Giannis Return Change Bucks’ Future? + Paolo & Magic Staff At Odds?

Hello, welcome to the Who Collective Podcast. We talk about the NBA, what you're doing on Tuesday afternoon, joining us from Xfinity Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where the 76ers are playing the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday night. Game hasn't happened yet. You guys are all smarter than us. Watching and listening is Tim Bontep's. Oh, everybody. The end of the rodeo road trip for the Spurs. I think the last time they played in San Antonio was on February 7th, and then they have a back to back. They had two games that Austin in the middle to break things up a little bit more than what it used to be, but it's still been a very long time since it's been in San Antonio prep. Yeah, it's technically a home, home games in Austin, but they're not home games. Anyway, joining us from down the hall here in Los Angeles, see he was, he's in my suite. This is usually the suite. I mean, I came in to do the podcast, Bontep's in my room had been taken over by Bands McMahon. Howdy, partners. Sorry, couldn't quite pull rank on me. The early bird gets the worm. And so here I am. It's a comfortable seat too. Our O'Powr Raffles got you looking great in the shot there, McMahon. Yeah, I know. He's got make up. He's got studio makeup on. I've got no makeup on. So just you got your travel outfit. You just don't have the hat. That's right. So anyway, right as I got here, Bontep's, let me tell you what went down. So I walked in and I, the NBA today was going on. And so I was looking for one of the producers to help me with something. And I walked into the studio and Malika is doing this interview with this high school senior who is committing, making his commitment known. And McMahon, right as I walk in, he breaks down in tears. I didn't break down in tears to be clear the kid did. It didn't sound like you meant to bam, broke down in tears. Well, McMahon might have been in tears. I wasn't looking at him. The young man broke down in tears. Bruce Brant, Bruce Brantford, who will be playing BYU. He's going to cast those Ryan Smith checks, you know, emotional obviously a huge day for the kid. And he started kind of tearing up talking about his little brother. And then he started, you know, talking about his mama and that, you know, the tears started flowing in Malika. I had an Oprah moment. Oh, the little soft little. Malika, she did. She stood up and came over. I was like, I walked in like trying to sneak in, you know, frankly, I saw it was on TV. I thought maybe it was on tape. I didn't know it was actually live live. Yeah. That was quite a moment from Malika. Wait until I see her later on. Listen, I told Malika phenomenal job. She does have a lot of experience consulting a crying man because Matt Tincrise every time Syracuse loses and that is all the time. Oh boy. He has no more tears. He has no more tears. All right. So we had a significant event in the last couple of days here. The Yannis and Ten and Kumpo returned for the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday. They lost. They have now lost three games in a row. And Yannis is on a minute restriction naturally because they're keeping an eye on that calf. I think unless you were a Bucks fan, it was easy to lose track of the Bucks a little bit over the last 15 games that Yannis was out, especially after Yannis wasn't traded. But it ended up happening with them was he missed 15 games and they went eight and seven in those games. They were in 11th place in the East when he went out with that calf injury and when he came back, they were in 11th place. They passed the bulls and were passed by the Hornets. No, the bulls passed them to be clear, but that's true. That's right. So they have made the decision in a sea of tankers. They have made the decision not to tank. And they had one eight out of 10 games and then they lost the last three to the Nick's bulls and Celtics. In fact, the bulls, I think, had lost 11 in a row and beat them to break their losing streak, beat them by 25 points. And they lost Yannis's first game back. They only scored 81 points in that game, which is one of the lowest scoring games in the NBA all season. Bontems, can you be fort to get a look here at what the Bucks have on their plate? Would you please explain the draft pick situation that includes the Atlanta Hawks who are playing the Bucks on ESPN on Wednesday night? Yeah. So to go back to last June and the now, depending on your perspective, the infamous Pelicans Hawks draft night trade that led to the Pelicans getting dare queen with the 13th pick in the draft. And the other thing that was Pelicans gave up the 13th, the 23rd pick in the draft, which they had gotten from the Indiana Pacers a couple of weeks prior before Tyree Salbert and hurt his Achilles. And they also gave up the better of New Orleans's pick and Milwaukee's pick in this year's draft, the 2026 draft in exchange for the 13th pick last year, which became dare queen. So Atlanta came out of that with the 23rd pick, which they took Ace of Nuel forward out of Georgia. And then they were going to end up with the better of the New Orleans and Milwaukee pick. So as of right now, the Pelicans are, I believe in sixth in the lottery standings after a very important for the jazz back to back pair of losses to the Pelicans the other day, moving Utah into the top five and making it very unlikely they'll be giving up their pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder, which is top eight protected as we know. So they have these six lottery odds. And right now Milwaukee is in 10th in the lottery odds, which by the way, Atlanta went from 10th to first a couple of years ago to get