What's up y'all is Drusky and I've teamed up with Mountain Dew to produce a hilarious new basketball podcast called The due Zone with Drusky. Learn the backstories of your favorite balls and celebrities like Jamal Murray. Did you have like a favorite team? Was it the Raptors at the time or no? Was the Raptors even started around the topic? Come on, Brode like I'm fifty, Taylor Rogues, Asian Wilson, and any more. You won't want to miss this. Listen to The due Zone with Drusky on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen to podcasts. This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light. These days, everything is go, go go. It's NonStop hustle all the time. Work, friends, family, expect you to be on twenty four to seven. Well, sometimes you just need to reach for a Coors Light because it's made to chill. Corse Light is cold loggered, cold filtered, and cold package. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. He's literally made to chill. Corse Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or instacart. Celebrate Responsibly Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. Hey everyone, before we get into today's pod, I want to tell you about blue Wire Hustle, a brand new program where you can host your very own podcast here at blue Wire Hustle. It was created to give everyone the opportunity to take your podcast to the next level. Or if you want to host a podcast and just don't know where to start, Hustle is the perfect place for you. As part of the program, you'll receive personal cover art, q and a's with Blue Wire's top podcasters, access to our community discord, and an e learning course full of tips and tricks. On top of that will help you get your show pushed out to Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher and all the other listening platforms. And the best part is you get all of this for only fifteen dollars a month, the same rate as any other hosting site would charge you just for the initial setup. So whether you're starting from scratch, have an existing show that you want to grow, Hustle is an open door to leveling up your sports experience. Acceptance into the program is limited, so get your application in today. To apply, go to BW hustle dot com slash Join. That's BW hustle dot com slash Joint. Check out our description box for this episode to find out more. But that's BW Hustle dot com slash Join. Hello everyone, and welcome to the latest episode of Hardwood Knocks. This is Adam Fromwell here with my fantastic co host Dan Favallei, and we are going to torture ourselves on this episode because we are going over the all Star reserve picks in the Eastern and Western Conferences, and as always, that is an immensely difficult task that necessitates having tough emissions in both conferences because, as I've said so many times, the rosters need to be expanded. Having twelve players in each conference just is not sufficient given the depth of talent in the league and the fact that the league has expanded the size of rosters the number of teams in the NBA since these rosters were set up with twelve apiece. So we're going to attempt to do it anyway. The starters are set in each Conference, and we're going to dive through the two backcourt selections, three front court selections, and two wild cards in both the East and West. So before we begin this torture, Dan, how's it going. I'm doing well over here. My usual amount of exhausted, I think, but no complaints. I think it's funny that we're doing All Star reserves after I think on one of the previous podcasts, I said I have no interest in talking about the All Star Game because it shouldn't be happening. But then I started realized I do enjoy discussing who should be All Stars. It's just that the game itself should not be happening. So please do not take these predictions as an endorsement of what is happening in Atlanta, which most definitely shouldn't not be happening in Atlanta. Second and thirded, but how are you doing. I'm recovering from a ridiculously tiring weekend. If I may lead us down a tangent here with storytime, yeah, I'm ready. So so Friday night, we noticed that one of my dogs, her stomach was like swelling severely to the point that she was like two times her normal size. So you know, anytime that happens to a dog, you get a little worried. And we were monitoring and you know, not sleeping very well, and around two am we noticed the alder if the dog started like panting really heavily, so we decided to bring her to the emergency vet. It's like twelve degrees out. I end up sitting in the parking lot with her, like waiting for them to be able to see her because you can't go in and wait indoors because of the pandemic, for like two hours. And she finally gets in and is going through X rays and my wife is like looking around the house to see if she might have gotten into anything, and we noticed that she'd eaten into her dog sister's food bag, like eating through the plastic and consumed like a third of the gigantic bag of food. So we let the doctors know and they told us that she'd basically eaten five day's worth of food. So like, ultimately this was the best case scenario because it could have been like something far worse. But yeah, so she wasn't allowed to eat from Friday afternoon until Monday morning because she just had so much food in her system. But the best part of all of this is that like that over eating that food blow causes like a lot of gas. And the reason that our two dogs eat separate food is that aspens food gives alder really bad gas. So the combination of that, like my house has just been this toxic wasteland of terrible smells. I've literally had to step outside so my eyes would stop watering on the smell for the last two days. So like we're back to normal now, like she's normal size, but like we were so tired that my parents, who are fortunate enough to both have had both doses of the vaccine so we can resume sleepovers with our toddler. They came to pick him up on Saturday, just like give us a night of relief, and my dad walked in the house and just cracked up at our hippo looking dog. She was just so enormous. Oh my god, shout out the dogs. Dogs can be exhausting too, But I'm glad she's all right. I didn't really have an idea of what happened. I saw in our text thread that we have that you posted something on Facebook about it, but I was never on Facebook to look at what it was, but I'm glad it wasn't serious. Hopefully your home is is emanating better odors at the moment. It's less stinky. Now. It's about as stinky as you would expect from two dogs and a toddler during the winter cooped up, which is a significant improvement from toxic wasteland. Yeah, damn, so you had an eventful weekend. Yeah, you're welcome to all the listeners who now know way too much about my dog's bowel movements. Yeah, but I guess the natural segue from dog bowel movements is into our all star reserve predictions. We did this differently. These are my actual all stars who I would pick and inevitably settled on, and it was wildly difficult. You're trying to predict what's actually gonna happen. Apparently. Yeah, I'm glad that we like organically went to two different routes because it is so tricky whenever you have these conversations to frame whether you're talking about what you think is going to happen with the coaches picking the reserves versus what we think should happen, because inevitably every year we think the coaches got something wrong. Correct usually many somethings. Yeah, I all reserves. There's definitely more snubs than stars, and I think if so, if we go over the starter is really quick. Let's do that. You want to start with the East, Sure, Beal and Kyrie Irving are starting in the backcourt. Kevin Durrett, Janis attend to Kompo, and Joel Embiid are starting in the front court. I had zero quibbles about that. Really. The only argument you could have is because Kyrie is like fifty fifth in guard minutes this season. Has he played enough? But he's just been so good it's like there's no There's there's slight controversy with the West starters, which we'll get to, but there's no real controversy here for me. Yeah, I think since Kyrie is shooting something like sixty fifty ninety at this point, like you can give him credit even though he hasn't played as much. Like there are arguments for like James Harden, Jaylen Brown, Ben Simmons, but it's fine. It's it's not worthy of griping. Here's the thing. This gets us into an awkward discussion where I think we should start