna go there um yeah i've said a lot about the sixers and i

33:46i'm not like as skeptical i think is as you came off as i've minutes ago yeah i just i just think like in in in this exercise in particular and i'm looking at all these other um finals MVPs i just don't see it with philly um and i think depth issues i think defensive issues i think health issues i think johel and b it is just not it just doesn't have it um and i think there's fit issues and chemistry issues and i want to watch it before i get optimistic to be honest no this is the time for the optimism because once you watch it and it falls apart then you can't be optimistic i'm choosing to give them optimism when i can um not me listen it could have worked out wonderfully there's a best case scenario here uh there are many other other case scenarios so the um the two were agreed on uh are the the top and the bottom and i think these were easy right it had to be step at the bottom with apologies and it had to be shagil just Alexander at the top by virtue of age by virtue of organization by virtue of supporting talent um this was such a duh uh

34:52pick that um i almost thought maybe we should scrap the exercise but it was fun for the rest of it so i think that i mean in doing this it was like yes really hard to get back and i don't think any of these dudes and that for shay that does not actually apply to shay i think but the thunder i don't know he could win two more i don't like three i don't i don't even know it's like i think they have they have financial issues coming down the pipeline for sure but he is 28 years old he is the reigning two-time MVP he like averages 30 in his sleep he's the best score one of the best scores i've ever seen and seems to be getting better in all these like subtle ways every year so he he's terrifying and amazing um i do think we've already seen a little bit of you know glue do it as a joe iron wiggins these aren't the the sexiest names but i think they do matter uh case and wallis is uh extension eligible has not been signed yet but i would assume that that is

35:57one of sam prestys um uh a thing that he is that is honest to do lists very high up um and i just think like they have still have all these uh trade assets and uh young talent and they have a fantastic culture which is something we don't really talk about that much anymore but they have the culture of self-sacrifice and guys thriving in roles um and they have defense they have like historically great defense i think that that is still even with ludorca on they will still have one of the best if not the best defenses in the NBA and he's a part of that chase a part of that so this is pretty easy you know if jalen mulliams stays healthy like they should be probably the favorite to win the title this year for for sure um durability too another factor we didn't mention with shea like yeah one of the more durable superstars in this league um doesn't sit out a lot doesn't get hurt a lot um knock on something um but yeah he it was it was easy to put him at the top

36:58i the way i would look at it and with with respect to this list is for most of the guys on this list we won't be shocked if they never win another one even with yoghatch we won't be shocked if he never wins another one because of the nuggets and all the factors that we mentioned she is the only one will be shocked if he doesn't win at least one right i'll be pretty surprised to be honest yeah i think it's extremely hard and i i think that that bar is also unfair to the player i don't want to say like you you should win another one or whatever winning one is already i mean it's just so so hard but yeah i think that because of the infrastructure because of the pipeline because i would be a little surprised i think for sure so before we leave this topic and get on to our most intriguing fill in the blanks of the 2627 season highlighted mostly by referees um i i did have this thought along the way in light of my brain fart about tatam and brown which one of those guys is more likely to win a championship another one without each other i mean you you're asking i'm asking a Celtics fan yes i'm at but i i i i respect your intellectual

38:02objectivity i thank you i appreciate it i think it's tatam i think he's i thought well not it's nothing about well i think he's a better player that that's not really what we're talking about i think that the the Celtics are actually going to be pretty good this year like if not very good i think that they also have a lot of flexibility down the pipeline to reshape their team around tatam in a way that like look if if imbeade gets hurt in a severe way on the third week of this season it's like where the sixers at and that is a total possibility because of his contract and everything um and i just think like there is a solid infrastructure there a championship identity a coach who has instilled up a style of play that just rolls out wins um and yeah like i i just i

39:03think that the Celtics are they know how to win and the sixers do not know how to win now i think there's kind of an organizational face there right like we have a kind of a proof of concept with the Celtics where you kind of you know bill has talked himself into this into this thing here with the Paul George aspect of it but i think some of this is just in in deference to Brad Stevens and an organization and jolmas who like there's a clear vision and a proof of concept and a and a track record here whereas with the sixers it really does feel like some version of the let's just grab all these guys and see what happens because we can which is not like it's fine i would do that too if i were the gm of the sixers and yeah hundred percent bring up jalen brown and by the way the promise to come fuck yes um but that's not about a long term vision or about a consistent culture or um or or or the values of the the organization in terms of how we build the Celtics are doing something and have over and over kind of reinventing themselves along the way that gives us

40:03a sense of who they are and what they're trying to accomplish more than just year to year the sixers have a new front office for that matter with with gansi having replaced their mori um so we're still like this this feels very short term kind of bet as opposed to a longer term of vision which is why i think ultimately i would agree with you even though i've got jalen brown and lebron not very high on my list here if i'm stadem versus brown i i think like you i would i would so if tadem one finals mvp as he should have another conversation for another day but um would you have him too so you would have him too on this list then oh if he had been on this instead yeah probably i would is probably i would well yeah um all right well that was fun it was that was a nice little detour i was skeptical when you first told me about this and then i sat in and i was doing it and i was like this is actually pretty interesting have a little more faith in my ideas i appreciate it you were playing along all right with that uh it's time to get to our most intriguing

