Can the Pistons Survive Without Cade? Plus, Lakers and Luka Surge!

We got Kirk Olesbury here and there's a lot to talk about. Kade Cunningham, sad injury news for the Pistons collapsed long out for at least a couple of weeks. What does this mean for the Pistons present future, et cetera, just a depressing code for what has been one of the great field good seasons in the NBA. We'll get into that and what it means for the East are Boston now, just like clear cut favorites

in the East, what's going on there. Lakers, Lakers, 10 and 1 and they're last 11 beat the rockets. Again, made the rockets offense look like a clog toilet to use Bill's terminology. Again, the Lakers are 10 and 1 and they're last 11 games. Luca looks unbelievable, LeBron looks like he has discovered his found his right place in the

right hierarchy at the right time is this sort of like Uber third option for the Lakers.

They are rolling. They are rock solid third in the West. How dangerous are they? Can they get to the finals?

“Can they get to the conference finals of the Athret, to San Antonio, Oklahoma City?”

We talk about that. We talk about all NBA, which is complete chaos right now, particularly with Kade's injury and the 65 game rule. Talk a little bit about expansion and cuck off the Hawks have won 11 games in a row. What's happening?

All the product of an angel food cake schedule that's about to turn into something tougher

than angel food cake, are they a dangerous first round playoff team if they get in?

Lots going on in the NBA and Kirk Goldsbury. The great Kirk Goldsbury is here to help sort it all out for us. This act low show is brought to you by Fandoel. Things are really heating up on the court and Fandoel is the best place to bet on all the epic matchups during the NBA season.

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Twenty were over in president's select states, 18 are over in DC, Kentucky are Wyoming, gambling problem called one in her gambler called one, eight, eight, seven, eight, seven, seven, seven, seven numbers at ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. Welcome to the Zaclo show. Kirk Goldsbury is here and there is a lot going on but we have to start with a sad piece

of news that came out this morning. Cade cutting him has been diagnosed with a collapse long and will be out for an extended period according to Shomstronia. The pistons then release the statement he's going to be reevaluated in two weeks. I hit our injury expert friend Jeff Stots of industry closed the best in the business.

He's got four cases in his database of collapsed lungs, two of them are CJ McCollum, average return time 11 games.

So door open for a first round play off return for Cade cutting him will just have to

see it depends on the severity it depends on everything.

“First and foremost, you know, Cade played 12 games in his second year.”

Some leg injuries that needed to be dealt with. He said, he's had a semi rough run and to see this season where he was headed potentially for a first team all NBA spot, we'll get to that in a minute and the pistons were one of the feel good stories of the season. To see it not end like this because we just have to see when he comes back.

But potentially get derailed like this is just such a gut punch. It's a gut punch to a complete gamer plays both ends of the floor. Awesome player to watch has really leveled up to season in every possible way. And look, the good news for the pistons is they have a four game lead in the lost column on the Celtics for the number one seed.

They have the tiebreaker over the Celtics. So there are chances of falling even to two are pretty small. There are chances of falling below two are minuscule. But we just have to see Kirk because I mean beyond the implications for all NBA in the 65 game rule, which should be lit on fire and we'll talk about that.

Um, it's like if he's not back for the first round, or if he's not right for the first round, they are absolutely vulnerable to a first round upset. I don't even care who they play among this morass of teams from five to 10 right now. I mean, Toronto at five is only two games up in the lost column over Atlanta at eight. Atlanta is under 11 game winning streak.

But Miami solid or Lando is solid ish. Filly is just in free fall, just without any of their bodies, but presumably some of those people will come back. Charlotte, you know, is dangerous like all of those teams absolutely could be Detroit without Kate Cunningham, or even with the compromise Kate Cunningham in the first round, which

just sucks because the pistons have been an awesome story this year. I mean, it's one of these, when injuries happen, you, you want to have a reaction and

Yeah, bad sad frowny face, especially for a fan base and an organization that, like you said, was one of the better stories of the year, a player who had started to emerge into one of the best guards in the league, a legitimate MVP type player.

So yeah, first things first, get well soon.

Anytime the long stuff shows up in the injury port, you just want the person to be okay and and get well as soon as possible from the basketball perspective, I don't know if

“there's one offensive player that's as important as that to their whole team and the league”

right now. And I know Yokech is in the league and and Jalen Brown is in the league and and Tyree's Maxi, but yeah, he, he really was and if you look at the advanced stuff, one of the big centerpieces of any team's attack all year long and without him, the number suggests that they really go toward the very, very bottom of offensive efficiency.

So I know you said they have 14 games left. I went through it, I'd say, hey, they're six and eight in this stretch, maybe maybe seven and seven. So the Celtics could catch them. So when we're looking at the standings, I think that becomes a storyline.

Can they survive this 14 game window without, you know, they're ultimate catalyst and get right for the playoffs. And I think that's the other big story touched on the bottom of the East isn't isn't a walk in the park anymore. You called it our morass.

“We have no idea who's going to be the eight or that's what I meant by the rest.”

Not to seem to have had it, it's just complete chaos five to whatever you want to draw the line. Yeah, the East. East ain't shop liver anymore. Okay.

Charlotte could be the H.C. player the way into the eight. It could be it could be Atlanta and these are teams that have had their own sort of crazy sagas this season and are trending up at the exact right reason the bottom half of that Eastern bracket, even Orlando Miami as you mentioned, there's some competence down there that I didn't see when we were sitting here on Christmas day.

So obviously, we want K to get well, that's number one, just for the for him and the league, but no matter who's Detroit's going to play, they're going to need to be at a better

level in the first round than I would have expected them to have to be just a month or

two ago. They're not going to be able to get by on defense toughness and so offence and look, their offense is falling off a cliff all season without K, now that often happens without your team's best player and they tend to load up those minutes with all of their best supplementary ball handling in Dandis Jenkins and Careous Lebert and Tobias Harris is also

off and out there when K does on the bench is sort of a stretchy for who can also post up mismatches. Just basically like everything we can throw in terms of offensive creation when K does on the bench we're going to throw into those lineups and they still stink because Careous Lebert just hasn't had that good of a year and the talent is just and offensively like the level

of shooting is in for almost all of Detroit's core lineups.

So it's obviously a crusher for them and would absolutely endanger them in the first round.

I mean, like if you care about the top seed and you know, it's a nice it's a nice thing to have certainly if K comes back in the middle of the first round or the second round, it's going to be more valuable as you go. Our games up on the loss column and effectively five because the tie break is a lot is a lot to make up for as well as Boston is playing so at least they have that.

Let's talk all in BA. I really hate the 65 game rule.

“I realize that that's now a borderline unanimous opinion when they first enacted it, I remember”

saying, I get it. I mean, I get the reason why they're doing this. They have to try to incentivize the best players to play spoiler alert. It has not worked and I also remember saying, can you at least give me the flexibility on like 30 mall NBA to just not have to follow this rule because as things, first of all,

respect me as a voter for a voter now, maybe future voter that I can actually like parse games played, impact minutes played team record, like I can put all this together and actually compare someone who's played 63 games with someone who's played 72 games and maybe come to the conclusion that the guy who played 63 games is better or more valuable or more worthy of an all NBA, but you concluded that I'm too stupid to do that and you've changed the rules

to disqualify certain candidates. At least for 13 all NBA with everything that is at stake, particularly for young players on all NBA, I've already done things like, hey Kevin Durant played 57 games this year. He's Kevin Durant. I'm putting him on 13 all NBA over Julius Randler or something like that like, who are we kidding? At least for 13 all NBA have the 65 game will not apply.

I'm ready for it to go away completely because he's at 60 qualifying games. Now luckily for Katie already secured the super max thing last year, so the financial implications are not there. He's, I mean, it really depends if he came back at the earliest possible time,

there? He should still have this season honored as an all NBA player and shame on the league and the rule change if we are prohibited from using our brains to put Katie putting him maybe not

on first team anymore, but on second team or 13. It's stupid. It was stupid from the beginning.

At least for 13, maybe even second team. I'm ready for it to go away. It's just the shame that let go. He made it all start to even great. He should be on an all NBA team. If you

“please don't work games, you should be on an all NBA team. I couldn't agree more. I was looking”

at the first team guys. Everybody has about 13 or 14 games remaining around the league. You know, SGA still has about 7 to play. Joker's got to play. I think 11, Wendy's got to play 11. Lucas got to play 7. So what it's also set up is this weird perverse like games played watch that is as way too important as we will wind down the end of the season for these awards. We'll shake it there. We'll win be get there. Coi. Antman is relevant.

Like we're watching the games played column on basketball reference in unnatural ways. I'm tired of doing the math where I look at the standings and I look at a team's players games played and do the math of how many games. Yes, I'm decided I don't want to waste the same more time with this. Yeah, and basketball is really hard and this is a point that Bill and I have vibed on a lot this season is we're asking for 82 games. I get at the owner's

180 two games. Even the players, 182 games act, but it's really hard the way we're playing basketball to expect the league's best players to play 70 of those 82. It's just it's a survival test.

