Five Big Questions With Richard Jefferson!

Coming up on the Zack Low Show, it's Monday and a lot is going on as always in the NBA. Richard Jefferson is here to answer five big questions about the NBA season, including the Jama rant trade landscape. What teams make sense? Are they really going to get this big package for Jama rant? Is it going to be a win now? Team is Memphis going to go totally into the tank and trade, Jared Jackson, Jr. too. I wouldn't close the door on it. We go through the whole landscape of teams. Richard makes it off to beat and path pick for Jama rant and then we talk about who's going to win the East? What's our deep cut NBA finals contender? Where's Brian going to play and then Richard just has a great NBA fight kind of story. Mo Tiquil is here. We're going to talk about the other end of the playoff race. The play in race in the West is starting to crystallize and we're going to look at Portland who's been hot until they lost the next last night and a check in on the Lakers and the word blah is used quite often. And then Kiyote George from the Utah Jazz. We've recorded this before they lost by 9000 points to the hornets when we talked about his breakout season and everything in the Utah. He's got some good stories about Will Hardy. We hit everything today, the Joss stuff, Anthony Davis' injury, other trade rumors, everything coming up on the Zach Lo Show. Welcome to the Zach Lo Show. Look who it is, my old colleague and friend, Richard Jefferson, how you doing? I'm great. Am I an old friend? Like we're not still friends. I love you Zach. You're my guy. We're friends. You've been to my house. You've sat in my Adirondack chair and referred to me as Clark Griswald when people would suburban moms drove by and waved at me and then texted me, who's that guy in your front yard? It was because I was black. You can edit that out, but still it's because I'm not going to edit that out. Who's that guy in your front lawn? You actually made a joke about that, but I won't repeat the joke. Like me, Richard Jefferson, you are one of the participants on road. You're not Ali is the host, but you are one of the core members. No, no, no. Host, I think it might say hosted by. She is 100% the host has been the host. She's actually the CEO. She runs every single thing. I've road trip. I show up and like you've seen me on NBA today. I show up when the red light comes on at work, when the red light goes off, Ali, that's what I get to do with road tripping because of Ali flifting. Well, like I was at the Zach Lo Show, you all at road tripping were snubbed by the Golden Globes last night for Best Podcast, Amy Polar. Congratulations to her. She won. I actually thought Richard, the Golden Globes were the forum that might reward a deep dive with Best Cupal podcast for its, for its acumen. But no, no, they went celebrities. They went with celebrities. But it's the same thing. It's like dramas at the Oscars are always what's getting rewarded. Never comedies, right? Never action movies. It's only you got to be a drama. You got to be a period piece that no one's ever seen from a time period that no one gives a fuck about. Those are the people you will win all the Oscars, right? No, there's some other good Oscar winners. But great comedies that, that the whole world laughed about and made $800 million. Now we don't care about that. Who cares about laughter in this world? Let's sell misery. So for us, Best Cupal podcast, we're never going to get the actual love that we deserve, right? Because that's what we are. Where are the action movie? Where are the fun movie? People get excited. There's an emotional connection for years to the teams and the players that we talk about. And they make it seem like this isn't drama. This is the biggest soap opera in all of sports. The NBA is the biggest soap opera in all of sports. And it's not even remotely close. I tell people. They're like, well, sports is like, no, no, no, you don't even have to get involved with the actual play. Just join your favorite team and listen to the drama. It's better than Real Housewives. It's better than Survivor. It's better than Amazing Race because it's all of them combined. How's that for a rant? It was very good. I will say Amy Polar thanked Spotify, everyone at Spotify and the ringer. So technically, I think I was thanked at the Golden Globe by Amy Polar. She said the words, the ringer. Yeah. I think so. Bill, you know me and you have a unique, funny, kind of not relevant, but I would say complicated relationship. Not in a bad way. I'm saying it's like, we don't really interact. We see each other. It's like, oh, hey, then it's just, you know, I wouldn't say we don't know each other, but we don't know each other. So that's what you know, I don't know where you going with this. I'm going with this to take congratulations to him. It was your face. I was like, no, that's a big deal. I got out to Bill Simmons getting, yeah, I'm beneath that God that he started, got announced at the, at the Golden Globe. That's careful. Yeah, careful. Not the Oscars. Careful. He got mentioned by name. I just got, you know, congratulations, Bill. Like, that's, that's actually really, really awesome. That's really awesome. So wait, were you never mind? Speaking of soap opera, I, this is five big questions with Richard Jefferson. And so first one is very soap opera. John Morant is on the market because John Morant doesn't want to play for the Memphis Grizzlies anymore. He doesn't want to play for 12 months, East alone. And the Grizzlies have sent up the flare. John Morant's available. Okay, great. Richard Jefferson's best fit for John Morant is. Okay, okay, this is, this is, okay, best fit. Now I would say this. Assuming help, we have to assume help. This is the big thing. I can say it situation. And if he's not healthy, if he can give you 65 to 70 gain for the next five years. Okay. If he can, so I'm going to say it from assuming help. I think John Morant who is 26, 26, 26. I think I would look at a place, you know, you look at Brooklyn. I think Brooklyn from this standpoint, you can do it through the drafts. And I believe in what they're doing, 100% were aligned. You can, same with Washington, you can do it through the draft. But if you get yourself a piece that is still 26 and below, and I know John's going to help you win games, I know, I know that, but I do believe that Brooklyn and it has been proven. Now, not great, but multiple times that once you make it an attractive place, you can get free agents or people want to play. That's a point blank. Argue with your mama, right? We saw it. Paul Pierce, KG Darren Williams, we've seen great players come in there. We saw it with Kyrie James Harden Kevin Durant. We've seen it. So you don't have to do a skeleton rebuild. Now I'm not saying go and give up pieces and a bunch of like all your assets to go get John Morant. I'm saying that if you can get John Morant and keep some of your assets or keep your assets and keep what you're trying to do in tech, you can jumpstart it because you have a guide that you're like, okay, for three to four years, he's either going to be our one or two, but this is how we're going to jumpstart ourselves to relevancy, right? That's what's been proven in Brooklyn. You can do it the old school method. Like, that's fine. I'm supporting, but I think that that would be a good location, a good start, a good culture, a good superstar, right? And you know, he plays with a chip on his shoulder and Brooklyn's a great place for that. So they're on my long list. And I, by the way, give me your short list. I'm just going to name a bunch of teams, but before I do that, I will say they allegedly want young players and picks for John Morant. No. I don't think they're getting that kind of package. I actually don't, I don't know who the team is and I don't know how much trade value he has. If any, compared to trade young, which is just got traded for two expiring contracts, helpful players, but mostly expiring contracts. Morant is 26. He's never been a three point shooter. He's never been a defensive player. And he's not been on the court for much of the last three seasons due to off court incidents and injuries. The one thing he could always do was get to the rim like all hell and draw on the defense and finish at the rim. He's not doing that this year. He did it in a couple recent games before he went out again. If he's not doing that at a high level and he has three years left at 40 million plus on his contract, I'm not sure what his trade value is. If it's equivalent to trade young or whatever, but I don't think there's like a good young player and multiple picks kind of package out there. I think they can get that for Jaron Jackson Jr. and I'm not going to shut the door on a full Memphis Grizzlies rebuild ahead of the trade deadline. But here are my teams. You ready? I'm going to give you like Brooklyn's on my list. Just drafted a lot of point guard types, but you're right. Why not? Right. John Moran. There were teams that would have been on this list two years ago that it's passed them by. It's passed the Grizzly by Orlando, Utah, passed them by Atlanta. They just did their thing New Orleans, Jeremiah fears is already there. Toronto. I think their rumored interest in trade young has been a little exaggerated and is a little bit outdated. They could sniff around this with, you know, can we upgrade from quickly? I just don't see it. They're playing pretty well. I don't love the fit with Scotty Barnes. And if you're playing pretty well, like that's kind of a nuclear bomb to drop onto your team in the middle of the season. Can I keep going? Yeah, I'm locked in. I'm playing up some things so I can have some bottles for you. Minnesota needs a guard upgrade. I don't think the money works. They'd have to trade like a knives read plus something plus something. And I don't see it. I don't love to fit with aunt either. If I'm aunt, I'm not psyched about that. Portland. Their point guards have been hurt all year. They're starting to come back. Drew's back. I think there's hope. Scoot comes back this season. I'm assuming again, nuclear bomb to drop into your team. Don't see it. Houston, don't see it. Clippers, don't see it. Now we're getting to the good ones. Okay, I was about to say what kind of list you got, Zach? Milwaukee desperation play. Don't love the fit with Yannis. But they are, they are, I'd be surprised if they don't make a play for one of these like high salaried Michael Porter, Jr. Zach Levine, John Barriam, whoever. It's all to keep you honest and it is all no matter what it's worth. I mean, Miami has been the hot team. What do you think about that? Assuming bam, obviously bam's on it into deal. It's, it's, I saw some fake trade where it was like Wiggins plus, Hakez plus two first round picks. I'm like, what are you smoking? The Miami trade is like hero plus dead money plus not much more than that. Yeah. All right. Like again, the hardest part about this conversation is we, I want to assume health. I want to assume help. So we're just going to talk about basketball, ability, basketball skill, even if we're saying 65 games, which is, which is, I, I, you laugh about that and I know Zach knows this. Tell me how many games you've averaged over the course of his career. How many times he's played over 75? I can pull it up fast for you when I play game. You can, you can go ahead and do it. It's not many. That's not team is young. The Memphis Grizzlies. I'm pulling it up right now. I have to scroll really far down. He's played 70 games zero times. Now there's pandemic short and seasons in there, right? So it's, it's not quite fair, but the last three years, 50 to games, nine games, 61, 50. It's not going to happen. Oh. Okay. So, okay. So, let's say assuming 65 games. Because we're not doing that in his bed. That's really where his value drop. Well, and this is like, this is why the team that event, I think some team will trade something real for him eventually. Yeah. And it's the ultimate by-low thing. It's he'll never be this unhealthy. The off court stuff is hopefully in their rear view. He's totally unmotivated there and will get the motivated chip on a shoulder, John Morant, which actually raises the question of like, what exactly does John Morant want? Because he hated the offense last year, which is the offense Miami is running right now. And he, but then they switched the offense and he was running more picking rules than ever before, which is what he wants. But now he decides he doesn't want this coach because the coach dared to hold it accountable in the locker room and call him out in front of his teammates. Oh, well, well, young man, Miami is a great place for you. You want to go to boarding school? What, what, what is he want? Look, you want to go to boarding school? This is what will happen. And I don't, and this is not even a John Morant. This is an anybody thing. And I'll give you one comparison. I'll give you one comparison. If you go to Miami, there is a fit that they do. Like they help get Shaq in shape. When, yeah, towards that, towards the end, now they moved on from Shaq when it was, you know, they kind of, it was the time, but Shaq had a great run in Miami. There's just a way that they do things. There's, there's an energy in which it's from top to bottom, from owner to president, general manager to coach. It is straight down that line. And I think that's great. I think John Morant forces you like to change your style of play. He's too talented to, could you complain this? Everybody touches the ball system. We saw that in San Antonio years ago when they were playing against the old Miami Heat, everyone touches the ball. But for some reason, Tony Parker ended up with a pick and roll late game, or Monty, you know, we ended up late game, but everybody was touching the ball. And I like that style of play. I would compare the, the, the, the John Morant potential trade as into the Vince Carter trade to the nets. And the reason why I say that is we, you talk about selling low. They wanted him out. He had had a stream of injuries. He was not motivated. It was just a weird air. And we remember we traded airquiliams, air and Williams, and the Lanzo morning, right? A lot of like free, like a lot of guys, there were future free agents, money, guys that could play, but it was more of like we didn't give up any of the assets. We didn't have to give up too much to get Vince. And then he got their motivated next to Jason Kidd