41:05fill on the blanks for the 26 27 season um this is not by we don't have to go best to worst or anything it's just just whoever like whoever you want to start with uh we picked three each we'll see if we get to all of them um who's intriguing you right now with the two plus weeks to go until training camps open at this time of year like everyone intrigues me like every team pretty much every star everybody except for the sacrament okay right yeah i've given up i'm sorry just sacrament of apology sacrament or you know i love yeah but i just yeah um and i was just kind of looking around and i was looking at where people were in their careers and what type of seasons that they're coming off of and how we're looking at them and i was thinking a lot about kevon d'Aran oh and i'm speaking of the from the vantage point of i think he is coming off one of the most like under appreciated overlooked like very very very good individual seasons that i

42:08can recall and i think it was overshadowed in a great sense by you know him having a burner controversy this like the third or fourth of his career it seems um and like that is unfortunate but when i look at it from these two different perspectives in terms of why he is uh compelling to me and why i think he is such a meaningful figure um he is someone i think who can tilt the title race still and i think that Houston can win the championship this year i'm not saying that they're favorites i think they could win the championship and going in the exact opposite direction if the vibes are just totally off and Fred van fleek comes back and it's just it's like he does not act as the force multiplier i think he is um kevon d'Aran is like a really interesting trade candidate and he's in the so i was looking at it from like two two those two dueling lenses

43:12um and whenever people rule out the Houston rockets for you know as championship contenders i feel like they look at what happened when their season ended and it's just like Houston lost to a Lakers team that did not have luka and barely had austin reaves and it's like well that Houston team didn't have kevon d'Aran and didn't have steven atoms and they had it mark a smart and obviously they didn't have fred and i was just like going back and looking at kate season he averaged 26 five and five he basically had a 50 40 90 50 49 shooting splits who shot 87% from the free throw line so that was the only thing keeping him from getting that like you know holy grail mark um only sga jalen brown and luka scored more points than kevon d'Aran last season uh his field goal percentage was 8.7% above his expected field goal percentage which was second in the league behind nikoly okic so this guy was taking difficult shots making them at a rate that

44:15choose chose that he is still really excellent and i thought that the rockets were championship like verifiable championship contenders when they got him um before fred got hurt and so i'm kind of like fred's healthy right or you know he'll he'll be back looking like himself i think he is one i've called him a force multipliers so many different times it feels like on podcasts but it's like i do think when he's on the court and this is his born out throughout his entire career life is so much easier for everybody else on both sides of the ball he's a great communicator he's a great leader he's just a unbelievable floor general in the sense and i think that if you take the ball because Houston's offense was just hideous last year in so many ways and a lot of it was because hey d i have another stat for you howard um hey d ranked first in gravity on mba.com they kind of uh measure this and i'll just read like what that means it quantifies how much a player's a player

45:17pulls defenders towards them above expected essentially measuring how much attention they draw compared to what the spacing on the floor predicts and this includes when you have the ball as opposed to just off the ball and so when kd had the ball he's getting swarmed he's getting double he's getting blitzed and i don't think that that will happen with red and i think that uh men and shengoon and read i think all these guys rechepperate i think all these guys win through that that season and i think they will all be better for it um as also play creators and scores and and um offense of engines unto themselves in their own way so i think if you're able to use kd off ball more run him off screens a little bit more and keep his legs fresh i just think this team could be like pretty pretty damn good and i feel like if you at if kd is that tip of the spear piece it it changes the conversation about the he's the rocket i mean the Fred been bleep part of this alone how many times last season and especially in that playoff series and some of those like just horrific fucking meltdowns against the lakers how many times do we say like

46:21oh my like these guys like these these bone headed plays these like you know and botched out of bounds play with you know seconds to go with like these are moments where you're like if red van bleep is there this probably doesn't happen yeah um a lot of end of game situations a lot of just like bad last five minutes of a game um van bleep changes that yep and even at his age um and even coming off of an a c l like as long as he has some semblance of his former self his basketball intelligence and his leadership his communication skills his ability to just kind of like this happens with every not every team this happens with a lot of teams where if you pull out the one guy who kind of makes everything makes sense sometimes that's a superstar you know everybody else gets in the proper space because this guy can can take the brunt of the defense and get other guys open make place in red van bleep's case it's not that he's not at the level talent wise of you know Kevin Durant or even you know shengoon and and and Thompson of course but everything else that he brings in terms of organization yeah and leadership and making sure

47:23that guys are in the right places i just think that it's gonna raise their overall basketball intelligence as as a team and so yes like i think there's great upside there um for the rockets and and obviously for Kevin Durant himself and that's that's the way you extend your career further right is like if you've got so many people around you who can take some of that off you and Durant doesn't have to carry as much of a burden um so that's a great pick can i so yesterday i think i forget if i said this over drinks or not but i had a fake trade that i wanted to spring on you on the pod that would oh you you alluded to it yeah we're not get into it so let me let me throw that at you right now because i i we're gonna aggregate you at least the aggregators and make sure to catch this he's trading stuff he's about to trade kd i think i can't wait uh this is a pretty spicy one and and the i'll just get back drop this is in a situation where things are going terribly for both teams involved and it's possible that things go terribly for both teams involved uh so um the Denver Nuggets get Kevin Durant Alper and Shengoon and three first round

