SGA Lifts OKC Over Jokic, Nuggets! Plus, Should LeBron be an All Star?

coming up on the zach lowe show it is trade deadline week kurt goldsberry and rob mahoney are here to help us sort through everything we do talk about the deadline coming up we do mention the honest situation and we had actual trades over the weekend the kings and the bulls were allowed to somehow trade with each other i think this should be banned but it ended up with the Kings getting DeAndre Hunter. Why? How? Who? Keon Ellis is involved. What happened? Portland and Atlanta made a minor trade that I kind of like for one of the teams. We get into that. And then we talk all-stars, all-star snubs, all-star rosters. Should LeBron be in the all-star team? We talk about the Knicks' recent surge. Kirk and I do a deep dive on Thunder Nuggets. One, the first clash of these two Titans during the season. The Thunder win easily. Both teams missing lots of players. We talk about Rookie of the Year. We just a whole lot of stuff going on in the NBA as everyone gears up for these last three days before the trade deadline. So we got Kurt Goldsberry. He talks about his MVP ballot. Actually, we talk about that since that's a Shea Jokic thing, as always. And then we got Rob Mahoney taking a break from all of his other podcasting to slum it on here. So that's all coming up after this on The Zach Lowe Show. This episode of The Zach Lowe Show is brought to you by State Farm. Life's better when you've got the right help. Think of that perfect pass that sets everything up smooth, effortless, just what your team needed. That's the kind of assist State Farm offers. Whether it's online or in person, State Farm's your teammate. When you need help making your next play, State Farm with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. welcome to the zach lowe show kirk goldsbury is here it is trade deadline week we got thunder nuggets last night for the first time we got kind of the zombie versions of both teams or the half versions of both teams and kirk goldsbury you know how i know it's trade deadline week how I went to the Nespresso machine about half an hour ago, put in the Nespresso pod for the super caffeinated coffee I like for a podcast, hit the button and didn't put my mug under where it was supposed to go, and coffee spilled all over the kitchen, baby. So that's what we're doing within the Lowe household today. Classic, classic kitchen blunder from Zach Lowe, Tales of Mediocrity, Secrets to Me. What is the series called? That could be right in there. Insights to Mediocrity, not starring Mike Tirico. just starring me in my video. So it's true. I could have put that in there. How are you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. Happy deadline season. Happy, you know, Denver OKC season. It's great. It's about to be the part of the sports calendar where the NBA really starts to grab. But once this Super Bowl is over, we get a little bit more of the spotlight. Okay. We're all on Giannis Watch, obviously. we will get back to Giannis Watch at the end of the pod I guess but do you have any thoughts on this that you would like to get there he is look at that is he wearing a crown yeah he looks so mean look how mean he looks I just keep him by my computer so I'm literally on I'm watching him all day I have no updates but you know it feels to me like there's what I could say is it feels like people are trying to do this before the deadline I don't know if it's going to work but it feels to me like there's legitimate efforts happening across the league to try to get this done what what are your thoughts Zach Lowe when you say people you mean people on other teams people in Giannis's camp all of those things I've not talked to anybody in Giannis's camp I'm talking to just people around the NBA in front offices far and wide and you start to hear those kinds of rumors about what other teams are doing what they're hearing and that's where I started there's a little bit of the smoke, I would say. I've talked to every team that's involved, every team that would like to be involved, every team that could theoretically be involved constantly for the last four to five days. The consensus is they all are a little skeptical that the Bucs are actually going to move him now for reasons that we've discussed ad nauseum and that they may kick this to the summer, perhaps shut Giannis down with his calf injury, tank see where their pick ends up reassess then more teams have more picks to trade blah blah blah blah uh one one front office person on one of these teams called this is a quote sideshow to me and in a couple of messages saying this is just this is just for show they're not going to trade them 80 20 they keep them is what i keep hearing 75 25 i'm closer to 50 50 and i just think a all these teams are trying um and and they're trying you know different kinds of things like the heat only have two first round draft picks to trade well they could actually go out and get a third one or do different kinds of things there everyone is trying different mechanisms to do stuff and b man you know this when the toothpaste is this far out of the tube and like look whether he demanded a trade or asked for a trade or called the bucks and said that it's probably best that we part ways or whatever linguistic stranglehold you want to put yourself in, he wants out. The Bucs know he wants out. The Bucs are listening at the very least. And once the toothpaste is all over the bathroom sink, it's just hard to go back, man. That's why I'm saying 50-50. Once the Nespresso has spilled all over the kitchen counter, it's hard to put it back into the machine. I would agree, and I think that's a great point. How toxic or awkward is the situation with the player right now? How how how quickly do they need to move on? Because I do think there's a really good argument that they're going to get better deals in the offseason. They're going to have more time, potentially more draft capital available to come back. So from a front office perspective, it's probably better to go till the spring or the summer. But from just like how toxic is how awkward is that locker room and that bench and those plane rides? That's the real question for the urgency, I think, Zach. Well, he's not with the team now. At some point, presumably he would be again. And this is ultimately going to be the ownership's call. The fact that they're listening right now and they've not really ever listened before. And by the way, I still, as recently as maybe 36 to 48 hours ago, heard that even while they're listening, at least one team told me the Bucs are still sort of floating around saying, can we actually acquire X player to help us now? Or can we acquire an asset to help us get a player who can help us now? So they may be pursuing two or three different fronts at the same time. It's ultimately going to be ownership's call. By the way, great to just bow on the Nespresso story. Great power move by my wife. I put the pot in, hit play, hit play like it's a freaking TiVo. Went to take a shower, multitask, right? You make my coffee. I'm going to take a shower. I'm going to come out. Coffee is going to be ready. Obviously, the coffee is on the counter. My wife just left the house. She went to her Pilates appointment. And it was like, I'm not cleaning this up. You clean it up when you get out of the shower, idiot. And I'm like, great move. I respect it. Like, what a terrible post-shower revelation you had, by the way, coming down in your bathrobe to get your hot cup of coffee and only seeing a mess. I'm not a robe guy. Never been a robe guy. I just never had one. It's just not part of my repertoire. Well, I know what I'm getting you for Christmas next year. My neighbor will sometimes walk around the backyard in a robe that's like a little perilous, a male neighbor, a little perilously short. Like if there's a breeze, I get a little TMI. Let's pack it up, buddy. Okay. Thunder Nuggets. Obviously, both teams missing a ton of players. The Thunder during this swoon by their standards, I think it's a 15 and nine swoon in their last 24 games, have been missing tons of guys. the Nuggets are still, even with Jokic back for the second game on a minutes restriction missing Christian Brown Aaron Gordon, and on and on and on with some of their absences that said, it's highly anticipated when these two teams play each other, their playoff series last season was sort of a proving ground for the Thunder, their first real like, okay, it's on the line now, your favorites, and you're staring at a potential 3-1 deficit, game 7 all of that, what were your takeaways from the Thunder stomping the Nuggets in Denver. Yeah, well, if I'm a Denver fan, you can just say, hey, man, there's not much to take away. We're half a roster right now, but so is OKC. I think both teams so shorthand, it almost felt like an international friendly in soccer where both teams are sort of half composed. But I still think there were two big takeaways, one about SGA and then one about Jamal Murray. So I don't know where you want to start. But really, the story of the game for me was three Canadian dudes. And I think it makes sense to start with SGA, who just picked apart the Denver defense, both as a scorer and as a passer. I think his assists led to 36 points and 10 threes. It felt like every time the Thunder had the ball, they were ending that sequence with an open three. Many of those off of the passes of SGA. I think Kaysen Wallace was the most common target there. But I didn't like what I saw from Denver's defense's ability to contain the Thunder's three-point shots. And maybe that was part of the game plan, as we've seen San Antonio say, hey, make these shots. Well, they started making them. And there was just no answer. And SGA was getting everywhere he wanted to get. And I think he really reestablished, and we talked about this on text, that he's the MVP of the league right now in that game. I mean, I think by comparison, he was just the best player. He led all scorers, led all assists. But just a really good SGA performance. That's where I would start. I don't know if the Denver defense is going to be able to contain the Thunder offense. But really, if you're a Denver fan, you can go back to, well, we don't have Gordon. We don't have Brown. So what are your thoughts, Zach? My thought was a masterpiece SGA game. Maybe the single best passing game I've ever seen him have. And all he did was hunt every guard on Denver, every wing on Denver, other than Peyton Watson. Just every single possession was. I don't even care who it is. Is it Spencer Jones? Switch. Is it Tim Hardaway Jr.? Switch. Is it Bruce Brown? Switch. Is it Jamal Murray? Switch. Blow by and either score, step back midranger if there's no blow by, and, like, boy, am I opening up an acre of space for that, and drive and kick if the help comes. And he had a pass in the third quarter where he actually didn't get a switch. It was Watson. And they came to set a pick for him, and he rejected the pick and went left and got by Watson. He got into the lane, and he went up for what would have been a lefty layup, a contested floater or something, that Watson probably would have blocked during a very tough shot. And so he went to pass, and I thought he was going to pass to Hartenstein, who's back, by the way, for the Thunder a couple games now, on the roll. And it was a doomed pass. There were just too