Speaker 1: What is up, fellow Siko's I am Dana Valley coming
at you with my certified fantagon's co host, mister Grant Hughes.
We are here to talk about the influx of NBA
injuries and some of the teams. Not all we've talked
so much about the Magic for instance, Fallini Bankerra, but
some of the teams that we haven't really focused on
a ton and that are impacted by these injuries. But first,
because this might be a rough podcast for some Grant,
how the heck are you? Can you shed some some
silver lining for the listeners who are about to embark
on what could be a pretty pessimistic journey.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean to answer your question and also provide
a silver lining.
Speaker 3: I'm good. I feel fine.
Speaker 2: I don't have I don't have any iliac wing fractures
as far as I'm aware, or anything interesting like that.
Speaker 3: So doing good. Hey Dan, also follow up, how are you?
Speaker 1: I'm good? I'm not injured either, So what's up with
that podcast?
Speaker 3: Over?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I guess we can do. We care about the
NBA teams. We only care if you and I are
in fairly good health. This is do you find yourself
before I throw it up on the screen, which is
why I want to get into this anecdotally. I feel
like every season I say that there are more injuries
than ever and that this sucks. But this year I
said that, but I couched it where I didn't couch it.
I buttressed it by saying, but I really believe it
this time, Like this isn't just me reacting in the moment,
and the data kind of backs it up, But like, anecdotally,
have you come away from this season even forget about
the pre existing stuff with let's say Embiid and Qui
as an example, independent of that, it just feels like
they are up.
Speaker 2: So I will say that I kind of treat the
you know, every it's a matter of time every season
until I don't know what the tipping point officially is,
but before we get into like the ban injuries, talk
are like, oh, can you believe it? It's another one.
And I sort of react to that the same way
I react to any fan or who anytime there's a
discussion about like.
Speaker 3: The officiating is so bad, and it's like, it's just like,
we do this.
Speaker 2: It's to your point, we do this every year, Like
just I don't I'm not gonna be, you know, agitated
by any of this. It's part of the whole process
of going through a season. Except like anecdotally, it does
feel like every day there's a new and it's not
just like, you know, there's so many below the radar
injuries like I you know, if you're not following the
pacers closely, you might not you probably know the two
centers tore their achilles, but it's like, oh, yeah, Aaron E.
Smith and Andrew imhar are both hurt, Like that's you
know which which honest? To be totally honest, I that one.
Speaker 3: Slipped my radar up until a couple of days ago.
Speaker 2: So and then the big name injuries are just like
you know, they've piled up in a way that's really
hard to ignore. So it does feel like there are more.
And I'm interested because I haven't I haven't looked at
the data you're about to throw up there, just to
see like what some of that actually looks like quantifiably.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the data, and the data says injuries across
the NBA are in fact on the rise. Grant, who knew,
we we just proved it. Some of this is interesting.
So Tom habitshro of Yahoo Sports, where I got like,
this is where I pulled a lot of the stuff
he I wrote about and put it up on screen.
Go check out the full articles on Yahoo Sports. He
dug into a lot of the data. Has some stuff
from Jeff in Street close on Twitter and Blue Sky
I believe as well. That's always been a great source.
And there was something that Jeff had published leading into
the season where it said like the amount of preseason
injuries were up, and so maybe that kind of subconsciously
put it on my radar that this was gonna happen.
The first thing that stood out though, Grant So. In
year two of the NBA's player Participation Policy, star players
are on pace to miss over one thousand games this season,
with games missed by star players up twenty four percent
compared to this time last year. That's a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not anecdotal.
Speaker 2: That's pretty straightforward statistical proof that I mean, yeah, that's
that's it. Squares though, right, because you had Himbiid missing
all that time, and you had Paul George missing all
that time, and that's just the Sixers, and there there's
a big chunk of star games that are that are Kawhi,
Like we came into this with problems, so like, I
guess it's not that surprising that the games missed are
so have increased by such a large percentage, but still like, man,
you know what, Sorry, I'll let you get to the
next point a second. But it definitely has had the
effect of like every night when you're trying to pick
a game to watch, you can just there's so many
that you just rule out because well, I'm not gonna
learn anything from this, Like the three of the five
best players on either team aren't involved, so like we
skipping that one, I guess.
Speaker 1: And we talked about this when we went into the
Sixers last time. I think, what have we learned about
the Sixers thus far?
Speaker 3: Zero? Like nothing.
Speaker 2: You can't even you can't judge the role players who
are healthy, because it's like they're doing way more than
they would if the if the key guys were available,
and they're doing different things, Like it's just you can't judge.
You obviously can't judge the players that are not playing,
but it's kind of useless to watch with some exceptions
the guys that are because they're just not in the
roles that they're gonna occupy.
Speaker 1: I will say it does look like jere McCain my
pin out though, and that guy might be pretty good.
So though teams through teams' first ten games this season,
star players have missed a whopping eighty three games already.
That's up from five total of sixty seven at the
juncture last year. Now, again, this is so skewed by
embating Kawhi. I think they use star terminology as being
all NBA. So not having those guys at the start
of the year definitely like deflates it, excuse me, inflates
that number. That's still just I mean, you're looking at
like consider just like, Okay Jokic is always just there.
But we've already seen Steph miss some games. We saw
Jalen Brown I can't remember if he made All NBA
last year missed some games. It's just like and it's
not like a I get unless they're changing the way
they're reporting these because the NBA's new Star participation policy,
But like these feel like real injuries. The other thing
that's a little bit more of a longer point. In
recent season, stars played about eighty five to ninety percent
of their games in the month of the year before
the inherent violence of the game grant began to take
its toll on bodies and winter illnesses attacked immune systems.
This season, player participation by star players as a whole
is dipped below eighty percent, hovering around seventy eight so far.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think, you know, the inherent violence like
jumps out as like, oh my god, what are we
talking about here?
Speaker 1: But did you seem of Karl Anthony Towns? Did Joelle
beating Kelly bred Year?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: I was thinking more along the lines of, like, you know,
Chet Holmgren takes an ugly fall, Ja Morant has an
ugly fall. Who was a Dyson Daniels got taken out
by Nick Claxton out of the air early in the season.
Like I do think, and you do see data too
that now this isn't has nothing to do with like
collisions or violence or whatever. But like guys are just running,
They're they're piling up more miles, there's more movement, So like,
more movement inherently means a greater risk of injury. It's
harder to get hurt standing still than if you're sprinting
around a screen or whatever. And I do think like
some of the way that the game has been officiated
over the last you know, just compare it to how
physical it used to be. Guys are flying in you know,
and just like knowing that if they do get taken
out of the air, I mean, the defense is disincentivized
from doing that by flagrant twos and stuff. But like
violence is a doesn't feel like quite the right word,
but it does capture, I think, a sense of like
there's just greater levels of athleticism and maybe like recklessness
brought about by the fact that, like the league is
increasingly like not a high contact you know what I mean.
Like it just kind of the way the game's played
now is so different and so athletically dynamic that I
guess that seems to be.
Speaker 3: Part of it.
Speaker 2: That, you know, inherent violence is a good shorthand, I
guess for that if you want to be real simple.
But you know what I mean, do you feel that
way too just watching how the game's played.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, without without question. And I also think,
and maybe we'll say that for later, there's something else.
I can't remember who had said this, but like a
lot of it feels like it might be predating these
players actually getting to the NBA, which could be contributing
to it. But so my first thought going through this was, Okay,
we're dealing with such a small pool of players that
Kawhi and Embiid are going to skew these results heavily.
But Grant, it's not only superstars or all NBA players
missing time. Names like Check Holmgren and Christaps Porzingis they're
banged up too, And just how banged up are these guys? Grant, Well,
they're pretty They're pretty banged up. Jeff Stotts of n
Street Closed dot Com has been public publicly tracking injuries
longer than anyone in the NBA space. By his count,
the numbers are swelling league wide, and not just with
household names. His database shows that games lost due to
injury across the entire NBA are already up six hundred
and eighty six games in the first three weeks of
the season. That's a dramatic increase from five hundred and
seven last year, and that's a thirty five percent surge
from last season, actually an up sixteen percent uh from
twenty twenty three twenty twenty four overall. That's according to
data provided to Yahoo Sports by stats. So that's and
I think totally again when we do those news updates,
which we're not doing at the end of this week,
it's so much of our job, even like on the
day to day when we're writing stuff, has been making
sure that whoever you're writing about isn't about to miss
a game that you need to kind of mention, Okay,
he's been he's about to be out, but this is
still happening. Or he's been out, but this is still happening.
And I find myself double and triple checking that guys
that I may have just watched the night before are playing,
and that's become so much of just maybe my mental
capacity while doing this is like well, like keeping track
of injuries has become exhausting.
Speaker 2: I wonder too if if you know, if what we're
seeing like guys are guys like it's maybe maybe part
of it is guys aren't actually like getting hurt more.
It's just that when injuries do happen, teams and maybe
even the players themselves and whoever they're like strength and conditioning,
you know, their own individual teams because a lot of
these higher profile guys like have their own trainer. That's
like on the staff. Maybe they're just being more careful
because everybody is looking at it as like a marathon,
not a sprint, Like, oh, this sprained ankle might have
been something you'd play on after missing a game, you know,
ten years ago or what or two years ago, and
now it's like that's a week. That's two weeks, and
it's just it's precautionary. I'm just this is just total spitballing.
But the numbers have been so different that, like, I
don't know, it can't just be that guys are getting
hurt more. It's got to be some other contributing factor
of just maybe more like be more careful with the
same number of injuries or something like that.
Speaker 1: Well, this is this is probably now that I can't
and I again I cannot remember who said this, but
this is probably the space for it is they're contributing
to this or believe that there's a symptom of these players.
And I don't know how much that pertained. I mean,
someone like Joelle Embiid it necessarily doesn't, but I don't
know how much it resonates with someone like Kauai. If
the era was the same then But when you're looking
at somebody like John Morant as an example, or Zion Williamson,
younger guys like Tyre's Halbert, and all of sudden, dealing
with what we're gonna talk about, the pacers in little bit,
dealing with all the like, dealing with back stuff now,
the hamstring stuff last year. It's not again, there's not
necessarily any proof to this, but their thought processes. These
guys are playing so much from such a young age
now because people are gearing their entire training, even necessarily
before they get to the AAU circuit or like the
AAU circuits are just so all consuming. When these guys
are coming up and you're playing how many times a week,
practicing how many times a week? And I think I've
even seen some kids, some people with kids, and we've
even talked about this because you have kids. Again, just anecdotally,
it feels like you're rushing them from one sporting activity
to the next. And when it's just leisure and you're
not trying to push them towards collegiate and professional levels,
it's probably a little bit different. But if you think
it's exhausting, just kind of doing it as a leisure
extracurricular thing, imagine what it's like at the level of
when someone spots someone at the age of nine and
they've decided like, oh, their path is going to be
professional basketball player, And so I do wonder just how
much of it is even before they get to college
or the NBA, is they're just playing too much and
there's extra You mentioned wear and tear before. Okay, the
wear and tear in their bodies on the NBA is
one thing, but what about the wear and tear they're
accumulating before.
