Part 1: The 10 Players Facing the Most Pressure Next Season

than July 30th.

“This is part one of two part podcasts with Kurt Goldsberg that we're hoping to drop over”

the next couple of weeks. I'm galvancing around Europe on vacation, and it's a very simple gimmick. The 10 players facing the most pressure in the NBA for the 26-27 season. We each made lists of 10, and we go in reverse order from 10 to 1, part 1.

This podcast right now is the first half of our lists.

Plus some honorable mentions, we hit the Celtics, we hit the Raptors, we hit the rockets, the magic, the pistons, the wolves, a bunch of teams, and a bunch of interesting sort of pressure facing players, if you will. Then we ended with a deep dive on the NBA and a pastry. Do you ever remember them?

Randy Antipasters, they didn't have any players on either of our lists, although they had several honorable mention pressure players. This team was within a win, and maybe an injury of the NBA title, like a second ago, and

“they're over under his 43 and a half on Fandel.”

They have a new center of each of Zuboats replacing Miles Turner. Otherwise, basically the same team, minus Ben Matherin, that almost won the championship.

What do we make of this team?

What's your expectations? Maybe, so it's part one, pressure rankings, Pacers, hope you enjoy it. Welcome to the Zaglo show, it's July 30th, but you will be listening to this sometime in August. What I mean, Europe, galvancing around, Kurt Goldsbury's here, we're going to have some

fun. We're going to count down the 10 players under the most pressure in the upcoming NBA season given that most, but not all of the offseason drama and players changing teams is done. Mr. Goldsbury, how are you doing? I'm great.

I'm excited for you and your family to galvance his the season in the NBA calendar where

a bunch of us get to galvance so enjoy it, Zach.

The biggest major drama still yet to be decided at least is that we're recording this on July 30th is why Leonard's the investigation continues, or maybe almost nending, maybe about to end into the aspiration, alleged cap circumvention scandal, backster homes reported yesterday at ESPN, that this process could, could in a worst case scenario for everybody involved, including me and you, go into 2027 because you and I talked about this on July 15th, what

Adam Silver gave us press conference. It's not like investigation over decision done necessarily. There's an arbitration process to which the union is a party. There's an appeals process on top of that if an arbitration goes one way or another. So, yes, obviously, like we talked about that, it could take much longer than Adam Silver's,

we hope to have this resolved over the summer timeline, unless there is some sort of like I called it plea bar in the angry moment where the investigation is done, everybody gets together, they hash out what's fair before going into set arbitration process. I have nothing else to say about this. We haven't heard the end of it, maybe by the time people listen to this, you heard the end

of it. Like Pablo keeps coming out with episodes, they're all very interesting. There was one about a Rhode Island soccer team that came out last night, awesome reporting. I just, at some point, life will move on.

“Yeah, it just, I think it's interesting because the only thing I would add Zach is that”

Adam Silver seemed to take a pretty confident stance throughout the spring that this was going to be resolved the summer before the season. To me, that's the most nowhere they think I don't think that was ever realistic given the scope, and as you alluded to, Pablo's continuing to uncover things, and then I thought back to his reporting was really relevant because if the clippers don't like the result,

or if the player's association does not like the result, both outcomes I think are very likely here, there's going to be, there will be more things to do. So it's looking more and more so, like I saw Adam speaking New York a couple of weeks ago, and I texted you right after everything, he said he's like, "Cool, I Leonard is a clipper." He said that, like, very adamantly, and I was like, "Oh, that's interesting."

But yeah, the thing here is that training camp is weeks away, brain and anger on Brady Dick, they hang in the balance, squiling our tanks in the balance. This is just going to be messy and extended to the full. I'm excited to take a break from it, and it's going to be great. The other offseason drama that did end in time for me to go out of vacation was LeBron

James signing with Philadelphia 76ers after, of course, they famously acquired Gill and Brown from the Celtics, while Bill Simmons was undergoing a colonoscopy. We've talked to Adnazium already on this podcast about that trade, the sixers team, the state of the East. I just, I will say, I'm excited to go on vacation, again, at July 30th, because I fear

Kirk that there is another week's worth of inside the bronze decision coming, because yesterday

There was a Dave McMeneman story on ESPN, which I feel like is like the fourth in-depth

story about inside LeBron's decision to go to Philadelphia. Simultaneously, there was Rich Paul and Max Kellerman on our podcast network, had Shoms Trani on to talk about the inside story of LeBron James. And look, LeBron is arguably, arguably, the greatest player of all time. I've nothing against LeBron.

I've loved with following this career. I've been everywhere in a few times, he's awesome, like I have said from before even shows the sixers that I thought it would be kind of cool if he shows the sixers. I've said he's not ring chasing, all of that stuff, all of that said. I kind of feel like there haven't a little too much fun at the offices of Clutch HQ.

“Just sort of, it's not a victory lap, it's like, oh, did you guys miss the breadcrumbs?”

We had this breadcrum here, the breadcrum over here, did we tell you that this meeting happened over here? It's get a lot of cheeky, it's get a lot of cheeky for my taste. And the other thing is, all of these stories have fun little details in them that we're here to for unknown, like all of the Celtics were interested, or the Clippers had this offer.

And they come at the cost of things like this, anonymous quotes like this. This is from a management story. He didn't take the easy way, a sixer source told the SPN, he's comfortable being uncomfortable, which a lot of people aren't, can we just settle down, like, you didn't take, did anyone say he took the easy way?

Was anyone, was anyone making an argument that there was a harder way he should have taken? And why are you co-opting Daryl Morris, comfortable being on control, cloning it in his space after you fired him? And then added a source close to James, I gained even more respect for him.

“Somebody looks at a job as work, but when I saw that, I asked myself, let's say you worked”

for this company for 20 something years. And you know that you're going to retire in a few years. What I go to Philly, what I go somewhere that's a six hour flight and leave everything my family here to go there, it's really the pure story of dedication to his craft. It's basketball.