with who I didn't pick. I didn't pick James Harden for the East team, and he has now only played in four fewer games than Kyrie Irving, and I think like eighty fewer minutes or whatever it is, or one hundred fewer minutes. So it's like it's based a little bit just on sample. But he has split time now and he's played a vast majority of his minutes with Brooklyn, and he's been just absolutely ridiculous. I don't really have a problem about saying you up ended your other team season and you didn't spend you weren't here for in the East for the first part of this year. I'm just not going to denominate you as a reserve. So genuine question, though, does it matter that eight games of his season weren't in the Eastern Conference winner's picking Eastern Conference All Stars. I've never really been clear on that because it's so infrequent that a superstar who's going to make the All Star team ends up changing conferences that early in the season. I think it should matter in the scheme of sample size, where if you want to reward people who who've played more minutes in the Eastern Conference. I understand that Harden's been so good that won't be a popular opinion where I or maybe it will be. I don't know actually, but where I landed, I'm gonna say that it won't be. And I'm not even trying to be incandescent here. My thing is just that I wanted to make room for other guys, and the only way I really knew how to do that was, Okay, Harden was it like, didn't spend part of the time in the East, a quarter of the season in the East or whatever it's. I mean e games in Brooklyn and eight in Houston as we're recording this, right, and look again, Kyrie Irving has played in twenty two games as of this recording, and these are the picks that need to be etshton Stone because the coach's selections were due Monday, which is when we're recording this. So that little difference is you know, that's going to matter me to me a little bit because Harden has been spectacular. But I'm splitting Harris here because like I said, I'm making my own ballot. I don't think it's unfair to look at it that way. I don't know that I'm penalizing Harden. Before he wasn't playing his best basketball before he came to Brooklyn, and I he's been so good in Brooklyn. I'm not Look, he's easily can assist. I'm not even trying to. I think Brooklyn's probably a little bit better than people expected, just because they've been terrifying now and we haven't really even seen them at full strength, you know, having he's made such a seamless transition from being the scorer all the time guy to you know, very much a dual threat guard because he has been such a willing facilitator who is okay taking a step back for his talented teammates, which I don't think we expected to happen quite as easily. So I mean again, I approached this from the perspective of what I think is going to happen, and he was the first name I wrote down as a reserve in the East. I probably agree with you, and I actually still have a wildcard spot blank. So if you can convince me to put James Harden in that wildcard spot, I will absolutely. He's Look, he's been so good. I just don't know what decision to make. I mean, I think I think it ultimately comes down to how you evaluate his Western Conference contributions, because if he really only does have eighteen games on the Ledger, then sure like you can much more easily make a case for having like Zach Lavine or Fred van Vliet over him for one of those back quarter wild card slots. If we're including all twenty six games of his season so far, I don't think there's really any argument for not including him, given how good Brooklyn is and how impactful he's been since he arrived. What's awkward about this is that his Western Conference games probably don't do anything to buttress his case aside from oh he's played, yeah, yeah, And so if you are looking at just as Eastern Conference sample, and look, this is again what it comes down to is that Irving's at seven hundred and eighty total minutes and James Harden has played six hundred and ninety two in the Eastern Conference. That's not like ridiculous. And I don't even know what Kevin Durant is at now because he's missed so much time and he was voted in as a starter. My my reasoning here, as I'm talking through, it feels a little bit more hypocritical just because Kyrie Irving was voted in as a start, and Kevin Durant's at six seventy nine, you know what I have to put. I'm putting James Harden in that wildcard spot. I'm not going to put him in as the full on reserve just because that will be my way of Okay, you up ended Houston season, and I'm going to count that towards your But if we're not going to weigh his play, am I going to weigh his attitude? So James Harden has made my Eastern Conference All Star ballot at the expense of we'll get to it, but it was between him, and it was between more than two people, but it was him or someone else, and no way. Yeah, I would assume that your backcourt lock then is Jaylen Brown? Right? I had him as a starter actually over Kyrie because just pure sample. But you look at what Jaylen Brown has done this year. He's more dynamic scoring off the dribble. He's shooting above fifty percent on his pull up twos, and that those percentages were higher, they come back down to earth a little bit, but he's had to shoulder more of a burden on offense and he's a better as a playmaker. If you just look at his assist percentage on drives this year compared to last year. It is more than doubled. It was close to tripled at one point. And you factor in what he does defensively for Boston, where he's going to take on tougher assignments relative to Jayson Tatum. I don't know how you wouldn't have him in the Eastern Conference All Star Mix this season. You can get into whether the Celtics. You know, people look at team success. I try not to measure that as much because I guess it certainly matters. But the gallant Brown is averaging over twenty five points per game, shooting better than forty percent from three, better than fifty three percent from two. This was an easy pick for me, and like I said, I had him as a starter. The thing that's interesting is if you look at his sorry, the defensive matchup data, and even if is cleaning the glass data. I wouldn't be opposed if people were trying to like figure out a different way of doing this, if they wanted to list him as a front court because I think he's played enough minutes as a true wing where if you could shoehorn him into the front court spot, and that technically opens up another backcourt spot, but I ended up going with four total backcourt players. Spoiler alert. Now that hardens in one of the wild card slots. Yeah, as did I. But I think that there's enough depth of talent, both in the backcourt and front court that there are inevitably going to be snub feeling players. I hesitate to just just say straight up snubs because that means that they deserve to be an over other people, and we're just restricted by the roster size. I think the case for Brown is is just fairly ironclad here. The only town our argument I can see is like, how much the Celtics have fallen apart after they're eight and three starts the season, I believe, But that's not on Jalen Brown. It's a little continue to play great like it's I think it's far more about like Kemba Walker struggling the supporting cast not being able to pick pick up enough slack that it's forced him to over extend his role, even in a season where he's shown that he's far more versatile and well rounded than he was going into the year. Like, I still just I don't think that you can pin the blame on him even if he hasn't performed quite at the same level. Yeah, the only thing I would point out is that I would like to see him and Jason Tatum maybe have a better shot profile. There's yeah, he's hitting his mid rangers, so it's fine. But when you have both Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown who are so fluent in the mid range, and I don't think it's I don't think it's a terrible thing. But when you combine that with Kemba Walker struggling and you just don't have these necessarily lockdown shooters or knockdown shooters around you excuse me, or someone's going to put that consistent pressure on the rim of fish, it's a little I think you can say that's the flaw for the Celtics. And I don't know how much you know, because he's doing more than he's ever done. Maybe you fault Jason Tatum more for that, which is you know, perfectly fine with me, and I'm sure we're going