“And like you've pointed out on a couple of pods already this season. I think the strong point here is”

like this isn't load management. What just happened to keep cutting here is a freaking collapse load management dude. The reasoning that you pointed out to earlier in your point is we were worried about load management. We weren't worried about collapse lungs, spraying dangles, endless calf strains that are taking over the NBA because this game and this league AB2 games at this level is an insane ask for these athletes. If we're going to insist on that, dude, we're going to

expect collapse lungs and calf strains and hamstrings and ankles. And that's going to really be a more influential marker of who's all NBA than it should be, right? It's moments like this. And that's it's trash and the league needs to move on. Well, and we don't even know how this happened to kid. Now he left their last game against Washington. I think after five minutes with back spadzams, after a wizard's player kind of fell on top of him during the loose ball scrum.

I don't know if it's that. I don't know if it's some acute thing. Just reading my put my

little doctors had on. I read some you know, web MD and I always got a Harvard. I trust Harvard.

I went to Harvard medical schools website and read about it. It really kind of depends on how there's different ways a collapse lung can happen in acute event or just like something. I don't know, but like just you hope he gets well and just all NBA. I took a rough draft at it. Maybe a

“month ago. And it's now just blurrier than it was then. But here's I think here's what we can say”

for sure. Well, assuming everyone meets the 65 game threshold. I think four first team spots are decided. Yokech SGA, Wenbin Yama, and Luca, who by the way, for all the Luca stands out there who are mad at me because I called his ref winding unwatchable a month or so ago, which it is.

He was already in my rough draft first team all NBA then and not on my guests, on that point.

Now, what he's done, we'll get to the lakers who are on fire and just swept a little baseball series with the rockets who have no functional offense. Kirk seems like a problem. You know, functional offense. No idea what to do on offense. He's been beyond sensational and is now penned in first team all NBA. And that leaves the fifth spot, which was shaping up to be a really interesting sort of, it's a matter of taste battle between Cade Cunningham. I mean, you might add

or subtract one of these names, but here are the five names I had. Cade, Jalen Brown, Anthony Edwards, Donovan Mitchell, and Kaui Leonard, where my five guys for that spot. If you take away Cade, it's now four guys for that spot. Three of them get shunted over to second team. And now I've got two second team spots open instead of one to the second team spot open for a whole pile of guys who may or may not even be eligible. It's complete chaos, but do you agree with my first team

projection? And did you have another name, in addition to those five for the last spot? Or a name that you wouldn't consider out of those five for the last spot? I think the league now has a core for of foreigners, counting the Canadian, the Joker, when being Luca, they're solid. They're

to what a search to the finish right now. I mean, that game against Phoenix the other day was like,

“Bastard, but the theater would take them out there too. And it is what he is, you know, he I think”

stands to benefit the most because of where Boston is and the standings, because of the growing buzz around how he is carried this team and where they are and how surprising they are. But yeah, and man, I mean, we're going to talk about this, right? And my not get to 65 himself. This is why this is why I just sort of just left it blurry. I think Jalen Brown is probably the favorite. I'm not sure I would pick him yet, but he's definitely surging toward the finish line.

You know, the stat nerds hold it against him, that the Celtics are he's always

Jalen Brown's advanced stats have always trailed behind other indicators of his greatness. I'm not 100% sure why that is. I think a lot of it is assist a turnover ratio. He's just not a high assist guy and he is a high turnover guy. Maybe he's not just good of a rebounder. I don't know. I don't know if he doesn't get steals or blocks I'd have to check, but it's just weird. There are guys like Booker is like this too where their advanced stats just lag behind

both the eye test and their traditional stats. And one of the advanced stats is well, the Celtics are significantly better when Jalen Brown is off the floor and I'm just not really going to hold that against him because they're still really good when he is on the floor. They're really good when he's off the floor because their team infrastructure and their coaching is really good.

He's always going to face the best line-ups because he starts games and finishes games.

“And whatever they are with him, let's say they're I think they're like plus six per hundreder”

with him on the floor and plus eleven off the floor. Something like that. Still a solid number. It all comes out in the wash to me. You look at a point in shooting. I'm not going to hold that against him. He's just been awesome and he's been just as good since Tadam came back. And then if you look at it, I think the best player of that group of five this season has been quite Leonard. He's also played the few as games out of them. And I do think it's okay for this

sort of hovering cloud of crap above him above the tree tops as it were for you to be like

not the year to put Kauai first team all NBA. But he definitely deserves second team all NBA.

It is one of the more interesting situations in the league. Why definitely is played maybe his finest year of basketball. Certainly since he's been LA. But yeah, I think the other thing I would point to with Jalen Brown is he's been asked to transform his game a lot this season. And he's reinvented it. And when somebody has that sort of giant uptick and usage and demand and leadership, like we can expect a drop in efficiency. But this guy has been the centerpiece of the Celtics

offense. And as added all this mid-range stuff, which if that's going to be part of your game, I'm sorry, it's going to have attacks on those efficiency numbers. It's a good point. Yeah, he's done it. He's answered the bell. When we were sitting here doing preseason pods, we weren't saying, oh my god, Jalen Brown's probably going to first steam all being NBA. The Celtics are going to have a chance to steal the one seed by the end of this year.

It's crazy what's happened there. And for that reason, that's where I say, if Kade is following out, that's Jalen spot. In my opinion, Bronson as an argument potentially may be Maxy Donovan Mitchell, Koli, if he gets to 65 games, hello. And if he gets to 65 games, hello. But for me,

“it's Jalen Brown's act. Yeah, I think right now, I mean, the clippers have lost three in a row.”

It's not Koli's fault. But if they're under 500 at the end of the season, that's a tough one. I think right now would come down. If Kade is not eligible to Jalen Brown had done of the Mitchell for me. And I'm going to reserve judgment toward the end of the season. Now, if just to put just put Jalen Brown on, right? Let's just for the purposes of this exercise. I'll put Jalen Brown. That puts Ann Mitchell and Koli leading up the second team. That's still

only eight guys. We have seven all NBA spots left at that point. And when I first did this a month or so ago, my third team, I think if I'm remembering right, was Jalen Bronson, Kevin Durant, Tyrese, Maxi, Jamal Murray, and Jalen Johnson. Now, you could still make very good cases for all of five of those players except now two of them would be on the second team. Second team. Now, they also might still be on 13 because I mean, you can look around the league. I would say the

following people's all NBA cases are rising toward the end of the season. Bam out of bio, Jalen Durant. I'm almost at the point where I think Jalen Durant has to be on it all in

think Denny obvious drop in a little bit. Maxi is just miss some games. Bronson has had kind of

an less two weeks, let's say, by his standards. Harden is dropping a little bit. Chet is still hanging around about the same spot. And I just named like 12 guys for seven spots. It's wide open,

“the last two spots on second team all NBA and third team all NBA. And I think we'll really”

depend on games played in a lot of cases, how these teams finish. And if Durant, I mean, what do you do? If 36 they're not against the wizards who, you know, if you're a big guy against the wizards buckle up, like get your get start, start shooting early because you don't know what could happen. It doesn't even matter if Alex star plays or doesn't play, but if he doesn't play, feast. It's wide open, but I think like cat, cat has had an awesome last six weeks for the

great. And bam, just did bam things. And Booker, just a metronome of like Dylan Brooks's out, Jail and Green has come back and is shooting like 30%. And they just keep just staying there at seven and hanging strong. And he's had a bunch of 30 and 40 point games lately. He's been awesome. It's going to be a very fun race. And he and Durant, I think, are rising the most as we get to the end of the season. Any other, any other thoughts on any of those players? Is anyone a must, is anyone

“not, like a must not for you of the guys I named? I think Katie, at 37, doing what he's doing.”

So that's a score is impressive to me. Jail and Johnson, if the Hawks finish, like, looks like they're going to finish, I would add him to the most ascendant people. He was already in my list. That's why I did. But, yes, they are, they are scoring one my suit. Yeah, it's a magic city run down there. Oh boy. Sorry, Luke Kornat, friend of the, friend of the program. But yeah, he's a friend of these not a friend of my program. I'll tell you a program that he's a

friend of. I was sitting before I was watching. He's not, he's not an enemy of the program to be clear. I'm just not getting granted in friend of the program. I'll tell you a quick story. I was sitting,

watching warmups against this first Sacramento game here in Austin a couple of weeks ago and I was just

mining my own business, watching guys shoot around. And I hear out of the corner of my ear. I hear, hey, go seed dogs. I had my Portland Seedawks hat, which I've worn on this act low show before. Sure. And I look over and who is it? Luke Kornat. And I'm like, I don't know, Luke Kornat. I say, hey, Luke, what's up? How do you know the Portland Seedawks, man? He's like a lot played for the main Celtics. I used to love to go to the Seedawks games. I love Portland, man.

