Title Pie at the All-Star Break | Group Chat

hello and welcome to group chat i am justin varrier and joining me rob mahoney j kyle man all-star weekend is upon us and thus the activating is about to start rob are you ready to activate uh i'm never ready to activate you seem activated though i had all-star is not usually your event but i'm i'm getting a different kind of energy from you this year yes i was afforded the opportunity to go to la and do a minimal amount of work and i was like let's fucking go yeah normally you hear from the old jaded journalist types the capital j's that just now if you fall into this category you are kind of grizzled in a vet by now um and a capital j's Yeah, and normally, capital J Jagoff, more like it, am I right? But no, I mean, usually you just hear people like, oh, Jesus Christ. They go into that like Nick Nolte begrudging voice. But yeah, you seem a little extra pep. What's your favorite event? What are you excited to go see? Rookie game? Three-point shooting? Basketball without borders? Name one, please. First of all, I think if you've been to one, maybe two All-Star Weekends, I think you've become jaded because that event sucks. Like just going to the All-Star Weekend sucks because it's just a big old party or you go to a bunch of activations, which are, I guess, advertisements or meet and greet sort of things. I don't even really know how to describe them. And you know how much I hate both of these things. Yes. I just love how the first line item on All-Star sucks is it's a big party. Yeah. But Rob, you like All-Star Weekend? No, no. Don't get me wrong. I'm ultimately in your camp. Like, I like it when the events are good. The problem with this year is the pools do not seem the most promising, though. I know your heart must swell, Justin, with the fact that Damian Lillard is going to compete in the three-point contest. That must mean something to you personally. But for the rest of us, I'm just hoping that there is some semblance of entertainment in literally anything that's going on this weekend. yeah i think it was a bad sign that they had to pull damien lillard literally off the injured list in order to defend his two-time three-point contest title i they'll probably be something like we always have such a low opinion of the dunk contest right now that at this point you can only exceed those low expectations so maybe there's something there i think i'm gonna go on saturday rob i think you might go on saturday as well yeah we're gonna record a podcast after Sunday's game. So there's a little bit of curiosity there. Honestly, I'm more curious to see what Adam Silver cooks up in the press conferences before the game because I think he has a lot to answer for these days. You want to hold him to account. Yeah, I'm going to put on my fedora and break out my notepad and be like, sir, what do you think about the tanking? I mean, we need answers, clearly. Honestly, lots of people do and lots of people have been emailing us at ringergroupchat at gmail.com with their potential tanking fixes. We might have to do like a full on anti tanking mailbag at some point because the solutions are many. They're plentiful. They're not all good, but I appreciate the spirit. Really stirred a hornet's nest with that. Not the Charlotte Hornets since they're out of the lottery conversation in the tanking realm these days. But yeah, people had takes. People were very fired up about the tanking thing in a way that kind of spiked in an unusual way. So people are passionate about it, probably more than I expected, because I think, like I was telling you guys off air, I think maybe over time you just get a little bit of a resigned defeatist attitude about it when nothing seems to work. But if the public is any indication, there is a real appetite to push towards solving this. Welcome to the resistance, brother. If there's one thing people love more than fake trades and photoshopping players into Lakers jerseys, it is coming up with solutions out of fixed tanking or just the league in general. So I'm not surprised that you got the crush of emails over there. Look, I'm just glad that you, I mean, you, Justin, of all people had the fire in your belly, capital J yourself. Thank you for dragging us along. Thank you for bringing our listeners into the resistance with you, because I think Kyle and I just needed to be galvanized and you sufficiently galvanized us. Yeah, just the revolution over here of Justin. Rob, I'm more concerned about your two-factor authentication. How many Google emails are you bouncing between? Because you've got prestige. You're checking them all. I'm just kind of like, when you hop on to search, are you making sure? I know you don't want to incriminate any of your search histories in your other Gmail accounts. It seems like it's a circus over there. How are you managing all that? It's a bit of a circus, but these are the things we do for podcasting. These are the things we do for our listenership to make sure that they feel heard on such important matters as fighting tanking. Right. Well, speaking of feeling heard, you could hear us on two different days going forward here because we're moving our schedule post All-Star break. Monday, Thursday is our new published schedule. We were doing Sunday, Wednesday. So not all that different depending on when the pod hits your feed. But so after Sunday's pod, that will be up on Monday. We'll go to Thursdays during the week. That's the new schedule. We're very excited for him. because we get to do normal Monday morning pods again. But yeah, just check that out. Any other business before we get into today's action? Not a single bit. Let's get to it. All right. So we did Tidal Pie a couple weeks ago. What was it, around the quarter mark, you said? That was a long time ago. It was like November. Yeah, I looked in the notes. It was way back, actually. That was Tidal Pie was, yeah, between the 18th and the 7th episode. So late November is when the last time we did it. Yeah. Some early pie. But now this feels like an appropriate time to dig in just because we had all the moves at the deadline. I don't know how many of them will actually affect the title race. I definitely want to get into that. But it feels like we know where the league is in terms of just like the players are all set. Minus injuries. This is what we're going forward with. And so this is a good time to start the exercise. I'll be honest. I don't know how you guys felt broadly, but I kind of discounted most teams in this race. I basically have a big two and then everybody else. Did you guys organize it similarly? I kind of have a big one and then a lot of question marks and then a lot of shrugs and maybes. But I do think the bottom is kind of fallen out. It's I think two things have happened. The odds have flattened slightly just because the Thunder are not on the torrid pace that they were when we last did this exercise in November. So you got to bring them down to earth a little bit. And at the same time, some of the teams that I was saying, maybe hopefully if if if the Orlando Magic, for example, get their shit together, maybe they could have even one percent of the title pie. I mean, those crumbs are just accounted for at this point. And there's really no reason to throw them their way, given, and I say that Magic is just a placeholder, but a lot of those teams that were, you know, maybe dependent on getting one move, getting one good month of basketball momentum behind them in order to really prove themselves as contenders. And we just haven't seen that for a lot of the hopefuls. Yeah, that's an apt description, I think, because, you know, OKC, it was funny to think about the blistering just toward pace that they were on that even though that has flattened, there's also been some sort of aligning factors for the teams that were vying to catch them that have made it a little less bleak in terms of the odds of that happening. but then what you said about the crumbs i think that's a good descriptor too where when i did this my optimistic self just wanting to daydream and think about other teams having a chance i had a bunch of crumbs there were a lot of ones down there and then i got looking at it i was sitting there and you know i was like you know what i'm just gonna dirt devil off the counter all these crumbs there's no chance why do i even have them there these points desert need to go to other teams and that's where i ended up i have no crumbs you don't even get a fucking morsel unless i can actually picture you hoisting that Lombardi or the uh Larry O'Brien trophy I almost said Lombardi I got the Super Bowl on the mind um why don't we dig in here though uh I assume we all have the same team at number one which is the Portland Trailblazers okay they got they got Denny Avdia back and I gotta go see you later no the uh the Thunder number one despite all the injuries of late I guess the only big concern here is just when is Shea going to come back and where will will they be in the standings as a result? And will they have their full complement when the playoffs start? Yes. And I think one thing that has been kind of clarified since, again, we last did this a couple of months ago is it now just seems like a very distinct possibility that J-Dub's hand will not be right basically all season. And it's going to be something he's kind of playing through and working through all the time. That part is fine to me. Like, it is a variable. It is something that the Thunder are going to have to navigate. I just think ultimately they have so much going on between the clearly elite defense, but also on offense. Shea being able to stretch basically as far as he needs to. He's the single most unstoppable scorer in the league. Plus everything you're getting from the AJ Mitchells and the Aaron Wigginses and like those depth pieces that are good scores, plus the three point shooting, plus the activity and transition and what that gets you. I just think that whatever questions you might have about J-Dub or their offense or whatever perceived vulnerability we've seen in the Thunder over the last six weeks or so, just