Speaker 1: What is up, Fellowsikos, I am Dan for Valley, coming
at you with the one, the only, the indelible, my certified,
fantabulous co host, mister Grant Hughes. We have seen enough
basketball to know that it's piece or panic time. We
are going to go through a handful of teams that
are either not meeting external or internal or both expectations
and decide is it time for them to panic or
is it time for them to hold serve? Everyone just
take a chill pill. It's gonna be fine. They'll work
out the kinks, whatever's going wrong will come to pass.
We're gonna be right every single time like we always are.
But first, we asked the question, and we want to know.
Get into comments. We're doing this live, get in the comments.
Let us know are you piecing? Are you panicking? Is
there another team or player that you're thinking about that
we're not gonna touch upon. We'll get to questions throughout
if we have them, But our first question, mister Grant Hughes,
how the heck are you? I'm gonna I'm gonna answer
one question first. I'm at peace with your impending response
to this panicking that it's gonna be bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I'm piecing pretty hard just in life and
about most of these teams. No, I don't know, we're
gonna panic a little bit. I think this is this
is always like a tricky We've built in enough outs
because the way I'm thinking of this exercise is one
like the core question is is what's happening right now
with this team changing my priors like what I thought
we're gonna be the pluses and minuses, the ceiling and
floor coming into the season. And then this is where
like the parachute is like could it turn around? I
don't know. Maybe, so there's a little bit, there's definitely
some equivocating that we can do. But that's that's how
I approach it. Is that your general kind of uh,
how you come at the piece or panic discussion of
like and it's not you know, we're not gonna talk
about teams that are doing terribly that we thought we're
doing terrible, because that's not interesting. It's more just teams
that have shown a side of themselves that is causing
us to think like, oh, maybe I got this a
little bit wrong to start the year, or like maybe
based on their own internal expectations things are not going
to plan, right, That's that's kind of how you get
nominated into the piece or panic discussion.
Speaker 1: Right. So a team that's a good example is the
Pelicans are dumpster fire, but what we all got their
internal expectations might have been. I'm assuming they were higher,
but them, the Kings like those aren't teams we all
knew what they were coming into this. The Suns even too.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. I mean, really, I'm very peaceful about the Suns.
They're way better than I thought they would be. But
they don't get to be in the conversation.
Speaker 1: But Jalen Green coming back and just being absolutely sensational
apparently all over the place up against that super athletic
Clippers defense. That's a team that we might touch on.
Do you want to take us through our first team, sir?
Who's up?
Speaker 2: We begin sort of alphabetically. No, not quite, because there's
another team before them, the Dallas Mavericks. Stan. Their offense sucks,
and we knew that was gonna happen, or at least
strongly suspected it. They rank thirtieth an offensive rating, their
sixth on defense also kind of foreseeable. That levels out
to a net rating rank of twenty fifth. One stat
to note here, the MAVs are shooting twenty eight point
three percent on wide open threes. That's bad. That's also
last in the league. The next worst team, which is
the Blazers, are about four percentage points better. So that's
a or four points better. That's an enormous gap. Bonus
stat the league average in the restricted area sixty seven
point four percent. The MAVs do not have a single
non center. They also don't play very many non centers,
so this stat is biased shooting league average in the
restricted area. So I guess, like the starting point here
is this was on the table as far as like
the spread of offensive and defensive net rating ranks, I
would like to get into a few more pieces of
information to inform our decision. Here, Uh, they're two and six.
We didn't mention that the NADER really for Dallas. I'll
put it to you. Was it the opening night like
destruction at the hands of the Spurs or was it
the home loss of the Pelicans who were playing the
second night of a back to back. Because one really
was a like cold water and the other one was
I don't know, just like objectively felt worse to two
rough ones, which which made you more concerned.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the Pelicans one, right, Has anyone actively
watched the Pelicans to wear? Okay, Derek Queen at a
good game the other night, job Jeremiah Fears has looked
pretty good.
Speaker 2: I like Fears, Why are you?
Speaker 1: It's the Pelicans one. That's the one where it's okay,
we're we're pretty down bad and it's we built. I
know that they had very limited flexibility and the Kyrie
Irving injury, but you look at this team and hey, Grant,
the problem with it is the problem that everyone knew
it was gonna be and you didn't seek to address.
Signing D'Angel Russell to the minim he does not count
as addressing it.
Speaker 2: Here's here's why that's correct. They actually the Mavericks started
Delo in that game against New Orleans, acknowledging Fellas. Yeah,
Klay Thompson benched. He always responds really well to that too,
So good luck there at Dallas. They respond, they said, hey,
maybe we should get an actual ball handler on the floor.
Dil goes three for ten, he's a minus eleven. Brandon
Williams actually outplayed him in that game. That's the other
nominal point. He actually I shouldn't say nominal. He's a
point guard that's on the Dallas Mavericks. Maybe you've never
heard of him because he doesn't play very much. So
that you said it, this is how it was foreseeably
going to go badly. Some mitigating factors. Anthony Davis has
missed some time with a calf injury, Lively has been hurt.
Positive sign the stupid starting lineup that they've used mostly
since the opening of the season, which is Cooper Flag
at the one plus Clay plus PJ. Washington plus Davis
plus Lively actually has a positive net rating. The offense
is terrible, so that you know that was the recipe.
I guess, so on some level success that is what
Dallas was going for. All lineups with Flag at the point,
they're a minus eighteen point eight net rating with a
ninety seven offensive rating and a sky high turnover rate
and a horrible effective field percentage. All of this like
at the bottom or bottom five in the league. Again,
totally foreseeable. My sort of summation here, this has gone
badly and exactly the ways you could have expected. The
fixes quote unquote are D'Angelo Russell and Brandon Williams. That's
not enough. Feels to me like a trade is necessary
if you want to fix the offense. But in any
hypothetical trade, you're probably giving up the better players in
a vacuum. But you have to do that just because
you're so over indexed on front court guys and have
no guards and and the best move here to fix
all this is probably trading Anthony Davis, which is the
one they should have made sooner and the one they
can't make because the same guys that traded for him
are in charge of the team and you're pot stuck
on Anthony Davis. So I'm telegraphing where I'm going here.
I'd like to get some takes from you before we
close the book on Dallas.
Speaker 1: Is there any name though that you could? I think
my dogs are barking in the background. They we know
they their direction of it. Yeah, they know something. Is
there any name? Because if you're gonna go out and
make it upgrade, you could, I don't know if you
would need you have some salaries to wear. Naji Marshall,
Caleb Martin, Max Christy is a good player. Is there
a name a realistic name, and I can throw some
out to you that would say, oh, it's worth maybe
giving up assets to try and make the most out
of this season or no, it's very clear we need
to kind of reorient this thing around Cooper Flag because
I could, like just some examples of what I think
are in the realm of the Dallas Mavericks is assets
that they have at their disposal. Sneaky name of the Clippers,
continue to think is James Harden. Yeah, reunite him and Kyrie.
Let's go wrong shout out.
Speaker 2: I will say Harden would solve a lot of your
problems here because he would just completely commandeer the playmaking,
which is what he's doing for the Clippers, which we'll
talk about.
Speaker 1: So I guess what is the level of player they
would need for you to feel better about let's make
it about this season? And is it it needs to
be Austin Reeves or Tyler Hero Are either of them
good enough? Does a Malik Monk or a Kobe White help?
Could it be something? Are the Celtics willing to talk
on Peyton Pritchard?
Speaker 2: This is part of the reason you panic because the
first class of names, the Reeves, the Heroes, that that
would be pretty close to you. You still you're still
just you don't you can't play two centers and two
power forwards, like there's no point lead ball handler that
like fixes all of that. But you need you'd need
to swing that big, I think, to like really make
a meaningful correction to what's gone wrong here. But can
you do that if you know you have Kyrie Irving
coming back? And as management, do you do that? I
don't think you swing that big because you know you
can say, well, this isn't the team. This is just
the team until Kyrie comes back. And who better to
solve all these issues than a guy like Kyrie? So
why are we trading for reeves who's gonna get super
expensive or maybe we lose them for nothing? Or hero
if we know we just got to wait this out
and trust the defense or whatever, we can sell that
as the plan all along. And so then the alternative
of the Kobe White tier of players, which maybe isn't
that far behind like the Tyler heroes here, but a
notch below you're like, well, what's the point of that?