to get to that later. But for the second backcourt spot for you, I'm going to continue guessing, and I would think that would be Ben Simmons because I think he's the other backcourt player who just seems to have a locked down spot on this team. Ben Simmons was in my wildcard discussion. He did not make my team though, because James Harden did. Look at wow, how do you how do you justify that though? Like just a defensive Player of the Year caliber guard who can cover virtually any matchup, who has taken on more of a scoring burden, who has continued to facilitate for the team. I just I don't. I'm not sure I follow a case against him. I would push back against him shouldering a higher scoring burden he's not taking, not necessarily consistently, but like in the games that embiid has missed, like we've seen him. What's their record without Jools a shooter? What's their record without Joel Embi? It's not great? But how much how much of that can you put on Ben Simmons versus the other guys on the team? I think you can put a good chunk of it on Ben Simmons. If he's supposed to be an All Star or an All NBA player, there's Ben Simmons is ridiculously good. And that's why these conversations their problems because we're gonna invariably Now I'm criticizing Ben Simmons, but things that were determining factors for me. He's not a consistent offensive presence for them, and he is a fantastic defender, and he probably deserves more love. They're probably like five or six guys right now that you could talk about for legitimate defensive player of the year candidacy's and he's also a transcendent passer. That's the remains. Philly is so dependent on him to get their three point looks off. But he has played five hundred and sixty possessions without Joel Embiid, during which time Philly is minus thirteen point two points per one hundred possessions, and they don't have eighteen percent tile on offense sixth percentile in defense. This stuff is gonna Maybe it's splitting hairs, but this stuff matters now. And the fact that you lose out Horford and all of a sudden, the minutes without Joel and Bee are poor. A lot of those minutes, by the way, are not coming again second units because doctor Rivers has decided, hey, we're not really going to stagger Ben and Joel as much, which I think is smart because Simmons and Dwight Howard would be even more of a disaster and embed and Simmons can actually work, but you want someone who can anchor. You know, if the if the lineup is Danny Green, Seth Curry, Tobias Harris and Dwight Howard, you would like that to be like in a really effective lineup. If Ben Simmons is going to be your dog's here's my thing, Like, if there was an Offensive Player of the Year award, every one of the top five candidates would be an All Star lock And I just I don't like that. A very valid DPOY contender like Simmons, Like you could make it. You could make a clear cut case for him winning that award. You could. And he's not an All Star, Like I can't really swear that, yeah, but as my phone is just going bother is over here. I just the things that he's supposed to be better on on offense, and I'm not talking about actually shooting. He's just not Like I don't know how he's a great offensive players expectations for his impact right, Like, okay, but what is his impact without Joel Embiid on the court. What is his impact Withoutjoel Embiid on the court. If he's an All Star, so tough, it's still so tough to parse out, Like how much of that is is a testament to his shortcomings versus the Sixers inability to replace him beat Like yeah, like theoretically any All Stars should be able to carry a lineup, but like I feel like that's just too simplistic. If it's if it's a situation matters, if it's your only case, then then sure. But his efficiency is down around the room this year. I don't even think last time I looked, he wasn't taking as many of his looks. There the fact that he hasn't expanded his offensive game. I think you can absolutely hold it against him because I think the Sixers are so much scarier if Joel Embiid can excuse me, if fence him and can consistently score outside three feet of the basket, and he's again an invaluable facilitator, an invaluable defender when you're going up against other guys. Though, I do think that from scratch offense is gonna win out a lot of the times, and I would argue that that's, you know, properly so and you look, you can even look at his freedom and is still kind of like weird. Yeah, sixty seven point one percent as a career high, but awesome. So I would need to see more offensive growth from him. And the defense is fantastic. It's not that he's not. In the conversation. I would actually have him as my first or second injury replacement based on the three people I was considering for the wild card, but they are being slaughtered when he plays without Joel Embiide statistically, and I think he's going to make the team. No, I actually don't. I would be a little bit surprised him. Maybe he's an injury replacement, but I would be a little bit surprised if he does. And I'm not saying I think he's probably a top twenty five guy in the NBA still, but the rosters are small, and I just don't know that I've you know, his numbers, I guess are lateral if you want to call them to the past few seasons, which is great. That's still an incredible player, does you some of these other guys are more impactful, and yes, some of them are going to be on less successful teams, which leads me into my next case of I have Zach Levine here. I have him listed as my first among the tough emissions, and I hated not being able to include him. What would be the case against Zach Levine. I think it's it's mostly just a team success thing. And again, like I picked this from the perspective of trying to identify which players the coaches are going to select. So in my personal ballot, I would have him holding down one of the wild card slots. But I just don't think that the respect is going to be there quite yet, just because the Bulls aren't winning games. And even if it's a faulty argument, I think that you still can at least try to make the argument that he's an empty stats guy, which I, as as as our listeners hopefully know, like both of us, vehemently disagree with. Like we've we've talked about how we think Lavine is a cornerstone piece and should should very much be a part of Chicago's long term plans and is a worthy max contract guy. Yeah, I mean I would push back. I probably think about Chicago and I capitalize on this trade value. Now it see like he yet, but I have him in because I don't know how you leave off twenty nine points five assists per game, hitting fifty eight point one percent of his two's shooting better than he's shooting almost forty three percent on threes, almost forty two percent on pull up triples. His decision making the turnovers can still be a little bit of an issue, but from watching him a lot, and when I was digging deep into this, because again this was these are extremely difficult decisions for me, and we don't even have like official votes. Imagine how much sleep we would lose if we had official votes. All Right, he's passing is just smarter when he's being surrounded by double teams, and I think I'm sure this has been covered, you know, loosely or if not specifically, on bulls Twitter. His defense is better. They're they're throwing him at It feels like more star point guard. And it also feels like he's doing a better job, maybe not full on transition, but doing a better job of communicating with his teammates and semi transition. If he has to switch up assignments and he's not lining up with maybe the guy that he was necessarily supposed to. I think the off ball defense has gotten better too. If you kind of watch him, he's either smarter about not helping away from corner three point shooters, and if he is doing things from there, he's getting back there a little bit quicker. So I think that improvement is enough. You go back to the team's success thing, which I totally get. Chicago's offense is much better with him on the court, but there's still not elite. If you want to put Ben Simmons in here over him, which it seems like you did, I totally guess that's fine. I just don't know he's improved so much that you look at the numbers he's putting up on the level of difficulty with his shots, then the work he's putting in defensively, even if he's not I want to make this Clay, I don't think he's a good defender, and I'm sure at some point the a Bulls fan or someone will