and, and, and our culture. And then he had this resurgence of four to five years of how playoff performances, you know, really, in my opinion, that's what vaulted him to like the Hall of Fame Vince that he is. Because those were, it was like the initial shock of, oh my God, this is Vince Carter. Then that kind of waited. Then he had a great stretch with the nets. And he was a good player as he moved on and obviously all the years, but that stretch with the net was like, oh, okay, now we have a big span of him being a dominant player. So you can see that if you can get into that culture, even a guy that's had some injuries, stuff like that, ultimately kind of found his hell, found his motivation and was in a good space. And we didn't really have to give up a tremendous amount of assets because it was on the by-law. If we had to give up a ton of assets and he comes and if it was me for Vince Carter, trade, people would be like, okay, but then all of a sudden, it just, if you're able to keep your main assets and bringing a guy that you can buy low, that's 26 years old and is an all NBA talent, you, you, you got to kind of think outside the box and look at other reference points of guys that were able to leave and then have a resurgence and a level of success. And it's been done before. You have to ask yourself, is he still an all NBA talent? Because if he can't finish at the rim like you did in his early prime, he's still in his prime, then he's not an all NBA talent. I don't sense, and look, this is bluffing season, but I don't sense a huge amount of interest in Miami, but I bet they'll look at it. I, this is just me educated guest. I bet they look at it because they've lost four out of five. It's clear what they are. They're an average team. I like to fight again, they're running the offense he hated. And by the way, I should have mentioned Toronto, their coach, Darko Rackovich was a Taylor Jenkins guy in Memphis and that didn't end so well with jaw. I think Miami knows what they are and they might have like an either or choice to make with hero or powell long term. Like do we really want to have both of those guys for 70 billion a year or whatever? And for as big as Josh contract is because he didn't make all NBA. It's quote only 40 something million dollars. It's not like a 55 60 million dollar just albatross of the contract. I would still bet no on Miami, but I bet they at least take a look. My favorite team, despite the fact that all the reports are they're not interested. They're definitely not going to trade picks or young players. Young players, they don't even freaking play for whatever reason because they stink their 9 and 30. It's still Sacramento. It just seems like the perfect Sacramento expiring money. It's great for Sacramento. Second round picks, but like I just don't do tears of it. And by the way, if that's the offer, the Grizzlies, the Vesher making, the stink face, the Grizzlies might just say, we're not doing it because we're having under contract for three years. If we want to, if we want to take a step back this year and get into the lottery, we can do that by sitting John Morant and the way he's played, we can do that by playing John Morant. We're not in a rush to trade him for tomorrow to Rosen's expiring contract plus whatever. So my pick will still be Sacramento. Okay, ready for big question number two? Um, I don't like Sacramento for job. I don't like Sacramento for anybody. I didn't want to say that. Aggressively, I was staying, you know, specific to the person, but I don't like that. I like Sacramento for Vivek's family and friends. It seems like a great spot for them. They get to run the show and never get fired. It's great. Um, big question number two for Richard Jefferson. Who the hell is making the finals from the Eastern Conference? We don't know. This is, that's not an acceptable answer. You know, here, I'm a break down my answer. I'm, I'm breaking down my answer, right? As we look at it right here in the standings, we're in the standings. We're in Memphis, Crazley's roster. Il Detroit. They're one of those games where I look at them and you can say, okay, see two years ago, two, two years ago, where they're really good, but they're missing a piece. And it can be a small piece like, and not small, but adding heart and Einstein. What he did for their team, I think they have a much better run if they would have had a quality big that year before when they lost to Dallas, right? I think that's where Detroit is. Right. By the way, Bill and I have argued about this a lot. I am big on the Detroit should make a trade this season and really go for it. He's on the standpat, let the young guys sort of test themselves, fail in the playoffs, learn what they need. I'm like, I think I know what they need. They need shooting and the East is there for them. And that's where I'm saying is like, that's what I thought. You looked at the one thing that OKC, and I know we're doing a revisionist history, one thing that OKC, and I was just really bullish on it at the time, OKC, they were in a Dallas, got a ton of bigs. You looked at Minnesota was so big. You look at Yilkitch, you looked at Anthony Davis, you looked at these monster teams that the West was building and that were around and the one thing that you're the number one seed and the one thing that you don't have is a big. Like come on, you're setting yourself up for failure. You're setting yourself up for failure and then get there. And the last thing I'll say about this before we'll get back on the topic is that Sam Prestee came out, he's like, I didn't want to mess with the group and we had a good thing going, but you can still have a basketball mind. And it's like, we don't have to do this big impact. But if we can add a tweak and we can add this little, we don't need to go get that B plus player and give up assets to try and make a run. But we can get a B minus a C plus player that at least kind of fills that whole or little patches it for this season. And that's where I think Detroit is in that space. So they're still very vulnerable in areas. The next, I like the next from the veteran standpoint that they've been in big moments. They've been in big places. Kind of open the Celtics. You get a matchup. I think this is all matchup based in who plays well. That's why we don't know. Do you know this sack, whenever a reporter says that they pick a team and seven, what does that mean? They don't know who's winning the series. Exactly. So I picked the Eastern Conference in seven. Good for these. I'm sticking with the Knicks by default. I just, I haven't Boston. Is it awesome story and they have the Tatum thing coming? I just got to see it a little bit more from them. I just, I still am in shock at how good they've been given their front court situation and Kada and Garza have been awesome for them. Detroit, Detroit can absolutely make the finals as is because the East is that of much of a mess. But if they actually want to have a chance in the finals, I think that they need to, if they want to up their odds of making the finals and then have a chance, I think they need a little bit more shooting. Michael Porter Jr. would be great there and be great in a lot of places. Orlando just doesn't stay healthy enough. Sugs is out again. Would you give a, would you give a young player? Would you give a young player for, for Michael Porter Jr. for Detroit? I'm, my Detroit stance is, I'm at this point, I'm drawing my asset line at Ivy. Ivy's the best guy you're getting for me on my young players. You're not touching a Sar Thompson. That guy is too much potential. You're not touching him. I don't even want to give you Isaiah Stewart because he's really, really good. Is it in your style of playing your physical? Yeah, no. But Ivy, and if you asked me for Holland and the guy was really good, I think about it, but I want Ivy plus Tobias plus a picker to see what I can get. The team that's starting to play better is the calves. That's what I was going to say. You get to that. Go ahead. Garland looks like Garland and he's played a bunch of games in a row. Jared Allen's had a good run. They're plus 11 with their four quote unquote All Stars. People are, for them, as four All Stars and technically they've all been All Stars. I guess four All Stars. Marles playing really well with their other two guards. They still need struse, I think, but they're, they're being slept on a little bit, but I'm still going with the nicks. Don't feel great about it. Don't feel great about it. Okay. Ready for question number three. I've been waiting. What team does LeBron play for the next season? I would assume either the Lakers. I would assume retirement. I, it's really, it's for the first time ever since we've been in the same like friend group and circle, like I truly don't even have an idea of what he's doing. It's kind of like the decision, like the things that he does, even, you know, when it was going to Cleveland, going to LA, there were very late whispers, even in going back to Cleveland, caught everybody off guard. The Laker thing was kind of like we can see the writing on the wall, kind of wears careers headed stuff like that kind of like when Shaq made that transition. I don't know where he's going. We don't talk about it. There's not like, oh, what do you know? It's like he might be retiring. He, you know, he's not saying anything. They're doing a year 23 patch on his jersey. I just saw that. That's sick. Awesome. Right. So and they're doing it for all of his games. Some of these things might lend to retirement. Right. They might make you think, okay, well, if he was going to do a year 24, if he was going to do a year 24 and that was his retirement year, why wouldn't they do the patch that year? Maybe they, we don't know. We don't know. So from that space, I would say he's either in LA. I don't see him like he's such a big like piece, adding him to any situation. Just makes it different. So I think he's great now. I think the biggest thing is you look at where LA is right now. Right. They're 23 and 13. They've had a tremendous amount of injuries. You know, if guys were healthy, LeBron missed the first, like the opening night for the first time ever. So when I look at this, this team, even though they're missing things, they have division, this team easily could, it could end up top three in the conference. So like, are you really that unhappy with the dynamic? I wouldn't believe so. They could also end up seventh pretty easily. If their record catches up with their point differential, because Phoenix isn't going to click, they're going anywhere. And the Rock, the Rockets are in seventh right now. The Rockets have lost four or five and have fallen out a lot. Shen Gune, Missed a lot of those games came back last night. Someone's getting seventh. That's good. And it could, it could also be the Lakers. I don't like, I don't, maybe I'm, maybe I'm a little scarred from the, the Rich Paul statement that came out over the summer about, you know, it's a hard balance to strike between winning now and winning later. Cleveland Cleveland retirement or. I like that idea. I can see it. I'm going with Cleveland. I'm going with Cleveland. I look, if it, if it's, unless they win the title, if we're making stuff up purely hypothetical, I would say Cleveland or LA would be the places that I would see him into his career. Warriors. No, I don't see it. He's to, he's to competitive. He's to competitive. Now, if some of the warriors wanted to come down to LA or meet him in Cleveland, but I just, you know, I wouldn't. I just, I think he is, is locked in on this year. And that's, that's as far as I know. By the way, we, can I go back to question two, just for a second. It's a Jason to question two. We didn't talk about this team and it kind of has been one of the bigger stories to some degree of the season. Do you have any hope of the bucks putting it together? And like actually emerging as a, even if we're in the play-in because they're pretty far behind right now, or they, you know, chasing the 60 to like actually emerging as a team that like, oh, yeah, like maybe they could win a playoff series or two. No, and if you, this, we're not going to disrespect Yannis. If you have Yannis on your team, you can win a playoff series. Now, it's all about what's surrounding him. And I think that's where some of the, um, the curiosity to what's going on there in Milwaukee is kind of really stemmed. Um, but yeah, if you got Yannis, if you got Yoke, if you got Luke, I'm not counting you out of anything. Steph, there's, there's about seven guys that if you have him, we're talking about the first round that we're talking about the play-in. I'm not counting you out until you are out. Can I count them out of like conference finals and finals? Yes, you can. Well, again, yes, you can, but the trade deadline's not here. So we don't, as, as things stand out, as things stand out. So we don't know. There are five and three since Yannis came back from injury. It's solid. Last night in Denver was it in, I think it was in Denver indicative of like they were, they lost by four and they were plus 17 in the honest is minutes. That's just like, that's just how it is for three hours. So it's numbers. Yeah, it really is Yoke. It's numbers. Question number four, this is my favorite one. Your deepest cut team that you could actually see winning the NBA chip. So like not Oklahoma City, not Denver, not whoever you're favorite in the East is like a team that's sort of in the standings right now. And you could not like go, they could go on a run a couple, a couple rounds. Like they could actually, you could actually plausibly see this team hoisting the Laryl Bryan. I'll give you two teams. I would say the Celtics. And I would say the Spurs. I'm going to disqualify the Spurs. So your pick is the Celtics. Spurs be to thunder three times or second in the West. I'm disqualify. It's just even right. Okay, fair. You're going to disqualify them with those the only people that I would say we know we, we, we know this deck. We as media members, we sell 10 teams have a chance to win a championship. We sell that, you know, eight teams, it would be a bust if they don't make it to their conference finals. This is what we sell. Now, there's really like three to five teams at this point time that you would say are in contention, three to five teams. Everybody is on the outside. You can prove it. You can prove it for 40 games. Can you do it for 60? Can you do it for 