That's just a little band aid? Why give up anything
again when we know we have Kyrie coming back. I
think where you really run into trouble is if Kyrie's
just not that good, and certainly this season, I don't
imagine he's gonna that good.
Speaker 1: Is my final question on this before getting to a verdict.
Do you think on some oh, they're doing a disservice
to the development of Cooper Flag here to where it's
he's not going to be able to optimize himself on offense.
And also because of what you kind of have him on,
he's guarded a lot of on the ball on the
defensive end, which does take away from that disruption, that
play making away from the ball that he is supposed
to bring. And then if you're talking if you're focusing
on the defensive en okay, well, what's the player that
would maybe allow him to slide into his natural That
might be more of a front quart issue for the Mavericks,
although if you got a Peyton Pritchard could probably come
in and defend a bunch like some of these smaller
players with the ball in their hands, that's another question
they have to factor in.
Speaker 2: So I think if you believe that Cooper Flag is
as good as most people do, you're not doing like
permanent damage. I don't think. I do think it's very
obvious that he's not being put in the best position
to succeed. I'm not panicking about him specifically, because I
do think he's just if and when Dallas puts him
in a spot that actually makes sense for his skills
and experience, he'll be great. I don't think this is
going to compromise anything long term. It is like it's
not ideal what they're doing though right now, like because
I just I don't like, is he gonna be a
point guard ultimately? Like yeah, maybe a big wing slash
forward that has a lot of on ball juice, But like,
I don't see a world where Cooper Flag's best possible
utilization is running the offense, Like don't. I don't think so.
But I'm not worried about that. I am panicking about
this season for all the reasons we've gone through, and
I'm panicking for the long term because like, like I
went through, like just the Nico Harrison of it all
and the decisions that he's made that Like, again, this
ties back to what I mentioned earlier, Like the thing
to do is probably trade Davis, but that can't happen
as long as Harrison is still making decisions, because that
would be just admitting the failure that we all know
the Luka Doncis trade was. And I just don't think
executives are willing to make that kind of admission. So, like,
the best decision Dallas could make cannot be made for
reasons that have nothing to do with like what's actually
best for the team, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also, I don't know what you would get
in a trade package for Anthony Davis at the moment
would be the other thing that would be complicated. But
I have an agreement with you that if you're the Mavericks,
this is a perfect panic. They need a panic this season.
At least. I'm with you there, and I hope they
shouldn't go chase throwing good money after bad though, because
of the name where it's if you're in the think
of first round picks to bring in someone, I know
you have Cooper Flag. We're not insulated against being bad.
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Speaker 1: Our next team up is the Dallas Mavericks Grant, they
have fixed everything on the offensive end, except just kidding, no,
they have not. They are twenty fifth in offense.
Speaker 2: You said, Dallas Mavericks, We just did them. We're talking
You're talking about the Orlando Magic.
Speaker 1: I apologize. The Orlando Magic have fixed everything on the
offensive end, except they haven't. Twenty fifth in rating, seventeenth
in defensive rating. That's concerning, twenty second overall in net rating.
Notable stat the Magic Grant are twenty sixth in points
allowed per possession off turnovers. They were sixth last year.
As a bonus stat they were dead last in average
offensive possession time last year. They're now the seventh fastest team.
And a lot has just not changed. And so what
I did was you go in, you dig into their
shot profile. Desmond Bang taking fewer threes, that makes absolutely
zero sense. Some of the things I might get better
Franz Wagner shooting better from three is a really big deal.
I still there's man, is there a more quietly divisive
big name in the NBA than Palo Bank Caro Grant?
That's not there.
Speaker 2: Not At the moment, all my questions were about to
be about him, so.
Speaker 1: I looking at this team and the way that they
are running their offense, there are I think two big
conclusions people want to draw or will at least consider,
is Palo Bank Cao isn't good enough or that's going
to be a problem, or Jamal Mosley needs to go
or both. I'm looking at the offense and I just
they're playing faster with it seems like not having changed anything.
So I went back and watched every single Orlando Magic
turnover on the season. Shout out to Desmond Bane Travels.
But the other thing is they're just dripped. Like their
version of faster offense is okay, they're getting across half
court faster. It's not really transition, although they are spending
more time in transition, but it's they're just going to
dribble into traffic and then make bad passes.
Speaker 2: Appariently, can I jump in because No, I was aware
of the the the stats that you cited or some
version of them that like, No, the pace is up,
They're they're they're moving faster and you in different ways
that can be measured. And it's true that rubs completely up.
That's the wrong way to frame it. That runs counter
to what a lot of people like immediately we're pointing
out with like this is the most deliberate station to
station ass offense that you see in the modern NBA
of like the ball doesn't change sides, the ball stops that,
all that stuff, like all this this is maybe more
of the Moseley side of the criticism. Is that something
that leapt out to you? Did did you could? Can
you verify all the criticism of the esthetics of the
offense of just like it's not nothing's happening off the ball,
it's super basic, it's slow, it's uninventive. Is that at
what your rewatch kind of confirmed or is that overblown?
Speaker 1: I don't think it's overblown. I do think there was
the game I can't remember. There was the game where
they we saw more Oh, Franz Wagner was screening, and
like I just don't know why that's not like a
default of like let's just run a ton of picking
rolls with Palo bank Cao and Franz Wagner. But yes,
there's a lot of they're clearing out a side of
the floor and still going to work, but they're doing
it faster, like those players are going to dribble.
Speaker 2: They're starting it at seventeen on the shot clock instead
of twelve? Is that what that means?
Speaker 1: Right? And the part of the problem is that all
of these guys, whether it's going to be Franz Wagner,
Palo ban Cao, Desmond Baine, Jaalen Suggs, are all very
good secondary playmakers. And I don't know if like you're
gonna throw bodies at them in the paint because defenses
still don't respect Orlando shooting and they respect it even
like if Desmond Bain is the guy that's getting into
the paint, they're going to respect it even less because
of the players that are around them. How much do
you trust them to react to There is all this traffic,
there is all this bodies. They might still need someone
to organize the offense. That player grant and may surprise,
you know, is not Tias Jones not having the cleanest
start to the year there. Yeah, And I think they're sneaky,
just shallow where it's they have a lot of guys
where okay, like Tristan de Silva, Okay, find like we
like Anthony Black, like he could be pretty frisky on
the defensive end, but like you're running out. After that,
it's all like, O do we trust no appenda? Like,
what's gonna happen if Tias Jones can't get minutes? Jase
Richardson is someone who when you only get the playmaking specifically, okay,
sure could he help that, but he's a rookie. You're
getting nothing from Jonathan Isaac. They're like, I don't know
if their depth was given enough attention to. With all
that said, though, they're like, starting unit is kind of
killing it, And if you wanted to hang your hat
on something, you could say it's early. They could still
change things. The turnovers, you would hope would certainly clean
themselves up. Jalen Suggs should be able to play more
minutes as time goes on. I just I find I
don't like putting it laying blame at the feet of
a Ooh, that's a great question from Andrew Willett. What
a floor spacing center helps significantly? I mean they have
Wendell Carter Junior, who is, when you look at the percentages,
is not going to be someone that you would necessarily
consider a floor spacing center. But short of getting a
what Karl Anthony Towns or Christaps porzingis you're not going
to have like if Wendell Carter Junior shooting fifty percent
from three on three attempts per game, right, how much
better are you going to get from that? Realistically?
Speaker 2: I think you're This is something that like we've hit
on it when in other discussions about John Morant, like, oh,
it's hard to trade him because everybody's the point guard.
There's there's too many point guards out there. I kind
of think the opposite where some of these teams, Orlando
being one, that just don't have someone that breaks the
paint as a ball handler that often and like causes
the defense to shift. Like it's take I watched Clippers
Phoenix last night and it's like neither of them had
anybody on the floor that could do that, and it
was a real slog and like the team that made
threes one because you're just swinging it around. Like I
think that offenses like Orlando's benefit more from someone who's
like I don't know. Again, I've watched some Pelicans late least,
like Jeremiah Fears gets wherever the fuck he wants quickly,
and that's often into the lane and the defense freaks out.
Someone like that seems to me more helpful to this
Orlando offense than a floor spacing center. That's just that's
my take on. As someone that can do that.
