Revealing The True NBA Finals Contenders + Tight NBA Awards Races & Things To Watch Down The Stretch

Hello, welcome to the Hoop Collective podcast. We talk about the NBA, which we're doing on Monday night, which we're doing for various reasons, mostly because of my issues. So hopefully this won't go too stale. Joining us from New York City is Tim Bontemps. You know, McMahon, when I listened to the pod Monday morning and I heard Brian open up with a five-minute speech about how he was sick and getting sicker. I wasn't really sure if we were going to be doing any pods at all this week or maybe ever again. So I'm glad we're here at least for one more before our guy wastes away. Yeah, well, I told you guys a minute ago, I literally woke up this morning with a full slate of TV booked, and I did not know if I could speak. And so I literally spoke out loud, testing one, two, three. And this voice came out and was deemed good enough to limp through. Drives from Dallas, Texas, where he's just back from the West Coast, is Van McMahon. Howdy, partners. I returned home with a light case of the sniffles, but I'm going to brave through this. I'm just going to fight through it, tough it out. Here we go, baby. All right. Well, happy All-Star break, everybody. McMahon looks like you got a heck of a tan for the people watching. He does. It's the YouTubes and the TV channels. A little bit of sun. You know, kind of chilly, though. Definitely hoodie weather out there in SoCal. It's a Texan in SoCal, complaining about the weather. I'm not complaining. It was rainy today, but that's okay. So we're in the middle of the All-Star break, and McMahon and I are celebrating with illness, and Bond Tumps is celebrating with infant child. That's adulthood. That's right. That's right. All right. So as we go through this, a few years ago, Daryl Morey crowned something that we call the 5% Club. Bon Temps, you want to explain what the 5% Club is if folks don't know? Yeah. I don't remember what year it was, but Daryl, I think it was during the Rockets battles with the Warriors, where essentially he said, if you have a 5% or better chance of winning the title, you should go all in to try to win the title every year. You have that level of percent chance. And so it's become sort of a shorthand around the league, I would say, for teams that you think have a somewhat realistic shot of winning a title in a given year. In different years, there's different numbers of teams that are in that group. I personally think we'll see how many everybody agrees on, But I think this year, in part because the East is maybe the most wide open conference we've ever seen, I think there might be a lot more in it than people might think. 2012, the 5% rule, which was the 5% rule, the 5% theory, which he did in a piece with our colleague Zach Lowe. Well, before the Warriors dynasty. I thought it was later. I would have bet the under on that or the over on that. That's what my brief Google search provided, that it was on in the Grantland column. And by the way, when he says 5% rule, he's like, he wasn't guessing. It wasn't like a feel thing. Right. It's based on simulations. Every team has their own internal analytics department. I do have our basketball power index, which is our little nerdy number formula. Anybody want to guess how many teams this year would qualify based on the BPI? Why? Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves because we're going to say our 5%. Well, but that's just by the numbers. It's not ours. Well. I was just looking it up to get the numbers, so you beat me to it, McMahon. I would guess there's eight total. I thought it'd be somewhere between six and eight. It's half that. There are only four. Oh, interesting. I will not get ahead of myself any further. I will alert you when we discuss those four. All right. I will say that one of the rules that I pay attention to, I think there's a run. I don't know if Jackson can find this. I should have prepared you for this, Jackson. The consecutive years where a team has won the championship, who's been in the top, I believe, top seven in both offense and defense. I think it's quite a few years in a row. And it doesn't matter where they're ranked in February. In all honesty, it matters where they're ranked at the end. Was Denver a top seven defense? pretty sure they were not, but I will check. I understand why you're asking that. It goes back two years? Yeah. Two glorious years. It's a good shorthand, though, for sure. Whether it's every single year, it's a very good shorthand. If you're not going to be top and one... Denver was 8th. Top 7th. 13th. If you're not going to be a top 7 defense team... Denver was 8th. 13th? Yeah. Just have the best offense that we've seen in a long time. Right. Okay. So let's just say it's roughly top 10. You need to be, you generally need to be top 10 in both offense and defense. There may be an outlier or two, but that's a, that's a rule that, you know, I think leads to 5%. That's a big component of it. So, all right. So we're going to take a look here at the teams that we believe have the five that are in the five, have a 5% chance. people like my conceit even though Bontemps has also been doing this for years but people always ask me about the idea of booking hotel rooms when we you know that's sort of like our the way we think a team has a chance to make it where do we book hotel rooms in the finals and I currently only have one set of hotel rooms booked in the finals actually I have two I have two I'm behind on this as well. I've got three. Bontemps probably has like eight. I actually only have one. I haven't gone through and done it. The one for all of us is OKC. Yeah. OKC. The second one has an asterisk in it because the World Cup is in Foxborough this year in June. And Boston hotel rooms