make the argument that he is an asset on that end, I wouldn't. I don't think he is yet. I just don't really see that. But the fact that I feel like he's much less of a liability is huge deal. And you know, we're at the point where this is the third season of him doing stuff like this, and he's just improved. I mean again, twenty nine points and five assists on an effective field goal percentage above sixty. That is insanely hard to do when you shoulder the type of workload that he does, shot selection that he does, and he just seems like a smarter player at Bulls ends of the floor. So I didn't I would say I didn't hesitate to put him in, but his maybe where he would have been a wild card at one point he worked his way into just my full on reserve guard spot. Yeah, I would have on my personal ballot, I would have had him over Trey Young from my final wild card spot. But I have the opposite for my what I expect the coaches to do and the reason in my head, And tell me if this just doesn't make sense, is I think that from a coach's perspective, you can beat the Bulls without fully game planning for Zach Lavine because you know he's going to get his and you could just take out everyone. When you play the Hawks, you have to game plan for Trey Young because if you don't, he's going to tear you apart. And I think that just like that differentiation an approach leads me to believe that Trey is more likely to get that final wildcard spot from the coaches, even if the opposite probably should happen. Yeah, I think that makes sense. That makes some sense. This is and it's it's interesting to see how fans are analysts sort of diverge in their thinking from how coaches might view it. And I do think overall, one thing you could say is that coaches are far more likely to reward veterans over younger guys too, which is something which is why I also think it matters that Lavine hasn't made an All Star team and Trey Young has, so they're more likely to just kind of continue going with that status quo. And I just I have this hunch that we're going to be talking about Zach Lavine the way we've talked about Mike Conley, where it's like, this guy absolutely is an All Star even if he hasn't been recognized as such, and he's just going to be start He's going to start being viewed as that that guy who is who needs to get over that hump, even if it already should have happened, and look for what it's worth this would be an argument against me, but zach Lavine is still the bottom four hundred and fifty of r APM on the season, while Ben Zimmons is in the top fifty. Zach Lavine is sixteenth in value over replacement player per stathead, where Ben Simmons on that one is twenty third. And so it's interesting how definitely those metrics will view them. But it's a discussion there. Look, I think Trey Young could also have a case here as well, and I think you could go with I don't know as Fred van Fleet. I mean, we'll get to these names in the second, but who do you have as your first front court reserve. It's got to be Beam out of Bio. Just his his importance to the Miami Heat on both ends of the floor, just the way that he's continued to improve, and you know, is there a more versatile big man defender. And then you couple that with his ability to run fast breaks to facilitate out of the half court to get his own shot. You know, Miami season has been disappointing. It is not because of Bam Auto Biot's because other pieces have struggled. It's because Jimmy Butler hasn't been available the entire season through no fault of his own, but Bams has been phenomenal. Yeah. I think the big thing with him too is that now he has that outside shot where no, he's not hitting these threes, but he's forty two percent from mid range, which is that's a fantastic number if you're looking for a big man who could space the floor. Maybe he'll eventually get to a point where he's taking threes or hitting those shots at a higher clip, but it gives you some more things that you can do when building the front court, which it's deadly heats, you know, second big or second front court spot, whatever you want to call it. That's been probably their area of biggest struggle this season. He was a no brainer for me. My other lock here was Jason Tatum. You do looking it at his numbers, he is at had He's at twenty six points four point six assists, hitting thirty nine percent of his three he's forty seven point eight percent of his twos. That's down a little bit, getting to the line at basically a similar clip as he was compared to every other season. But he's when you watch him what he's able to do on offense now as as a playmaker, that's you know, fast forward eighteen months ago before the start of last season, and I don't want to say it's night and day, but he's so much more polished there as well. And then I do think that he's a very impactful defender when you look at what he's able to do off the ball. I called him earlier this season, I think he might be the best off ball defender in the NBA. I think it depends on how you define that, but then also probably of late, I think after watching the Celtics, I don't know that everyone's going to feel that way, or even if I would feel that way, but he's very much just a high two way impact player, and so I think he's performed well enough, even though it feels weird to give, and as I already spoiled, I only gave his six Ers one All Star. It feels weird to give if you're looking at team success the Celtics two All Stars. I just feel like he's been in that mix. I really struggled with this one. I've tayed him as well on my expected coaches pick for all the reasons you mentioned plus just a reputation, like we we went into this season thinking that he was going to be like a fringe MVP candidate. He hasn't been, but that reputation still persists. On my personal ballot, I was really waffling between him, Nikolav Vuchevic, and Julius Randall, and I think that I might have had Tatum third out of that group. It's hard, like we're really just splitting hairs at that point, But in my head, it's like the Celtics haven't been as good as expected. Jaylen Brown has been the best player on that team this season as good as Tatum has been, and Vukovic and Randall are just I think they're a little more important to their teams right now. Yeah, I don't know if I could say they're more important. Yeah, just Jayson Tatum's defensive value far exceeds both of those guys. And then the thing with Randall, though, is his knicks rely on him more as a playmaker. For sure, he is the engine of that offense. Chevich, I don't know if you could say he's like the I guess he's the engine of the Magic offense. He's the stabilizing force of it, Like, I don't think you're you're not going to run it through him the same way you're running it through Julius Randall. As my point, you're just gonna leave fast breaks and set up a lot of your half court sets outside of the post. It's an interesting it's an interesting dilemma I for some reason I don't have. I wouldn't view vouch or Randall as locks though, and maybe that's a team successfully not But yeah, I mean this is why they should be like Lavigne, Vojevic and Randalls should be locks because the rosters just aren't big enough. Yeah, and look for Randall too, just the Knicks's dependence on him as a playmaker. Get on a point out. But I think I probably value just like the you're gonna have the perimeter score who can hit those off the dribble jumpers, who can also initiate the offense for you. I'm always gonna wind up a value valuing that guy higher than a Julius Randall or a Vujevich protectively, if he gives you, you know, wing defense or just a bunch of off ball disruption, which I think is totally valid. So it kind of leads me into my last front court lock, which I thought was more of a lock than Tatum. And that's Chris Middleton. I mean, what he's done for the Bucks. It continues to fly under the radar, in part because he struggled at times during the playoffs. He hasn't been able to elevate Milwaukee without on us quite as much. But I mean, the guy's averaging twenty point five points, six rebounds, five point seven assists. That's a huge playmaking jump from him. He's shooting fifty point five percent from the field, forty three point one percent on threes, eighty nine point five percent on free throws. Like we're very close for the second consecutive season to him being in the fifty forty ninety club. And just the fact that he's doing that under the radar because I think the NBA watching world