Speaker 1: In fury, shouldn't that be Palo ban Caero.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, he's he's a little different. Both of them
are a little different in that respect. I don't know
if you saw Michael Pinia's piece on the Ringer kind
of dissecting the ban Caro of it all and talking
about kind of one of the first questions you raised
of is this a Bancaro issue? Is it a Jamal
Moseley issue? And to ban Caro's credit, like he's getting
me to the ligne more. That's one of his real strengths.
He does take a ton of awful early contested jumpers,
like by choice, Like that seems to be the kinds
of shots he likes to take. So if you are
someone that I don't Giannis is an unfair comparison, but
like all he wants to do is get as close
to the basket as possible and if you foul him
in the process, great, and if you don't, he dunks
Like maybe that if ban Cao operated that way and
if Frands operated that way, maybe that gets you closer
to the type of change that we're kind of hinting at,
But it can't be just touching the paint. Is not
just touching the paint like you know what I mean,
Like ben Caro can get there, But the types of
shots you're seeking in that effort I think matter, and
Orlando doesn't quite get enough of those.
Speaker 1: What's interesting about this team is they still could go
out and make changes, but they are like a lot
of people and wondering if they're gonna actually try to
duck the tack so they don't start the repeater clock.
They're currently the way that they're playing right now, They're
absolutely gonna have to go with that rap because it
doesn't seem like they're good enough. Have you seen anything
or do you what do you preach here? Is it actual?
Because I think it's easy to default to patients, and
I ultimately that's where I'm going with because I believe
in the top end talent on this team and the
numbers I don't know if I already said this on
their starting unit are actually pretty good. And if your
core lineup is still figuring out while not really necessarily
popping just yet, you want to just let's give it.
Let's give it like twenty games or something. At the
same time, you went close to, if not actually all
in for Desmond Bane and so you only get to
play the patient's card for this isn't something where you
could just say, well, we'll give it the season and
then we'll fare No, like you've paid all of these dudes.
Balvin Carroll's extension doesn't kick in until next year. That's
where I think this is why so interesting to Orlando
is because they I think rightfully so, because we were
clamoring for them to make a move for what two
off seasons basically before they go and get Desmond Bain.
But once you make that move, which is maybe why
they didn't in the first place, that the clock of
urgency really starts to tick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I lean patients too, But I think I think
where I'm getting back to, if it's a Paalo question,
it's I'm just never gonna say, well, he's done getting
better at this stage of it, Like there's no way so.
Speaker 1: Illo ben Carro concern or criticism, criticism is warranted, but
the whole like he can't play like this or he's
I just I find that overblown it's way too early.
It just flickers and flashes of dominance in the playoffs
right in imperfect spacing within an imperfect offense. And that's
why it does seem to me that I would if
I'm the Magic I'm not firing Jamal Mosley. And that,
by the way, that's the question we have to ask
here is even if you're not going to panic, you
could still say that Jamal Mosley doesn't feel like the
right coach for this team. And I think if we
get to twenty one games in, twenty five games in
and the offense is still hovering around bottom ten, yeah,
it's time out of that conversation. Here's the problem I
have with that mid season. What's the play You're just
going to an interim coach? Do you really like The
only reason to me to fire Jamal a mid season
would be that there is a clear upgrade out there.
You believe he's gonna come in and, for some reason,
with very little practice time, be able to implement a
more effective system, or he's lost the locker room, which
that's one thing it does not seem like is going.
Speaker 2: Right in Orlando. I totally agree. I think you get
I I don't even think it's the twenty one games.
I think you give Mosley this whole season too, And
and if this is what it looks like at the
end of the year, and I don't care what percentage
Desmond Bain's shooting. If is still below his attempt rate
of last year, that's like, dude, what are we doing?
Speaker 1: Though?
Speaker 2: What are we doing? I mean he's got to be
put in position to do it. And that comes back
to the offense, Like, I really do think you give
him the year. And at that point if you fire him, Like,
what's anyone gonna say? It's like, yes, it's been the
same problem for years. We've addressed it with aggressive personnel moves, Like, yes,
it was never gonna be perfect. Baine wasn't gonna solve everything.
But it has to get like markedly better. And if
it doesn't, then it's a very very easy decision. You
need someone in here who's just gonna try something different,
and that's easy. That's much much easier to find in
the offseason than it is at any point mid stream,
Like you can't You're not gonna get the overhaul you
want if you fired Jamal Mosley during the year. I
don't like it just seems unrealistic to me, So patients
for me.
Speaker 1: But verdict verdict, collective verdict on the Orlando Magic, it's
just no time up panic.
Speaker 2: But my patients will have run out at the end
of the year. If if Orlando, like Orlando could finish
like fourth in the East, and I would still say, like,
you probably gotta fire Moseley if their offense is still
like lagging the way it has.
Speaker 1: I think if they make the Eastern Conference finals, we've
proven that coaches could be gotta get rid of Well,
it's actually, this is a really good question. What if
it's maybe it's not trending in the right direction, ors
trending in the right direction but not enough. Do you also,
like you have to give this personnel it's currently constructed
the entire season two or are you futzing and fiddling
as you get closer to the trade deadline?
Speaker 2: I mean that would just look like going for more shooters,
I guess, or looking for that paint breaking point guard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Rhett used to break the painting.
Speaker 2: He did once the ones in a while, not anymore.
Shot distance on average is getting farther away. Yeah, I
don't know. I I'm inclined to think like you just
let this group ride and and you'll really you'll know
at the end of the year what they can do.
And the other thing too is like I think you
panic if you thought Orlando was going to jump into
the Cleveland, New York tier of the East. But I
don't think either of us was really quite there except
for like, oh, they're a dark horse.
Speaker 1: It was always the It was the same thing with Atlanta,
which has also been third or four, but it was
never they could do this. But we don't know. I wouldn't.
I don't know that I would predict it right.
Speaker 2: They could still easily finish third or fourth in the East,
Like that's that we're less than Do.
Speaker 1: You think they will finish top fifteen or better? Ultimately
on the offensive end?
Speaker 2: I'm not confident. No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Oh this is from Andrew Willich just go get job
ran JJ has been paying around. Good bye them with
the match. Actually I don't think I like that team.
But who is next up?
Speaker 2: Grant next in the piece or panic conversation are the
Atlanta Hawks first in the alphabet twenty, first in offense,
twentieth on defense. Net rating is nineteenth they are allowing
the league's highest opponent shot quality on offensive rebounds. The
rebounding has been a real issue from day one. Really
here bonus stat, only Detroit and Boston are allowing larger
shares of their opponent's offense to come on second chance opportunities.
So this is a total piece because if Atlanta just
gets some rebounds, we have no issues. Right just to
kind of recap how we got here, they had that
brute was Toronto that just kicked their ass on opening night?
Is a twenty point loss, Like Toronto ran up and
down the floor, got every rebound. Atlanta's also seen the
Thunder obviously lost that game. They've won three o their
last four or three of those over to Magic, including
over the Magic. Three of those. I think they played
the Magic twice because I like spotlet Both of those games,
it's like, well, we'll figure out who's the third best
team in the East tonight, won't we? Not so much.
Trey Young spraining mcl on the twenty ninth of October,
reevaluated in four weeks from there, just flagging he's extension eligible.
He's got a forty nine million dollars player option after
the season. Gonna make it a little harder to get
good information on how he fits with the rest of
this corps that we love so much. I do think
there's a silver lining which we can get to, just
again trying to parse out what the issues are here.
Who's been bad? Trey was bad before he got hurt
eighteen points eight assists, thirty seven percent from the field,
under twenty percent from three, Zacharsische averaging eleven and basically
nothing else forty four percent from the field, thirty three
from three. Dyson Daniels was good, has been really good.
His best three games of the year have come as
essentially the point guard in the time t Young has
missed on. Yeka Kong has been good forty from deep,
getting up almost just over three threes a game. Probably
needs to be more than that. Mixed bags for Jalen Johnson.
Alexander Walker has been good, hasn't hit a three, Porzingis
has been okay. The rebounding has been kind of a like,
what's going on here? Because there's a bunch of rangy
wings and you're gonna have at least one center ish
type on the floor all the time. I think what
I'm most interested in is what this team looks like
without Trey. The ball's moving a little more. It's been
a small sample. Your defense is gonna be better, Your
offense probably should be worse. But that's worse from like
whatever your baseline of the season was. Not, Oh, they're
already bottom ten and it's gonna fall from there. I
don't see that happening. This is sort of similar to Orlando,
where like, if you thought Atlanta was gonna jump into
the top two, you're freaking out. But if you thought
they were in the three to five range, nothing feels
fatal yet as long as they clean up some of
the low hanging stuff on the boards, getting back in transition,
that kind of transition. Yeah, And and like why right,
Like it's not like they're an unathletic team. They're pretty young.