are notoriously difficult to book in the spring. Oh. So I booked Boston hotel rooms, not because I think the Celtics are going to get there, although obviously, you know, they certainly could. But it's, you know, it's more about World Cup than than anything else. So, yes, I reserve the right, obviously, to add or delete as those come. And by the way, just real quick, because I've seen some people say something about this. Hotel rooms are, you know, you don't book. You don't obviously you can book hotel rooms prepaid, but. we don't. We don't book hotel rooms that are prepaid. That's right. So it's not, I said people, I've said in the past, I spent $0. Anyway. I think the most interesting way I think to start this then is how many other teams in the West do we give a real shot? Because I would say I personally would only give one. Okay. I would say two. BPI still has OKC is 56. 7.9 percent they have got a 57.9 percent chance to win the championship that feels pretty damn high i would love i'll bet oklahoma city would sign up for that right now okay yeah i think okc is still clearly the favorites but i don't know if i if i would wager okc versus the field right now i mean obviously if basically 58 you would uh bpi does not have any other five percenters in the West, I would have two. I would give a little slice of that OKC percentage to the Nuggets, who are 3.9 here, and a little slice to the Spurs, who are 3.6. Spurs are interesting because even though they had such a tremendous record against the Thunder in the regular season, they did not do anything at the deadline. And, you know, there are some teams that are, that don't want to do significant deals at the deadline. They don't believe in it. A year ago, the Spurs traded for De'Aaron Fox at the deadline. Now, I think that was about the value, that they liked the value they were getting from the things in that deal. And they saw him as a core player going forward. Obviously, they later signed him to a max extension or a max deal. But I wondered, Bon Temps, what do I take away from the fact that the Spurs didn't do anything at the deadline? because that sort of violates the Mori rule. Not that you have to do something, but the concept is that's when you go all in. And so I wonder if the Spurs internally believe their number is closer to 3.9 than the over five that we may want to give it. Well, if you're going by that, then the entire league doesn't think they can win the title because the only team in the top 10 that really made an aggressive top 10 in terms of wins at the deadline that made any sort of aggressive move to get better was ironically the Thunder who traded the first and three seconds. That's not true. Cleveland wasn't in the top 10 in wins in the NBA. Take that cat's corner. All right, what about Boston? Half the teams in the... Boston, I mean, Boston traded Anthony Simons for Nick Vucevic, but they largely were, I shouldn't say largely, they got, I would say, marginally better, but the biggest reason they did that was to get marginally better while also getting out of the luxury tax, which is what they did. That was an ancillary benefit. But, I mean, I'm going to put a three-win. No, it wasn't ancillary at all. Half the teams, they were getting out of the luxury tax, and half the teams in the top 10 in wins either got out of the tax, four of them did, or Minnesota saved a lot of money by moving off on Mike Conlon. True, but Minnesota acted like a team with 5%. Oh, we're going to talk about the Spurs. You guys are going to just bicker and argue. Well, to get back to the Spurs, I don't have—the team I would have in the West with a better than 5% chance is Denver. So we're not going to talk about the Spurs. Because I can answer why they didn't make a trade, if you'd like an answer to your question. Well, they obviously didn't have a deal they liked. Because also, they want to see what this young group is. They want to give this young group a chance to prove— Which makes me believe that they don't believe that they're in the 5%. I would tell you, based on the conversations I've had with Spurs folks, they definitely do. They do not lack for confidence or swagger. Okay, but the concept of the 5%, the Daryl Morey 5% is you go all in. Well, and I think a counterpoint to the concept would be Daryl Morey's never won a championship. So I don't know if you necessarily have to do everything the way Daryl Morey would do it, or perhaps you could just run your own franchise the way that you see fit. Well, I understand. He also didn't trade every pick every year that he had. Like, I mean, it's a little. But here's the deal with the Spurs. The Spurs are very similar to where OKC was not last season for the championship run, but the year before that. Right? From, you know, that OKC team was a playing team that didn't make the playoffs and then zoom up to the number one seed. This Spurs team has made a similar leap from not even a playing team to zoom up to right now. the number two seed. Obviously, loaded with young talent. You've got your franchise superstar. You've got core pieces you think are going to be around for a long time. That OKC team did the Gordon Hayward deal that basically did nothing, but it ended up clearing some money out. But they weren't aggressive at the deadline. And honestly, they even helped facilitate a move for the Mavericks at the time. But I don't think you say that OKC team couldn't win the championship. They didn't. but the team that went to the finals out of the West, the Mavericks, in a six-game series, the score was dead even between those teams. So I think the Spurs are, they feel like they got a chance They don feel like they have to do anything to kind of try to fast forward that Having said that did the Thunder not make a midseason move I mean I don think