Zachary Rishi-Shay. So as we see with the new lottery odds, you can move up. So when we get to lottery night, let's say the Pelicans have the third pick and the box have the fourth pick. Atlanta will pick third and Milwaukee gets the lesser of those picks. So Milwaukee would then pick fourth and Atlanta and then New Orleans obviously won't have anything. So if one of those two teams jumps up Atlanta benefits and then the lesser pick goes to the box. That is the roundabout way of explaining. Right. So the thing about it is is that the bucks in theory could get as high as the bucks aren't focused on this. The bucks can get as high as two. They can't get one because the best picks automatically go right. But if they if ball teams go up to one and two, the bucks could pick as high as second. Right. But I want to talk about the strategy that the bucks have decided to employ here. Okay. So understand that they don't get their pick unless it falls behind the Pelicans pick. I wouldn't even back up from there. If you're if you're the bucks and you were sitting there when Janis Scott heard they had somewhere around 17 or 18 wins and they they had sort of two pass in front of them. They had 18 wins. So if they had done with the Chicago Bulls have recently done and lost 10 in a row or really leaned into losing like we've seen Memphis and Dallas and some of these other teams do. They would have had a chance to be somewhere in the six to eight or nine range in the lottery which would have pretty significantly increased their chances of having a pick somewhere from six to eight in the lottery and a load of draft in a loaded draft like every look if they end up at 10, it's going to be fine. Like they'll end up with a very good player. It's a deep draft, but the higher up you go, the better chance you have of getting an impact player. It also increases the chances of both picks jumping up into the top four which then they could end up with Cam Bouser or Caleb Wilson or Egypt answered like one of these, you know, real huge prospects at the top of the draft. And like I just said, it's not impossible. Like I think it's most likely that the bucks are going to pick 10 like the way the standing sit right now. They're probably not making the play in with the way Charlotte's played. Atlanta's got a lot of. Well, let me go over all this. Let's just let's just slow down a second. Let me go over all this. Sure. So they had 18 wins when the honest got hurt. They went eight and seven with him out which was very good. They're surprising. They were way below 500 without him. Now, the schedule played a role which I'm going to go over in a second, but they had 18 if they had one four games instead of eight. OK. They would be in position to have the seventh pick. But because they won eight games and this is what we're talking about. It's very tightly packed between six and 10. Because they won eight games, they're now sitting at the 10th pick and Janice is back. Now, they've been a much better team with Janice this year than without. So I assume, I thought you're since they're trying to win that, you know, that they will not lose more games. But and the thing about it is, is that if they get lucky in the lottery, you know, I say lucky and quote. So right now, they have a 14% chance of moving. If the lottery was today and again, they don't care about this because they're trying to make the playoffs just to be clear. But I'm talking about it from a strategic standpoint. And if you're a bucks finger like, why are you talking about the strategy? Why don't you talking about us making the playoffs, upsetting the Celtics in the first round, Janice making you run to the conference finals. That's what the team is focused on. Why don't you focus on that? And I would say, if they get into the play in, which they're not in yet, we'll evaluate how they're playing. But I want to talk about the strategy that they employed. So the thing is, had they been six or seventh in the lottery, they would have had a real chance to get, get, had their pick in the six or seven range. Now their pick is 14% chance to move up. And the all likelihood is if they hit that 14% chance, like, man, what was Dallas's percentage? I think it was 1.8% was the mad's odds. See if that number one pick. And I think it was roughly about eight or nine percent to go into the top four. Let's say, Milwaukee gets lucky. Let's say that they're rewarded with karma for not tanking and they hop up with all likelihood they're not going to be able to get that pick because it'll go higher than the Pelicans. Maybe they both get lucky. They would still benefit though because they'd get the Pelicans pick who should be a better, you know, the Pelicans will have true better odds. But they had a chance, like the Bontemps was saying, to give themselves almost a guarantee to pick six, seven, eightish. They essentially controlled their draft pick this year. They didn't exactly, but because New Orleans was off to such an awful start, they could care then guarantee themselves a pretty decent floor for where they're picked with lay. And in this draft, am I wrong in saying there's a pretty significant difference between pick seven and pick 10. That's sort of where it goes, right? I've been told two to three franchise players and then, like, if you get to, like, through eight, there's, like, it's considered a pretty low to draft to like eight or so. Just, you know, again, I'm not a college scout, but talking to GMs and scouts around the league. That's what I'm told. I would just say in general, every pick higher, you pick the better. So, okay. All right. So now let's take a look at where they are in the standings. All of the teams below them in the standings are tanking. Bulls, wizards, net