They you know, Daniel's resische Johnson naw, like a Kong
Wo can move like it just I don't know, I'm
tipping my hand here a little bit, but I just like,
I think you need to view at least like the
non Trey Young stretch that's coming up here positively because
near term, if it goes badly, you get info that
maybe Trey Young's worth more to you than you thought.
If it goes great, maybe you realize, like, oh, we
could maybe imagine a post Tray world where we either
move him or we don't extend him again. I'd feel
differently if this were like a conference champion, you know,
in waiting. I just don't think that's what the Hawks are.
This feels suddenly, this feels more like a gap year
if Young is on the one longer indo that timeline
and is not quite himself coming back. What are your
what are your thoughts on Atlanta? I I I've just
kind of been rambling.
Speaker 1: I So my my thoughts are at Lanta as I'm
concerned because I can't figure out like what the primary
concern needs to be for this team. And so you
go through that whole list of stuff, and if you're
mentioning a gap year, are you then deciding, okay, well,
then Trey Young is not a part of the future,
because at that's pot you can't This needs to be
an information gathering season unless you believe that Trey Young
is gonna pick up his player option and he's gonna
play out next year on an expiring contract. And just
some of the things are just you know, they're like
in the bottom five and the share of they are
three pointers that are wide open. And when you look
at this team, when you have Trey Young when he
was healthy, or Jalen Johnson or a Q Alexander Walker,
even Luken like some guys who should be able to
get downhill, that's a little bit of a red flag
as well. The rebounding I think you always we always
could have spotlighted as a concern because the primary bigs
in Johnson, A Kungun Porzingis are either not very big
or like they're gonna spend a lot of time on
the perimeter, so your offensive rebounding was probably never gonna
be great. Porzingis has never been a great rebounder either,
despite being what is he seven to three? You mentioned
the offense without Trey They have a one to sixteen
offensive rating with Trey Young this year that is in
the fortieth percentile. They have one thirteen without him, so
that's the thirtieth percent So there's a drop off, but
they've actually won the non Trey Young minute so far.
It's early, but this is there feels like a lot
of things that have gone wrong here and I don't
know how much of it to just assign to this
is new. It needs time with the magic. It feels
like there's those very core crux issues that aren't necessarily
ingrained into the fabric of the personnel. I'm watching the
Hawks and it's how are they supposed to be better
in all of these x amount areas? And a lot
of it does come back to offensively anyway, Yeah, Trey
Young does need to be better and healthier. Are they
gonna get to that point? It's and I look expected
them to be better on defense even with you know,
Trey Young on the court this year. I didn't think
they were gonna float, you know, twentieth is probably Honestly,
I'm surprised it's so high.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's a discussion to be had about
whether Trey Young is really anywhere close anymore to well,
if he's on the floor, your offense is you know,
top five, Like that's just him him by himself. It's
been a while since you could really incredibly say that.
I think so, I don't know. I think the most
interesting potential outcome here is like they actually the Hawks
are just like not that much worse on offense and
are great on defense. In the non Trey Young stretch here,
and it's like, so then what, like what do you do,
Like how important is Trey Young going forward? And like
unless Jalen Johnson really pops, like there's not really a
first option star on this team, but maybe Young isn't
good enough at that anymore and you can have a
more balanced defense first team without him. I just I'm
fascinated to see, like what this next month looks like
and then how that informs what happens with Trey Young.
It's way too early, they're four and four to to
like proclaim I don't know anything really to me, I
think the next month is way more valuable than the
first two weeks to that end, right like that, because
that's where the information gathering, as you said, is gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, are you concerned? I know you mentioned Reese
che kind of a topsy turvy star. Any concern with
him or do you think that that's something that's gonna
normalize because he was for like the latter what three
quarters or two thirds of last season he was really good.
Speaker 2: He shot it well. Yeah, And I just I don't know,
Like you go all the way back to the draft
scouting report of like, this guy's not a star. He
is probably a helpful two way wing. That's like that,
that's where he'll top out, Like is he really that
far from from that status at the moment? Like that,
it's kind of like how we we decide Piecer panic
based on our priors for this team him, Like my
priors on Recesche weren't that high, so he's been moderately
underwhelming relative to those. But I can't panic yet because
like unlike most number one picks, he's not Recesche is
not integral to the Hawk's future, which sucks, but like
that's just he was never going to be that guy
to me, So what's the verdict piece for me?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go piece as well. This is no time
to panic. You're welcome in Lana. I was on the
fence about that one though, don't know how close you
were to go in the other direction, but I was fence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just the note Trey is like, well, okay,
I guess we'll just check back in in a month.
Speaker 1: Our next team up is your Memphis Grizzlies. They're actually
my Memphis Grizzlies, though rough start for them. They are
twenty sixth in offense, twenty fifth in defense, and that's
good enough for a twenty sixth net rating rank. Some
a notable stat here, Grant. Among every player with a
usage rate of at least twenty five this year, only
Shade and Sharp, Jeremiah Fears and DeAngelo Russell are averaging
fewer points shot attempt than John Morant. That might be
connected to some of the Grizzly struggles. I erroneously cited
this on a John Morant episode that's gonna go live
on Tuesday. I attributed to Trey Mann. I apologize to
Trey Man. It was D'Angelo Russell, not Trey Man. Bonus.
They're starting five prefers, starting five a minus twenty two
point one points per one hundred possessions with an offensive
rating in the zero fifth percentile. That is low. That's low, Grant.
Did you know that is low?
Speaker 2: That feels like that should be a negative. With percentile
now under one hundred is not so good.
Speaker 1: They're averaging zero point nine to four points per possession,
which is not great this team. There's we did a
whole episode that will be dropping soon where we dig
deep into the John Morant situation. But that is of
course looming over this. He has games where it feels
like he was quietly quitting, and then it culminates in
his suspension. He comes back as we're recording this, he
has not been great since his suspension. I think one
of the things, too, there's a cumulative effect of all this,
right grant that it's hard to envision when you're going
through where they're on a four game losing streak, you're
coming off to John Moran suspension. He's played so poorly
when you're really in it, it's tough to imagine it
getting better. But if we were to cite some positives
for the Grizzlies, I think you start with they are
so goddamn injured. It is just in they're bigs. This
is a positive because you're gonna get healthier, right Like
tyger Rome is gonna be healthier, Scotti Pippen Jr. Is
gonna be healthier at some point, Zach Edi might be healthier,
Brandon Clark, even Jared Jackson Junior might be healthier. I
think the mother of all positives, Cedric Coward looks legit.
He is taking on just all the tough defensive assignments.
So the results aren't always good. But the fact that
you could just put him on Luca, try putting him
on Cad, try putting him on a Devin Booker, and
not need to throw a bunch of help. That's going
to help your defense overall in the long run, he
has he is shooting the hell out of the ball.
It's just that, like the numbers or I think they're
one trillion percent from three, at this rate, he is
making stuff happen in transition, and he's not just scoring.
I think he's at like one point five points per
possession in transition, but he has the hot the second
highest foul rate among anyone to score as many points
as himself in transition. Only Palo Bancaro has a higher
shooting foul rate. Drawn The other thing too that I
think matters, he has the highest net rating swing on
the team. They're like twenty six plus points better per
one hundred posessions when he's on the court. Now you
could say that he's coming off the bench and then
thus working from a lower baseline. He's still getting plenty
of minutes in general, and he's facing other teams as
really good players. We know this because he is defending
them and so I assign real value to that net
rating swing. I think if you look at Jalen Wells,
the assumption could be, well, he's got to shoot the
ball better, right. You could also say the same thing
about John Ran. He probably won't be like hovering around
sub twenty percent like this, closer to the single digits
than the double digits of.
Speaker 2: Who get up there to like twenty eight twenty nine,
no problem.
Speaker 1: So you can look at all that, you can say
that the Grizzlies are gonna be fine, and I think
that's somewhat fair based on how early it is. I
don't know, though, this team.
Speaker 2: Doesn't feel like that's what you're gonna say. Dan doesn't
feel like it to me.