80? What do you look like in the first second round of the playoffs? So there's, there's so there are teams look 40% different in in April and May than they do right now. So it's hard to say. So if I'm going to literally say the Celtics, Jason Tatum, you look at the way they're playing and you're like, well, if they get the nicks, if there, if there's a, you know, if there's a sprained ankle by a best player and there's like, there's so many different variables that can come in. And I think the Boston Celtics are well coached. They have the pedigree. They had the chip on their show. If they have, they have pieces that you're like, wait a second. These guys could actually put themselves as like the Detroit Pistons winning the championship in in 04. They weren't probably like top six on people's list. And then we look at them and they kind of built out to something special. So I'm going to say the Celtics would be the team that's kind of like a dark horse. Like, right, we were to have this conversation. So we were like, yo, how on earth? Like if you would have told me in mid January at the Celtics or the Spurs, we're going to win a championship. I was like, I kind of would have been like, okay, I can see it, but I didn't think I would see it. That's why I think that's a great pick. They're fair in the East. They have the best point of differential needs. But I do think given preseason expectations, the surprise factor of where they are now versus where we thought there would be. I think they're a great pick. I had an easy pick for this and I'll get to in a second. The rockets I didn't quite know what to do with for the sake of this question. Because there was, there was like a month where people thought they are the second best team in the West and the biggest threat. Total on the city. Now they're in seventh and their offense looks a little bit stuck in mud. I didn't quite know how to qualify them. Did you, did you consider them at all? Are they above this discussion? No, I think they're one of those teams. I like the 22 and 14 guys miss some, some, some time Kevin Durant is brand new there. And they looked amazing. They, they're, they're offensive rebounding rate. They're extra in their hustle. Their offense can look like shit, but you just have to believe over the next 40 game between Shin Goon, between Kevin Durant, like they have enough offensive weapons there that and they have the ultimate offensive weapon that they'll get it out the mud. It's not like they're trash. They're just not kick clicking or progressing off of what we saw in the early season. So I put them in that category of five teams. And if you were to tell me at the end of the season right now that, that the next one, that OK, C1, that Denver one, that Houston one, do you be like, I can see it. Denver is 26 and 13 third in the West. They are a juggernaut hiding in plain sight. The way they have played without Yokech is, I mean, they're only three and three, but they've not, they've also missed Jamal Murray for a couple of those games. Christian Brown and Brandon Austin, they won in Boston. If a guy like Watson and pick it and Naji, if one and a half of those guys can take what they've done in this stretch, apply it to the healthy nuggets. And the nuggets indeed get healthy, including Aaron Gordon saying healthy. This is an Oklahoma City level juggernaut hiding in plain sight right now. So they're out of this conversation. They took OK, C to seven and they were banged up. It was a close game in seven at home for OK, C Aaron Gordon, like he pulled a worst read went out there game and we could go. And so when I'm like, if that was the fraction in margins, not yeah, OK, C in a 24 and one start, all the other stuff. Yes, they look like Golden State during that 73 win coming off a championship. They are still that team, but I think as people have progressed, they've kind of seen, you know, OK, we can beat him here. We can attack him here. There's a little bit of things, but I still believe him. You know this game 40 to 60 is the hardest in the NBA period. It is not even like, it's not even close. It is like there's nothing in the beginning and the beginning you're excited. At the end, you're excited. That that 40 to 60. Oh, that's when you, that's the professional part of our lead. And so like when you look at Denver and even if you look at Indiana, Indiana was a fraction away from OK, C. So you look at OK, C got better, Mitchell felt like they felt like they added a big time free agent. You're just sitting on their bench, because of an injury right there. They had and guys have gotten better. So I believe that OK, OK, C is still the favorite. I will never disrespect them. But I do believe that Minnesota was a fraction away. And one of them improved their roster exponentially in my opinion. And that's Denver. My pick for this and you may, you may laugh at it as ridiculous or you may think it, or you may think it's too obvious. I think the Minnesota, December was good when the championship. They're my like deep cut championship contender. 26 and 14. The top seven on both ends of the floor. Ant is unbelievable. Ant is so. So good. Dominant physically and just the ability to score from every part of the floor. He's making the right play. He just lords over these games. He's like a domineering presence in these games. And he likes it. That's the thing I like. He's like, yes, I like pumpkin you on both ends of the floor inside outside dumping. No, I was read as found as game. Darryl locked to make a trade to upgrade their back court off the bench. An absolute lock. I don't know who it's going to be, but they'll get someone. I like look, it's a deep cut for a reason. I'm not going to pick them. But if you, if we got to the end of the season and the temporal was on the championship, I would not be like blowing away by it because I think they're that good. They have a proven track record. They have a guy. They have a defense. They have a good supporting cast. They're my pick for this question. Where they want to look, they're one 10 out of 13. And their, their losses are always, they, their losses are always horrible and make you doubt everything you think about the team. 3107. Yes, it's for New York one that battle. And just like a Lanna, they got rolled one game and it's like, what do I not know anything about this team? I'd, there's like again, they're behind Oklahoma City and Denver for sure to me, but they've always played both of those teams pretty well. They're going to make a trade. And I just respect the infrastructure that they have there and the track record. But yeah, every, every loss is just like inexplicable. They're putting up monster numbers 146, 131, 122, 141, 125, 136. Like they're putting up monster offensive numbers monster. So that, to me, that means everyone's eating their offense is flowing. They're doing their, like, Anthony Edwards is excelling. I think he's added to matches to his game. I think that's the whole season was the biggest indicator for Ant of like, okay, I got to get into the post. I got to be able to work my back to the basket. I got to be able, because he saw five people staring at him when they played OKC. Boxes and elbows with pressure on the ball. He had nowhere to go. He had, like, and it was, it was just like, that's just hard for anyone to work. That's why Kobe went to the post. That's why KD went to the post. That's why LeBron. That's why MJ, when you are an elite perimeter scorer, you have to give that post angle because now you can see all the defense coming. You go one on one and then your outlets are so easy, but you still get to play one on one. One on one at the top of the key. That's deadly. Even Alan Iverson would do that AI cut so he could get to that one on one empty side of the floor. You go underneath. He could pop back yet option, but he was getting to a clear side. Anthony Edwards likes to do his work at the top of the key. Triple go to work three or dry against great teams. You can't do that. And I think he's improved on that. I think he spotted that weakness. It was very glaring and he doesn't have many. And so I think just to see the added work that he's done in the offensive and helps. Like you said, hit guys, make sure everyone's eating, everyone's feeding. And then they still have that motivational defensive edge. So that is a good pick. I think they need one more and in and George Clooney's that you think we need one more. We need one more. The two seed is within striking distance for them also the seven seed. I just think Anne has been just making the post game is emerged as a real thing. He's making the right play on every, on most picking roles he's finding the right balance. Like he blitz him. He'll trust everybody else on him, including he's starting to trust Go Bear with like pocket passes and Go Bears doing all right, making plays out of that. And sometimes like if you, if you drop or you kind of come up to the level of the screen, sometimes he'll just blow by like every layer of the defense and get to the rim. And he's like starting to figure out those aspects of the game in a way it's a little scary. By the way, I'm getting close to declaring it, but I want your, I'm not there yet, because there's still moves maybe to be made down the line. We'll see. Given how deep in Chenzone has played for the wolves, did Minnesota win the catch trade or is it too soon? Don't do that. Okay. I'm just why? Don't because because I think that is, did everybody, everybody won, but someone has to win. No, what is that true? Really just say it's not a good deal and let both sides feel like they like, wait, let both sides feel like they, they won, right? And that's why it's a good deal, right? It's like, who won the Atlanta, Luca, like trade, young trade, right? The Mavericks, but okay, the Mavericks won it because they went to the conference finals. They are, they went to one NBA finals. Trai young has a conference finals under his belt. Both players are no longer there with your original franchise. Yeah. The Mavericks, the Mavericks won. Let's be clear. The Mavericks won that trade. The Mavericks won the trade, but I'm communicating to it. It's not as glaring as what you wouldn't compare that trade to Anthony Davis' trade. I know, by the way, I was driving in my car there a day. I was listening to Sports Talk Radio and I just, I literally started the car. And the first line I heard was, I've never seen something so good, ruined so quickly. And I just assume just guys talking about the Dallas Mavericks. Like, what else could he be talking about in all of sports? He was actually talking about college, college football and the transfer portal and whining about that, but that's how bad the balance was. I get rid of that too. They got to figure that out. All right. Last question because I kept you too long. In light of the, in light of the, in light of the questions now, we're talking light of the hilarious Dennis Schruder, Luca Donchitz incident, which has caused Dennis Schruder three games for attempting to strike Luca after the game after Luca taunted him. I'm a tennis game attempting. I don't know. I just what, what are the press release, I wasn't there. I didn't see it. What did Dennis Schruder say? What do you say? I don't know. He said, I'm going to beat the shit out of you after the game. And he put it underneath the comments attempting. I didn't see that. Do we have any, do we have any physical, like, declarations or bruises. No, no, no, no. I'm not saying all of them. First of all, I'm okay with things being done between the lines. And I'm okay if things are gone too far between the lines. And you want to address them behind lines. Now either both of them have repercussions. Both of them have repercussions. So I'm okay with any sort of conflict. I don't, you know. Well, this was my last question to you. What's your favorite unknown or little known, like locker room hallway fight story or what's a player that you can answer either one of these? So favorite unknown secret locker room fight story from your career or be a player that you actually wanted to fight, like I actually want to throw down against this guy, I'm so mad at him. You could pick either one. Okay, so there's an American player that I won't say, but they were just such, they were just a bitch, just between the lines would be the toughest, like talks, so things that you would never say. And then they would act like, half off the court, like we're cool or like we could be gorgeous. Like, no, I get what gets your game going. I get what gets your game going, but there's a man to man disrespect. And I got to choose between punching you in your face and getting suspended for eight games and losing all this money and that. And since they know you don't want to do that, it allows them to be these fake tough guys. And so I won't do it. So I'm going to go a different route here, but just let you know that there are those players that exist. I like it. I'm going to say one of my favorite villains and I'm going to go in a deep, deep, deep, cut. I love it. My favorite villains of all time, Andres Nocheoni. Wow. Argentine, he and I, Andres, I hope you see this because I respect you and I don't like you, but like you're, you were funny to me because I'm crazy too. He was just such a little dirtball. He would do all the things, all these crazy things just to try and get under your skin, very dramatic. Very good player. Obviously he was with Argentina and he was a part of that golden era with them. It's very good to be a player, right? But I played with Mono years later after the Olympics and we're telling stories. And he goes, he goes, you have one time Andres tells me, he goes, hey, you got to watch the jump ball. You got to watch the jump ball between me and Jefferson. He's in Chicago and we're all lined up next to each other, right? On the jump ball, he takes his corn elbow and you know, right into my hip and like, as soon as everyone looks up at the jump ball, he just, he didn't even look at the jamaica. Boom, and hits me right in my side and in my hip, like opening tip, opening tip. I'm talking about like this. This goes up every 10 eyes, 30,000 eyes, including the people at home, all eyes go up. He does his eyes don't go up. My eyes are up, he just goes, boom, and hits me right in my, in my like midsection. First second of the game, because that's who he was. And like, he know, like this was it. I'm also crazy and you know this. And so I laugh at it and I'm