Speaker 2: I can definitely remember coming across several similar you know,
I don't know that i'd call them studies, but it's
more like anecdotes of doctors that will look at like
an eighteen year old AAU circuit player's knees and say like,
this guy's got the knees of a thirty eight year
old already type of thing, and that's got to do
with specialization at an early age. Like that's you know,
that that is a real thing where kids are being
pushed earlier and earlier to be like this is the
sport you play, period, you know, so I and especially
if you're a high level basketball player, like you know,
a McDonald's all American level or whatever, Like you're not
playing very rarely. Are you also doing anything else? It's
one thing all the time. And if you're in a
you know, competitive AAU level, it's like you are playing
a half dozen games every weekend or whatever it is,
you know, just like that's just bound to have wear
and tear effects.
Speaker 3: I mean, it seems like the takeaway.
Speaker 2: Here is you should grow up in an Eastern European
or in a European country and like race chariot, race
horses or whatever it is Jokic does because he never
gets there.
Speaker 3: I think that's the takeaway.
Speaker 2: You get You're gonna want to do some kind of
equestrian event as your second pastime because that keeps you healthy.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to make of this final point
from it's not even a point. He's just relaying data
from habits trail. But it has to do with the
like people consuming the game this year and the injury
problem looms large in the audience data. According to Sports
Media Watch tracking ESPN games, the opening weeks of the
season have seen a thirty four percent decline from the
comparable point last year, with six hundred thousand fans tuning
out on average, TNT games are down fourteen percent over
the first two weeks. Now, he did mention this too
within his piece. I don't know how much of that
is impacted because we were in an election cycle and
maybe people are consuming differently. I also still don't I
need I probably do need to dig deeper. I'm not
someone who necessarily cares about ratings. Maybe it is a
good sort of indicator of the health of the league,
and we could, you know, we can get into all
sorts of directions on that and the coverage of it.
But it's got to be so hard to measure decentralized consumption,
right because everyone's using all these different like you're not,
most people aren't necessarily. Yes, live sports on TV are
like the one. It feels like main event remaining that
people will gather around and watch. But that's not how
everyone's consuming them. They're consuming them, like, how are you
tracking that if it's someone using the League Pass app
or if they're using one of these other apps that
they're like the TNT app rather than to like I'm
sure everything's incorporated in but it's such a decentralized medium
now that I'm just curious how that impacts the overall
consumption numbers. I'm not here to be a rating's truther
and say the NBA is actually more popular than it seems.
But we already mentioned at the top you specifically saying
there are certain games you're just not going to chop
her into because what are you taking away when two
or three of a team's best players are out. And
the example that haberstro used in the Yahoo Sports piece
was the Clippers facing Paul George for the first time.
It was just like that arena wasn't that filled right,
Like Paul George was only what was that this second
game in his return there was no embiid and there
was no Kauwhi. It's like the drama was just completely
stripped from it. And it's these things. It like the
injuries at least does seem like it's having a material impact.
And final thing I'll say as it gets to you,
and this is I try to be very empathetic towards
the fan because we can sit here and say like, well,
we want the best product in the playoffs, but it's
like when people are paying prices now to get into games,
and we try to steer clear of this. We acknowledge
that it's an issue, but I don't ever want to
devalue the regular season. But when you're dealing with all
these injuries or load management cycles, you are inherently valuing
the regular season. And our fans just sort of wisening
up to are they going to be less likely to
purchase tickets in advance of games and that this is
going to be more of a closer to the date
call type deal. Or again the Clipper sixers as an example,
you're just gonna see like more empty ish or more
open seats in arenas for what should be primetime matchups
because these players are either banged up or being load
managed and they're just not available.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 2: I think my last thought would just be if you're
a die hard fan of your team, you're probably still
gonna watch those games, right, Like I would imagine that
Clippers fans that really care about the Clippers watched the
Paul George game and just like they would have watched
it had he not played or whatever. Now, this is
assuming that your RSN situation locally allows you to watch
your team, which has been an issue. But I do
think like an UH casual has such a pejorative connotation.
But like a fan that doesn't have like doesn't care
who wins when Dallas plays Phoenix, but that's the national game,
like is just less likely to sit down and watch
that game on broadcast or cable or like on the
big network.
Speaker 3: Then they are to like check the.
Speaker 2: Box score or have whatever highlights they need to see
delivered to their phone from whichever app they choose to use.
Speaker 3: Like I think to me that rings most true. And
the injuries factor into that.
Speaker 2: You're watching your team whether they're hurt or not, but
you're not tuning in to see Dallas Phoenix if Luca
doesn't player, if d I mean Luca's healthy ish now
he's fighting.
Speaker 3: Through a groin injury.
Speaker 2: But like it seems like but yeah, you're always bleeding.
Sure that was gnarly against the Warriors, just like clean
that thing up.
Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: I think?
Speaker 2: I think it's like the national fan that might previously
have watched like both TNT games or whatever is or
ESPN games, it's just gonna like, yeah, you know, I'll
watch my team on my local network or whatever, and
then I'll just like catch up on this other stuff.
Speaker 1: Honestly, thinking, look, people should go join our discord or
thrower in it and sound off. I don't know that.
I won't say that people. And let let's say, if
you're a Pacer fan or a Celtics stand or a
Mavericks fan in our discord, or a Clipper sand whatever,
do you actually value what we have to say about
your team that you've probably seen more games of for
the most part because we're covering the entire league, or
do you listen to us because you'd rather that's how
you keep pace with the rest of the league. I
honestly argue it is probably closer to the lie. I
hope people want to hear our opinions on everything. Otherwise,
what are you doing here? I will say, though, and
I don't want to get into the quality of the coverage,
but that is part of the reason, by the way,
why we'll defend Reggie Miller to no end is that
because he is one of the announcers on these national outlets.
I mean, we're employed by them. But still he seems
genuinely excited about the game, and I appreciate that. But
when you were always the NBA is always going to
be up against Like I don't like when people compare
it to the NFL. For instance, Even when it comes
to the approach to coverage, the scarcity of product in
the NFL doesn't just work to drumming up interest. I
think it works towards making coverage more instructive, more educational,
because there's more time look at the pauses in between
plays to educate. Now do I think the NBA and
media partners have failed on a lot of level to
you know, this is what we're delivering people like and
now that's what they've been conditioned to consume. Sure, so
I'm not saying that the coverage is perfect, but this
comes back to injuries in the sense that you are
never gonna have high stakes in the rate like play
and tournament play in tournament uh mid season. The NBA
Cup is an example. I like it. I favor it.
It seems like the courts are different. People don't like them.
People are talking. It seems like they're watching point differential matters,
hashtag what do we say, just try shit. Favor it.
But when you're you're always, you're never gonna have that
scarcity of product. Even in the playoffs, it's best of seven,
it's not single which is why the NBA Cup is
interesting because you get to a knockout stage, but when
you're not benefiting from a scarcity of product, I do
think it increases the importance of your main players being
available more, especially if you're gonna have media members. And
even if we've said it, I'm sure we've said in
the past, if we're going to degrade the value of
the regular season by saying there's too many games where
that it's okay that Joel Embiid never plays in a
back to back again because we only care about the playoffs.
You need to figure out a way to drive interest
and stakes in the regular season. And right now, just
the way I look at it, like the only thing
kind of separating that will not separating them. But you
need good availability from not just the quote unquote all
NBA guys, but Pala Bang Carols, an up and coming
name who probably would have been party crashing the back
end of some MVP ballots right now if he never
has the oblique injury. And I'm not trying to, you know,
imply a causation to any individual case, but when there's
so many games and there is just there is just
an an inherent low stakes to these things like that.
I'm not saying the regular season should suck, but it
inherently like there's seventeen games in the NFL versus eighty
two in the in the NBA, and you have more
than half the teams getting into some type of postseason.
So like, yes, at the end of the year, there's
all these races and you can go back to like, oh,
the margins were so slim, but you're not doing a
good job of captivating that in the moment. And if
you're not doing a good job of that, like then
you just need the really good players to play, because
that's a way of driving up interest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I would just i'd say too that like.
Speaker 2: If we're we're not concern trolling, but if you want
to get worried about this, the injuries as they relate
to declining viewership or whatever, it's that nobody knows how
to fix this, or at least nobody has a solution
that's actually going to be implemented, because shortening cutting the
number of games is just like I don't know what
it will take for that, but it's not it's not
coming down the pike anytime soon. So like nobody has
a good answer for if this is a problem. I
just I have yet to see someone say here's the solution,
because we like already I mean now it had to
do with trying to get a better TV deal, but
like the NBA already kind of flip flopped on like, well,
we're not sure if rest or load management actually helps
or not. Like I do think there is some sincere
uncertainty in that even if they're maybe incentivized to, say,
you know, to kind of backtrack because they want Amazon
and whoever to spend money. But you know what I mean,
like there's no there's no clear solve that, Hey, guys,
don't get hurt.
Speaker 3: Try not getting hurt.
Speaker 1: And the other thing, by the way, too, is like
there is just statistically speaking, like there's data to back
up like, okay, the second end of back to backs
when you play in both, like players and teams tend
to not fare as well. And it's I get it.
It's these guys are getting paid a bunch of money
if to play in all these games, but there is
something to well, don't you also want to see the
best product. I'm not saying that they should. Then nobody
should sit back to backs. It'd be cool if we
just didn't have back to backs. But I know the
NBA is not going to lower the number of games.
They've taken strides to lower the number of back to backs.
I just don't I don't like the disingenuous framing of
power through the injuries or when you do sit out.
Joel Embiid is an example, like do we believe that
he hates basketball and just doesn't want to play right?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: So I just I don't like it when people boil
it that because that I understand people want to make
this binary or simplify it, because we all want solutions
or be able to like that's the problem, and that's
how you fix it. But it's not, you know, throw
some wind decks on it, spray it with some windecks,
and let's move on like it's just not. It doesn't,
it doesn't work like that. I don't have an answer.
I just it sucks that the injuries are up because
i'd rather not that. I enjoy being wrong, but I
would have rather have just gone through a bunch of
slides on why Dan, in fact, you're complaining about something
that's not actually an issue.
Speaker 3: Are you spraying your injuries with wind decks.
Speaker 1: Is that what you've ever seen? My big fact Greek wedding,
that's they spray windecks on everything. That was like top
of mind for that. It's what was the actual cliche
is like rub some dirt on it? Yeah, that that
tormentous because just rub some dirt on it and let's
continue moving. Like even here's Kawhi as an example. Do
we think that he actively hates basketball? A man has
degenerative knees.
Speaker 3: That's what I just want to know.
Speaker 2: If he's tried wind decks, I mean maybe or dirt? Yeah,
dirt both get him in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Wow, you're welcome.
Speaker 2: Guys.