anybody thought Gordon Hayward Basically, every good team in the league this year didn't make a move. So I wouldn't lean back on that. Again, you're slamming the Cavs like the Cavs. They weren't among the top 10 teams in wins in the league at the trade deadline. If you are reading the Spurs' lack of activity at the trade deadline as an indication that they don't have confidence, I would tell you you are reading it incorrectly. Now, the Rockets, that's a different story. The Spurs, I'm just telling you, that is a group that believes they've got a real deal chance right now. I know Victor believes it. I know Victor believes it. I'm telling you. The Spurs. The people making decisions believe it. Yeah, I think they think they have a chance. I just think at the end of the day, for me, they're going to have to beat the Nuggets and the Thunder to get to the finals. I don't think they're doing that. A team this young that's ever been in the playoffs has never gone all the way to the finals. And perhaps they will buck that trend and buck all of NBA history. I very much think they're going to be in the mix for a long time. The comparison to the Thunder team two years ago, I think, is apt on many levels. We've talked about it multiple times. and it would not shock me at all if they win their first round series and they're in a very competitive second round series against Denver and they lose in six or seven games. Like, I think if you simulate this out, I think that's probably the most realistic outcome. And then they add some stuff this summer. They get some seasoning for all these young guys. They come back next year and they're right there taking off and they're going to be in the mix for a long time. But Nikola Jokic is obviously, has gotten to the end. Jamal Murray is playing the best basketball of his career. We'll see if Denver can get healthy. It might be a year where they just can't get all their guys on the floor. But to me, if I'm putting anybody else in that group out west, but the way Houston's fallen off, Minnesota's got flaws, et cetera, Denver's the only team I could put up there with OKC to really be in that group. Spurs number seven in offense, number three in defense. Yeah, Spurs would be third on my list. the Nuggets are list and the Nuggets their tread deadline activity was to uh duck the luxury tax which is reasonable given where they were they're hoping their additions will be getting Aaron Gordon healthy getting Christian Brown back into form getting Cam Johnson back into form getting Peyton Watson now back I mean they've really dealt with a ton of injuries including Joker for a month and they're still there in the three seed and you know I agree with you Bond Timps in sense of, hey, we don't have to wonder if the Nuggets can win a championship. We've seen this core win a championship. Denver Nuggets, number one in offense, number 24 in defense. That would be a minor concern, but I don't have it right in front of me. But I think if you look up where they are defensively with Aaron Gordon on the floor, it's a hell of a lot better than 24. And listen, if Gordon's not healthy, which unfortunately he's had a real hard time staying healthy for the last two seasons. If Gordon's not healthy, they don't have a chance to win a championship. He's absolutely the clue that, you know, that elevates them to that level. But I agree. Number eight in offense, number seven in defense, Minnesota Timberwolves. Yeah. And they went to the, by the way, Timberwolves, and this is, they've got a 2.0% chance. I'm not arguing that they're in 5%. I'm just saying that they satisfy. And they did go to the conference finals the last couple years, but Tim Conley's telling us what he believes, and that's that they need another superstar. Yeah. He went after KD twice. Action's overworked, yeah. Yeah, at the deadline end of the summer. He went after Giannis, you know, despite the fact that the odds are stacked against him with their pick situation. And he did that knowing that it was going to complicate things from a, you know, just player, like an ego management standpoint. or a psychology standpoint within the locker room, if he thought they were a championship team, he wouldn't be that aggressive to go after another star. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. All right. What does BPI say? How many teams in the Eastern Conference have 5% or more? Three. Would you like me to read them or do you just want me to alert you when we talk about them? No, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Cavs corner. Cavs corner. 5.3. Now, I don't know exactly what all goes in the BPI. Bontemps slander could not get enough in there. The Detroit Pistons, the first place Detroit Pistons, 9.3. And those New York Knickerbockers, 9.7. All right. New York Knicks are number three in offense. Number 11 in defense. close but not quite there. Cavaliers number five in offense, number 12 in defense. 