just like, okay, I'm glad we've set the tone, because anything I do to you from here on out, but it made me laugh so hard that years later, Manau and I were teammates, and we're kind of telling stories about how, you know, whatever you battle. And he tell, he says that Andres called him, and said, you've got to see what I can do to Jeff for some on the start of the game. Well, you can find the footage. And I'm not your slush to find the footage. Andres, I love that type of stuff. I respect them, still mad about our gold metal, congratulations to your country, but your type of dirty and annoying, I found to be humors. And so salute to you. He was a very talented player, very good defender. I will give him his flowers. I'll give him a respect because he was going out there guarding it like that was back when you were a 3 and D guy. That's what he was, but he had the team acts the LeBrons, the myselfs, the Cobies. I'm not putting myself in their class, but there was a time where I scored 20 again. So I'm saying, he was taking all of those best wing players and navigating them. And he was a Dremond S player, but this was like, it wasn't to that point, but he was a, he was a special one. I'll give him. I'll give him that one. What I'm not a dirty player. I'm a little shit talker, but I was like, I respect that type of dirty, right? Because when I was like, how official do you see me? Did you like if you can't do what do you do? Richard Jefferson, you're the best. You give me on the jump ball. You're the best. Obviously everyone knows they can find you on ESPN's and ABC's broadcast with Breen and Legs. Find out a Richard show. That's where they need the finding. That's that's that's the new thing. That's the new The Richard Jefferson show. Did you know we just called it the Richard show? This the Richard show. Just the Richard show. That's what we're doing. We're interviewing players. We're having fun. We're asking stories. We're cracking jokes. There's no controversy involved. Working with the NBA. So we got some access to cool, cool footage and currently looking for a home for a place for it to live. Well, I don't think you'll show the fun one and Road Trip and of course is a mainstay of the podcast base RJ or the best go back to word buddy. All right, appreciate you. See you soon, bud. All right, let's bring it one of my favorite guests. Former coach video coordinator for the Spurs and the Clippers. He's a writer. He's a podcast. He's everywhere mode to kill. How are you sir? I'm doing well, Zach. How are you doing? I'm doing well. I want a deep dive on the play and race a little bit for you. And particularly under the radar team that probably doesn't get enough love in the mainstream discourse. But here's where we are. We're going to talk about the Blazers who finally lost last night to the mix with Dave or set their seven and two in their last nine games drew holidays back. Donovan clinging to make a little leap shaded sharp. Just incrementally getting a little better shade and I still got my sauce puffer shade and Caleb love real player. Some interesting stuff happening in Portland evil without scoot poor scoot. We miss you scoot. But here's what's happening. The Blazers are 19 and 21 despite a minus 2.5 point differential. They are ninth in the West. They're a very interesting team because on the one hand they owe a lottery protected pick to the Chicago Bulls for the next three seasons. It's just an endless lottery protected pick, which would perhaps incentivize them to get into the lottery. On the other hand, I don't think they care about that pick that much. They clearly wanted to chase the play in last year. They are almost sniffing 500 despite injuries to their entire point guard rotation and some other issues and a whole coaching thing with chancey billups to start the season. And I got news for the Blazers. I think you're making the play in almost whether you like it or not. The Grizzlies, as I talked about Richard Jefferson have a John Morant situation on their hands. And it would not surprise me if they nudged a little bit towards maybe do we want to actually, do we want to actually make the playoffs or play in or do we want to help our draft pick and really go full in on a rebuild, which is great news for the Clippers who are sitting in 11th and the Blazers. Also great news, the Mavericks Anthony Davis is out indefinitely with a hand injury. Start the tanks. The jazz lost to Charlotte by, I think, 247 points over the weekend and have made it clear in back-to-back losses to the Mavericks and the Hornets, two teams in their vicinity in the standings that they are going to sit people and sit veterans and give people rest and have lower back stiffness and everything it takes to keep their top-aid protected pick. And so sitting pretty in the ninth and 10 spots potentially if all of this does come to pass are the Blazers and your hometown LA Clippers Moe. That's where we are. Any thoughts on the Anthony Davis injury, which we should really start with because look, I took the under on the maps this year, 41 and a half. And this is why he just doesn't play enough and now they could be stuck in a situation where yes, tanking is probably the most beneficial course for them. They own their pick this year and then they do not control it for the next four straight seasons, I think. So this is like a one and done shot at getting a great complimentary player for Cooper flag. On the other hand, he now becomes, if he's out for a while and we don't know the full extent of it yet, he seems specialist, you might need surgery. But if he's out for months, he kind of becomes very difficult if not impossible to trade for anything this season, then you go into the office season, you have to ask yourself, does he have less value on a one plus one? Like he has one year in a player option left after this year? Does he have more value because his contract is closer to expiration? But if he had been healthy this year, a team could have said, we'll be getting for a playoff run this year plus next year. So they could be stuck in a situation where yes, tanking good can't do the tanking plus asset play for Anthony Davis. I don't know what else to say, man. This is just, he just doesn't play enough games. I think the hawks dodged a major bullet. I don't know how real the talk was that they might actually trade for AD after trading trade young. But I think my first reaction when I heard that that was something I was just like, that makes no sense, he's not going to be healthy. You have that problem with Chris Depp's for Zingus and now you're just going to trade Chris Depp's for Zingus back to Dallas and have the same problem again with AD. I think this was a, I hate to say it this way, but it's like a quiet win for Dallas because then they, like you said, get the kind of tank just by, by happenstance with the injuries and everything like that. I feel for AD, man. He had his 13th growing injury. You know, it's like we can't keep having these things and think, okay, any team that trades for him, even in the office, he's in half the bake in the fact that like he's missing at least half the games. Like it's just, you just have to prepare for that possibility and then you have to work from there with when you're deciding what you're going to give up to get him. I think that's just an unfortunate spot for them. And, you know, for Dallas, it's going to work out, I think for them this season in terms of, I think they should tank and I love January because this is one team start to kind of decide, okay, now we might need to start, you know, whether just trading guys or start benching guys and let's start, like you said, start in the tanks. And I think that's what we're going to begin to see a lot, especially towards the end of January. Look, I don't need to pick on it, you know, it's all like these injuries are fluky. This hand injury got like caught trying to get around the screen and got caught in a jersey, like crap just happens. But I've always been like consistently since Nico got fired. I went through the entire Anthony Davis trade landscape. I named a bunch of teams and a bunch of teams that frankly, I didn't think we're good fits for him. People brought up Houston, like really, they need another big guy who is not shooting, not a shooter to Troy, same thing. And as the injuries kept happening, I just don't think people understand the enormity of his contract. 54 million this year, 58 million next year. And then there's this idea that he's an expiring contract, but he's going to want an extension and how are those extension negotiations are going to go. And I'm sure Rich Paul and Clutch are, you know, talking to potentially interested teams about what that number would look like. I said this already, like, if I'm trading for Anthony Davis, there is no extension. He turns 33 in March and we're talking about an extension that would kick in potentially in two or three seasons. Like no, just no, there's no dollar amount. I'm not doing it. You don't play enough games and you're getting older. That, let's talk about is the idea that he could just opt in in 2728 to a 63 million dollar player option. And so like that's a lose, lose situation for a team that trades for me. There he's an expiring and he plays well and he can leave or he is on a one plus one. And just it's just too much money for a guy who does not play enough games. And I just never understood this idea that someone was going to like dump a load of assets onto the Mavs for Anthony Davis. And now they just maybe stuck, which is fine. They can tank, develop Cooper flag, whatever get a hopefully hydra pick. I mean, they are right now 14 and 25. They're neck and neck with the jazz. They could easily finish with the fifth worst record in the NBA. I mean, Sacramento, New Orleans, Indiana, Washington, be prepared for the Trey Young quad conclusion to take a long time. And by the way, if that does happen, if Trey Young sits all or most of the rest of the season, I don't want to hear another word about how we did this because he's going to make life easier for our younger players. He's going to get them easier shots. They're overburdened. We want to help the shot that if that's the case, play Trey Young when he's healthy. How about that? Anyway, Mavs, that's it. Any other thoughts on the Mavs? No, I don't want any other thoughts. That's not what we're good. Let's talk about Portland who just beat the Rockets twice. The Rockets by the way, talk about the play in. The Rockets are now in the play in at 7. Phoenix has jumped to 6. I wouldn't count on the count like, the Lakers are fifth. They're a game ahead of the Rockets in the Lost column. There's a bunch of teams that that seventh spot is going to be interesting or the race for six. But let's talk about Portland. Seven and two in their last nine games, offense in that span has been average and that's the biggest uptick for them. They've actually started making some shots. They are for the season, I'm sorry, 21st in offense about expected, they cannot shoot from anywhere. They have one of the healthiest shot diets in the entire league. They take a ton of shots at the rim and a ton of threes and almost no mid-range shots and yet because they can't shoot for anywhere and they turn the ball over at the worst rate in the entire league. They are 30th in turnover rate, which comes with the territory of not having a point guard for most of this season and playing point Denny who's been fantastic at you make the all-start team. 21st in defense, I'm sorry, 19th in defense for the season. Seems pretty disappointing for a team that was built to be like a ferocious, switchy turnover generating machine and they do generate a lot of turnovers. I don't know, man, that surprised me because they look better than that on defense to me. Klingin is a monster at the rim. Their defense of rebounding does fall apart when Klingin is on the bench. That's one big issue. I think this is actually a case of the offense hurting the defense and making the defense look worse than it actually is. When you're last in turnover rate, and you can't make any shots, teams are running like all hell against you and getting high efficiency starts, kick starts to their possessions. Yeah, live-ball turnovers are death. Like that's really what it is for defenses. And what happens is when they give up a live-ball turnover, it's a free run at the rim. It's transitioned over and over and over again. And I think that's kind of their biggest problem in that sense. I think we would see their defense of rating go up if they ended up just cut down four turnovers. Cut out four turnovers again, which for them is a lot. But it changes everything. It changes the complete complexion of the game and it helps them in that sense defensively. And it makes the other team have to play them more in the half court where I think their defense is going to be more solid. It's chasing and transition is the biggest problem for them. And that's something that they just have to find a way to fix the other side of it too, Zach. And it goes back to their offense is it's because there's such a hard driving team and it's start us with Denny, right? Like Denny drives, he drives down the lane. He leads the league and drives per game at around 20. Gets to the rim a bunch and that's great. It helps their offense a massive amount of time. They don't do a good job necessarily with the floor balance, right? When he drives from the top, somebody's got to start working back to cover and transition and they tend not to do it. So it's not just turnovers, but if they miss at the rim and the other team gets the rebound, it's another run at transition. And I think that's something they really got to start kind of working on a little bit more and be a little bit more aware of on those drives that maybe you got to start, somebody has to start working their way back to half court to be ready for transition defense. It should mention Denny, Abdiah, the engine of their offense and their offense is awesome when he's on the floor and bad when he's on the bench. Left the game against the Nick Chess today with the back issue at the very end of the game. Hopefully that's not serious. If it is, could put a dent into this whole blazer's guaranteed to make the play and thing that I started out with, but he doesn't seem too concerned about it in the post game comments. He said, I'm not really concerned. I'm a tough guy. I'm going to be all right. We'll see. What