I gained even more respect for him. There's not enough settle down juice in the grocery store to pour on top of that quote. And we just all relax a little bit with this fawning myth-making about a dude who decided to go play on a great East Coast team with Joel and beat and Jalen Brown, it's just everything is a little, it's a little much, I don't know, maybe I'm just cranky, it's like a little

little much with it. And then he talks about saying how he said trust the process at the fedatics. He did not say that in any way, shape, or form to drop some kind of easter egg about

the six, a source close to James told the SPN, first of all, why do we have to have anonymous

sources about a super-coated fanatic, quote, he thought it was funny, but also it wasn't conscious. Okay, what the fuck does that mean? I'm just, it's a little too cheeky, it's all too cheeky and I'm done now.

“It's the drinks of content and I think they dropped a bomb in a perfect time to own the”

news cycle. You got to give him credit, you're right, they really played it out perfectly. I'm happy about it, I haven't spoken about it. I think the mechanism and column that you and I talked about two weeks ago, where we had gone back and forth about being, man, this seems like it was realistic, that actually changed

my opinion. I still didn't think it was going to happen, but looking forward, Zach Low, beyond this hysteria, I will say this, it makes the Eastern Conference regular season programming a lot more interesting because now those Philly Boston games are juicy, the Philly New York games are juicy, the Philly Miami games, there's like a matrix of great Eastern Conference games

and some interconference games, but ultimately I'm glad this happened and I can't wait

for October because October is better discourse than the NBA than August, that's for sure. You know, Kirk, that was a really good take. I gained even more respect for you from that take. My, even, even, thank you, onto the gimmick of this podcast. The dust is settled and this is supposed to be, this is going to be a two-part sort of

evergreen podcast that they can drop in while I'm on vacation, so this feed does not go dormant. So the gimmick is just this. I said, let's each rank our 10 players facing the most pressure in this coming, upcoming NBA season, now that we've seen everyone has changed teams has gotten traded and we're going

to go in reverse order, so we're going to pick our number 10s, facing the least pressure of the most pressured group and then part two will have the guys that we are facing. The absolute most pressure for the coming season. I expected some sixers may come up in this discussion. And so we're just going to go rapid fire, then I'll have a bunch of honorable mentions.

We'll see how our list overlap and with that, Kirk, I will let you lead off who's number 10 on your list. Number 10 on my list is La Mello Ball, the newest member of the Minnesota Timberwolves

to one that expects to play basketball into May and maybe even June.

“I think Minnesota took one of the biggest gambles of this whole offseason, sending out”

Nasri, the beloved Nasri to fan favorite and importing one of the most polarizing guys and the league and you factor in the fact that Minnesota has been to the conference finals two of the last three years, a tough second round loss to the spurs last year and then this closing or opening Ant-Man window, depending on who you talk to and it feels like a lot of this falls on the shoulders of the Mello Ball.

We'll be able to bring this team to the next level and suddenly level up Zach Low. I'm pretty skeptical, actually, but nonetheless, I think he has a lot of pressure, the kind

of pressure he has never had on him as a player in this league.

Here's the pressure, and he was on my honorable mention list along with Rudy Gobert from this team and also, I like to go deep cuts. Again, honorable mention, I had Terran Shannon Jr. just because there is this massive hole of power forward, because not only did Nasri go out, Julius Randall went out in a salary dump essentially to enable this move, but the pressure is, now you have expectations

that go beyond the play and you have expectations of being a 50-plus win team and playing deep into the playoffs, which means going toe to toe against the nastiest, meanest, most athletic, most physical teams.

“And I think that was the doubt that Charlotte Harbert about the Mello Ball.”

If we got in a playoff series with Steph Castle or the Army of Oklahoma City Wings in your grill in your jersey, pushing shoving, making every catch a chore, are you going to grill or are you going to get even tougher and out physical of them and fight for the ball and fight for reposition and fight for rebounds? Are you going to get even more reckless with your passes in your trickery and your highlight

real chasing and all of that? I think it's the most fascinating, one of the more fascinating experiments in the league. I'm kind of with you them a little less optimistic about it as a functional move than I was when it happened. I get why they did it.

I think it will work to some degree.

I think offensively they're going to be very powerful moving Anthony Edwards into a

lessable ball dominant role. I'm just interested.

“I think the cost though when you talk about filling power forward minutes from Randall and”

Reed to more McDaniels at the fore, Shannon Jr. Tray Liles is here on a minimum jailing Clark, like that's Josh Green might help a little bit. So a lot. So a lot to ask.

And for I did my homework for this assignment and I said, you know, there's five types of pressures that we're going to talk about, there's contract pressure, living up to big numbers, there's legacy pressure, living up to career expectations, there's health pressure, which I'll come back to and then there's like this foundational pressure when you're the center of an organization and there's market pressure.

I think Minnesota is a market that expects to win. But the biggest thing we haven't talked about with La Mello is health pressure and I'm sure you've talked to people around Charlotte since their season where when they talk about this move, they are unfortunately really skeptical that La Mello's ankles and lower body can live up to the grind that the modern NBA puts on these guys.

