Howard Beck
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast on a Tuesday morning where it was obviously a tragic night in sports and quite an unusual night in the NBA. And to help us talk about the NBA and all the stuff that happened last night and all the stuff that's going to happen in the next two months and all the stuff that he predicts is going to happen in the summer, some of which he'll be right about, some of which he'll be wrong about. It is time.

to say the three most important words in NBA podcasting, the three most anticipated words in NBA podcasting. What up, Beck? What up, Zach? Happy New Year. I think you forgot the niche, niche NBA podcasting, right? Not just any. Now we're on YouTube. Now we're on YouTube. It's not niche anymore. We're going mainstream. We're going blockbuster. We're going blockbuster. And it's fitting that, you know, what up, Beck, is featured.

an homage to Kobe Bryant, who I overheard saying those words to you back in the pizza lockout of 2011. It's fitting that we open with Kobe today because the headliner from last night in the NBA was not Klay Thompson's 54-point outburst, not Zion Williamson's injury, not Joel Embiid's 42.14 rebound, not even outburst, that's just a game. It's like barely even gets any notice.

is Donovan Mitchell. Donovan freaking Mitchell. Without Evan Mobley, without Darius Garland, not to mention Dean Wade, everyone's favorite NBA accountant, Ricky Rubio, all the key players that have been missing the whole year or part of the year for Cleveland. Donovan Mitchell, 71 points and 11 assists to combine to contribute to 99 of Cleveland's whatever amount of points they scored overall.

In an overtime victory over the Bulls, the second straight heartbreaker the Bulls, who need every win they can get, have suffered against Cleveland after, in fairness, two crazy clutch wins. One over Atlanta when Ayo D'Soumnu fell on top of John Collins after a buzzer beater and the whole team celebrated on top of poor John Collins. And then against the Knicks when the Knicks missed a gazillion free throws and DeMar DeRozan won it with a jumper. Bulls, that's why you can't be under .500 against bad teams.

Beat the bad teams and you don't have to worry about these heartbreakers. Donovan Mitchell, Howard Beck, 29 points a game, 5 assists, 5 rebounds on 49% shooting, 41% overall on threes, 56% on twos. The Cavs are plus 5 with Mitchell on the floor and Darius Garland on the bench. That was one of the big appeals, obviously, of pairing two guards together.

The fit has been pretty complimentary from day one. Darius Garland has clearly deferred to Donovan Mitchell to combine shooting and playmaking. There's no weakness on or off the ball for either one. They fit well, but we both, once we saw the score, went back and watched this game, um,

What a, I mean, there's just, the guy scored 71 points. What else is there to say? He just kept on scoring like another step back. He's going to shoot another step back. Oh my God, another. And then they're going to foul him. He just kept on scoring and scoring and scoring. And what struck out to me was the 11 assists, I think are indicative of at no point in that game, including in crunch time, when he seemed to score on every trip, did I feel like, well, he's monopolizing the offense in a way that is,

Not unhealthy considering his production, but just sort of selfish. I never thought that. In fact, in the last minute of regulation, he had two assists to Jared Allen for big baskets that preceded the clear Donovan Mitchell lane violation putback of his own free throw, which do you care that it was a lane violation? The Bulls are going to care and the Bulls are going to yell and scream. So my number one comment to the Bulls is, number one, I don't hang the last two-minute report down.

in your locker room if you want. You're 6-8 against below 500 teams. You just had two crazy crunch time wins two weeks ago that were like borderline improbable at best. And try boxing out Donovan Mitchell. How about that, Patrick Williams? Try boxing out Donovan Mitchell. But boy, oh boy, 71 points. That's one of those ones you look at the box score, even though you know how many points you scored before you look at the box score, and you just look. You're like, that's a 7. That doesn't even make sense.

Doesn't even make sense. This was one of those nights in the NBA where you realize later that you have made a grave error in judgment because I decided to amble over to Nets Spurs at Barclays last night because, you know, I live close. The Spurs hadn't been here yet this year and I want to go say hi to some people, make the rounds and bumped into some other people and was hanging out. It's not until I'm getting on the subway home.

That I'm seeing Twitter lighting up and I'm realizing, oh, I have made a grave error. I should have been home on my couch watching league pass. Stop being a reporter and going to things. Just sit on the couch.

And that, so I did, I went back to at least to rewatch fourth quarter and overtime. And then that got interrupted because while I'm doing that, Twitter's lighting up with the Warriors and Clay. And I'm like, oh, wait a minute. I got to see that because that was still going on live. So then I had to pause the replay of Donovan Mitchell so I could watch Clay and Jordan Poole and all the craziness that went on in that game. But I was struck by the same thing you were, Zach. Donovan Mitchell, and I do not mean this to be

Any kind of slighter judgment toward Devin Booker. I was totally in favor of Devin Booker chasing that 70 years ago. I didn't, it didn't bother me in the least when Devin Booker did this, but I just want to make this point. Donovan Mitchell's 71 last night, there was nothing about it that felt like he was chasing it or forcing it.

You pointed out the assists and obviously this is total and it's the biggest assist total ever for anybody who's ever scored 70 plus. So that speaks to it. Now, part of that's obviously the overtime, but it was most assists by, by a large margin in a 70 plus game. It, it just came within the flow. It, nothing looked forced, nothing looked like he was chasing. He did it because they needed the points to win. He made the right plays. He was spectacular, whether he was driving to the basket, whether it was a step back three, you,

Couple floaters, like whatever it was, it all, it all seemed like the right play in the moment. So I, you know, times like this, I'm so thankful for basketball reference and stat head so we can run all these fun little searches, but yeah,

You know, there's been 12 plus or 12 games of 70 plus, right? Six of them by Wilt Chamberlain alone and one by David Robinson. So these are a bunch of guys who did this much closer to the basket. And when scoring happens like this now in today's NBA and guys get a record, oh, well, they've got the benefit of the three. You know what?

For decades, guys had the benefit of being super tall and super big and being very close to the basket, often with people who could not guard them anywhere near there. Well, also, for decades, guys had the benefit of the three and...

because they weren't practiced enough at the shot or teams weren't smart enough to understand that three is 50% more points than two, they didn't take advantage of it. So boo-hoo to them. Yeah, if you want to grade Steph Curry on a curve for his career scoring because of all the threes...

How about the level of difficulty of shooting those threes versus the level of difficulty of shooting twos from inside the paint? Like I'm not diminishing either one, by the way, I'm just saying, I don't want to hear people saying, Oh, well, he had the benefit of the three and they didn't back in the past. I don't care. Um, he also had 20 free throws, not, not for nothing. You know, like that, that was a huge chunk of this. Um,

11 assists. The most assists prior to that in a 70 point plus game was was Devin Booker. The previously mentioned Devin Booker was six. David Robinson had five. Kobe had two in his 81. And he did have Donovan Mitchell seven threes ties for the most in a 70 plus game with with Kobe. But I just every aspect of it was amazing. Twenty two for thirty four from the field.