Speaker 1: I We've said this before. They had one of the
more confusing setups in the league, Yees of the Desmond
main trade, and you could justify it based off the
return what they're trying to do, But I just it's
where are they trying to go? Is the first question.
But to me, it ultimately does feel when you're looking
at the landscape of the Western Conference, even if we
expect John Rant to get better, even if we expect
them to get healthier, even if we expect Jalen Wells
to shoot better. They seem like they're kind of trapped
in the middle of nowhere, at least for this season.
And I think you can even see that illustrated when
you're looking on offense. John Morance touches way up. Jared
Jackson Junior not the same offensive force, and we knew
that the level of self creation almost a luxury that
it didn't need to be there. He's not getting the
same number of front core touches, He's definitely not getting
the same number of paint touches. This team just feels
like a mishmash of IDK, that's what That's what it
feels like for the Grizzlies. There's talent there, there's depth
there when they're healthy, but it's like you could even say,
isn't there a chance like Cedric Coward might get worse,
might run into or he might not make every single
shot from the perimeter. So what have just your thoughts
been based on what you've seen from the Grizzlies so far?
Speaker 2: So I think you are correct to point out the
mitigating factors and with the injuries, the guys have to
shoot better. The guys have to get healthier and the
like trouble spots of like, oh man, I just you know,
maybe some of these guys won't shoot better? Is did
Jalen Well? Is Jalen Well's actually like actually he is
a second rounder and he just happened to be in
the right role last year. Here's where I land. How
is it not panic when the face of your team
is quitting in games?
Speaker 1: Cam Spencer never quits.
Speaker 2: So they're fine, you know what I mean? Like it's reductive.
I think you covered the relevant stuff, the numbers, the
the wonky like what's the timeline again? Trade kind of stuff.
It's pretty straightforward for me, Like the story about Memphis
is now none of those things. It's now and we'll
do a lot of discussing this in another episode. But
the story is now John Morant and one how badly
he's played and two how little he seems to want
to play for the Grizzlies, the leadership crisis, all this others.
Like that's the story now and anytime that's the story
as opposed to like, well, you know there are three
point stuff's going to regress and once they like that's
a panic, that's just a panic, and that's that's without
focusing at all on like how unavailable Jaw has been
in years past and the timeline stuff and everything else. Like,
I don't know, I don't get much past the guy.
They need to be great and reliable and a leader
and productive and as good as he's ever been to
do anything. Is none of is trending the wrong way
in every respect. So I don't know that. That's like,
that's a little first take ye of an answer, But
you hit all the numbers and all the smart person stuff.
That's just kind of where my dumb brain is at.
Speaker 1: I have a few follow up questions. Please the John
Rant thing. What's interesting is do you think that there
could be value in them finally taking what feels like
a hardline organizational stance of this behavior a type of
response to criticism is unacceptable, and that because Tamas Eastlow
has those quotes of how he wants to be blunt
with direct direct and it's a culture shock when you
look at how things have been run previously for the Grizzlies,
or at least with regard to John Morant. Probably could
this be part of just the growing pains in that
transition and the team is ultimately better off for then
having gone through this so earlier, and then as they
get healthy, as they we put time and space. We
know how the news cycle works. We're not even talking
about carbon credits anymore. Grant like think time and space
heals all wounds. Is do you think that there is
that possibility here? Or do you think that that this
dynamic is so murky, so delicate, that there's almost no
coming back from it and it is going to cast
a pal over this entire season.
Speaker 2: Yes, there is that possibility. Uh, I'll flip. Would you
bet on it? Would you bet on that outcome?
Speaker 1: Legally or illegally?
Speaker 2: Either way you choose.
Speaker 1: I'm not betting on the outcome. Here's now, let's let's
just assume that John Morant isn't going to get traded.
His values is add It's an idea, so you probably
wouldn't trade it.
Speaker 2: Hard to trade him.
Speaker 1: What, Well, let's start here. Do you think the roster
around him when it's fully healthy is built they're giving
him the ball more. You've talked about it a bunch
in another episode. Is it actually built to optimize what
he is best at doing right now? At full strength?
So we haven't even seen it.
Speaker 2: Yet, I think you could make the case that that, yeah,
it's optimized, Like is it as good as it could
possibly be? I don't know, but it's just think of
who they have. If Zachia he's healthy, there's your pick
and roll partner, Jared Jackson spacing coward looks like he's
going to be totally great as a three and D spacer.
One of KCP or Jalen Wells will make shots eventually.
So you have a space floor, a pick and roll partner,
good defensive infrastructure around him. Yeah. Right, the pieces are
there if they're all healthy. So to your point, maybe
you can hold out like a sliver of hope that
when everybody's healthy and John Morant responds very differently to
Isilo's directness, this could turn in a positive way. I
air not air. I lean towards there's been some damage done,
and I don't have a lot of faith that Morant
is going to reverse course on the way he's handling
that directness. That would be a pretty big surprise to me.
Speaker 1: Assuming everyone says that, yeah, they're assuming they get healthier,
what are they more likely to resolve the defense or
the offensive issues?
Speaker 2: The offense is usually pretty good if everybody's healthy in
jaws there, right, you had. I think you mentioned they've
they're kind of like seventh or better generally speaking if
he's on the floor. So there's a pretty good track
record of the offense working regardless of whether you're setting
screens or not. We saw kind of both things happen
last year, so I guess I trust the offense. But again,
like this, if we're going with the hypothetical of everything
works out, everybody's healthy, everybody's happy, the Grizzlies should be
good on both ends, like the defense should be good too.
Speaker 1: They and they've gotten a little unlucky when it comes
to some of the opponent three point shooting numbers. Opponents
are shooting forty nine point three percent on corner threes.
They're also shooting seventy two point five percent at the rim.
That's twenty six. The Grizzlies still do a good job
of limiting them. And then when you're healthy, having Scottie Pippen,
having Zach Edy, and then of course Jalen Wells, Jaron Jackson, junior,
Cedric Coward should help your defense. This defense in transition
should be a lot better, and that would be something
I tracked because that feels if there was like a
moping metric, it would be are they getting back after
they miss a shot? Are they getting back after they
miss a shot at the basket? They're currently allowing one
point five to three points per possession after they miss
at the rim, and they have this is despicable, the
sixth worst defensive rating after they make a shot.
Speaker 2: That's like the red flag there. I think again, if
you want to continue to be optimistic about it, you
would say that, well, depth really matters for this team
more than most because of the way you still wants
to play, talking about like nobody's playing thirty minutes. We're
gonna play super hard over short stints. So your depth.
Not having depth is like crippling in that regard because
it doesn't allow the Grizzlies to put competent players on
the floor to play their asses off for three minutes
at a time and then come out and it maybe
takes a little bit to adjust to that kind of style.
Ja Moran certainly is having a hard time adjusting to it.
So like, give them some grace there. I guess that's
the optimist case, is that once they're healthy and they
get used to how Isola wants to play. The results
could completely change, like that's yes, that is on the
table again, not betting on that.
Speaker 1: Miles Johnson says, if the price was low enough, I
would really look at Jo. If I was the Wolves,
my counter to that would be I would not. I
don't love the Ja Morant Anti Edwards bit. I'm curious
as to what. I don't even know what constitutes a
lower low enough price for another team. Forget about the
Grizzlies for a minute. We mentioned nas Read and Dante DiVincenzo.
For Ja Moran is just up the baseline, and I
think the great a Lease would want Are you getting
Rob Dillingham? And now are you getting a pick Swab?
I think the Timberwolves might say no, that's like too
much for us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's I mean. Look, one thing we have
in discovered and talking about is there is not an
easy Oh yeah, that's the spot for John Morant trade.
It's it's it's like you're comparing a bunch of bad options,
like kind of on both sides, which is hard to parse.
Speaker 1: So according to six out of five dentists, this is
a perfect ton to panic. Are you ready to take
us through our next team, mister Grant Hughes.