He only played 28 minutes per game last year and that was no accidents, that's the number that I think Minnesota fans have to ingest and understand why they were doing that. And it's also a big reason why they were willing to get off of what some people consider to be their franchise player in this transaction. So can he withstand the health pressure or his ankles going to hang on to defense, and

they spurs dudes or is he going to be on on the entrance list a lot? Number 10 on my list, kind of a deep cup that I had some fun with this, this will surprise you I think, read Shepherd from the Houston Rockets and I think there's a bunch of obvious guys on my honorable mention, but like this is an interesting one to me for a number of reasons. Never quite found his footing to the degree we all thought he would or should have in the

regular season even under email doka who is defense first incredibly demanding and just would not go all in to start read Shepherd when they clearly needed a boost on offense with Fred Van Blied out. Fred Van Blied is back now. He's back as read Shepherd comes off a playoff that can only be described as an absolute

catastrophe in almost every possible way shot 30% from the field 30 mostly threes so, you know, not as bad as on paper got picked on on defense committed one of the two absolutely inexplicable egregious turnovers at the end of game three against the lakers trying to split a double team at

half for that cost the rockets an unlike you should never in a million years lose that game and

Steph Castle was the number four pick taken by an in-state western conference rival in an all-time potentially sliding doors moment that the rockets may just the rockets in the rest of the west may not be able to recover from and this is Maker Break now for read Shepherd and Break means is he a trade asset that the rockets use in some sort of midseason move to sort of get a team to you know trading picks in future prospects for a veteran kind of player we'll see but

I got my own read Shepherd that's all you want to go down to your list yeah the 2024 draft class

“obviously it's a key year for these guys to make money to Zack low you have to earn an extension”

and when you're drafted number three in your draft you should be a max extension candidate a very least and he has a lot to prove to get there this season I just want to say I agree with that he was on my honorable mention yeah all right so I had Alexaur and the same sort of sense like this is a time for you to to get paid young man number number number nine nine on your list

Chet Omburn oh oh okay we have our first overlap Chet Omburn is nine on your list

Chet Omburn is way up at number three on my list so we could knock off two birds with one stone you do the honors okay I'll do the honors I can't wait to hear what you say obviously this is a young player who had become an all defensive type player a room protector a stretch five a key piece of a championship team things we're looking great a year ago this was one of the

“brightest pieces of a potential dynasty for sure then the spur series happened and I think Victor”

Wemin Yamma just putting one of the ultimate sort of laser sights on one person it was a really interesting moment NMBA history for me they obviously just have this cool rivalry and when be just sort of poetically made that a one-sided rivalry and that was all culminated obviously with a game seven performance that'll go down an impamine Oklahoma which had helped those one of two from the floor in 32 minutes has four points three rebounds and two assists

in a game where his team needed him the most and now and I know this isn't your notes too what

happens this year's Aquilo is his five year 240 million dollar contract kicks in five more

years he has to rediscover that form that got him that contract in the first place. His defense remains stalwart in that series but our lasting image of Chettongron when the chips were down in a game seven against the rival that is going to define his NBA life for the next five years to team and the individual of Victor Wemin Yamma our last thing image of him is passing up wide open threes and one play where he caught the ball kind of in the triple for a position but

closer to the base on on the right wing and it was like quick sand opened in the floor he literally just like tried to drill and fell over and that was the end of Chettongron he averaged 11 points a game in the western conference finals he took 11 threes total in seven games which is inexcusable he became a complete offensive zero for most of the series and given that the thunder had to

sacrifice a lot of depth this summer to get under the second apron it just can't happen again

it can it I don't expect Chettongron he he falls into a lot of a bucket where a lot of big guys live

“badmout of biolives here sometimes Anthony Davis even lives here where I think they're great offensive”

games create expectations from people like why don't they average 25 a game no Anthony Davis has but like why don't they why don't Anthony Davis average 30 game they're just they just don't play that way they're not built to play that way it's not the nature of their game but you can't be zero you got to give me 18 you got to abuse a couple switches you got a screen and roll for some dunks and have just some impact on the game offensively what was really interesting about that

spurs series is they're total reluctant to have Chettongron play the five at all and if you look at what they did in the offseason it looks like they're still reluctant to have Chettongron play the five they lost a lot of their winged up they're resigned as they are heart and sting over keeping ludoric in others they drafted another center in the market from Michigan they kept big jailing Williams but I have two thunder players in my top 10 he was one of them and I think he

this is his dirt goes to the outback moment after a through the we believe loss where he just like vanished off the face of the earth and came back literally from the australian outback a better player this is the moment that could define Chettongron's entire career it could go dirt knivetsky or could go ben Simmons I expect it to go closer to dirt knivetsky but we'll see

with this coli traded if it goes through they will have tons of expectations yaka portal is

“honorable mention on my list I think he's just honorable mention because that contract is already”

disaster and I don't see any turning back um Emmanuel quickly does it feel like doesn't it feel like he's barely played for the raptors like can you remember his single thing Emmanuel quickly has done on the raptors didn't play it all in the playoffs against Cleveland and they were better defensively for it because Jamal shed took most of those minutes and Jacobi Walter took a lot of those minutes they're going to need Emmanuel quickly to be better on defense and then you look at his offensive stats

and they're like about what you would expect if you were the raptors he's like 17, 6 and 6, 37, 38% on threes shoots a lot of threes he just any played 70 games last year it's not like he was out the whole year but before that the year before he'd only played 38, 68 the year before that it just feels like division was we're not handing the offense to Emmanuel quickly but you're going to defend

“point guards and you're going to be this sort of like supercharged version of a George hill where”

you average 16, 18 a game you're off the ball a lot you can set screens for Scotty Barnes and reverse pick and rolls you punish defenses on closeouts and we've seen like a quarter of it here a quarter of it there for this team to take the form that it thinks we can take they just need Emmanuel quickly to be very good for a prolonged period of time and I feel like people have just forgotten

about him and he makes 32 million dollars for the next three seasons it's time for them to get

the Emmanuel quickly who they thought they were getting in the OGN and OB trade and the next already got the OGN and OB they kept them getting in that trade so RJ Barrett's on his job he's not even on my list I feel pretty confident about what RJ Barrett brings to the table for better or worse he's an interesting extension candidate I've talked about that Emmanuel quickly it's like it's like time for this to be a consistent real thing yeah I have no notes I did not have

him listed but I agree this person like I was going to bring up the OGN part of this I don't forget that he was one of the main pieces in that trade but yeah dude I don't have him on my list but you hate Canada that's all my car you know my car got stolen and Montreal this summer so that's a story for another time but I'm yeah turns out auto theft is a big deal of Montreal's act we can we can do a whole podcast on it sorry sorry I just like your car

sir yeah dude yeah I don't know what else to say so pick your guys who cares we're done with the menu quickly uh Donovan Mitchell they they played in the playoffs Donovan Mitchell I this is one that I'm like least excited to talk about I feel like this has been his saga for the last

two years when I've been on your show it's now or never it was an ugly postseason technically

they made it to round three or whatever but it never felt like that was around three level performance