spacers, they're, right? Except the pelicans, they just stink. I'm talking about in the east. Okay. Man and I are going to see the pelicans tonight. That's true. That's right. That's right. But pelicans are lakers. Okay. All the teams below them are tanking. So I'm just going to assume, even though the Bucks, the Bulls just beat them, beat the Bucks of their day, that those teams are not going to catch the Bulls. When you look at teams under 500, I look at the wind column. Some people look at the lost column. I look at the wind column because that's, you know, the thing that's less likely if you under 500, they have 26 wins as we do this. The hornets who are red hot have 30 wins. So they're four wins. They're not catching the hornets. No, if they catch somebody, it's the hawks. It ain't going to be the one. Right. And they have a game against the hawks on Wednesday night. The hawks are 500. They've won four straight games in a row. They're 31 and 31. So the Bucks need to chase down the hornets or the hawks, one or the other, to get into a position where they would have to win two play-in games to get into the playoffs. So if they overcome being four games and five games behind one of these teams in the wind column with what, 20-ish, 21 games left. See, they've played, they've played 60 games. They have 22 games left. If they're able to make up four or five games on those two teams in front of them, then they can crawl into the back of the play-in. All right. And by the way, it was an inauspicious start to this push on Monday night when they played the Celtics who were sitting, Jaylen Brown and Peyton, Pritchard and Neymus Cata and had essentially Derek White had a bunch of very young inexperienced players playing and obliterated Milwaukee while playing on the second night of the back-to-back on the road. I will tell you what Bobby Portis said. So they won eight out of ten and then they've lost three in a row by a total of 79 points. And Eric name from the athletic quoted Bobby Portis saying the following when he was asked as, as we're looking at what's going to happen with Milwaukee here, what's going to happen with Yannis, which is really what this is code for. We're spending all this time talking about this because we want to know where Yannis's head is going to be at the end of the season. And we want him to know whether the Bucks can actually improve their lot with their draft pick or with what's more likely a high draft pick that changes their situation or a playoff run that changes their situation. One is possible. We're kind of making the argument that it's not looking like either. That's where we're getting at. All right. So here's what Bobby Portis said to explain how the Bucks went eight out of ten and then get blown out three straight games. And just playing better teams is kind of fools go gold. Rolling eight out of ten playing against bottom teams that are trying to lose for real right. Playing against teams are jockeying for position. We used to be in that position to jockeying for position. So basically, Bobby Portis is saying is that eight out of ten win streak. This is a player on the team saying that that's fools goal. I will tell you the teams that they beat at the eight out of ten. They beat the bulls, which they didn't do the last time they played them. They beat the pelicans. They beat the paizers. They split two games with the magic. Now this was a good one. They won in Oklahoma City. There was injuries, but they went in there and they won. Excellent win. They beat New Orleans again. Lost to the raptors. Beat the heat. Beat the calves. The calves were sitting their top three players in that game, but still they beat them. So that's what the what they ate out of ten was. And so they have the hawks coming up on Wednesday. That's a chance to beat a team directly in front of them. It's like a double whammy. Then they play the jazz who are full on tanking. So they could win the next two games and have closed that gap a little bit. But I'm just I just want to lay out the situation that the bucks are in because the honest thing is still out there like a thunderstorm on the horizon. I know it's been out there for months and it's tires. Well, for years, for years. Yeah. And look, it is completely hypocritical to be critical of the bucks for going all in on a play. And I will absolutely acknowledge that because I sit here and say tank, the tanking epidemic is the biggest issue in the NBA right now. This is a team that could have gone the tank route and has gone the complete opposite. They're trying as hard as possible to cling to that number 10 seed and probably get bounced in the play. But they're there. And there's never never pretend land where if they can just get the play in, they can win a couple games and then they can beat a number one seed and magical everything's coming together. The reason there's a tanking epidemic is because it is smart strategy for teams that aren't any good. The bucks aren't any good. And whether they're moving forward with the honest or not, they don't have control of their picks moving forward. This is like they're much like the Madrix. This is their one swing at a lottery pick for a little while. And it would be their best asset to try to somehow quick rebuild and give you honest a chance to continue there or their best asset. If you honest, if they do in the trade, you know, it's boom, you've got a foundation piece moving forward. It sucks that you're sitting here saying why are they bringing you honest back? But the reality of the situation is this is not in the bucks best long term interest to just try as hard as they may to squeeze into the freaking play in. Well, but there's several people who's it's in