48:29picks the he's to rockets get Nikoli Okich and cam johnson's expiring contract i thought i was gonna dock you out of your share with my the last exercise i nearly fell off this one just holy shit when you started the Durant to the Denver i'm oh that's awesome like Durant and Yokech together so it's gonna be amazing so do i need to explain this like repeat the whole uh totality of this Durant Shengoon and three firsts Durant Shengoon and three first go to the Denver Nuggets and this is this Denver's Denver so this is in a situation where Denver starts the season like underwater and it's like you know uh Aaron Gordon sprang to Zanko, Jamal Murray you know uh has a calf thing or something and it's just it's not going well and Yokech is threatening to go back to his horses and well the thing is like Yokech is he's he's this is a contract year like he and he's like he's just gonna take this to free agency there's one of the underplayed storylines today one of them it should be the yeah it's like the

49:30biggest story to me um if this is one of those cases where no disrespect to anybody in Denver Denver, me, everything else but if this is the case where like if Yokech were in the same situation and it was like i don't know New York LA a couple other places Miami whatever Philly this would be a much or if this was like Anthony Edwards if Anthony Edwards was in Nasota and he was like you know i'm actually i'm gonna keep pushing the that would do this we would be talking about it nonstop um so anyway so Denver gets Durant uh and it basically an expiring as a player option for next year of like 48 million don't quote me on that number if i think something like that um shengoon who's basically like to you know brap the air version of Yokech night i love shengoon but junior Yokech we can be nice yes yes yes and much younger and he's like sort of the all right well well you know this is someone who we can pseudo build around you're just like a all a young all star type of player um and then you get picks they have no picks three first from Houston uh down the line that's valuable they also like

50:35the other factor here is that they don't have to pay Yokech the you know is the next max extension which they clearly don't want to spend any more money um so that's that's a that's a uh a feather in their cap there um and i feel like if you're Denver i can't see them i can't see this like actually happening but i'm just i just want to you know we're just we're just talking um but i feel like no one's listening no one's listening um this is just just a few tens of thousands of podcast listeners and all the aggregators but i just feel like you don't want to be Milwaukee if you're Denver you don't want to get in a situation where oh my god we're not getting anything you know sorry i just don't think the package they got Milwaukee got for yannis was um no reflective of who yannis is and has been um so yeah that's like the case i guess where Denver just is it's like pseudo panic but it's like oh we can sell this and live with this it's probably too soon for the discussion um you did stipulate that this is

51:36in a scenario where things have gone south and and yeah and Denver um it's too soon for it but it's also like it's not unreasonable in the sense that at some point to our last discussion if you're not aggressively building around yokeuch and showing him we know how to do this we have the resources to do it we have the freedom to spend those resources to do it at some point nickel a yokeuch may look around say like what the fuck is going on what are what are we doing and then and then he becomes yannis right like Milwaukee fans bristled every time we would bring this up for the last few years but there were reasons to sound the alarm including by yannis himself passive aggressively albeit but saying like because there's a limit to this you're always on the clock with these guys and especially as they approach 30 and get past 30 and the clock is ticking louder on their career they this is one of the lessons i i had put this is what i'm i'm i'm the premises i had thrown out for the possible podcast but like lessons of this offseason in the wake of the yannis trade one of them is when your star starts pulling like some of the passive aggressive stuff the things that he

52:37was saying yannis was saying over the last couple of summers especially pay attention yep because eventually you're gonna hit a breaking point and you don't want to hit that breaking point when it's already too late and yeah to your point Milwaukee got like a package back for yannis it was the best they can do Denver doesn't want to be in that same situation not saying that means you're inevitably trading him any more than it was inevitable for Milwaukee but it to be it becomes inevitable if you don't take care of the present yeah if you don't show faith in your star so still crazy for you to bring that up right now peanut but that's pretty crazy um but you know what this is the time of the year for crazy sure um and i also was just imagining uh yokech in houston and i think that that would that's like a really fascinating like surround him with freak athletes and that would be incredible that would be great it would be fun yeah that's fun um all right my first most intriguing candidate here um is a partnership Anthony Edwards and lamello okay because because how could they not be um this is intriguing as hell

53:44drafted in the same draft class 2020 uh a couple uh spots apart they're now teammates they will each be the most i don't want to say the most talented like Anthony Edwards will be the most talented player lamello has been yes yes lamello won't be the most talented necessarily because i think cat has has earned that that uh spot for sure but he's certainly the most talented most dynamic guard the d'Anthony Edwards will have played with and the first time that'll have somebody next to him who actually can take a lot of the scoring and play making burden off of him in a really meaningful way um that said Anthony Edwards usage uh for the last four years 3032 31 31 lamello's usage has been even higher than Anthony Edwards's uh 30 34 36 okay 32 there's some we talk about guys needing to mesh and sacrifice and incorporating guys and all this other stuff we talk about we'll talk about that a lot with filly but like this is a really