has a little bit of Bucks fatigue after they've earned the top seed in the Eastern Conference for consecutive seasons but failed to capitalize on that in the playoffs, Like it might hinder him in like all NBA votes or something, which it shouldn't, but he is unquestionably an All Star. This one is tough for me and I still don't know that I have faith in it, because I knew essentially that too, both of my wild card spots are going to go to Guards, and so this became a matter of Middleton versus Vouch versus Julius Randall. I have Middleton penciled in there, but it struggled to get over the factor like the lineups that he's playing without Jannis, they're only dead even this year as opposed to destroying opponents like they were last year. But then I'm looking at like the players that are in those lineups, whereas Ben Simmons, I'm like, well he has Tobias Harris to lean on in there, and Danny Green has still been in a lot of those and Seth Curry. And then you look at Middleton's most US lineup without Jannis is Bobby Portis, who's been fine this year, but Tory Craig, Pat Connaughton and DJ Augustine. And so it's like, I just don't know how to value that, and I also kind of feel so I ended up process elimination. I took Vooch out. That one was tough. I went back and forth between him and Randall. I think I still leave Middleton like I said, I have him penciled in here, and the efficiency with which he plays. We're talking about someone, you know, twenty point five points a game that doesn't jump off the charts, but forty three point one shooting from beyond the r, fifty four point seven percent shooting inside the arc, basically shooting ninety percent from the fall line, and then five point seven assists per game. He might be huge part. He might be the Bucks's best passer, which is also why I went with him. Where I think at this point, Vouch is definitely Orlando's best passer. Randall's definitely the Knicks' best passer. I'm trying to think if I'm forgetting someone on Orlando because Faults isn't healthy right now, I don't know who else would be. Even Aaron Gordon's not in that mix. I hope I'm not insulting a healthy micro Carter Williams. Maybe I'm just forgetting somebody right there. But Middleton is doing other stuff again. In an addition, where Randall was really kind of like he's still that bowling ball in a ball in a China shop type deal, and his decision making is so much better. I want to make that clear. This is not needed disparage Julius rand but Middleton is going to give you more optionality on the defensive end, and I think he gives you more offensive optionality because the types of shots that he could hit. He's really just a score from every level, even though you wish that his game didn't stall out before the rim as often as it actually did. So, I I know came close here, but I went with Chris Middleton, so just to recap my East reserves from again trying to attack this from the coach's perspective. My back court players are James Harden and Jaylen Brown. My front court players are Bam Auto Bio, Chris Middleton, and Jayson Tatum. And my wild cards are Ben Simmons and Trey Young. And I just I have to give shout outs to zach Lavine, Nikolovukovich, Fred Van Vleet, Julius Randall, to Montes Sabonis, Tobias Harris, and Jimmy Butler. Yeah, I won't go that deep to the shout outs. I have Jalalen Brown and Zach lene Is. My back courts Jayson Tatum, Chris Middleton, and Bann out of Bio in the front court, and then my wild cards ended up being James Harden and I went with Fred van Fleet and so he ended up beating out Julius Randall was there and so was Trey Young. I think I'm probably maybe I'm penalizing Trey Young a little bit too much for not showing more diversification in his game. And is that on Lloyd Pierce? Is that on Trey Young? He's it's on the fact he's averaging fewer and shoot three point attempts this season, and look, Atlanta has been way injured. Trey also did have that stretch though, and I got shredded online for saying that he had been disappointing to a point where he had been disappointing. It's stabilized and I wasn't predicting that he was gonna suck all year, but that stretch factored in, and I'm looking at van Fleet where he's carrying. He's been the raptors best, not just their most consistent player, and he's definitely been I mean, consistency varies from level of level of player, but between Kyle Lowry and Pascal Siakam, even Ogie Anaobi, he's just been their their most consistent player, and you're at a point where I think people just have not really noticed this. The Raptors are coming like there. They haven't even been healthy and forever. Kyle Lowry has missed the past couple of games, but they have Og back. Now they're fifth in the East, so they're actually ahead if you want to go on the team success thing. They're fifth in the East, which is substantially ahead of Atlanta right now, and Atlanta has all those injury issue issues. Gallo was only recently back and is still sort of ramping up. They have Bogdani Madadovich, Chris Dennis, you got to play for them. Rondo has been hurt, DeAndre Hunters hurt right now, a bunch for them. So insofar as you wait team success, it's important to note that but Fred van Fleet right now is the best player on a team that's basically dead, even in the top four conversation for the East. That's huge to me. And what's ultimately a difference because Trey Young is a superior passer, He's a superior off the dribble shooter. I think Fred van Fleet has added more variants to his offensive game in the sense that he's bombing away from three a lot more where you just look at the distance of his shots, and so defenses have to plan arout that he is really stretching them out a lot further than he has at least consistently in the past. He has a little bit more of a mid range game to him. And then the other thing for me is just defensively, if I were to do all defense teams right now, I don't know where he'd end up in it, but we're looking at having four backcourt slots or the all defenses are building that conversation, Yeah, he might get one of my ten all defense spots, and that I don't think that reputation has caught up yet. No, I feel him. Yeah, because he's maller and because he is a good score. I don't think that people recognize enough like just how good he is on defense. Maybe it's also because he plays next to Kyle Lowry, but that is a brutal defensive backcourt to score against. And it's he also just doesn't give you as much range as a Marcus Smart who will defend everybody. You need to put Van Fleet on ones or twos. But and then that position is and can you be a valuable position? And that's where the pushback will come. Treyong is still not good on defense. It's just that's just a fact. But people will argue, look at the value provides on offense, then who really is value providing net positive value in the backcourt on defense? And the answer is probably almost no one still looking at the defensive workload that Fred ran fleet as shouldered, and then the consistency that he's buying large played with this year being the best player on what is a team again that is fifth in the East. Right now, all those things came together. So my shout outs go to first and foremost, it'd be Julius Random, Lakolovudvich and Treyng. Treyo was probably the toughest to leave off, just because you look at his numbers, and I think Trey Young probably makes it even though he didn't make mine. I like my guests would be if coaches were choosing, they'd probably choose Trey Young over Zach Lavine if that was a debate that actually happened. So I went with the wild cards there and the James. Look, the James Harden one was tough because if I wanted to be a stickler about how I was doing it in the first place, there'd be a spy. It would have been try Young by the way, I had him pensylvan as the wild card over Julius Randall or Bujevich before we started. If I had a ballot, mine would have been James Harden, Jaylen Brown, bam Adebaio, Chris Middleton, nicolauv Buchevic, Ben Simmons, and zach Lavine bensim Is. I guess I didn't give him a strong enough consideration, but the minutes without him be just I can't I get that from those, But I just I can't devalue defense that much, like I think offense is more important than defense than the NBA, Like, it's not just this fifty fifty split, even though each is half of the game technically, because good offense does still beat good defense. But he's so impactful there. It's just I think you see it though in those