their short term interest. Yeah. Well, that is true. And this is also a reminder of plan I wrote about a couple of weeks ago to address the tanking issue. And if you had wins count at this time of the year towards lottery positioning, this wouldn't be a discussion. Instead, everybody could just be excited that Yannis is healthy in playing. And I will again contend that whatever the NBA tries to do to address this issue, which I agree with, man, is a huge problem. The fact that mostly games find a couple months of the year stink and are not interesting, they have to address the fact that it is in the best interest of all of these teams to lose right now. And for all the complaining people want to do about all these various teams, they're all doing the thing that's in their best interest. So that is what has to change for any of this stuff to really change. And again, if you had a system where wins count for the final third of the season towards your lottery positioning, having Yannis come back would be great. The box winning these games would be great. You wouldn't have teams trying to lose, wouldn't be celebrating the bulls losing 10 games at a row or all this other stuff that's going on. I said we'd be talking about Jaren Jackson Jr. playing and Larry Marketed playing and Yannis said a coupo playing and these young guys in Washington playing with Tray Young, all these things would be exciting instead of well, are these teams going to lose more? If it's a Zubat's playing in Indiana, that would be fun. You know, that'd be great to see too. So yes, it's 100%. It sounds at the critical to say that people say to me, how can you criticize these teams that are trying to win when you say the tanking is bad? Well, because they're not like you said, you laid it out perfectly. They're not doing the thing that's in their best interest and that's the problem and that's what needs to change if the NBA's got to really fix anything. And then forget about the tanking issue for the Bucks big picture planning and strategy. What is the most important question that their leadership answers? What does Yannis want? Yannis wants to play? Yannis is going to play. And for years now, what does Yannis want has been kind of the guiding light for the Bucks long term planning? Yeah. I mean, Yannis wants to win tonight, but what will Yannis want when we get to April? May. And will he actually say it out loud in city? Maybe he won't. Maybe he won't. And maybe they do get into the play and maybe they do something in a series and it changes it. And that's what they're playing for. And if they do, then they will get to say see that's what I mean, one of my big beliefs you guys know is there's always time. So I have to stick to that. I develop that for a reason. So I have to acknowledge that there is time for the Bucks, but they are, they put themselves in a very narrow pathway to pulling this out, but they may do it. They may get lucky in the lottery relative to them in the Pelicans. It may all work out, but they're, they put themselves in a position where their pathways are narrow, but we'll watch and continue to see how that plays out. More hoop collective podcast after this. Please stand there with a gap. Another morning, another reminder, there's a gap to be careful of. But maybe it's time to bridge the one between your nine to five and your dream of living life on your own terms. At HSBC, we know ambition looks different to everyone, whether it's retiring early or leaving more for your family. We can help because when it comes to unlocking your money's potential, we know wealth. Search HSBC wealth today. HSBC UK opening up a world of opportunity. HSBC UK current account holders only. OK, the Orlando Magic, I just saw them a few days ago out here in L.A. They won that night. They'd won six out of eight games. They subsequently have blown two games that they do play Tuesday night against the Wizards. They're a tanker. I have no idea what will happen. Hopefully for Orlando's sake, they take care of business in that game. But their last two games against Houston and Detroit, which are two good teams. Very good teams. But on their home court, they blew second half leads in both games. The Houston one was particularly painful in the fourth quarter. As Houston's fourth quarter offense is not good. Durant had a good game. And after the game, Paulo Bencaro came into the post-camp press conference and he was asked, hey, why is the opponent kind of handling you guys in the second half? And he said, quote, just being more organized, being able to communicate with each other, what we're trying to do. Sometimes a lot of times adjusted half time. And I think that's why we struggle a lot in the second half because we don't really adjust to their adjustments. Oopsy, you guys remember when we discussed the magic recently and I said that there's a lot of discussion around the league about Paulo not being on the same page, which is almost like, and then Paulo was asked about that by the local media and he was, where's that coming from? Where's that? Well, this is not exactly going to quiet the noise about that whole situation. I can assure you that. So Jamal Mosley was asked about Paulo's comments and Jamal Mosley said, quote, yeah, I think the one adjustment that Detroit made less, what night, they just played a little harder. They get into the ball, they grabbed at it a little bit more, they clogged the paint a little bit more and our decisions became slower because there was a lot of, there were not a lot of gaps. There was no schematic adjustment that they made. It was more or less along the lines did they turn up their defense, their defense of heat a lot more. He keeps going on, but basically he said they played