“by this team and Donovan Mitchell part of that he needs to be better as I said I think there's”

five types of pressure on my list this is what I would characterize that low there's a legacy pressure this guy's so talented so good yet he's never been real close uh to the NBA finals uh he's too good of a player I think to have that legacy and I still think Cleveland is really good and I think this team has a chance to put it all together and we've talked about this on your show for months now we didn't see a lot of mobility and Allen together this year because of injuries they got hard

in the middle of the season they still have a chance in a pretty open Eastern conference to make a lot of noise and Donovan Mitchell has a chance to get MVP votes all NBA consideration we've seen it for years but I think time is running out for Donovan Mitchell to be that guy. How about the 75

point $5 million player option you know has in 20 30 31 curts it's an additional pressure on them

oh there's got a pressure yeah for sure I had uh Mitchell hardened and mobility all in my honourable mentions mostly because I'm just kind of like you bored of talking about the Cavaliers at this point like he's having mobility going to make the leap offensively let's have that discussion again and October that'll be fun and James Hardin you know Bill and I did our pre playoff draft of just different categories and he makes up before the playoffs every year and one of them was like legacy guy

and we got to the end it was like wow we didn't even think about Hardin for like a guy who can flip his legacy and it's like because I know exactly what's going to happen he's going to show going to be a elimination game and that's just going to be what it is he's going to have some big games along the way and he certainly did in both their playoff series that they won not so much against the next uh and I don't think they're done yet in the offseason despite missing out on the

bronze James there's I think some tepid coming to interest again it's July 30th is what we're

be something else I think there's some less also some level of patent Watson sign-in trade

insurance for the cabs but there's apron issues on both sides of that and I'm not sure they have enough really to get it done but I think they know how big this up coming season is for them with the east you know having beefed up around the edges at least I think they're at least 11 good teams in the east so it gets a good pick. All right I'm going to predict that my next guy number eight on my list is also on your top 10. Powell Bancaro from the Orlando Magic.

No honorable mention. Okay now dude honestly I don't do this month but I think I fucked up

“I should put up my hair I think that's why we have two of us okay I'm happy to get there with you”

because this man has a lot of pressure on him for a variety of reasons. 228 and 5 in the regular season 46% shooting 31% on threes and again the magic were slightly better with him off the floor than on the floor. I have talked about before that's used a sort of a scarlet letter against him I don't really believe it. I think that has a lot to do with the structure of their team and all the injuries that have happened to them over the last you know

X amount of years in the playoffs 26 9 and 6 the game great counting stats he always shows up he always

plays tough 42% shooting 33% on threes 46% on threes and again why I don't believe in that scarlet letter the team was decent when Bancaro was on the floor although not offensively their score margin was about even and it completes single when he was off the floor partly because Franz Wagner missed a lot of that first round series against the pistons and look I mean the story remains the same his best nights he looks like the number one option on a great team his for him

in the magic to advance the next level he has to bottle more of the efficiency that defines those best nights which means probably taking fewer jumpshots because or you're getting better at shooting long-term threes because he takes too many of both and also getting more comfortable and the shooting is part of this not playing the number one option role all the time because you have another really good player in Franz Wagner and you're going to have to learn to play off

“him a little bit better and I just keep coming back to I think people are sweeping on the magic”

as a top 16 in the east next year I'm not going to say they're going to be a top 16 I'm going to have to look at the standings and all that but they also have the Anthony black question hovering over their head and the money question but um because they're payrolls huge but sucks Bancaro and Wagner only played 19 games together in the regular season and that and that quartet was about plus 12 per 100 possessions I do still want to see more of it together

sucks it was an honorable mention for me because it's like okay man like what like what is is this just every year going to be you shoot okay to not okay from three and you're injured all the time like is there is there a consistent player archetype that we can tap into but I'm going

Palo Bancaro I'm always been a not fervent believer but I have been defensive of him against

the criticism he's just an empty stats empty calories bad a good stats bad team guy I think is passing and swarming ability around the rim are pretty interesting but I'm not he's on my list let's I'll put it that way but yeah and here's why I would I mean I've been horned on I got aggregated on this very show because of a Palo take last year look sometimes it's too slow the ball sticks it looks like an old Josh myth tape is the bed I used and got aggregated for

the name you didn't mention which is why I'm pretty confident about the magic this year aside from the injury stuff is Sean Swaney and I know yeah I really do think Sean Swaney is going to change the culture and the vibe there I think he did a marvelous job in San Antonio marvelous job in Dallas before that he's just one of these guys and I think that'll trickle down into Palo's game

“the style of offense I think the intensity of the team and he's too talented I remember the first time”

I saw Palo play was Final Four and right on he's just one of these guys you see in person you're like oh my god this guy is so talented so big so athletic he's a five tool player I still think he has a lot of potential to put that together maybe that's why I didn't have him in this list because I'm pretty optimistic but I'll meet you there I think he does have pressure and that team has pressure because this core this duo of Wagner and Bancaro it's time for them to put up a

shut up and I do think I'd have to look at it too I think four five six is definitely in play for the element of magic this year in the Eastern Conference all right let's take a quick break and then we'll continue on our pressure player list with Kirk Goldsbury all right I think it's

with Deer and Fox from the San Antonio spurs you are overlapping with me again you add