many arms in the way. it was not going to work. Hartenstein wasn't that open. And he throws the pass. And in midair, I'm like, oh, that's not going to Hartenstein. That's going to the shooter one layer behind him. And it's like against his momentum from under the rim, whips this pass to Case and Wallace, I think it was, on the right wing. And it's on target, on time, and with like enough oomph on it that it beats the defense rotating back in case the Wallace hits a three. top five pass I've ever seen Shea throw in that game. And the takeaway for Denver is just, well, the guy we would have guarding him was not playing. And that's Christian Brown, who has missed just an enormous amount of time now with his ankle sprain. I think they're hoping it's soon, but they've been saying they're hoping it's soon for a while. And Aaron Gordon is out another four to six weeks, and I want to revisit that. But my number one takeaway was SGA, Masterpiece, Jokic, minutes restriction. We forgot to mention Cam Johnson is missing for Denver because he's just has barely played really for them. And I kind of forgot he was on the team. And Cason Wallace, seven threes. Lou Dort hit a couple of threes. Oklahoma City's shooting starting to normalize after what was a really long slump. And they still don't have A.J. Mitchell, who's a massively important offensive player, let alone Caruso and J-Dub and on and on and on. It's just a nice sort emphatic win for the Thunder after Minnesota whipped them in Minneapolis over the weekend. And by the way, a game that the Wolves really, I was on Amazon, we were watching that in the green room, the Wolves just took it to them and puffed out their chest. Great win. Awesome win. I just think that's a game the Wolves should win. Like, I'm not going to make it like they've always played the Thunder tough, but half their important players are missing. You're at home like you should win that game so kudos to the wolves for winning that game and by the way the prime stuff is great i texted you this weekend and i really enjoyed seeing you out there but the talent they've assembled there the sort of the the culture that it seems like that that you guys have it's just it's really refreshing i love to see it so kudos on behalf of all your do you see uh d wade cross me up on national tv i thought you were gonna poke it man i thought i thought you could have poked it away there i did not i did not know that was gonna happen we discussed it during during pregame because I talked about how Donovan Mitchell does the sort of swing through the overhead swing through like euro swing gather whatever that was really D Wade's move and we started talking about that was like you know we should get out there and demonstrate it Rudy you can get out Rudy Gay you can get out there and play defense and then Dwayne just was like you know what I used to do this against smaller guys we need Zach out here for defense so like this is not going to go well for me. I'm in a suit. I got no range of motion. Anyway, any other Thunder Nuggets takeaways? Yeah, I think on the other end of the court, like if you would have said, hey, what's going to happen in this game? What does Denver need to do? Well, if we know Joker's on a minutes restriction, their new all-star, Jamal Murray, who, by the way, deserves to be an all-star, he needs to play really well. And I think he arguably had his worst game of the season. And I don't think that was entirely a coincidence. I would give a lot of credit to another Canadian guy here. So we have SGA, we have Jamal Murray, and we have Lou Dort as the three Canadians. Reminder of how great Dort can be just by himself as a defender. We talk about no Caruso, no J-Dub. This team is so deep. Lou Dort just really contained Jamal Murray. Jamal Murray didn't have a basket in the second half of this game. And so if you're telling me Joker's on a minute restriction and the Thunder are able to contain Jamal Murray, I mean, with all due respect to Peyton Watson, who was their their highest usage player in that game, Zach. And I love Peyton Watson. What's happening with Peyton Watson? You're not going to beat the Thunder if Jamal Murray's not playing as a game. And Lou Dort deserves a lot of credit. Won that sort of Quebec versus Ontario matchup. Just really physical defense. And to give Jamal some credit, he was also great as a passer, but they needed him as a scorer if they were going to win that game. And he just didn't show up. But a very physical, chippy game, which I really enjoyed. Like Hartenstein and Jokic, it just felt like they were tangled up the entire game. People were falling over. Dort's always hitting people and flopping and falling over. I love every bit of it. And you mentioned Denver's defense. We saw them play some zone. They played a lot of zone against the Thunder in the playoffs last year. And I always flash back to Game 4 in Denver when Kaysen Wallace in particular and Isaiah Joe made some big shots against the zone to kind of save Oklahoma City's season, really. That was like the big hothouse proving ground game for those young guys. And we'll see more of that. We saw them play around with Jokic. Like sometimes he'll go up to the level of the screen against Shea. Sometimes he'll drop back. Sometimes he won't even really be in the play. He'll be kind of just hanging out on the baseline, toggling between who's ever lower. It's a nice, it's a fun chess match between these two teams. Aaron Gordon. on Friday I think the Nuggets said four to six weeks with this hamstring thing this is officially like beyond worrisome at this point because as great as Peyton Watson has been and even if Christian Brown comes back and he's 100% even if Cam Johnson comes back and he's 100% he starts to look like the player he was the couple of weeks before he got injured. Valanchunas is now back. Strother's giving him minutes off the bench, Pickett's given a minute off the bench, even if all that holds true. If Aaron Gordon is limited or out, I don't think these guys can beat the Thunder in a playoff series. And it sounds, I mean, with Peyton Watson's ascendancy, he plays more or less the same position as Aaron Gordon. Cam Johnson plays more or less the same position as Aaron Gordon. And they're all kind of hybrid forwards. But Aaron Gordon trends toward four, four and a half now. It seems a little strange to say that, but I do feel it in my gut. Do you feel that as well? And if so, why? I mean, Gordon was so big in that series last year. That's all the evidence you need, right? It's like this guy made huge plays. He gives them an actual defensive presence at times. And the two biggest concerns with the Denver Nuggets are defense and depth. And I think in a weird way, this just terrible set of injuries has given them a chance to address the depth part of this. And Peyton Watson and Pickett and some of these guys have shown that they can play, which I think is really encouraging if they all get healthy. But even in that case, I'm still worried about the defense. And Aaron Gordon, to me, is about the only one, maybe Christian Brown, who can get this defense to the level it would need to be in a series to beat this Thunder team, really. And this is more about the Thunder. They have excellence on both ends of the court. And we saw that last night. Excellence on both ends of the court. And I just don't see that from Denver without Aaron Gordon. Well, and also just I mentioned how he plays more or less the same position as those other players. Stylistically, he's completely different. And that is what makes him special for Denver. Peyton Watson was the primary on SGA last night, so he trends toward quicker, quick-twitch players on defense, maybe even smaller players. Aaron Gordon's the total opposite. Like, if J-Dub had played last night, that's going to be his assignment. If you face Kawhi in the playoffs, that's going to be his assignment. No one else has the dunker spot chemistry with Jokic that Aaron Gordon does. Aaron Gordon's a 40% plus three-point shooter now. That's like a proven thing, which is a big deal when you play the Thunder because they love to do the thing where they put Hartenstein on Jokic and have Chet just lurking around the rim for shot blocks like the Wolves would do with Gobert and Towns. And he got a block like that on a Jokic post-up last night. Well, Gordon can stretch him out to three now. And as much as Watson's been a wonderful substitute for Gordon, you can now play them together. If Peyton Watson's three is real, that's a lineup that they've barely gotten to explore. I looked it up today. Jokic, Gordon, Watson That trio has played 77 minutes this season Right That's crazy That's nothing They're plus 59 in 77 minutes with those three On the floor, which is very good So, you know, look He's one of my favorite players to watch in the entire league He found Nirvana in Denver It was the rare thing where The perfect player finds the perfect team And he finds his perfect water level and role With that team and grows to love it and it's a special connection that he has with Jokic that the city has with AG. Obviously he's been through a lot in the last year with his brother passing away. And you just hope for the best that he can come back and play. And this team can really give it a shot. Cause without him, I just, I think they're with him. I think they're toe to toe with the thunder. Like absolutely. They're equal without him. I think the thunder have an edge and that's about all I have on this game. Oh, MVP. I guess we're obligated. I would, I would say, can I just wait? Is that okay? Is it all right if I wait the last 30 games? Jokic, if he doesn't miss any more games, will get to 66, and he'll be eligible. I see your little ballot back there. You've got him second. I think for now, that's appropriate. Shea has played 450 to 500 more minutes than Jokic. He's shooting 56% from the floor. He's incredible. He's a plus defender. Jokic is the best player in the league but that minutes gap if you add up production per minute and add the minutes gap SGA has given more I do think Jokic should have a stranglehold on the number two spot because he's just been that good he's on pace to set more advanced stats records this year and the rest of the board to me is like wake me up in the last two weeks of the season when I can look at it I see you have Luka as three I think that's Luka's ceiling in the MVP race Giannis obviously ain't going to be in it Victor ain't going to be in it And then you have Jalen Brown, Jalen Brunson. That's fine. That's a good list. My dark horse. And by the way, I think SGA has just as good of a case as he did last year, maybe arguably better. Like we're talking about how shorthanded this team is. One short note on Hartenstein, they look a lot more dangerous when he's in there. And I know that's common sense to a lot of Thunder fans, but there was a couple times last night where just you could feel his presence. Chet's free to be that free safety coming through. And even in the instances where Murray got past, Lou Dort, Chet was there, as you describe, to clean it up a couple of times and make those shots impossible for Jamal once he got passed. But, yeah, the SGA, you'd have to convince me that somebody's going to pass him because one of the cliches that I do think is relevant for value is the best ability is availability. and by the end of the year, if this keeps up, he's