That was the fourth best field goal percentage in a 70-plus game behind David Thompson, Wilt, and Wilt. Every aspect of this, no matter how you break it down, was just absolutely spectacular. So here's the East standings right now. We're taping this Tuesday morning. Boston, 26-11.

Brooklyn has won 12 in a row. Talked a lot about them the last couple weeks in every format possible. Just an incredible turnaround. 25-12. The Bucs, 23-13, which means they're one game over after a 9-0 start.

Offense still stinks. Yon is still taking way too many jumpers. We'll talk about the Bucs in a second. Cavs 24-14. Sixers quietly sneaking up now 22-14. It's getting very crowded 1-5. And my God, that is a fun 1-5. And that 4-5 series in the East, whoever it ends up being, is going to be a bloodbath and absolutely must watch.

And maybe Cleveland's in it. Maybe Cleveland's not in it. But obviously, I love the trade for Donovan Mitchell the minute it happened. They had a ready-made nucleus around him, which is why you can pay full freight for a guy like Donovan Mitchell. And they did, by the way. They traded a guy who may be an all-star in the Western Conference this year in addition to all their picks and swaps and all that. And Donovan Mitchell has more than lived up to expectations. This is the best he's ever played.

First sustained period of a season. Obviously, he's had some incredible playoff series. This is why you trade for star players who are 25, 26, 20. He's 26, I think, because they're still on the come up. This is why you pair two star scoring guards who can both shoot and playmake, even though maybe they're too small. Maybe the fit on defense is imperfect because they are explosive enough and complimentary enough to

To score around some of the bleh spacing that's kind of baked into the Evan Mobley, Jared Allen. And then you throw in Okoro who can't shoot and Lamar Stevens who can't shoot. They can manage within that while you figure out.

How to optimize the rest of your roster around him. That's what stars do. They win games when two of the core four are out, as was the case last night. The incredible thing is Donovan Mitchell is averaging 29, five and four. And I read the shooting numbers. He can't crack the top five in MVP. It's like, who am I supposed to put him over? Jokic? Who's breaking the NBA? Tatum?

Durant, Luka, Embiid, Giannis. Donovan Mitchell's like, is he capping out at seventh in MVP voting? Like, it's just ridiculous how good these individual seasons are. He might have to average 71 points for the rest of the season to crack the top five in MVP. I mean, this is a year where we don't have to go down the whole MVP rabbit hole, but this is a year where... No, no, I filled up the rabbit hole. I'm going to dig it out in like...

February 1, I'm going to unbury the rabbit hole. The rabbit is buried. He's not coming. The groundhog, whatever animal pops out of the ground, he's not coming out until February on the low post podcast anyway. No, leave them all there. The MVP, this might be a record for the earliest the MVP discussion has annoyed me because grievances were already being aired in December about outcomes that are five, six months away. Just, my gosh. No, but, you know, look, if the Cavs,

Make a big push if the Cavs finish close to the top of the East and Donovan Mitchell's still putting up numbers like this on high efficiency, like he'll be in the discussion. A lot of this may come down to, you know,

how the standings pan out to the extent that the standings still matter. And I believe they do. But the East, to your point, really crowded at the top. This is the best case scenario for it being crowded at the top minus one outlier, which is still the Miami Heat, who are starting to come around and maybe they'll still get to the top six. I was going to say the Heat had their full team essentially last night.

For the first time in ages, they beat the Clippers, who, of course, didn't have their full team, which is just the same thing as saying they played the Clippers. And I'm going to write about this on Friday, but...

I don't think Bam Adebayo and Tyler Hero have gotten enough credit for their seasons this year. Both of them have made leaps in very important ways. Not like gigantic, like superstar chasm leaps, but important incremental improvements in multiple skill sets.

And for a team that's had guys, including Hero for a bit early in the season, just constantly in and out of the lineup, they have been absolute stalwarts. Tyler Hero has made multiple game winners, but beyond that, his numbers and the polish of his game has jumped off the charts. Bam is bam. Jimmy went to get a little second opinion on his knee, I think was reported in Los Angeles before they played the Clippers, and they played well.

He hasn't been the same. He hasn't just been available. He's been very good when he's played, but they're coming around. But they got a long way to go to catch these teams. But yeah, the top five in the East is stacked right now.

And, you know, this is where you thought it could go. But you and I, I think, you know, had kind of the same feeling about the Nets before the season started. And we're going to talk about them, I'm sure, along the way here anyway. But that, you know, highest potential upside and highest potential volatility. And you didn't know which way it was going to go. And at a certain point early in the season, before they fired Nash and while Kyrie was suspended and all that other stuff.

It looked like it was possibly going the other way. And lo and behold, here they are 12 wins in a row later, just crushing everybody. And so they've made it that much more interesting. And the Sixers had kind of a wonky start, but they've come around and the Cavs aren't going anywhere and the Heat are starting to, you know, seemingly catch their stride. And so,

I don't know if it's a six team race, but it might be. It's at minimum, it feels like a legit five team race. I can't discount any of those teams. It's amazing. It's awesome. Now, as someone who picked Milwaukee to win the title this year, the last eight weeks of Milwaukee Bucks basketball has been somewhat troubling to me. Again, they're 23 and 13 after starting nine and oh, and Bill Simmons, my old boss, current friend and colleague and all that,

Had a little mention on the Bill Simmons podcast, which is mostly about the NFL, so I didn't understand a lot of what he was talking about, about the Bucs being a mess and there being some weird stories floating around about chemistry issues. And that set off alarm bells in my head because Bill was plugged in and Bill was the first one to have the Mark Lassery is looking around. Maybe it's selling his stake in the team.

which was linked to the new Suns guy. And I'm not sure that story's over either, by the way. So I poked around a little bit when those comments came out. And I guess my takeaway for now would be, I don't see any blaring alarm bells in the way that Bill does, or the way that Bill's words imply that he might, he went, he quickly switched topics and didn't elaborate on it. I think it seems to be more like just mid-season frustration, doldrums of Middleton's hurt,

Drew's been sick constantly. He's been like, he just keeps getting non-COVID illnesses and missing games.