“chat home granted number eight I think I had him at number three you have Deer and Fox at number seven”

I have Deer and Fox all the way up at number two I'm like content pressure list so let's get into it well let me get out of the way because you've obviously you got him out of say here you know when you talk to people around the spurs everybody was disappointed in the finals they they think they had a chance to win when you tell we're had by the 46 minutes left we're had whatever you can roast them for that but Deer and Fox has performance in the 2026 NBA playoffs

was not good enough now they'll quickly say what's at low he had a devastating ankle spraying he was making it where he was trying his best and I will agree with that that was a six-week injury and the dude came back in two weeks a lot of NBA players would not have even tried that said some of the things we saw I think were just too bad even to say oh he's got a bad ankle like turnovers that were on force and just mental mistakes

“well the fighting the defining mental mistake of the entire playoffs was the botched way up”

over and it'll be enabling the and it'll be tipping and game four of the finals hundred percent and the greatest comeback this league may ever see in a big moment and you know those kinds of things make me put him on this list so I will acknowledge the ankle entry with my friends in San Antonio but this man makes a lot of money and they brought him in to make this team a real championship contender I thought it looked like he had done that all regular

season but then there were moments in the playoffs where it didn't look like he was made for that so but you have him higher on the list so I will turn it over to use that well well I have him higher on the list only for two reasons number one this is obviously a championship contender that needs at least for some amount of time as Harper and Castle really find their groove in the league needs his organizational capabilities and probably his mid-range shooting which deserted him

in the playoffs specifically in the finals with that ankle injury he's also under pressure because

he is starting a four-year 200 something million dollar contract that is right now untradable

and he's also under pressure because the guys behind him were beside him in the rotation are coming for his minutes if he doesn't produce so it's a perfect storm of all kinds of pressure the finals were bad for him the playoffs were largely and for him 15 a game 41 percent shooting 29% on threes and 47 and a half percent on twos which is not good enough ankle sprain was a big a big part of that he also started the season with the hamstring injury so he

started kind of behind the eight ball trying to build chemistry with one banyama castle and Harper and all those guys and after the finals there was a lot of defensive deer and fox and the defense I kept hearing was well you know disperse were still better with him on the floor than they were with him off the floor they need his organization they were incoherent without him on offense

“and I think in the finals in parts that was true they had a slightly positive point differential”

with him on the floor in the finals and a slightly negative one with him off the floor in the finals but for the season and for the playoffs when the according to cleaning the glass when the spurs had when banyama who obviously is the keystone to everything castle Harper on the floor and fox off the floor it's not a huge sample size then he goes about 180 to 100 minutes in the regular season something like that and obviously less than the playoffs they absolutely wiped the floor

with their opponents and so I get the idea that his skill set is part of what this team needs that his clutch jumpshooting what you get in vanishing the playoffs he shot 43% on mid-regards in the playoffs 52 in the regular season I think they if they want to win the championship next year I think they need deer and fox but I think the defensive him was a little overbossiferous given how he performed in the finals and what those numbers show but I do think they need him

I do think they have a he has a better season in him I thought I kind of expected him to shoot better from three bounce back a little bit his his king's highs and this context he didn't do it

and he's just an okay to good pastor for his position he's not an incredible playmaker in terms of

finding women yam on labs and stuff hopefully that comes with chemistry but he's a no-brainer for wherever you put them on the Swiss he's got to be there yeah and the trio you lined up there obviously fox castle one man yama it feels like okay that's the core of this team sorry Darren sorry everybody else you mean heart you mean Harper castle one man yama yeah sorry what did I say I don't know fox thought yeah that's right so the two young guards in

Wendy is obviously this this core trio going forward one stat to Darren's defense that I think is

stifon castle log two of the worst turnover game that we ever seen in postseason history

“Darren comes back and sort of studies studies the offense those turnovers went away”

and in a related story the spurs put away the wolf um so I do think his grown-up maturity has a grown-up point guard in this ecosystem is very valuable and was proved valuable in in sometimes but then the idea that this guy won the clutch player the year awards act a few years ago for Sacramento just seemed like a distant memory watching him down the stretch hobbled on one foot but ha you know playing in those moments in the in the finals

all right i'm going to go to number seven on my list uh jalen durin Detroit pistons on a

mention this is an obvious one incredible regular season all nba is all nba 13 appearances

one of the reasons he has of July 30th of more recording this is not yet signed to a contract with Detroit pistons to play next season uh and the playoffs were pretty much a disaster for durin um he averaged about 10 points a game way down for the regular season assist to turnovers about even he looked on steady rickety uncertain to the point he started trying his mid-range jumper which isn't ready for prime time and the roles to the rim that he feasted on in the regular

season uh in the first round Orlando just took those away completely by switching and going under screens on cade cutting him and there was no plan B and even in the second round the cads defended a little bit more traditionally against the pick and roll and he could not hurt them at all. Couple of you see glimpses of it even in the playoffs like a couple times where you would seal guys in transition and dunk on them there was one game he had like a three dunk sequence in a row

on the Cavaliers and one game so there were there were snippets of it but the idea of him as like secondary offensive option a guy who can face up and create against playoff defenses a guy who can be a hub a little bit as a passer it just wasn't there I will say he's still only 22 years old

like it's incredible how young he is I'm a complete believer in his defense it's been a little