54:46important partnership that is about to unfold and we have no idea what's this gonna go lamello's one of the ultimate wild cards in this league uh you just don't know like it's super talented super unpredictable um prone to flights of fancy that may or may not work out and he's gonna have to find a way to incorporate all that in a more productive way with much higher expectations in Minnesota than he had to in Charlotte and I do think it's telling that Charlotte was willing to trade him after what was their best season in in quite a while a breakthrough year and he was the face of their franchise so I don't I have no idea how this is gonna work out I'm more optimistic than not about this and about Chris Finch and his staff's ability to incorporate these guys and and and mesh their talents but they made a big trade off they jettisoned their entire front court practically like go bear still there they're they're relying a lot now on on uh on uh baron j uh whose name I will never pronounce correctly but I'm gonna work on it um

55:52uh jon christensky I think was on zax pod recently saying that like they're expecting the wolves are expecting uh baron j to play you know whatever 15 20 minutes of game now I mean he's just he's turning 20 in november he played like eight minutes of game last year like they're gonna need him I'm not a big uh you know I'm not expecting a lot out of the johnathan kuminga experiment that they're about to embark on but we'll see um but yeah they headed jettison both nas read and julieus randall to make this lamello thing work uh the word the word experiment is like generous honestly all right go I don't I don't you're not seeing it well I I'm I'm I'm I'm not blaming I don't think lamello is like the reason why I'm down on minnesota necessarily I'm down on the because I think actually he's really good for it I think yeah that right there like when those two are on the court together I don't see why that can't work I think that um lamello is like a brilliant passer and I think that he will the like the attention and all that sort of stuff will um will shift in ways

56:58that benefit both of them and aunt playing off ball man and and is like an I feel like almost an underrated shooter at this point um excellent shooter like one of the better shooters in the mba yeah um and I I just think like size wise I still have a lot of question marks um and I don't I just don't like kuminga as like a player who I don't like playing big minutes as he closing um or are they going like small with jade and mcdaniel's at the fore and io on the court like that's what I would more expect yeah and that puts a lot on mean like it's like lamello ball isn't I know like he's just not he hasn't really brought it in a competitive like the regular season is fine but like that team was so like mentally tough and physically tough and it's how they like punk the Denver nuggets in the playoffs last year and almost punk to the satan tonio spurs they were like doing that a little bit um but I just don't I don't know and so I'm a little down on on the team as a whole

58:02and I think they will feel the loss of nazaried I think he was he's like an important just peace um in the locker room on the court um just coming off the bench uh and dante d'Evon Chenzone I know that he you know he's coming back from an achilles so it's like if he were to I don't if there's been talk that he will return this season I'll believe that when I see it and he was he was a really important player for them yeah in their starting lineup yeah I'd feel a lot better about them if he were still there but yeah when you think back to the cat trade for Randall and even chenzone now Randall was a salary dumb even chenzone was out potentially for the season yeah um you know eventually you know you you go down the domino line and eventually it does lead you to lamello being here but it's also costing you not as read along the way and they've completely inverted what they had right they were front court heavy and thin in the back court and now it's it's kind of flipped and I don't know what the net outcome of that is I do think that they had hopes in early july when they first went down this road of being able to backfill the front court

59:02a little bit more effectively than they did I don't know of specific people they had in mind well the brun was one person sure yeah in mind but uh this was even I'm thinking back to even before lebron had made his his decision yeah so I guess he was still in play for that at the time that I was having some of these conversations with folks but I do think that the wolves thought that they would come out whether lebron or somebody else I think they were expecting a better outcome in in backfilling that power forward spot then what they ended up with Jonathan komington I think you can see that even by when and how they got coming to last so um I'm absolutely fascinated by it absolutely intrigued and I will say this as much as I have like some skepticism I also think this could be like fun as hell really interesting super competitive teams still last three years 56 wins 49 49 a couple of conference finals appearances I admire the ambition and the conviction by the wolves it is hard and by the way I'll say the same thing for Charlotte here it takes a lot to decide you know what in the wolves case we were a conference

1:00:06finalist a couple of times but we don't think as constructed we have enough to break through we got to reshuffle the deck and take some chances I admire that I did too um and on the Charlotte side of it I admire it because yeah they finally broke through it's in some form or fashion with that team but had the sober-mindedness to say but we don't think that our best future involves Lamello specifically we have this new core emerging with Miller and Nippel and we think Naz Reed both for what he does on the court and this is I think is overall presence as a leader and a guy who's won a lot like I admire the conviction of these franchises all right who's next on your most intriguing list this is uh this is an interesting one um Jeff Welton uh president of basketball operations for the Orlando Magic. Glad you're listing that because like 90% of the audience just I literally had to write it down because I was like yeah 90% of the audience would be like who the who is that um yes so I feel like they are come the Orlando Magic coming off like in a

1:01:11mentally disappointing season um I thought that they were gonna be like a top two seed in the Eastern conference before last year began um it ended with their third straight first round exit and they entered this year with basically the same roster which is kind of stunning in a lot of ways not only are the Orlando Magic not but what they do but not only are they have they've been static with that you know they they obviously changed their head coach and they they um uh let go of Jamal Mosley and brought in Chantweeney who has never been a head coach before um but who is awesome um they basically sign Vouch like which is just if like I'm that's that's a stunner if you watch the flat circle Mike O'Pina that is very fair um and it's just like not only did they keep everything the same but they have the third highest payroll in the NBA