other interesting developments have you seen over this nice two week stretch, two three week stretch for the blazers? What other reasons do they have to be encouraged? I think some of the stuff I like that I'm seeing is just a lot more movement in the half court whereas not necessarily when somebody drives, there's a slot cut. There's somebody there. I think it might have been Caleb Love yesterday I forget who was driving along the baseline, but he makes a perfect slot cut, gets the pass and then gets a foul drawn on Jalen Brunson in the second half of that game. I think there's smart stuff there in the way that they're reading the floor and when to cut and the timing of these cuts are the things that I'm really enjoying in their offense. And it's something we're seeing again, it's on drives. Like when somebody's driving, somebody else is cutting behind it. Cause that drives opening up a cutting lane for them. And that's some of the stuff that we're seeing within their offense that their flow is, you know, it's the process looks good. And this is something we talked to the beginning of the season about offenses, right? And one of the things we talked about the blazers and one of the things we complained about was it was one note and it dived right into ISO. I'm not seeing that as much. I'm seeing a little bit more of a fluid offense of flow into what they're doing and understanding of like, okay, cool. These are the shots we want. This is how we're going to get them. And this is the and and they're continuing to now, a key thing, make them is the next step. But that's where we're at now where you're beginning to see it kind of develop. And I think, you know, to what you said, also Zach, no point guard almost all season. And that's a, that's a hard world to live in as a, especially as a young youngish team. And I think that's really where it's, their offense is start and struggle is, I'm excited that Drew is coming back now and hopefully can kind of bring a little bit more of that stuff although he's not like the greatest offensive running point guard. But I think he gets them in a little more sets. I think that'll help him out of time. Well, he was averaging eight assists again before his injury and was playing like peak true holiday. And then he got injured at the very least, looking at the numbers now. There are 117 points per 100 possessions when Danny Abdiah is on the floor. That's like top 10 offense. That's totally fine. 98 with him on the bench. Now, some of that is going to be shooting luck probably when you dive into the numbers. But 98 is like so much worse than the worst offense in the entire league that it's almost hard to fathom that they've been that bad. If you have Drew, shade and sharp and a couple other, and like Jeremy Grant has been out for a while, it was actually playing well for the Blazers this year and shooting pretty well. Like there's enough talent there that that number should be at least acceptable when you have a pretty good defensive infrastructure. And to your point, half court defense, Portland ranks about average for the season. So a little bit better than their overall ranking. Who knows how that's being counted? But I also think sharp, I mean, I joke, I kind of say it tongue in cheek because he's one of my sort of white whales in the league. I do think he's, he'll have games where it's just too many bad shots still. But I think it's shot selection's getting better. His three is trending well. We'll see if it keeps up. His decision making, I just think is better. Like there are more blowbys now, more times when he discovers like I can just go all the way to the rim. And just a little bit more calm and better passing. And like last night against the Knicks, he attacked the closeout, drove, got the guy behind him, hesitated, paused. And he had this moment in the mid-range, like I have my pick between live dribble, floater, or I see Rob Williams cutting for a lob, perfect lob to Rob Williams. Just the simpler, it's not such a simple play, but just like to keep the machine moving passes are coming more often for him. And Caleb Love is a guy, man. He's been talking about their point guard issue. Like I'm not sure exactly positionally what he is or should be, but he has really helped fill that void. He's a real guy. So Soko is pretty solid. Klingon, I still can't figure out what Klingon is, particularly on offense, other than a halacious offensive rebounder. Defensively I know exactly what is, he's great. There was a stretch where he was hit in double figures in a bunch of games and making plays out of the short role and having showing better chemistry in the pick and roll with Denny. And then there are games where he takes like six shots and four of them are threes. And I know you've worked on that shot, and it's nice for it to be a threat. I don't, some of the misses are like scud missiles at the backboard. And I don't think that any defense is too concerned about it. I'm like, I wish I were just not so many threes. I don't think anybody, any team defensively, they will live with that shot. Like that's the shot. You can't take away everything defensively. So when you're going into it, if I'm writing the scouting report, let's see if he makes a couple. You know, even after he makes the first one, I'm not saying let's run out at him. Let's see if he makes a couple in those, like I'm not gonna stress myself about that stuff. I gotta protect the paint against this team in particular with the drive. So I think for me with Klingon, like I wanna see a little bit more, I wanna see more out of the short role from him because you're right, like he's flashed that a bit, but I wanna see it more consistently. You know, and I think that's the thing where that's the evolution of his game more than developing that three point shot because what you're gonna get with Denny coming off these screens, teams are gonna start doubling him. That's the past. That's the past Denny's gotta make and then he's gotta make the right read out of that. And then that opens up things, right? Cause then it's shade and sharp cutting a lot from the corner, off the weak side if that's where he's positioned. That's an easy lob right there for a highlight dunk. Maybe an and one that you have so many different little ways that you can play off of that. And I think it's gonna be really important that he focuses more on that than anything else cause that's where he's gonna fit offensively for a team. Cause then otherwise, Zach, and I'm not gonna trust his three point shooting. I don't think it's gonna ever really be a thing where defenses are gonna, it's gonna move the needle defensively. He's gonna give it up, I'm not giving up yet on that mode because he's had years where his catch and shoot numbers are pretty good. Like one year over 40%, I think. The stroke looks good to me and the pull up confidence looks better to me. Like I'm not giving up on that. I feel you on that, but in terms of like a defense, I'll give that up. Like that's the shot I'm not gonna run out to open up our team for rotations and things like that. I'll give a half-hearted closeout, maybe a late close or what not, but I'm not gonna necessarily worry about that. But if he masters that short role, if he can kind of really create that, that opens up the whole offense for everybody. And not just his offense, everybody. So that's gonna open up the game for them and add the cutting that they have coming off, the way I've been talking about it, it's gonna really kind of sort of highlight this team in a different way and we'll see their offense begin to rise and then they'll have cleaner looks. Speaking of closeouts that you just triggered my brain, the Cornet closeout has become famous around the league. And I don't, I'm not even saying this sarcastically. The Celtics video tribute for Luke Cornet when they played the Spurs on Friday or Saturday, a good win for the Spurs was the longest and most emotional tribute to a eighth to tenth man. Maybe in the history of the NBA, not only was it the full commercial break, the Celtics broadcast announced before the game. Don't flip away. We are sticking here for the Luke Cornet video tribute. And it was a hilarious video trip because it's a hilarious guy. He's legit beloved in Boston in a way that like I knew, but it was like Marcus Smart had come back or something. It was unbelievable. I was in Boston for one doc made his return. And like that was a very emotional, like I ran out of the video room to watch the video more and everything. You were with the Clippers at the time, I assume. I was with the Clippers. Yeah, I was with the Clippers. And that was, you know, like that was an emotional one. It's Luke Cornet was just as emotional. It felt like when you watch that game, like it really, like I give, I'm not a video tribute guy. I'm a curmudgeon. I've got my god, Mo, I didn't know this about you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm the, I'm a curmudgeon. I'm like, you got to refer to me something. It's got to be a rare thing. And it's, you know, now it's, we literally give it to everybody. But Zach, the fact that it was so emotional for Boston, like I give the Celtics fans credit, like they were so attached to this guy. It's, it's, it's kind of fun to watch because the fans were completely bought into all of that. Okay, so then. I'm generally, like when I see video tribute for a guy who was on a team for six months or a year and didn't really do anything. I'm like, really, we're doing, even if you just flash, like, welcome back so and so it's like, welcome back. Does he even remember that he played for this team? In the Luke Cornet one, he is a unique character and he was on a championship team and he resonated with the fans. I'm pro, I'm pro rewarding die hard fans who form a connection with a player with a little moment like that. Okay, more on the Blazers, just wrap it up. They have, they have had one of the hardest schedules to leave so far. So they have one of the easiest schedules remaining. That's a big deal for their play and hopes. And I mentioned, you know, I can ask by a lot of executives, what is Portland want to do this year? Like what's their objective? Are they going to buy or are they going to sell? I think the answer is almost, it's not quite neither. I think they're just going to make, if they make a trade, it'll be a good value play that's not really aimed at the short term or like it would be aimed, I think, a little bit longer term, but it's not like they're going to do any crazy thing like sell high on any of their best players. I think if there's a good value play to be made in either direction, they'll make it. I don't think they're going to act urgently either way. And so that sort of nets out to like more or less stand pad if you can trade so and so for two seconds or whatever you do it. I think they're more or less going to stand pad unless there's some injury related catastrophe. The other thing is, I don't know if you've noticed this mo. This is a very high free throw team on both ends of the floor. They get to the line a lot and they hack the shit out of everybody. Very quietly over the last three weeks, free throw rate has dropped by a lot league wide. It was very high to start the season and it's now trending way down. And a couple of coaches have texted me like, is this the same thing that happened two seasons ago when despite their pleas that this didn't happen, there was clearly a league office referees meeting where they decided we're just not going to call as many fouls. Have you noticed this? Yeah, I've started to see that. And again, I'm fine with that. Like I think the free throws, sometimes we award them too easily in the way that it goes. It hurts certain teams. Like when you talk about it with the Blazers, for example, with how hard they drive, especially Denny who's averaging almost 10 free throws a game, it's a good thing, right? It's constant driving to the rim, puts pressure on your defense, forces them to actually try to defend you and it usually leads to a foul at the rim somewhere along the way. But I've noticed that they have slight start to kind of cut back on the fouls that they're calling and we're not getting as many, which is fine by me because I find free throws to be the most boring part of the game. Anyways, I think that we need to kind of stop rewarding offensive players. A lot of times get the reward for just, I'm throwing my body into your chest and then going up for the shot. Or in some cases, just full on foul baiting of, I'm just not even trying to shoot. I'm just trying to draw a foul. And I think that's one of those things where it's frustrating for me. I'm glad it's not being rewarded. I want to see the free throw rates continue to go down. Let's do it, check in on another team that weirdly for a national team. I want to go one more thing with Portland. Sorry, I should have told you from the beginning. I want to credit Tom Habersdorkas. He brought this up on the broadcast and I went back and looked at it. This was the fastest pace team to start the year. This was a team that we were talking about with their pressing almost all defensively on every possession, all that stuff. That, if you go month by month, is dropping quite a bit. And I'll be interested to see how that continues for them because I thought pace was something for them that was a good thing. I thought the pressing full court more often and more regular was a good thing for them forcing other teams in the turnovers and things like that. Hard to do through the course of an 82 game season, but I am noticing the slippage of it. I actually don't say either. Tom alerted us of the slippage of that. And it's something to pay attention to as they get going because this team is a team that has to play fast. They need to keep that up tempo. Interesting. One other note, you mentioned free throws of the most boring part of the game. You know what else is boring, Mo? I said this once. I said it a month ago and it's only gotten worse since then. This is an epidemic of clock malfunctions in the NBA this season. The NBA switched over their clock equipment and stuff in the offseason to like this brand new system. Maybe this is just a growing pains, but this sucks man. Every game it's like up the shot clock didn't start again. The shot clicked am I watching my daughters ten and under basketball game at this point? Like what's happening here? We got to clean this up. It's unwatchable. Okay, quick check in