just going to have played more meaningful minutes, had more sort of impactful moments, and his stats are going to be there again. Last night again he was the best player on that court The long shot you asked me to come up with a long shot My favorite long shot on the board behind me is the one in Boston And I don think Jalen Brown getting enough credit for this crazy season the Celtics are having. He's completely changed his approach on offense. The Celtics keep winning, keep winning. And again, one of your main points is we don't have to map this out right now. We don't have to make our votes right now. but we have about two months of the regular season left and if boston takes that number one uh in the eastern conference and that's an if jalen brown deserves a lot of attention on this board um i don't think he's getting as much as he deserves i don't think he's the the mvp favorite by any means but i just haven't heard his name enough this season for what he's been doing i feel like i've heard it quite quite a bit i think you have i just don't think there's enough boston voices in the national media. It's tough. Patriots, Super Bowl. No one's talking about Drake May. I think he's gotten the appropriate amount of MVP attention. You think so? Yeah. I mean, he's awesome. You have him in about the right range there, I think. You could put him third. I can't quite get there, although I don't love the season that Luka is having sort of holistically. It's hard to make an argument for him over Luka as long as the Lakers keep winning more games than they really should have any right to be without Austin Reeves. You know, Jalen Brown's been awesome. The Celtics are plus five with him on the floor and plus 12 with him on the bench. And I'm not really going to penalize him for that because you watch this team. They are just a fucking professional basketball team, man. They play so hard. They do not make mistakes. Their spacing is impeccable. And if your effort wanes by two or 3%, even if you're Jalen Brown, Missoula will take your ass out of the game. and put in someone else who's going to play hard. And they're just like, they're just a professional, every single night, basketball team. One of the great stories of the season. Yeah, I mean, look, and part of it, it's interesting because Shea has played, what did I say, 450, 500 more minutes than Jokic. That number would even be larger if he ever had to play in the fourth quarter for the first 25 games of the season, and he never did. And yet I think some skeptics, not me, could use that almost as a cut against SGA's case. Seeing his team around him is so good, doesn't that cut against the valuable part of MVP? And I would say absolutely not. Look at their offense without him for the last couple of seasons. And just they're plus 16 with Shea on the floor and plus six with him off the floor. And a lot of that plus six is terrible opponent shooting, which they certainly influence. But to me, you know, plus six is a good team. Plus 16 is an immortal team. And as good as the team is around him, they become a completely different thing with him on the floor. So he's the MVP right now. My look, I don't know, three, four, five. You got to have Luca there somewhere. Jalen, both Jalen's, you have all the Jalen's. A lot of it is just going to be like, what are these teams records end up being right? Does Steph sneak into the fifth spot if the Warriors overperform? Anthony Edwards, I think if the Wolves are the – if we wake up and they're the fourth seed, he's going to get a lot of support, including from me. Donovan Mitchell never comes up, and I'm just like – I don't really understand that. He's statistically on par with DeBrunson, Maxie, Brown, Ant, et cetera. He's lifting up this team where everything around him has been a little bit rickety all season. and I just want to flag this, Kurt Goldsberry. Just for shits and giggles. Kawhi's only missed 13 games so far this season. Oh my god. He can't even make the All-Star team. I know. He's not going to, though he is on pace for 65 games, he will not make it. But the nerds around the NBA just let out a very collective, giant gasp with those All-Star reserves. I know you're going to talk about that later. You know what I gasped about? What? Did you see Musa Sise kip up in the middle of a basketball game against Houston on Saturday? Do you know what a kip up is? You're going to embarrass me on the Zach Lowe show right now. It's that ninja thing when you're on your back and you kind of snap up like Shawn Michael Jackson is. I associate that with the great Bo Jackson. So I'm on a flight back from L.A. and I'm watching Mavs Rockets. and then we land and we're stuck on the tarmac and they shut off the entertainment system. So I don't want to watch it on my phone. And I see people tweeting that Musa Sisse kipped up during a game that he blocked a shot, fell down on the floor, spectacular shot block, and kipped up. And I'm like, they've got to be exaggerating. And I get in the car and I throw the game on. I'm in the backseat, I throw the game on. I'm like, this motherfucker kipped up while an NBA game was going on and did it like a freaking ninja. He should be in the all-star game just for this. That's what made me gasp. Okay. Let's hope the producers at Amazon don't have you try to recreate that moment with D-Wade out there. You kip up after he knocks you down. Look, if I'm going to do that, they've got to have me sign some liability. They should have had me do that before D-Wade almost elbowed me in the face for a flag of one. He's in danger. Once he gets going, he's going to break your arm. Flag of one on national TV. Great guy, D-Wade. Okay. A couple of trades over the weekend I wanted to get your take on. The Sacramento Kings. They're back. You're Sacramento Kings, Kirk Goldsberry. Well, you're Sacramento Kings as well, by the way, because this hit on one of my favorite Zach Lowe show, recurring bits. Which two teams should never be allowed to trade with each other again. You've been saying it all year. Even though it's a side, the Bulls are a little side in this deal, we've got to just sever the connection. You can't trade between Sacramento and Chicago anymore. No more Kings are allowed to be Bulls. No more Bulls are allowed to be Kings. The Kings acquired DeAndre Hunter from the Cleveland Cavaliers. RIP to the DeAndre Hunter as the fifth starter, fifth closer lineup that everyone dreamed of that sort of came to fruition for little bits and pieces and then fell away. In exchange, the Cavaliers get two more guards. Keyon Ellis, much discussed, and Dennis Schroeder, less discussed. And the Bulls take on Dario Saric's salary, and they get two second-round picks for their troubles. So the big names are obviously Hunter, Schroeder, Ellis. The deal leaves the Cavs with the following small-ish guards. Garland, Mitchell, Sam Merrill, Dennis Schroeder, Lonzo Ball, Craig Porter Jr. It's a lot of guards. Yeah. It's a lot of guards. A lot of small guards. A lot of guards. So DeAndre Hunter gives the Kings an actual forward, like a real forward-sized forward, which they desperately need. They take on a little more money. His deal, DeAndre Hunter's deal, expires, though, after next season's Dennis Schroeder's more or less does. It's only $4 million guaranteed in 27-28. And Keon Ellis goes to the Cavs. There was a lot of talk that the Kings could have gotten a first-round pick for Keon Ellis. I think that was overstated. I don't think they could have multiple seconds, maybe definitely a second. And instead, they decided our profit from Keon Ellis, the asset we're going to get, is dumping Dennis Schroeder's salary that no one understood why we gave him in the first place and acquiring DeAndre Hunter, who Scott Perry and the Kings do like. I mean, Scott Perry has liked DeAndre Hunter for a while. Your thoughts, Kurt Goldsberry? Well, I'm going to ask you some questions because my thoughts are, what the hell are the Kings doing? It's a tradition unlike any other. Was that just a general thought, though? Like a permanent thought? I think so. One, two, three, Nick. What was it? One, two, three, yay, Nick. Stauskas. Stauskas. Shout out to David Jacoby's seminal short video on that draft. Nick Rocks. It was Nick Rocks, I think. Nick Rocks. Which is even worse. I would have resigned, I think. If I had to chant Nick Rocks into a speakerphone, I think I would have resigned. I just would have been like, this isn't for me. You would have at least gotten up and made an espresso because it had been a long night at that time. You've had a few long nights, but it would have been a nice, cool way not to participate in that awkward sort of ceremony. I like this from Cleveland's perspective. And again, it's a head scratcher from Sacramento's perspective. The interesting thing with the Kings, again, is just what are we doing at 100,000 feet? Not 5,000 feet. Not with Keon Ellis. maybe not even with DeAndre Hunter, but what is the plate tectonic movement we're trying to achieve here as a franchise? Where is our timeline? A strategy without a timeline, Zach Lowe, is a wish. And it feels like the Kings are just wishing to be a good NBA team. It's like, I don't know what they're doing. They've fired coaches, they've retooled the front office, and they've traded players like Tyrese Halliburton, De'Aaron Fox, Harrison Barnes, who are contributing around the league at very high levels. They've gotten rid of Michael Malone. They've gotten rid of Mike Brown. For me, you can't evaluate this deal from the Kings perspective, the Kang's perspective, without that sort of set of bullets leading up to it. And it just DeAndre Hunter, like the Cavs didn't like him enough. Obviously, the Hawks didn't love him enough. And now you're going to sign up for it. And Bobby Marks has this in his column. They're now projected to be over the luxury tax, flirting with aprons for what? What are we doing? What are we doing, Zach Lowe? Well, look, they added some salary for sure. They opted against re-signing Keon Ellis or extending him, which was another option. I think they probably feared our coach isn't playing him. If we pay him $12 to $14 million a year, is he going to be like Terrence Mann 2.0, where he goes from trade asset to dead money in the blink of an eye. Look, an alternate history is like you could just not trade for Dario Saric, which you did to save money to sign Dennis Schroeder, which you could also just not do that. And then you could be trading from a position of strength and get something for Keon Ellis and not have DeAndre Andre's $22 million salary on your books for whatever reason. Maybe it evinces that they want to be a little bit more competitive next season. And look, I don't love it. I'm not up in arms about it. The sequence doesn't really make a lot of sense. And for the Cavs, I thought DeAndre Hunter, they traded Levert, who was on an expiring contract last year, and George Yang, who was not on an expiring contract, for Hunter. And I think they traded some pick swaps and some other stuff. I thought that was a worthy gamble for them because his three and theoretical D off-ball skill set, I thought fit what Cleveland needed from that spot better than Levert did, who needed the ball. And Niang was just probably going to not be a huge part of their playoff rotation. And for like little glimpses here and there, you could see why it could work and what