harder than us. So basically let's translate that. That's actually not really what he said. What he really said was they played harder and my star player held the ball longer. That's really what he said. And this was on a night that Paulo had nine turnovers. One guy, one guy said we didn't adjust. One guy said coach and the other guy said, well, they just played harder and the, and we clogged it up. The coach said player. That's essentially what it was and it happens to be the star player and the coach. And it's a team that's underachieving. Although they had been playing better, it's a team that is heavily invested in this season and is underachieving. Granted, they have had injury problems, but a lot of teams have injury problems. They've had this unfortunate thing with Franz Wagner who just can't get over this ankle issue. He's been three different times been down with it. But all that said, we have a guy on a 200 million other contract and the head coach at open odds with each other. It's not in the shadows anymore. McMahon, it's not wide out into the open. Well, and look, the magic didn't give up all those picks and make an expensive trade in terms of what they gave up and taken on the salary of Desmond Bain to be the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference. And you know, Palabin Carrot's talent is not in question. I mean, he just had one phenomenal game in LA when he had, we had 36 points and was efficient and you know, filled out the box score. But you know, and he's still a young player and you know, you got to be careful like reaching grand conclusions on young guys thinking about the balls teaching us a little bit of that lesson. But Palo is just not proven that he can be a driver of really meaningful winning yet at this point in his career. You know, you can blame the coach. That's and anytime it's going to be the max max salary face of the franchise versus the coach. I think we know who is going to win that battle in the long run if that's what it comes down to. But it's it's Palabin Carrot's franchise and he's not yet proven that you know, he can get the magic to a point of being anything but a pretty good team that's not a real threat. But guys have right now the magic of tie from 19th and offensive rating be their highest offensive rating since 2011 or 12. I don't remember which year, but it was a year when Dwight Howard was there because I haven't been inside the top 20 since then, which is a pretty wild stat. However, they're also tied for 19th, right? Like after trading for Desmond Bain with Palo Ben Carrot with Franz Wagner with all these other guys. So like, that's the problem. Like, and yes, they've had injuries. Palo has been out. Franz has been out. Yes, that's fair. Maybe they'll put up 140 on the wizards tonight. I'll move up to like 17th. They probably will move up with the was playing the wizards, but I mean, at the end of the day, this like you said, Brian, they didn't trade for a first round picture Desmond Bain to be in the playing and they're right now in the play in and it's been a very disappointing thing. They didn't give Palo a max contract would have been super max to have a an effective field goal percentage of 48.9%. And that, you know, and it turned the ball over as much as he does and to be an inefficient offensive player. Palo was, I don't think it was like in just unjust, but he didn't make the all-stripe. He made the, he was rookie of the year, is rookie year, obviously. And then he made the all-stripe his second year. Last year, he was hurt. This year, he didn't make the all-stripe team. And so he, I believe spoke, I think Mark Spears told the story. I don't know if he wrote the story or told the story, but he like really focused in during the all-star break on like buckling down because he didn't, you know, he didn't like the idea that he wasn't at the all-star game. And so he has come out after the all-star break and had a string of good games. His scoring is way up in those games. I don't know what he do to do. He'll do against the Wizards tonight. He shot the ball a little bit better. It's still not great, but he shot the ball a little bit better. He's his rebounds are up. His assists are up like he's definitely trying to tighten down and like trying to pick this team up. In fact, you know, one of the stats that has trailed him throughout his careers that he's, the magic have been out. He's had a negative plus minus his whole career that despite all of the of the stats and the honors and the money that he's never, the magic have never been a winning team when he's, you know, they've never won on the tour board when he's been out there. It's only been six games and again, I don't know what will happen tonight. He's had a positive plus minus in these last six games. He's, he's, I think what's, what's interesting about this is that he is actually trying to like be the player that people want him to be. And yet we still have this situation happen. And so, and here's the thing, Jamal's comments came the next day, you know, the first to coach talk, then the players talked. So Palo's comments came after Mosley and the Mosley had it overnight to think about it and what he was going to say. And he kind of, you know, it wasn't like a broadside, but he kind of jabbed Palo back. By the way, positive plus minus the plus 32 coming out of the break against the Sacramento Kings helped. The minus 25 against the pistons got a pretty, pretty close, pretty, pretty close to normal. Fair point. It's way too small to sample size, but he has been, but better numbers. Okay. So this game with Wizards game will be the last Wizards game that we've seen until we see a tray young who has been announced, well, make his debut for the