don't really pull them down from this top spot whatsoever. They might narrow their chances ever so slightly, but I went from 40% on the last title pie to 35% here. Still, to me, the overwhelming favorite to win. I'm still at 40, but it is interesting because last 10, they're 5-5 without Shea. Offensive efficiency has come down, three-point shooting, not moving the ball as much. I think in his absence, I think it's sort of painted an area where someone does need to step in, whether or not it's Jalen with the compromised hand. I just think in terms of their penetration, the initial attacking slot, whoever that is, I think that we've seen some of that stagnate in his absence. Granted, they haven't really had any stinker losses other than the Pacers on the season. I mean, all the other teams that they've lost to are pretty competent, playoff-level teams. So the other thing here is just Shea's abdominal strain. I'm not an expert on this by any stretch. I thought you were the ab man. Yeah. It's funny to read. It's a really wide range of outcomes here. You'll read something, it'll be like, oh, two or three weeks. And then I read something where it was like, depending on the type of strain, it can be several months. I know this held Chris Bosh out for quite a while, didn't it, in the playoffs, if I'm not mistaken? I forget which year that was. I don't know. If Shea comes back and he's compromised at all or he aggravates that again, how vulnerable do you guys think they are? I think this is my concern with the Thunder overall, though. And this exercise really kind of laid that out for me, where it's like I don't really feel super bullish on the Thunder because I feel like there are more sore spots, forgive the pun, than ever before. I think the fact that Chet just hasn't really had the breakout game we hope for, even though nobody is around. The other game, he was still taking 10 shots when he was basically sharing the ball with Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins types. Don't love that, especially for a guy that I think we all agreed should have made the All-Star team. But it's really about the lack of competition beyond the Thunder rather than I think the Thunder are just bulletproof. Because like after the second spot, for instance, on my list, I just didn't know where else to turn to because everyone seems to be kind of bunched together. And so on the one hand, maybe that's a backdoor case for all these other teams. On the other hand, the case is still pretty strong for the Thunder. Just looking at them empirically, it's like the net rating pretty similar to last year, defensive rating similar to last year. There's still so much of a foundation that I feel like at the very least they get the nod. But I'm only at 30 percent actually came down pretty considerably because I do think the race is compacted right now. I do. I do want to see where that those slices went for you, JV, because you're right. Like if you look at the next Western Conference contenders, I would say there's been some teams that have taken a step back over the last couple of months. The Denver Nuggets in particular. I mean, just every person on that roster seems to have a soft tissue injury of some kind that they're either working their way back from or out with right now. And so whatever health concerns you have about Shea and the Thunder, I would think double and triple in the case of the Nuggets. And so the odds have to go somewhere. And if you're taking away from taking them away from the Thunder, did you find that they went elsewhere in the West or did they level out to the East? Or where do you think that went? Yeah, I think that's probably where I differ from your guys, because I still think that the Nuggets are pretty much the clear cut number two with a bullet. Like I have the Thunder at 30. I have the Nuggets at 24, despite the fact that both Watson and Aaron Gordon are out and Gordon seems perpetually out. And I do wonder what that means for their defense right now. Their defense has been atrocious. I think they've been 24th, even with Jokic still back out there. He doesn't seem like he's moving particularly well. So there is a lot of like way more concerns with what the Nuggets are doing. I just feel like if they're reasonably healthy, they do have the counterpunch to a lot of the competition that they're going to face, including the Thunder. Like, I still think if you have enough guys, if Cam is playing, if Watson is playing, if Gordon gives you any minutes, I might favor the Nuggets just outright in that series, not just like if certain guys aren't there or not for the Thunder. I mean it's certainly the rematch we all want and the nuggets are to me to me and by the numbers like the best offense against elite defense and that's like the quandary of playing OKC right it's like how do you crack this pressure how do you crack this front how do you make up enough activity on the back line and keep your spacing intact in order to run your stuff without getting completely shaken out of it and Jokic certainly gives you the ability to do that when he's healthy when he's playing his full allotment of minutes when he's moving well. I just, I want to believe in Denver. And I think in terms of their play, they've given us lots of reasons to believe in them. It just seems so shaky in terms of health. And they haven't been able to have all their guys together for any significant stretch all season. Maybe that's a reason to believe in them more, to think that for as good as they've been, and they've still been quite good, that they'll be even better when they finally have their full allotment of players at their disposal. But I kind of need to see it at this point, especially if we're going to be potentially taking down a team like the Thunder. Yeah, I think they're going to need to have some pretty, they're going to really need that continuity to click into place fast because we're getting to the point to use the runway analogy again where they're running out of runway for this to take off and reach that height of playoff fluidity, like everything's hitting on all cylinders. And specifically in the defensive end of the floor, they're going to have to be at the top of their game to compete with OKC, I think, because if Gordon's not, is Gordon going to be back? these hamstring things we've been dealing with this forever uh brown who you're depending on to be like a point of attack guy an assignment guide and irritant on defense i think it's just going to put a lot of pressure on them to be exemplary on offense with not much wiggle room like in the playoffs and i just i worry about that i flatten them to um they're at 20 percent um it would be a little higher obviously i'm just my skepticism is growing about that coming together but then I don't know. I'm in this kind of tumultuous balance between I really, really do like their continuity and I think that they know who they are and I think they could click into place faster than the average team because they do have so much championship pedigree and Jokic clicks everything into place. It's just getting more worrisome by the minute. So over the course of the season, so not just like past six games with Jokic, not even past month since January 1st, whatever. This is a big old sample here. 24th in defense overall, which is pretty concerning. Gordon's spec to be out about another month. And so if we're saying mid-March, you really only get like a week or so of competitive basketball probably before teams start to hit the button one way or another. So you're right. It really is a forecast though. I think this really is more of a discussion about the rest of the field versus the Nuggets, because I had a hard time after number two coming up with the third. So where'd you guys land with nuggets in terms of percentages so i had the nuggets at just 13 percent in terms of number two they're my number two yeah okay what do you have kyle 20 okay so thereabouts yeah yeah but i think it's clear as you said justin that these are the top two true contenders in the west like they have solidified themselves by play by potential anything else would be a somewhat surprising outcome in terms of a team actually making it through the western conference gauntlet and i'm eager to get into those conversations and see how all that goes but i just i keep defaulting to the thunder i just like i for as much as we want to explore these other possibilities for as much as i would love to believe that the nuggets will be fully available and healthy and playing their best basketball i just don't know that we're ever going to get there this season it might just be the kind of curse year for them where it's start and stop the whole way and they're still really good because of the players they have but ultimately as kyle mentioned like they just never quite get the full momentum of everything they were supposed to be how many teams do we think actually has like have legitimate not even to the finals have like legitimate multi-round gumption i'm going to trademark that right now oh yeah multi-round that put the multi if we could have a stamp and a stamp sound isaiah that would be great uh officially approved multi-round gumption i i think i mean okc and denver i think have separated themselves and the fact that i've talked about this before just that they know what they do and they know the counters to what they do well. I'm like San Antonio, I don't really trust that they've developed all that stuff. Minnesota, maybe, you know, in the West, like since they've done it before and their team is largely kind of what it's been. Past that, it's just hard to find teams with multi-round gumption, to say it again. It's a great question. Why don't we take a quick break and we'll get into just that. Yeah I think the field is really spotty because you have a group of teams that seems to be on the rise for the most part A lot of these are young teams that are really trying to aspire to something new a new level that we haven seen before But then you're like, oh, what about this? What about that? You really do need to forecast more than you're really