And it's leaving Giannis to sort of carry everything. And then Giannis didn't play the other night and they didn't have any of their three stars. And they're losing games and they're getting frustrated. And no one likes losing. It seems to me like sort of injury, frustration, losing. Middleton's had a bunch of little setbacks along the way after the wrist thing, which was a surprise to begin with when they discovered that his wrist needed more serious surgery. Then they thought, I'm still sort of just going to freeze it and say, yeah,

Whenever Middleton is back, whether it's two weeks, three weeks, one week, four, I don't know. I'm not messing around with Chris Middleton time tables at this point. If he can just stay back and essentially begin his season and we get to see them healthy and whole again,

I think those things will just go away. This seems like just sort of run-of-the-mill midseason losing frustration to me. But if there are just like sort of continuous setbacks and the team just never is what it's supposed to be, then it might get interesting. But the Bucs just haven't been that good. I'm just kind of like, eh, you know, I mean, wake me up when they have their full team. But the East around them is...

It's getting kind of interesting. For sure. I don't want to strain this particular comparison too much, but I feel about the Bucs the same way I feel about the Warriors. These are very different cases and the Warriors struggles are much more pronounced, especially on the road. But I feel the same way when a team has won a championship very recently in the case of the Warriors just several months ago and then the Bucs, the championship before that. I don't

I don't react. I don't even say overreact. I don't even react half the time to anything that happens. They've lost three in a row, whatever they lost five in a row, whatever I I'm not, these are not things that worry me. It's the same basic personnel with the bucks who won the championship. Giannis is still Giannis. The one thing that we always were concerned about with that team, even as they were winning that championship was, well, how long is the window when you've got guys, the age and or mileage of, and or health history of Brooke Lopez, Chris Middleton, drew holiday. And, and,

was the supporting cast going to stay sound? And that's been an issue. That has clearly been an issue. And that can mess up your chemistry just by all the comings and goings and not knowing who you've got and having to readjust to a guy being gone and then he's back. But they're still 23 and 13. Giannis is still playing at an MVP level. There's nothing about the Bucs that I'm going to be too alarmed about unless they go on like a 10-game bender. They'll be fine. I'm with you.

This episode is brought to you by Experian. Are you paying for subscriptions you don't use but can't find the time or energy to cancel them? Experian could cancel unwanted subscriptions for you, saving you an average of $270 per year and plenty of time. Download the Experian app. Results will vary. Not all subscriptions are eligible. Savings are not guaranteed. Paid membership with connected payment account required. Let's talk about Clay for a second. Boy, rough morning for the Clay's Washed Up.

Clay will never be the same. Clay can't do this. Clay can't do that. You know, wake up, check basketball reference. Oh, Clay's averaging 20 a game and shooting 38.5% on threes. He's still a five alarm fire everywhere he goes. He still draws multiple panicked defenders. Clay's open. Clay's open running around the floor. Still Clay Thompson. Just like in the finals in the playoffs last year, you look at the basketball reference. Okay. 19 a game, 38% shooting on threes. See,

Seems pretty good. And I said this on NBA Today rather passionately a couple months ago. Like, this angst about Klay's not the same. Klay looks a little half-step slow on defense. Yeah, no. He tore his ACL and he tore his Achilles. Like, what do people think is going to happen? And I keep saying this, like...

You can focus on the fact that the second greatest shooter of all time is like a little bit worse than he used to be. How about you flip it around and say the second greatest shooter of all time is still an incredible shooter and a massively important contributor averaging 20 points per game on a team that just won the championship on a team that is now six and three since Steph Curry got injured is one five in a row just scored 54 points last night and

After tearing his ACL and his Achilles in consecutive years and missing two full seasons of basketball. Like, I said this even last year during the playoffs when there was all this sort of drilling down on what Klay couldn't do as well anymore. I'm like, am I the insane person who's like, I think it's kind of good that this guy's averaging 20 a game on 38% shooting from three given his injuries. And now he keeps...

Kind of settling into the season. And for me, the turning point was I remember being in a car back from Barclays on November 18th and watching in the car Warriors-Knicks. And that was after Clay had had a couple bad games. It might have been around the time of the Barkley comments. I don't remember.

And what stood out immediately to me watching that game and what Steve Kerr talked about afterwards and Draymond Green talked about afterwards was he stopped forcing it. He would come flying off pin downs and instead of like dribbling into fadeaway twos or popping contested threes, let me just bounce it to Kevon Looney and keep the machine moving. And what happened was when you keep that machine moving,

The machine often spits the ball back to Klay Thompson for a better three, a better shot than he would have gotten otherwise. And the more he did that, the more it sort of became just a self-fulfilling cycle of, oh, that's going to happen. I'm going to get it back. And then it just started clicking. And in that game, it clicked. And since then, he's been pretty much like what you could expect Klay to be. I'm an unabashed Klay fan. I think...

What he's done to me since these two injuries has exceeded expectations. You visited with him earlier this season for a wonderful piece on SI. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that piece and just sort of your reflections on watching Clay put up 54 last night in an absolutely bonkers situation.

Double overtime win that included Dejounte Murray playing the part of Vlade Divac and tipping the ball out to Dante DiVincenzo playing the part of Robert Ori for the game tying three at the end of regulation. Uh,

Ah, I almost tweeted that YouTube link to that play. Just, I was going to do a, just going to leave this here, or I was going to say, here's a replay of DeJounte Murray tapping the ball out. But then post Vlade and Ori, I almost, almost did it last night, but I was too busy trying to catch up with that game. And then Donovan Mitchell, thank you for, for making that reference. So I'm not the only one who feels really old.

It's the first thing I thought of. It's like you tip out that rebound and you – I can just imagine the horror that you feel like I've made the right play. I've tipped out. It's like trying to knock down a Hail Mary as a defensive player. Like it's the right play. It's where everyone tells you, oh, no. Oh, no.

oh no oh to this day vlade will tell you he made the he made the right play uh and of course vlade after that that one the whole thing press conference afterward and i was of course there for that game and vlade does the whole it was a look shot it's a look shot anybody can make that shot and then robert or he came to the podium and said uh responding to that uh said he needs to pick up a newspaper or something which i've always appreciated the endorsement of newspapers from yeah um

Yeah. Wild game. Amazing game from Clay. And I'm with you. Love watching Clay. Love what Clay is about. Hard not to root for somebody who is the makeup and the dedication and the passion and the pride of this guy and who has gone through what he's gone through and has built his way back and has methodically come back. And we remember that game last season before he came back. Remember, he's not even back a full season yet or a full year yet, right? Like it was January of last season that he returned.

After two and a half years off two and a half years and two of the most serious injuries you can have. And we all remember that game, there was a post game where he had the towel over his head because he still wasn't playing, and he was just really emotional. Like there's nobody who cares about this stuff more like there are other guys who care obviously a lot, but you will not find anybody who cares more about the game and winning and their part in it and their part in history is as clay.