1:02:14so when you have so something's got to give is what I what I mean when I look at this team and it's like you can't really bank on I mean I guess you could you bank on continuity and health and um you know maybe this is the year bronze and palo and sugs all stay healthy and uh Anthony Black takes a step forward and and does Ben Bain was healthy last year he played all 82 um maybe you know year two of him being with these guys like it it clicks like we thought it would but if it doesn't then you gotta blow this up like you have to right like you you you as you can't have the third highest payroll in the league and be a team that is middling it's just not sustainable in any sense so he is here because I think that there will be a a pseudo blockbuster trade frankly involving the Orlando magic in season soon yeah why not

1:03:14no why well the why not is if you were going to do that you should have just done that like yesterday or yeah in July I think you they've sold themselves on the coach being the issue and I mean and also health bad luck I don't know how much of this I want to put on on wellman in his front office versus just Orlando magic ownership and that franchise in general because I feel like this is the magic have been the epitome of I don't want the adjective I want to use here if it's complacency apathy apathy um staleness yeah something um they just they find their guys and they just stick with it until something breaks until they're for until somebody blows them away with an offer out of the blue or until they're forced to make a deal like they they're very uh were they are the opposite of proactive I don't even know if they're reactive um they tend to just stick with it as long as they possibly can and I don't we've talked about this before I'm not

1:04:17I don't believe that bronze and palo together long term is going to get them where they want to go and I think they should have already recognized by now that they should have flipped one of them for different pieces to fit around the remaining guy uh I don't think health alone is going to get them where they want to go I don't think a coaching change alone is going to get them where they want to go so to your point yeah trade inevitable ish inevitable questionable mark I it's just like to me it's like if this were a different franchise with with a different uh leadership again from ownership on down I think they would have already made a move put it that but ownership what is ownership like like right now they're they're tax bill is $32 million tax bill yeah that's like are like ownership can't be like oh that's cool like we'll be the eight seed and it's like I just I see change on the horizon I just it's kind of I don't want to say obvious because the things could click there's a lot of talent here yeah but I you know vooch could have

1:05:18not about a body experience that actually can't happen sorry I watched the playoffs last year um but but yeah I think that they they intrigued me because there was so much promise yeah they were clearly ascending they they made the all-in type of move where they trade for Desmond Bain it doesn't work because Franz gets hurt and Paolo doesn't take a step forward and um black gets you know sucks has hurt and black doesn't kind of emerge so is all that going to happen this year and if not then look like if you put pal I just think like I I think all these guys individually are really interesting and talented and that sort of stuff and on okay contracts um and yeah I think if if palo was available for trade and it was like widely understood I'd be really interested to see what they could get for him yeah look like everybody else um I believe Sean Swini is gonna be a great head coach excited to see him get this opportunity and I think he will make a difference there I just I think the personnel limits whoever is in

1:06:21that job so this is not a reflection on him at all um but yeah I the the magic bear watching to say the least between now and the trade deadline uh all right my number two is as uh if I say that the most intrus my most intriguing item here is snow time does that does that say it well enough uh it's the lakers um I think I just heard that phrase for the first time that leo over the first time I think bill threw it out there a week or so ago apparently that been making the rounds um oh my god the the uh the very very white lakers um this is the first time since luca got there that it's clearly the lucas show right yeah lebron and everything that comes with him has has moved three thousand miles um they they I was gonna say they spent the summer rebuilding around lucco and ostinues but they didn't they spent like um 15 minutes the same morning that lebron announced he was leaving um to sign all the guys that they were signing um so

1:07:24spent a lot of money spent a lot of money but they clearly had an agenda in mind they knew exactly what they wanted to do they knew who they wanted to bring in um rob polinka about to be working for his third different uh majority or controlling owner um still there uh and he signed all these guys and he traded a bunch of assets for walker kessler and then paid him a lot of money and then he brought in colon section and quentin grams and mtees thiebil and kavan loony um and by the way i also just kavan loony they just they just unveiled a new alternate jersey did you see this making noise i did not i did not it's got lakers written in like six point you can bear you need a fucking magnifying glass to actually see the i'm telling you it's like this big on the jersey says lakers and there's like the huge number it's um it's it's bizarre i don't know the jersey things out of control uh some of our colleagues already wrote about it last week when we talked about uh at the ringer all of the things that we want to change with the mba um this jersey's

1:08:25an abomination um i don't think that's what's going to hold them back this year but i'm very i'm intrigued by the lakers because um it is clearly now the lucas show uh unreserved unconditional it's time um it's time for this front office and for luca there to show what they are now in a conference where everybody believes you're locked out if you're not the spurs in the thunder but lucas a top five top three whatever you want to say player in this league and austin reves is going to be i think an excellent already is an excellent co star there is there enough around them is there enough shooting is there enough defense is there enough anything i i don't know can walk or castler stay healthy um after pretty checkered for a couple of years in the league um i don't know what to make of this team at all other than their floor is super high by the virtue of having luca alone um but this is it's it's not