So that's when me and Luke became friends. Then I didn't know he was going to pin this really divisive letter about the adult entertainment establishment and its relationship with the Hawks. But that's a story further than our time. I'm a big Luke Kornat guy. Chad home brings the one I would come back to. The thunder are very good, defending champs.

The defensive metrics in all NBA conversations never get brought up enough.

The thunder probably deserved to have two players on this. You could get that way. Get, you could argue that. But Jalen Johnson and Chad are the ones that I'm sort of

“circling the most for sneaking on the third team. I like all of it. I think Chad, you know,”

it's going to be very interesting to see how things finish up. I wish he had done a little bit more offensively when SGA missed games and Jdubs been out for the most of the season. But he's been just rock solid for them. It has, has made more of a leap on offensive Lisa's a shooter, efficiency wise from three. And I feel very confident. Look, he just doesn't have a power game. That's fine. That's not who he is. But I feel very confident

now when he gets a wing or a smaller guy on him and he faces him up and just kind of riggles his way into like a 13 foot jumper. That feels almost automatic to me now. The way Chad is playing. So those are all, those are all great choices. Can I, can I hit you with one quick question to end this segment potentially for the Zach low show audience? So if the 65-game role is trashed, are you in favor of just eliminating that? And like you said, trust trust the intellect to the

voters just to get it right. Hey, we could find these 15 guys. Yeah, we watched. Yeah, I'm done with it. I'm over it. It's just, just, just, just remove it. I think that's right, too. Are just around the east? I think I'm ready to now say Boston would scare me the most as an Eastern Conference playoff team. Like, boss, if I had to pick a final steam now and I'm not going

back on my next final pick. It's it's locked in stone. I think I think Boston has said this year and I didn't Brooklyn on the live show. Boston to me is the most complete and coherent of these four teams atop the Eastern Conference. The team that seems most certain about who they are and how they want to play the team with the, I mean, it's hard to say that they have a higher

I just feel more confident watching the Celtics than I do, watching the nicks on a night

tonight basis and Tatum has looked unbelievable. Yeah, it is best game of the season last night.

“They blew out the warriors. He had 24, I think. And I just, Tatum is the big question of”

art, right? Like, can he sustain this? Is he going to run into a conditioning wall at some point? Is the playoff intensity going to sort of interrupt his reintegration and sort of rediscovering the game? Every game that goes by, he kind of starts to answer that question. And if he looks like this, and if he looks better than this as we go, and they get vouch of it back at some point, at least it's just like, hey, we're playing the pistons or the cats with their two bigs. We need just the

giant guy to get some rebound. Like, like, they, they look awesome right now. Yeah, that is there to be the favors. And one other point, oh, by the way, they won the NBA championship, not too long ago with the same core. And I, I can't credit them enough for their drafts and their player development and getting this depth out of nowhere. But for me, it's those core guys, including Joe Masula and the jays are just, it's just very intimidating. And the odds,

the odds favor them. If you look at what Van Duels saying right now is at low, they are the most likely team, according to the, to the books to come out of the Eastern Conference. So,

“I think there are advanced numbers, suggests are the most complete team. I think they're”

resume from the last few years, suggests it. And then Vegas agrees as well. I trust them in the next the most out of the top four. Cleveland has had a little bit of a scattershot last 10 games, despite, moreably, having some huge gains in that span. Yeah. They have, there is talented, is anybody like Max Drew's just came back and looks like he, I mean, his, his change of direction on defense looks a little bit slower as you'd expect, but it's just bombing threes and

looks great. The Jared Allen thing is now getting into like, hey, what's going on with Jared Allen? Like, why is he not playing now? And it's this neat tendonitis. And it's making me a low nervous, because I think, you know, we can have reasonable debates over whether the best version of the cabs has both bigs playing 28 minutes together or 14 minutes together in a heavy stagger, but the best version of the cabs has mobly and Allen healthy and probably starting every game,

no matter who the playoff opponent is. Certainly the best version of James Hardin's pick and roll game has been with Jared Allen and not with Evan Mobley. And we've just seen Cleveland players missed long periods of time and come back, whether it's Garland or Allen. So I'm officially starting to worry about the Jared Allen thing. And they just feel like they're sort of like Denver East where it just feels like the year where no one, they just can't get everyone healthy

and going at the same time. And then we just, out of the playoff picture, we have to talk about Johannes. Let's take a quick break and then we'll hit the honest thing. Disaclo show is brought to you by Fandwell. The tournament is here and on Fandwell, it's time to dance right now. Fandwell's dropping

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Call one eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or is it ccpg dot org slash chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by state farm on the court. The best players know when to pass and off of it, you still need teammates who are there when it counts. That's where state farm comes in with agents and digital capabilities to help you find the coverage you need. You can focus on what really matters. One of that scoring game winners are just getting through

the day. State farm with the assist coverage options are selected by the customer availability and eligibility very by state. Kirk, I don't know if you saw this, but Shams actually was Eric name at the athletic who broke the story yesterday that the bucks and Janice are at logger heads.

That's the first time I've used the phrase logger heads in my I don't think I've ever written

the phrase logger heads before but I'm using it now. Over, Janice's returned to play from I think what they're calling a hyper extended knee, which follows a bunch of calf stuff all season long. The bucks are done. We know they're done. Exactly one week ago today, when I had Rob Mahoney on, I said, I'm predicting by March 19th, the buck shot Janice down because they had this two week window

their season was going to be over. It's over. They're done. They're toast. They're roster around Janice's

“a complete mess. Miles Turner, topo is for most disappointing off season acquisitions and players”

of the whole season. Janice still wants to play according to Eric name and then Shams Trania, and the bucks don't want him to play. Janice is mad about it apparently and insisting that he wants to play and Kirk. I'm tired, man. I'm tapping out. It's wake me up when this is over.

Like what is that? Is that Janice? Yeah, it's Janice. It's my Janice doll. I always bring it on the

Zack low show. It's just endless now and like in a month, he's going to tweet something where like at the, like the wolf of Wall Street thing. I'm never leaving thing. He did after the trade deadline where it's like, so wait, is it again? You're never leaving and this all was complete bullshit. The first, the last two months of not just Shams reporting, but the athletic reporting and other people are reporting and you saying, well, I like omelets for breakfast some

days, but it might like scrambled eggs for breakfast the next day and I want to be with the bucks, but I also want to win a championship, and if those two things are compatible, if if if but now it's the wolf of Wall Street, me and you're staying forever. And now you're mad at the bucks because they want to shut you down when your team is six games in the lost column out of the tenth seed and your hurt. So you're going to miss games anyway. So let's just round it up to eight

games out in the lost column with ten games left and they want you to shut it down. And that's like,

that's not even just a lottery play. We know that the bucks get the the the second best of their

own pick and the pelicans pick the best of which will go to the Hawks. That says that's also just like, hey, maybe we just need you healthy both as a trade piece in the summer or as a basketball player on our team next year. And you haven't been healthy for like a month straight, almost the entire season. And this leg stuff is getting a little scary. And it's in the best interest of our team on every possible level to shut you down. And it's cool that you want to play. Look,

in this era of 65 games and load management like Admiral, but that you want to play. I wouldn't even be surprised if you release a statement like, you know, the 10 year old kid who comes to the game in Orlando wants to see me play. Like, I got to honor that. That's great for that kid. That's awesome. This is a perfectly reasonable position for the bucks to have. I've done my own reporting on it.