“on steady at times his decision making can be a little hazy at times again he's 22 I think he has”

all the tools and all the will to be a guy who can play pretty much any scheme defensively his rim protection and the playoffs was better than it was in the regular season so I'm I'm a believer he's kind of tied to a sartopsin in the sense that like one of them has to develop a little bit offensively on the ball to make this really really sing in the playoffs but I'm assuming he will be on the business next season again it's July 30th and I just think given what happened to him

in the playoffs he's kind of like eastern conference chat homegrown it not that anyone ate his lunch the way when be a chat homegrown's lunch but just the playoffs didn't go the way it needs to go for him and he needs to dig deep and figure out why that isn't how not to make it happen again for a team that you know people are kind of hating on their on their off season like they've swapped out to buy his Harris for John Collins and more or less you know they added Isaiah Joe they didn't

do much I don't really I'm not in a rush for them to do much they still have all their trade assets I still think they're going to win a shift on against next year and be in contention for the number

“one seed in the east but they've now reached the stage where the playoffs are what matters and he's just”

got to be way better average 20 points again and the regular season didn't score 21 in 14 playoff appearances that's not good that that picking role play with with cutting him and him had become one of the bread and butter actions in the whole league efficient despite just being spammed game after game after game it worked it worked until it did when it mattered most the Orlando series was tough to watch being outplayed by players that I think most of us would have thought are much below his

standard coming into that series but the thing he said the most that that I would put him lower on my list and the honor of mention is the is the 22 year old part he's younger than some guys

they just got drafted in the first round and he deserves some time to grow but man like I said

you have to score the ball on that team particularly is that low in an ecosystem where offense is not the strong suit where shot creation is not the strong suit to lose the offense from during in that playoff run was particularly painful for that team let's go let's do a couple more guys and we'll pivot for a bit but like give us give me number six on your list we're getting towards the top five now give me number six it is Jason Tatum he's number five on my case so we we are

about equivalent on Jason Tatum go ahead okay so I'm sure we're going to have some of the same things that fair enough I think there's a perception that the Celtics either chose Jason over Jalen

that's what they chose Jalen is not on the Celtics anymore but like our friends in Minnesota

“I think the expectations in Boston remain sky high despite the massive trade this year and then”

that puts a lot of pressure on Jason Tatum and the thing that I would say is he has this market pressure associated with his team in Boston he has the contract pressure of the 35% of the cap guy and he has health pressure which I was I wish I wasn't talking about but that's one of the big reasons I think we're talking about him he has failed to finish each of the last two postseason's as team didn't have him in those big losses against New York obviously two years ago and then

last year when you got hurt against the sixers it couldn't play games seven so Jason Tatum what

do you have Zaclo? Well first of all on my honorable mentions I had both Peyton Richard and Derek White

because the Celtics don't expect to go down in the mistakes in the Eastern Conference the Jalen Brown trade is a bet against Jalen Brown but it's also a bet on everybody who's left over from a core who's been huge as successful in Boston for a decade now starting with Tatum but also Derek White who's three point shooting fell off a cliff last year and no one knows if it was a fluke you know remember he came to Boston and that was the weak spot in his game the the

prove it spot in his game and he he had proved it beyond the shadow of a doubt and then last year slipback really caused the Celtics against the sixers in the first round and cost them all season

and again was it a fluke was it because you had a bigger offensive workload without Jason Tatum

will now Jalen Brown is also not here Paul George is here but he's not the same kind of just like feed that guy and let him cook kind of guy is Jalen Brown and then Peyton Richard you know I've already kind of joked about it I just like let's stop with the Peyton Richard could be Boston's Jalen Brown or Jalen Brunson now that he's getting a higher role in offense Jalen Brunson is one of one Peyton Richard is a fine player I have no doubt he could score 20 points a game in the NBA

Jalen Brunson is a different animal but Tatum look yeah I mean it's indisputably his team he is still coming off in a killy star I know he played the last 20 whatever games of last season and six of Boston's playoff games and he played them quite well 22 10 and 5 in the playoff's didn't shoot a great but he looked more or less like Jason Tatum coming back from a killy's injury like he looked really good didn't get to the rim quite as often didn't finish quite as well

all to be expected one of the finest all around players in the sport still but again this team doesn't expect to take a step back and and that's on it's his team and by the way you look they won the championship two years ago the only players left from that team who played any minutes in the playoffs in 2024 or Derek White aside from Peyton Derek White Peyton Richard Sam Houser and Nimi Keda and Jordan Walls played 24 combined minutes in the in the title run in the

“playoffs so that they've just gradually wittled away that nucleus around Jason Tatum and I think”

in all of the attention that the sections we've gotten for putting all these high usage guys together including LeBron for being the team that did go out and trade for Jalen Brown and what does it mean for Jalen Brown to not be the number one option on the team you got traded for and all of this he's the most Jalen Brown is the character of the offseason in the NBA I don't think enough attention has been paid to like what this leaves for Jason Tatum to take care of

I agree more I couldn't agree more I think the bill brings up the value of durability when he's talking about Jalen Brown a lot it's like hey I know these advanced metrics yeah the yada but this dude choose up innings and the Celtics had a choice between a guy with a traumatic lower leg injury and a guy who is durable and they chose the guy with the Achilles tendon injury and this these calf strain issues and I forget what the actual injury he missed games 7/4 wasn't a

“calf strain even though he's iceing up his calf I forget regardless I think there's a lot of”

that pressure on this dude obviously if he misses time in a Jalen Brownless universe now we're talking about Derek White and Payton Richard being options 1 and 2 on an offense to win games I think the Celtics still win 50 50 plus games in a world where Jason Tatum plays 70 games 75 games if his number drops like 50 because of his injuries I just don't see this team keeping up that standard that the fan base has come to expect in the Jason Tatum era so he has a lot of pressure on

all right I'm going to reveal number 6 on my list so I've revealed 10 9 8 7 and you have also taken 5,

on a previous episode so we don't need to belabor too much Walker Kessler yeah the chosen