Speaker 1: It only took us under twenty five minutes to solve
the NBA's injury problems. We move on to some specific
injuries though, Grant and you did you know what I'm
gonna you want to lead us in because you you
you pronounced it so eloquently before. But hed home Rate
is injured?
Speaker 3: What's he got? So I think I'm saying this right.
Speaker 2: I have to admit that iliac I L I A
C is not a word I'm pretty sure I've ever written,
typed or said because and you've also seen it referred
to as a hip fracture of pelvic fracture. It's all bad,
all sounds bad. The fall was the fall was rough.
Oh I got him, spit take Dan, let's go. I'll
let you recover eight to ten weeks and then it's
one of those like eight to ten weeks and we
re evaluate, right, So that's like okay.
Speaker 1: Well, and it's the Thunder, So it's more like so six.
Speaker 2: Hundred weeks give or take and and so I mean,
so the Thunder gonna play small, and they did play small,
and they did beat the Clippers, who have a very
large human being that plays on their team.
Speaker 3: It beats the zobots and are so good.
Speaker 1: But any of that game just very quickly, because there
were moments where he was able to punish, like other
moments where it's like what is God.
Speaker 3: The first play of the game was a dumpin and
that didn't work.
Speaker 2: But then in the second half it really got it
like it it looked, it looked more how it should
in the second half when the Clippers just like, we
can't go away from this. He's got six inches on
every guy that's going to guard him, and what fifty
pounds probably if it's if it's Jalen Williams. So here's
the good news is the Thunders so far this season.
Now that we're recording this Wednesday, this may change, but
you get the gist of it. They're plus ten point
four net rating without Chet on the floor. Now that
looks worse when you realize they're plus fifteen point four
with him. But you can survive and you know, frankly
lead the league if you can hold a plus ten
point four. I mean, just parsing some of the numbers
to get a sense of like what this may look
like other than the obvious. Okay, he's gonna be small
for a while. Most of most of holmgruns impact on
this team has been on the defensive end. If you're
just looking at the numbers, he he seems pretty clearly
linked to suppressing opponent free throw rate, opponent effective few percentage,
and just knocks offensive ratings down all those. He's like
a top ten percent guy in terms of on off
impact early season noisy stuff, but still like it squares
with what you see from him, which is just monstrous
defensive impact. It's it's interesting, like this is a team
that is on pace to be one of if not
the best defense statistically in league history and the number
two right well, and then that's that's because their worst
two defensive games of the year where their last two,
the one in which Holmgren got hurt and didn't play
the rest of it and the one against the Clippers.
So like they and really, and here's here's where if
we're talking about problems without solutions at least until Hertenstein
comes back. They give up a forty point five percent
offensive rebound rate to the Clippers. So the Clippers are
getting back four out of ten of their own misses,
which is the worst figure the Thunder of posted all year.
They're a bad rebounding team with chet Holmgren, I do think, like,
if you want to catastrophize before they get guys back,
when they're just going to be small, and we could
talk about how long that'll be and what other fixes
there might be. Like I feel more confident in saying
the Thunder are going to get absolutely smoked on the
boards and probably lose games because of giving up second
chance points or not ending possessions with rebounds that I
feel certain of. Everything else is like, well, maybe they're
just gonna be disruptive enough and fast enough and trap
enough to survive. But but that's that one is like,
there's not a solve for that, because the nasty you
get with your trapping defense and scrambling around and trying
to create turnovers, just the more out of position you
are to rebound. And if you're already smaller, like you're
just you know, screwed twice over there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting that they're still in like this, what
is it, the seventy eight percentile of defensive efficiency without Chet,
even though without Chet they ranking the fifteenth percentile of
defensive rebounding rate. And maybe just they have experience because
as you mentioned, they're still pretty bad at rebounding with
him on the court, and so they're just their ability
to create chaos in the half court is probably their
biggest strength. I'm not when you look at the concern
level of what they do. They just have so much
versatility and guys who are either comfortable guarding up or
just so physical or just so phernetic that they're going
to figure out. If this were the playoffs, yes, we'd
be at def Con one. My concern level is just
all right, well, like they have Kenrick Williams back, They're
eventually like, I don't know what the timeline is for
Isaiah Hertenstein. Well, we know what the timeline is, but
we just haven't like we're not there yet. And then
they also do at some point maybe Jay will will
be coming back, so they clearly have the time, they'll
be able to buy time. I don't think like, yeah, okay,
maybe they'll lose some games because they don't have chet,
but this isn't I'm not super concerned. I do wonder
but given the uncertainty around Holmgren's timeline coming back, because
eight to ten weeks is okay, so they're gonna reevaluate
him basically at the start of twenty twenty five, and
then it's does he need to ramp up from there?
Could it take more time? Is this a team that
needs to just get another like action big? I know
that if you're fully healthy, you can play smaller with
Kenridge Williams, but do you think that they need to
go out there and get an actual big another.
Speaker 2: I literally my next bullet point is I was going
to ask you the same question, like do they need
to make a trade. What the hell are all these
assets for? If you're not going to just go use
them on a guy that clearly would fill a need.
My instinct, though, is no, I don't think you need to.
I think what you're in search of is a stopgap,
and there are plenty of centers that can come in
and give you fifteen minutes and maybe defend the rim
and rebound a little bit, which is really kind of
what you're asking for. And here's the thing too, So
I got those timeline. I looked up the timeline. So
Jay Will had he aggravated a hamstring strain towards the
end of October, and the word was reevaluated four to
six weeks, so that that's you.
Speaker 3: Know, mid December maybe.
Speaker 2: And then Hartenstein had the hand fracture five to six
week timeline as of October seventeenth, so we're like, we're
at the four ish week mark for him. He really
might only be talking about a couple of weeks where
the thunder really are just threadbare at the five and
you can just go pick up a scrap heap guy.
Speaker 3: If you you.
Speaker 2: Know, what's over two weeks, what are they gonna play
six games? Seven games?
Speaker 3: Maybe?
Speaker 2: So I don't feel like there's a huge urgent need
for a trade, especially since like, look, you're paying Hartenstein
like a high end starter basically, so like when he's back, like, yeah,
play that dude thirty four minutes, Like that's just that
should be okay, he should be in shape. It's a
hand injury, so he's been able to condition. I don't
think the ramp up is like an issue for him.
The Homegrin part of it though, So the reason you
might make a trade, I don't think they need to.
If you did think they they should, it's about the long,
longer term at least for this season. Concerns with Holmegrin
because he's a seven footer that has a fractured hip, Like, Okay,
what's that look like once he's quote unquote healthy, Like
is he the same guy?
Speaker 3: Is he is mobile?
Speaker 2: And if you're trying to win a championship this year,
which one hundred percent the thunder are and should be
well like everybody. So if Homegron's not going to be
his best self, which like I don't know, Look, we
just learned the word for this injury. Who knows what
the outlook's gonna be once he's back, Like that might
push you towards it because you just need someone other
than Hartenstein and or j will like so I'm still
a no. But if you're really worried about Chet's like
mid and longer term prognosis for just this season and
the playoffs, that might nudge you that way. Are you
are you thinking trade or are you just like, let's
hold down the fort for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: I would say hold down them. We need to disagree
more like, but it's you need to figure out like, Okay,
are you worried about him being out longer or are
you more worried about just longer term leading into the playoffs?
Does this say anything about the way his body's made
up where he is just so big and long and
mobile that he's never going to fill out to a
degree where a fall isn't going to be, in theory
more catastrophic than it's for someone that has more meat
or girth, or like someone like I say a heart
and Stein, I mean, who's huge. But just like when
you look at the way that Chet's built, like are
the Heartstein is not as mobile and.
Speaker 2: Just easier to knock home grin out of the air
right like that? That's another factor too, So if.
Speaker 1: You're worried about that, and it's okay, well, we really
need to like this needs to be more than breaking
case of emergency type of third center, like someone who's
the upgrade over j Will and Kenrich Williams and Aaron
Wiggins or Jail and Williams whoever is like you consider
your small ball center. But they do run into some
interesting issues because I was looking at this, everyone's like,
go out there and trade for so and so, and
it's yeah, they could trade whoever they want. But when
you get into or they can trade for whoever they want,
excuse me, but then you get into matching salaries, and it's, well,
who to this team do you think doesn't matter enough
that you would give up for let's say, at best
your third big and as of right now, like it's
Usman Jang. And then I guess if you're getting a
different big, do you throw Kenrich Williams into there? Probably not,
because the looking give you small ball. So then do
you consider j Will who makes peanuts? It's you know,
if you're giving up Usman Jang because of how flexible
you are, you can take back at ten million dollar
player right now. But like now, if you're looking to
stack salaries. And this is assuming they're out on who's Mandjang,
who's playing some center for them as well? It's like,
what are you doing so even some let's use Larry
Nance as an example. Right now, you're not giving up?
Would you give up? I'm just Ustman Jang and Jay
Will for Larry Nance?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think that moves the needle enough.
Speaker 1: Right, Like that's the issue you run in Now, could
you go out there and maybe just get a duop
Wreath who's not really playing in Portland?
Speaker 3: Just still get Walker Kessler.
Speaker 2: You don't have to worry about salary matching there. You
can overwhelm the Jazz with picks which they should want
like that that you can do?
Speaker 1: Which is it? But now here's but that's the issue
with that. Now would be okay, he's about to be
extension eligible, and it's like how much are you It's
okay they can give up a first round pick and
if it's for their third big or whatever, but like,
what are you ultimately?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: So Walker Kessler's never really going to play when you're
at full strength, isn't that You're never gonna then get
a ton of value for him and then what do
you pay him? And then you're probably repressing his own
market value, so is he going to be happy there?
Those are kind of the challenge. It's it's a great
problem to have, yeah, but at the same time, the
uncertainty of the chet Homegrin of it all moving forward,
I do think it adds an interesting layer to it.
And so they'll have a little bit if they want to.
You know, when you're looking for like, let's try to
take it back to Let's say we don't want to
give up Jay Will, but like we're willing to move Jang.
It's once Lian's like once his salary I think it's
in January or something opens up, like you'll be able
to take back basically a twelve or thirteen million dollars
player with him and Usman Jang and then picks and
so it's all right if you just want Larry Nance
at that point, are you out on Uzman Jang enough
where if that's what Atlanta's will, But then at that
at that stage, we're in January, and so shouldn't we
know you'll know more about chet Home Grin, So then
maybe that's why you make the decision. What does he
look like upon return has he even come back yet?
This team is built to hold down the fort. But
I think in terms of you meant the word I
keep circling back to is what how do you feel?