Speaker 2: This is the LA Clippers. They are twenty sixth on offense,
twenty fifth on defense. That's gonna shake out to a
number twenty six net rating. They are let's see here. Oh,
I had a good quote that I'm gonna get to
in a second. They have a higher turnover rate in
transition than transition rate. That's bad. That's real bad. So
they don't run and when they do they give up
the ball. Justin Russo had this. I just saw it
this morning. Through eight games, Clippers' opponents have made twenty
more threes, turned the ball over twenty three fewer times,
and attempted thirty seven more shots. That sums up the
three and five starts, which is also the turnovers have
been like confounding for a team that I don't know, Like,
it's not like they're this wildly dynamic offense that's doing
a bunch of high risk stuff. It's a lot of veterans,
it's a lot of station to station guys. So that
part has been very strange, just to kind of how
did we get here? Everyone remembers where they were when
the Clippers gave up one hundred and twenty nine points
to Utah on opening night, including seventy eight in the
first half. That was wild. It took a Kawhi Leonard
buzzer beater to knock off the mighty New Orleans Pelicans
the other day. The Clippers have also beat Phoenix in Portland,
but they trailed by huge amounts in both of those.
They scored seventy nine points in a loss to the
Warriors and were six of thirty three from three, had
ten assists to sixteen turnovers in that one. There have
been some real lows. That seventy nine point was the
lowest scoring total Clippers have had in four years. I
don't know if you know this, but offense has been
trending up lately, so that's pretty rough to see. A
couple more stats here. Twenty ninth in pace, twenty ninth
in drives per game, twenty ninth in average speed on offense,
thirtieth in turnovers. That was easy to see. Coming good news.
They've been unlucky on opponent shooting almost forty one percent
from deep. That's number twenty seven. More good news, location
based effective field goal percentage, Clippers are sixth, so they're
allowing the right shot better, it's hang it to almost
top five. One problem there as opponents are shooting seventy
one percent at the rim, that's twenty sixth, and you're
giving up a lot of threes. Forty three percent of
opponent shots have been threes. That ranks twenty eighth. There
are a lot of numbers you can point to that
are either a like, what like the turnovers for example,
or B well, that's going to regress, which is a
lot of the shooting stuff. I think if you're working
big with the Clippers. James Harden and both Harden and
Kawhi missed the Lost of Phoenix the night before. We're
recording this on Thursday night, so whatever. Harden has been
basically as good as he was last year when he
finished tenth in MVP voting, like twenty three eight and five,
forty seven percent from the field, forty two from three.
The turnovers are up, but like he's the only guy
that can make plays, so he's on the ball a
ton it's baked in. Kawhi has been also like roughly
as good as he was last year. Now that's where
it starts and ends for the Clippers. If those guys
are good now We made a lot about the There's
a lot made of the depth of like even I
was like, you could take this second unit with CP
three and Bogdanovic and whoever else, and like, I don't know,
they'd win thirty five games. That's where the trouble is
is guys like Bogdanovic has been bad, Slash hasn't played
a ton, Chris Paul has been terrible, just has not
made shots. Looks his age. Brook Lopez is making and
shooting a lot of threes, but not doing a whole
lot else. Bradley Beal has been terrible, looked awful in Phoenix,
was booed every time he touched it, and even like
theoretically motivated to shut up the Suns last night, he
just couldn't do anything. So the bench is a problem.
I should have included Zubots in the like work big
to small. I thought he looked totally fine. He dominated
stretches against the Suns. His numbers are somewhat similar. Offensively,
he's playing a little bit less than last year. As
I put that back up there, Daniel, that's that's where
we might need to get to, or I'll do it.
Miles Johnson says Zubots has regressed heavily on defense. Don't
know what the numbers say, but the eye test isn't Yeah,
I would say that the eye test was not super
hot against Phoenix last night. He's still I'm not worried
about him defensively. I'm more worried about the personnel trying
to keep guys out of the paint that are on
the front line and point of attack. Big to small
again just the summer. The three most important players are
doing fine. It's the other guys, the older guys. Even
John Collins hasn't been great that you might point to
as concerns, But it's it's hard for me to get
too worked up when the most important players are doing
fine and you just need one or two of these
other reserves to figure it out. And you're probably not
that far off from where we expected the Clippers to be,
like a mid to high forties win team. Any thoughts
on do you is that your take that like, if
Kawhi and Harden and Zubots are fine, what are we
talking about or do we need to be a little
more nuanced than that.
Speaker 1: I think we might need to be a little bit
more nuanced, just because the overarching premise is fine, but
part of the idea, if you're mentioning the bench is
a disaster, they could do things to what I think
it optimized the bench to where it's okay. CP three
probably needs to play with a Kawhi Leonard or James
Harden at any single time, like having him next to
Bradley Beal or Chris Dunn, Like, I don't think that's
going to do anything for the offense, but they are
so you mentioned kind of the point of attack stuff.
It feels like they could struggle to field two way
lineups that are going to check the boxes. That doesn't
it feel like if we're going to address one concern,
it's gonna come at the expense of somewhere else. If
you were trying to assemble the Clippers optimal lineup or
what's the lineup that makes the most sense, it feels
like we're constantly going to be pulling something significant or
someone significant away from one of their strengths.
Speaker 2: I think. I don't know if I totally agree with that.
I do think and this is just a hardened thing.
If Harden's not on the floor and Paul is going
to play like this, you can't trust. Kris Dun's not
an offensive point guard. He's out there to defend and
just kind of be there on offense. Butgdanovich looks bad.
What I think the issue is is when Harden does
not play, you're really there's not a lot that you
can do offensively outside of Kawhi making contested twos like that.
That so, but like so, what you're saying is optimal
lineup sacrifices something. So that's your Your optimal lineup is
your starters, right like hard Derek Jonordan. But isn't that
always wasn't that baked into the clippers of like, well,
availability is an issue, I think to me, as we're
talking about this, it does come back to we may have,
based on these early returns, dramatically overstated the importance of
like all these veteran depth pieces that they added. Maybe
that's where, like, long term, we need to reevaluate some things.
Speaker 1: John Collins having like three times as many turnovers as
made threes obviously not ideal.
Speaker 2: That reminds me we need to make a rule that
if a player looks to have rejuvenated his career and
or like hit a new level on a shitty team
where there are no stakes aka John Collins in Utah.
We cannot assume that that will carry over to a
team that's actually playing meaningful games continue fair.
Speaker 1: Enough, I guess my concern is just that it feels
like in their quest to maybe diversify their offense, that
they've somehow just worsened it. Because now they're not a
transition team. Now they're not you're still not getting any
rim pressure. They're twentieth in free throw attempts rate, which
I know that Kawhi's miss time, James Harden miss a
game against Phoenix, and Bradley BeO is banged up, But
if you have those three guys, what is the entire point?
I just there feels like there's something more here to
me where it's not just about the fragility of the
roster that it's they may have over indexed on a
certain I guess age bracket of player, but in like this,
in this search to really playoff proof their offense or
just to make it more diverse, that they've it's somehow
become a limiting factor for them. Is that because the
talents they surround with all have these Bradley beal for
Norman Powell kind of on the way out the whole.
John Collins, you mentioned, rejuvenated himself. But if you're gonna
play John Collins and Brook Lopez, there is sort of
that functional tug of war between like like who do
you want to be the primary screener in those scenarios?
It's there's it feels like they have so much depth,
but that maybe it's more incoherent than we thought. That
might be the best way to put is. I thought
it was just gonna coalace in to this behemoth, and
now I'm sort of wondering does it pull them in
all these different directions and do they not have the
I mean, do they not have the gear on defense?
Unless you're like, what is the what's their best five
man unit? To you? Forget about the numbers, but you're
building their best five man unit? What is it?
Speaker 2: So obviously Harden is in it because otherwise the offense
doesn't run. Kawhi is in it, Zoobots is in it,
and then you can round it out. I think Derek
Jones probably has to be in it just for point
of attack, defense and versatility and athleticism. And then that
fourth spot is that I don't know, is it Collins
is it. I guess you could play like Chris Dunn
for another defender. I don't know who that fourth spot
goes to. Maybe that's I'm illustrating your point.
Speaker 1: The fifth bot you mean because you start, but that
is kind of the point. And then it's also so
if it is John Collins, I don't know that him
and Zubots are the most intuitive of fits on the offense.
And I also don't think if you have John Collins
at that four spot. I know you have Kawhi, I
know you have Derek Jones Junior, but how much are
you leaving of Itaza Zubots out to dry on the
defensive end in those scenario rights. Yeah, if it's the
answer is Chris done, you're going to run into a
spacing issue. I think Andrew Will might actually have the
right answer, which is concerning in Nick Nico Patum. Yeah,
like you don't want to be that rely and I
guess that's maybe what I'm getting at. But there is
a lot of early season noise, and I'll defer to
you did the deep dive on them, but they've been
Maybe I was too high on them coming in because
you said this it was we were coming into the
season by saying you could just put their bench unit
on the court and have the fore seed in the
East or something.