“this there you go wow our 5s and 6 is our flip just like that I think it's self explanatory right”

the Lakers paid $130 million and traded two unprotected first round picks to get them on their team

he has I like Walker Kessler's a player people can go back and listen to the segment I did about why I think this will actually work decently for the Lakers on both ends of the floor there is no question that they overpaid for him and are now trapped with this team and have to figure out either this is the team or is there a way to pivot by trading Austin Reeves down the line or something like that because they're out a tradeable assets because of the Walker Kessler deal all

that said he's played no meaningful games in the NBA basically and barely played at all last year and so yeah I mean for a fairly or not those assets much like happened to Mikhail Bridges they're going to hang around his neck until he until he improves that he was worth it and that's it I don't know people can go back and listen everything I said before yeah and there's multiple

“kinds of pressure in this draft and I think it's fair to say everything you just said I would add”

these guys don't get compared against each other very often but a lot with the mellow ball of Walker Kessler both going from these environments where winning wasn't exactly paramount

for the first few years of their career being sort of nice stories that deep on league past for

for years oh that's over now now you're playing on Los Angeles if reports are true Lucas don't just lobby to get you onto this team to the point where the front office gave out two unprotected first round picks and swaps to get you and you played five games last year so he has this market pressure that the Los Angeles Lakers you know the the marquee franchise and this league can can put on you more than any other team but he also has I think this this

other pressure associated with the transaction that landed him there fair or not and he has to

“fix the defense that sucks he has to deodorize a stank that is stank at the point of attack”

with Austin Reeves and Luca Donchich in a world with SGA's fun castle Dylan Harper Anthony Edwards Jamal Murray Stefan Curry there's no shortage of guards that will punish you for having a weak point of attack defense in this conference they are expecting a better defense in Los Angeles but really the only piece that that is going to do that for them is Walker Kessler and that is a lot of pressure for this young man all right before we get to our sort of collective

top five only of two of my top five left I'm gonna read some honorable mentions from my list that I'm pretty confident are not gonna be in your top five dareyus garland not on my top five up for an extension let's see how you do with the clippers joss giddy you know young super exciting bulls team is he a guy or is he just a guy that's gonna get traded as the bulls remake their team under Bryson Graham's vision do you have any pacers on your list by the way I have

Tyre's Haliburn and my honorable mention category all right table that for a second John Moran he was a high-honore mentioned almost cracked in top ten obvious I don't I don't think it needs to really be explained Dyson Daniels he's only on this list because he simply cannot shoot that badly from three if the Hawks are gonna be viable it was under 20 percent and I've heard some rumblings from the Hawks and people who have been in the Hawks

practice facility that his remade is jump shot or is remaking his jump shot making tweaks to it over the right terminology is and that it's starting to look better because Dyson Jalen Johnson Lou Dorit like it's cool it's gonna be awesome defensively like it just isn't gonna work well and off offensively if he's a complete zero as a shooter I mentioned the cats got jomal Murray is he on your list now he's not jomal Murray and Cam Johnson just because I refuse to shut the door

completely on the nuggets as long as yogurt is upright in healthy collelle wear just not on realistism no he's a super intriguing player who could go boomer bust and the bucks really needed to go

boom shade and sharp fell out of the rotation in the playoff's last year it always he's playing

time always seems to go down when the games matter the most and was okay offensively last year there's always these these these glimpses these weeks these quarters where he finds the right balance of shot selection and like making the simple play on offense as a passer and then it tends to go away

honor will mention one of the biggest wild cards in the league has a player option 36 million dollars

for twenty seven twenty eight season of the V-necks the only rookie who is on my list is Darious Acuff Jr only because sorry buddy you carry the hopes and dreams of an entire franchise and it's fan base on your back sorry enough there ain't nothing there for the friends to glam on to except Keegan Murray who's also honorable mention on my list and with that oh one more you know Gary Trent Jr's got a contract to live up to yeah four sixty four Gary I'm comfortable being

uncomfortable are you okay that's my that's most of my honorable mentions I left off a couple

“that I think you may have on your list but let's take a quick break and we're going to change”

years for a minute I want to save the pressure stuff for the the high pressure stuff for the next

episode let's quickly take a detour a team that I really want to preview look at like more maybe more deeply in October but starting now you mentioned you had Tyreys Hallebert and honorable mentioned in your pressure rankings I have him Pascal Siakum and V-to-Zubats all honorable mentioned in my pressure rankings and this the whole point of this segment is like hey remember the Indiana Pacers right they were in the finals like a blink ago they were up in game seven in Oklahoma City

a blink ago Tyreys Hallebert and tears is Achilles Miles Turner signs in Milwaukee and it's a lost season and then now they're back and they're back with the V-to-Zubats at the five in a very controversial trade with the clippers and he takes the place of Miles Turner and essentially the rest of the team is exactly the same as the team that almost won the goddamn NBA championship and they're over under on Fandle is 43 and a half now the Pacers team that did almost win the

championship was not a great regular season team they started 15 and 17 Aaron Neesmith was injured at the beginning of the season Andrew Nemhart was injured for much of the beginning of

the season and then they went on a run they're just never ended a run of glorious chemistry fast

pace incredible legendary almost like unicorn level clutch play throughout the playoffs and almost won the title and here they are at at at 43 and a half feels disrespectful to me but I do have to say the most interesting question maybe in the Eastern I have top five most interesting questions is this was like a rhythm team they clearly they found and it happened with the nicks in the playoffs like you see what a team just finds the right

vibe isn't the right word because it's not a vibe the right pace the right spacing the right chemistry and the game just becomes a feel game for them and you see when teams have it and then you see when they lose it and everything becomes a little clunky a little force they'll just not as easy as it should be the Pacers found that year and just like could you just find it again after a year off and importing a new center and Pascal Sioccums a year older can you just find it

again because Vegas is saying we don't think you can at least not in the regular season and the playoffs you have one of the great strategic coaches of all time in a car allow and a track record but can they find it again what do you think of this team I would take the over on me to there for