the vision was like against Miami in that first round series. DeAndre Hunter went bananas from three, shot 46% from three in the playoffs before he got hurt in game one of the Pacers series, then came back. He wasn't quite himself, shot 40% from three as a, as a Cav. And then this year, the three-point shot fell off. And when the three-point shot falls off, the defensive value is not there. The rebounding is not there. The on-ball skills are not there. The salary is too big. And so here we are, and we'll just sort of see where they go from here. Obviously, if you have Schroeder and Ellis, you are somewhat hedging on Darius Garland's health. Like, all of this is insurance in case he just isn't right, and we've got a lot of guards who can handle the ball. Ellis can play next to pretty much any kind of guard. If he makes enough threes, he's a decent defensive player. I like Keon Ellis a lot. And we'll see what they do with this glut of guards. Like, is Alonzo's salary dumb coming? I don't know. But it's a, you know, they turned DeAndre Hunter into a good asset in Keon Ellis, and we'll see what happens with shooters. And the Bulls are here. The Bulls. Hi, Bulls. I mean, the thing comes across your phone and your head immediately goes to Zach Lowe's bit about the Kings and Bulls. I mean, what are the chances? Hilarious moment from the Cavs perspective. It's much more interesting, right, because they're a contender. And I'm tempted to get the wind horse fingers going because there is some salary cap maneuvering happening. They now have a log jam in the backcourt, and there are certain transactions they could make to get into different tax categories and open up their agility as a trade partner. So now do you move Lonzo Ball? Do you try to just become a cheaper basketball team so you can then use other trade tools that are not available to them in the second apron? That's something to watch. There are obviously rumors that I haven't reported about them being interested in Giannis Antetokounmpo. Does this strike you, Zach, as a potential first move in a sort of a sequence of chess moves to make a bigger deal? Right now, I would say no. They are and have been interested in Giannis. I don't sense that they're in it right now. that could always change or everyone's in it to some degree like all the teams that want to be interested are checking in and seeing you know whatever i don't sense that they're one of the most in it of the in it teams their dream i think logic dictate logic just my logic dictates that their dream would have been like a garland allen combination somehow again they can't aggregate salaries until they're under the second apron and yada yada yada um obviously garland's trade value has taken a huge hit this year with his availability issues. He's got another foot injury now to the other foot. Allen has been just fine, like up and down. You know, he's got a raise coming because of his new contract. And so then I think you would have to pivot to Mobley. And that would be maybe the single best player the Bucs could theoretically get. An Ionis trade, present-day player, not draft asset, actual current NBA player. It's a tougher decision for the Cavs, and I'm not sure at 30 and 21, and playing quite well, 8-2 in their last 10, sniffing home court. Well, they're tied for home court now with the Raptors in the first round at the fourth spot, sniffing a two or three seed. Are you ready to make that kind of bet now? Maybe you are, maybe you're not. I don't know. But my gut would say no. Also, interestingly for the Kings, you know, they've got Sabonis sitting there, DeRozan sitting there, Levine sitting there. I've heard nothing on Levine. I don't think they have a market for Levine, particularly if the Bucks are just out as sort of a desperation buyer, which maybe they are, maybe they're not. I'm not sure what, if anything, they have for Sabonis. The Raptors have been mentioned a lot for him. I think that's probably been overstated and would require the Kings to take back money that maybe they don't want. We'll see. I'm sure the Raptors have had calls with them. I think pre-AD injury, the Raptors are a little bit more interested in AD than Sabonis. the Wiz have been mentioned. I don't see it. My guess with the Wiz is that would be like are you going to give us something to take him? We're not giving you any of our young players, etc. So they may be stuck with all their guys. So like the Beam, I guess. Does the Beam still work? Unclear to me. It might be down for repairs, sort of like the Kennedy Center. It might be getting some renovations. The Beam. The Beam was fun. That was a fun season. hasn't been so fun. The thing I've attempted to do, it puts some students on this at the University of Texas, are teams that are actively using the trade tool. What are the three team building tools, Zach Lowe? You got the draft, you got trades, and you got free agency. I'm starting to have this hypothesis that I've been too lazy or too busy to test. The teams that are really active with the trade tool just generally don't succeed. um and again i think it's an interesting it's an interesting concept you you constantly break up your team you you you you make everybody in your locker room sort of not trust the organization like they well i could be next um our teams that are super active in the trade market generally less successful nba teams just something to think about yeah that's a tough one because there are so many different kinds of trades right like they're the honest trade we're talking about is, well, we're going to have to completely upend our team and is it worth doing that now? Then you have the deadline, win now, final piece trades, which rarely result in what you think they're going to result in. Then you have the super-duper star trades. You trade everything for a superstar from the buying team's perspective that have been, let's just say, hit or miss. Then you just have a team like the Hornets who spent the past two years just doing little tiny things to accumulate their asset trove. And now they're winning like gangbusters, by the way. Oh, hell yeah. They're fun, too. And look, Bill's like, you can't come on the Hornets bandwagon. I'm not trying to get on the Hornets bandwagon. I think I took the over on the Hornets before this season. The only thing I have, he's basing this all on when we did the league pass rankings, and I thought it was a little ridiculous that he took the Hornets at fourth in our draft or something. In retrospect, not ridiculous. They're entertaining to watch. They're very entertaining. They've always been entertaining. They're more entertaining than I thought. I have stood by LaMelo like a jilted, cuckolded husband standing by their wife for years and years. As all the slander has come in and I've said, I've not given up on this guy. You can't teach the size, the vision, the shooting. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. I'm LaMelo's guy. Well, I'll let you and Bill sort that out. I did see the barbs going back and forth on social media. I don't even engage. I don't even engage. I'm not singing. You go low, we go high. Okay? Okay, Michelle. I would say that I think Charlotte, Charles Lee, Josh Longstaff, that coaching staff finally has something cooking. They have this long winning streak. They beat my Spurs in a respectable way the other night. Con Caniple has a lot. I saw you talking about this. Has a lot of juice for Rookie of the Year over Cooper, his college teammate. Brandon Miller's playing well. That's what's changed their season. More than anything else, Brandon Miller is healthy. If you look at his last 10 to 15 games, it's like, okay, this is like 25-5-5 on efficient shooting. Finding his way as a decision maker, as a mismatch exploiter in both sides' directions. That's what's changed their season. My guy, Moussa Diabate, did you see we revived the Marc Gasol All-Stars on Amazon? Yes, I saw that. My favorite guys to watch. I didn't know you got the rights to that. Get your antlers up, baby. Moussa, all that dude does is play harder than the hardest-playing guy on your favorite team. Moussa, I want a little Moose antlers. Do the Hornets have, like, souvenir Moose antlers? If they don't, they should, and I'll buy one. Very teal antlers. Okay, real quick. Crabs TR, that's a good one. You got to go. One last trade. Veet Krejci to the Blazers for drop wreath and two second-round picks to Atlanta. Your thoughts, Kurt Goldsberry? Atlanta had too many canards. That's what I said. Too many canards in the coal mine, I think. I think there were just too many of that. Too many player types. We have Kispert now, remember, on that roster, thanks to the Trae Young deal. We have Vitt, and then we have Canard, and not to mention sort of Risha Shea floating around in that pool. I just think they had a log jam like the Cavs have in the backcourt at this sort of wing 40% three-point shooting category and saw an opportunity to lighten the load. on the depth chart. I don't see much else to it from Atlanta's perspective. And for Portland, shooting is the weakness, and Vitt can shoot it. And that's about it. So what are your thoughts? I'm going to come out right now, Kirk goes, but I got a hot take on this trade, okay? I don't like this trade for Atlanta. Oh, dang. Second round picks are great. They got a couple second round picks, including I think they got their own back next season, Ray Ye. and you know look maybe they'll maybe there's going to be a decision tree where they hit on these picks and v creche is a 10th guy and he's he's not you know if you do the little calculator on pick value he's not more valuable than the 38th pick plus the 52nd pick or whatever okay maybe maybe yeah i think second round picks are a little fetishized sometimes you go you look at you look at some second rounds on basketball reference like oh my god this is like half these guys didn't even play in the NBA. And V. Krejci's a 40% three-point shooter. Yes, he is. And this is what it comes down to for me. Minimum contract this year, $2.7 million non-guaranteed. Next year, $3 million basically minimum team option in 27-28. I think that guy's shooting percentage on that contract is more valuable than two first-round picks. Portland, this is... Second-round picks. This is... Second-round picks, rather. Portland, this is a player type they need with all the guard injuries they've had and all the shooting issues they've had. And it shows me they want to, you know, at least give the play and an honest shot this year, their 10th, their 10th and ain't no one looking like they're going to catch them. Maybe Memphis, if they ever get it together. And so I like it for Portland, get a good player for two second round picks on a great contract. I like it. Beat Krejci. I don't care if I have too many canards. Luke Kennard, is he going to play in the playoffs? Who knows Is Corey Kispert going to play in the playoffs Maybe I like both those players I like Kispert more than Kennard But I don't know Are the Hawks going to be in the playoffs I'll tell you right now The Spurs don want him there I tell you that much Zach Lowe The Hawks are 24 and 27 The Bulls are 24 and 26 Just enough with the Bulls 24 and 26 That's the most, as Trey Kirby would say, this is what the Bulls are. They're 24 and 26. They were born to be 24 and 26. The Hornets are now 22 and 28. Let's go. On a six-game streak, a game behind the Hawks, two games behind the Bulls. Look, I don't care what chicanery Adam Silver has to resort to, okay? Get the Hornets in the play-in. The Bulls, the Hawks, I'm tired. I'm tired. Let's do it. Get the Hornets in the play-in. You want to see – how about Pistons-Hornets first-round playoff series? Now we're talking. Knicks-Hornets first-round playoff series. That's what we want to see. And those teams, like the Hornets will go out there and mess around and win game one of those series and be like, oh, my God, here we are. All right, Kirk Goldsberry, go on with your life. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Zach. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. a superior beer worth playing for. It's always a fun way to spice up a little friendly competition. Like, hey, poker night, suburban dad, loser poker night. If you don't want to throw a lot of money into the pot, maybe you throw some beer into the pot. Who knows? All-star game? Is alcohol a way to motivate the players to play a little harder in the all-star game? Maybe. I don't know. It can't hurt. Have a little beer on the bench maybe? Spice things up? Who knows? You might as well at this point. And if you really want to up the ante, Michelob Ultra has a new challenge for you, and it isn't just beer on the line. You could also win tickets to some of the biggest sporting events in 2026. Enter now at Michelob Ultra dot com slash Ultra Instructor. Michelob Ultra Ultra Instructor. No purchase necessary. Open U.S. residents 21 or over. Begins on January 30, 2026 and ends on February 22, 2026. See official rules at Michelob Ultra dot com slash rules for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. Look who it is from group chat. Prestige TV. Watching the pit. Rob Mahoney, how you doing? Zach, I'm living in the pit. I'm just, you know, I'm scrubbing up. I'm getting my gloves on. I'm really, like, getting into, I don't know, it's like repairing some arteries, I guess. I don't know what they're asking me to do, but I'm ill-qualified for it, I can assure you. I'm out on a pit. Sorry. Tough. Don't like my pajamas. You're lost, frankly. The pit seems to be rolling on just fine. Okay, a couple quick things we've got to get to, Rob Mahoney. The All-Star Reserves were revealed on Sunday night. Let's start in the West. Where we have some notable things that occurred. Yeah, where do you want to start? The West All-Star Reserves, in alphabetical order, Denny Avdia, Devin Booker, Kevin Durant, Anthony Edwards, Chet Holmgren, LeBron James, and Jamal Murray. Among the snubberoos, Alperin Shengun and Kawhi Leonard, and then a bit of a drop-off to James Harden, Rudy Gobert, Julius Randle, blah, blah, blah. your reactions rob mahoney let's let's start positive jamal murray denny avdia i'm glad they made it completely justified obviously incredibly worthy candidates but they're in that zone where i'm like are enough people watching the blazers to fully appreciate denny avdia and like does he have the name does he have the reputation to make it over a james harden type candidate for example I'm just glad those guys are here. So before we get into the grousing, I just want to say good work getting in two worthy first-time All-Stars who have more than deserved consideration and more than deserved their spots. Oh, you're done? That's it. That's all I got. So when I last did this, the last pass I took was probably two weeks ago. My reserves, in addition to the five starters who are in, so that's Luka, Steph, Wemby, Shea, Jokic, no notes. my reserves at that point were ant no-brainer murray no-brainer durant no-brainer i had chet who i saw some people did not have i think he deserves to be in and not because the thunder are so dominant because he's been really good and other candidates like marking in and butler kind of faded away i had denny uh you could nitpick the blazers record they're good when he's on the floor and bad when he's off the floor he's awesome i had booker in the end i was convinced that I was incorrect a month and a half ago when I did it and I had Booker. I put Booker in. And then I had Shen Goon. And in the last two weeks, Shen Goon has gotten injured, missed a lot of shots, and just kind of been eh. And I probably in the end would have put Kawhi in over Shen Goon at that last spot. Kawhi's played 35 of 48 games and he's been MVP level almost good when he's been on the floor. And he didn't make it. It would have been obviously hilarious if he were to make it for obvious reasons. And I'm actually a little surprised that the coaches did Adam Silver's work for him and gave LeBron not quite a lifetime achievement spot, but I just don't think there's any argument that LeBron James on the merits of the 28 games he's played this season or 31 games rather, I'm sorry, is an all-star. And I actually thought the coaches were not going to put him on and leave it up to Adam Silver to decide whether if there's no certainty about what's happening, if LeBron should be in the game like Dirk and D. Wade were back in the day. And the coaches did it for him and gave him a spot. And look, it's the all-star game. And like, it's an all, it's a game. Nobody can even explain how it works anymore other than it's U.S. versus the world, which is great. Like the idea. Don't like the format. It's a showcase of the game, its history, its present, its future. And LeBron should be a part of that if he daints to participate, which he did not last season. So I'm not going to sit here and be like, this is outrageous. He's averaging 21, six and six, 51% shooting. Like the Lakers haven't been very good when he's been on the floor. I don't think he's an all-star, but I'm not going to sit here and like yell and scream about it. There just isn't, there's no objective case for him over Kawhi. It's just like, there's just no way to make it no i think that's what's kind of a bummer about this particular avenue no one would be upset about lebron being at the all-star game and involved in the all-star game but by putting him in through just like normal reserve means to me that's pretending this is something else to me that's pretending that this is as you say an actual case on the merits for him to be an all-star when it's just there's no grounds for it and and like the kawaii comparison is so apt because he just has been better at almost all of the LeBron stuff short of the playmaking than LeBron has been this season. And he's played more. And he's played more. He's carried a much bigger workload in doing it. And frankly, like the Clippers with Kawhi on the court and the Lakers with LeBron on the court, like I just don't even see an argument for the Lakers record, even pushing him over the top. And so what are we doing here? We're rewarding an all-time great. We're rewarding a player who, yeah, it's great to have him involved in a game like this. And it's great to be able to look back 20, 30 years from now and see him there. But let's not pretend that this is real. Let's not pretend that this is something that everyone got together and said LeBron James has been one of the 12 best Western Conference players active this season. It's just not the case. It is not. And again, I'm not going to be super mad. I actually think Shang-Goon has probably been better than LeBron. I think so, too. I think Shang-Goon, I probably would have gone Harden over LeBron. I probably would have gone Julius Randle over LeBron. I think they've all been better than LeBron. And again, no problem with LeBron being there. I get what the game is and what it isn't. Randall's been great. Gobert's been very good for the most part. Harden, you know, I can't believe I'm saying this in 2026. It actually makes me a little sad how much of an afterthought he was in the All-Star conversation. And I realize that's more about the West than it is about him. But even as a couple of other candidates I mentioned fell away, Yeah, he didn't even make some like short list honorable mentions in some places that I saw. And look, he's not the most efficient shooter anymore. We know that he's a zero on defense for the most part. He like he plays, he plays. He's a fulcrum of an offense, much like I think Shen Goon is sort of underrated as the hub of a lot of what the Rockets do. Sure. Offensively, even though he hasn't been as efficient as you'd like a big man to be. what he can do as a passer in the short roll from the post, finding Ahmed Thompson on cuts, sort of unlocking the little juice there is to be squeezed out of Houston's lack of spacing. I feel for him. But look, I mean, it's the all-star game. And we also have, like, if Giannis doesn't play, which I'm assuming he's not going to. Yeah, for sure. There's the issue of an injury replacement. I believe he's the only, is he the only injury replacement right now? I believe so unless we get someone who's like ends up sitting out with a minor injury that they want to rest. But as far as who we know of, I think Giannis is the only one on the board. So I'm going to admit this, Rob. I didn't ask this to the NBA because I just can't. I can't. I can't. It's not worth my time. Yeah. But if Giannis has to be replaced, does he have to be replaced with an Eastern Conference player? I believe so. Does he have to be? And so does he have to be replaced with another world player? Because I think we have a perfect 16 and eight right now. Do we not? We do. But that assumes that I think you're penciling in Carl Anthony Towns and Norm Powell, both as U.S. players, whereas they could both be international players if you would like them to be. And I would think that would also apply to to me, the obvious replacement candidate who would be Joel Embiid, who could also be a U.S. player or an international player. No, if you've played for Team USA, you're a U.S. player. That's that's my rule. That's the rule. Like Bancaro, had he been a candidate, would have been a U.S. player. You play for Team USA, you're a U.S. player. Well, he's made enough enemies abroad, you know? So Giannis isn't playing for the East. He's playing for the world. But you think we need to replace him with the Eastern Conference player. If we do indeed replace him with Joel Embiid, who's an American player, do I then need to add another international player? So I need a second replacement. And is that Shen Goon? It's a very functional system that we've created. Look, I know it's low-hanging fruit. The fact that we had to have, like, you need a whiteboard, a graphic tutorial to describe how the All-Star game works. Okay, Team A plays Team B. The winner of that game plays the world team. The winner of that game plays the whatever. And then in the fourth quarter, it's all one game. It's not four games. It's all four games within a game. And then at the end, there's enough international players. There's only two things that I want to see. Two teams, world, U.S. If you're worried about the U.S. players getting not enough spots, given their requisite percentage makeup of stars, then just expand the rosters to 15. 