And yeah, I visited with them a few weeks back. They were on the Eastern Conference swing and then the back to get back games in New York, which were a disaster for them. But I met up with him several days before when they were in Philly just to chat about the road he's traveling and this next stage. Because even then, he comes back last season and he had some really strong performances in the postseason and in their championship run, but he still wasn't all the way back. And in June, when I spoke to him,

I had a few minutes with him between games when I was working on something bigger. And I was asking about like what this portends for the next season, meaning this season. And he was talking about, I'm going to be an all-star again. And so I wanted to catch up with him because he's, he's starting to look like himself as we catch up in December and he's on this nice stretch and he's had this amazing game. I think the 10, three point game against the Rockets a couple of weeks before and

And he's starting to find a stride and he had a really nice game in that, that went against the Celtics. And I think some really nice defensive moments as well. And so all of that. And then I was told about this, this thing that was hanging in his locker. And it was a clip from the San Francisco Chronicle that, that showed the 26 faces of the 26 guys who have five or more championship rings in NBA history. And it's an incredible list and it's an incredible collage. And Clay had seen that in October and,

Clipped it out of the Chronicle and went to their, what is Eric Hauser's title now? VP of something, of everything that the Warriors do to function. The guy who runs the team. He runs the team and says, please, I want this in my locker. So Eric goes out and clips it, laminates it, and hangs it in Clay's locker. And it's hanging there because Clay is all about

he's never been about chasing the numbers. He's never been about like, I'm going to like, I always think about what would clay have been with an entire team designed around him. I'll a Reggie Miller. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole, but I've thought about this at time. Like what, what would we think of clay? If he'd been just been the individual guy who got all the standout stuff, but he's, he's always been about like, I want to be with a great team. I want to be part of championships. I want to play two ways. I want to be a great defender. And yeah, I'm going to shoot a lot of threes. I'm going to make about a 40% clip for my career, but that list in his locker, uh,

Is the only guys he cares about. He's at this point, right? He wants to be in that five and over club. And I thought, just thought that was really interesting and revealing about him and endearing in a way. I brought up to him about, you know, I don't know if you remember, but back in June, you said you're going to make another all-star team. And he kind of chuckled, like, it's like, Ooh, big talk. Like now he's like kind of making fun of himself.

But he's putting together kind of an all-star campaign right now. And it's not, it's no longer out of the question. And I think people who doubted, I understood what Charles Barkley said and anybody else who wondered, of course you wonder. Those are two really serious injuries. And he's later in his career and he's got a lot of miles from all those finals runs. But he's never going to doubt it, nor should he. And here we're seeing a pretty strong outline of pre-injury Tlai Thompson. And it's awesome to see. And it's really fun. Wasn't it, wasn't it like a,

Like a K-pop band or something that got Wiggins voted in as a starter last year? Wasn't there some sort of K-pop campaign? Was that conspiracy theory? Did that actually happen? I think that – I don't – I honestly –

I'm such an old man. I don't even really know what I'm saying right now. But if that can happen, then why can't like Clay getting into the All-Star game isn't crazy. Look, I remember interviewing Clay. And by the way, I was wrong about I was watching that Knicks Warriors game in a car coming back from something. But I just checked the next schedule. It wasn't a Nets game. So I don't know. It wasn't coming back from Barclays. I was in the backseat of an Uber. I don't know where the hell it was. Real time self fact checking. I love it.

Because I don't know what the – I can't remember what the hell I did yesterday. I remember being in a car late at night watching that game. Anyway, I interviewed Klay in the finals in Cleveland in 2017, which is the first Durant finals for the Warriors when they just went 15-1 and destroyed – 16-1 rather and destroyed the whole league in the playoffs. And I asked everyone just sort of like about the Durant process and integrating this – which ended up being pretty seamless because it's Kevin Durant. It's the easiest superstar integration you could possibly imagine.

And I was particularly eager to ask Clay because Steph's going to be Steph and Draymond doesn't need to score any points. And KD is going to walk into 25 a game. Clay is the one who's like got to find his place in the ecosystem a little bit more with Kevin there. So I was eager to talk to him about it. And I used the word sacrifice. I said, what has it been like to kind of sacrifice a little bit? And I'll never forget. He looked at me like the question itself was ridiculous. Like he was like sacrifice sacrifice.

I don't think I sacrificed at all. We're going to win the championship. Like I want to, I'm here to win. Like I don't,

I don't look at it as if I sacrifice anything. Like I want to play for this team. I want to win. I want to win for a long, long time. And it's just he very politely rejected the entire notion of the question in a way that was not media trained or faux humility. It was just like – I mean Clay doesn't have those gears in him anyway. This is a guy who gave an honest interview about scaffolding on the New York City sidewalk for five minutes. Like all the guy knows how to do is be unfiltered, genuine Clay Thompson. Yeah.

And that's how he was. He just thought the whole question, the whole notion was preposterous that he had sacrificed anything. By the way, real quick, just addendum to that as a thought after, you know, this is now your hard to believe your 26 of me covering this league. And one thing that you, you do learn over time is,

is that not everybody sees this game the same way. Not every one of the 450 at any given time players see it the same way. Not all the stars see it the same way. Not everyone's motivated by the same stuff. And it's fine. I'm not judging anybody. But there are guys who are motivated by the winning more than others. And there are guys who are motivated by championships above all else more than others. And who would give you a response like Clay gave you where it's like,

Yeah, like like like like it is a ridiculous question to him. He does. There is no sacrifice as long as they're winning a championship and he can say it. And, you know, based on everything else we know about Clay, that that is 100 percent sincere. And there are some guys who will say that, but it's not really what they're about. You can look across this league all the time. There are guys chasing numbers. There are guys chasing paydays. There are guys just just loving being in the NBA, all of which is fine.

But my point is simply that not everyone is actually geared the same way about their competitive drive or about what they value most. And when Clay says championships above everything else, you know he means it. He's truly wired that way. And it is one of the things that we all love about him. Again, Warriors six and three without Curry.