“I think it's all true. What's been reported. And this honestly, one of the reasons I'm tired of it”

is this feels like if I were trying, if I were a player and I wanted to get traded, but I didn't want to look like the bad guy. This feels like a really good manufactured way for that to happen. For me to be like, well, we had to dispute. I wanted to play. I wanted to buy contract and play and they didn't. And that pissed me off. It's just all, I'm just wake me up, wake me up when he either signs the extension or they trade him because I'm so tired of this

endless back and forth. I haven't heard you talk like this. Jonathan Kominga was stealing headlines for months and years at a time. It seems like this is the new Kominga song. But well, because

everyone's going to say there was never anything to see here. Never. Never. Well, that's the,

well, I always go with this as a little different than where you went, which is why am I, why is this in the press? Like, it's just the sign of a very dysfunctional relationship at the very top level of an MBA organization. When the club says one thing and the superstars back channeling, I've never seen anything like it when you come back channeling, don't just know back channeling the channeling. That's right. That's right. But it's just dysfunctional. And I'm sick of it. And

here's why I'm sick of it the most. He's one of my favorite players when he's right. He's one of the best

“players in the world. I've said it on your show before. I think the books have let him down. I think”

the team building project around Yonisant to Kubo has been sort of a failure now for five years running, including the Miles Davis Miles Turner signing. It's time to move on, dude. It's time to move on. And then people around Yonis will say, he's the most stubborn athlete you'll ever meet. One of the reasons this is happening, whether it's that I want to play or I'm not going to demand a trade publicly is that stubbornness that is a huge part of his character. And here

we're seeing it again. He's defiant. I'm also sick of it. But I'll go slightly different way. It's time for the divorce. It's time. It is absolutely time. Please just part ways and let Yonis have potentially the second half of his prime here in a different atmosphere. So I'm going to disagree with you on two fronts. Number one, I think they've done a better job team building than maybe

across both transactions to getting Dame and then losing Dame from Miles Turner. The draft has been not good. But for most teams that pick in that range, it's not good. But if you're going to pick in that range over and over again, at some point you've got to hit in the 20s and they didn't

and they punted on some of the guys they drafted already. So that, but I will always respect them

for being all in all the time. Did you holiday trade? One of them at Championship? Like they did. I just can't brand them a failure when they did the thing. As weird as that playoffs was, they have a championship. The first one in 50 years in Milwaukee. And I thought the Dame trade was a smart idea when they did it. I still don't think it was a bad idea. Like I would probably

“still try it again. I think it was aiming in the right direction. So I can't say here and be like”

they, they stick in their failure and they failed. And divorce or not, like I don't really care, honestly, if he wants to be a one team guy, that's cool. He's only 31 years old. There's a world in which they keep him. They have either a really high pick in this draft and they nail it

or they have picks to trade the summer and they reorient it, reorient the roster around him.

And who knows what could happen? Like there's a world where that exists. And maybe he's fine being a one team guy, even if he sort of Peters out into late career, Dirk sort of pseudo contention and just having good teams. And that's fine, too. But I think we can talk about what's best for the box. What's best for the box was to probably have traded him a year ago and got to complete bounty for him. I just, I mean, just wake me up mode when it happens.

All right, are you any other thoughts on this? I would push back. Like as a small

“marketing team, you have to, you have to, the draft is the number one way to build your”

basketball team. And they have arguably the worst draft history of the decade. Exactly. And the dead money Damian Lillard choice is now we're going to try to play basketball

in the second apron area with one hand tied behind our back on our, our cap sheet.

It's just a, it's a debacle, the coaching trends. I think I've said this on your show. But yeah, they think the coaching changes are also hard for me to defend. So yeah, I know they won. I love that team that won. They do deserve her hand up getting drew out of New Orleans and putting that championship team. That's a great accomplishment. I'm sort of doing the convenient podcast trick where I'm like starting after that. This is, this is not been great. I mean, I think most of

us thought the wave and stretch Dame sign miles turner with cap space was borderline Kamikaze mission. I can't believe how not even bad just not present miles turner has been this year. Right. You just watch entire bookscams like, did he play? Was he on the floor? I mean, he just does nothing. And he's even not even shooting paddling from three. I'm looking at actually 39%. It just feels like he has not been there. Usman Jeng, though, nice, nice acquisition. I like

Usman Jeng is a good person. The last point on that is to the other thing. The Eastern Conference is not, as you say, chop, liver anymore. Like their tenths look at those teams and the futures of teams like Atlanta and Charlotte and Orlando. How about Indiana coming back full full strength?

“That's what I'm just going to say. It looks like Richard did it again. And, you know, they come”

back full strength plus a lottery pick depending on how that figure or more intriguing. Now, Indiana is a small market team. I think would probably lean toward just using the pick and trying to draw two timelines at once. Real interesting trade piece, depending on where it falls, given that they clearly are going into next season and they win now mentality. I'm just just saying, just saying, yeah, I'm just saying, I think that's one of the themes of our podcast today is that

the East is better and deeper than we thought it would be. How's the Boston ever went away, credit to them? But as you're looking into the future of the Milwaukee books, it's hard to see them competing at the top of this conference now. Let's talk about the Lakers who are competing toward the top of the Western Conference. They are 10 and 1 in their last 11 games. It's a strong 10 wins. There's Denver wins. There's Houston wins. There's Minnesota wins.

It's a strong 10 wins. It's not a Hawksy 10 wins for, forgive me, Hawkspins will get to you. It's a strong 10 wins. They are up to 7th in offense for the season, still 20th in defense, but trending right. In that 10 and 1 span, they've been outstanding on both ends of the floor. That the recent wins have included LeBron coming back to the team and fitting right in around the Luka show and around Reeves. And it has included the best stretch of Luka

Dodgers' Los Angeles career. It capped off with a cinellating end of game, but just not even

using now for two weeks to describe how Luka has looked better, starting around when LeBron went out. And I'm not positive that there's causality there. I'm just saying the word of ease over and over again is zip. He's just playing with more pace and verb. And he's not a bursty guy, but that

“lobby three through two lobs last night at the end of the game. One, I think to Hachimura and one”

to LeBron. And they were both very similar where Shen Goon came out to blitz her hedge on the pick and roll because what the fuck else am I going to do? If I drop, he's just going to work his way into his mid-range and burn me that way. And instead of just dancing with it, and this is something he's been doing more in the last couple weeks. Zip, straight line drive, as fast as Luka can go,

right to the rim. Here comes the third layer of defense. Here comes the lob on the baseline.

And then he's talking shit to the fan. Whatever fan made the mistake would go on in him early in that game. Not a good idea. Luka looks like peak Dallas, Luka again. Yeah, I think part of it is he seems to have found it also a new comfort level with Eaton. He's trusting Eaton a little bit more when they sent to it at him, including there was a lot of gamers at watching. I can't remember which one it was. They were blitzing Luka and he was just throwing these lollipops over the blitz to Eaton.

They were almost like pop flies in baseball. They've traveled maybe four feet like East West, but went way high in the air. And you just say you just go do the rest of it. And he just looks unbelievable defensively. This is why his lazy defensive nights are so frustrating because these last three weeks now. Maybe a month he's been solid, rock solid, one on one, getting steals, getting his hands and passing lanes. And it's like you can do that. I don't know if he got

healthier in the last two weeks of something clicked. He's been just better all or he's been

amazing all around LeBronis fit right in. And this team is now solidly inferred in the West. You can

think of them what you want with their point differential and this and that and how far can they really get the projection systems now give them because they have a pretty easy schedule the rest of the way. Give them like a 60 to 75% chance of being the third seed in the West. Now that ain't a picnic, the second seed is the delta between two and three is gigantic in the West based on your first round opponent, apologies to the sons. They're just not on the level of these other teams.

But like the lakers are a solid team and you know right now they had faced Denver in the first round. That's bad. I would pick Denver. I probably still pick Minnesota over the lakers in a first round series. I definitely would not pick the rockets over the lakers. The rockets look completely lost. But this is such a big win for the lakers these last three weeks because LeBronis

“fitting in and Luca looks outrageously good. Well said, I think they're the third best team and the”

Western Conference. And I don't think I would have said that two months ago. I think they've got there. I would say, well before I talk a lot about the lakers, one of the other sort of macro trends in the NBA since the All Star Break is just the talk about the Morass. It's sort of a delays in the West where a bunch of teams are sort of me, oh, of course, since the break, including the Timberwolves, the Clippers, the Nuggets. No, it's less to the grizzly slaps. Now, Luca had ten turnovers. So there's

been an opportunity for the lakers. And they've taken it. So you know, credit to them. They've been

11 and four since the break. They're the third best team in the West since the break. All the

markers success are the third best team in the West. What will the nerd say? They'll point to what I call a lows law here, which is you can't go very far in the NBA playoffs with the bottom half defense. You taught us that back in the old school days. I referenced it before, but Zack lows law. They have the 20th rank defense. You brushed over that conveniently. Now, there's times when you're playing against Houston and they can't deal with a double team anymore, apparently.

Where are they? But look, when you're the third best team in the West, and you say, okay, we're going to have either Anthony Edwards or or Yokech in the first round.

“Like I said, and you referenced there too, would you take them to come out of the first round?”

Can they get stops against Jamal Murray and Nicole Yokech or Antman? Those are big questions. Last year, the wolves blew them off the court in the playoffs. This team is pretty much the same eight and is there now? So, look, a team with LeBron James playing pretty well at age 41, Austin Reads, and as you mentioned, one of the best offensive players in the world who could don't just, is going to be great on offense. The question is, in the playoffs, when it becomes chess,

are they going to get stops to get out enough stops to get out of the first round against the

Vincent Stahl, Starbreak, there's two teams way ahead of them still in that period in the West. Okay, see, and San Antonio, who are profiling much better than them and all the key metrics. And this is a proud organization and a fan base that expect banners and little stars on their

“mid court decal to pop up. And that's what they do, right? Including for the, they make the”

in-season tournament banner, they did it. And it has the years on it, so they just add the years if they win. The NBA Cup. Long story short, this is good. I think JJ Reddick sent a great job. I think LeBron is playing, but by the way, LeBron had two donks last night that looked like Heath LeBron. One of the last six donks in the game, one fast break dunk, where he looked like two sane bolt turning into Dominique Wilkins, like he used to in Miami.