1:09:26it's not a little little pessimistic i'm not pessimistic i'm this is the entry yeah i'm i don't know what to make of them other than luca alone means they're no worse than like a 47-48 win team and the upside is everything breaks their way they stay healthy and you know they get into the to the you know load them at 50s um are they good enough to knock out the spurs of this thunder if everybody's a full strength next spring like probably not um i don't know i just i don't know what this team it's it's the first time in a while that we could look at the lakers would be like i'm not even sure you know what uh who they are exactly but we've seen luca with kairi and dallas if uv is just even one other guy next to him yeah who can do a lot with the ball in his hands and a competent supporting cast you can get to the finals with luca different different western conference at that time i'm 100 percent um whenby was not well was he in the league uh rookie rookie whenby good have been yeah rookie not in the playoffs he was not in the playoffs so

1:10:28yeah um yeah i don't know if i'm i don't i don't know where i'm at on them i think they're probably top like they're top four top five in the west um beyond that i don't know what to make of them i think the more i look at this roster the more bullish i am to be honest because i feel like this is a not quite a y'all must have forgot season coming out of luca that we should all be prepared for but something close to it i think he is so special and almost like i think shedding the lebron not what like the lebron's presence gone um like putting in his rearview mirror getting traded and the shock and i need to adjust and all that sort of stuff which i feel like that was a hangover effect of that for a lot of last season in terms of i need to be on the cover of men's health i need to like change my my image what did what did i do wrong what about me made the team the dalsmavics trade me um i feel like that is all gone and now it's i am

1:11:34arguably the best offensive player um on the planet i have my running mate my friend austin reaves who is very good uh he's signed we've got that squared away and i look at some of these moves and you know i they spend a lot of money on guys who probably you know it's not i want to say like didn't deserve the money but spend a lot of money more money than any other team by a significant margin and i think sometimes we get i said this on a pod with with with Kyle but sometimes we conflate like the the moves and the signings and all that sort of stuff with how actually a basketball team looks and the sensibility of it and i actually think the pieces are good around him and make sense and he will be able to elevate some of the players who we have question marks about and i think someone even like callin sexton will have a role that makes sense on this

1:12:35team quentin grimes is like a pretty good three indeed type of player who can do a little bit more sometimes um and kessler is signed here because when he is healthy he creates that chance opportunity as well as just about any center in the league and he's a damn good room protector and that's what they need paint protection yes and i also am fascinated by the zaiar williams metis thai bowl additions because they they spell to me just this um defensive approach of like aggression and creating turnovers and i think if that is the the style of play which is in vogue that jj reddick who is you know an analytic wonk and and believes in it um if he really doubles down there i think that the defense could actually be a little bit better than people anticipate and i and i'm very high on the offense because i just think as you said the floor is so high and i think when luca is around your ceiling is also extremely high if the top tier in the west is and it is

1:13:39sanatoni and oklahoma yeah can the lakers be the best team of the second tier which i would argue is or supposedly is denver heustin minnesota and the lake can they be the best team of the second tier i think it's possible and i think more i think what's more important is if you get in a seven game series luca can be the best player yeah and luca can do you know he could have a 50 13 12 type of game in a in a big critical game for you know and i think that that is the type of um just impact that we're we're dealing with and so he's just a super duper duper star and sometimes like we don't need to overthink this and oh they didn't get you know they don't have enough shooting they know like they have enough i feel like they have enough everything and he is just like the just he's just pure greatness i don't know i just i feel like i'm oh we don't need to overthink it yeah there all of it um all right we have one more item each on our most intriguing fill in the blank

1:14:40we've not yet gotten to money mccutcheon scott foster zaxxarba zaxxarba uh shout out zaxxarba uh uh formerly of parkslope rookland but now somewhere off in the hinterland so um who you got um i i have the terrata raptors and i was waiting for you to get i cannot believe it took you this long to get to your beloved terrata raptors but honestly the more i think about them the more i feel like they you know again we're talking about the trade has happened it's gonna check to make sure koi hasn't actually been traded while we've been talking nope look i'm talking about this under the assumption that he will be traded for uh brandening room greedy dick and two first round pips um i think you could reasonably make the case that they should be the favorite to win the east the favorite i do i think that when i think about the playoffs and i saw what they did against um

1:15:42the cleveland cavaliers without um basically they didn't have brandening room for most of that series they didn't have a manual quickly and like what i saw at a scottie barns was like this guy is going up a level in ways that are extremely meaningful and for him to be the second best player on a team i know that koi has hold issues i understand all that talking about the regular season though and i'm talking about like their style of play which they're going to be a defense first team that's just like comes at you aggressively um you know jim all shed joby walter uh scottie barns cmb um they have the athletes they have uh the coaching staff they have the identity um and i i think that if you just add a little bit of health uh they can be they can be extremely scary and when i get koi and he's healthy and he looks like he because i thought i think for me personally he was like a top-by player in the NBA last year um if they get that koi they should be just a phenomenal basketball team

1:16:47he is being right now death chart shows koi Leonard that's small forward well cbs sports uh death chart right now shows Brandon Ingram so uh i just thought was a fun little fun little sidelight there we had we can't quite decide who we're penciling in yet and how to how to project them i mean it's that's the thing um we i do think it's still more likely than not that koi is there but i still think like everything is on the table right now i don't no one knows exactly what the clippers are thinking or what they're doing right now and if they somehow just decided to like spite koi spite koi spite whoever the world the universe i don't know um our reality changed and we think that maybe moving him somewhere else for a different package could be i don't know i i have no idea what what this where this leads other than listen we don't need to you and kai all i think covered this uh fully a week ago but um the way the clippers have responded to that investigation and the results and the penalties was a little unhinged the the the