12 and two in their last 14. Detroit Pistons number 10 in offense, number two in defense. Yeah. So the Pistons are somewhat like the Spurs. They did have a hard-fought six-round playoff series against the Knicks last year, but to go from never having won a playoff series as a group to a championship, that's a pretty massive leap. It's basically unheard of. It's the same situation. I mean, the only remotely comparable one is, and I'll give Vinny Goodwill, our colleague, credit for this in the piece we wrote last week. Vincent Goodwill Esquire. The 95 Magic basically were the same. I think they got swept in the first round the year before, and then they went to the finals. the next year. It's basically the only comparison. That's like voting Shaq most improved player as a second-year player. But, hey, for Victor, I'd say, okay, if you have just a historically dominant and talented and unique big man who's ascending, then it makes it a possibility. I love Jalen Dern. I wouldn't put him in that category. Now, Cade Cunningham's obviously the face of their franchise. eyes. I think the Pistons have a very good chance to come out of the East. The other thing is coming out of the East still puts you pretty slim odds of winning a championship if one of these three teams that we think is coming out of the West will be there. If you win 12 playoff games, you're going to have a chance. Yeah, to me, that's the reason I said at the beginning that I think there's a lot more teams in this group than people might think off the cuff. It's like last year, we got to the NBA Finals and I did not think it was going to be a long series about the Indiana Pacers. We're going to lose in four or five games. And they were up in game seven on the road when Tyrese Halberton got hurt, right? So, like, if you can get to the finals, you have a 5% chance. And to me, the thing that's interesting about this season is I think there's at least five teams in the East that you could look at and say they have a real chance to win the Eastern Conference. Detroit obviously deserves to be there. Hold on. What? Number two in offense, number nine in defense. against the Boston Celtics. Yeah, so I was going to say. Without Tatum. Right. So the three teams that... They satisfy that. Right. The three teams that Tim mentioned all obviously deserve to be seen as having a real chance to win. Detroit, Cleveland, and New York. I think at this point you have to say that the Celtics are in that category also. And there's another obvious team that I'm blanking on at the top of the East as well. You're talking about Philly? Well, Philly, I think, is on the outside of that, but is, I think, talented enough where if they could stay healthy, which the chances of that are slim. Oh, Toronto is the other team in the top six. I don't think I could get there with Toronto. I can't get it. You could talk me to Philly more than Toronto just because you could talk me to Embiid. I think it's four with an outside shot at five. But even four teams. Toronto, number 16 in offense, and Scottie Barnes-led defense, number 6. Yeah, where's Philly? Philly, number 13 in offense, and number 15 in defense. By the way, BPI gives Toronto a 0.1% chance, and Philly a 0.2% chance. Yeah, I mean, I don't like Toronto's offense enough. obviously the rating backs that up. The Raptors have trouble shooting. I think when teams can really key in on them in the playoffs, I think it's going to be hard for them to get enough offense to advance more than a round. But look, if Philly is healthy at the end, like we've talked about, they have the high-end talent to where they could make some noise in the playoffs. But again, having all that line up and everybody stay healthy and get through three rounds of the playoffs, you can't be predicting that to happen right now. But those other four teams, all of them have a real credible argument to get through. And that's like you said, McMahon, with Jason Tatum sitting out there as an unknown quantity. And by the way, he has now been practicing. And, you know, I don't think nobody in Boston is obviously predicting he's definitely coming back. But I think barring a setback, it's safe to think that's the realistic outcome as he comes back and plays at some point this season. and if he could just give them something on top of what they already have, they might be good enough to get to the finals right now, and that's with him, like you said, not even part of the equation at all. If he just comes back and is a new rotation piece for them over the final two months of the season in the playoffs, that would be a huge addition for the Celtics. Over the last 15 games, number one offense, number nine defense. How much do we think Lucevic? Cleveland Cavaliers. Oh, I'm sorry. You're moving on to Cleveland. Of course, he's going to Cavs Corner. Zip right by Vooch. He's been all fired up about Cavs Corner. My answer on Vooch moving the knee was going to be not much anyways. But, oh, yes. Let's talk about those. I don't think Vooch is going to start, so it's not really going to matter. He'll be an okay bench player for them, but he'll basically replace Sanford E. Simons off the bench. We've turned the corner right into Cavs Corner, the sizzling Cavs Corner. And, listen, they've got James Harden, which guarantees a deep, deep successful playoff run. Deep second round series. I will say that something that happened that was interesting last week, it didn't get a lot of attention because there was a lot of stuff going on in the league. But Lawrence Frank gave an update on Darius Garland. And so Garland had been out with a right toe sprain. He was there that night, Bon Temps, when he sprained his toe in Philly. In Philly, yeah. And Lawrence Frank said that his right toe is healed, but he is out indefinitely with the left toe, which is what he had surgery on and re-injured earlier this year, I think in November in Miami. And so it sort of sheds a little bit of light on why the Cavs put a second round pick in that deal. Because Darius Garland isn't, you know, he's not, he's, you know, he's still battling that left foot. And, you know, it also illustrates why the Cavs felt like, you know, for trying to maximize this season, why they moved off of Garland. Because I don't, just don't think they knew where his health was going to be. Yeah, we've talked about it. They've got to win. The Cavs have to win this season. They've got to convince Donovan Mitchell to want to be there long term. James Harden obviously is not going to be as good as Darius Garland six years from now, but you can't worry about six years from now. You've got to worry about the next six months, and he's definitely