banking on anything else. I had the Spurs as my third team, but I'll be honest, I was waffling practically up until we started this podcast. Yeah. If only because last night was just like the type of haymaker, like knock you on your ass performance from Victor Webinama, like that. You just really just sticks in the back of your brain when you're doing something like this. You had 40 in 25 minutes. And I know it was against most of like the third stringers on the Lakers, because God forbid anyone on Lakers as a superstar plays in a game. I had some excuses about that. The Lakers had some heavy rotation players out there. Granted, they didn't have any bigs. They didn't have any defense. But I heard the excuses went a little far, but I don't know. You like those Bronny James minutes? No, I'm not saying Bronny. In the beginning of the game, there were some dudes who play a lot. It was just Wemby. Oh, that's probably the problem. They had nothing for him. Yeah. But that's the thing with the Spurs. I do feel like they could have the hot goalie theory going for them. Okay. Where Wemby is such a trump card that I could see them, despite the fact that they're way too young to accomplish anything like this, and his history would say this is pretty much unparalleled. But if Wemby gets going, like who's to stop him, especially if the field is going to be littered with so many bodies in terms of injuries, like we've been saying. I think the answer is we've seen enough this season of good defenders and smart teams kind of just like nudge the Spurs out of their offensive flow a little bit. Like the defense is going to be great. Victor Webinyama is the best defensive player in the world. He's always going to be changing the game on that side of things. their activity as a team, all of that, like I fully believe in. For them, it's how much do you trust De'Aaron Fox and Steph Castle and Dylan Harper to make quick but also evolving reads over the course of incredibly complicated playoff games where, yeah, you go in with one scout, with one game plan, but by the mid-first quarter, we are ripping it up and trying something completely different because the coverage isn't what we expected. How much do we trust those guys to make those kinds of decisions on the fly in those moments. And I think over the course of the season, it's been kind of a mixed bag. Like they've shown up. Like it's not really a question of effort or focus or intensity or anything like that. It's just as guards, are you the kinds of playmakers who can crack these sorts of puzzles? And two of those guys are very, very young. And the third one is more of a scoring first player who even then only has a certain amount of playoff experience. If the Spurs do have a vulnerability, to me, it's clearly there. What do we think they're going to be dared to do? We know this is a downhill team. Is it just as simple as they're going to be dared to make shots or they're going to be dared to make certain reads? Because if you look at the center of what is going to nudge the Spurs, to use your word, that's the thing that makes me the – I have written down for every team that we're talking about here, like why they will, why they won't. One of the big why they won't things here is that we've seen that when teams have time to kind of load up, and we haven't seen Wimby in a seven-game series or however many games it ends up being, multiple in a row where they're loading up and trying to stop him. And my question to you guys is just like, what do you think Harper, Castle, Fox, what are they going to be dared to do that maybe is shaky right now for the Spurs? I think it's the cross-court stuff. It's like leaving the weak side corner to double Wemby in the post or clog up the lane and forcing those guys, especially on the move, to make a really difficult cross-court pass. And it's one thing if you're kind of expecting that to be there, but if you're smart on defense and active and you can kind of stunt and fake in terms of some of those rotations to keep someone like Steph Castle on their toes. I think it gets really tricky in the heat of the game. And I think one of the kind of ripple effects of this is we've seen in some of these games where the Spurs have had trouble kind of getting into their stuff, that that brings Victor Webinyama further and further away from the basket. It's like if he's trying to get deep seals and getting double teamed and not able to get the ball and the shot clock winds down, the next possession he comes up and he's getting it at the three-point line. Like he's he's trying to tap into ways to be engaged as a scorer. But ultimately, if he's getting pulled further and further from the basket because they aren't able to get the ball where it needs to go on a possession to possession basis, that's to the Spurs detriment. And that's where like all of this stuff just gets a little muddled a little faster than you would like, I think, for San Antonio. For me, it's a little bit more of the big boy shit, where when you have a front line that's going to be more physical and imposing, like what is the counter for the Spurs? Because while they want to get downhill, if you wanted to match front court size, like a team like Detroit, for instance, probably could, the Nuggets, if they were at full strength, like is it to go more Cornette-Wemby? They don't really have a move that's like almost minted at this point. And so you're kind of hoping that your offense could just shoot your way out of those situations. They just don't really have that in their bag consistently enough. Maybe Wemby just like overcomes all of that. I think that really is the case for them for and against where it's like he could just be the best player in the world. And those guys typically dictate playoff series in the way that is reductive, but ultimately ends up being true. But I don't know. When I started to do like more matchup dependent things, I was like, so is Durin just going to like play through Wemby's chest and just eviscerate him? Like, I don't know. There are a lot more ifs for me with the Spurs than some of these other teams. Yes. I think the shooting is a huge part of that too, where you're right. It's like if the Spurs do get into a mode where they are dealing with that kind of physicality and need to stretch the floor and want to rely on some of their actual perimeter scoring, there's like a lot of good shooters on this team or like potentially good shooters on this team, but not a lot of great ones. and there's been some like encouraging signs if you really want to pull out the microscope like castle shooting in particular i think it's been slowly ticking up from from beyond the arc over the course of the season which is great for them but ultimately there's still going to be a lot like a lot of catch and shoot opportunities for him and for harper in particular and even guys like devin vassell who is a really good shooter in theory but this year has been kind of weirdly up and down in terms of actually converting those opportunities and so yeah you have you know champagny in the corner and you have harrison barnes who's going to be a little feast or famine on some of that stuff but i just wish they had like the one dead eye guy who felt a little more reliable it's just like a pure kickout option a pure space or someone who's having a lot of gravity pulling you know chunks of the defense away from wimby and they they really don't have that they have a lot of good players and a lot of theoretically good shooters but nothing of that caliber really yeah i mean harper and castle are still distinctly in the prove it zone they're going to be because they don't have playoff experience but i think that's going to be one of the first places that teams go but then another thing just to do some devil's advocate counter the other way here is like if you look at the other teams we're we're talking about how they don't have the the gumption for for maybe to to answer these questions but then i'm like aside from okc and denver maybe minnesota i'm like who do we think that who else you're you're playing who's there that's what you can't talk about it in an abstract sense it's like they they do have it's all going to be about these matchups. And I'm like, is Houston so decided that they have one playoff series that they lost to the Warriors in their current configuration? And I don't like that didn't involve KD. I'm just like, who is it that we're sure is out there that that is above them in that sense that is more proven? Because really, it's only OKC and Denver, I would assume. Do we trust Minnesota? They've been so up and down. I know we'll talk about that. That's ultimately why I ended up with so much pie with Denver and Oklahoma City. The rest are kind of just like marginal like tiny slices dependent on which way you want to turn to here so i had the spurs at 12 as my number three team did you guys have the spurs at three i have them as the third best team in the west and i have them at eight percent of the pie but i have a couple of eastern conference teams in the mix and slightly ahead of them a couple whoa kyle where do you have the spurs quickly i i have a couple east teams mingling with them in this range also but i have them at third tied tied with another team at third yeah they have seven percent of the pie for me okay i just assume that if the spurs get to the finals that they would beat the east team because they would have clicked into place in the way that we were all hoping for that's that's a great question would they the a piston spurs final rematch rematch of 05 what do we think i i was going through all the all the matchups myself well first of all are the pistons going to have the full complement of players or will Isaiah Stewart have pivoted fully to MMA at that point who's to say I was actually like just quickly as an aside him only getting seven games is just like on the one hand it's a complete divorce from what Stern would have done I feel like he would have gotten 27 games or something probably extreme and we would all complain about that seven feels a little light on crime seeing that