1:17:52the statement from their lawyer was just so over the top um the persecution complex and the paranoia like wed woven into all of that was just incredible i like there was no remorse no contriteness contrition um it it just and because of that i saw that as a very irrational response by a team that had been caught with its pants down and had 36 pages chapter and verse of all the different ways in which they cheated um and and their base their their their responses basically fuck you like um we're we're the victims and all this because of that there's an irrationality that i cannot get you know just dismiss right now and i don't know what that means ultimately but koi will probably be a raptor regard um and if he is everything you said um broadly i agree with whether that's enough to overcome some combination of nicks and Celtics and pistons who we've barely even

1:18:53mentioned if if we've even mentioned them at all in this pod today um cavaliers however we want to classify them sixers like it's a lot for any team to get it's a lot yeah every single one of those teams i could say the same for to get through the rest like there's just a lot of really good teams for shop the east and i don't think any of them have a bullet proof case here um but i like no when it comes to intriguing though like there's no yeah no dispute there raptors incredibly intriguing i wish there was a more of like you know it when we've had other homecomings in the NBA LeBron back to Cleveland being obviously like the ultimate version of this especially if you go back at a time when you are still capable of uh of carrying a team or you know pushing them that much further along you want there to be like a little bit more of a good feelings uh you know aspect of it kawaii back to charano i'm sure for raptors fans they're not gonna give a shit about what just happened with the clippers but i think for the rest of us who are distanced from that it's it's it's not clean it's weird the whole thing is weird and like it's not a feel good story also by the

1:19:58way kawaii doesn't exactly inspire feel good feelings about him anyway because he's he's a blank slate and we we don't know what to make of him also by the way took zero responsibility for this entire fiasco um so it's it's not it doesn't come with the same kind of like you know fun nostalgia oh you know he can go back and uh write the wrongs and and maybe try to get them back to the championship for the first time since since he did it the first time in 2019 i it's just lacking a little bit of emotional system that's fair i just really am looking forward to watching him for sure absolutely all right my last one i had to i almost veered away from it just to spare you maybe to spare the listeners for that matter almost okay but like most intriguing like how could we not mention at some point the sixers again yeah sure he do it yeah he said groaning um

1:21:00dude i mean how could they not be one of the most intriguing storylines of the season they just are i thought about getting cute and trying not to mention them at all they're inevitable we are going to be fascinated from about fascinated by them from day one from minute one of media day in a couple of weeks um what version of lebron is there both by age and by temperament what what are we going to see from him how much does he impose himself on that team he's been the leader of every team he's ever been on he's been the leading scorer of almost every team he's ever been on minus you know the last couple of years in la and even there there's some some caveats um what version of him be by by ages as well jaylen brown didn't choose to be there lebron did so what's you know jaylen brown's mindset oh we've heard from him on twitch and other places but like we don't really know until we see him on the court with all these guys uh joelle mbied how willing is he to take a step back it's all the stuff that we talked about the second all these transactions happened so i'm not saying anything new here necessarily it's just oh my god do we have so many questions like who's the number one option

1:22:05here at any given time is it maxi is it jaylen is it imbedient is it lebron how much sacrifice are they all making how much you know there's a lot of knick nurses plate to to kind of manage all of this um how many how many games this joelle mbied play how many games this lebron play can they summon enough defense especially when joelle mbied is not on the court um i i have made the case and i believe this will be the case that lebron will probably kind of move more into playmaker role facilitator like he'll still score by just by virtue of being lebron yeah um but he doesn't have to be his usage doesn't have to be in the high it doesn't have to be in the thirties for sure it doesn't even have to be in the high twenties he could be in like the twenty twenty two range and just create easy shots for everyone else and that could be enough but just watching him adapt at this stage is intriguing enough on its own on its own much less how all the rest of these guys fall into place and how they all approach this we haven't seen too many versions of this over time sometimes these things have not gone very well for the teams involved um you know the the the

1:23:09the lakers of of nation and examples yeah nascent white with with the bobean pow the lakers with melon and paton although i will always argue like one they made it to the dam mba finals and two of chrome alone doesn't get hurt it's a much different outcome potentially but um the nets with kg pierce staring Williams yeah yeah although like he piercing our net were far enough like moving toward the cliff of their careers whereas lebron is still like like what lebron is doing obviously is unprecedented this at this stage so it's but that's a it's a fair example two in terms of just we're just going to pile on all these stars at various stages of their career to see what happens um but shit man like i'm sorry i could not avoid this one i could not not have this on the list the fixes are intriguing as hell we are going to be watching every damn game they play um for sure they're absolutely unavoidable and i'm happy to not avoid it it's it's going to be really interesting who do you think will lead the sixers in shots this season great question um