an upgrade right now. No disrespect to the 12-2 record over the last 14 games, but there's been a lot of, I would say, subpar opponents in that stretch for the Cavs. Listen if you in the Eastern Conference you going to have a lot of subpar opponents Well there a lot of subpar opponents out West too and they played some of them lately But coming up over the next couple weeks they play on a Sunday afternoon on ABC on the 22nd against OKC Two days later, they're at home against the Knicks. Later that week, they play the Pistons on the road. They then have a set where they play the Pistons, the Celtics, and the Sixers all in one week at home coming up. So we're going to get some real tests over the next couple of weeks to see just where, you know, this James Harden, Donovan Mitchell led Cavs team is. But when they were cooking last year, it was with Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell giving them 48 minutes of high level offense. And they had this unbelievable offense all the way through. And James Harden is a really good distributor and still can generate a lot of offense. And he has immediately come in and given them right back to that 48 minutes of high level orchestration with the ball. And, And, you know, it looks a lot more like last year right away. And by the way, James Harden is not Gary Payton by any means, but he is a bigger, sturdier, better defender than Darius Garland, which will help the Cavs at that end too. And he'll rebound. Yeah, true. The thing I've been a little bit impressed and a little bit surprised with is that their clutch chemistry has been so immediate and seemed like so easy. And, you know, that's not saying anything about either a guy, Donovan Mitchell or James Harden. But typically, when you acquire a star midseason, it takes a little bit of time to kind of get a feel. Like, for example, when the Mavericks got Kyrie, obviously Kyrie and Luka ended up clicking. They went to a finals together. But that first season, every time they got in a clutch situation, it was like overly deferring. You could see them like actually looking at each other and like trying to figure it out in the moment. I remember. Yeah, there was the one play against the Timberwolves where they passed the ball back and forth to each other three or four times until it was a turnover in the final seconds. With Donovan and James, you know, and again, we're talking about basically, what is it, a two-game sample size, but they've executed down the stretch. It wasn't a my turn, your turn type of thing. And I do think the pecking order, like James is still going to have to score for them. He's still going to have to make some big shots. But there is a very, very clear and defined pecking order. It is Donovan Mitchell's franchise. And James is coming in there to be his number, you know, the number two guy and the table setter. Bonus team. What's that? Bonus team. Bonus team? A team that we are talking about as a bonus. In the last 15 games, number two offense, number six defense. Charlotte. Eastern Conference. We're not putting Charlotte in the 5% club. The Buzz City Killers. What we need Charlotte to do is to make the playoffs first. And I do think Charlotte— I'm just pointing it out. There are no question the Hornets have found something. They're turning in the right direction. I do believe they can be a pesky first-round foe for somebody. And then I think there will be reason to be excited about the Hornets going into the summer. So we're into the phase of the season where we start to really pay attention to the award races. The MVP is going to heat up here, and that's going to be a fascinating race, which we'll talk about plenty. But I thought we would, at this point here at the All-Star break, take a look at some of the other award races. And let's start off with one that's going to be a war of attrition, which I think is Defensive Player of the Year. So right now, Victor Wembenyama is eligible. And if he stays eligible, I think he's got a great chance to win. But he's got, you know, he's got three games left. I think two. Well, how does it, don't you get a bonus for playing in the NBA Cup? No, you're right. You're right. He's got 41. I thought he'd missed more games. Yeah, the NBA Cup championship game. He's missed 14 regular season games, but he gets an extra game because they made the cup file. Right. So he can miss four. I think he's the favorite. No. Yeah, four. Yeah, think? Here's the first thing. Here's my advice to all voters. Defense player of the year, the first thing you do is determine, did Wimby hit 65 games? Yes, he's your winner. No, he's not on your ballot. Like, he's the most dominant defensive force in the league by a wide margin. Man, wait till you see Dylan again. Oh, man. He is not going to be happy with that statement. Dylan the villain? Well, you won't see Dylan the villain in the first game after the break. I'll tell you that. Yeah. Well, these things happen. He finally got suspended after his 19th technical. 