Wizards on Thursday. He has finally recovered from the injury following the trade several months ago. He says with a straight face. Well, I can only tell you what the team reports. But I don't even know who they play. Who they play. The jazz is a green. It's a really tough time for a young to come back. That's a must lose game. So he very, very strategically picked the jazz. It's the second I go back to back for the jazz too, I think. No, it's strategically you'd bring him back against a good team. You know, like they can't beat the jazz. That's very problematic if they do. By the way, there's two jazz Wizards games this month. I don't know how many people will tune in on League Pass, but I guess just bet you the folks from the NBA office will. That's true. Trey Young will debut as a wizard. He has not played since December 27th. And you know the jazz are a tank. And if they don't bring Trey Young into the action on every single possession, when the Wizards are on the defensive end before. Yeah. Yeah. If they don't involve them in picking roles, you know that there is maybe some strategy going on. More hoop collective podcast after this. Speaking of teams that are sort of stuck in the bit of the middle as we talked about with the Bucks, the Warriors are in an interesting position stuck in the middle. And they've made, I think an interesting strategy decision, Bontem. So they announced on Sunday or Monday, I can't remember what that. Steph Curry was going to be out another 10 days, which is five more games. And that, you know, he's dealing with a knee injury that's a repetitive use injury. And you know, instantly there are people who are wondering like, are they considering shutting him down for the season? I don't think that's what they're doing. I think they're evaluating where they are in the standings and evaluating where Steph is and trying to do their own strategy play here. That is obviously a significant development that the Steph is going to be out a few more weeks. Yeah, I mean, somebody who brand cross country, Steph has runner's D, which is basically an overuse old man injury, which is someone who is out 41 and tries to run. I know how runner's D feels. It's not great. I can't imagine trying to play the way Steph does with that. And like you said, if the Warriors, to go back to the beginning of the pod, if the Warriors wanted to quote unquote tank now, they can't. Like, there's no real way for them to do that. So there's really no downside to giving Steph as much time off as they can, trying to get that need to a good place and then having to be ready to try to win a game or two in the play-in, depending on where they land, because I think they're, I want to say, there are one or two losses ahead of the clippers right now. So as we record this before Tuesday's game, they are one game. They're in eighth by one game. The key is where they are in the play and there's six games behind the Lakers in sixth and six games ahead of the Grizzlies in 11th. In the Grizzlies in, in above 11th. So they don't have to worry about falling out of that. All the teams below the line are tanking except the Pelicans. Except the Pelicans. That's right. But they are 13 days behind the Warriors. Does that, Timurie, declare they're going to try to make a run for the play-in, but I think it's safe to say they're 10 games out of the play-in. I hope they don't. They're not making the play-in. I'm not sure their knees either. Their knees are going to be a good enough for that run. I would agree. I would agree. So there's really no reason not to give staff the time he needs to try to get him back. I mean, obviously, we've seen sort of the same thing happen to Chris Stasper, Zingas that happened in Atlanta and it's situation is little uncertain. But again, if they can just get him back on the court at all between now and the playoffs, like playing. Yeah. Right. Before the middle of it, they can give themselves a chance to have his good team as they're going to have to try to win a game or two and try to get staff back on the playoffs. And if they don't, they end up in the back half of the lottery and they can hope to get lucky. But there's no path to them trying to get down to somewhere where they have a legitimate chance to jump off outside of getting extraordinarily lucky. And I think we've got to kind of brace ourselves and more sore balls has to brace themselves for a playoffs that don't include the Golden State Warriors. They'll be a plan team, whether they're eight or nine, you know, we'll see. But I do assume Devin Booker's back, Dylan Brooks will be back. Do you pick even with staff? Do you pick the Warriors to beat the sons? Do you pick them to assume they see the Clippers if it's the second game? You're obviously trying to avoid having to play two games. You know, you'd love to be in the, in the situation where you could win the seven eight. So you try to get into seven eight and you try to win that game. Well, to your point, Big Ben, they're not one of the eight best teams in the West, not without Jimmy Butler, not Chris S. Pershing is half uncertain and not with Steph Curry's status uncertain because even if stuff comes back, it's unlikely this is just going to magically go away. So, you know, I mean, they're, they might, it doesn't mean they can't win a game or two in the play and get in. But with the way the Clippers have played, if Quiet Leonard is healthy, I would say they're better even after the trades. And the sons deserve to be out of it the way they've played this year, assuming Dylan Brooks is back by now. Yeah, the sons are kind of, you know, with all their injuries, they're kind of just trying to tread water. And I think it's good news for them that Steph is going to