Just, if he's playing like this, they got a chance against anybody. Spurs included thunder included. They have to be happy with where they are, but the nerds are still skeptical because a Zach Lowe's law. This defense is not going to get them to the NBA finals.

That's always been their ceiling to me is the chance team, the punch was changed theme. And now

they've got much more than a punch was chance. Again, they're favorites to me against Houston. And Minnesota, the way they've played another one, two games in a row without ant that's encouraging. But the weirdness of their season, that's if I said I would pick Minnesota over for the Lakers in a playoff series, that's a 60-40 proposition at this point. Now, the other thing that happened last season when the Lakers and the most played in the first round is Luca was not 100% and LeBron

was not close to 100%. And that's just always a built-in risk with the guy who's 41 years old. It's incredible as he's looked. And so who knows that could happen. Again, I would not take, I just trust Denver's track record too much, although that recent Lakers win was a really great win for them over Denver. But you can't count. Like, I remember vividly, I've told this story before, so forgive me. In 2021, I believe it was the 2021 playoffs.

There was joking at the end of the season where the clippers kind of semi-backed into a first-round

matchup against the Mavericks. And it beat the Mavericks in the bubble of the year before.

“And I think it was a three-six matchup, maybe. And I remember talking to a clippers”

assisting coach before the playoffs about this, like it was not subtle. They wanted to play a Dallas, so I think they were trying to avoid the Lakers, actually, if I'm remembering this correctly. And I remember talking to a clippers' coach who showed not be named, he said, "Yeah, we think this is a five-game series for us." And I told the coach as like, "Boy, I think you're wildly underestimating to do it on the other team." Because that guy is a fucking monster. And if we remember,

that was a seven-game series that required the maybe the greatest game co-is Leonard has ever played to dig out game six for the clippers who they won game seven. And oh, my, I remember talking to that coach at Ford, he was like, "Yeah, that was, I don't want to see that guy ever again." And this is, I've got a lot of hate from the Luka stands in the last few weeks because I call it his ref-baiting unwatchable, which people misinterpreted because people want to do this

as saying his game is unwatchable. That's never been in the case. And I have to defend myself,

because I go to the Balkans every summer and the Balkans are going to come at me, like, with the Lakers, when, when Yokech did not win MVP, when, and beat one MVP, I went to Croatia, that I was like assaulted by Balkans, but all my basketball friend buddies, like I was singling the responsible for it. Yeah. Here are some of the things I've said about Luka. In August of 2025, I've very got back from Vegas. I said on this podcast, I don't think it's an

open and shut case that I would take SGA over Luka for the coming season. Now, that has proven to be a foolish statement because SGA is going to win the MVP again, and it has been just, I actually just voted, do you do ringer 100? I do. I have to get my ballad and don't tell them, I'm a little late right now. Did you put SGA first place? I put SGA number one for the first time.

“I put Yokech too. So that looks like a flu statement. That's what I said about about Luka.”

I took the over on the Lakers this year, on the house, Simmons, low, over under this podcast. Nobody else took the over. I was the only one who took the over. So I just don't want to hear this. And when, even when I did my LNBA thing a month ago, which is maybe the same podcast when I said is a roughlining. I was on a watchable. I had a rough draft on the first team. Luka is an unimpeachable offensive force,

who is absolutely terrifying when he's on his game. When he's making a step back three, there's like nothing you can do except hope that the defense is not good enough. And you mentioned the word chess with J.J. I don't really know how this is happening where they're playing like couldnard who's been sensational and LeBron and Luka and Reeves all at the same time and surviving defensively.

Now, and then they've done it less the last couple of games against the rockets. They'll drop into his own and then the zone will sort of morph into a man, the man defense and morph back into his own against the rockets. You saw them start switching everything and then doubling to rant hard when it would get under. You just kind of don't know what's coming with them defensively.

“I think that's really help. And LeBron, you want to hear some LeBron stats? Hell yeah.”

So I went on the tracking date at this morning because I was watching the first of the

rockets games, the first of the baseball series, which was on the three days ago. I just noted in my notes. I was like, I don't think LeBron has run a pick and roll and there's three minutes left in the first half. I don't think he's been the ballhand learn to pick and really flag that. So I went up and I looked at the tracking date at which starts in 2013. So we're missing Cleveland Part One, the first couple years in Miami. And I just looked at the fewest

pick and rolls LeBron has run an any game since then. I brought up every game and I just looked at that. Against Chicago on March 12th, a win for the Lakers. He ran three pick and rolls. That's his

second lowest number in any game in the entire tracking database, which now goes back. What did I say

13 years? Against the magic on February 24th, he ran four pick and rolls. That's tied for his third list. And in that rockets game, he ran five. That's tied for his fourth lowest. Like he is clearly come back and accepted his version. I like to say his version of old man Jason Kidd on the Maverick's when he was like, I'm physically limited. I'm going to just kind of invent this position where I'm a point guard and I just manipulate defenses who are already in rotation. Like someone else has

gotten them in rotation. The ball swings to me. And I make the extra pass or the cut or whatever just flumics. I just make the next level IQ play after the better player Luca in this case has broken down the defense or reads his broken up defense. And you see him just like these extra passes are flying. He's cut into open space. But the difference between old man LeBron and Old Man Jason Kidd is, he still has the throwback games like last night. He still has the run the two man game with

Reeves and LeBron. And if I get a switch and there's a guard on me, I can beat the hell out of him in the post and actually draw to and kick the ball out. This is I said before this season. Like when rich Paul released that statement about that seem to events some unhappiness with how things

“are going in LA. I remember saying like he should be so fucking psyched about playing with LeBron”

and playing with Luca and Reeves because he gets to be this version of himself which is the version of Phillips. He should want to be at age 41 if he wants to win. And I don't know if it took him sitting out for those three weeks when the Lakers got rolling. But this is exactly who they need him to be. And guess what? He can still drop 30 on the given night like he did last night against the Rockets. This has been a joy to watch and look, I don't to be 100% clear. I don't think they could

be the thunder or the spurs in a playoff series. Like I'm not even sure what kind of chance they would have. Those teams are just so goddamn good. But for what looked 20 games ago like this is just kind of a gap year before we figure out how to resolve this LeBron thing. We got picks a trade over the summer. This is a lot of fucking fun and there as long as that dude is on the floor 77, they're dangerous in any individual game. I think they could beat the spurs as this first guy.

I wouldn't pick them too. But as everybody points out, the spurs are babies. This is their first time through. And I don't know if they're going to react perfectly to bad moments, bad games. I would pick them as I said. The spurs are 13 and two since the All Starbreak. The thunder 13 and one. The legers are one and five against those teams. This year's hack and that one win was one of the ugliest games of the year. There were 66 fouls called in 48 minutes when the

“legers beat the spurs in November. I think I bought that out of my mind. I don't even remember.”

It was 88 free throws, something like that. It was a three hour just slog of basketball. But dude, this is a great story. And off ball abroad, I think he nailed it. He has the potential to be this smartest off ball player in the league in a real problem, whether it's catching mobs or in transition. But he knows exactly where to be. And if it's true that he's accepted this role, he can really help this offense go to the moon. Because like he said, Luca Donchitch is offensive

efficiency in a can. And Austin Reeves ain't far behind. They're always going to have one of those

two dudes on the floor in a playoff series. They're going to be very, very difficult to guard. And I think that offense can keep them in almost any game. So I think they're clearly establishing

I just think that that top-brong of two teams, including the defending champs. And the other thing I'd say about the spurs match up is if you look at the Lakers stats, the nerdy stuff, they are one of the best two-point scoring teams we've seen a very long time. It's like Luca is shooting like a thousand percent in the restricted area in the mid-range.

“But guess what Victor Wembanyama does better than any player of the era?”

So that's really a strength against strength. And in a spurs home or I get it, but I would take the Wemby effect to cancel out a lot of that. Because he is such a geometry changing two-point defender. But anyway, I'd end with this. I would love to see

the third-seated Lakers play the two-seated spurs in the second round of the NBA playoffs.

That is basketball paradise. Let's have that happen. A couple of other quick Western Conference notes through these teams. Denver just did another goofy loss last night. I like from Memphis, by the way, Japan small. That's my nice thing about a tanking team for the game. I watched that game. I was very disappointed with Denver down the stretch. They're like down five or six against the team. Let's face it not great.

And they just couldn't put it together, especially against the Oax. Oklahoma City. Look, Jalen Williams is going to come back. J-Dub, Jalen Williams.