15-15 U.S. world. Or East-West. This nonsense we're doing, I'm giving up the fight on the Elam ending. I thought it was awesome. They don't seem to like it. It's gone from the All-Star game. I'd bring it back. That's just me. Well, it does have a similar problem as far as the whiteboard goes. Like, if you need an infographic to describe the Elam ending, I understand the barrier to entry. True. So how about we just have a basketball game? What are we doing? Like, there's enough good international players that you could do 12-12 if you just want to keep 24 All-Stars. But make it 15-15. Boom. Done. Like, enough with this convoluted crap. I mean, again, just classify Kat and Norm Powell as international players. Bring in Joel. Bring in Franz Wagner. There's 12 right there. You didn't really even have to stretch very far. I can't wait. I'm so excited for Team B versus Team C. I don't know which is which. Do you know which is which? I don't know which is which, but we should establish this as an elaborate bid. Get some Team C mock-up jerseys made here at the Ringer and just really pick factions. Team C. You're either with Team C or against Team C, Rob. Again, how is this the format? How is this what we settled on? Well, at least we still have the Taco Bell, Poulan, Weed Eater skills challenge or whatever it is. I do like the All-Star Saturday night. I'm a sucker for All-Star Saturday night. Sources say Jackson Hayes is in the dunk contest, I think. I think it's confirmed. I think it's locked in. with Carter Bryant and nobody so far that's it Mack McClung ain't going for the four-peat or the three-peat or whatever he's Mack McClung says he's out so I think Zach if you want a spot it seems like there's one for the taking I would like I would be a prop in the dunk contest I would like someone to jump over me or I don't want to throw a lob because I mean if I practiced if I had time to practice I could throw a lob okay but I would be a prop I would if like someone wanted to jump over me, I would, or I'd be in a car holding member. Someone jumped and grabbed a ball at a sunroof. I can hold the ball. Is that Baron Davis? No, I think it's more recent than that, but it could be. I don't know. All the dunk contests other than the Levine Gordon ones kind of blend into me from the last. It's true. Okay. Any other nits to pick for the West? I mean, as far as the West goes, I really don't have problems with these selections. And I like, I think we all had our various journeys in terms of figuring out what our ballots look like. Like when you and I first talked, I had Shangoon over Chet, but I came to have Chet on mine as well when we went back to this exercise for group chat. I just think it's like Shangoon's case, you're right to point out, is like a little too thorny at this point. And even though he is a hub, even though he is highly skilled, their half-court offense is so messy that it's hard not to hold him in some way responsible for that. Whereas Kevin Durant, I think, escapes some of that criticism, fair or not. I think it's more about the makeup of the team than it is about any one player. Probably. In terms of why their half-court offense is mucky. And the coaching staff has clearly decided, like, we're going to play slow. We're going to play ugly ball. We're going to get a lot of offensive rebounds. And he's a part of the rebounding, too. Definitely. Okay, the East Reserves. Let me bring up my all-star list here. East Reserves. Oh, here it is. Scotty Barnes Jalen Duren Jalen Johnson we have four Jalens on the Eastern Conference all-stars Brown Brunson Duren Johnson okay the back to the reserve Scotty Barnes Jalen Duren Jalen Johnson Donovan Mitchell Norman Powell Pascal Siakam Carl Anthony Towns by the last time I did it two weeks ago and the starters are Jalen Brown Jalen Brunson Cade Giannis Maxi when we last did it a couple weeks ago. I was Mitchell, no-brainer. Probably could have been a starter, should have been a starter. Scotty Barnes, no-brainer. Jalen Johnson, no-brainer. Jalen Duren, I thought, lock him in. And then I had three spots left. At that moment, two weeks or so ago, I went Michael Porter Jr., Norm Powell, Pascal Siakam. Siakam made it as well. Pascal Siakam. no towns um at one point i had derrick white who some people i saw hollinger had derrick white in his column you could defend it you you laughed at me i did laugh at you also with all due respect all due respect and love to john hollinger john would have derrick white on his team that's true uh so as of now if if i'm gonna take one of those guys off i actually think i would take if i had to i'm not saying i would i think powell's case has gotten the shakiest um his offensive he's missed some games his offensive punches waned a little bit yeah and you just know with him as compared to some of these other guys as efficient as he's been as important as he's been to keeping the heat offense afloat a that offense is very good and b it's just fine and b he's not giving you playmaking and he's not giving you defense it's it's a one way one dimensional straight line scoring kind of thing that arc with norm powell too i feel it's happened with every team he's ever gone to where it's like there's an initial burst of oh my god this guy is a bucket anytime he wants to be and then as a season settles in you start to get more and more familiar with oh he's not guarding anybody oh every time he drives it's to score immensely valuable in that one specific way but you're right it's like compared to the the wide and very contributions of some of these other candidates. I think his is kind of a tough case. And if I had to take him off, I don't think I would have put Carl Anthony Towns on. I don't think I would have put Towns on over Norm. And Towns does bring you rebounding, leads the league in rebounding. He deserves a lot of credit for that. I probably at this point, given how dominant he's been in only 900 minutes or something, I would put Embiid in as the last one. Over Bam, over Mobley, over White. You could make arguments for all of them. Sure. I just think Embiid, again, if this is a showcase kind of game, he's been legitimately dominant now for a month. The team is way better when he's on the floor and minus when he's off the floor. He's still an enormous presence in the paint defensively. I think Siakam stays. MPJ for me would stay. I'd probably stick with Norm, but if I had to flip Norm out, I'd go Embiid. Cat, look, I get it. He's a big name. His spacing is hugely valuable. He's leading the league in rebounding. I just think when like the defining one of the defining storylines of your team season has been, are they going to trade you? Why is he on the bench again in crunch time? Is he the reason their defense is bad? Well, how much of the reason is he that their defense is not bad, but mediocre? I just think we can we can take the year off like the shots not falling at the same rate. And if you want to give them the track record thing, fine. I'm giving them the year off. That's all. I think especially with the Embiid comparison, where fair or not, and I'm trying not to lean too much in the recency bias of this, but Joel's season feels like it has momentum. Early on, he looked like a mess. He didn't look confident just moving around the court. But over the last month or so, he's been so dominant. He's looked more and more like himself. I see that as a trajectory more than just what's been happening lately. and with Cat it's hard to separate the fact that as good as the Knicks have looked of late they've done it with him being kind of an extraneous part of that and their defense has gotten right and the support and cast and the shooting have been really good like they've been a good balanced team and Caron Anthony Towns is just kind of there it's hard to separate those things it's hard to not feel like for everything that Cat does give them and for his skilled and as talented as he is as you said like the spacing is clearly valuable overall he feels less important to the Knicks today than he did a month ago or two months ago. And I'm sure that's going to fuel even more very fun trade chatter and speculation as we round straight into the deadline. But it's hard not to take that into account when we're thinking about who are the best and most important players right now. Would you have had Michael Porter Jr.? I would have had Michael Porter Jr. It does feel like Pascal kind of caught him for that spot. I don't know that we've had many seasons where multiple bottom-dwelling teams in either conference have gotten individual all-stars and i get why pascal would have caught him i think there's i think there is an argument for both and i think i probably would have had both pascal has played almost 1600 minutes he's played more minutes than any of these guys um 24 7 and 4 48 shooting 38 on threes good defensive player oh yeah just just plays professional competitive basketball at all times. Seriously. Does everything pretty well. Awesome player. I'm actually glad in the end that he made it. I think deeply admirable, honestly. Just for a moment on Pascal, because he's a player who did not have to make this team by, again, the historical precedent of teams who are in the Pacers position. But for someone to make it who is, yeah, a good scorer, yes, a productive playmaker, yes, a good rebounder, like all of the classic box score stuff, but puts in like third and fourth and fifth efforts defensively for a team that is going absolutely nowhere, sees a ton of pressure in terms of having to create because there's no one else who's really able to drive offense in the way he is and doing it with poise and grace and continued effort and consistency. Like I just like really admire what he's done, even when it comes down to, you know, like Rick Carlisle points to him and it's like, guess what? You're guarding centers for this entire quarter. And he just does it. And he does it for a team knowing that they're not going to be good enough to do anything with that this season and it's hard not to think highly of a player like that yeah hey uh we're gonna start micah potter at the five today even though we have like four centers on our team uh so you're gonna have to guard the opposing center but when he goes out you're gonna have to guard the number one wing option on the other team are you cool with that and by the end he's like you watch the pacers down 15 in the fourth quarter he's like sprinting back to make transition stops and contest transition layups. Man, I, boy, you could really, if you want to take a couple of days off, man, it's a, so, all right. So let's do a thought exercise then. Okay. Why? I mentioned all the things about Norm and what a very good offensive player and score he is and how he doesn't give you the playmaking and the defense. So what's the argument for Michael Porter jr. Over Norm on a worse team? I think straight up. I don't think anyone was expecting to make this argument on a podcast. Michael Porter Jr. has been a better playmaker than Norm Powell has been this season in terms of the role he plays within an offense. Like MPJ, as weird of a trajectory as this has been for him, has come into a pretty functional facilitating role. And don't get me wrong, what Norm does in the straight line buzzsaw way in which he operates is clearly valuable to the Heat and instrumental to the style that they play. but ultimately like what is better for propping up a team what is better for propping up a bunch of young playmakers in brooklyn's case who are trying to figure out their way in the league a bunch of players who are ill-equipped for their roles but are being asked to do a lot i i trust in what mpj has been able to put together while being one of the best shooters in the world while being a go-to scorer and just feeling like part of a