be out because I think, again, going into tonight, I think the, the Warriors are eight and 13 when Steph doesn't play this year. And that's a little to see of him because a lot of those eight were with Jimmy on the floor. True. That's true. So, I mean, let's be honest, there are no Jimmy, no Steph, like you take two max players away from most teams. It's going to be a struggle and it's a struggle. Well, and let's be honest, it's a bit of a break for the Lakers too because the Lakers are, they've gotten a couple of wins in a row. They should take care of business against the Pelicans tonight. We'll see whether that happens. But the Lakers have lost ground here and have fallen back to six, at least as we're recording this. And the two teams behind them, which could threaten to knock them into the play in, are, you know, Phoenix who's missing three key players and the Warriors who are clearly just trying to keep their head above water. They've been a losing team without Steph. So that's the thing that the West degrades very quickly. Yes it does. That's one thing that we didn't expect this season is how the West is degraded from the midpoint down. And frankly, I think the Warriors see that and are making a strategy decision to give Steph time. But I think the key is, I don't think they're intending to shut them down. I think they're in, they recognize their situation and are trying to play. I'm sure Steph wants to play, but he's also, I mean, this is also just a reminder that he's an old player who's played a ton of games and put a ton of miles on his body. And like, this is the reality of life in the NBA. It's the same reality that, you know, as we went through this John and the Kamingas saga for the past couple of years, the idea that the Warriors were like guaranteed or should be guaranteed an ability to try to win another one with Steph at the end. Like, I would love to see them have a chance to do that, but that's not necessarily how this stuff always works. Like, things end and this is an aging team that is dealing with injuries that an aging team would have. And, you know, Steph having to deal with this is part of that. But yeah, like, look, if I think we've all known Steph a long time, Steph, I'm sure wants to try to get this team into the playoffs and be part of it again. He knows he doesn't have that many chances left. So there's no reason not to give him every chance to try to do that. And by the way, you mentioned the Lakers. Lakers are tied in a lost column with Denver. So, you know, Denver, they got a lot of wins without Nicole Yokech said, I didn't think they were going to get, I think everybody didn't think they were going to get. And that could end up being a massive difference maker for them because even with those wins, they're tied in a lost column with the Lakers. They've now followed behind Minnesota after that lost the other day. Like, that three to six race in the West is really compacted. And I think our BPI has them all within a game or two at the end of the season. So, you know, if the fact of Denver went, I don't think they were eight and seven when Yokech was out or eight and eight, something like that. I think it was 10 and six actually. Might even better. Right. Like those, those wins might not be the difference between them being six or seven, but it might be the difference between being six and four in a couple of weeks. And it's crazy because they kept stacking wins without Joker. And like, whoo, not only did they survive that, they, you know, really kind of thrived during that stretch. They get him back and this has been the biggest struggle point of their season. I mean, they lost at one point eight out of 12 games. They had to sweat down to the final seconds to beat the tanking Utah jazz. Like the nuggets are really, really scuffling right now. They're hoping to get Gordon back very soon, same with Peyton Watson, but man, this is not what you were expecting to see from the Denver nuggets at this point with Joker back in the lineup. As we sit here and do this podcast, the Thunder are two games ahead of the Spurs and the Lost column. And the Thunder made an interesting decision. So they have a back to back. They have the Bulls on Tuesday night, Bulls of one in their last 11. And then Wednesday, they play the second night of the back to back. It's a national television game on ESPN. We invite you to watch in Madison Square Garden. Okay. Now, with the injuries that they've had, it would not be surprising that they would sit guys not in the back to back. They're holding Shakeylde's Alexander and Isaiah Hart and Stein out against the Bulls and having them against the Knicks. Now the correct decision. That's the correct decision, especially if you really want to, you know, we've seen the past where in the situation, they would have maybe sat the guys. Now this is what the NBA wants them to do. The NBA wants them to play the stars in the, in the bigger game. But they would be within their rights with with with with with SGA coming off this, you know, abdominal injury. They could sit them out second night of back to back. But this is an actions over words thing of the Thunder. Now I'm not saying Mark Dagonal or Sam Presti would admit this, but I'm saying actions over words. They, they strategize here. They're trying to win both games. Yeah. I mean, the Bulls want to lose at Thunder, want to win. So there's still a decent chance they can get that one. And then you need to be full strength against a good team and look, three games and four nights shake coming back off the ab strain. Obviously that makes sense. And then, you know, Hart and Stein has strained that calf or solace technically. He strained it twice. So continuing to exercise, caution