When Kevin Pelton and I talked on this podcast about the Curry injury, I think it was Kevin, I said, we always go nuts about these injuries and, oh, my God, he's out for 20, whatever it is. He's out for three weeks, four weeks. They're doomed and this. And I said, what usually happens is that, like, the team just kind of punches, punches and punches and punches and, like, hovers around 500. And I think that will probably happen with the Warriors. Well, now they're exceeding.

that expectation by a lot in part because they are playing at home a lot and apparently they can't lose at home and they can't win on the road. But you look at their team, which by the way, shout out Kevon Looney. I mean, a guy who couldn't stay on the court in the first half of his career can't be removed from it now and won the game last night with one of his gazillion offensive rebounds, actually two in a row. He's playing great. Dante DiVincenzo, who I thought would be big for them, has started to find his way back to

into the fold, into the flow. Jordan Poole's averaging 20 a game and has been pretty good, although 11 of 31 last night, but good since Steph went out. Draymond's looked good all year. Kaminga has been one of the biggest stories of the last month.

in the nba in terms of giving golden state another reliable two-way player with size he's defending every position like he'll defend people okay you want to be the primary guy in john morant let's see how it goes and they have been plus a lot with the cominga draymond four or five combinations since steph went out so they found something there they're playing well um they're playing well and

That's bad news for the rest of the West. Can we go through some of Howard Beck's predictions for 2023? So Sports Illustrated. At the risk of everybody hating me, yes. SI.com forced all of its writers in many sports to do their, I guess they wanted the risque ones, the crazier ones. They didn't ask for that. I just decided to do it anyway. Predictions for the calendar year 2023. Yeah.

Off to – we're three days into 2023. Did you make it to midnight on New Year's Eve, by the way? I did.

I did. I don't know why I think that's important or some point of pride like to always have made it. I think I always have have made it. But I mean, it was a very quiet night. It's like we were out partying. We weren't in Times Square wearing adult diapers while being in a pen, you know, penned off by the NYPD. I would never do such such silliness. But no, we were home. Nice little family dinner out at a really good Mexican food place in Park Slope in our old neighborhood. Hung out.

Watch some Andor catching up on Andor. Have you watched Andor? Of course you haven't. No, no, no. We're getting most of the way through it. And then flipped over to Ryan Seacrest on the Dick Clark New Year's Rockin' Eve and watch the ball drop because we're New Yorkers. But we don't we have to watch the ball drop. Isn't that like city law? I think it is. I so I went to the Raptors game in Toronto on the 30th New Year's Eve Eve.

Then went out afterwards. I was out till about 1245. And I knew then that that was going to have to count as my New Year's Eve because I'm not making it to midnight again the next day. 11 p.m., baby. Unapologetically. Good night. See you in the morning. I'm tired. Don't care. Going to bed. Okay. So here's let's go rapid fire through some of your predictions. Prediction number one.

The collective bargaining agreement will be renewed without much of a fight. There will be labor peace in the NBA. The opt out deadline was extended at the last minute from in the middle of last month, the 15th, into sometime in February. The two sides continue to negotiate. Howard Beck, I'm happy to say that I agree with you. I think that I don't know what the timetable will be.

I think there's some chance that they try to hammer something out before that February date. They can extend it again. I was on an island one cycle ago.

saying all this lockout paranoia is misplaced. I'm on the no lockout island. Times are too good. The money's too good. The TV deals come and there's already like mumbling about like Adam Silver is saying expansion in a way that doesn't sound like pie in the sky 30 years from now. The sun has just sold for $4 billion or were valued at $4 billion. I just...

There are issues, sure. The draft, the age limit, the luxury tax, the Clippers and the Warriors outspending the world by a lot. All that, you know, the upper spending limit, the PR. The USL. The USL, as our buddy Mark Stein has dubbed it already. I want to get the proposal, the request for proposals that the NBA sent out to every PR and advertising firm for like, okay, so it's a hard cap.

We can't call it a hard cap. Please give us mumbo jumbo language that is not hard cap. And upper spending limit was apparently the winner. I would love to see the other proposals that went out because you can call it whatever the hell you want. An upper spending ceiling on a roof, a money roof. Is the ceiling the roof?

The ceiling, the roof is the ceiling. You're going to get us both in trouble because I have already gotten myself in trouble with certain folks at the league office because I mocked this in private conversations. This will be the first time I make this joke publicly. Apologies to the people who know who I'm apologizing to. But I was I was joking like this is great. The NBA has discovered the pre-owned cars.

of cba negotiations now we've we've reached pre-owned cars we've reached we've reached the um uh downsizing

of NBA CBA minutiae now. We've come up with these euphemisms. Oh, it's not a hard cap, it's an upper spending limit. Oh, it's not a used car. It's not used. It's been pre-owned. Somebody else owned it before. It's not used. Somebody else had it first. It's not used. It's not used. It sounds, honestly, it sounds like an STD. Like you have to call all your past sexual partners, hey, I've got bad news. This is good. I've contracted a minor case of USL. I know.

No, I have a USL. I have a USL. I've contracted a USL and I needed a shot. This is great because your STD joke will now trump my pre-owned car's downsizing joke so that the ire can be directed toward you instead of me. What are they going to say? What are they going to have? They're going to call me and say, well, you have to just characterize it as blah, blah, blah. You spent a lot of hard capital. Blah, blah, blah.

Delete. Okay. I agree with you. Can I give you a little detail on this? Yes. I don't think this has been reported anywhere, but the unofficial kickoff of Union League negotiations, this is a real thing. I'm not making this up. There was a mixer between League officials and Union officials that included, among other things, a five-on-five game between...

between league officials and union officials at the union's gym with like a scoreboard and referees and everything. And then there were other like games. I heard there was one of those ping pong ball relays where I don't know if there's like, you have to have it in a spoon and do little races and stuff. So this is the tenor of,

of these now that doesn't mean there's not going to be serious things but the kickoff of these this was in like October November was like a literal mixer I don't even know who uses the word mixer anymore but it was a mixer so I agree with you and I don't have anything else to add do you no

No, it's exactly what you said. Times are too good. And when times are this good, you find a way through it. Yes, there are issues. There are always issues. They will punt those issues. Even if they still can't figure out the age limit, they'll make it, they'll call it the B-list. Oh, there's a bunch of B-list issues we'll get to after we solve the big stuff. And then they won't solve the big stuff and they'll punt on the B-list issues. If they have to extend themselves three more times on their own deadline to do this, they will. There's not going to be a lockout. I'd be shocked beyond belief.

Let's skip a couple of your spicier predictions and go to one that I want to talk about more. The Sacramento Kings will make the playoffs. Yes. Now, are you predicting top six or just that they get in somehow, whether it's through the play-in or top six and all-inclusive? I kind of fudged this one, I think, when I wrote it. I don't remember how I wrote it, but I think I just said make the playoffs so that I didn't have to address whether they were going to make it through the play-in because my feeling is whether they make top six or whether they have to get through the play-in, one way or another, they're getting there.

I think it's, yeah, I don't think it should matter. So currently the Kings are sixth in the West, I believe. No, fifth in the West. I'm sorry, 19 and 16. They've played a pretty hard schedule. 18 home, 17 road. They are seventh in offense. So their offense is sustained pretty well. 23rd in defense. And that's crept up from almost the basement early in the season when teams were hitting everything against them.

And as I said when I had Matt Barnes on a couple months ago, nothing about their offense feels unsustainable to me, barring injury. And we'll talk about that in a second. Their offense is just really good. The shooters orbiting Sabonis and Fox, it works. They've finagled a bench around Monk.