Long terms? It just we're gonna get hartensteinback, So even
if there is a disaster scenario with CHET, we're going
to be fine anyway. I don't know that does change
your four out spacing you're excuse me, your five out
space model a little bit. If Hartners signs also on
the main guy, it's it's a I'm gonna wrap up
before I throw back to you with this is. It's
just a little weird because I'm not concerned in the
intern but this is it is unsettling, I would say,
just when you're trying to scale ahead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think and really like the the macro part
of this that I can't I'm like kind of sticking
in my brain even though I'm saying I don't think
a trade is necessarily the obvious decision, like how much
better are the thunder ever gonna be?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Like I know, I know it seems insane because like, oh,
they're all so young and whatever, but they won fifty
seven last year. Everybody's got them pegged for sixty plus
this year. Maybe you you you drop that estimate with chet.
Speaker 1: Out, I like sixty.
Speaker 3: If so, what are the picks for? Why do we
have all this stuff?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: What if not?
Speaker 2: Now if you're not gonna make like a call an
overpay a short sighted move, like what are you, like
what what's the scenario you're waiting to like unload the
clip for if not? If not a significant injury to
a key player in a season where you're the favorite
to win the West?
Speaker 3: Like what so you know what I mean? Like, you
got all this stuff, what are you holding on to
it for?
Speaker 1: I honestly think it's more so it's not to me,
it's not an issue of the picks.
Speaker 3: It's the finances.
Speaker 1: It's the players. Because okay, so they could take in
someone and they could they have someone they could wave,
but like you could take in someone via the room
exception that you still have. But now we're talking, okay,
like what is that seven eight million dollars? So you're
you're limiting. But if you actually want them to like
to actually empty the clip or they wouldn't empty it,
but to overwhelm someone with picks, I think he gets
into a challenge with like, well who are we sending out?
Because yes, you could say, well, these players might not
fit long term, but are they worth? Like you're not
giving up case In Wallace to trade for another big
right now. If you did that, I assume it would
be for someone who's gonna improve your like offensive shot creation,
rather than be like breaking case or emergency if if
check is injured. So I don't think they need to
make a trade, but I do feel in my head,
I'm just like, was this something that's gonna become a
long term issue? Because if you're going from like, we'll
have to wait and see. But like, Okay, now he
missed his entire rookie year with that list Frank fracture,
and now he has this this issue, and it's just okay,
that's a lot of mid lower body stuff now is
added up, and could this become reoccurring? Not because chet Holman,
Like I hate boiling it down to this, but just
he's not built conventionally, Like he's just the spindly freak
of nature.
Speaker 2: And even you know, I don't I wouldn't accuse you
of it, Like this isn't making the argument that he's
fragile or is in quote unquote injury prone. It's just
an acknowledgement that he's had now two significant injuries, and
it's like that's gonna have effects down the line one
way or the other. We'll talk about another player that
had an injury when we get to the Pacers that
might be having some kinetic chain like kind of stuff
happening too. So like, once you're hurt, it's just that's
a problem going forward, like pretty much full stop. It's like, oh,
because you've been hurt before, you're the type of person
that gets hurt. It's like, that's just you know, they compound.
Speaker 1: Do you think in retrospect that this might have been
caked into the Isaiah Hartenstein calculus where we just assumed
it it was a matter of opportunity and they clearly
needed more girth and you could play them together. But
I wonder how much of it was Well, we just
had a full season of healthy Chet Homegren and that
was great. But like, if this happens, Yeah, he's still
in his rookie deals, but he's still making it a
good amount of money. But it's easier to pay thirty
plus million for the next two years at least to
Hartenstein with that third year team option. I do wonder
how much something like this was part of that calculus,
and it just the timing of Hertenstein also being injured.
It's just like, that's why that logic falls by the
wayside a little bit.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like we just got a full season of
healthy chet Holgren and he's now played fifty percent of
his career games, because like, you also had a full
season of zero chet Holgren because of injury. So yeah,
I hadn't thought about that, but yeah, if you're the thunder,
it wouldn't it make sense given you've already had a
guy lose the season to like, let's backstop a little bit,
let's make sure and we got the resources, so why not?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that that checks out to me.
Speaker 1: More of the story is, Oh, you said you want
to do a concern meter.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, like one to ten. Ten is most concerned
short term.
Speaker 1: I'm a one long term. I'm probably moving in the
four to five range. It's okay, this is something I'm
gonna be monitoring and then I'll I will further couch
it with this. Like we get to January and it
doesn't look like he's coming back in like, Okay, let's
say the eight to ten weeks are up, and then
it's okay, he's gonna be reevaluated again in a few weeks.
He's gonna ramp up and go from there. That might
be when you start to revisit, all right, does it
make sense to go get a Larry nance Er to
roll the dice un an RW three. It'll cost you
picks and maybe it'll probably cast you at least one
player you don't necessarily want to give up. That would
be when I would reevaluate, Like in the intern, if
you want to go sign Bismock Biumbo, or you want
to trade for dwop Reef, you go be my guest.
Speaker 2: So so I'm viewing it a little differently. I think
I think the way you framed it makes sense for
your ratings. I'm going to six And it's just part
of the biggest reason is the Thunder are at a
level competitively where like slight degradations and like their available
talent really fucking matters, because like, okay, this is you
need everything to beat Boston or to beat Dallas or
whoever you play in the playoffs. That's you know, Boston
in the finals, Cleveland, whoever ends up being like you can't.
It's just you can't be missing or have like a
diminished version of a player as important as home grin.
So because the stakes are so high for them, the
concern level for me is a little higher. I just
I can't go higher than six just because they've got
all these outs they have. It's, you know, he's their
third best player, maybe like he's two A or two
B or whatever, and it's it's an eight to ten
week season's not over. But like I do think it's
an issue just because of how high they are in
the league, like power structure and what what like any
kind of consequential injury actually means for them.
Speaker 1: This next team that is up grant no stranger injuries.
The Memphis Grizzlies John Moran suffered what did they call it?
You have the exact terminology now, I'm just going to
call it a hip injury.
Speaker 3: I don't have it for job.
Speaker 2: But there was some funky wording it is where it's
a hip injury.
Speaker 3: So it was a weird fall. Did you see the fall?
It was very awkward.
Speaker 1: It was awkward. I think the word pelvic is being
thrown around, which.
Speaker 3: Was just pelvic injuries this year? So who else had
a pelvic injury?
Speaker 1: When a study on that, We've got a lot of
hip and thigh injuries.
Speaker 3: It feels like, yeah, it wasn't.
Speaker 2: Quick Quickly's injury was a pelvic injury, right, That's what
it was.
Speaker 1: It was it was Quickly So John Moran, we can't.
They didn't provide a timeline for like a strict timeline
for his return. He is He's considered weak to week
was the terminology they used. Correct. That sucks, But this
is all happening with Desmond Bain has now missed a
few games, Marcus Smart has one been bad and he's
still dealing with that Ankle's praying Gigi Jackson as you
have to play this season. Vince Williams Junior has yet
to play this season. They're running ninety seven man rotations
under Taylor Jenkins, like the and the list of injuries
will just continue to stack up. What do you make
of the Memphis Grizzlies right now? Who by the way,
like they don't have the splashiest record, but you get
into some of the advanced numbers, like they rank pretty.
Speaker 3: High, real high. So they're seven and four.
Speaker 2: As we're recording, it's like, so injuries are the story again,
but that like I don't know to stress the metaphor,
like the ending is different because they're seven and four.
Speaker 3: Last year that was just.
Speaker 2: Like, oh my god, the wheels came off and everything
just was you know, they lost every you know, eight
out of ten games they played for a long stretch.
They're plus ten point five net and they are in
the top five in both offensive and defensive ratings. So like,
somehow this has like held up despite just to put
a point on it, they've played thirty nine thirty nine
possessions with John Morant, Desmond Bane and Jaron Jackson Junior
on the floor together this year, so like, I don't know,
a little more than a quarter, you know, a quarter's
worth of possessions, take why And so some of those
numbers are juiced because they've got a couple of recent blowouts.
They destroyed the Trailblazers the other night, but still.
Speaker 3: Like without jaw and right, so yeah, you still get
credit for that.
Speaker 2: And so what's happened is, you know, somebody in the
scouting department just needs a raise and a promotion because
the Grizzlies are just finding guys and now they kind
of did it last year with Williams and and Gigi Jackson,
but this is different. So the three that I'm focusing
on here that are kind of keeping things functional in
no particular order, Jay Huff, Scottie Pippen Jr. Both you know,
cast offs from the Lakers kind of funnily enough, and
rookie Jalen Wells. These three guys have all played major roles.
A couple of them have started for you know, long
stretches here and really like have been positive NBA players
after being like beyond afterthoughts and then like what was
Well's the thirty ninth pick, so you're just like, Okay,
this guy might make he's gonna be on the roster.
Speaker 3: There's no way he's going to play now.
Speaker 2: I want to start with Wells because I do think
like Huff got the buzz early because it's like, oh,
where did this guy come from? This incredible dunky block shots,
he shoots threes. Wells to me looks like a guy
that's just he's an NBA rotation player with starter upside
just going forward. He's got six ' eight depending where
he looks six seven or six ' eight frame, averaging
eleven points thirty nine percent from three. Like, just watching
the tape of him, which I did before we started talking,
I think the thing that jumps out most to me
is like it's the number of like second effort defensive
plays that he makes where it's like, oh, he's beat,
and then he comes back and blocks a shot, or
he runs a little harder in transition to like getting
somebody's way. That kind of stuff I think is just
gonna be there. Like I maybe the shooting cools off.
I don't know, maybe not, but like he just looks
to me like someone that you could start him for
a lot of teams, and the Grizzlies are starting him,
but like that's just he's an NBA player. He's an
NBA wing with like almost all the tools you'd want.
And then Scotty Pippens you, you're really good defensive player,
averaging twelve and six, making forty four percent of his threes,
Jay Huff making forty eight percent of his threes, blocking
two shots a game.
Speaker 3: Like, these guys have all played major roles.
Speaker 2: It is worth noting, though, that like this is a
small sample size slash early season caveat, you know, a disclaimer.
We need like a button to push for that to.
Speaker 3: Have it pop up.
Speaker 2: But like the Grizzlies get smoked on defense when whenever
Pippen or Huff are in the game, that's got more
to do with opponents making threes. So like we just
can't look at the on off stuff yet, uh and
trust it. But man, like those three guys, once Memphis
is healthy, you assume they'll still have roles, and then
this team is deep like all of a sudden, right
like or maybe if Marcus Smart just can't play anymore
or whatever, Jackson and Vince Williams aren't, you know, turned
back into pumpkins, Like you just have a normal roster.
But if some of the stuff from last year carries over,
the big names get healthy and you still get production
from these three, it's like, oh, okay, so Memphis is
now just one of the deepest teams in the league.
So I mean, we could talk about the concern level
or if there's anything you want to focus on from
my extended spiel, Like I do think both the fact
that they've played this well to this point and the
fact that this rotation could look really good, really deep
really interesting. Once everyone's back, you got to feel pretty
good about Memphis. This is certainly relative to what it
looked like last year when everybody got hurt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd love to have a little bit more clarity
on the jaw stuff. But their depth is insane right now.