he like full-on bull rushed a guy and like tried to get him into a headlock and just fucking hockey style slam him in the face not saying like that miles bridges doesn't deserve i was about to say maybe maybe a couple games got shaved off of that given the uh there's some this fucking guy energy with that seriously it's forgivable yeah totally but like seven and then it was like four and some other ones i was like let's fucking go this is the answer to all the problems we're talking about tanking let's just fight everybody the one that shocked me was jalen duran honestly who again instigated the entire thing by pushing musa diabate in the face and you can't just mush someone like that you simply can't mush you cannot you can't be mushing musa you can't be doing that he's he's not mushable ultimately uh and i i get duran didn't do the hold me back like hard charging that musa was doing so fair enough as far as that goes but two games for jalen duran first effectively starting a brawl impressive palming musa's head that's all he got stew is terrifying though can you imagine that guy running at you also musa diabate just like oh yeah fire in his eyes i have never seen someone even in this sort of situation just have to be held back repeatedly by like four separate guys while your teammates try to talk you down and still have to be dragged into the tunnel like that guy was out for fucking blood i know i've never seen him like that like he obviously plays with some edge and some energy but that's not really who satiapate usually is uh but dalen duran certainly brought it out of him i'm not trying to promote fighting you know with my son i don't promote fighting uh at all but uh well we can get into that more at another date but i i think i love this i'm so excited about this because i just think i think that like they're They are in the age range in relation to each other where, man, this is going to be so fucking interesting for a long time. Oh, yeah. Because Charlotte fans were riled up. And Detroit fans had a righteous sort of defensive attitude about it. I just – man, this is going to be really fun just because the Pistons have kind of climbed to that accomplished spot early and the Hornets are rapidly ascending. I love this. I really do. I'm not going to lie. I did see that all of, you know, as is customary for NBA teams, they sell a lot of the game-worn jerseys, you know, for profit or charity or whatever. I really thought about if we should put in a bid on Musa Diabate's game-worn fight jersey. But then I was led to believe maybe it wasn't actually the one he fought in, but just the one from the first half. So if anyone has the location of Musa Diabate's actual bloodied game-worn fight jersey, I think it might need to be a group chat artifact of some kind. We might need to really invest in that thing. I think we could expense that. I really do. No doubt. We'll get confirmation. Wait, Rob is anti-jerseys in most senses to the point where we really had to harangue him in order to wear the Pacers jerseys for the live show that time. But you want a bloodied Moussa Diabate jersey? You're not going to wear it, are you, Rob? I would wear it. Yeah, for the record, I'm not wearing this thing. I was going to say, you really jumped to the wearing part. Come on. Wearing bloody things, Justin. Don't impose your kegs on other people. Yeah, what are we talking about? it's going to be framed and we're going to hang it in the ringer offices that's what's going to happen i don't know i think i think even under a frame like dried blood is kind of creepy it's real like dexter coated i don't know i don't know if a crime is committed we'll surrender it to the police if need be yeah well i i am i have an actual question about this in regards to the pistons in our in our hierarchy here on the one hand i feel like this only really emphasizes their advantage which is like they really do have chemistry to the point where they're willing to go out months in order to fight for their teammates on the other hand it does kind of underline the immaturity a little bit that they could be so distracted by wanting to punch someone else in the face that like they really don't have eyes on the prize here where do you guys kind of fall on this in terms of like the actual title race i mean they certainly have their eyes on the prize they're just riled up and into it and give me the team that gives a shit over the ones who were like jogging through the regular season any day of the week are you kidding me is it giving a shit though or is it more just like wanting to fight someone like i don't think this actually has any repercussions on the actual basketball i mean the pistons want to fight they got some guys that are looking to i i enjoy the like camera cutaways of ron holland just arguing incessantly with someone like he won't let anything go it's great a beef stew obviously we know it was interesting to see durin to be the center of it but there's big like up the chimney vibes like from the grizzlies uh what was it oh three i guess when they were really or was it oh two i guess it was oh two when or oh two 22 uh when when they were kind of in that in the same mode similar similar trajectory points right with the pistons and the grizzlies of that iteration i think so but but the pistons just have so much more to offer from a basketball perspective like the grizzlies were a good team and certainly a good regular season team but there was always something where you were waiting for them to crack the half-court offense element of it. Detroit has some of those same concerns. I just like what Cade gives you as a passer, what the physicality ultimately nets out to for the Pistons, to me feels so much more significant than anywhere the Grizzlies ever got to. I think it's a twofold question. Do the Pistons worry about anyone in the East? Are they worried about anyone in the West? And so in the East, I kind of see this more as a coin flip, no offense to the Pistons, who might ultimately end up as the team with the best record in the NBA. I just don't see much of a distinction between them as an actual basketball team and not as a full-scale rugby team trying to beat you in the back alley sort of team. Between them, the Cavs, and then I have a little bit more of a tier with the Knicks and the Celtics. But I could see any of those teams coming out the East right now, and I am pretty disappointed in the Pistons, as we talked about in the trade deadline. Only really getting Herter in there, who isn't really even playing, He's only played 27 minutes at this point. And so that deal for Ivy looks more like getting off money than it is adding a rotation piece. I just I can't stop myself from seeing what the Cavaliers are doing with Harden, man. They beat the Nuggets the other night. Jared Allen seems reactivated. It's just like been a force even before Harden got in there. And so I have the Pistons at 8%. I have the Cavs in a kind of a separate tier with a bunch of other teams at 6%. OK, I have the Pistons at 12%. and then i have the calves and the i have the knicks at eight and the calves at six okay and that's before you get to the spurs right uh yeah so i also had the spurs at eight so basically i have my my ranking is thunder nuggets then pistons then knicks and spurs tied is effectively like the next little sub tier there so you have the knicks even above the calves i do have them above the calves i mean the calves the the model with harden is still so new i think we're just figuring out exactly what to do with it the early signs have been incredibly encouraging and we'll get to them uh but the knicks have also kind of saved their season in a lot of respects and i want to tip my head to that well until last night i mean look they're not they're not without their faults they're not without some serious stumbles here and there but ultimately i feel much better about the knicks today than if we had done another title pie you know three weeks ago like they just they have corrected some of their problems their defense looks significantly better over the stretch of time they just look like a more formidable basketball team frankly uh but they do not look like the pistons and i think detroit has to have some kind of edge over new york in particular if you want to make the argument for cleveland based on some of that mystery box factor you know the fact that james harden has stumbled in and immediately been like such a dynamic playmaker but not taking anything away from donovan mitchell open things up for their bigs and some of their supporting cast, but not taking them out of the flow of what they do. Like I'm receptive to that argument, but we've seen so much of the Knicks and we've seen so much of the Pistons and the Pistons seem like pretty clearly and far and away a significantly more stable basketball team. Yeah. I mean, I guess I'll rattle off mine here. Like I said, I have San Antonio at seven. I have Detroit tied with them at seven and then Cleveland has stepped down at six. Are we just rattling off the rest of our East teams here? Is that what we're doing? Yeah. Yeah. Mine's put, I don't have New York as high as you do. So I had, yeah, Detroit at seven, Cleveland at six. I may be overrating a little bit my optimism about the hardened thing and also just the backcourt depth. And then if Struis gets back, what's Struis' timetable, though? I haven't checked on that in a little while. People have been wondering all season. It's just I don't think there's a clear answer on it. Yeah. And then I have Boston at five and New York at four. I guess my trust in New York is still just sort of like rounding back into form. I could see it getting back up into that five, five, six range. I've just been a little pessimistic. I mean, is it is grand theft Alvarado the thing that's sort of like driving the point home or is it just general synergy on the next part that say this season, in your opinion? I think it's some synergy. I think Alvarado helps. But to me, that's more spelling what they were losing and Deuce McBride being out for a significant period of time. And you can see his pressure