“I assume, and I think they are really, really slow playing this because”

I respect the fact that once the injury started to happen and the spurs derailed their season a little bit in starting in the in-season tournament, the thunder clearly shifted from were chasing history to we're just going to try to prioritize weighing your title. When he comes back, I'm very interested to see how he looks because he started to look like the wrist injury was done and then he had one hamstring and then he came back from that for two

games and he looked like Jalen Williams again and then he activated it. If he looks like Jalen Williams, the way AJ Mitchell was playing the way Chet Homegren is elevated his game. The way Jason Wallace showed like, hey, I can get you 20. It's been a quiet since shake. I can get you 20. I mean, she's unbelievable. And McCain, I mean, it's just every game is just a kick in the nuts to fill your hands right now. It's just 26 more points last night. The six just have like Quentin Grimes

is the offense right now. And this guy is just, oh, yeah, I'm the ninth guy and I come in and I'm I might score 26. You know, they'll unleash Caruso. Like there's a chance that the thunder get healthy and we're like, oh, this is not a wrap because I just think the spurs and then I'll get some particular or that good. But, and Houston, if this ends with like just a first round

flame out, they become maybe the single most interesting offseason team because they have a million

picks. They have young players, anybody would want. We all know that Janis might be in play again. And they just look like they've completely lost the plot offensively. They just, they just have no, and look, they lost the Steven Adams ingredient, which was huge for them. Fred Van Vleets missed the entire season. I thought people slept on how important that was going to be. They just look like they have no idea what to do on too many possessions. And I mean, personally, if they're

going to save this offense, they're 22nd and offense since January 5th, 22nd. They're 27th internal over percentage since January 5th. That's like a lot of games that their offense is just

“sucked. If they're going to save this, I think they need to just start read shepherd. I want to”

percent. They need or it's a very least, they need to just play shepherd, shengun, and Durant together with two of Esen, who's in a hollacious slump, Jibari Smith Jr. Amen Thompson, a finismith, whatever. Like that trio has enough shooting and playmaking juice to like at least just ungum the works a little bit. That's my Houston thought. They just need to go all in on those three guys playing together. I have a lot of Houston friends in my life and I've been sent to them. Hey, look, if you

took two key rotation pieces off almost any team, Thunder probably excluded, that's a season-ending situation. So you lose Van Vleets, you lose Adams. Those are two of your leaders, your morale guys, your culture drivers, whatever you want to say. You weren't a tough spot. What's interesting is after that happened, we were all on podcasts like this. Man, Houston's offense is going to suck without Van Vleets. It was going to be the point card. I'm in Thompson's on a real point. I remember

all that. And then they had incredible offensive marks in the fall, despite all that. And it was largely driven by Steven Adams and ridiculous second chance points and rebound percentage numbers that we've

never seen in the modern era. He goes down that sort of big sort of stipend they were getting

the team. We all thought we were going to see after the Van Vleet injuries. Who's going to get this

team into a basic pick and roll? Katie gets double team against the lakers. It's like a third-grade

basketball team. Nobody knows what to do. I haven't seen a team more at risk of backward violations than the rockets in the last two weeks. It's been kind of you. I've had a few. Yeah. Katie got one because he was just like being lazy walk in the ball-up. They're also starting to exhibit sort of that grumpy vibe that we've seen with some of Katie's teams over the last few years. It's just not great. You might pop up in a text or be careful. I love Kevin Durant. Hook him horns by the way.

And I still think Kevin isn't all on BA performer right now. And any offense that has Kevin Durant

“should be pretty good. So that's why it's sort of stunning to see this happen. And I do agree that”

EMA, who I also adore, has been too slow and too conservative with Richard. You need offense. You need shooting. You need spacing. That's your solution to this issue. So I think it's fair to expect EMA to play him more as we approach the playoffs because we're going to need more offense from this team. If they're going to compete to even get out of the first round at this point. Who do you think the offensive oriented is lead assistant is that the rockets are going to

force EMA to get a higher the summer? We should start taking odds on that. By the way, Shen Goon, quietly 50% from the field is just not good enough for a big guy who shoots as much as he does. His jumper is falling off completely. But he's two-point shooting isn't good enough either, but that's a different story. Okay, let's do it. Wait, you didn't get let me answer the question.

“I was going to say quite dantoney. Oh, yeah. Officer of assistant. He's work with EMA in”

Brooklyn before he lives in Texas. He's he's turned a couple of bad offences and a good offense as over the years. Break the mic. It's a good name. I'm just positing it. All right, let's take a quick break and then we'll cook all our way out of the podcast. Look, when you win 11 games in a row in the NBA, I don't really care if six of them. So by my math more than 50% have come against the nets, right? We had 24 points in the first

half against the thunder. The wizards and the mavericks who are at least like frisky, but also not organizationally into winning. Another one of the wins, so we're up to seven, was the box without Janus. Yeah. Another one of the wins, so we're up to eight, was Philly without Embede, Paul George and Vijay. Another one of the wins, so we're up to nine out of the 11 was Portland without Danny Obdia, time lord who's been sneakily good for them off the bench

and shading sharp as out for a while. Now the last two or Orlando, that was a big win and execute the tiebreaker for the Hawks and then one win over the box with Janus, which you could take or leave whether that's a good winner or not. My point is maybe the least convincing 11 game winning streak in the history of the NBA. I don't know, but it must be remarked upon because the Hawks are now 38 and 31 and they are two games out of the fifth spot in Eastern Conference. I'm not sure how

this defense is number one in the NBA over those 11 games, the offense is number two. I'm not sure how much of this is actually going to work against good teams when they get a consistent diet of it, but I'll tell you this, this is a pretty effective pivot away from Tre Young and I mean,

poor Zingus was never really there. I love watching them play because they play a bunch of weird

players. Like Dyson Daniels is a weird player, teams guardian with centers now because he just will not take threes at all. Jalen Johnson is treated like kind of a non-shooter. He's an okay

“shooter. He's sort of a point forward player. Cominga and Jalen Johnson is a weird mix, right?”

And the number so far haven't been good, although there've been glimpses of it being good. And so they have to play weird and they play weird really, really well. They're like they're like a very elusive offense. There's a lot of randomness to it. There's a lot of constant motion to it. It'd be like, did they just run a side pick and roll between CJ McCollum and the kilo Alexander Walker? Like, what? Yeah, they did. What just, and then they just swing that into a Dyson Daniels Jalen Johnson

pick and roll, that was weird. A lot of it is enabled by the fact that Unyeka Kango has become an A plus stretch big man, particularly from the corners. And so they can use everybody else in that space in the middle. They are a blur to watch on offense. Their principle is randomness.

And part of that is, if you watch every possession, there's always something happening. There's

always like a ghost screen or a flare screen or like some action happening at full speed when the ball crosses half court with like 20 on the shot clock. Like, here comes Gabe Vincent. I'm just going to

other teams like, what's happening? And the ball just keeps moving. And they make chicken salad out of

spacing that should, that should be chicken something else. They're starting five with CJ McCollum, when they moved him in over Risa Shay, which is all other story, is plus 160 points in 236 minutes. Yeah, that plus 160, there's only one lineup in the entire NBA that has a a fatter raw plus minus plus than that lineup. Can you guess what it is? Oh, God, I knew you're going to do this. I, my head goes straight to the thunder, but they've had so much chaos in their blind ups. Is it an

area 51 lineup in San Antonio? Nope. It is the Charlotte Hornets start out there. Yeah, that, there you go. There are Buzzsaw too. No pun intended. And look, defensively, again, we'll see

if this holds against real teams. But one thing the Hawks are is they're pretty fucking big from like

two to four. And a congo is a little undersized at the five, but he can switch. You can do a lot of different things. But when they have like Caminga and Johnson and Daniels that out there, it's yeah, it's just a lot of arms taken up space. It's just really fun to watch. I wouldn't really be like worried about them if I were one of the top four teams in the East. But this is made though. This is a fun late season run. They've discovered something. And now their schedule gets real tough. And we're

going to see, you know, like what it is. But what have you seen? Well, I had a piece do on like Monday or

“Tuesday. And I had to write about the Hawks. And the biggest question was like is this real, you know?”

So I settled in Zach, though, very excited to watch that magic game because it was like their

first real opponent in this streak. And Orlando had been playing very well. So I watched that game very

intently. And Nikhil Alexander Walker was by far the best player in that game. He said a career high at 41 points, which is a stunning development. And everything you said is true. Jalen Johnson is electric, but they're long and they're big and they're athletic and they're active. Dyson Daniels is a nightmare. You can put him on the other guys. The other team's best player. And he doesn't need to score. That's a huge luxury. I'm huge on CJ McCollum who isn't happy for CJ McCollum

here. He's done. He's meant so much more to the Hawks than I anticipated and shame on me from sort of not writing him off as an aging veteran, but he's been outstanding for them. And he's exactly the kind of player they don't have. Like Nikhil Alexander Walker is averaging 21 games, most improved player candidate as is maybe Jalen Johnson and Nikhil Kangu and I'm an on. But he's like a hybrid guard. CJ is a straight like pick and roll ace. They can get buckets

from it from anywhere. And they just didn't have a guy like that. And he's he's been good and they can protect him on defense. And he has a leadership element that will be great for a young team.