with him absolutely makes sense. Uh, you know, but they're sure. I'm just saying, picking the, picking the, the Knicks came to be full, his full powers they can be. Well, I think it's, I mean, it's a no brainer decision like Big Band said, like you're trying to win both games and the Bulls are not trying to win. I think it's indication that they really want that number one seat. I think it's an indication that they expect to beat the Bulls without shame, like which they should, but they could have, they could have sat the guys a second night. I'm just saying I, I think it's, I like it. I like it from the Thunder. I like that they're trying to go for this. But if you're trying to maximize the wins, that's absolutely what you do. Like sure, there's a world where they could, we don't always see teams at the top. Sometimes we see teams punt. They're not punting. Well, right. But I, yeah, I mean, there's no reason for them to punt. Like if you're going to, like last week, they were in the same situation until we see good teams punt all the time. Well, last week, they're in the same situation. They played, uh, Toronto on Tuesday and Detroit on Wednesday. And they punted the Detroit game and went to win the Toronto game. And in that scenario, they went for the more winable of the two games. And essentially said, if we're going to lose one of them, like let's make sure we get, or give ourselves the best chance to get the one that's more winable of the two, even though she didn't play any of their game. In this scenario, like they ought to beat Chicago no matter what. So if they get Chicago with those two guys out, then they have them healthy for the game where like they're against it. They're going on the road at the garden against the Knicks. Obviously going to need your full complimented players probably to win that game. And it only makes sense to do it this way. Yeah. And by the way, the official reevaluation on J Dub, J Williams is like Thursday, I believe. I don't have, like I had a pretty good feel that Shay would be coming back last week. I don't have a same level of confidence in J Dub. I'm not saying he's certainly not. I just know they're really, really going to be careful here because obviously bringing him back before the break, backfire on them when he was only able to play one and a half games before stringing that hamstring again. So the way that AJ Mitchell too writes him, it's really the ankle now. And I think he's, he's on the verge. I, you know, I don't know. I can't guarantee he plays this week, but I'd be a little surprised if he doesn't play by the end of the week. But we'll see. I just meant coming back soon, but that's good. Like it obviously could use him getting back to. He's an off the good player. By the way, Jeremy Kane has paid immediate dividends for them. Derramore said he sold high, but Sam Presti was glad that he did. He's just be careful doing business with the thunder, especially stuff like that. Hey, did you guys see Doug Christie with the smelling salts, the coach of the Kings, with the smelling salt. No, I did not, I did not see Doug Christie with the smelling salts. But tell me his story. I'd rather take sleep in pills if I was the King's coach. So, you know, he, he broke open the, you know, I think they banned this in the NFL and then they allowed it back like the idea of smelling salts. Teams aren't allowed to pass them out. I believe in the NFL is the rule. He can bring your own. That's B-Y-O-S-S. He opened the smelling. So it's like a packet that you crack and he, he smelled it and he like, whoa, and then he smelled it again. And he was like, it made such an impression on him that he just flung it out on the court. I mean, I will say this. I have seen teams not recently, but I have seen teams that this happens before the game. I don't, again, this was years ago, but where there would be like a paste, their, the trainer would put on a glove and he would put a, a thing of paste along his finger and then he'd have the players smell his finger. I've never, I have never seen this. They'll smell, they'll smell my finger track, huh? That's right. And he was like, everybody would smell his finger and the, they would all like flip their heads back and then the, then the trainer would like take off the glove and like put it in men's medical waste. I've seen it. I've seen it done. I've never seen a coach do it though. So maybe before, maybe Jackson should ship us some of these before the pod. Like has Mick Bansett, the Kings and their fans should just be trying to go to sleep until May 10th and see where they land. Some of the lineups that Doug Christie has put out there. I wonder how alert. Of course, I think their strategy is by putting the lineups out there. I mean, at this point, they're leaning fully into it as they should to try to maximize their, their chances. Yeah, they were accidentally awful. And now they've really committed to it. I have committed to being awful and it's working. Yeah. Yeah. Like every, for a while there, they were announcing a surgery every other day. It was a little bit. I was going to say the most valuable player for the Kings is the, is the team doctor, the surgeon. Yeah. Well, they're, you know, the jazz are leading the league in MRIs. All right. Thank you so much to our producers, Mark Devon and Jackson, a special shout out to the technical department here in LA, Rafa, help in McMahon, get going. The IT department heads as a West Coast base. Thank you to McMahon and Bonds. I do IT departments. I have a lot better look in the Rafa anyways. I would have to agree with you on that. Thank you, McMahon and Bonds. I'm thank you for listening and watching who collect him. We'll talk to you later this week. Adios. Migos.