Speaker 2: I think, I think, if you're gonna panic, it's that
this team is even more reliant on James Harden than
last year. And that's because the like Chris Paul and
Beale and Bogdanovich just may not be any good anymore
and Hardens a year older, and you just like that
was always a precarious kind of way to exist, and
it's more precarious now. I still am of the mind
that if Harden is healthy, the rest of these numbers
are going to normalize and the Clippers can still be
a mid to high forties win team. But is it, like,
is it smart to say, well, as long as Harden's healthy,
Like that's that's scary.
Speaker 1: And also, but what are all right, so if you're
a mid forties win team? Is so? Was that the
endgame for this roster? Is that? How much of a placeholder?
We viewed the Clippers.
Speaker 2: As I mean, I'm as I said, mid to high
which maybe that's that's too big of a gap, but
like not a contender, probably not a playing team. That's
kind of how I viewed them. But and I don't
feel like they're that far off given the bad luck
and the like seemingly anomalous others like stats where they're
just at the bottom of the league.
Speaker 1: I you know what, I'll defer to Pete, like you.
Speaker 2: Know you we could do both.
Speaker 1: Play both sounds okay. So Grant is going to go
and Grant thinks that this is I believe that this
is a panic. And just the one thing that I'm
going to be tracking is, I know you can play
the whole as long as James Harden is healthy. Card,
but just the fact that the Kawhi without hardened minutes,
which the sample needs to expand your net rating in
those situations like minus eighteen or something in something insane,
that's the it's minus seventeen. I was wrong. That's the number.
I'm gonna be try because as long as James Harden's healthy.
Even if James Harden's healthy, we know what happens to
healthy James Harden in the playoffs, and so that's all
going to be a ton of comfort.
Speaker 2: This isn't a we all know what's gonna happen in
the postseason. That's a gif.
Speaker 1: Is is that as the Clipper externally if we viewed
them as a paper tiger. I came into the season
saying they could be a team that has a top
seven offense and defense, which that puts you in the
contender tier. And so this is the discussion we're having
about them. Now, that's the genesis of that's why you're pining.
You're right, it was too high on the Clippers. Now
I'm not right to panic. I was. I was wrong
to be excited about about the Clippers. We have another
team to get to here. They are the Minnesota Timberwolves. Grant,
whoof well, we gotta get some rankings from them. First,
they are as the fifth in offense. That's pretty good,
twenty sixth in defense. That is pretty bad. That's good
for a net rating of eighteenth. Anthony Edwards has missed
some time. We could throw that in there, Grant. Here's
a notable stat. They have the fourth worst first chance
defense in the NBA. They were the fourth best first
chance defense last year, so we filtered out any second
chance opportunities. Here's a bonus stat which is kind of
amazing and absolutely terrifying. Their defensive rating improves by thirty
nine point thirty two point nine points when Rudy Gobert
is on the floor, that is the second highest swing
in the league, behind only mister Victor Wembenyama. He's pretty good.
Here's the you go through the numbers, the on off
numbers defensively for Rudy Gobert, they don't They kind of
don't align with the eye test at all. A lot
of the time. Opponents are getting to the rim so
much less, shooting so much worse when they're there. But
it still feels like the Wolves are missing some top
line year on defense even when he's on the court.
Dane Moore had pointed this out him and Kyle Tige
in one of their recent episodes, that Rudy Gobaert feels
like he's staying home more on the bigs and if
he can't play both sides of the pick and roll,
you're really reliant upon your perimeter defenders. So now when
you have Anthony Edwards missing time and Jade McDaniels being
kind of feeling like up and down on this year
again on that he started kind of the same weird way,
so maybe he normalizes you lost Nikhil Alexander Walker. You're
playing Dante DiVincenzo a bunch. Now teams are going after
I mean they're going after Rudy Gobert in pick and
roll ball handlers are finishing eleven possessions against him per game.
The Wolves, not surprisingly, have been absolutely atrocious at defending
the pick and roll. They're allowing one point zero four
points per possession against pick and roll ball handlers. Only
the Pacers allow a higher mark at the moment, and
just for reference, they allowed point eight to nine points
per possession last year. The rooty thing, I think there
might be something there. You could see it on offense
a little bit too, but maybe he's shouldering too much
on defense. Lowis defensive rebounding rate of his career. When
you're looking at teams like the volume at which they
go after nas Reed or Julius Randall, who pretty good
on offense this year, very bad on defense this year
going after Dante DiVincenzo. You almost need Anthony Edwards and
j McDaniels on the court at all times to have
enough ball containment for you to feel confident in the
Wolves defense. With Rudy Gobert, I feel like, never mind
without him, this is there's some of the stuff the
transition moments on defense, like this is a team that's
be playing better there. I think you can look at
I'll mention it a third time, the fact that Anthony
Edwards has missed some time. The Wolves should be fine there,
but you probably wanted, like I would say, maybe you
didn't expect more, but when you trained for Rob Dillingham,
you probably wanted more out of him than you're able
to get at this point. The Mike Conley of it all.
Him coming off the bench, he's shooting well from three.
You've got to give some bone bones Highlands some minutes.
I think Jaalen Clark he's missed some time too, but
he's been what I think this is maybe the problem
when you're getting into their secondary rotation. Is he the
player that you just trust most?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So too important?
Speaker 1: That's yeah, he's too important. Arren Shannon Junior, I was
guilty here. I thought he was going to be so
good this season and just really hasn't been that on defense,
hitting an okay amount from three's just not getting a
ton of minutes. The three point volume isn't really there. Again,
thought he would be better defensively for them. This is
I go back and forth I think I'm kind of
leaning towards peace here. You look at the level of
this town. I think Jane McDaniels has made some strides offensively,
but it feels like he gets lost in the shuffle.
How do you balance it with Julius Randall and Anthony
Edwards when they're both healthy, we could talk about the
point guard of it all. With this team, I'm more
worried And yeah, it'd be nice to say Rob Dillingham
can do this, or that you have more of a
floor general, because right now you're too reliant on Anthony
Edwards the playmaker, just given how they fared on offense
and then looking what's happened on defense, That's where I'm
gonna focus on. And if you want the point guard
concerns to come from there, it's we want a different
point of attack, type of option, or just another perimeter
body that we could trust aside from Edwards or Jane
McDaniels and Edwards. Is he's guarding the level of assignments
he's taking on the knixt game, he comes back after
missing times, is just defending Jalen brunchon upon some time.
I don't think you want him even if he's talked
about being in those situations. I don't think you want
him having to need to do that.
Speaker 2: You can't if he's gonna play real minutes and run
a huge share of the offense. If you can't do
that for full season, That's that's true. Wouldn't it be
nice if all we had to worry about here was
Mike Conley's old Devincenzo's not a point guard, Dillingham's not ready,
and the offense was the sole problem. Like that this
I don't know. It's hard for me to get I was.
I was like skeptical that we should even include the
Wolves until the Knicks game when they scored a trillion
points in the paint against Minnesota, and I wondered if, like, oh,
is that why Dan wants to do the Wolves for
this group. But like, I'm glad we're doing this because
the problems are kind of more widespread than I would
have thought, Like I just assumed that we'd have a
repeat of last year where we just questioned whether this
offense is playoff viable. The ball sticky, like there's the gears,
grind all that stuff, but the the seeming like I
don't know, McDaniels had some very low effort plays against
the Knicks in particular, and I'm just kind of wondering, like, well,
what does this team look like if their wing and
point of attack defenders like Edwards because he's over taxing
McDaniels for whatever reason, just aren't good enough. And then
Gobert is just the only back line piece and he's
the numbers are what they are. I flagged some of
that too when I was doing something else on the Wolves.
The swings are just they cannot sustain the on off stuff.
For Gobert, it's like too extreme, but he's obviously vitally important,
and I don't know everybody kind of agrees he's slipped
from his pedestal, is like, well, he's a defense all alone.
So yeah, I'm surprised we're at a point where the
defense is questionable. But maybe I don't know, Maybe should
that have been easier to see coming with the point
guard issues and with Randall now just he's playing a
big role and nas Reed is gonna play a lot,
Like maybe we should have seen some of this coming.