16 of them counted. He got three rescinded. They tried. They tried to keep him from getting him. Listen, if I'm worried about seeing somebody with my opinion that Wimby's the clear-cut defense player of the year as long as he's eligible, if I'm worried about seeing someone, it's a guy who's won four of them. Mansour Gobert. Rudy Gobert. Who you once got a pedicure with. This is a fact. At that point, I believe he had not yet won a single one. Wow. But he's won four of them. If I use another pedicure by now. Have you had one since? Oh, me? I've had – no. Well, here's the thing. I haven't had one. My daughters have figured out, like, if they say, hey, Dad, do you want to go get a pedicure? I'll always say yes because I get to hang out with them. And then I always pay for them. So I've had a few. Anyways, Rudy is third, according to our guy Jackson, at plus 1,400. I don't have the full case in front of me, but there is a pretty strong analytics case. And, of course, you can always start with on-off. They're at 107.9 when he's on the floor, which would be, I believe, second in the league. And then when he's off the floor, that goes all the way up to a lot more than that. Oh, 116.2, which would be pretty far down. So there's a difference between second and a lot worse than second. I think this is a pretty simple race. Like you said, if Victor can avoid injury and stay eligible, he's going to win the award. I think second and 20 seconds is the difference, by the way. Yeah. If Victor is not eligible for the award, I think it comes down to two people. I think it comes down to Rudy, who just laid out his case, and Chet Holger. He will be one of those two. I think Chet would win. Thunder are the best defense in the league. Chet is an excellent defender. I think you can attempt to make an argument that he's in the conversation with Victor. I don't think he's going to beat Victor. But he's had an excellent defensive season and is an excellent defensive player. And I think if Victor doesn't, is not eligible for the award, again, assuming he is healthy and eligible for it, I think it'll be him or Chet. Which will just add to Wemmy's motivation to make sure he plays 65 games, by the way. I think Chet's only missed seven games, so Chet's got a lot more. Chet should be all right. Let's hope he stays healthy. The other factor here, if we're being real honest, Rudy has won four. That ties him for the most all time. The bar for Rudy to get a fifth defense player of the year is pretty high, especially like the guy, for whatever reason you want to speculate or pick, the guy gets heavily criticized, not just by media, but really by a lot of players. He heavily criticizes his own teammates. This is true, too. So, anyways, I just think the bar for Rudy to get a fifth is going to be extraordinarily high. And Chet is the best defensive player on the best defensive team, right? And so, like, that's a pretty easy argument to make. He, you know, I think that you could say he's, I think, most impactful defensive player just because bigs are more impactful with them perimeter defenders. Sure. If you want to say Caruso might just be their best pound for pound defender at this point. And I thought you were going to say Caruso. I mean, they've got Caruso, they've got Case and Wallace, they've got Lou Dorff, they've got all these guys. And French defenders, sorry. Yeah. Good point, Wendy. Yeah. But Case and Wallace is leading the league in steals. I mean, he's great. No, I think Kawhi per game leads the league in steals. Well, Case and Wallace plays more games. Yeah, I'm not sure Kawhi's eligible yet. Well, all right. All right, Coach of the Year. Now, J.B. Bickerstaff is the favorite, I believe. Deserved. For sure. And, you know, if they finish with the number one seed, which I think they've got a six-game lead, it's going to be very compelling. Yeah. I mean, this is a two-horse race. It's him and Joe Mazzulla. That's what I would say. Yeah. You know. Those are the two I would pick. I'll tell you what, though, man. JB is minus 165 on DraftKings, according to Jackson. I do think we should at least mention two guys from the West. And they're both kind of, sort of, I think, technically rookie head coaches. But Mitch Johnson has to get some credit for what the Spurs are doing. Absolutely. You know, for the— George Adams done a phenomenal job, I assume. You know what? Three guys then. David Adelman's the other one. As much as— Oh, sure. We all thought the Nuggets were going to maybe be scuffling around and close to playing territory when Joker was going to be out for a month and all the other injuries that they've had. So I do think we should at least give honorable mentions. And Jordan Ott's a good call. You love giving honorable mentions. Can I give one more honorable mention? There's always a lot of names for coach of the year. But yeah, what do you got? How about the Buzz City Killers gaffer? Hey, if they keep on zooming up. coaching English soccer. Charles Lee has done a great job, obviously, getting those guys turned around. I mean, I just wanted to say, if they end up over 500 after the start that they had. But yeah, I think it's, bigger staff in Missoula or one, two is probably going to come down to those guys. And Jordan, and Jordan probably would be the other guy on the ballot. I mean, the fact that Charlotte, or Charlotte, the fact that Phoenix is a game and a half out of the top six in the West is pretty crazy. And, you know, he's done a really, really great job. But you look at the top two teams in the East being where they are, Detroit obviously making the giant leap up, and then Boston on their way to over 50 wins without Jason Tatum and after trading away all these guys. And, like, you know, people thought they might be able to make the playoffs. Nobody thought they'd be top seven in offense and defense or top ten in offense and defense and second in the East at this point in the season. More Hoop Collective podcast after this. speaking of the buzz city killers how about the god you love that nickname i know i'm i'm i'm having fun with it uh rookie of the year i mean it's a two horse race and the horse around my parts has got a significant edge he was but he is before this injury he has been killing it on offense. He's killed it on defense from day one, but my God, has he been flexing his offensive muscle. Well, and he's averaging 20 and change at this point. Again, I just go back to this stat. When guys are rookies and they're averaging 20-plus points, 6-plus rebounds, 4-plus assists per game, Cooper Flags on pace to be the fourth one of those dudes