“sure but I am fascinated by this team I think Tyre's Halle Burton had emerged as one of the”

most exciting smartest offense of players in the league in the 2025 NBA playoffs I don't think that's a controversial statement but it feels like a long time ago doing what he did in Madison Square Garden doing what he did against the Oklahoma City Thunder Guard defense the fact that this wide open fast-paced offense of mine a team could go head to head with okay see and just get within you know one game of winning it they went 15 and 8 in the NBA playoffs

as close as you can get to winning a championship without actually doing it and to have that cruel injury to rail and I think we've all sort of forgotten how good they were I have them I think the other reason that over under is lower those act is the Eastern Conference is a little bit better and no one is tanking anymore presumably anyway that's a great point too great point and I

“think like teams like Atlanta and Charlotte are on the come up I think you know Orlando it's just”

a deeper Eastern Conference not to mention the heavyweight of the top with the nicks and the Celtics and the sixers looming up there in the Cleveland Cavaliers so the average game in the Eastern Conference is a lot harder now in 2026 than it was in 2024 so that's why I think that over

if we said this team is anything less than a team to watch to win the Holy Eastern Conference on.

“I think I completely agree that they're being slept on however if I were to explain that number”

on why it's solo number one hell of Burton is coming off a miss season and there's got to be some rust they played in a pro-am game recently they think credible it's a pro-am game we'll see but there's got to be some rust. Siocom is now entering his like not quite mid 30s but entering the time of his career as he's eligible for an extension by the way where some decline should be you know thought about Ben Matherin is not here anymore and not that I was a huge fan of his

they brought in Kelly Lubre who on the one hand I can see his a fit for their team because he wants to play fast and he's a quick decision maker now his decision tree tends to just have one branch on and it is score but that's fine like Ben Matherin was similar and sometimes you need guys who have a different kind of decision tree than the rest of your team and at least he makes his decisions fast which is what Ricardo out once that said is he going to is he going to play in the like he

completely flopped in golden state because he just couldn't play the read and react style that the Warriors played we'll see how that fits and my the point is their bench is TJ McConnell who kind of showed

some age last year for the first time after being a playoff hero and a pretty stalwart back up

point growing Ben Shepherd kind of hasn't happened has had a lot of chances to happen hasn't happened Kelly Lubre behind them Jarris Walker flashes flashes a playmaking and you know pull-up shooting kind of hasn't happened Obi-toppin looks great when they're running and was awesome in the playoffs and then backup centers like Jayhuff and then Larry and Ants by him I can see the bench being not as strong as it was in their title run and I could see them getting off to a slow start

“as they figure out like I think if you two robots is a better player than Miles Turner I don't”

think that's arguable but he's such a different kind of player offensively that that Haliburton Turner pick and pop sometimes roll but mostly pop with Siakum sort of darting around in open spaces and finding little crevices in a defense that's the key change to a guy who's really only gonna roll to the basket and roll into the paint Siakum and Zubot are both so skilled that I think that will all work eventually like they'll have some nice big-to-big sequences

sometimes Siakum will screen and roll and like hit Zubot's on on in the dunkerspot Pascal's a good catch and shoot three point shooter not a great one but like mid to high 30s that I think that's good enough for this to work but I think there's gonna be some growing pains the ceiling to me is still really really high if Haliburton is 100% by the end of the season Zubot gets back to the form from two seasons ago when he was borderline all NBA and Siakum has

one more great year in him at least I'm a believer in the niece myth nemhart combo as role players so I think the ceiling is still really interesting and the coaches elite in Rick Carlisle and really this is like if you look at their books tons of people are eligible for extension so this is TBD like nemhart top and Zubot's Haliburton Siakum right now they're set up to be

basically a two-year team everyone but Haliburton and niece myth and it comes off the books after

27 28 as of now so they have that sort of like this is a clear two-year we're all in we traded what ended up being the number five pick and the draft and I just can't wait to see how it works I think the ceiling is still really really high I agree I think Terry's Haliburton could be first team all NBA by the end of this year I think he could miss all NBA I think there's a lot of variance in his performance this year for reasons you already outlined perfectly but my eyes are

“on him that's why he's on this pressure list for me as an honorable mention and you know one of my”

favorite things about Rick Carlisle is he is he's coach effectively in many different ways

when you look at the course of his career it's really amazing the coach and Detroit one way

in Indiana another way in Dallas completely different way I think he's the exact right coach I'd want to go from Miles Turner to Zubotch with he's not going to say oh this is how we do it we're going to run pick and pause with Zubotch like that's not what's going to happen if there's a concern for me it's that Zubotch bit that why I open pace and space we're running up and down that I think really suits Tyrease and Pascal Siakum and some of those role players you mentioned but ultimately

I trust infrastructure I trust Rick Carlisle and I trust Tyrease Haliburton to have some alignment on the floor I think this will be a top 10 offense middle-of-the-pack defense and I think that's good enough to be four or five in the eastern conference and above that 43 and a half yes Zubotch is a

Pressy talked about this when when he kind of had to trade new door he said something to the

effect I'll paraphrase of like you just can't keep playing the same way every year even if you've

“been successful playing that way sometimes you just have to change because you have to keep”

the league on its toes a little bit I think there's a little bit of that with the Pacers

going from Miles Turner to a beat to Zubotch let's get tougher more physical more stout at the

“rim and I do think despite the fact that he's not a jump shooter like Miles Turner that he has”

better feel on offense is sort of like when the ball finds me in open space can I make the right

decision quickly Miles Turner never really got there and it was exposed a little bit in the finals

“in that regard and and so I'm optimistic I wouldn't pick them to win the east but we'll get back to”

that in part two of this podcast which will air at some point soon all right that's it for part one of the two parts Zach Low Show thank you to Kurt Gold's Barry he'll be back of course for part two thanks to Oscar Billy and Mike on production thank you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Low Show stay tuned for part two 21er over in president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 and over in president and DC can tuck your

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