Davion Mitchell in exactly the right doses. And we're going to do quick unsung heroes later in this podcast. A guy who would have made my list, except we're talking about the Kings right now is Trey Lyles. Trey Lyles has, he's just sort of a Jack of all trades backup for can spot you minutes at the five. Oh, the Kings haven't gone that route hardly at all. Only 33% from deep, but is a threat from out there can make plays, can defend just always seems to be in the mix when their backup units are playing well. Um,

Here are their next games, by the way. If they're going to make your prediction come through, here's their next, I think, nine games. Utah, that's tonight. Hawks, two games against the Lakers. This is not in order. The Lakers games are scattered. Orlando, two games against Houston. Spurs, Thunder. So the Kings could, should be like five or six or seven games over .500 tonight.

in two weeks, in which case they'd be in pretty strong position. The only wild card is, of course, is DeMata Sabonis is playing with a thumb injury and is, I don't know, is he one whack away from missing time? And if he misses time, they have really no good option behind him. And that would make me really worried if I'm a Kings fan, if he misses time, that there would be a Vivek panic trade of like, we got to make the playoffs. We got to end the drought 16 years, give up everything for someone who can play center. But I,

I was high on the Kings before the season. I thought they were a play-in team. I told everyone, hammer the over, hammer the over, hammer the over. Now that was 33 and a half or 34 and a half. I agree with you. I think between what's happening in Phoenix right now, between, you know, are the Blazers are fine, you know, Golden State's good and rising. Like the Wolves are a mess. I don't see why they couldn't get it at least in the play-in. And from there, you got a fighting chance. I like it, Howard Beck.

No, absolutely. For sure. And granted, you're like, I have a little bit of a soft spot for the Kings. Still fond memories of many Lakers Kings battles back during my Laker beat days. Went to school at UC Davis just down the road from there. And of course, because the only way I ever root is out of self-interest, I want the Kings to be as relevant as possible so I can get free trips home on my company's dime. Yeah.

to, uh, to go right about Northern California teams. The Warriors have come through for me, uh, very well for the last seven, eight years. Uh, the Kings, uh, not so much. So, um, would love to see them back in the playoffs that those crowds are amazing as people who, uh, remember back in the early two thousands. No, uh,

The Cowbells at Arco Arena and even even without Cowbells, that crowd was incredible. And it's been it's been, as everybody knows, well documented, a very long, hard, torturous road for Kings fans with the longest drought in, I think, the history of organized sport or something like that. Playoff drought. So love the light, the beam. Love, love the whole thing. I'm down.

Let's talk about some of your other predictions. You took a double dump on the Brooklyn Nets and their current 12-game win streak by predicting both of the following events, which are linked predictions, I would assume. Number one, Kyrie Irving signs with the Lakers in the offseason. Obviously, Kyrie's a free agent. Had some issues this year that are troubling, and his reliability has generally been up and down for years.

A while now. And then prediction number two, Kevin Durant reinitiates his trade demand. Howard Beck, the Nets have won 12 games in a row. The Nets have been the best team in the NBA, full stop. The best team in the NBA for the last six weeks. The Nets, as presently constructed, are a championship contender. I believe all of these things. Do I trust that Kyrie Irving won't find a way to screw this up in the next two or three months? I don't know. I don't, actually, but that's one of those things like,

I couldn't possibly, but this is how good they are. They're a championship contender right now. They can beat any team in the league. They can win four playoff series. They're just getting healthy. Seth Curry came back last night. Joe Harris came back last night. On and on. Defend yourself. Defend yourself.

Ah, gee, thank you for this, Zach. So let me just say, one, timing is really important in life and in careers and in the NBA and in journalism.

The request from our editors about predictions for 2023 came on like December 13th. I didn't say make excuses. I said defend yourself. I'm getting to it. You're blaming the referees. You're blaming the referees. You're the Chicago Bulls citing the last two-minute report. The last two-minute report on me and these predictions is going to be rather damning.

The Nets had won like three or four games in a row at the time that I sent in my predictions for 2023 in mid-December. So that's just, that's context. That's not an excuse. That's context. Can I give context? I think context matters. So there's that. Um,

Fresh in our memory in mid-December was all the crap that happened in mid-November, namely about Kyrie, and also their early struggles. And at the time that they were starting to get some momentum, at the time that I filed those predictions, Zach, they'd gotten some wins against some not-so-great teams. There was nothing definitive yet to show this is for real, this resurgence is for real. And it's

you know, a lot of wonky things have happened with them this season. And, you know, we've, we've seen Ben Simmons be a shadow of himself and then, Oh, now he looks like the old Ben Simmons from Philadelphia days. And now, Ooh, and I'm not sure where he is. Um,

But to your point and to the awful, awful contrast of my prediction coming out within the last couple of days at the same time the Nets are now, as you point out, playing like the best team in the NBA. They have been amazing. Kyrie has been fantastic. Kevin Durant has been absolutely unbelievable. And I was at the game last night against the Spurs. Kyrie's put back dunk. That place exploded. Absolutely just amazing moment. He's been great.

Their role players have been great. They are, you and I, again, we saw them the same way before the season. Were they good enough on paper, talented enough to win a championship? Yeah, absolutely. Never doubted it. Never said they weren't. Didn't think it was possible because of all the volatility.

because of the possibility slash likelihood that Kyrie and or Kevin Durant at some point were going to miss long stretches of games. That could still happen. It tends to happen with both of them in Durant's case because of injury, in Kyrie's case because of injury and other various things that just kind of happen because he's Kyrie. And I just, it's hard to trust it. It's hard to trust. I don't know where Ben Simmons truly is. Anything is still possible. He still hasn't made a free throw since November 25th.

crazy stat, right? Like I don't even know where that in the annals of NBA history, has that ever even happened before, especially with a player of that level. So I don't, I don't completely trust them. And so at the time that I'm making that prediction and yes, there was no instruction. I'm not going to blame my editors for this one. There was no instruction about, Hey, give us your spiciest predictions. They just said, make some predictions, but

Making a prediction like, you know, the Cavaliers will be in the top four in the East is not that interesting. You know, LeBron James will make his eight billionth straight All-NBA team. I was going for at least pushing the envelope a little bit. It's not that I don't believe it. I would never put down something that I don't believe. But I believe this is a possibility. Yes. If the Nets fall short of a championship, fall short of the finals, fall short of maybe the conference finals, I don't believe there's any desire by...

leadership in Brooklyn to want to bring back Kyrie Irving unless they really feel like they have to. And maybe they win a championship and feel like, you know what? Can't break up a championship team. But after all that they have gone through with him, the idea that they would keep him seems farfetched to say the least. And then from there, it's just the next step. Well, if Kyrie's not there and you can't replace him because you're way over the cap and you're over the tax and blah, blah, blah, we know how this all works and you don't have a replacement. Well, now who's KD's running mate? I don't think it's Ben Simmons.