defense kind of amping them up in a positive way. Weirdly enough, I think it's more other things happening in the rotation. I think it some of their level of defensive responsibility and kind of simplifying what they doing defensively in a way that I think has helped a lot of people involved especially kat mitchell robinson um but also like landry sham it has been really good for them lately and was just kind of like out of the rotation or maybe he was dealing with some lingering injury has come back and given them real minutes they're just more parts of what they're doing that feel reliable and did and they don't feel like they're at odds they don't feel like they're pulling each other apart whereas that was kind of what led them down the rabbit hole into like a weird tailspin and spiral that resulted in that players only meeting or maybe it wasn't a players only meeting depending on who you ask they just felt like a team that was coming apart at the seams and now they feel like one that's been stitched back together a little bit is it the most like watertight absolutely not but they're a little more cohesive than they were i would have been more likely to agree with you had we not just witness what happened last night uh nine in one going into last night's game against the mighty indiana pacers playing guys you've never heard of before scoring 20 points per game and then all of a sudden they lose in overtime and that really just hit home all of the issues you have with the knicks where they feel like they have all the parts lined up all the bench players finally clicking into place alvarado at the very least feels like emotional ballast like that i think is important for a team that seems to outside of brunson really be searching for some sort of North stars, the type of thing where it's like if your star player isn't like that sort of emotional leader that sets the tone. I think people are kind of always really more in their own lane. That really speaks to me with this team. But the fact that Towns just like hasn't had a pretty steady month the entire season really concerns me. Even in the midst of this game, it was one for six from three at five turnovers. It's just like if Towns isn't the town from last year even, then we're getting into some really dicey situations. So I have them teared out practically in the same line as the Celtics. I have Detroit at eight, Cleveland at six, New York at four, and Boston at four, if only because I just don't trust the Knicks at this point. Yeah. I mean, I think it's totally reasonable to think that the West will win the day. Whoever makes it out will probably be the definitive best team and will be a strong favorite going into the finals. But just by the probability of how that's all going to shake out, one of these teams is going to make the NBA finals. And by the time they get there, who knows what's going to happen with the health of the nuggets or she's availability you know it's like it there's just like a miss again like just a roll of the dice that could result in all of a sudden the pistons or the knicks or the calves whoever survives having a real chance and so that's where i think like individually they don't have the most compelling cases if you want to stack up just like right now who would you take pistons or thunder i think everyone would take the thunder for the most part but the realities of what it's going to take to make it through the west alive and what it's going to take to survive the East, I just don't think are very comparable things. And so I think not unlike last year, we may be in line for a more competitive final than we are expecting right now, just by virtue of the differing paths that will take these teams to that point. Let's say that the Thunder and the Pistons get into a series together over under two games. How many games do you think that the Pistons could get from Oklahoma City? Fully healthy. everybody's healthy two I would say two with a bullet so I guess technically so if the over under is two then uh under I would go under I mean if the answer is could I think they could take three I didn't think that I didn't think the Pacers could take three from the Thunder this is what I'm saying like I think that was expected to be like a five game series and ended up a seven gamer that required Tyrese Halliburton having a like catastrophic injury and even then the Pacers were up at halftime in game seven like these teams are not invulnerable even the Thunder like we're giving the Thunder a huge slice of this pie but they're not an unbeatable team like they're gonna have to prove it all over again on slightly different terms and they're gonna have to do it in ways that require them to outfox the Nuggets and like outwork and figure out a way around Victor Webb and Yama and it's gonna take a lot out of them to get there like that's just the reality of playing in the West these days. It's interesting because I feel like the Pacers pressed on the Thunder's disadvantages in the way that the Pistons probably don't. I do think the Pistons have the physicality in their favor and thus could they rough up the Thunder in a way that they could make it more of a of a mud fight in a way that I don't think the Thunder particularly want to. But I just don't see if you're not going to be able to outshoot the Thunder and really kind of really just press on the fact that when they don't shoot well, it kind of erupts into disarray, where the Pistons' advantage offensively comes. Because that's ultimately my biggest concern with them. It's just that they've been pretty middling overall. And I don't really see a pathway for them to really hit a button and all of a sudden be better than that in the playoffs. If anything, I'm worried about guys like Duncan Robinson and Kevin Hurd are getting played off the floor when the defense starts to ratchet up and so on the flip side though to almost argue against myself i feel like the thunder are going to ultimately be the type of team that wins four titles but they always win in six and seven games because they do fuck around and the margin is like a little bit thinner than it should be for a team this dominant well is it fucking around though like it's not that they're not playing up to the level of the game they're just not the most consistent offense in the world prone to variance more than some other bulletproof contenders that we've seen in the past. I was certain that reached the historic level of net ratings and records that they had. Sure. But so I guess to answer the ultimate question you asked, Kyle, maybe it actually is three, but I still don't feel any more certain about the Pistons, even if it is three. Yeah. Oh, good, Kyle. I was just going to say in the broad sense, it's interesting that coming out of last year, the thing that we talked a lot about was how it seemed like the Pacers had pushed the buttons, like you said, in a way that stoked the growth that was going to cause OKC to level up with some of their secondary and tertiary guys to make them enter into this phase that you often see with dynasties. Like if you saw with, you know, like the Lakers in the early, you know, 2010s or the Warriors or whatever in their run where you go from like, can we do it to you've leveled up, you've answered the questions. And now it's like, deny us, find a way to deny us. And I feel like the Thunder, because of injuries, because of just, you know, Chet has been good, but he hasn't quite really, I think, expanded totally in that way that we thought that he might. And then now they have this unique kind of situation coming into these playoffs where it's like you just kind of see this video game, like levels of bosses kind of thing where they're going to have to answer the question with Wimby. I guess my overall point is just it's interesting that in year two where we expect them to win, it's like the set of challenges are sort of different. It doesn't feel as if they have graduated to that. like we are undeniable you better do something about it right i mean are you feeling the same way about it no i feel that way too i think the single most like bankable disruptive force in the league right now is still okc's defense like that is still the thing that i would bet on above anything else but other than that and like you know shea is going to give you pretty reliably between 28 and i don't know 70 points on a given night i thought you were going to say arm bars per game yeah well that's the pistons arm bars per game is off the chart arm bars for 48 are you kidding me i kid okay see you don't don't dm me about that but uh no but i think other than that there's just a lot that has to be decided on a game by game basis and some of that is like just the reality of having a deeper team that you don't always know exactly who's going to pop and so there's a little more like finding it in the flow as far as is this more of an aj mitchell game is this more of a j-dub game is this the kind of game where isaiah hartenstein's push shot is going to be like wildly important in terms of the flow of our offense all those things are on the table it's like it's great to have those options but then you have to navigate them and i think the thunder are still at the phase in terms of their decision making on the floor offensively where it's not seamless like they're not a machine on offense they're just a team that has a lot of stuff at their disposal and some days that happen to it and some days it's like leaves you a little bit wanting but the floor is so high because of the defense and because of shea that i just don't worry about them uh but that's not to say that other teams can't crack the code or catch them on the wrong week and all of a sudden okc is in dire straits well how much of the confidence going into the season was born from jada just stepping up in all the moments you would hope that he stepped up in now if he's going to be playing with an arm behind his back all of a sudden you're like hey chet let's like try to be a superstar let's like aspire to take 15 shots a game and actually step into that void if he had those moments and he still has