lineups without him, bide, how much is his fans carrying them? It's not. And if you can't and I don't want to, like just credit your argument like I do, think it's you said it was shallow. I believe were your exact words. We're simplistic. I think it's overly simplistic, yeah, but I don't think it's incorrect. Like we're splitting hairs between so many of these players. Put in Frankie Lakita, take out Simmons, that's take out Lavine. That's the look people keep writing in Jordan Clarkson for six Man of the Year. But I don't know. I feel like Chris Bouche has a has an argument there, just throwing it out there. Ready to move to the West. I am to go over the starters for the West, Steph Curry and Luka Donche in the backcourt, and it should have been Damian Lillard over Luca don Chis, and then Lebron James, Kwai Leonard and Nicole Yokich in the front court. Zero qualms there. I don't you have a problem with Kwai too. I'm fine with it. I thought it was cool. I can't remember. I was listening to a podcast where they were like, oh, maybe we should get into Luca Donche's apology dying for getting so much of the fan votes. He didn't definitely didn't have to like do that. I don't know he didn't, but I guess, like, I don't have a problem with the fact that he did. It's not definitely not something you needed to apologize for. But I don't know that it's worth debating. I just think you look at Dame's clutch numbers, and so Damian Lillard's boil alert has to be the locked for the reserves in the backcourt for us. But somebody, do we even need to talk about that one? Like that's that's we done? Conclusion we do apparently because I posted I run the Blue Wire NBA Instagram account and posted something about Damian Lillard's clutch stats, and someone said, crunch time isn't you know, doesn't factor into All Star criteria? And I was, I from a brand account, bedn't. I didn't say anything, but it is part of the forty eight minutes of the basketball game, so why wouldn't it factor into It's not like those are the shots that people remember, you know, No, not at all. And but the context for him is just at this point, he's played more games without CJ. McCollum than Don just played without Chris Stops. The the difference there is that Chris Stops has very much not been an All Star player this year and CJ. McCollum was before he was injured. But Blazes are also missing nurkicch who wasn't great this year. But that's also I would say their third most important player overall. Definitely in the top four or five for them, So yeah, he's an easy one. Who did you have as your next backcourt guy? This is where it got really tough. I had Chris Paul. I think from a raw number standpoint, you can make a case for a number of other guards, but I just I think the importance that he has to that team is so abundantly clear without sighting or looking at any numbers. It's the exact same thing we saw last year with the Oklahoma City thunder Like where he his presence elevates a team like he is a mid range maestro. He excels in these crunch time minutes. He elevates the play of other players, with the exception of DeAndre Ayden, who is still kind of struggling to figure out how exactly he fits in with this team. But Chris Paul alone just changes everything, and that he is continuing to do this at his In terms of NBA age, advanced age is just remarkable. I don't think there's any way you can leave him off this team. I think there's a way just because you you mentioned it incorrect with It's probably more debatable than that to me. But yeah, he's been I mean, seventeen points eight point five assists per game. He's up to almost forty percent three point shooting after struggling from there, fifty three point seven percent from two, ninety seven point two percent from the foul line. The volume admittedly there isn't huge, but sixty nine of seventy one and is still pretty damn ridiculous. I think the crunch time stuffs waited for me because he's still so important to the Suns there, and part of that was they played some clutch games without Devin Booker at one point, but he's he's sixth in crunch time buckets made this year, and he's twenty one to forty four from the field during that time. The Suns are only eight and eight in games where they've rented one of the games that have gone two clutch minutes. Excuse me, I can't talk, but just his importance there and the way he could still shape the offense or carry in offense and even you look at Phoenix and I think the Devin Booker Chris Paul games or getting a chemistry is getting a lot better, but it's still not all the way there. He's the type of player that's just so built to navigate that, and I do think there's a case for Devin Booker over him, just when you're sort of looking at the time that Devin Booker missed earlier in the year and that he was really struggling with turnovers at one point, and Chris Paul has definitely been the more efficient player, and he's appeared in more games, and their shot difficulties are not liking, you know, that much different from run another. So you could go either or here, and that might have spoiled that I just don't have Devin Booker might all start that was he was tough to leave off too. This is a very prominent name in my tough emission section. So, but Chris Paul has been absolutely fantastic, and I think to this point, long term, I think it's clear that he's not their most important player. That's Devin Booker. But to this point, I think he's been Phoenix's most important player. Right just looking at what they've done only this season, not thinking about progression going forward or anything else. Like if you took Devin Booker off this roster, the Suns aren't going to plumb it down the standings as much as they would if you took Chris Paul away at this point, yeah, I would agree with you. Yeah. So in the front court, I think the biggest lock is the guy on the team that's won seventy three straight games and is still the best defensive player in the league and the best player on the Utah Jazz, and that's Whudy Gobert. Yeah, I've Rudy Gobert here as a lock, and he's probably the defensive player every year at this point, especially after Anthony Davis's injury, where you have to mitigate Davis his sample, Miles Turner will still belong in that discussion. I think you coulday sober grudgingly, Joela bed I had him in the early base of it. I guess you could still put him there. But Ben Simmons might have usurped him in that that conversation. But Rudy Gobert is just an absolute monster. And it's not just the stuff around the rim, but it's the fact that teams actively avoid the rim when he's in the game. When you look at his rim de turrns rather than just his rim protection, and they're just like I've never not that I've never seen, but right now there isn't a defense. I'm not next as an oss mom, but you watch the Jazz and like they're just I don't think any other team in the league right now has the luxury of maybe Philly comes a little bit close, but they also have Ben Zimmons there like Utah shooters. Utah's defenders don't have to move off their shooters like they It's just a rigobarts behind us and he look, he can come out a little bit. I know Jazz fans will be quick to site like some of his switch numbers over the past two years. I don't want him in space being pulled out against We saw it a little bit against the Clippers versus Searchaba too much, just because he's so good at recovering right and look, he's I think he's a lot quicker than people give him credit for. And that this idea that he's I think there's two extremes, the idea of he's matchup proof versus he could be schemed off the floor. I don't think either one of those is true. It's and it's probably closer to matchup proof. But he has been the best defensive player in the league. I think this year, one of the two past year over the past half decade. The most valuable defender over the past half decade. I think that's fair too, or close to it. One of the three most valuable defensive players in the past half decade, I think. I always think because the team numbers always supported any Davis to me just doesn't get enough credit there. But I don't I wouldn't put him above Gobert in that overall arcing discussion. To be clear. The other thing, too, is a lot of what you thought does do on offense. I'm not going to site screen as this here. Oh, I was really hoping you're going to. But like you need Rudy Gobert there to set screens and the gravity he has when he's rolling towards the basket, it's