And Scottie Pippen Jr. At one point he was mainly
leading the league and assists thrown off drives like and
I'd like to just have that sort of it, have
that as a contingency when not only is Marcus mart
injured but he's bad. Yeah, And I think when you're
watching this team to what I would be curious about
also what helps? By the way, Zachiaty has been playing better. Well,
off to a rough start, he's just looked a lot
better since then. Luke and Arr by the way, finally
back as well too. That was someone who hadn't played
the entire season. But I find myself going through all
the bodies and I'm asking, well, how do you button
up this rotation if you're ever at full strength? I
think you could make the case that well, they're just
never going to be at full strength. They understand that reality,
and this is how it's gonna be But like we've
talked about, I mentioned them at the top, like Gigi
Jackson Vince Williams have yet to play, and those are
guys who make a lot of sense on this team,
are very important to them last year, and those were
two players that I think coming into this year certainly
more than a Jay Huff or Jalen Wells or Scotty
Kipp and Jr. You were, well, they're gonna need to
contribute to like the best version of the Grizzlies, And
now it's well, how do you integrate them upon return?
And I still think, look, some of the numbers aren't
gonna support this, but like the half court offense can
still look very choppy. They're not a team that you're
going to trust. Is like from these dead stops, is
going to be able to space the floor adequately or
maybe all of a sudden you get to the right
shots at the same time, Like all of these injuries
you mentioned, growth from like the players who have either
come out of nowhere or there's just not a huge
sample size off which to work. I think we're really
seeing the benefits from what Jaron Jackson Junior specifically went
through last year year, where Desmond Bain had kind of
been by his second year, he was shouldered with more
just self creation responsibility. Jared Jackson Junior. I think a
lot of that was explored last year Grant. This year,
more of his baskets are going unassisted, and yet his
efficiency is just better his driving game, Like, yeah, he's
not playmaking out of it, he's not drawing a ton
of fouls out of it, and he could still be
a little turnover prone with that handle. He is shooting
sixty five point eight percent on drives this year. And
again this is with the team that even when their
offense is on, they don't have Pristine's bacing, Like, he
just looks better operating through traffic when you're actually looking
at third eighty three players Grant that are averaging at
least seven drives per game. TJ. McConnell because of course,
and Darius Garland also, because of course, the only player
is shooting a higher clip on those drives from that group.
So the Jaron Jackson Junior growth is a huge deal
here because even if you're you're looking at this depth
when you are dealing with a banged up Desmond Baine
and Marcus mart En, John Morant, like the depth that
we just talked about, non Jared Jackson Junior, they are
not carrying you offensive like Scotti. Pippen Junior is a playmaker, sure,
but like what Jared Jackson Junior is able to do
is just a self starting score now, or even if
you want to call him a more complicated play finisher.
I think it was always gonna be huge, But knowing
the Grizzlies' injury history, like John Rance always feels like
he's just dealing with stuff. It's massive. It's not just.
It's just absolutely massive to the full strength version of
the Grizzlies, to the partial strength version of the Grizzlies,
to the decimated version of the Grizzlies. So my concern
for them in the regular season isn't high. They're always
just gonna win games, but to get to their peak, Like, Okay,
we know what our rotation is with all our best
players available. We've had enough sample to understand what the
best lineups are in that situation, and we're just gonna
be ready to hit the gas come playoff time. That's
the thing. Okay, you're getting all this information on all
these individuals on what you can do on your depth,
how do you truncate that down to what would look
like a a championship contender come playoff time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think my concern level just to jump to
that is like a four, and and it's it's mitigated
a lot by the fact that they just keep finding
guys and and if as long as people the big
names are healthy, then you'll just you'll you'll happily take
the problem of and I think you alluded to this,
like you'll just take it's a good problem if you've
got to figure out, like which of these six guys
that were not factors in our planning like two years ago,
do we like give real rotation minutes too? I do
think though, like four is still like I guess it's
it's not a it's not a one. And the reason
is because we're sort of just going down this road
again of injuries, and it's it's like, well it is
jaw just some gonna be someone that just is just
not going to top fifty five games like on average
going forward and is baying somebody that just can't.
Speaker 3: Like that's that's the source of my concern.
Speaker 2: It's more just like are we are we ever gonna
get you know, three straight months uninterrupted of the best
version of this team him like, that'd be awesome if
it happened April, May June, But like, I just we
don't know. If the way things have gone the last
couple of years, it's hard to be confident.
Speaker 1: Desn't been another one dealing with the oblique. Wasn't that
something you were saying, that's like a trend upward.
Speaker 3: Trend follow what's going on?
Speaker 1: Oblik's in Pelvis's another team that is. I would say
they're not super banged up, but they're missing Kevin Durant.
That feels like a big deal. He's dealing with the
calf strain. Uh, he leaves the league in minutes per game.
Those are injuries that I would normally be like, well,
is it because he's just playing too much? But Kevin
Durant loves to hoop, so you can't play. That's the
that's the rebuke there. Uh. Grant the suns, I mean
we haven't really dug into them yet on this podcast
for the season, so you've any general impressions on that.
My impression was that like Kad would probably be like
third or fourth on the MVP ballot if he wasn't
slated to miss enough games where the minutes kind of
separate him from the you know, the Yo Kitch, the Tatum,
the guys who are you know, like ending their sample.
But he has been look the offensive for him, the
offensive process is it feels like they're putting him in
more advantageous positions, but like he's still cooking well. He's
averaging one point one four point one point one four
points per ISO possession right now, which is just bonkers.
And I think I've been even more impressed by the
way just with what he's able to do defensively when
he's not on the ball, the rotations that he's making,
and he really is I know, you have Ryan Dunn
and you have voiced on like he's kind of the key,
the skeleton gay to them unlocking those smaller lineups where
they don't have a big on the court that have
worked well for them basically since Kdi arrived.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I mean just zooming out like this. It's
a weird team. We're both kind of talking offline. It's like,
I don't have a great feel for this team. Part
of that's because there's you know, several new players playing
major roles, both acquisitions and guys like Tyas Jones and
and Draftees like done. The couple of things have struck
me about their makeup. Now, look there, what are they
nine to two? But like that, I think they have
the Their point.
Speaker 1: Different off defense at nine and two is just right,
baz are And you can dig into the specific games
that have contributed that, but that's just still wild.
Speaker 2: It's it's well, I mean then the shorthand of it
is like, if we were looking at projecting them going forward,
we'd probably view them as a team that had like
two or three fewer wins than they actually do. Just
you're trying to trust the offensive and defensive ratings is
being more predictive. So the first thing that jumps out
is like they're starters, Tias Jones, Bilbooker, Katie and Nurkic
are getting crushed like minus fourteen point three per hundred
in one hundred and sixty eight possessions and like the
the stuff that makes you just want to dismiss that.
The other on off numbers that are just confounding are
you know, guys like Royce O'Neill and Mason Plumbley. The
offense is better with them on the floor as opposed
to start. So it's just like, okay, so we just
can't trust any of the on off or lineup data
because no sane person is going to say that starting
lineup I don't like it. You know, maybe as a
closing lineup we can have a conversation. But and like, well,
there's need more minutes with it.
Speaker 1: Right, Tigas, I don't know that I've seen ty as
close the game yet.
Speaker 2: For that, right, That's one of the questions going forward,
is like what do you put out there in the
games that matter that are close at the end. And
also part of the reason Phoenix has outperformed its net
rating is it's been a good clutch team, which is
very different from last year.
Speaker 3: When they were one of the worst fourth quarter teams
in the league.
Speaker 2: The other thing that's I think, so all that stuff
is kind of like all the lineup and on off
data is just it's early, there's new pieces whatever, like
kind of you can kind of not totally dismiss it,
but let's not freak out about it. I think a
trend that is potentially a problem is that this team
just never ever gets to the rim on offense and
and Phoenix. That's like just priced into the Phoenix experience
because they've been thirtieth in RIMTEP frequency counting this season
for the last five years. So they just like and
that's spanning how many three coaches for three coaches, a
bunch of personnel changes, like it touches the Chris Paul
Era DeAndre Ayton was involved.
Speaker 3: In some of that.
Speaker 2: So like, I don't know what it is in Phoenix,
but like the RIM is just off limits. It helps
their shooting more threes than last year. It's still a
very mid range heavy team, and we could just like
go find clips of us wondering how big of a
problem that is from any of the last five postseasons.
Probably that So like just their shot, diet and some
of the makeup, I just have questions about. But like
with Duran out still being nine and two, I mean,
I guess it's a successful start right just where they
are in the standings relative to some of the difficulties
and inconsistencies and I don't know, unanswered questions right, Like
it's been a positive start despite like I don't feel
like we have a good pulp feel for this team yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would probably agree with everything you said there,
I wondered too, like are they one sort of alteration,
not that it's easy for them to make the alteration
of just being elite, like in this one certain area
where it's okay, like if you had a better defensive center,
I know use of NuRD wage is rim protection numbers
are fine this year, but if you had a better
defensive center, Like how much better is the defense overall?
Where you've kind of simplified the workload for KD for sure.
And look, Bradley bealf and like he's covered some really
tough assignments there, not that the center positions necessarily gonna
help with that. They've also dealt with some It's also
what if Grace and Allen been banged up? But what
if he was just had been shooting the ball better,
Like he's now up to thirty five percent, But again
keyword being up to there, And it does feel like
there's still some things that might be unsettled beyond there.
There are top guys which look, now is the time
to figure it out. And you're nine and two anyway,
So I think my level of concern here I made
jokes about Kevin Durant playing too much. My concern would
be that they don't have the option of playing him
less right, I'm not concerned about this injury as people
pointed out, like Kevin Durant isn't so much injury prone
as he just had these like two sort of like
majoris absences that weren't necessarily related. At the same time,
though this is age thirty six season, he's leading the
league of minutes per game and he looked to me
he looks great anyway most of the time. That being said,
does this team Grant have the option of playing him
fewer minutes?
Speaker 2: I mean, if you don't where I you know, you'd
say where are you getting the offense that you're losing?
And frankly, like you pointed out, where are you getting
the length on defense? That also doesn't like compromise you
on offense. And Nurkic is a starting center in the
NBA that has no range. Shooting three three is a
game not making him. He's shooting like forty four percent
from the field. Like that's you can't have a paint
bound center essentially making forty four percent shots.
Speaker 3: I guess they sort of have to play Durant this much.
Speaker 2: I just think you're gonna keep running into this type
of thing where he might play nine or ten games
and you lose him for a couple of weeks and
hopefully that's all it is. But given his age, given
the injuries, as you alluded to, like, there's there's downside
for sure?
Speaker 3: Where where?
Speaker 2: And I think the last thing I was gonna ask
you is, and I'll project because I'm kind of telling
on myself a.
Speaker 3: Little bit, why is that? Why is the.
Speaker 2: Reliance on Kevin Durant and the uncertainty that he can
be relied upon for a full season in playoffs?
Speaker 3: Is that why? I guess I don't.