“He's won a game seven in Denver as a as a leading score. I believe in that game. And”

I would be worried about them. We mentioned if that if Detroit enters in a weekend state that's my exception. I should have I should have mentioned that if the crippled Detroit is this is a bat. This is a problem for them. And I like Gwen Snyder, but I really want to give credit to my friend on Cecala who I work with in San Antonio and I'm biased because of that. But folks get to know that name. I mean, our sea of blueford loved him. He's the now the GM of the Hawks. Steve Kerenbott

Myers poached him to run the cap and golden state. They loved him there. Atlanta swooped out of nowhere and gave him an assistant GM title a couple of years ago. And since he's been in charge, you know, they they fleece the pelicans in that deal to get a lottery pick. They obviously got off tray. And they sign to kill Alexander Walker's act to what might be one of the best deals in the league.

“If this is going to be who he's going to be, I think it's a four year 62 and a half million dollar”

situation. So credit to Oncy and the leadership there for for taking that the tray young issue. And, you know, building a new identity for this team on the fly. Maybe it's not this year. But I'm very bullish on the Hawks future in a way that I wasn't a year ago. I think he deserves credit. I think Quint Snyder's going to be a good coach for a few years to come. And this team really could gel into something that threatens to compete for eastern conference

championships in the coming years. Well, they have a ton of assets. You know, we'll see where that pelicans pick ends up. People have sort of given up on it because I think it's slotted at seventh now and the pelicans keep winning. They won again last night. You know, seventh still gives

going to get struck by lightning and walk outside your house. But if you don't get struck by lightning,

there's a million dollars in cash waiting for you. It's a lot of money, but like 35% I might die.

I could struck get struck by lightning. I don't know what I'm going to do there. It's a deep draft, too. I mean, have all the drafts to have seven in, you know, the A cuff, who is there's going to be

“players at five, six and seven that that scouts are going to be very excited for. I think they're”

very well positioned for the future. It just boy, if they could do the draft, the 2020, 24 draft fill over again and get castle or shepherd or even SAR. Because Ricochet, he looks fine. Like he's at least still engaged defensively and playing the right way. I just would like more than just like engaged and playing the right way for the number one pick and a draft. And I realized that that was sort of a mystery box at the top. But that pic looks like it's

going to haunt them a little bit. When you look at the alternatives, including Castle, who just just outrageous. He's my favorite player in the sport right now. I love watching this dude play. So intense. So committed to making the right play on offense. So committed to being one of the biggest pests on the ball on defense. And just that intensity, you can see in his face. I just love watching on play, man. And yeah, to think about that draft is interesting now, right? Because he was

he was fourth. And clearly, if they redrafted, he would be first second or third at this point.

The spurs also owned that Atlanta pick. So this year, which they are not excited about this current winning streak that the Hawks are on. No. Castle, by the way, I don't know if you listen to Chris Ryan, and I picked our Marcus Soul all stars. Our final player is to watch Castle was the only common denominator we had in our respective starting fives. And you mentioned like Laker spurs as a matchup. I would pay money every game just to watch Castle, Garluka, because he wants all of it. You're

going to talk shit at him. He doesn't care. You're like an established superstar, super duper duper star. He doesn't care. By the way, he's on my, you want to just hear my long list for most improved player. This is how long it is. It's like 20 names long. Oh my god. This is going, there's no order to this other than I went through the roster as an alphabetical order. So it starts with the Hawks. Jalen Johnson, Nikhil Agzander Walker, Agyeka Kongu, Jalen Brown, Nemia Eskeda,

Musa Diabate, Jalen Tyson, Matas Bouselis, Iodesum New, Jalen Durin,

Danis Jenkins. I never know what to do with the Danis Jenkins types who go from like not playing

at all. They did play it so they're not rookies. I'm in Thompson, Himehakis, Junior, Ryan Rollins, Anthony Black, if you qualify as this is a 65 game rule one. Colin Gillespie, Tyreys Maxi, I'm ready to cross off. He's already too good. Denny Obdia, Stefan Casel, Brandon Miller,

“Kionthage Orange, if you qualify. And I think sneaky candidate, now your mileage may vary on”

second year guys like Casel being eligible. Donovan Klingin, I don't know if people are watching what's going on in Portland because it's a little bit of a mess with all the injuries and like the lack of point guard plays now and then scoots back. He's been a little, you know, he's making some threes but the turnovers are already just Klingin is just set his career high last 90 at 29 points. The three point shot is semi real. He's just a monster remounder and like, I don't know,

any of those names do you like any of those names? I love all of them and it made me think I was just coming in today and I was like, man, this should probably be a most improved team. Like because the list is pretty long. And choose in one of them and again, the criteria for different people is so different, right? Is Jalen Brown even eligible or second year guys eligible? I don't think there's a right answer. You could make a Wemby case. I wouldn't make it because he was already so good but

“yeah, you can you can do that. I think Duren and the two Hawks guys are my favorite. Maybe it's”

Reacency bias with Alexander Walker but I didn't think he was a 40 point score. So if I had to name two, I go Duren who has just become unbelievable a different category of big man and I love his game and I love his future. I love what he's done for one of the better teams in the league with that improvement and then Jalen Johnson who in a trade-youngless universe has finally gotten sort of be the epitome of what we're talking about. This long active athletic version of the Hawks. So

yeah, those will be my three. And I think the Hawks are, now we'll see. I mean, their schedule is Houston away Golden State Memphis. They better win those two games. Plus, so the Golden State is the saddest watching the NBA right now. Apologies to Key Santos and his family. He's been really good. At Detroit, at Boston versus the Kings Boston again, Orlando, Brooklyn and then they finish New York, Cleveland, Cleveland, Miami and all of those teams might have something to play for in the

the tiebreaker over them and they do have the Hawks have the tiebreaker over Orlando and Philly.

“The projection systems give them about a 25% chance of avoiding the play and being fifth or six.”

So the projection systems are still factoring in the schedule and all of that. But undeniably fun to watch and every, every part of Dyson Daniel's game other than three point shooting on offense has level up this season. He's also like to add to the randomness. You put centers on him. He'll set screens in the pick and roll. He'll make pocket passes is the ball in there. He'll take pocket passes and score and he's become one of the great masters of the quarterback keeper fake handoff. He's

great and they're really happy with him despite some of the woeful three point numbers. Some of the most woeful three point numbers I've seen in a long time. I don't have it in front of me, but just safe to say it's stunning. Here's the question I want to ask you. Let me look at the Eastern Conference playoffs, which by the way, the best story in the NBA over the last couple months is just the Eastern

Conference. First round is going to be more entertaining than any of us thought it would be.

“We need we need Charlotte to get in though. That's what he was going to say. Who do you want to see”

six seven eight? And if there was a team that he were like, okay, I don't want to see them in the playoffs. Who are you most sort of rooting for to be in a playoffs series? Charlotte obviously. So I have four teams out of Toronto, Orlando Miami Atlanta, Philly Charlotte out of pure like who are the most fun to watch and who are the most interesting is first round matchups. This is going to really make people into Toronto, man. I don't really like watching the Raptors. I'm sorry. Charlotte has

got to be there. Miami, look, you know, I have a sauce pot for Miami hashtag. He called her. I love Bam. Bam just had a three points. They go in. So that's two. I think Orlando just because they've got a little bit more postseason juice and experience in the other teams is a lot of the band to watch. If they can ever get Franz back and Anthony Blackback, they could be legitimately like a dangerous team. And then so then I'm picking between Toronto, Atlanta and Philly is the fourth team. Who do I just

want to watch? Want to watch? I can't hang my head on the Philly thing. I can't. I can't. I can't be like, well, when they get everybody back, it's not that they'll be great to watch. I just I can't assume that that's ever going to happen. So I will just, you know what? I'll reward Toronto for having the best records so far and I'll pick them over at Atlanta. But apologies to my cacao. I don't know, I don't remember what the over under for the Hawks was before the season. It's probably still

in play now. I gave up on it. I issued a formal apology for to everyone who took the over because I took the over the hammered it into the lock. I bet they can still get it. Yeah, I don't remember what it was. I would have guessed Atlanta on the free season right around 500. Yeah. Maybe, yeah, 42, 43. So they're 38 and 31. They were 27 and 31. So it's quite a run. And yeah, I'm picking them because I do love to watch them. As you, you perfectly describe the kind of weird. They play hard AF as the kid say.

And I love the CJ McCollum Renaissance. I'm not going to do what you did and pick teams who I don't want to see in the playoffs and get on those. I picked Texas messages. I love watching all NBA teams.