on the Lakers. I mentioned the play and race. The Lakers fans probably think well, we're above that. We're fifth, we're 23 and 13. Well, you have a negative point differential. You're 13 and one in clutch games. It's propping your team up. You've finally lost a clutch game to the bucks. Thanks in part to a weird LeBron brain fart late in the game that you don't see a bad three and then a frustration fell. Look, like they're a game ahead of the rockets who are seventh. They are a half a game ahead of the suns who are six and not going away. They're schedule is toughened up and they have been absolutely up to it. Someone's got to finish seventh. I haven't talked about the Lakers much because we just haven't seen their team. Like LeBron was hurt. Now Reeves is hurt. And I just want to see their team a little bit more. But it's time and Ruiz been hurt. But it's time to talk about them a little bit because I don't know, man, something is leaving me even colder than the point differential and the slow feet on defense that we've all talked about in the injury absences. Like I don't like the way this team looks and I don't know if it's just age plus lack of foot speed. They're obviously in a desperate search for some sort of Rangy 3 and D wing. I don't know if they'll find one. Even Luca is putting up huge numbers. I don't, I just don't like something. Something is not sitting well with me beyond the obvious like their defense isn't very good and they're playing above their head point differential wise. What, what, what, can you verbalize this for me? Yeah, they're just an average team. That's it. It's at the end of the day. Just average and that sucks. Well, we're not used to seeing average associated with LeBron James. Actually, we're not used to seeing average really associated with Luca all that much. You know, it's a frustrating run when you're watching this team. But it's also the center position. Look, the big move they made was getting Deandre A and off the buyout market when he got bought out in Portland. And he's not even closing games. He didn't close that game against Milwaukee, right? It was Jackson Hayes like that was their big move with, you know, and that's that's a nothing burger, right? Like we're with what we're seeing, it's, it's, they're treating it almost like a gap year. And that's how I'm kind of treating it when I'm watching them this year. And their offense is when they're fully healthy and then they have reaves out there. Great, their defense is got awful, right? Like when you go watch, you know, you watch the end of that game against Milwaukee a few nights ago, right? They take a lead and then they blow it and what happens is, you know, the defense targets Luca. He gets blown by the defense started and, and, and I don't think he'll be playing crunch time a lot, but Jake Laravius in a possession and he, they get a switch on him and then they attack and that leads to a kick out three. Like there's all of these things, these possessions where you just look at them going like there are too many targets for teams to attack when they're on offense. And then on the other end of the floor, it's how many threats are you? Like how worried are you? You're worried about Luca. You're worried about LeBron and reaves those three. Then everybody, it's, it's three on five. You're not going to be that worried about the other guys. You'll let Marcus Smartbomber away who he'll have one game where he makes seven threes, you know, like that's just going to happen. Pencil it in. It might have happened already and I might have missed it, but it just pencil it in. But okay, that's all you live with that. That's just where it's at. You're not going to worry about the Vanderbilt. You're not going to worry about the other guys. Rui Hachimora when he comes back who started out well, but since LeBron got back, really struggled and never really kind of found his place in the offense. Like there's just, they're just average to me. It's just blah when I watch them and they are running. Yeah, that's it. It's blah. And when you watch their offense, you know, I came on here January 1st and I was saying that they have to find more often the defense sucks. It's not going to get better. And I still believe that their offense has to have more movement and stuff and get away from the ISO. They want three straight games after that getting the more of that stuff. And even the game against Milwaukee, they lost, but they were running more stuff. But at the end of the day, it's just blah. Like there's just nothing there that really makes me go, okay, this is how they get to the Western Conference finals. This is what they have to do. It's funny. Lucas putting up monster numbers and belongs in the MVP conversation. And it is the offensive genius that he's always been. It doesn't feel as dangerous right now when he has a live dribble on the pick and roll. And I wonder if that's and there are too many zero pass Luca possessions. And one, the pass out is just not as dangerous as it was. And I think it's because he hasn't developed the same kind of rhythm with his rim rolling centers as he did in Dallas. And the shooting just isn't the same. And it just feels like they're trying to find the rhythm on that play to make it truly, truly dangerous. Their offensive rating with Luca and LeBron is bad. Their defense rating is bad period. Their offense rating with those two is bad. It may just be that they really need all three of their guys to play the mismatch game the way they want to play it and the split cut game and all that stuff. A couple of other blah, you said blah, they put no pressure on the rim. They become a slow pace team. They don't get to the rim. They don't get offensive rebounds. The one thing that's really propping them up is for the 19,000th year in a row. They're first in free throw rate because they just get to the line all the time. Defensively, they might be getting a little unlikely with a point of jump shooting, but not much. They're just, they're just not something. It's just, they feel like a team that really needs to be all start. Break the comes in. They look very slow. And you know, we'll see what they do. But you said the phrase gap year. I've said this before like this was never intended. Luca Doncic fell into their laps. No matter, no matter how they want to spin the genius of acquiring him, this thing fell into their laps. And they had one kind of team that was designed one way. And then they lucked into a player who didn't have a team designed optimally around him. And eventually they'll have to retool and retool and retool, but it was always going to take more than a calendar year to do that, particularly when your other top three player, second best player, whatever is 41 years old and has sciatica and arthritis or something. When you missed a game with an arthritic something or other, I want to say something about I told you before the season this would work. And I said, it's going to work. And I said, I don't mean dominating. I don't mean all star game. I mean, 16 and eight solid defense finish at the rim. He's averaging 14 and eight and shooting 68%. And I'm here to tell you that despite the fact that it sounds like he's hitting the benchmarks that I assigned to it works status. It ain't working. Defensively, he hasn't been good enough. Offensively, there are too many nights where he's at 8.5 rebounds. He's going to have to go down to afterthought. And I just like, how is it possible that in the eighth year since he was picked by the Phoenix Suns over Luca Doncic, that a guy who came into the league as a jack of all trades, master of none on offense, a guy who like, well, he's got a little bit of a jumper, some elbow passing game. He's a rim roller, maybe construction three, maybe come a dive man, maybe come a silt. How is it possible that a 19 year old Jack of all trades, master of none. It's now a 27 year old. Jack of all trades, master of none. He hasn't gotten better. At a single part of his offensive game. He's not a better rim. Then he was five years ago. He's not a better shooter. Then he was five years ago. He's not a better passer than it was five years ago. He's not a better screamer than it was five years ago. He's not a better post player. Then he was five years ago. It's so disappointing. Bet this guy who look like this lump of clay. play that a team could mold any way they wanted to is just a lump of clay at the end offense. So he's been fine for them, like for the money, for the contract, it's fine. He's, yeah, he'll have games, he'll go for 20 and 11 and finish a bunch of lob dunks and all that. It's just not, it's just not enough despite the numbers. The numbers are great. The numbers are over and flading what he's doing for their team. Yeah, I've not a very big eight in fan. I think, you know, this is one of those guys. It's, it's funny when the Lakers signed in, I just threw my hands up in the air of like, now I got to watch this guy. It's, I'm not because of those things, that because he has all of that potential. I saw it in Phoenix. He had a ton of potential, never plays with force, loves to be able to get it and then kind of be near the rim and then go towards a jump hook instead of like trying to go dunk the ball. And he might not dunk it every time, but you might get fouled. You might, you might put yourself in your team in a different position, but it's, it's the lack of force. It's a lack of drive sometimes with him. I, I don't understand that. How you just lined out over the past five years, he's not improved at all. And it's frustrating in that sense. You got all the way to the finals and that didn't ignite a switch in him. You know, it's still despite the fact that he's getting spoon fed by two of the greatest pick and roll distributors of all time. He's still averaging 1.5 free throws per game and shooting a career worst 59% on free throws by the way. So that's got him worse somehow. And you mentioned Vanderbilt. You know, they're now trying to repair their defense or playing Vanderbilt more. And we're like years into this where in the regular season, they'll have moments, but Vanderbilt plus a true center, it's just not going to work offensively well enough and you're going to end up yanking him off the floor. Anyway, look, I'm just saying right now buckle up, Lakers fans because they were up to second and they're still only a game out of second in the lost column, but they're also a game ahead of seventh in the lost column. This is going to be a fight for your life to stay out of the play in tournament yet again. Motikio, where can we find you? Pumucho stuff. I have one thing I wanted to bring up to you and it's a little bit not in a play in tournament. I've been thinking a lot about the Oklahoma City Thunder and I want to run this by you real quickly. Okay. In terms of movies, I've been thinking about them and I wonder if are they Drago from Rocky IV when Rocky finally cuts them and the announcers are apolectic going the Russians cut and it's a bad cut. All that is that what was spurs finally kind of opened it up and everybody has now seen. Okay. The Thunder aren't as invincible as they seem or they actually Rocky from Rocky III and the spurs are clover laying and they've gone so you know, that's kind of their white whale. They've they're now at that point after Rocky loses, you know, to clover laying, feeling completely lost to confidence. I don't think they've lost confidence, but they've lost themselves a little bit. I listen to the Jalen Williams post game a few days, a few games ago where he was kind of talking about like, yeah, we've lost some games and trying to figure this stuff out. Like I know he's dealing with the wrist thing, but like, is are they Rocky from Rocky III and the spurs are clover laying or are they Drago and now the lead kind of sees it going on. Maybe this team isn't as invincible as we thought they were when they went 24 and 1. I know all the shooting and all that stuff and the numbers and everything has changed for them. I just when I think about it and movies, I waffle back and forth with them of like, I don't know which one they are. I think they're closer to Drago, but if Drago could still be Rocky by split decision at the end instead of getting knocked out and losing. I do think the offensive vulnerability in the half court has always been there and it took a three point collapse for it to really show itself and that will write itself. Hart and Steen I've said over and over again is more important to their offense than their defense. He's bounding the second chance points to free throws. He draws his passing. I think they miss him a lot on offense, but look, there were there were always stretches with this team where like the Wallace Caruso door whoever winged Aaron Wiggins, Isaiah Joe was ice cold until last night against the heat when they just don't make enough shots and the offense kind of bogs down a little bit and it's been a little boggy in the past couple of weeks. We'll see when they get healthy like Hart and Steen comes back and Caruso has been in the lineup as always. Jalen Williams, big Jalen Williams just came back winged Jalen Williams is sort of finding himself still after dealing with the wrist stuff. They'll hit a stretch again where they look like the capital T thunder, but I never thought they were invincible invincible. I've always said I think Denver could absolutely beat them in a playoff series. Even though thunder versus the field, I think became a legit discussion, particularly when Aaron Gordon's injuries just kept popping up. There's still the favorites, but I think I'm going closer to Drago, but Drago wins by survives and wins by split decision at the end of Rocky Florin. I don't know if the Cold War continues in that scenario or if we still all Rocky doesn't get to get the game tonight. You can change. Yeah, he doesn't get to give the speech at the end of that stuff. Let me ask last question. I know we would you say now after watching this, the thunder, do you feel more that like another team besides Denver can beat them? Can Houston, can San Antonio after seeing what's done and we know what San Antonio has done to them? That's regular season. By the way, changes come playoff time. How that, you know, when game plans kind of become more materialized and more in depth, but do you feel like it's or is it still just you really feel confident it's just either Denver can beat them or can you add other teams to that field? I mean, I think