real, it's you know, there are other PA I think Andre Drummond is an example of this. Andre Drummond just doesn't have that type of role gravity and I think he probably has more than the numbers will show because he has not been a great finisher when he's actually played for Cleveland in that and it also wasn't a huge part of his game this season. But the fact that Rudy Gobert does that is an asset on offense. And I mean when him and Mike Conley are on the same page now during like that's just another added element where Utah and just all sorts of different lineups and they're built to navigate all these different permutations. And you look right now, I think the last time I checked the on off spits, Rudy Gobert is still the most valuable player on that team by those and again, those are there's so much taked into there, but we're talking about defensive value where it's hard to anchor lineups on your own defensively, Rudy Gobert is the type of defender that can come pretty close to doing that, and so he does not he does lead Oh no, that's Mike Conley is currently first in their net rating swing among all rotation players. So but point stands Rudy Gobert. A couple other things though about him that I think just don't get talked enough talked about enough is how much he avoids negative place. I mean, when was the last time you saw a guy average more blocks than personal fouls when filling this large of a role, Because he's at two point seven blocks per game two point two fouls per game, like that in and of itself is remarkable. He also just doesn't turn the ball over, which granted he's not operating within an offensive flow that leads too many turnovers, but it's still important that he just avoids those mistakes. And then all so his rebounding, and I think rebounding is an area that we just don't discuss enough in general, but it is really important, like the fact that he's generating three point five second chance opportunities per game, and that he's such a good defensive glass cleaner that even if you do manage to like get a shot that could produce an offensive rebounder, he just doesn't let you have those. These aren't cheap rebounds that he's getting. These are like legitimate possession ending rebounds, and that has to matter too. I mean, there are there are so many, like obviously great areas of Rudy Gobear's game, but I still think he's just massively underappreciated because he's so good in those little are areas too. Yeah, and look you can you can also just see it too when he's not on the floor. The way that Jazz defenses really changes even when they have good backup five play and the number hours thinking have. So Utah has a plus thirteen point four per one hundred possessions when he plays without Conley and Donovan Mitchell at this season. Sub George possession sample size and shout out to Jordan Clarkson for really helping anchor those units. But that you can do things like that, and they had to obvious league or they didn't have to. But when Mike Conley was missing time, he's just he's so impactful as as a defender. So I agree with you. My other lock for the front court, I actually feel like all the front court spots were locked unless you get to Anthony Davis and Paul George. Yeah. Absolutely, And so Anthony, let's do Anthony Davis first, because he's not gonna play in it while he's recovering from the calf strain slash achilles issue. I'm in sure to see who you have as his replacement. I didn't know the way to do this because they technically wouldn't be the wild card spot, right if we went that way. Yeah, all right, so but Anthy the position. Yeah, so let's I don't think they do. Actually, I don't think that. I think we've gotten to a point where you could, if you, if we wanted to, you could basically fit any combination of players that you want into the reserves. Were pretty close to it. But I do think Anthoney Davis deserves to make it. He's fallen off offensively since the scorching hot start to this season. I don't know if that's he's just I mean, he's coming off the shortest offseason too, and the shortened off season, and it historically shortened off season for him. Still incredibly valuable to what the Lakers do defensively, and he has his own gravity when he has the ball. I think when you look at his volume at the free throw line, which he hasn't been great there relative to his past play, looking at his shooting percentages, but he's not getting to the rim as much, which I think you can view as a concern. But then it's like, oh, Anthy Davis is more of a perimeter threat, even though some of those percentages will come back down to earth, just very clearly in all start to me and then Paul George. He's quieted down a little bit, I guess, but he's been overall. He was smoking hot on Sunday, right. I think he just had to like bounce back from the prolonged absence because of I believe it was a toe injury, right, yeah, both him and I think that's why the Tawk has said a little bit is because he there was a little bit of a cold streak from three, and I say that he's still shooting forty seven point one percent from three. By the way, just in just an FYI fifty four point six percent of his twos this year, which would be a career high twenty four points five point five assists. Him and Kwai have both been absolutely fantastic, And because he missed that time as did, it feels like talk around both of them is just not relative to Again, Kawai was a starter. But I almost feel like we're not talking about the Clippers enough. Right, It's been Jazz and Lakers and oh the Suns are perking up, and what's wrong with the Mavericks and how the Nuggets decide to play today, Oh, Jamal Murray score fifty without a free throw. I feel like they I don't want to say the Clippers are undercovered or underrated, but I do feel like the discourse of them is quieted down. And I don't know what the who would Who is the player that you would consider putting in above either of these two? There isn't one I was trying to I think, I will say before writing those names in Front, I didn't either, but Front court wise, I think the only one I could really make a begin to make a case, where be Zion Williamson. Who is my first wild card? Okay, I have Zion Williams. I actually do my wild card here. My last wild card spart was up in the arts between Zion and someone else. So we'll talk through that spot. But give me give me your eye on case. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just so obvious watching him in the last few weeks how much the game has clicked for him, Like he's no longer just you know, hanging around off the ball and waiting for his opportunities. He's taking a more active role in handoff games and in the pick and roll game and cutting, and it just it feels like his understanding of half court geometry has just improved exponentially in the last couple of weeks, to the point where he's not just like this guy who's so athletically talented that he's getting numbers, but he's just a phenomenal basketball player who's getting even bigger numbers. I mean, it's it's beyond clear, like how much more the Pelicans are starting to value him on offense where they're they're making more of a concerted effort to get him the ball in these key situations, and he's just ultimately an unstoppable force. Like I don't know how he's not going to be an All Star lock for the next decade or so barring some sort of ridiculous injury, because there's no way to keep him away from the rim, and his touch when he gets there is so ridiculously advanced for a twenty year old. I mean, he's he's taking seventy four point two percent of his shots within three feet and converting those at a sixty seven point six percent clip, even though everyone on the opposing team knows that that's where he wants to go, and because of the diversity of angles that he takes and his ability to, you know, take these unorthodox approaches to the rim where he's jumping a half second earlier than you might expect, or curling around or hanging in the air just a little longer, like he is just this unschemable forced Now, yeah, I don't so. My wildcard spots came to Devin Booker, Donovan Mitel De, Aaron Fox, and Zion Williamson. I think I'm giving one of them to Zion Williamson. And just to add to the case that you laid out is the big The big thing here is that you look at his numbers and yeah, they're they're obviously monstrous, but there's this misconception that they come with him sort of being just a play finisher, and he's more of a