about two months in order to do that i would feel much more confident in them but if you're just playing one superstar and a bunch of role players high level as they might be like that's more of a coin flip than you would like for a team that has historical indicators it's fair also there's the there's the fact the part of this that uh teams are teams and their players are pretty ruthless about not to go back and quote the michael jordan like never tell me that what was that thing where he played one-on-one he was like which knee got repaired and he was like this one he's like you shouldn't have told me that uh there's also the the knowledge of last playoffs people didn't know about jalen's hand that wasn't that wasn't now they tell us after the fact and going into this playoffs these playoffs people will know so i mean there's that um so that that's a factor but uh yeah i was gonna say like did we kind of short change houston in terms of discussion about like their yeah we're gonna get to them i think let's take another break and then we'll go through the remainder of the West. All right. So we kind of diagnosed the East for the most part. But I have the West kind of intertwined in between some of these more middling percentage pies we have here. Which West team, let's start here, do you guys have after the Spurs? I think for me, it's definitively the Wolves. Definitively. Okay. I think so. I just think there's, well, let's say, is the only other candidate the Rockets? are there any other teams we're considering here those are the only two teams left that i have pie for yeah same uh i know the wolves are in a really weird way right now in particular and look they have some atrocious losses like really really awful stuff that you never want to see from a contending team uh but we know who they are when they're right and that's a team that can survive and has survived multiple playoff rounds on consecutive occasions gotten to back-to-back western conference finals like you can't take that stuff away from them and so there's something that's just like a little less hypothetical about them even with all of their weird losses and lulls this season even from the fact that they're still figuring out kind of what their best combinations of players are on a nightly basis and julius randall in particular just had such like an odd season just absolutely indispensable to what they do and yet there are also some games where in the second half i'm like what are you on like i i don't entirely know uh but they're one of the best teams in the league against top opponents even still even with everything going on like this is who they are they play up to quality competition and i just really trust them to do that again and so if i'm if i'm left to choose between the team that has done it and proven it and we know exactly what they're capable of versus a houston offense that i just have less faith in than ever to execute in the half court. I'm going to take the one that feels a little more known at this point. It's so tough to have any sort of confidence in a team where one of your best players is regularly calling you out for like not giving a shit. And now on the one hand, it just feels like Rudy does this every two months or so. And you can almost hear the collective eye rolling happening as he's doing so. But he's not wrong because they fuck around and find out way too much for a team that has so much talent. I mean, you just look at just the resume and also the assemblage of talent. Like, they have the both sides of the ball sort of balance that I think we're hoping for with some of these contenders that, like, the Spurs don't have that offensively. Even the Nuggets don't have it defensively. They have the size. And now with Io back in there, you could see the transition game just pop, and they were already a top-ten transition team. Like, watching him fucking in one game just, like, move the ball immediately down the court and just, like, in a blink of an eye. Like he and he must be like up there with Fox and some of the fastest guys in the league at this point. And it just gives them the extra pop that you were hoping for that perhaps papers over some of this sort of internal stuff that they've been dealing with. Having said that, like, are we sure when this podcast comes up and they play, I think the Blazers tonight, are they not going to lose by 20? They might because the Blazers are so formative, but just because like this happens for them. I just they're just untrustworthy, but also probably the most appealing team on the board. Yeah, it's a weird combination because they're when they are sloppy and they're sloppy quite often. It's just a disaster scenario. Like you just see a team imploding in real time as a result of even just like their inability to kind of get into their offense at some point. Like everything I said about Dylan Harper and Steph Castle and De'Aaron Fox, like not being able to make the reads. This is a team that just struggles to like, can you make like a pass to enter into your offense? Like, can you do the most basic possible shit in order to be a competitive team? And some days they really, really just do not have it for some reason. Yeah. Randall can be a little bit of a catalyst in that direction. That's why I was laughing when you said that about him having a weird year. It's like he just has been this way. I've said this before, but he was that way when he was here at Kentucky. He had this weird season, and it was like the chemistry on the team was weird. You were like, why can't they do anything? And then they got near the spring, near the tournament. It was like, oh, this guy's like the best player in the country. and they just locked into place and went on a run. And that has been the experience with him year after year. And I think the Wolves just had – Did they lose two that year, by the way? I don't fucking remember, Justin, okay? I don't replay that. I didn't have people over to my house and sit in silence after that game was over. That didn't happen. I just have it on a constant loop in my house. Yeah, right. But anyway, goddammit, Justin. No, I mean they have these wins that they sort of can drift with, I think in terms of like, who's the catalyst in the culture, because and it's so easy. Lucky. He's just kind of going with the flow. Rudy gets annoyed with things and he'll say something in the press. I thought Chris Finch's response to that was pretty funny. I'd pay money to hear whatever they said behind the scene, but it makes you wonder, I don't know, like bands go through this sometimes where like bands that have been through the wars and they've recorded some albums when they like, they're trying to get creatively charged up. You, you collaborate with somebody like, I don't know. I always think of like the Billy Preston with the Beatles thing. That was right before they broke up. But like Io comes in and he is just an inherently like he doesn't know any other way. He plays hard. He plays fast. It makes you wonder if they'll kind of like they're definitely an oh shit team where it's like they have to kind of see the they have to kind of see the barricade up ahead of them to be like, all right, we need to like steer the car here and like go in the right direction. I kind of think that they will. But you're right. It doesn't make any sense to put them below Houston because they have proven it time and time again. And I don't want to deprive them of that because they have. Well, I think it hits on an interesting question, which is if this is a weird year, shouldn't like the weirdest team on the board be taken more seriously than usual? So the Hornets or who? Do you have the Hornets? As much as I would have loved to give them some crumbs, even I couldn't do it. Not even a 0.2% crumb? Maybe we'll make an amendment. Just a fun crumb. One fun molecule. It's like the little leftover piece of dough for the pie crust that you just threw on the pan. It's like, fuck it. I'll just eat this as a little pie crust chip when it comes out of the oven. That's the Hornets. A little seasoning on it crunches. Pie crust chip? Oh, yeah. Are you just throwing away? What are you doing? Are you throwing away scraps of dough? What are you doing? Yeah. I just did like a Patrick Warburn. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm like, I got to say, I am of the persuasion where I'm like cookie cuttering that thing into some little shape for decor on top of the pie for sure. So nothing is going to waste over here. But also the scraps, like that's perfectly good pie dough. Why are we throwing away pie dough? Susie Homemaker over here. Look, guilty as charged. Yeah. You follow this guy's Instagram? He does. I'm like, where are you? What's going on? Are you at Nohu? Are you at home? I don't like who's to say really. do they know you at nobu yet no it's honestly not my vibe over there oh not yet goes out to nice restaurants on super bowl sunday i think that tells you everything you need to know about him a man's distinguished taste i actually kind of really like that idea especially how bad the super bowl was you're telling me it was time well spent watching this year's super bowl it was not but i did make nachos and nachos fucking rip no argument there They do rip. Man, I'm a sucker for some nachos and loaded, too. I'll destroy them. I have to be... Controversial takes on this pod. Nachos good. I have to be restrained. I'm just like, even if we're in a nice restaurant, they're like short rib nachos with chicken, but grilled cheese. I'm just like, let's do this. Short rib nachos. Any kind of nachos. It's a problem. I need to make some short rib nachos next week. There we go. All right. So we hit the wolves. Do we need to talk about the Rockets? or does everyone just feel the same flatness as i do i think we need to talk about them a little bit just because look the defense is still great they ultimately still have one of the best shot makers in the world and there's still like a good offensive rebounding team it's just i wish i wish that everything didn't have to be so difficult and that they didn't have to gut out so