“Give me I think the brand in England mid-range jumpers. I think Charlotte could win a first round”

series. Because the way I look at the games act, it's since January 1st, where they number one in that rating in the entire NBA, like in the year 2026, they profile like they're a very good team. I've seen them beat Boston in Boston. I've seen them notch victory after victory. They are the most active and most efficient three-point shooting team in the NBA. I don't think I've ever

seen that before. Brandon Miller is clicked. La Mello is clicked. And obviously, Kahn is incredible.

The top three seeds in the east have to be a little bit nervous for variety reasons. But Charlotte's got to be one of those reasons. Absolutely. They could win a first round series. Any quick thoughts on expansion before we go? Yeah. My biggest thought is if they go to 32 teams, they got a chance to get rid of conferences and do just everybody plays everybody wants. We have 62 games. Then we turn the NBA cup and do a 32 team single elimination tournament in the middle of the season. 31 more

games in the break. So it would be sort of like an English Premier League style table where we'd have 32 teams. Everybody plays everybody wants the playoffs are straight-seated and the NBA cup becomes a really cool thing in the middle of the season where we pay everybody plays. It's March

I feel like it's the league in support of 32 teams. I hope it comes with a new structure for the

“league itself. But I've seen some people say, hey, the league can't support 32 teams. I think that's”

nonsense. I think there's enough good basketball talent on this planet to support 32 NBA teams, assuming they get tanking right. But yeah, I would like to see the NBA use this as an opportunity to restructure the schedule and the conferences. I'm glad you said the T word because all of these things are interconnected. There's no NBA issue that is separate from all the others. And I agree with you. I think the talent dilution thing is, even Bobby Marks tweeted last night

with the net set 24 points at a half time. Maybe we should not have expansion. Let's look at the score. Now, I don't know if you was talking about tanking or just are we going to

just have two more bad teams because we're spreading the talent to thin or a little bit of both.

I think the talent is there if the incentives are tweaked to make abject tanking less profitable. Not only that, I think what you're also really talking about is if you're going to add two more

“teams and 30 more roster spots or whatever, it's not all talent is not the same. I think you need”

to think harder about what talent do you want to be spread around the league? If there is a some dilution of talent at the bottom, if the last four roster spots and every team are maybe not quite as impactful as they are now, then you maybe want to spread the top talent out a little bit more. Now, there are all sorts of dangerous consequences to that and do we really want to chip away at a team's ability to keep its best players together, but you bring back up

tanking. I don't know what they're going to do about tanking. Adam Silver clearly wants to do something more dramatic than what you can't do top A protected and all that crap anymore. I don't know if you've heard from teams, I've heard from teams. There's a little bit of a of a way of how soon do you want to do this? Because we have all these picks that we've trained for or acquired or whatever that are based on rules. It's really coming in 2027 and there

might be a little fight from some corners about the speed of it, but something big is going to happen. And the more you chip away at the connection between the teams record and where it picks in the draft, you do sort of a chip away at least that the ability to game your way to the best players in the league, which is obviously part of the goal of eliminating tanking or cutting it. And if you do that, attach to it, you could do other things to make it easier for bad teams

to get good players who are already in the league, free agency trades and all that. And I've mentioned maybe you eliminate restricted free agency. I had a team I had someone with a team

“proposed to me. If you have a top 10 pick or something, you should have to win a certain number”

of games in their first three seasons or journals. You don't get they become unrestricted after

their fourth year. So things like that that give other teams more access to the best players than the best young players. All those things are connected, but I'm not worried about the, this is going to be such a bad product because of talent dilution. I think the league can absolutely add two more teams. And beyond that, how fucking great is it going to be to have this Seattle Super Sonics tell me about us? I mean, we're of the age. We're the green and yellow

means some of us. We're a rain man means some of that us and the glove and George Carlson frenzy defenses and just the fans were unbelievable. The uniforms are iconic. The name is iconic. They'll get the name and the history back and all that. We need Vegas. We'll see what they do with it. And there's obviously more competition to get that team than there is in Seattle. I just would be so delighted to have the Sonics back in my life.

Yeah. And I was I saw a photo of Kevin Durant in the yellow Sonics jersey. And I was like, man, that's a great looking uniform. And it would be really cool to see Kevin go back and maybe even Westbrook go back. The Westbrook put their nose right after that. But like, see Kevin back in Seattle right before he retired. I think would be a pretty awesome moment for for that fan base. Maybe I'll even play for the Sonics. I could see something crazy

like that happen for his last year. But yeah, I mean, it's a criminal situation. What happened there is a basketball fan. The fact that you and I haven't been to Seattle to cover a series or interview a player in so long. Like it's such a great city and a great fan base. So I'm a lot more excited about that than Vegas. Do you have any thoughts on what you would name a team in Las Vegas? I think it needs to be a very big city name. Um, obviously they leaned all the way into that

with aces. Um, I don't quite know the origin of golden nights for the hockey team and then they just got the Raiders who are the Raiders. The Raiders. I'm a sucker for the, I'm a sucker for the Raiders.

catchphrases in the history is for it's all it is is a guy saying just win, baby. And it's like just that's a commitment to excellence. It's just anybody could say that. But with the Raiders colors and

“everything and it looks awesome. So I think we need to aim, you know, I, somebody had said, I think”

maybe it was even bill proposed like the rat pack, something rat. I think that's a little, uh, but it's got to be Vegas. We got to lean forward. We're having a team in that silly place. And I say that affectionately, we've got to lean into it. Yeah. I agree. Uh, they've done great with the golden nights. Um, but yeah, I don't have any ideas on what they should name, what their uniforms will look like, what their court design will look like, but that's all going to be really exciting.

Uh, I don't think you can, I just think aces is such a great card themed name that I don't think can you, is there a better card themed name than that? I think you can't do it because you'd be the

second best card themed named in town. So I saw somebody say the Royals is in like a royal

flush, but that's close to the, the kings, uh, kind of be the sporting cult that we're going to

“why not just do the aces and celebrate basketball and Vegas together. Like, why do we have to have”

separate names? I mean, the Vegas aces is such a great brand, uh, Becky Hammond, my former coworker in San Antonio's one three championships there in Oveg deal. But yeah, why can't we just do the aces for the, for the men's team as well? It's a good, it's, I mean, I don't like that idea. Personally, I want every, the teams that they're separate identities, but I can't, I'd have to, I'm going to brainstorm a better card. Now, all the way 13 seed. Can we just unite on this? Can we

unite on this? Anybody but Duke? Just not just not Duke. Like enough, enough. Every game I watch on league passes. Like, oh, look, how many Duke players are in the game? Well, you know, what I liked when the Duke had an NBA team last year and they choked into Final Four. Enjoy the wow. He used to, again, it'll be good. Florida's going to be really good, uh, Arizona's my pick, and then on the women, my beloved Texas long horns. I know you guys are the favorites to

you, Khan Husky, Sarah Strauss, probably the best player to play a college women's basketball quite a long time. I know what I'm saying there, but I like our long horns from Texas to upset them and win it all. So anyway, happy March Bandest, everybody. A, B, D, anybody but Duke, Kurt Goldz,

very, thank you, sir. Check out his columns on the wringer.com. And it's, it's, it's always

wonderful to chop it up with you. Thanks, bud. See you, bud. All right, that's it for the Zach Low Show today on Thursday. I'll be back next Tuesday as usual and I will be back on Bill's pod Sunday night.

“I believe we're going to go right after Timber Wolf's Celtics. Is it bad that I'm rooting for”

a Celtics loss to see Sad Bill on that podcast. I'd like to see that. Thanks to you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Low Show. Thanks as usual to Mike Billy and Jonathan on production. And I want to give a special thank you to everyone who made the live show in Brooklyn uh, possible. There's just tons of people that plan all aspects of this. Um, production, Julie, a litman, you know, Julia Billy Gill, who's here. Mike Wargon is here. Jonathan

Freyis, who's here. They're always here. Rock stars. Bell Roman Francis Bernal, Mike Zikoli,

Stefan Anderson, who cheered me up after the show on a variety of levels. Uh, Alice and Turner and Ali O'Donnell who they get all the famous people to come like Sam Morrell who killed it as a stand-up comedian. And then they reach out to other people and see who can come. And then Elizabeth Fierman, the queen of events just makes it so easy that I can just walk in and everything is all set up and the venues great and all that and Charlie Feinand and Tessa Harris, Tessa was a huge help

on seeing just an awesome crew of people. Thank you to everyone who made all that possible. We'll see you next week on the Zach Low Show. 21 over in president select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 and over in prison and DC can tuck your way home and gambling problem. Call 1 in 100 gambler or 1 800 my reset call 1 888 789 777 777 or visit ccpg.org/chat and Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org and Maryland hope is here. Visit gambling help line m8.org or call

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