Speaker 2: You can lump yourself in if you want view them
as like a true, true threat to make the.
Speaker 3: Finals in the West, Like I just I don't know why.
Speaker 2: I don't know what it is, but I don't see
them even healthy, being on like that top tier of like,
oh yeah, they could make the finals.
Speaker 3: I just I don't know what it is. And I'm
thinking maybe.
Speaker 2: It's the reliance on a guy with Durant's mileage to
have to play damn your forty minutes for you.
Speaker 1: To be an interesting it might be which is and
I don't think that's unfair, but also how much of
it is kind of skewed by even by the way
this is, I've seen some Devin Booker concern stumble across
multiple timelines. I can't get there.
Speaker 3: He's just not going in. He's still the same guy.
Speaker 1: And he was against Utah like he wo was the
eleven or twenty fourth four yan.
Speaker 3: But he's fine.
Speaker 1: Devin Booker's not a guy that you need to be
concerned about. So I know that we need to feign
like concern. Sometimes that's not a situation where you do.
But like, how much of that is just okay? Well,
some of these guys are just gonna start shooting better
use of Nurkics. Might not be one of them, but
he's got like Alan and let's use Allan Bookers an
examples specifically, those are two guys that are gonna hit
their shots at a higher clip. You would think, I
maybe I would feel the same way you did, because
I do think they were lying too much on Kevin Grant,
and I also do not think they have the ability
to rely on him any less. And it's weird that
it's defensively that I feel that way, right, I guess
maybe it's not weird but whatever. Uh, I have confidence
probably that they would make a trade. But my bigger
thing is who is just run away with the West?
I know that we just talked about the Thunder and
that would be the team too, And like the Nuggets
have had some pretty high highs lately, we're dealing with
the home grand injury and okay, see, and there's been
some money even I offensively for them too. Who is
running away with the wet? Like, who is the team
that you just don't view like they can't beat? Is
it still Minnesota? Sure?
Speaker 3: But maybe yeah?
Speaker 1: Maybe? But I think, well, I look at the Western
Conference as it's clearly better than the East. But I
don't like last year felt very much like, Okay, the
Timberwolves and the Nuggets and the Thunder, we're running away
with it, and I just don't feel that way. Like
I pushed this in our discord the other night, We're
not gonna talk about the Mavericks in this one. They're
under five hundreds. We record this and I feel fantastic
about that.
Speaker 3: No problems, Yeah, no problems.
Speaker 1: We move on to our next team. We're gonna talk
to them Indiana Pacers here, which they've been bitten by
the injury bug. It's not to the degree when you're
talking about some of these big names that have missed time,
but you're looking at tyres Halburton is playing through back stuff.
They have two centers, not Miles Turner, but see James Wiseman,
Isaiah Jackson, Torn Achilles, Andrew Nemhard. He's been dealing with
has he been dealing with a multitude of stuff? He's
dealing with a knee issue. Yeah, and then Aaron E.
Smith has that ankle injury that's going around. And look,
Aaron Smith's okay, he's wing sized, Andrew Nemhard is not.
But they account for two of Indie's like wing defenders basically,
So they're in this weird spot and they're another team
that I don't necessar certinly know what to make of. Now,
what I will say if we're looking for if we're
looking for positive points, I think it's safe to say
that both of us were too low on Benedict Mathrin
at this point. I still don't know if he's what
they need defensively, and I would argue that he is not.
But he is held up against some pretty tough assignments
this year. And he's been playing so well on offense
that I like you, I don't even think at this point,
when you're fully healthy, is he coming out of the
starting five. I don't think you could even. I don't
think you could do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, so I had an interesting, like I don't know,
a little episode when I was kind of looking at
his numbers and trying to reevaluate, like, Okay, we do
need to make some concessions that he's he's maybe capable
of more than last year showed, and I caught myself thinking, like,
now I put the defense aside, but offensively not a lot.
Speaker 3: Is real different in terms of like shot shot.
Speaker 2: Makeup free, Like really, what's happening is his his like
offensive profile is more similar to his rookie year. He's
just playing more, but the biggest difference is like he's
just making shots. And I was like, I caught myself
dismissing that as like, oh, well, he's just making more shots.
And then if you step back and try to think
about how fucking stupid that is to like dismiss a
guy that's just making baskets more frequently in your analysis,
like no, no, that's very good.
Speaker 3: You should try to make more shots. That's better on
offense than making fewer shots. He's just he's more efficient.
Like that's that's been the difference.
Speaker 2: Now whether where you fall on like, well that's sustainable
or isn't, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I guess that's in the eye of the beholder.
Speaker 2: But like I had to check myself because I was
ready to dismiss his production as well, he's just the
ball's going in, that's not going to continue, Like, well
why not. It's his third year and he's got a
big role for the first time since the rookie season,
and he's he's running with it. So like we you know,
I I definitely had to like push my priors out
of the way a little bit and just give him
the credit that he's earned. He's just if you're a
score first player and you're scoring more efficiently, like you're
doing your job, like that's that's a plus.
Speaker 3: We can't. I can't knock him for anything.
Speaker 1: Right and so yeah, so I guess that makes sense.
I do think so, yeah, you're you're looking at the
shot efficiency for sure. The finishing at the rim has
been incredible. It does feel like even when maybe he
has the ball for longer. There's just a quicker, smarter
decision maker in there. And that was one of our
biggest qualms where it's okay, like you need to catch
and decision make right away on this team because you're
not going to be breaking down these defenses. I think
he's done a much better job of that. He's passing
on a higher percentage of his drives and so that
shows me, and the assist rate is up, I believe too.
It's like, Okay, there's a little bit more of this
complex decision maker there. And again, is he what they
need defensively is a question because that ultimately comes down
to what this team needs the most. However, because of
how Tyre's Halberton has played this season, like Ben mcmatherins
become super important by the way, as is the other
positive I wanted to shout out here, Pascal Siakam is
ball and.
Speaker 3: He's been really good. He's been their best player.
Speaker 2: Like it's like Haliburton's at sixteen and eight, which for him,
those are great normally, but that's way below where we
were hoping he'd get forty percent from the field, under
thirty percent from three, Like he's just he has not
been on me.
Speaker 3: You could argue he's their.
Speaker 2: Most important player because the roleie plays. But Siakam twenty
seven and five on like a fifty forty plus split
like he's just been.
Speaker 3: He's been.
Speaker 2: He's been like an all star basically, and Haliburton just
has not played at that level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Pascal's having one point one to five
points out of post stuff, one point six four points
in transition and enjoying fouls like twenty five percent of
the time when he's in transition. He's been huge. The
Tyres Haliburton stuff is weird because I don't know how
much the back is impacting him. I also don't know
how much he's still trying to find a balance between
still being a central part of the offense and not
necessarily being it's all everything, and there's like some of
the stuff that feels clearly offense, like the efficiency. Do
you dismiss it? Are you concerned by it? Giving how
he closed or most of his clothes like coming back
from that hamstring injury last year. But this is something
that stands out to me. Last year, Grant thirty excuse me,
forty three point eight percent of his drives ended in
a field goal attempt or a foul this year that's
all the way down to thirty six percent, And so
it's just like there's more of a passive nature to
the way he's playing, and not in a good way.
And it also was coincided with I saw some people
in Kaitlyn Cooper Shaker at basketball. She wrote road a
fantastic piece earlier in the season where teams were, like,
the theory was, they're crashing the offensive glass like to
bring the Pacers closer to the basket so that they
can keep Indiana out of transition. And so when you
start to dig into that this season, Indiana is not
in transition nearly as much like the raw rankings as
they usually are. Last year. They're twenty second in transition
frequency right now as opposed to seventh last year. But
the margins so kind of different there, and they are
when you dig into just the average possession time, they're
still just near the top of the league like they're
I think they're fifth overall and average offensive possession time.
But there is something that just feels like it's a
tick or three slower about this offense overall. And I
do believe, to be fair that part of that is
just okay, Well, you have Pascal Siakam, Like that's someone
who's going to be more methodical with how he does
break down defenses. But the offense, and look, I say
all this, and as we record this, the Pacers offense
ranks twelfth in point score possession. So it's not dire.
But the issue is when you're gonna be a bottom
five ish defensive team, yeah, like you have to be
in the top five offensively basically, and they're not there
right now. And I would argue, yeah, there are other
contributing fact Miles Turner's been all over the place this
year another name that's been like he's shooting forty point
eight percent on his threes. But defensively, this is someone
who you don't trust to like make a ton of
rebounds anyway, but he just feels even less present on
certain possessions and he is at what is he averaging
is at seven point three boards per game six point
four defensively, I just his performances feel so up and
down more so than usual here. So there are other
contributing factors to why the Pacers might be here. But
it's also kind of all right, let's just say Andrew
Nemhart starts making more shots. Okay, great, and your center
depth is kind of obliterated. But it does kind of
come back to if your margin for error is that
thin to begin with, then it reinforces how important that
Tyre's Haliburton being peak Tyre's Haliburton is. And I'm struggling
how much to actually be concerned versus Well, if he's
dealing with a back thing, that's an explanation. But then again,
if he's dealing with a back thing, is that gonna
go away?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Is he just going to play his way out of it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the deal.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you brought up the defensive stuff because that
was the last piece of or the last little piece
of this that I was really struck by. So you know,
we understand the Pacers profile. You're dead on like, if
you're going to be this bad defensive, your offense has
to be equally, you know, just as good on the
other end to sort of break even or hope to
do better than that. Their defensive profile like take like
shot location data, Uh, you know, similar strengths weaknesses, like
all across the board, they basically look like the same
defense as a year ago, except they've been really lucky
that opponents are missing threes. So I do think like
there's downward mobility for this defense, which is like really
terrifying because the offense hasn't been as good to offset it.
So that feeds into my concern level is higher for
this team than any of the ones we've covered so far,
And it's partly because mainly because the defense just does
not look like it's gonna be like functional to the
level it would need to be, but also because like
this is a team that I don't think we did this,
but plenty of people said, like, well, who else is
in the top four in the East, or who's gonna
who's who can who can win a playoff round? Or
you know this is a conference finalist again? Can they
prove they're not the two anyone Hawks? And it's like,
man if Halliburton is not the first half of last
season Haliburton and if the defense is just as bad,
like I don't know, man, Like what is this.
Speaker 3: Is this just a play in team? Like are they
can they be?
Speaker 2: They're they're they're a five hundred team so far and
they've had bad injury luck on and on, but like
I'm not seeing the upside if the defense is gonna
be like this and the offense is not going to
be second best in the league or whatever it is,
or like one of the biggest stories of the early
season last year, which it was then what what kind
of ceiling are we talking about? And it's just to me,
it's just not nearly as high as maybe optimists would
have hoped.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't know, do you find any solace
in knowing? Okay, when you go through kind of what
their core lineups would be, some of them are like
league averager better on defense, and they're just notable net
pluses or just well, if you're kind of dependent on
these three or four makeups, we talked about margin for
error that you just don't have. And I also, I
don't like thinking this way, but I'm looking at how
well Benedic Matherne has played. This isn't a Ben I
want to make it, so, this isn't a Benedic Matherne
shortcoming thing, and I'm just wondering to this point it
has mattered, But how much better does this version of
Benanick Matherne make The version of the Pacers that we
saw last year? Because I don't think he's fixing again.