1:24:10um i think it's maxi maxi oh okay yeah i think i think i think how about this i think it's not total just like per game or okay not not lebron i agree i think lebron is like third on the list maybe maybe fourth depending on how much i believe in this lebron he should be fourth in my opinion yeah i wrote this a little ways back in the summer after he signed there just about the idea of you know lebron when he came into the league my favorite one of my favorite commercials of all time lebron uh coming into the church bernie mack as the preacher right and it was all about you know he was it was him as a rookie right this is his his first year in the league and it was all about uh you know he was born to pass and like he had crazy court vision and it was all about that and that was the version of magic that a lot of people expected before he became one of the greatest scores of all time the greatest score by definition um by totals but it was all about he was going to be more magic than michael and i know we've already dispensed

1:25:12with that over the years but he is wired that way and like he he especially the stage of his career you're i'm expecting that so um leading shot who who who are you thinking is going to lead them in field goal attempts well i i just think that that's where my own uh concerns pop in because it's because jalen brown is not because jalen brown is not because of the ball dude like i was just looking at some numbers for this for this exercise and i was you know going up trying to find where heaven derailleur ranked in certain scoring things and jalen brown was always like just it's like shots with between three and six dribbles for example something you can look at on nba.com and it's like jalen average like a full 1.5 more than anyone else in the league and he just blew people away and in terms of like uh his past percentage when he has the ball is he going to pass the ball? probably not so um i don't i don't think like those things will um we'll shift for i think it'll be really difficult for him to go from last year and him having

1:26:17that joy and the enjoyment of being the number one option and it being the best season of his career is his favorite season or whatever um to all right like i'm gonna go stand in the corner here um maybe you'll find me in transition i'm gonna sprint the floor if you don't find me find some edge comb on the other like i just think there's a lot of possibility for friction for sure and that's why i'm just like i really want to see it i've said that since i i saw that lebron um signed with them and the key point that you make is that jalen brown did not sign up for this that's like no that's a huge part of it we're gonna we're gonna learn a lot about right like there was all the murmurings early on in the jalen jason partnership about how oh jalen wants his own team where he feels this should be a number one option well applied is like being in the shadow they went a championship together it's momentarily dispeled but then it comes roaring back because of his twitch comments and and other things um and yeah now here is on a team that is like stocked with

1:27:18with you know first option guys with guys who were used to like and joelle and bead for that matter too we're gonna learn a little bit about him as well but i think him beads already started to make the the the turn there he started to adapt a little because he had to both by his physical limit limitations and the emergence of maxi and edge comb and so i i think i'm a little less worried about him than i am about jalen brown and we know what's gonna happen media day's gonna come along and jalen brown's gonna get these questions and he's gonna try to give all the right answer i think he's gonna try to give all the right answers i don't think he's gonna feed into the concerns and the skepticism um but it's what you do on the court that matters and we'll learn a lot about him very soon um like he would say that i have sacrificed six two like the greater good of the whole for most of my career and that's true yeah he's won a ton of games doing it this will be a very different extremely especially when you look at the fact that you know he's got a contract situation to look at so yeah um as i say super intriguing they are they run my long list yeah um all right on my

1:28:26long list since we're we're gonna uh we need a wrap but um you taught jazz intriguing yeah dark horse playoff type team in in the east in the west um indiana pacers like we all keep forgetting to talk about them like i even did it five minutes ago when i was saying like all these teams jockeying position in the top of the east any one of them could possibly win the east um by the way the indiana pacers should probably be in their considering the finals uh 18 months ago anti-reese haliburton is back but it's another one of those we need to see him we got to see him now with a little bit of a revamped lineup and zubach um trailblazers i'm intrigued by just because they're freaking weird um and i don't know what the hell they're doing and i don't like the jama rant edition but we'll see how they sorted all out and deemian lilyards back i had the maves on kind of the long list the wizards i'm not as intrigued as some people are or i'm least i'm not as optimistic as some people are um grizzlies young and fun and revamped and post-job intrigues so those those were kind of like my my also rants who else did you kind of kick around um you so you mentioned the wizards and i've been extremely down on them um their offseason just their i don't know like chris middleton is

1:29:32on the roster just it's absolutely like a farce um but anthony davis is someone who i'd basically like in my head completely written off and i feel like i've done so unfairly so i wrote him his name down because like what if he's really good you know what i mean like it's not this is like he is such a fascinating figure like when healthy he is he's awesome like he's one of the best offensive players in basketball and he's he he will wreck shit and so if he is if he is back to being that player um first of all like what does that do to his status in washington what does that do to his contract situation and what does that do to his potential trade market those are all things that um i'm thinking about when i think about if ad is to have like kind of a magical renaissance type of season that would be wonderful um but what i'm thinking about is uh 36 40 56 76

1:30:36yeah that's not great in 20 those are the get those are his games played the last shovel now the the last year's kind of weird because of the trade and everything else in the wizards not really wanting to play him but um yeah not a lot of games played um by anthony davis in now recent years so um we'll see uh all right um that's our most intriguing we're intrigued we're intrigued by a bunch of other things that we didn't quite get to um but we've got many weeks to go and by the way real ones will be back uh very soon uh welcoming back my guys roger and Logan can't wait to do that um we got some fun stuff coming ink next week um we'll see but uh you'll find that on this channel as well so uh pina been a pleasure it's a blast i'll then know you for that beer any minute now thanks for joining us everybody

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