You know, they've had some really nice performances from you to Watanabe and Royce O'Neal, but like there's no Kyrie Irving replacement. If he goes, why wouldn't Kevin Durant want to explore things yet again? He just did this several months ago with this exact team. So, you know, I don't know that anything's truly been solved other than they're playing amazing and everybody's healthy and this might continue.

But if it doesn't, if they fall short, if they crash and burn, and if Kyrie's gone, why wouldn't the Durant trade request be back on the table? Again, I did this at least somewhat playfully as I'm writing these because I'm thinking, what's the most interesting possible outcome? It had to be realistic, and I think it is. Do I absolutely positively believe that this is the way it's going to go? No, I would stop short of that.

Look, I'm kind of giving you crap because when they were in the middle of the Irving morass and Simmons was a ghost, it felt unsalvageable. I use the word unsalvageable. They were under 500. I looked at their upcoming schedule. I said, it's going to be easy to maybe string some wins together. Everyone in the world was assuming the other shoe was going to drop, whether at the trade deadline or in the summer, and that being Durant. Everyone. Everyone.

Even people within the Nets were worried, to say the least, that this was going off the rails. Some were not. Some were steadfast in, we just need our team. We just need our team. We just need our team. We just need our team. We've been saying it for four years, but we just need our team. And to their credit, that group right now has been proven right. And the unsalvageable group, including me, has been proven wrong. So I'm giving you some crap. I will say this, though, without belaboring it too much because it's many months away.

A, a lot of this will depend on the playoffs, as happens for all high-level teams, because the playoffs, the intensity is heightened, the stakes are heightened. Outcomes feel so massively important compared to the regular season. So we don't know anything until the playoffs happen and we see what happens. I do think there is a world, and I'm not saying this will happen. Okay? Let me be clear. I'm not reporting this will happen. I'm not saying this will happen. Nobody knows what will happen.

I do think there is a world, there are scenarios where Kyrie is on another team next year and Durant is happily on the Brooklyn Nets. I think that, that double scenario is possible. The Nets could always sign and trade Kyrie for, for role players who fit around Durant Simmons. There are lots of ways this could go, but I don't think it's, it's,

It's 100% like tethered at the hip. I think that maybe that's a very minority scenario. Like that's not what anyone wants or envisions, but I don't think that's totally out of bounds. But there's so much between now and then.

And the playoffs will be so telling the months before the playoffs. I mean, the Nets just need to keep this together and we'll see what happens. And look, ultimately, this is still about can you beat the Celtics four out of seven? Can you beat the Bucks four out of seven? Can you beat the Sixers four out of seven? Can you beat the Cavaliers four out of seven? Like that's that's all this is all this all comes down to, aside from whether or not Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving get through the rest of this season playing at this level, healthy, no distractions.

Then you get to the playoffs and we see there's, there's some really tough teams in the East as well. And we haven't seen them consistently beat those teams yet since they arrived due to

Well, and obviously, obviously, you know, we don't know who exactly how the seedings are going to shake out now. I mean, there's a top five in the East and a three game gap between them and Indiana at six. But who knows? One of those top five suffers an injury and all of a sudden everything's in chaos. If that indeed ends up being the top five. We also don't know who six, seven or eight are going to be. Maybe one of those is a surging heat team that's made a big trade.

maybe one of it is the Raptors that figure things out or the Hawks figure things or something. But it does look right now that being first, second or third would be a very nice thing to just give yourselves one round fewer where you're in playing the fellow top five and out of that four or five series enough with their predictions. I don't want to talk about the Minnesota Timberwolves. I was going to talk about cat. I don't want to anymore. Hey, by the way, I'm having our stats and info group. Look this up. I'm pretty sure that,

No in-season replacement has ever won Coach of the Year, which makes sense. Could Jacques Vaughn win Coach of the Year?

Did you say should he or could he? Could he? Could he? No, of course he could. I mean, obviously he could. He's eligible. I'm saying, like, I think you can make a pretty goddamn strong case for Jacques Vaughn. Whatever Steve Nash was doing was very clearly not working, and they are taking off like a rocket ship and have responded to Jacques Vaughn. His rotation choices have been on point. Like, it's an unconventional thing. I don't think it's ever happened before. But, I mean, Steve Nash was let go early enough in the season where I think, like, he's got to be in the race. Yeah.

No, of course he is. And as always, it's going to be a pretty crowded race. I mean, you could put, you know, Joe Missoula in this discussion. You could put, you know, Taylor Jenkins annually in this discussion. Willie Green is in this discussion. I think it's going to be the usual crowd. Mike Brown's in this discussion.

It will be the usual crowded field, but Jacques Vaughn is firmly, firmly in that race to the extent that there's a coach of the year race on January 3rd. No, it just, it just dawned on me today. Like I, you start thinking about, you just don't think of the in-season replacement. It's just like, you kind of skirt by them and like, well, turnaround has been so stark and he's been so good that like, he's got to be a candidate. Yeah.

even if this was the outcome and he had been there from game one of the season as the head coach, you, you would say he was in there. But the, the, the in-season replacement, the reason that probably has never happened is if there's an in-season replacement, usually a team is unsalvageable to use your earlier term. And they're, they're just, they're just, you know, you know, trying to keep their, their heads above water for a little while and then maybe earn the permanent job or whatever. Like it's not, it's pretty rare to take over a really, really good team that had an incredibly high upside to begin with. Also, by the way, and I,

All the credit in the world to Jacques Vaughn. I'm not going to diminish that for a second. I've been really impressed with what he's done. And also just the general energy around Jacques Vaughn, because, you know, they're in my backyard. I go to a bunch of Nets games. I pop in for a pregame coach with, you know, discussion with the media just to see what they're talking about on a given night. Jacques Vaughn just got this wonderful positive energy about him. It's infectious. He's always smiling. He's always positive. He's thoughtful.