many like long drawn out possessions uh in order to just like make ends meet but it really feels like they do and we're over a long enough stretch now where since january 1st they have the 23rd ranked offense in the nba it's just kind of becoming who they are like they are a team that struggles to get into their stuff that struggles to navigate any kind of pressure defensively and rely so much on duran and shangun to bail them out and then after that rely so much on getting any kind of second chance opportunities or dominating the possession battle in order to win i think history tells us that just like not good enough in the playoffs that that not going to be like reliable and bankable enough in the way that you need it to be four times out of seven series after series after series yeah i mean it's just kind of basic like art of war stuff they go look for your supply line first that's what happens in the playoffs and if you did you guys watch is that what you do in war you go after the supply lines you like a katan like general over here i mean it is what you do age of empire because you play that game are you not up on blockades justin what do you do it what the fuck are you talking about wait when you you're trying to murder another like population you go after their supplies yeah starve them out i mean and then they're more vulnerable yeah guess who's more vulnerable The people with no food and no, like, I guess in those days, gunpowder, you know, you got to take away the supplies. When the apocalypse inevitably goes down, guys, you have just this was our campaign race here. Justin is not apt and fit to lead. Come follow me and Rob and we'll lead you to victory. You're going to starve with Justin. I'm just practicing peace and love. Yeah, always. Well, have fun with that as you get murdered. Now, I mean, did you guys watch the Hornets? Speaking of Hornets, did you guys watch the Hornets-Rockets game? I thought that that was a great indicator of what's going on. We're taxing our guy KD too much. I'm an all-time KD defender, but he's out there trying to make. He's a tough shot maker, but this is like the Olympics of tough shot making that he's being asked to do on a consistent basis. The Hornets in particular are really giving him a hard time. But if they're not going to have that opportunity to win, to sort of seizing that possession battle that happens on the glass, which was a huge advantage for them, it's just like they don't have enough points of entry into their offense. It's not multifaceted enough. You're loading up on KD. There's nothing easy for him. Reed has been good, but he's in orbit of things like that. He hasn't proven yet that he can be a source of offense and decision-making in a way, especially in a playoff series. So I just feel like they're going to be overtaxed. And another thing, too, I think that's important is we need to recalibrate expectations. We do that with the Lakers sometimes with the timelines and things, but the Rockets, they lost Fred VanVleet. They've been kind of repurposing this year. It's been a little bit of a pivot, so I guess it shouldn't be surprising that we're here, but I have a hard time seeing them go multiple rounds. They're putting KD in the worst possible spot, and we've seen this time and time again, where they need him to do too much as opposed to asking him to do too much when necessary. And that is when he tends to just kind of stay in his lane, do what he can, but it doesn't really filter out into everybody and galvanize them in a way that like as a collective allows them to overcome sort of the disadvantages, which is why he was so great in Oklahoma City and Golden State, but not in some of his more recent destinations. and just losing Adams and Van Vliet were the type of like connectors to make the style of play that they wanted really shine and you've seen not only the team struggle but Adoka in particular struggle to adapt to like what is clearly a new environment to where like he seems just so rigid in the way he does things which is great for a team when they don't have any sort of identity or just any sort of perspective on how to win games which is what the Rockets were when he stepped into that job and now that like they kind of have the foundation for that you almost want him to be a little bit more exploratory and he feels a little bit too dug in in order to dig out like a really successful season considering where they are he's not an exploratory coach it's just like not the way he devises offense it's not the way he runs a rotation it's like he's not in the business of giving chances to things it's more locking in on what the soul of a team is and should be and like drilling it drilling it drilling it drilling it and that can be really successful to a point but you also see the limitations of it like this is a team that could use a lot of offensive ingenuity like if you have non-traditional point guards and you're going to run so much of your offense through someone like shangun like you need to like diversify those entry points because as kyle said like the players are not going to be the ones doing it the mechanism needs to do it and the rockets don't have that sophisticated a half-court offense and so then you end up in this place where as we've been saying kevin duran is asked to do a ton the shooting is like kind of there but isn't always there because the spacing is so cluttered that the passing isn't clean and the flow of the offense just goes off the rails so quickly and even for a team that has a lot of guys that we like you look up and you're just like wow this is really depending on dorian finney smith and clint capella to do a lot like they are just now really critical members of this team with adams and van vliet like obviously van vliet's been out the whole way but the the compounding effects of losing two guys who would have been critical to your rotation and now all of a sudden you're running a short rotation with those guys in critical roles. And I, I just get a little more nervous by the day in terms of the rockets. I was really hoping they would make a move at the deadline. They didn't at least want to like add to the rotation in any meaningful way. And so now we're left with exhausting the same formula that has just been like sputtering for the last month plus. And I don't, I don't see any reason to think that's going to change. It's very, very tipsy in what you're describing with Emei. And then, but the other thing too, though, man, is you're talking about some kind of scheme-driven solution to what you're going to do. At best, in the playoffs, that is like a Scooby-Doo, Natsack mask, where in the playoffs, they pull it off. They're like, yes, you're actually who we thought you were. So I don't even know at the end of the day if the players, the personnel is the thing that needs to be there, and I'm just not confident that it is. But Kyle, I'm not even asking for playoff success. I'm just asking for us to be tricked. Like, could we be sitting here in February thinking like, oh man look at all this elaborate action that will definitely work in april and may they don't even have that like there's really not even an argument that this team is going to be good enough offensively unless you just really want to take the most possible zoomed out crudest full season metrics that still say houston is a good to decent offense and i just think there's been so much like recent evidence to the contrary that i don't know how you would fully buy that as we're talking tricks up our sleeve let's talk about the celtics just quickly here because they They were the last team I had with Pi. We didn't talk about them in the East race, but they have the biggest growth potential of any of these. If you really want to buy low on a stock, they're really the one. Tatum, as we're recording this Wednesday early morning on the Pacific Coast, Tatum is doing five-on-five drills in the G League, which is something. Which means I would expect him to be back after the All-Star break. Seems reasonable at this point. um do you guys feel like you're waiting to see how he plays or i don't know like because part of me like almost wants to just immediately put them with the top contenders especially in the east because if he is like anything approximating what he was last year like this can get good pretty quickly and they're already third in the east right now yeah so i have them tied with the calves at six percent i like that and that isn't like you're right those are kind of the two growth elements here i think harden the harden trade is probably the single move at the deadline or in the lead up to it that had the biggest impact on the actual title race right that is that is a player who has dramatically changed that team's trajectory and style of play and in the case of jason tatum coming back there's just no way to know what he's going to be capable of and what kind of role he's going to occupy for them and frankly anyone who tells you they do know is lying to you like jason tatum is coming back from a huge major injury and long-term rehab and i i love that he's getting five on five time i love that we've been talking about him coming back there's just no way to know what he's going to be and so you have a celtics team that i would say has probably more of a regular season profile as constructed like there's definitely a magic to what they've been doing but it feels like the kind of magic that leads to 82 game over performance and then when you get into the playoffs, you see some of the flaws come to bear in terms of the rotation that they're trying to manage. Jason Tatum theoretically fixes a lot of that stuff and just shores up the roster and shores up the rotation in such a significant way. If everything clicks into place, I think they have to have like a non-trivial percentage of the pie here. Like the possibility is real and on the board and the opportunity in the East is so clearly in front of them that you have to give them at least 5%. And so I ticked it up to six. Dr. Robbie over here just diagnosing what's going on with Tatum. I'm trying. I like it. That's bold. I