I think he's been better. I think he's been He's
had really good moments defensively. We saw some of those
last year before his shoulder injury. Like how much is
even his quote unquote breakout or his improvement elevating their
immediate ceiling? And I think some people would be inclined
to that might be where to close it here on them?
Is well, that just ups his trade value because this
team is ripe to make some sort of a consolidation trade.
I just find myself wondering, Okay, but like who's the
who's the guy? Because you could talk about like a
like the mid end swing would be like a Dorian
Phinney Smith type. That's not solving you rebounding. Is it
going to solve all your defensive issues? It gives you
probably like just a more competent wing stopper or someone
to move about the wings. Is this a team that
would go all in after giving up draft equity for
Pascal Siakam on someone else and kind of knowing maybe
some of their payroll realities moving forward. I don't have
the answer, and I think that's why my concern level
is high. Because I don't know they are capable of
doing many things from here. I want to make that
clear when you look at their assets, when you look
at how good some of their individual players are. But
when like, we don't have this extended sample since Tyres
Alburton's hamstring injury effectively of Tyre's Halburton being a player
we all believe him to be, it just throws me
for such a whirl. And it's look, this underscores how
good of a trade they made with Pascal Siakam though,
just because of how instrumental he has big to keeping
them afloat right now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, where are they without him? So my concern level
is an eight.
Speaker 2: It's just like because I just don't think the ceiling
is where we hope Slash thought Slash believed it might be.
And to your point, like, what are you going to
do to fit is a Miles Turner trade? Like I mean, look,
he's going to be a free agent, Like that's part
of it, But like, do you just need someone that's
going to anchor a defense in a different way and
control the boards and like all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: I would like? So I guess, but then who is
that I don't know, because now that you have Siakam,
you don't want to lose the spacing element all the time.
At least I know their backup centers weren't four spacers,
but you want to lose that spacing. So it's a
huge challenge. I mean, like Miles Turner can still be
a very like he can be an impactful guy around
the basket at the rim, like, he can be very good.
But is he overstretched? Is this a decline we're watching?
Like it just the all over the placeness, there's a
there's some verbiage for you of him. Is a little
concerning Grant. Let's talk some Pelicans. I think it's probably
time to have a brutally honest conversation about Zion Williamson,
their overall direction and where where they go from here?
Would you agree?
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I've been I feel like I've had
a version of this once a year probably where but
this one feels different, I think in a kind of
concerning way.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Zion Williamson out indefinitely with a hamstring strain.
The Pelicans have played Grant four hundred and one regular
season games since drafting him. That's quite a bit Zion
has appeared in one hundred and ninety of those games.
Put another way, he's missed more than fifty percent of
the games he's eligible to play in, and that's not
including any play it or postseason contest, which he has
not played in the actual postseason before. So that's that's
sort of the red flag. And why is this injury
different to me? My whole thing is my view on
Zion is this. I think at his peak he is
top ten, top fifteen player in the league. I think
he impacts the game to that extent. But we've gotten
to the point and maybe there were some missteps early
on by both him and the Pelicans, the way he
took care of his body, the latitude they gave him
to kind of work away from the team. You can
get into that. Everything we have heard schmid Duov in
the no has been all over this. There's been Christian
Clark has written about this. Zion has done a much
better job over the past two years of taking care
of his body, if you want to say, getting more serious,
and it's still just sort of betrayed him. And we've
now been operating under this assumption that, well, you're eventually
going to get peak Zion for an entire year or
once you get to the playoffs, and that's just your
ticket to contending for something special. Again. That's how highly
I viewed the peak Zion experience. And I don't think
that this is all on him or I don't even
know how much to ascribe to him his previous injury issues. However,
like you, we're kind of at the point and some
people may have already been there where it's you do
have to ask can you continue to build your entire
team around him? And then if the answers no, what
do you do? But also, whose fault is this just
sort of freak accidents that we're here, or is this,
you know, on the Pelicans for not doing a better
job of actually optimizing Zion when they had him, because
they were constantly waiting on what seeing Could this dynamic
between brandon Ingram or the rest of the roster just work?
And I think we should start there is do you
think they're at the point where they have to just
face facts and say it's not a matter of necessarily
we need to trade Zion, but we can't count on
him to be our primary tempole moving forward.
Speaker 2: I would say, coming into the last like three seasons
prior to this one. That was kind of my take
was that one, I don't know that you I don't
think that you can rely on him to stay healthy.
And two, even if he does, he's such a weird,
difficult player to build around that it just makes roster
construction tricky. It makes relying on him tricky because there's
sort of there's two versions of Zion.
Speaker 3: One is he's not available.
Speaker 2: And two is he can't shoot but needs the ball
and is really good at that. But what do you
do on both ends to like support him best? And
that's a hard question. I think we're probably there. I
just like I would I would parse the data a
little thinner and say, yeah, he's played one hundred and
ninety games. I would make the case that like ninety
of those were evidence that, oh, this is a guy
you build around. And talking about the sixty one games
of his second year, when he averaged twenty seven and
had shot sixty one percent from the field, then missed
the entire subsequent season and gave us twenty nine more
games in twenty two to twenty three at twenty six
points a game, shot just over sixty percent from the field.
Speaker 3: That's ninety total games. Those are both all star seasons.
Speaker 2: That's it before like his rookie year played twenty four,
was not at that level. Last year, even was as
healthy as he's ever been seventy games, wasn't at that level.
Averaged just under twenty three, not over sixty percent from
the field, And that's an insane bar, right sixty percent
from the field. But if you don't shoot threes, then
you actually don't get to the line as much as
like someone like him probably should.
Speaker 3: Still has high seven just under eight attempts a game.
Speaker 2: That's good, But like if you're not at that level
those ninety games I'm talking about for Zion, then like, yeah,
you can't make that guy your be all end all
like that, just it's not he's not available enough and
he's not quite good enough. And throw the defense and
rebounding stuff in there too. We're just talking offense to
this point. To make Kim the guy you you like
can build around in a way that feels stable or
you know, or feels like you can make a three
to five year plan, Like I don't. I just don't
see how that works from like a decision making standpoint,
And and like, look all the other injuries up and
down the roster just make it like, well, okay, well yeah,
who knows, who knows what this would have looked like
if he'd been healthy. But you know what I mean, Like,
I think it's just the two prong thing, the unavailability
and the the uniqueness of his game is just that's
a hard That's always been the case, right, He's always
been a hard guy to build around. Now it just
maybe like we got to stop trying.
Speaker 1: So I think that's where it will diverge, is because
I would agree they have to stop trying, because I
think the unavailability, the turbulence of it all is like
you need some zemblance, some stability there. But where I
keep coming back to is at what point like even
peak Zo, Like look at what he did last year
before he was injured in that playoff game. That was
like Zion. That was peak Zion on defense too, because
I know you mentioned there are defensive concerns, but like
we had an extended stretch ever since the mid season
tournament which was not known as the Emirates Cup by
that point, like he was just locked in in a
way that we hadn't seen before. But the team still
wasn't built to optimize him. I'm not saying he was
thriving in spite of them, because they still gave him
the keys of the offense. But you're talking about you
mentioned that he's a very unique specific fit. I don't
disagree with you. But is that breaking news?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: But I mean that's that's been that's been my concern,
like from the jump almost like it's not breaking news,
but they nobody has. So maybe I'll put it to
you this way. What and it's kind of rhetorical because
we've talked about it, but like what is the type
of team you put around Zion Williamson if if healthy?
Like what is it just five out shooters defenders?
Speaker 1: Yes? And they've never done that, which is just so
like even there he played like look at the center
position as sort of the barometer for this he's played
with like of the most notable Like they've had Steven Adams,
they've had Yonis Valentjudis, and now they have like who
the fuck ever? Like it's just yeah, we've seen like
great moments from Mecie and then Daniel Tice's is on there.
So this season they come into was that their idea
of like, well, now we're finally going to lean into
this smaller, versatile style. But here's just heres where I diverge.
And so this year there's a lot of noise caked in.
But ever since Zion was drafted grand they have ranked
better than twenty third in three point to tenth G
eight only once that was in twenty nineteen twenty twenty,
and so ever since then, like they've just hovered consistently,
mostly in the bottom five, but really around the bottom seven.
And even when you get into personnel specific and let's
look at let's look at last year. So during the
minutes that he played with CJ. McCullum and Trey Murphy,
so just those two because those were clearly their two
best Jordan Hawkins didn't have a huge role. And when
you're looking at three point volume, like those are the
guys who could get it up. Those lineups with Zion
plus their two best shooters still ranked in the thirty
second percent pile of three point volume. So you have
never assembled the type of team that is going to adequately.
Even if you think they're space in the floor, it's oh,
we have Larry Nance and Herb Jones is hitting his screens. Okay, awesome.
You have never once modeled your offense to a t
like it was built to exist around Zion. And I
don't know who this isn't? Is that? Is that Willy
Green's fault? Is it David Griffin's fault? Is it Zion's
Body's fault? Because did the Pelicans feel like look even
during this season. Okay, they downsized, definitely felt more dynamic
on offense, but they weren't necessarily built. I mean we're
seeing it now like they weren't. I mean Trey Murphy
and CJ. McCollum with Jordan Hawkins, they weren't all available
at once. But the three point volume has been just
ridiculously low. Once again, you never built your team in
the image like Zion was your ten pole, And I
guess do you attribute that to because they felt like
they couldn't and so they were constantly trying to toe
the line of all right, we need to be at
a point where yes, Zion can be peakd Zion with
this group and will still be really good. We also
need to figure out a way to exist without him.
I want to know your answer, but my pushback would be,
when have they done? They had that rollicking playoff series
against the Suns. Like, if you're going to go into
when was brandon Ingram just like this incredible central and
this I'm not insulting brandon Ingram here, it's just when
did brandon Ingram ever look like, Okay, well, that's just
someone who is going to run the show when Zion
missus is twenty to thirty games a year whatever, it
might be more than that. So did you ever even
if they were trying to strat of the line, I
guess is my question, did they even build a team
that made sense conceptually to do that?
Speaker 3: That's really interesting.
Speaker 2: I think my first thought is, I wonder if and
you brought it up as one of the like possible explanations,
has the front office just decided like, let's we can't
we can't build around this guy. You know, we can't
build this custom fitted, you know, bespoke kind of roster
for Zion that would he would need to be optimized, right, Like,
we can't do it because we don't know if he's
gonna be there, So we have to sort of otherwise
kind of make make an effort to build like a
quote unquote normal team. But then, like the pushback against
that is like you sort of haven't because normal teams
shoot more threes and normally you know what I mean.