since the ABA-NBA merger. The fourth. It's Larry, It's Michael Jordan and, oh my goodness, I can't believe I'm blanking on the other one. But it's a one-namer for sure. Oh, I can't blank on that. Well, while you're looking up your name... This is what happens when I get fresh off an airplane. I would vote for Cooper Flagg and I think Cooper Flagg should win Rookie of the Year However I think Con Canupple his college roommate playing for Charlotte might win the award And especially if Charlotte continues to play like this and makes the playoffs, you might think he has a significant edge. But I don't think he's going to have a significant edge in the voting. Because he's having probably the best shooting season of any rookie ever. on eight attempts a game, which is crazy. And he's scoring almost 19 points a game on a team that might make the playoffs. I'll say, like, Knuppel isn't just a shooter or a scorer. Like, he rebounds. He's a much better playmaker than you would think. He's really good. He's a really, really good player. And defensively, you know, he's probably got challenges, but... He's kind of a hybrid of Klay and Steph. He's a little smaller than Clay, a little bigger than Steph. Shoots like Steph. I would say he's Devin Booker. Defends better than Steph. That's what I would say. By the way, the odds are minus 650 for Flagg, plus 360 for Khan. I think the voting's going to end up pretty close to that. But Khan Canipple would be the rookie of the year in the majority of the years. I think you can certainly say that. I would vote for Cooper, but I wonder if Charlotte keeps going, this, I could see that race getting a lot tighter. So I've compared, not just me, but many people have, but I've compared LeBron to Cooper, Cooper to LeBron a lot. Yeah. When LeBron was a rookie, okay, he was, they both shot, are shooting the ball. Cooper's not shooting three as well, and LeBron didn't shoot three as well. But when LeBron was a rookie, because the thing was, you know, people thought that Cooper's offensive game may not be as elite. When LeBron was a rookie, he shot 44% on twos. Cooper Flagg is shooting 53% on twos. And the three-point shot has gone from Awfuls who, you know, it's for the season 30.2, but that's up significantly. Let's take a look and see that. By the way, you'll crack up. Remember I said four rookies since the merger? Larry, Michael Jordan, Cooper Flagg, and I forgot one in between. Who could it have been? Who could it have been? Luka Doncic. The only other teenager who ever had 20 points. If only you did some homework on Luka. Yeah, 20 points, six rebounds, and four assists per game. Pretty good player. And where's he now? We didn't bring him up in the 5% club conversation. I figured, let's take a look at one thing we're looking at. It's not really the second half. There's like 28 games left for most teams, like the last third. But out of the break, So what's one thing you're looking forward to? I am just really interested to see how this Eastern Conference race shakes out across the board. The Cavs have an incredibly easy schedule down the stretch. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility. 13 games against quote-unquote tankers. That's the most in the league. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility they get up to maybe first. Really? I don't think that's happening. Well, they could rack up an absolute ton of wins, is my point. late. Like they could win. Like, look, if you told me they went 21-6 in these final 27 games, I wouldn't be stunned. That would get them up to 55 wins. That would at least give them a chance of getting up to first. So, you know, I think there's a very good chance they get to second, at least, which would be very significant going forward. Will Jason Tatum come back? What will he look like? Like that whole situation in Boston? He gets one thing, he's not gone to two. Well, no, but it's the whole Easter Conference race. I mean, all these teams are, you know, they're all pretty evenly bunched together. And there's just a lot of different things to watch across the conference. And, you know, it's going to be a very fun and interesting. I mean, you got second to six that's separated by five games. And there's going to be a lot of jockeying. And it's going to be really interesting to see how it shakes out. McMahon. The most fascinating team in the league to me features the most fascinating player. in the league, and that's the San Antonio Spurs with Victor Wimanyama. And that's no disrespect to the Thunder, but we've seen the Thunder win a championship. We know they can. We've seen Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets win a championship. We know they can. I firmly believe that the Spurs can. I don't necessarily know that it's this year. I would wager against it. But I love the way that Wimby goes about his business. I love how much swagger he plays with and just how much he wants all the smoke. And I'm excited to see how things unfold for the rest of the season and certainly once the playoff start for the Spurs. All right. I could make a joke about Charlotte here, but I won't. I think two things, one off court, one on court. But off-court, are we going to get some sort of ruling or decision or something in the Clippers' aspiration case? That's been quiet and has been going on for months on end now. And so I think that could end up being— And we're past the All-Star game. Yeah. I think that could be a major storyline in the second half, depending on what happens. There will certainly be a lot of reaction, whether it's a penalty or whether it's a non-penalty or a very light penalty. There will certainly be a lot of reaction. On the court, I mentioned earlier that a team that is sort of secretly hiding as an elite team but not always playing as an elite