It still feels it's hard for me to believe this
team is gonna be like if you told me the
offense was gonna be a problem all year, I could
buy it. The defense is harder, Like I just don't
really get how we got here or necessarily believe it'll
hold up, because the personnel still is pretty good and
at least three of the five starting spots in theory right,
and Devincenzo's like he's okay, He's not like a sieve.
He's some kind of disruptive off the ball as some value.
Speaker 1: I think what's tough is that it feels like there
might be more nights where to use the next game
as an example to where Rudy Gobert like he is
kind of a defensive system onto himself still, but it's
a narrower system. There are gonna be nights where drop
like drop bigs ball handlers aren't afraid of them anymore,
and like they'll be more comfortable getting to from float
to range and trying to score from there. And they've
actually scored pretty well from there against the Wolves. But
it's I think the the two concerns would be there's
gonna be more nights like that, and I think that's
more concerning in a playoff context than a regular seat
because if you get two nights like that in a
seven game series, that might be the sas to where,
oh that you got crushed on the glass with Rudy
Gobert on the court and were getting like out manhandled
with the second chance opportunities. The other the bigger concern
might be, do you think what I view as just
based off what I've seen from the Wolves, the ball
containment issues, some of the perimeter things, how much of
that do you believe is okay? Anthey Edwards did miss
some time, Jaleen Clark did miss some time. And when
you look at the names, let's say the core names
that I think would be associated Jalen Clark, Tarren Shannon,
Anthony Edwards, and Jade McDaniels, you think there's just going
to be enough there for everything to normalize. Even if
you're getting a version of Rudy Gobert that, while still
defensively effective, is probably not what is the word? Is
it as versatile or all encompassing as he was in years.
Speaker 2: Past, he was like transformative, like his presence alone meant
your defense was good, And maybe that's not true anymore.
As kind of you what you're like trending towards I
don't know.
Speaker 1: I think one of the numbers it would say that
it is. But they feel different to play than they
did even last.
Speaker 2: Year, and I think that's ball containment, and I do
think it will be better. Having said that, kind of
what we're landing on here is like both in a
playoff situation, which were I guess for them because at
least I thought they would be really good. This is relevant,
but but from a night to night perspective, there's now
like there's now more demonstrated ways for them to lose.
One was the offense will get clunky and they can't
score down the stretch unless Edwards runs super hot. Yeah
that was that's not new for them. But now it's like,
we can't stay in front of guys on the perimeter
and we can lose games for that reason like that's
and or get out rebounded, and or give up paint points.
All that stuff like that's new, and that is a concern.
I gotta believe that's gonna dissipate like that. That can't
be a full season trend. It's harder for me to
buy that. The offense I have, Yeah, it might be
an issue, but the offense has not been the problem
so far.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, it's And the other thing that we could
point to. I meant to have this in my notes
is that the starting five of Edwards, Devincenzo, McDaniels, Randall,
and Gobert opponents are are shooting forty seven point one
percent from three And there you go, including they're not
shooting well on non corner threes. They're at eighty one
point eight percent from the corners. So yeah, stuff like
that will normalize, and the rim protection stuff is fine
during that time. So for me, it's I'm like, I
need more time. I'm gonna say that this. This is
no time to panic. And I think that it seems
sounds like you're on the same page. But of the
teams that are good, yeah.
Speaker 2: I know I'm co signing that with with the I
don't know caveat that. I thought of all the teams
we talked about today, the Wolves would be the best,
and so like that's the only reason I have a
little bit of panic is because they're not playing like
a team that's gonna win fifty plus like that, which
is I don't think any of the I don't think
we had any No, yeah, none of these other teams
to me were fifty plus win teams going in. So
so that's the reason I'm a little concerned but still
not panicking.
Speaker 1: I think if I were to panic, he would be
because I'm more worried about how they're going to match
up in a playoff series than I am about the
regular season. And also last year. This is kind of
a theme with the Wolves is they've during this era,
it does feel like they've kind of made things harder
than it needs to be. Yeah, they've had these slow
starts and sometimes they're extended. Let's to see if they
fix it, but this is kind of they need to
figure it out with who they have right now because
there's not a move it would be I because I
don't know. I think Randal we didn't really talk a
ton about him, but he's been really good on offense.
From oh, we're getting the bully ball version of Randall
who's also making threes. That's really good for the offensive
version of Randall and it papers over some of your
other concerns. But what is the player because they don't
have picks to trade, where like, who's the player that
they would feasibly move? And I think I look at
this team and say Anthony Edwards and Jade McDaniels are
the two players that they probably can't afford to move,
and the numbers say that Rudy Gobert is still one
of them. But it's who's the player aside from Anthony
Edwards that has no positive value to other teams on
the market, Devincenzo, j McDaniel Shore, But like Devincenzo, maybe
nas Red on his new contract. Maybe. And if you're
moving one of those guys, what is the priority is
if you move Na's Red, you're getting smaller then to
because you're not gonna get a center. Who's gonna like
you know, it's it needs to be with basically this
roster because I don't think there's a move out there
that could augment what is their biggest concern, which is
the ball Paul containment right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I think that's right. I mean, does Dillingham
have value to a second draft like younger team where
they can just let him go out and make mistakes. Maybe,
but that's not like that's not getting you back anything
other than a like a third point guard, you know,
which which might actually help. But but he I don't
think he's going to get you anything crazy?
Speaker 1: What about like a he's not trade outs yet, like
a Cam Spencer. I made a joke about him in
in or or. This is not related to the comment
that we have but would would not be may have
to clip can pull off a deal for Io or
Kobe White the Clippers. I don't think the assets to
get a Kobe White deal done, but Io to soon
MoU that's someone who could be really good for them.
But do they even have the why The Bulls aren't
gonna want Rob Dillingham, so what is the ben You
can't trade persas, so what is the package? Just swaps
enough to get that done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're not panicking though, that's the takeaway. Not yet.
Speaker 1: You're going to be fine, but it's in the moment.
It's the Rudy Gobert stuff is just because the numbers
are saying one thing and then you're watching and that
they just feel more vulnerable even when he's on the
court this year. That's the vibe. We're not going off
numbers es.
Speaker 2: It's like summer league analysis vibes. Only are you.
Speaker 1: Got anything else? Or are you ready to take us
out of here? Or we didn't have a Warrior's question, I.
Speaker 2: Think, oh yeah, we got to do that. Bill asks
should the oh there you go? Should Warriors fans be
worried that we're only going to get a limited number
of games where Steph, Jimmy and Draymond play together. Also,
as Al Horford washed not any more worried on the
first part, then we knew that we needed to be
coming in because that was always the defining thing is
they'll be good when those guys are there, except when
they're giving away games to the Pacers and Bucks, and
they'll struggle when they're not all there. The Horford thing
he's I mean, it does come down to missing or
making threes, and he has just not made any for
like a week, So everything looks worse when you're shooting
zero percent from three. I actually don't know if he's
made one, but it's felt like he's missed every three
he's taken in the last three games. Faith, I have
faith in Al Horford continuing to be a productive nineteen
minute a game player except for back to backs.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I think? I was on a
show the other day and they asked me about this
cool Do you know I was on this TV show?
The other day, Grant, they asked me about while I
was getting my makeup done, they're asking me about They
asked me about the Al Horford thing. Do you think
we're just sort of not accounting for the fact that
they basically signed him the day before the regular season started.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, and that's why he's been Yeah, I mean
and his age though, with his experience, Like shouldn't he
just like his whole offseason is like he knows exactly
what he's doing every day and like he should hit
the ground running. But fair point. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm just not any more worried about the
Warriors than I won't. No, the only other team I
kind of thought about here was the Calves, and then
Darius Garland comes back in the offense looks like a
world beater, and so that would have been an easy
piece for me.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, yeah, all right, I think that's gonna do it.
Thanks everybody for the comments. Also leave some comments on
the YouTube video here, Rate and review and subscribe, leave
us a thumbs up, give us you hip points.
Speaker 1: We're panicking about these teams.
Speaker 2: We're just yeah, well, I don't know, like, is there
a third category people would like to nominate. Just what's
a P word that's like not that's in the middle
of piece or panicing? Are you pacified? What play caated?
Pretty similar? Let us know what else? Join a discordantly
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