Like that, there's just they haven't really done either. They
haven't clearly they absolutely have not put the you know,
the theoretical best possible roster around him. I think Brandon
Ingram is sort of like the representative of that, like, oh,
these two stars don't fit Toget.
Speaker 3: It's not just that Ingram isn't a good fit.
Speaker 2: It's that it's really hard to find a good fit
for Zion, Like everybody wants three and D players at
the other four positions, so like that's part of it.
But but I just, yeah, I can't argue with you,
they haven't built the right kind of team around him.
I'm hesitant to like really pile on though, because if
you look at Okay, he gave us twenty four games
as a rookie, I think if you were gonna do it,
if you were gonna if there was a moment where
you were gonna build the optimal team around him, it
would have had to happen. And at some point in
his second year where he's showing you I'm the guy
look at and they put the ball in his hands
like way more frequently in that during that second year,
and that's when he really exploded and you could see
the vision of what a Zion Williamson centric team could
look like. And then he missed the entire next season.
So like there was a tiny window where I think
the Pelicans would have been justified in having confidence that
they could build around this guy and make the roster
decisions that were necessary to maximize him. And that window
shut when he missed all of twenty one to twenty
two and then played twenty nine games the following year.
And at that point, well, maybe you don't pay him
what they paid him, although they did get some incentives
into that contract or some well I don't know what
you would call them, but like the weight clause and protections. Yeah,
so I'm inclined to give New Orleans like a little
not a pass, but like I can understand why you
didn't go full bore, let's trade everything. We have to
surround him with space, defense, whatever, because like and and
you know what, they might have been right, because here
we are you know and I don't, and we're both
saying you can't trust him as a guy to build
around anymore. That said, you kind of wasted half a
decade of your franchise by not trying it. But still,
you know, that's not really an answer. That's just kind
of my my like trying to understand the Pelican side
of it, which may not be a popular position.
Speaker 1: I guess I can't understand the Pelican side of it
as well, because I do think you're right, like the
specificity of his fit and what you would need around
him to optimize him, coupled with okay, the injury history
and didn't make it difficult on them. But I just
looking at the theory of these teams, it feels like
a run of is half measures the word to like
even the Dejenttey Murray trade, which we both liked. I
think that's someone that could have been involved in more
two man actions with Zion than necessarily a brandon Ingram
who credit to brandon Ingram is three point attempts for
up this year, but we've been calling for for like
three or four years, and we've seen him put up
more threes in the past, which is why it was
so infuriating. But like it was Jonte Murray, like it
was sub all star level. This team has been and
you could argue they've never been good or healthy enough
to say we we're just gonna go balls to the
wall and cash in all our assets and go into
the tax At the same time you need to, I
guess I'm just going to see what their theory ever
was then, because it felt like, Okay, we're not willing
to go all in on this guy. Okay, fine, but
then you built teams plural that didn't make sense with
him is the number two, the number whatever you viewed him?
That didn't make sense as well. We're trying to be
good independent of Zion or with Zion as this star compliment.
And it does seem like they were trying to go
towards the ladder because it took a while on a
couple occasions for them to recommend like, oh, no, Zion
needs the ball, that's when we're at our best, and
the amount of times, the amount of that we discussed
that that, well, why isn't until they got there just
leads me to believe that, Okay, they were trying to
do the kind of straddle of the two existences where
he's still the star, but they're just better. From a
acro perspective, and if that's the route you're gonna go,
I'm not saying it's easy, but you're gonna need to
point me to the move that made the most sense
in the in the image of that team that they
were trying to build.
Speaker 2: Then it's it's basically I would point to two drafting
Trey Murphy and drafting Jordan Hawkins, like there's there's two
that like.
Speaker 3: Got it, that that works.
Speaker 1: Here's my issue with that. Those two guys, barring injuries,
weren't gonna start that.
Speaker 2: Right because well, and that's because to build on like
we like the.
Speaker 3: Murray trade, but like I don't know, like that's.
Speaker 1: Not he's like the Murray trade. I want to be clear,
I thought it was a good value.
Speaker 3: McCollum is not a great fit. We've talked about Ingram's
not a great fit. Jonas Valencunas is just.
Speaker 2: Like in the way you know, like they they you
you're right, Like they have made moves that are almost
like you would almost say like these are like the
opposite of trying to get the best version of this
Zion led team, you know, trying to find it right
because like McCollum doesn't defend and he wants to shoot
off the dribble, great three point shoot or two, but
like that's just you just need more Trey Murphy types,
I guess, or like Michale Bridges types, or just like
the kind of player that everybody wants and they've got
guys that are way far off of that, you know,
prototype right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I guess then it comes back to though, Okay,
is it? So? I viewed through the lens of the
big man situation specifically because are we taught? Were there
only like three to five bigs that would have ever
like it's Chris tops porzingis, it's Brook Lopez, It's not
this version of Miles Turner, but like the they were
trying to trade for him or and they were linked
him for how many seasons? And then after that it's okay,
like they were never gonna get Chet Holme grid is. Yeah,
Chet Holmegrin works. But I also just kind of wonder, like,
could you've gone a route where like should they have
been a team that was really more in like seeing
what's up with Karl Anthony Towns? Okay, like the defense,
but like that's someone who fits So were they not
did they not Branch out enough from this, because it
does feel like they were, because even I think you
could have gone with more of a vertical threat to
where it's that was never Valentunia's kind of groundbound. Steven
Adams very physical, but like a Jared Allen was the
name that I think. I don't even know if the
Pelicans were linked to them so much as their fans
and analysts were smart enough to mention him, but like
they never went that route to where it was let's
get a more dynamic center. It was either going to
make quick decisions or he's just gonna be able. We
could run a bunch of inverted pick and rolls then,
or not invitual big picking rolls. Excuse me, Yeah, so
I like I just the more I think about it is, Yes,
this is Zion's availability as a problem, the uniqueness we'll
call it, of a skill set, or the tough to
fit aspect of a skill set a problem. But I
honestly think it's a larger issue that when you go
back and look and even feeling in the moment when
we felt and everyone knows, I'm higher on the Pelicans
than most Traditionally, you go back and you look and
it's well they never committed to like giving their team
around Zion. It's macro identity to even when it was
like all Zion, it wasn't necessarily optimized to be all Zion.
And then when it wasn't all Zion, it was never
maximized to be that either. And I just don't know how.
But I don't know. There's more than one party to
blame here. It's so complicated. But my question to you
now is Grant, we've recognized that you can't that he's
not the guy like he because he can't beat Is
he the guy at his peak and healthy? Maybe, but
he's never going to be at his peak and healthy
long enough. That is the That's not the assumption. That
is just the facts that we know. Now. So you're
the Pelicans. Where do you go from here?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: I mean your options are you got two? Well three options? Uh?
Speaker 2: One trade Zion. I mean that's just like I don't
know what that looks like. I don't know what the
market is, I don't know what the ass reasonable asking
price is. Two is you start trying to trade other
people like I guess you look at Ingram first. And
that's since this contract status being what it is and
that's been part of the rumor mill forever.
Speaker 3: And I guess, like what three is?
Speaker 2: You just wait and you hope that all these guys
come back, and you try to get a really good
look at this specific team in let's say it takes
six weeks for Zion to be back, and and that
kind of lines up. You know you'll have Murphy. Maybe
that that gives you a window before it's too late
in a difficult west to like, you know, be above
the play in Frey. A trade is fascinating and it's
really interesting to think about like all the other pieces
on this team with somebody else or a bunch of
picks and flexibility. I guess you gotta a massive salary
coming back to make the money match. Obviously, I kind
of I hate this, but like personally, I think I
waited out. I think I think you've got to just
you know the time, the ingram, you know clock is
ticking obviously because you risk losing him in free agency.
But I think you know you made some significant move
you bring Murray in, like you you you give Trey
Murphy the money you paid herb Jones last summer or
too anyway like that we haven't even mentioned Herb Jones.
I felt obliged to mention him injured.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just assume they're injured.
Speaker 2: Shoulder injury for Herb like of course, freak injury too.
It's not just like the Zion, Oh you can't stay healthy.
It's like Gemsky dove on her Jones's shoulder. Well the
Albarado now injured do It's it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I think, I wait, I think, I wait. And if we.
Speaker 2: Get through this season and it's the status quo, like
Zion's not healthy again, or it's clear the fit isn't there,
then maybe you start thinking drastically. Uh. It's just hard
for me to see trading Zion, which is an option
I guess as like the cleanest way to go at
least right now.
Speaker 1: I would say, you're I'm gonna explain to you why
you're wrong. I'm just look, I would trade Zion just
because I don't know what the value would be. I mean,
it would be an interesting if you just said, to Milwaukee,
we'll give you Zion and the picks back that we control,
so top the top four of this year, so they
could tank if they wanted to. And then I think
they have to control over their next two would you
give us the honest if you honest like that? But
I think the move needs to be like, this is
a gap year. This year is done. Prioritize drumming up
your lottery odds. And you have Zion mostly because his
value might be at its near or so complicated. You
have Trey Murphy, you have herb Jones. Everyone else is expendable.
Get what you can for them so that you're not
tempted to run this back together. Because look, this team
isn't gonna pay the tax. They are thirty million dollars
under the tax next year, committed to ten players. That's
not most notably including Brandon Ingram's next deal, and so
at the bare minimum. I think you move on from
him to get what you and I think brandon Ingram
is a good player. I think he's done some adjusting
this year, but it's it's time to it's time to
be bad this year on purpose, give up on this year,
get rid of players, get what you can for them.
I'm not I know that we're not big sellers for
sellers sake, but brandon Ingram is going into free agency,
so do you want to call his bluff? And is
he is he not going to get paid anything in
free agency that would that would be quite the gamble.
And then you reevaluate over the offseason when you see
who you wind up with in the draft, and if
you're serious about Zion being the one, the two, the three,
then you got to consider actually moving that pick for
someone who makes a zemblance of sense with whatever version
team that you're whatever team you're trying to build right now.
And so I think this year needs to be about that,
and then they can go through the Zion existential crisis
of it all a little bit more over over the
off season.
Speaker 2: I think that's right, and I would just acknowledge how
bizarre slash concerning it is that we're we're looking at
twenty five, twenty six, that's when we're gonna really that'll
be zion seventh year in the NBA, like as we're
just trying to get started with the right team around him.
If you hang like that's like we're I mean, that's
the better part of a decade at that point that
the Pelicans will have been trying and failing to like
figure it out, which is yeah, I mean, if if
you've if you struggled for that long, it's hard to
be optimistic. You're gonna solve it, you know, in the
last three years of the decade. That's gonna do it.
For this episode, I hope it wasn't too bleak. Thanks
everybody for listening, for watching. If you're checking us out
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Speaker 3: It's going to do it.
Speaker 2: We'll be back with you again recording later this week
to go upportably after that, Wells has
Speaker 3: Always shouts Frank nel keenan apologies, carry down