clearly San Antonio, although they haven't lit the world on fire five and their last ten games since the thunder sweep, when we obviously injured in an out the line up coming off the bench for a bit, for cells injured, clearly they have something with all the guards and all the ball handing and the giant in the middle that troubles them. I don't think just as a matchup, I don't think you can you can sleep on that and I think Minnesota is really good and that they're going to make a trade. So I think it goes a little bit beyond Denver. Houston's in a little bit of a rut and right now they got to find themselves. Motocchio, offside, NBA TV, what else? Double dribble? Double dribble podcast with Jared Dubin. That's where you can find all my stuff. If you follow me on socials, all of them, I'm ridiculously online too much. If you follow me on all that stuff, you'll see my work when I when I put stuff out. Motocchio, thank you, sir. Thank you for having me. All right, I'm super excited to be joined by one of the breakout players of the NBA season. One half of what is becoming one of the deadliest pick a roll accommodations in the league. Way out and you talk. Kia out there, George. How are you, sir? Where are you going? I'm hanging in. Congratulations on a great start to your season, man. You are rolling. No, I appreciate it. Appreciate it. Appreciate it having me, man. I want to talk about your journey a little bit and I want to start at pre-draft. You worked out for the jazz and I heard some details from that workout, some funny, some serious. First, I heard Danny Ang was really heavily involved and like you guys sort of bonded right off the bat. What was that like? What was Danny? What was your first impression of Danny? Danny, my first impression, I mean, he's cool like he regular. I mean, obviously I knew of him just because of the basketball world and what he's done. But they took me to a little nice restaurant when I got here and he told me that he wasn't going to eat because he was going to eat Chipotle. So I'm like, I... That's Danny. From then on, I kind of knew he was how you regular, you one of us. And he told you right off the bat, we think you are a point guard. We want to put the ball in your hands if we draft you, is that correct? Yeah, for sure. He said that right away as soon as I got here. He said he seen me as a point guard, but he also said that. He sees me as a versatile guard, being able to play off the ball too. But obviously when I got here, I was grateful for the opportunity that they put the ball in my hands and let me go to some mistakes. But he never ever told me once that he was going to take the ball out. And what was your reaction to that? Because I talked to your guy for a little while to learn a little bit more about you. And he said, you did your senior year of high school at IMG, obviously one year of Baylor, that there had been times in both those places where the idea of you playing point guard or having the ball in your hands where as a distributor was brought up and you didn't love the idea. Is that right? Yeah, I played off the ball, basically my whole entire life. I've always played with another person that could handle the ball as well. But I mean, yeah, once my senior year of point guard went down, Jayne Bradley, and I kind of had to figure it out, figure out how to make the rees, figure out how to, you know, get the guys in rhythm, mom still trying to get myself in rhythm. But yeah, ever since, like I said, I've been playing in position every year. It's just gotten better for me. Did Will Hardy get on the floor with you during that preacher at fork out? Because he's one of the young coaches, like you can get out there and play with you guys. No, he didn't get out there, but he was there. He was there though. They had the video guys with the arms and all that. What, oh, with what do you, with the stick arms? What arms? Yeah, with the stick arms, yeah, with the two arms. Yeah. One thing Will did tell me from the workout is you got to the end of it. And they wanted you to do a conditioning drill, a three minute run where you go baseline to baseline, touching as many times as you can. And they said, you know, what can't they? It's a hard drill, man. You, whatever music you want, you pick the music. Do you remember what you said? Yeah, I said, I need some gospel music. I need to band above for this one. Will, will told me he said it. I need some got put on some gospel music. I need Jesus. And will thought that for some reason will like that really stuck with him. He's like, this is kind of a funny down to earth guy. I like this guy. It's going to be my kind of guy that meant something to him. Oh, yeah. I don't know. I'm stressed with the altitude, but it was like, my, I don't even know. I really worked out that much. Out to crazy up here, especially I've never played out to do whatever. So you get to the draft and you've identified you and your team. If identified Utah as the place you want to go, they have the ninth pick that they end up using on Taylor Hendrix, your current teammate. And then they have the 16th pick, which is you. And right above you are three consecutive shooting guards. Toronto takes Grady Dick. New Orleans takes Jordan Hawkins and Atlanta takes Kobe, Bufkin. And I know you wanted to go to Utah. Everyone kind of knew those three teams were picking guards. Utah doesn't take you ninth. Are you sweating through the rest of the lottery? Like when do you find out like, all right, like when Bufkin is announced, do you breathe a sigh of relief? Oh, so the, so the morning up, obviously me and my team, we talked. Obviously, you know, my agent told me that his phone was going to ring at nine. Just coming from Utah and kind of see what happened from there. Oh, but it's actually crazy, man. We went through the whole draft and he kind of named everybody from top to bottom. Obviously, maybe, you know, Toronto, maybe I felt like I worked out good there. Same thing with New Orleans, but obviously, I think if I can remember correctly, I think the phone rang at 15 for Atlanta. I don't know what my agent said, but obviously me and Bufkin did pre-draft together a little bit, ended up going 15 and once Utah had a 16th pick, I kind of knew that I was going to Utah, but obviously from the morning, us talking about what team I wanted to get to and I knew I wanted to get to Utah right away. I felt like I fit for the develop, you know, multiple guards, even talking to my hometown trainer. He told me, but even before I started pre-draft, he was like, man, you might need to go to Utah. And I thought he was crazy, but he's going through the process and, you know, talking to my team and figuring out, you know, what would be the best situation for me, for me to grow. It's crazy that he was actually right. So, you know, I'm grateful that they believed in me and I'm glad that I failed a 16 and, you know, I couldn't ask for anything more. You have a good, you have a very good rookie year and then your second year goes sideways a little bit. Midway through the year, Will Hardy decides, you know what, Kante, we're bringing you off the bench. It's not permanent. It's not long-term. It's not even like, maybe not even a demotion. Like, you'll play just as many minutes, you'll play crunch time. But we think it's best for the team. We're going to start Isaiah Collier and nobody, no matter if you play more minutes or play crunch time, like nobody really wants that to happen to them. And I heard from your team, like, there were a lot of conversations, like pretty raw conversations. Like, does this mean they're giving up on me? You know, how do I react to this? So, how hard, how hard was it for you and how long did it take you to just sort of be like, you know what? This is just going to be what it is and I'm going to make the best of it. I mean, yeah, obviously, the human nature of it, obviously, you don't know what's going on. But I, like you said, I'm grateful for the team that I have around me. They was honest. I mean, after every game, I mean, completely honest. I'm just calling, just trying to figure out, you know, how I need to play and what I need to do on the court, off the court, like, just anything. But then, you know, obviously sitting back at home and starting to realize and having conversations like, it's just about being a professional. Like, a people professional in a day, like you said, you might play the same amount of minutes, you still might play at the end of the game. But like you said, just about being a professional, trying to be the same guy every single day when I'm coming into the facility. Obviously, that was hard to, you know, navigate as a young guy. But when you go through things like that, it kind of helps you, you know, gain some more appreciation for the game, appreciation for being, you know, in the NBA. It's not that many of us, not a lot of people get opportunity to play. So it, for me, it was just about understanding like, you know, obviously I'm coming off the bench, but like, there's just worse things than life that's going on for a lot of people. So I just had to make most of it, you know, give me opportunity to show like, okay, you can play good when I start. I'll come off the bench. I can still be productive. So like I said, that comes with the professionalism piece. One thing everyone agreed on was he was supportive of Isaiah Collier and very loudly the entire time that there was no like, well, this guy took my spot. Do you want to lift him up, which is a, which is the, what you want to see from any teammate, but if for a did tell me there was one game I was watching and he will call them up to check into game and he kind of like loathe to the scores table, a little sulky, a little pouty, and I had to call him after the game, be like, come on, man, like get your posture right, get your spirit right. Do you remember that call? Yeah, he told me like when you get called into the game, like maybe run to the scores table or some like just do something to get you ready to go into the game. So when he called me out, some some small like that, I'm not kind of new like artist kind of time to fix it in. Like I said, be professional. So I'm grateful for, you know, for a. And so as you come out of the gates this season, making a huge leap on fire 24 points a game, everyone starts to write the story of like kiaathe George is making a big leap. What were the turning points? What happened in a common ingredient in all these stories is the end of season meetings last season, particularly with Will Hardy, who are you are super close with now from what I've been told and how sort of like. Like raw and unfiltered those meetings were. And I asked somebody I was like, well, what does that mean? Like what is the coach actually saying to kiaathe and what is kiaathe? They say to the coach like, what's wrong? So it's like you got to get better. You got to work harder. And somebody told me raw in this case was Will Hardy saying to kiaathe, I got to be honest with you, man, if the front office came to me right now and said, should we bet the farm on this guy with a big long term extension? I would probably say no. And he said, he said that to your face. Do you remember that? Is that right? Yeah. Man, will he said a lot more than just that, you know, man, he everybody. Obviously everybody talks and we all got to talk. You know, he and take his eyes off me like he was he I could see him turn a little red like he was basically telling me like it's time and like, you know, it's my second year in the league. Like I'm out of rookie no more. Like he couldn't stress that enough. Like he's not a rookie anymore. Like you know how the season goes. Like he knows you need to do on a day to day basis. Like it's time. Like it was it was it was almost like a like a big brother conversation. Like, you know, it's I got no I got no time to deal with every whatever you got going like, you know, it's time for you to it was time for him to understand like really be able to trust me. I think that's that's what I that's what I got out of it for him. To see my day to day work. See how I work in the summer. See how I post games. He right now we got this thing going where he just talks about presence. Being president of moment being president like just not dropping your head. Stuff like that just simple stuff. But yeah, he's will is he was he was real blind. I mean, he's he's one of the first people, you know, to to really coach me and to not be not be scared to, you know, say to real obviously you got guys. I can tell you the best in the world. You're in the NBA. But you know, he kind of helped me understand like what type of player do you want to be? What do you want to get out the game? So he really helped me kind of sit back looking at mirror and really understand what type of player I wanted to be. What did I want to what did I want not only for myself, but, you know, for the organization for the jazz as well. So when he says something like that about the extension, do you say anything back? Are you just listening? Like did you respond at all? Like no, I'm going to I'm going to prove you wrong or I'm going to live up to I'm going to I'm going to to beat these expectations. Or did you just take it in and like I then you spent the whole summer and saw like working on all the key parts of your game. But in that moment, is it like a shock to hear that? Do you say anything back? I mean, I I think I knew we're good enough where it wasn't time for me to say nothing back. I walked out the interview. Yeah, I walked straight to my car. I talked to nobody like I just had to kind of that was that was a real blunt. That was one of my real honesty. First, you know, real blunt moments of dealing with confrontation and all those things. So, um, but like I said, it's saved me for sure. And it's a the player that that I want to become. But it's just one of those things where, you know, you obviously I didn't think that I needed that. But, you know, for the greater good from my game and all aspects of life, like we understood that that was something that I needed. And he knew that I was receiving in the right way and I take it the wrong way. And now she's done wonderful my game. Well, it's funny, you know, the stuff about point guard kind of being thrust on you late in your not late. But like in the NBA, basically, I don't watch much college balls. So I get my first real deep dives on on players when they get to the NBA. You're passing jumped