think you're right. I almost feel like I was a little too squeamish because I don't know what's going on. But I think if you want to be ahead of the game, it's like a pretty good possibility that they end up, I don't know, making the conference finals even. Yeah. There's a lot of tricky things to balance, too, because the thing that sort of pushed them to this third place, I mean, like it or not, Anthony Simons played a role in that. And then you remove him from it and you add and you add you had Vucevic. And then I think a big thing that maybe is being overlooked here is if Tatum is going to come back. I mean, a big part of Tatum's value is this is two way, you know, acumen. And I think is he going to be able to come back and be at that level? If he is, I'm just a little it is very wait and see for me. I was going to ask you all about like I still lean towards Cleveland over them. And I keep kind of asking myself, why? Why do I keep believing in hard? And I'm like, it's very Lucy, Lucy, Charlie football thing. And I'm like, if Harden came back and they got to the finals and then they somehow miraculously I have them at six percent. Would that be the biggest legacy rehabilitation ever? If Harden somehow orchestrated that, like because I'm trying to think of like guys in his bill always says, call him alone. I'm just trying to think of other stars. Chris Webber, these guys who are very, very prolific. Nobody, you know, Hall of Famers. Would that be would that be the biggest? I don't think it all comes to mind, but that's a different situation. Yeah, the shit in the bed factor of it, though. I don't know if it would even would that be enough to sort of rectify all that? I mean, the pieces would be written. The takes would be made. It would probably by us on this podcast. I was going to say, would you be writing them? Well, maybe not writing them, but speaking them into existence on this podcast. That's for sure. I think everything with Harden is so weird because obviously he has this outsized reputation as a as a playoff choker right as someone who does not show up in the biggest possible games. But you know what he does do is he gets you to the biggest possible games. Like we talk about him as if he's just like a first round flame out every single time. This stint with the Clippers has not gone very successfully in part because of their health. but otherwise most teams he's on like at least get to the second round or sometimes get to the conference finals and then or bump up against historically great competition like golden state and then all of a sudden can't like can't quite get over the hump of that he's flawed he clearly has like the individual games where you really need him to show up and he does not like that's inarguable but the overall playoff body of work is still pretty good and all and the calves are in need of a team, a need of a player, frankly, who's going to get them a little bit deeper, a little bit further. And that's where you hope the synergy with Donovan Mitchell pays off, where Harden gets you to the point and then Donovan Mitchell takes the moment. And if that handoff can be successful, and that's something where Mitchell isn't so taxed by the process of getting there like he was with past Cavs teams, I think you can see a vision of this formula really working for them. I feel like it's the type of thing, the longer we go away from his playing days will kind of fade into obscurity if he does ultimately win one like right now if he won one it would be like he won one but he fucking choked like x y z times and like we'll go we'll go through all that but over time it will flip to where it's like oh he he did this but ultimately he won an mvp he kind of changed the game in certain ways and he won a title i do think it's funny watching back like the last dance of some of the documentary boom that's been happening over the couple of years and how much people were fucking the worst chokers in history until they won one and then ultimately became the game's biggest winners like it happened to Jordan happened to Kobe and obviously this is a completely different situation because the body of work of choking is pretty prolific at this point with Harden but I do think like at the very least it will be turned on his head if he won one and this might be his best and perhaps his best last chance in order to do so because I find myself in the same way that you're thinking Kyle where it's like the ball is popping immediately the chemistry is there people seem activated in the ways that they haven't been Mobley isn't playing maybe that like almost over complicate situation where right now it's like Harden Allen pick and roll big pick and roll ball handler everything kind of fits but at the same time if Mobley just kind of slots in and becomes the defensive destructor guy that like he has been and that is the like the expectation for him it kind of works out because I do feel like this is their like magic bullet season right now because that second abram i believe they jumped over in order to make all these deals things are going to get more and more complicated next year i do wonder if the the calves are going to pay the bill for this team going forward and so things are kind of aligning in a weird way for the calves in a way that i probably wouldn't have expected even when they made that trade originally yeah and for them to be at this point given the way we were talking about them a month or two ago it's just been like they started to kind of get their season back together on their own and then this move just catalyzes everything that they had working for them it's kind of dirt dirt kind of went through it a little bit i mean yeah i don't know the same the same level yeah i'm just like the years and then he had that one run i'm just thinking it's not on the level of like a mitch richmond lakers thing where it's like you're just really trying to get one um it's it's he would be instrumental in it i don't know i kind of i do kind of wonder if the perimeter defensive thing, if that ass is going to get whooped a little bit in the playoffs. We'll see. Will that ass get whooped in the playoffs? This could be a full recurring segment for us. I had that down as my next question here. Will that ass get whooped? I think that's all the pie for Kyle and I. Rob, do you want to go through your morsels? I did have I gave out one crumb Okay so These are the teams that I took Pie away from in various increments The Lakers to me are off the board If LeBron James says this is not a championship team I'm inclined to believe him The Toronto Raptors who I think have acclimated Themselves as like a real deal playoff Team but just don't have the high end Potential that you really need to get in this conversation The Heat and the Magic I gave Like crumbs of crumbs last time And both of them are just not here I couldn't help myself though from giving a 1% crumb to the Philadelphia 76ers. I figured that's where you're going. Yeah. I did hover. The cursor hovered for me. It was a hovering cursor. I didn't do it. A classic hovering cursor situation. I just think Joel's been too good, like too dominant, frankly. And Maxie's been too consistently great to not at least think about them in this conversation. And plus, zoom out a little further. And that starting five without Paul George with Dominic Barlow in there has just been one of the best higher usage lineups in the nba overall this season if you're looking for a team that has a chance to overperform if you're looking for a team that like yeah the season-long metrics say one thing but this latest stretch with joel and beat in full form say another one entirely this is the place you look like this is this is a team that's changing and transforming right in front of our eyes and there are nights where they'll really convince you and i think if they were in the west there just probably wouldn't be enough wiggle room for them to make a real run but in the east i'm i'm open to the possibility that they could at least upset somebody and if that happens why not i considered it for all the reasons that you're laying out unfortunately they just played here in portland a game where i built my week around that schedule uh and unfortunately and b did not suit up which was really cool love the nba uh i watching the bottom fall out on the roster when he's not around and barlow didn't play as well so it's bad mention that like it gets pretty dire pretty quickly it's real like save us marjan bochamp like immediately which is not a good place to be in and so like if mb doesn't play a game in a playoff series this thing can cook pretty quick yeah they're completely reliant on him being healthy and being active and being just this good which is to say over the last 15 20 games he's been i think the most prolific scorer in the entire league so this is kind of what they need from him to make the rest of the rotation work. And then hopefully you get Paul George back from his suspension and are able to incorporate him in a relatively seamless way. But you're right. The rest of the rotation is not great. You're hanging a lot on Embiid. You're hanging a lot on Maxi. You're hanging a lot on BJ Edgecombe to really pop in the moments you need him to pop. And then other than that, even us diehard Trenton Watford defenders can't sit here with a straight face and say that he is going to save the world on the nights where Embiid doesn't play. It's just not feasible for them. legions of Watford believers. I hope that's true. I wish beyond wish that that's true, but it doesn't seem to be based on the Trenton Watford newsletter that I run. All right. That's the pie. Was it yummy for you guys? Why are you doing that? Why? Yeah, I need to take a shower now. Why are you doing that? All right. That'll do it for today's episode. we'll be back Monday morning so get your schedules ready adjust your iPhone alerts to make sure that you're up at the crack of dawn to watch us on Netflix Monday morning thank you to Isaiah Blakely thank you to Ben Cruz thank you to Jonathan Frias for filling in on production we'll talk to you next time you