functional offense in a more comprehensive way I completely agree The cutting the ability to hunt mismatches He scoring as a two and a half points higher shooting a little bit better The advanced stats are heavily MPJ. And also size and rebounding. It's real. He's not a good defensive player, a plus defender, nor is Norm Powell. but it's you're just you're just better if you're bigger and he's 6'10 and he gets a lot of rebounds and he's more versatile in terms of what he can do on offense i think he goes in let's talk about the other big event of the weekend paul george was suspended 25 games for violating the league's anti-drug policy um no one knows exactly what happened here paul george released a statement about he took some stuff medication i guess for mental health reasons and apparently something went sideways when he was drug tested um you could just add this to the list of crazy shit that has happened to the sixers in the last 12 years forgive me like if if i miss anything please just throw something in got it uh fake twitter account two first round picks that forgot how to shoot, including one literally having the Ralph Wiggum, you can see it, exact moment when his career is over against the Atlanta Hawks in the playoffs. MB drinking Shirley Temples and going to Qatar. For the record, the Shirley Temples, I'm not mad at it. It's just bizarre. Everything that comes out is like, really? My daughter loves Shirley Temples. She really loves them. Sam Hinckley's resignation letter. Jaleel Okafor going like 100 miles an hour and getting a rested for it. I forgot about that one. Embiid getting Bell's palsy. Zaire Smith's sesame seed allergy. Trading Mikael Bridges for that Zaire Smith pick when his mom worked for the team. I'm sure that there's even more. Anything else ringing a bell? I mean, just the larger Markel Fultz quandary health situation. What happened? I literally don't know to this day. It's a good one. But here's the thing. To a lot of the examples you're pointing out, there is not only a like how the fuck did this happen element to those stories. There is an air of mystery to half of them where we still don't know why. Again, why Markel Fultz went the way he did medically or what happened to his neck or what happened to his confidence. We still don't exactly know the ins and outs of the McHale Bridges situation for as many like inside scoops and reporting as it has been done on it. Like, I just don't know how to make heads or tails or add up basically anything that ever happens to the Sixers. Just an absolutely bizarre last 15 years. Like, are they cursed? Clearly. Is like Hal Greer involved? Like, is the Barkley trade? Is there a curse? It's just absolutely crazy. and of course this happens right as the Sixers are kind of a feel-good story in the NBA a little bit up and down in the last four or five games but Embiid looks as good as you could have reasonably expected him to look over as much of a consistent stretch of games as you could have imagined Maxey even if he's slumped a little bit lately is like in the first team all NBA all-star starter Edgecombe's incredible Kelly Oubre is back McCain is starting to find his game particularly when he plays with Embiid. And you're just like, you know, you can talk yourself into the Sixers are 27 and 21 tied in the loss column for the fourth spot in the East. I can't get there with like, can they win three straight playoff series? Is Embiid going to be able to stay healthy for that long? But you can definitely get to, they can beat any of these teams in a playoff series if they're playing like this. And then, bam, Paul George suspended for crazy reasons or unknown reasons, out 25 games he'll be back the end of the regular season he can be in the facility and be at practices so he should be in shape be part of the team etc what what where do you want to go with this like how they adjust without him what this impact is on their season what do you want to do i want to start with i want to start with the impact because i think when this happened because it was so unexpected and still kind of unexplained as far as how taking a medicine for your mental health would trip a drug test and lead into yet another like weird Sixers situation. The first response I saw was just like people getting jokes off, like, you know, people having fun with it for like understandable reasons. This is crazy stuff. Like this is a very strange story to come out of nowhere. Seemingly, it's also like a real loss for the Sixers, as you said, not just because they're a feel good story, but Paul George low key has been good and important to their team when he's been healthy. and he is a consolidation of a lot of skills that are important to them where he's like more of a playmaker obviously than kelly uber is he's more of a scoring threat than like a trend in watford or jabari walker would be he's has so much different gravity than dominic barlow does and so even though this is a team with a lot of like role players that i like and like decent forwards who work hard none of them do the stuff that paul george does and to not have that for 25 games it means a lot to this team even though you may think out there like oh paul george isn't who he used to be oh paul george isn't worth his contract all that stuff is true he's still really valuable to the sixers by the way trendin watford and dominic barlow two great nba names in like 15 years on this podcast and we're remembering some guys those guys are going to come up for for sure remembering some guys first ballot hall of famers and just in real time they're already inducted in yeah I mean look Paul George has been a very good role player for the Sixers he shot the three pretty well he's defended pretty well he has not attempted to overtake the offense he seems to know like this is Maxie's show and then it's Embiid's show and it's probably Edgecombe's show above me I'm the fourth option in the starting five you know you mentioned all of these guys the Mad Libs guys we just mentioned the sort of it's not a whole it's the murky spot on the team is the power forward position And there's a world in which like playing Uber and Paul George together is maybe the best answer to that question or part of the answer to that question. And now, I mean, are they going to start three guards in Uber? Are they going to start Barlow at the four? Probably Barlow. We've seen them play Watford at the threesome and at the four. And so we just sort of table that whole sort of alignment until PG comes back. I think they played Adem Bona and Embiid together in the first game they played post-suspension. I think we might see some of that. I think, you know, as shocking as this is, I think 25 games, whatever your expected record was for the Sixers, who have played a very home-heavy schedule, they're headed out on the road now for a long road trip, whatever your expected record is, I don't think I would change it very much without Paul George. I might change it like a game to max because between McCain, Oubre, Grimes, whatever, they should have enough to just fill the gaps that he leaves in a way that this is this isn't like losing Maxie for 25 games or even losing Edgecombe for 25 games. I think they'll more or less be fine. But, you know, fine is like you really would like to hang on to the sixth seed, and they have a three-game cushion on the Heat and a two-game cushion in the loss column on the depressing Magic. So I would bet on them if you thought they were going to hang on to that seed before. I'd say you should bet on them now. Just long term, the lack of opportunity to sort of get more cohesion between all your best players has some sort of cost. Definitely. I my reaction was much more of the like, what the hell happened there? Then, oh, wow, the Sixers are in big trouble as good as Paul George has been. Yeah, they're not screwed. I mean, and to your point, like they've been a winning team without him this season. So clearly they know how to do it and they know how to get by. And that is I mean, I think really the defining story of who the Sixers have been is with Joel in various states, with Paul George in the lineup, with all kinds of permutations. They've just been consistently good and not great in any particular way, but consistently good enough. I think what Paul George gives you is he just makes it easier to run a rotation, to find enough lineups that work because of all of these little contributing things that he does. And so without him, let's be real, Nick Nurse has to work a little harder to duct tape this thing together. Some of these role players have to stretch a little farther, not to replicate what Paul George does, but to make up for it in some other way with energy or enthusiasm or cutting or whatever that looks like for their skill set and clearly it just creates like you run an even bigger risk of if any of those guys go down if kelly oobre goes out for any period of time if jared mccain turns back into a pumpkin if you lose anything else at this point then i think you start talking about real damage but i think i might be just like a little more pessimistic than you are about their standing relative to the heat or the magic like to me this just feels like the Sixers could very well and very easily be a play-in team as a result of this. And it really wouldn't take a lot from Orlando or Miami to figure that out. The counterpoint being, when have the Magic or the Heat consistently figured out anything this season? Yeah, I mean, look, obviously, given the small cushion they have, they were going to be at risk either way of falling into the play-in. I just think their risk is increased by only a little bit because of this. And, you know, the Heat are okay. You know, this wear thing is getting interesting, right? And obviously they're in the honest stuff and the magic magic are funky, man. Like the magic, they had a great win over Toronto. I think on Friday night where their offense for the first time in a while looked a little bit looser in a good way, a little bit snappier in a good way. And then they went back and laid an egg against the Spurs last night. And I, I did a whole thing on the magic, you know, and, and if Franz Wagner doesn't tie it all together, not that it's on him but if this doesn't start clicking at some point this team looks different next season definitely and there what i think mid-season is tough like mid-season trades are very tough they're very there are a lot of upheaval particularly when you're a decent very good team there's some funky teams who are just kind of haven't been able to get out of their own way this season that if one of them did something at the trade deadline it wouldn't it wouldn't necessarily surprise me but i don't i don't see a big orlando deal i did a whole Orlando thing. Well, do you see the Paul George move changing Philly's approach at all to the deadline? Do you think this changes what they need or what they should want? Uh, I don't. Um, I don't, I mean, who knows? Daryl is always, is always throwing stuff at the wall and, um, they've shot down any Giannis talk because it would have to involve Edgecombe. The one thing Bobby Marks noted immediately was because this money, the suspension fines come off their books they're much closer to the tax line than they were before and they can get under it without sacrificing a rotation player which would have been required before so that