off the screen like right away. You're throwing these like lefty one handed cross court or pocket passes laser beams to the guys roll into the rim. Did you find that the pick and roll reads? I don't want to say came easily, but you had it more of a natural feel for like being a lead guard and a distributor that need, then you maybe thought you would have. Yeah, Baylor, they did a good job teaching us, you know, some of the pick and roll reads we worked on the reads every single day. You know, my trainer back home. We worked on, I mean, bouncing bounce passes through the cones left hand right here. So I think just those things I worked on so much early on that it kind of came. That's when it came to making the pass. I think through film now and watching, you know, all these different. You know, Garg play, it helps me now and I can't get into the game. And I feel like now the the reads are all the same. You know, whether it's pick a roll, a little may read the little man. If X-Men doesn't drive, then you hit the corner and you may play through the field behind. But, you know, just keeping it simple. It's really helped me expand into, you know, not turn ball over as much and being able to make the simple play. Not trying to make the home run. To me, the almost as big a leap if not bigger has been on defense. Tell me about that because you are like really competing defensively this year. You're in the right place at the right time. And I'm betting that will identify that as an area like you got to get better at that. So like, offense, you can drill, you can watch film like what did you do to get better on defense by such a large degree? Yeah, I mean, just trusting my PD Chris Jones. And he was completely honest with me as well. He knew that the office of the pieces will take care of himself. Obviously, we need to clean the shot diet up. No, it was a spot I wanted to get to whether it's in a flow of the game or down the stretch. It's just working on those things. The efficiency part obviously. So that came with the shot diet. But he had me, you know, starting off workouts, you know, slide back and forth. From laying on the lane line and closing out, picking up full core, working on different, you know, defensive techniques in certain situations. So, but I think just being able to, you know, receive that and have no pushback, man. It's, I think it speaks on our relationship between one another. And I think that's why I've able to, you know, kind of like you said, take that leap on that end and, you know, got some room for a lot of room for improvement. But, um, as far as, you know, comparing from last year to this year, I mean, just a compete level that would have wanted to, um, you know, in a day we want to win. So, you know, in that end, we got to compete every single night. Have you and Lowry Markin in ever discussed becoming the new age John Stockton and Carmelon? Is that ever so? Have those names been thrown at you? No, we didn't really look at it like that. Okay. Obviously that was phenomenal duo, but. Not me and Lowry had to talk before the season. Um, you know, obviously he came back from FIBA. Um, with to his house, we had a great conversation. God and the Shana did all, did all that. Um, but it kind of helped us understand not only, you know, the goals that he had for himself, but, you know, what we wanted our team to look like and feel like throughout the whole year. Um, me and Lowry, along with some of the guys on the team, we, we've been through a lot. Um, you know, as far as what the season looked like, then ups and downs. So, um, I think it was, I think it was good that we had a conversation between one another and. Um, really understood the, the common goal that we wanted for each other. And now when we're out there on the floor, our dialogue is always clear and, um, we know we want from, you know, one another. Yeah, I asked Will earlier today, like, you've made a bunch of big shots this year. Chicago or Lando buzz almost buzzer beater kind of shots, game winning kind of shots. I asked Will, like, do you remember anything from the huddles or draw an up plays? And he said, honestly, like those two guys have gotten so good together that sometimes I just say, you know what? Just run your two-man game in the middle of the floor to figure itself out. I'm getting out of the way. Like, that's a pretty high level of trust. Right. Nah, yeah. I always say we got, we got some things to really talk about still, but as far as, you know, me and Lowry, like I, I know where he wants the ball, time and space. You know, no, where he wants the ball when it comes to shoes or trying to pass it to his shoe and pocket. Things like that, just being that, you know, precise on things that we do on the lay game and, I mean, Laura, he, I've said it before, he empowers me down the stretch all the time. No matter if I'm, you know, making shots or missing shots, he's going to empower me the same way every single time. So you got that guy like that that's been killing all year. You know, saying that to you being behind you like that, it actually, it obviously gives me a boost energy and some confidence for sure. So to go out there and trust my word and knowing that in the day we, we rather die with, you know, us too. Will Hardy hosted a burger cookoff at his house over the summer for some of the young players on the team. I was told you did well, but you did not win Walter Clayton Jr. won. You seem, but you see, I can tell by your face, you seem like you were wronged by this. You're bitter about it. Yeah, we was completely wrong. What did you do? What was your technique? What do you, what do you got for me? I made a smash burger like nobody else made a smash burger. Walker put avocado and all that would assess me. No, keep it classic cheese. Been into the burger fire. Walked put in like barbecue sauce and onion rings like I put no sauce on mine. Still flavor. He needed like. We'll then take that into account. Yeah. Hey, like we had no space like he had taken none into account. I heard one of the players did so horribly that his burger was like eating quote onions and salt being poured down your throat. Would you like to reveal which player that was? Taylor Taylor Hendrix total fail. Did you try it? No, no, I couldn't. Walker tried it though. Said it was horrific. Well, maybe next year, you can try to get revenge. You speaking of food, you lost, I was reading an article. You lost 25 pounds between like, I don't know if it was high school in college, high school at the NBA that whole time. I never would have looked at you and thought he ever needed to lose 25 pounds ever. How did you do it? Like what what habits did you change? What's out of the diet? What's into the diet? Or is it just what do you got? I had to stop eating past in the clock to start it off. Okay, obviously the clean trying to eat cleaner. And then I was just man, I was just on the trip. I ran it, ran it, trying to run, trying to burn some fat. My eat habits were terrible at I.M.G. He had this kind of got even worse head Baylor and then towards pre draft started really locking it had to. This is no this to anybody, but whenever they call me a thicker Eric Gore, that's when I kind of knew that I like I didn't really like that one. Was that in the scouting reports at some point? Yeah, I see it on my phone one time. It's all I got a really lucky hand. But yeah, you have his chains was running, just doing the same stuff just honestly just being really intentional as far as you know in the kitchen. I lost about 10 pounds in the last two months and people have asked me like what'd you do? Would you change differently? And I say I discovered a revolutionary dieting technique eating less food. Like I don't need to eat. Like a hog. I don't need to eat like a whole bag of pretzels with my sandwich. I don't need that. It's like maybe I can pass this as a diet plan service. I was you mentioned you guys want to win. You're obviously aware of this and you're in an awkward spot. Everybody on the jazz is an awkward spot where they have to sort of talk around this, but you the jazz of this pick to the thunder top eight protected meeting the jazz. Keep it if it's one of the first eight picks in the draft and they lose it to the thunder. If you guys win too many games and end up picking 10th 11th making the playoffs, whatever. Is that like discussed by the players openly like man, I don't like this is this isn't funny situation or like always fee sat tonight like do or you just ignore it and just whoever plays we go out to win. Oh yeah, obviously we don't understand the business. You know social media and things like that like they put it out there like we know what's going on. But I think when we out there, man, it's we plan for our lives. So if you're out there, we'll sense it all the time when when young guys coming to this lead the main thing that they want is opportunity. So that's that's what we get in here on a matter of who sits or like whoever's dealing with injuries or. You know if if if guys are dealing with stuff, I mean when you get the chance to play, we got to go out there and fight. So so we put a group out there, we we plan to win. So you know, we love the game. So we don't really think about I guess that this is a what's going on. We leave that to you know what they're supposed to do. You know that's their job and we have a job to do as well. They picked us to be on this team. So at the end of the day, you talk it's across our chest. So we got an organization to represent this organization, you know drafted me and believed in me. So I got nothing but nothing but respect. So the respect that I can show for for this team is to go out there and play hard and and same thing for our team. The guys has plan you play a hard that shows that you continue to respect the judges. You know if you're in competitor, you know the main the main goal is to win. I mean look it shows through on the court. You guys are super fun to watch your feisty or competitive. You almost beat the thunder on the road the other night and you do have Utah across your chest and you have the blue the purple bloom whatever mountain jerseys back. Are we happy about this that all these are back and and and the black and neon is gone. Oh, I would say this I like the new jerseys. I like the new jerseys. I like what we got going on, especially the ones we wore last night. Like the gray to light blue white ones. Those are nice. Those are really nice. All right. Two more quick questions. I'll let you go. Best piece of advice you have gotten from proud veteran Kevin love this season. Yeah, you could. Good. But. I wouldn't say he probably has a gave giving me he's obviously dropped some gems. But I think just when we had the chance to talk after practice about the mental health stuff. I focus on that a lot this summer. I'm in throughout the year. I mean, we were in and we was just kind of talking about certain things. And I think that conversation kind of sits heavy on my heart between us two because obviously you know he's he's outspoken about those things. You know, he's done a lot of great things in this league. I mean, he's influenced his league a lot. Been a part of great team. So. I never thought in any given world that I'll be able to speak to speak to Kevin love about anything. I mean, when we go to dinner like everybody knows him. We can't go anywhere with him without taking a picture like so. The influence that he has not only with the basketball world, but outside of the basketball world, man, and just being able to talk about that certain, you know, that the mental health stuff, man, it's it was big time for me. Opposing player that you've had to guard that you come away that you came away thinking like, whoa, this guy's way shift year way, way harder to guard that than I thought. I know you're one of the guys doesn't like to give opposing players credit, but give me one guy you're like, wow, man, that was like this guy's got more to his game than I thought. Well, okay, well, you put it like that. I was going to say, Kari, because they're in the same play on me twice or rookie year. It was pretty easy, but I probably say if you don't say Kari because obviously we all know he got every every day to his game on that end. I'll probably say season McCullough, when we played. We played in the war moments, those are tough game. We supposed to win and then you know, he kind of got to the spots. You know, like he said that the city piece I thought he was a thought he was old Jeep, huh? See, they've got some games too. All right, last one. Give me just one thing. We're about halfway through the season. It's been a huge success for you. What's one thing you're focused on working on, whether team level, individual level, like the next 10, 15 games, like I want to dial in on this part of my game, or this part of our team's game? Yeah, I'll probably just say it's, you know, obviously our compete level, just staying where it is, but I think just our Connecting this on a defensive end. If if low man goes tag, other guy has a drop, like just getting better at that doing my job on that end, our offices. I mean, we're playing great. I mean, I think we're going to ball really well. Guys are making shots getting to the paint. Everybody's doing their job on that end. So as a team, I just want to make sure, you know, we make sure that we, we, we don't want we're supposed to doing that in. I mean, past the games now we've, we've showed that we have the ability to do so. So I just, you know, just want to make sure that we're doing that on a day to day basis. Make sure our habits are staying in tag, make sure shoot around, practice, make sure those are looking sharp, because we don't, honestly, you don't get time to really be together and talk things out and practice. So when we get those moments, making sure that we stay in sharp. Can't day George, just an awesome third season. Most improved player conversation belongs, you know, you got to be, you got to be mentioned in the all star conversation. That's where we are now with can't day George. Thanks for your time continued good luck. I'll see you down the road. Appreciate it. All right, that's it for today. Thanks to the great Richard Jefferson, Mo to kill Keanu, Keanu, George, thanks to Billy, Mike and Jonathan on production. Thanks to all of you for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe show. We'll be back later this week. 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