play starter now and recently the Pelicans have him running more more pick and roll. But you look, he's and possessions in isolation get murky. How do you distinguish them from post ups? Sometimes when you're looking at the tracking data, I personally don't really care because either way it would still be incredible. But among every player who has used or finished at least thirty isolation possessions, so that's sixty players right now. His sixty five effective field goal percentage is third, behind only Kevin Durant and Tobias Harris, who also has been spectacular this year. He's like you said, he there's more diversification than the angles that he's using when he has the ball on him. Being that much of an on ball force, it's just incredible. His defense is still a problem. He's very much a part of the Pelicans struggles there. He is off the ball, he can get burned by corner three point shooters, and I don't know if that tips the scales away from him when you're looking straight up against you know, Foxes comes and goes there. But he's more consistent presence than Zion is. You could probably say the same with Donovan Mitchell. But my second wildcard spot was incredibly difficult. I gave it to Donovan so tough. Where did you land with it? I did as well, just because I think that again approaching this from the coach's perspective, like Utah has been the best team in the league for a while, and whether that's sustainable remains to be seen. It could be, but Donovan Mitchell has been the second best player some nights. I don't know if he's actually been better than Mike Conley, but I mean just the scoring load that he carries is going to get recognized like this is Utah is too good of a team to only have one All Star, and he's just the most likely guy to get that nod from the coaches. And I do think he deserves it, since that's how I did my picks. He's been. Actually, I actually think Mike Conley deserves it over him, like he would have been on my ballot in that final spot. Is that a little bit of a career achievement thing Mike Conley's miss I think it's it's part of It's part career achievement, but it's also just like how it impactful. Conley has been on both ends of the court. Like Mitchell did suffer through like a shooting slump at the beginning of the season. He's been inconsistent some nights on defense. I think Conley has been probably the lower ceiling, much higher floor player for this season. If if that was the case, I would rather have Devin Booker here. I don't know that you can make a case for a Mike Conley over at Devin Booker or even Mike Conley over d n Fox at this point, I guess it would be my Yeah, it's I mean, it's it's all so tough when you get down to that final spot. I mean, personally, I think that Donovan Mitchell is going to get that nod from the coaches and then I'm still not quite clear how that reserve that replacement works for Davis, but it'll probably be Devin Booker if it doesn't have to align with positions, Yeah, it does. I think I think that it should be Mike Conley getting the wild card and then Donovan Mitchell being the replacement. Well. Mitchell since his first five games of the season, which were struggle for him, is averaging twenty five point six points, five point three assists, shooting forty one point one percent from three eighty four point one percent at the foul line. He's definitely not as efficient inside the arc as a Devin Booker or a the Aaron Fox. That one was really tough. This this spot was incredibly tough for me. I think his highs have maybe been a little bit higher than I don't know that Devin Booker has necessarily had the chance to I mean, his numbers. The numbers are just they're so much similar here, and so I don't even know. This might just be a matter of preference at this point where I'm looking at. But Booker has also been like actively bad on defense. Yeah, he's not as good on defense as as Donovan Mitchell is, and Darn Fox is better on defense than Dever Booker is as well. There's but I feel like some of it's just a matter of preference. Daron Fox has been just absolutely molten. He has this de Airn Fox has a legitimate step back jumper now where you actually have to, you know, game plan for that. He's carrying such a huge burden on offense when you just look at what's happening with the Kings. He helped them navig Rihahn Holmes's absence at one point. So yeah, it was a toss up between Fox and Mitchell for me. And so if we're doing the replacements injury replacement, I'm probably giving it to Dann Fox over Devin Booker. I think you can even expand beyond that, Like you can make a ballid case for the scoring potency of brandon Ingram, you can make a case for Shakil just Alexander being ridiculously good and carrying the Thunder to a much more respectable season than we expected, especially early on. You can one percent make a case for DAMARDA Rosen, who is having what I think is a career year for the Spurs and diversifying his game by becoming a much more capable and willing passer. He's taking more threes he's been. You know, we can cite the negative net rating swings that he always seems to have, but like it's very clear how much he means to the Spurs, Like any of those guys, like I wouldn't bat an eye if you had them in that final spot. Yeah, Marta alwaysn't got more consideration for me than I ever would have anticipated mar Derozen getting this season the injury replacement him still in my head is going back and forth between is it the Aaron foxers Devin Booker. I think because if the aeron Fox is importance to the King's on offense, and then him being a little bit more of all not a little bit of a substantially more pathful presence on the defensive, ended that even he's someone who's gonna draw, he's getting the foul line at a higher clip than Devin Booker. Right now too, I go the aeron Fox by a hair, which kills me because I you know, I'm a big Devin Booker guy. And yeah, and the other thing and why I would agree with you is we can't forget about Michael Bridges, Like from a pure impact perspective, might deserve to be in that conversation as a replacement. Because he doesn't score as much as Booker, he's not going to be in it. But like you can make a pretty legit argument, I think that mcail Bridges has been the second most important person on the Sons this season. Well, all right, that might be going a little too far off the rails. There have been no players that are more important on the Sons than Chris Paul and Devin Booker. Michail Bridges has probably been their most insisted player this season, if you want to say that. But yeah, I mean again, like just looking at what's happened and not what might happen going forward. I mean, I guess that's an interesting take. Now we had the zach Lavine people were mad that Grant came on the pose of Zach Levie should be a sixth man. Now you're saying that you should replace Devin Booker. I'm not. And to clarify, that is a compliment to Mikhail Bridges and not an insult to Devin Booker. I understand it. Hopefully our listeners do too. But do you have anything to add to this the Well, let's just recap our teams here. That's unfortunate, so we recap the East already. So what's your what's your West team? My West team? Again, from the coaches perspective, I have Damian Lillard and Chris Paul in the backcourt. I have Really go Bart, Paul George, and Anthony Davis in the front court. And I have Zion Williamson and Donovan Mitchell as the wild cards. And I think that Devin Booker becomes the injury replacement for Anthony Davis. My personal ballot, I would have had Mike Conley over Donovan Mitchell, and I would have included Donovan Mitchell as the replacement. So this is my personal ballot. I have Dame and Chris Paul on the backcourt for the reserves, Anthony Davis, Paul George, and Rudy Gobert in the front court. Donovan Mitchell and Zion Williamson got my wild cards, and then I have the Aaron Fox as the injury replacement for Anthony Davis. These are tough. Let us know what you think. Shout out to all you for making it through this. Shout out to the one and only Michael Bridges. Apparently before we get out of here, just remember that you're a better basketball player than Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Lebron James, Michael Jordan Adam is having you climb this all time pantheon of players, So shout out to you as always. Guys though, thank you for listening, and please remember to rate, review, and subscribe to us wherever you consume your podcasts. Until next time,