team is Minnesota. You saw what Ant did in the All-Star game. The guy is, you know, incredible. Minnesota has had some baffling performances this year. They have looked tremendous at times. They have looked ridiculous at times. And they were a team that last year, right about this time, were in about the same spot. And then they hit the turbo down the stretch of the season and ended up in the conference finals. So, of course, you could mention all the teams we already did, but Minnesota is a team that... Did we see the hot mic controversy at the All-Star game with Ant and Jalen Johnson, by the way, also over the weekend? There was a number of controversies at the All-Star game. But no, I did not. Well, I'm just saying, the fact that, you know, who knows what was real about it or not, but there was talk that Ant and Jalen were caught on the court with Ant saying, I can't wait to go home, which, you know, he's from Atlanta, obviously. And while I'll just set that to the side, the upcoming months of Minnesota— Should he have met on Sunday night? He could have. But the outtilling months in Minnesota, I think, are going to be interesting on a lot of levels. After they did cut money to, you know, did cut a bunch of money. Now we'll see. If they add some guy in the buyout market, you know, okay. Then perhaps we'll look, their plans will look different. But for now, it looks like they just saved a lot of money at the all-star, at the trade deadline. They did trade for Io. I mean, they did. They did. The attempt to upgrade. But they could have got two players. And, you know, instead they got one. So, you know, let's see what the rest of their season looks like from a win-loss perspective. But certainly, Ant is never boring. And Sunday night was proof of that. And the simple fact of the matter is our pals, Alex Rodriguez and Mark Laurie, they were part of our live show in Las Vegas. Hate to call them out for buying an NBA franchise on layaway, but they did. They got a great deal, man. And they got it to the finish line. But here's the thing. Can they truly afford to fund an NBA contender? You know, and that's an issue that goes far beyond just the payroll. The payroll's the primary. That's where the focus is going to be. and if the answer is no then what are the ramifications of that? And one thing sort of related to that off the court wise to watch going forward is I know Adam Silver talked about it a little bit over the weekend with regards to expansion I don't know when we're going to find out about expansion but I feel very confident that we're going to get expansion news in the affirmative this year and that at some point... G-Wiz, I wonder where that could end up. Well, yes, that will end up in two more Western Conference cities. G-Wiz is filing a lawsuit. That's right, G-Wiz, the Wizards mascot. By the way... But that's going to be happening, and I feel pretty confident about too. And if expansion happens, there's going to be a lot of lobbying to be one of the teams that head east. That's right. Minnesota Timberwolves will be one of the primary teams that allow what it's. It's Minnesota, Memphis. Minnesota, Memphis, and New Orleans are the three you would look at. Maybe that's what Ant meant to go home to the east where he's from. Could be. Could be. Well, apparently he said, you know, y'all got so many wings, which, you know, they could mean the position of the basketball floor or there are places in Atlanta that are well-known for their quality chicken wings. Right. That Ant might enjoy places. We'll check on that. I'm sure that our fine beat writers in Minnesota will follow up on that. Friday is one of our holidays, McMahon. Oh, great. It's the second Pond Temps poll that's scheduled to come out on Friday. Ah, the number two BS poll. This one is going to be potentially quite interesting to see what the MVP voters are thinking with a bunch of guys dealing with injuries, a bunch of guys ineligible. Like Jokic is still eligible. Jokic is the guy that I voted for last time, but he's been injured, missed a bunch of games. He came back with time to spare for a reason. I know, but he hasn't quite been the same since he came back. He's been good, very good, but he's definitely still not himself. Bontemps asked me for my vote today. I haven't given it to him yet. And Shea is no longer on a 70-win pace, nor is 70 wins even a possibility for the Thunder any longer. Bontemps, this is going to be an interesting one. This is going to be interesting. I mean, you've got Jokic on the verge of not being eligible. You already have Giannis not eligible. You have Viktor Remyama on the verge of not being eligible. You have Luka Doncic getting close to not being eligible. By the way, you mentioned Shea. We really have no idea how long Shea is going to be out with this current injury that he's got. Um, he could be back this week. He could be back in weeks. Like, we really don't know. They just, we were just told, I believe the update McMahon was, will be told after the All-Star break what his status is, right? So. Yeah, the, the update said we'll get an update. Yes. Or that he'll be re-evaluated. They didn't say we get an update. Right. So, you know, I, I mean, it's, it is, it is as up in the air as a race as we've had because of large part, in large part, because of this rule. By the way, when you've got a $300 million MVP, he's evaluated every day. Just for the record. But all right. We'll see what happens on Friday. All right. I'm looking forward to that as always. All right. Thank you to Jackson and the rest of our producers. Thank you to McMahon and Bontemps for doing this on Monday night. Hopefully we don't have to emergency pod on Tuesday. And thank you for watching and listening to Hoop Collective. Talk to you later this week. Adios amigos. Thank you.