alone is big i'm sure they'll be buyers they have some assets to play with i think they can trade two first round picks um salary wise it's hard for them to compile a lot so i don't know we'll see um by the way uh what any any any snubs for the i meant to talk about the word snub Like I see these snub columns It's like Paolo Bank here I got snubbed Really? I think you should have to You have to say who should come off The all-star team If that guy was an actual snub You should actually be required to say You don't just get to list like 15 players And be like these guys are all snubs And you get goodwill with their agents And them and all that No you should have to say who comes off If they go on And my other thing is I saw some snub commentary. I saw some snub angst, particularly coming from the great city of Toronto and Canada. I saw some rising stars challenge snub anger like Jamal Shedd snubbed like maybe he was. It's the fucking rising stars game presented by Sprite and Kia and Taco Bell. You don't get snubbed from you get spared from the rising stars game. You get to go on vacation instead of it. If you're using any, like our brains are precious. We don't have a lot of time on this planet. We don't have a lot of time where our brains are in prime functioning, snapping synapse capacity. If you use like a millimeter of your brain space on rising stars snubs, you need to just have a beer, sit back, watch a movie, just do anything but talk about the rising stars game. it's very true and especially for the raptors faithful faithful specifically your rising snub rising snubs your rising stars snubs may be what they are but there are spiritually three raptors in this all-star game brandon ingram did not get in but norm powell did scotty barnes did pascal siakam did like these are these are raptors legends you know take your wins where you can get them by the way back to towns i don't think it's really off base to say like i'm not i'd have to actually do a study on it. I think Bridges and Ananobi have been more or less as good as Towns this year. And the Knicks' second best player is more just the collective of their talent than any one of them. But that's neither here nor there. Have you seen any? Go ahead. What if we did Team D, the snub team? And here's what it is. It's not just the collection of the Paolo Banqueros and the next guys in line. You have to volunteer to be on the snub team. And you have to put up some volume of money in order to participate. You got to really put your money where your mouth is and we'll contribute it to the prize money. I think this feeds into a larger problem I have with now that we're just like incentivizing players to like, here, you get this bonus. If you win the cup here, you get this bonus. If your team wins the all-star game, I'm for it. I'm down. And clearly it's like a motivating factor for some guys. I think what we need to do though, is the losing team. We need to have all the money sitting courtside. Like it's the world series of poker and a giant pile on the scorers table. so everyone knows what's at stake. And when the game is over, the losing team has to pick up big stacks of bills and go walk over and hand it to the winning team. I think this is the only way we get real competition back in the All-Star. I like that. How about every player and coach on the losing team has to fly commercial on the way back from All-Star if you lose? Feel our struggle, please. If there's a snub team, are you introducing Team D? Are you introducing another team into the round robin? But it can be anyone. Like if you're Nikhil Alexander Walker and you're willing to say, I want to come compete and put something at risk in order to do it. Bless you. You're now the captain of Team D. Do you have any thoughts on the Knicks going 6-0 after hitting rock bottom against the Mavs and losing 9 out of 11? They have beaten the Nets at the Sixers, the Kings at the Raptors, Portland Lakers. Not exactly a murderer's role, but quality wins at the Raptors and at the Sixers. Also like Nets by 50. You know, it's like the bad teams, they are smoking right now. Yeah, and that's had another 50-point loss last night. Who was that to? I don't know. Somebody good. Detroit. The Knicks have looked fine. I'm not, like, going head over heels. They've been my pick to make the finals all year. They've looked fine. Josh Hart's playing well. They're healthy. Mitch is playing. They've played some bad teams. They've gotten hot from three. It's true. I'm not going. Colek and Shamit cementing, nothing is in cement with the Knicks bench, but like overtaking Clarkson and Yabuselli, I think has been healthy for their team. Agreed. I do think that element is funny where what has happened during this recent stretch for the Knicks? I think you nailed a lot of it. The shooting has come a long way. The balance of the team feels a lot healthier. I think clearly there was like a mental thing where they were operating like a team that assumed that they were going to be making a deep playoff run and taking for granted the fact that the way that they made deep playoff runs was by never taking those sorts of things for granted in the first place. So maybe got out of their own way in that capacity. But also the consolidation of that bench, not just Landry Shamit nailing down a spot, but they're just playing like eight deep right now. and Mikael Bridges also had an interesting comment the other day about how their defensive principles have been shifting and they're funneling more guys toward the sideline instead of the middle which you know the real freaks out there would know is like icing more pick and rolls effectively and so the idea in the post-Tibs era that the way to make the team right again is to ice more and play fewer guys I just can't help but laugh at that like how is that where we ended up like how how have we gone so completely full circle with this wow i love that get get give me the meme of tibbs laughing or or smiling when he was the bulls coach that mean that always comes up um i prefer the laughing at every nick fredell question in a in a scrum personally you know like but let's just get a full like sound overlaying all of the various tibbs laughs over the years into a full like horror complex tibbs and kawaii and it's like horror movie villains ice ice um it's interesting you say that i missed that comment and the knicks uh have been giving up tons of threes all season and one of the reasons they give up tons of threes is they allow middle and they help super aggressively from the outside to contain the paint because they know their paint protection when cat is at the five is not great and even mitchell robinson to be fair better at the rim protection but not better at like the holding down prevent middle kind of strategy uh interesting uh any uh last thing rookie of the year i said on prime that i had uh con by the slimmest of margins as of right now it's now it's gonna be i i don't i'd have to do a deep dive on it and I did a shallow dive. You know, it's Khan's three-point shooting and all the ways that he leverages that. Their scoring is relatively equal versus Flag's size, defense, playmaking, lack of three-point shooting. I think Flag is going to end up winning it, and it's certainly trending that way. The last month has been Flag kind of emphatically, and that dude just gets better and better every game. Almost beat the Rockets by himself the other night, scoring in every kind of creative way possible that guy is there's no question who is going to be the better player in the nba between flag and kidnipple i think i would lean flag at this point too and it's yeah it's not just not just that last month but i think the overall arc of his season so far where it started so much in the mud in terms of what he was being asked to do and running point how much responsibility he had on a team with like an ab like a just a janky half court offense and no spacing to work with whatsoever. And the more you just put him on the floor with anybody who can shoot, like Cooper Flagg and Max Christie is somehow like a winning formula, right? Like a successful, positive way to just like drive offense. The fact that he's able to do all that while being a difference maker defensively. And I just have a soft spot for anyone who comes into the league and right out of the gate, good, contributing, making positive plays on defense that are not just gambling, that are not just leveraging your athleticism. because you know if you are cooper flag it would be really easy to jump into every passing lane and leave the guys behind you in a tough spot as a result like it's easy to accumulate impressive defensive plays i think what makes me in a way more impressed with his defense is how much he stays home and still affects the ball how much he stays home and still bogs guys down even some like really high level scorers that he's been asked to stymie he does everything very well already except shoot threes and by everything i mean cut screen rotate not rotate no personnel um and he is effectively playing point guard a lot again because the mads are not starting a point guard and i think if it's a tie and right now statistically it's probably a tie um i think you kind of have to defer to the guy who is the undisputed number one option on his team even a bad one con is like it's sort of a by collective between lamello and miller and con is i don't know it's going to be like con shooting is a superpower. That's what, that's, what's hard. It's you look at the stats, like con shooting 43% of three. That's impressive. It's, it's more than that. It's the volume of them that he gets up and the threat of them and what that opens up for his driving and his playmaking and the Hornets offense in totality. Just to an edge comb is third to me. They've been unbelievable. All of them. Rob Mahoney group chat. We got trade deadline this week. What else we got? I mean, prestige TV continues to pace. As you said, with the pit, we got industry. But I mean, this is trade deadline week. We got to really batten down the hatches and figure out, are we getting more than Viet Krejci moving? Look, I like Viet. No shots fired, but I would like some splash. This has been such a trade light season. We're going to get some. There's always stuff. There's always stuff. And Rob Mahoney will be there to help you get through it, talk you through it on all of his various appearances and prestige TV, too. I guess industry, another one I missed out on. Rob Mahoney, thank you, sir. Thanks, Zach. Appreciate it. All right. That's it for today on the Zach Lowe Show. We will be back on trade deadline day to recap all the madness. And if something happens between now and then, who knows? Maybe we'll be back sooner. You never know. This is one of those weeks. It's one of those weeks. Thanks to Kirk Goldsberry. Thanks to Rob Mahoney. Thanks to Mike, Jonathan, and Billy on production. We'll see you soon on the Zach Lowe Show. 21 or over in president select states for kansas in affiliation with kansas star casino or 18 and over president dc kentucky or wyoming gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in connecticut or is it md gambling help.org in maryland hope is here visit gamblinghelpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24 7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY in New York. 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