I can only imagine, you know, if he's making us feel that good in a pregame session as the media, that he's having a really nice effect on his team too, to say nothing of basketball stuff, X's and O's. But,

When they struggled early on, remember, no Joe Harris or Seth Curry to start the season. Ben Simmons is just now trying to figure out his way back after a year and a half out, and he's a shadow of himself. And so he needed time to come around. Those guys needed time to get healthy. Other guys in that rotation had to get healthy. TJ Warren's now playing. So it is also kind of a fundamentally different team right now. None of that is to diminish Jacques Vaughn's

acumen or the job he's done by any stretch. And as I say, I think he's firmly in the coach of the year discussion and he's done a phenomenal job. Some of the early struggles were about all these other things. And of course the Kyrie mess to be, to, to, to throw on top. As homework,

I just thought it would be fun. This is, I guess, my version of the internet meme of let's talk about some guys. And so I wanted to talk about some guys. And I said, pick five unsung heroes for the first half of the season. Guys, you just want to say their names and be like, good job, guy. You're an unsung hero for the season. And I gave you an example that will be one of mine. I mentioned Trey Lyles already. So he's not on my list. Let's just go rapid fire through our list. Give me an unsung hero, Howard Beck.

Like the assignment I got from my editors for predictions for 2023, I got a little goofy. I took some liberties. I'm sure you won't mind. Do you want a very, very straight one right off the bat? I don't care. Just give me one. I don't care. Christian Wood. How about that? He's pretty sung. Is he sung? I guess he's unsung because there's been all this angst about his playing time and his defense and all this.

I think he's unsung because of... I know people think he's kind of problematic and he's not always attentive defensively and he has this history of putting up stats that maybe seem empty to some folks and that don't lead to winning. And he's been cast aside by teams that weren't even trying to win anymore. And it's...

like there's all this stuff around him. And even when the Mavericks acquired him and I thought, Oh, you want, I could see him really clicking with Luca. And that I think is a great pickup and position of need everything else. And I was hearing just a lot of people, a lot of murmuring, a lot of, a lot of criticism of like, ah, no, that this you're, you're never going to win with this guy. Last 10 games for Christian would averaging almost 21 points a game, eight and a half rebounds, 2.7 blocks. His, his shooting has been phenomenal. 54 from the field, 39 from three. Um,

And the Mavericks are 8-2 in that span. They've revived themselves. And I think Unsung. I still think Unsung only because all the doubts about him and because I just don't think there's a huge focus on the Mavericks or any Maverick not named Luka besides. And had some great defensive possessions down the stretch last night against Houston in a comeback win for Dallas. It's Houston-Houston.

whatever, but five blocks for Christian wouldn't that game. Yeah. Including like three in the last two minutes. Um,

Look, I wrote this two weeks ago. There's never a silver lining to someone getting injured, but the silver lining to Maxi Kleba's injury is that Dallas was finally going to have to sink or swim with lineups where Christian Wood is the only big man on the floor. And I just have said this from the beginning. I understand the hesitancy. I understand the defensive issues. There is no point in trading anything of value, even a bottom 10 first round pick.

for Christian Wood if you are not going to give those lineups some rope. And now they've gotten some rope, and Luka's scoring like 50 a game with all the extra space. Okay, unsung hero number two. Are you doing these as well? Are we going to alternate? I'm just going to go. I'm going to let you go and see if we overlap. We're not going to overlap because I'm... Let me give you my first goofy one because I was thinking outside the box here. John Reinhardt. Do you have any idea who John Reinhardt is? Does that name mean anything? I do. I do.

You're, you're, you're, the box has been recycled and turned into something else. You're so far outside of it.

I've gone outside the box and straight to a beam. John Reinhart is the president of business operations for the Sacramento Kings. He is the guy who is credited for the beam that is now being lit, thus sparking light the beam chance, a beam team nickname that I think is absolutely phenomenal. The Kings have apparently filed for a trademark, according to a story in the Sacramento Bee.

You know, the basketball matters. The the energy around your team matters and the fans matter. And again, we alluded to it earlier, like this is a fan base that when the Kings are great, they are incredible and they they've been incredible even when the Kings have not been great for a very long time here.

It like these things don't come about organically too often. And there's nothing organic about a giant lasers pointing into the sky, but all the stuff around the, the beam, the chance, the nicknames, the slogans is organic and kind of fan driven and social media driven. And it's fun. And these things just don't come along that often. And it's just, it's just like, it's a cool thing at a cool moment for this team that has gone through so much. So a shout out to John Reinhart for his laser beams into the sky.

Well, he has inarguably contributed more to the Sacramento Kings franchise than 75% of their last 20 lottery picks. And several coaches and GMs potentially.

Okay, go ahead. I'm going to let you roll. I mean, we're clearly in the Beck zone, so go ahead. We're in the Beck zone. I'm going to bring back to reality for a second, but you're going to now say, well, he's not unsung. I kept thinking, and this is, by the way, this is not my guilty conscience about the Nets. I kept thinking, like, Yuta Watanabe is unsung, and Royce O'Neal is kind of unsung. And then I was like, no, it's actually Nick Claxton, and I know you have sung Nick Claxton's praises, but again, like, I don't...

The average NBA fan is not thinking about the Nets and going, man, you know what? They're just not where they are without Nick Claxton. So I think, I think Nick Claxton is a great unsung hero. He might be, if there were an all unsung hero team, he might be the starting center on it. Uh, he's number one in the NBA and block rate, according to basketball reference, he's number two and blocks a game behind only former Nets legend, Brooke Lopez. Um,

He's, you know, top 10, 15-ish in a lot of the advanced stat defensive all-in-one stats that I don't understand. The sharps and the vorps. Exactly. He's played in all but three games. The Nets, while being suspect defensively for quite a while and even earlier this season, they're now up to, I think, I haven't checked since last night's game, but they were, last I checked, I think they were 10th overall defensive efficiency and 6th

since the start of November. And he's a big reason why. And, you know, we're going to we're going to

justifiably obsess over everything that Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving do and all their pyrotechnics and all that. But they're nowhere without great defense. Nick Claxton, another one of those nice pickups or, you know, late round, late first round guys that, that has developed really nicely with the nets. And yeah, he's, he's he's on my, my list of unsung heroes.

And they got real trade offers for him at the deadline last year, including a protected first round pick, I believe, and turned it down. I'll say this about Claxton because I agree with you. They needed his defense to be a good team defensively.

His offense and his finishing is what has partly given them a chance to be a great team. I think he leads the league in field goal percentage. He's finishing out of the pick and roll when they double KD and Kyrie and making the next pass if need be. And look, you can dismiss it and be like, well, of course he's shooting 70%. It's all dunks, blah, blah, blah. Like he wasn't doing that last year. He wasn't making these lefty bank shots in traffic and all of that. And if him and Simmons together is going to work as a combo, then

He's got to be able to finish contested tough looks in the paint, and he has. Royce O'Neal was on my list because I feel like Watanabe's been sung. Claxton's been sung. Royce O'Neal's shooting 40% from three. He's a starter. He's taken kind of that Joe Harris starting spot and made it his own. He's averaging four assists a game.

And I went back and watched a lot of his assists last night because I was like, how is he averaging four and a half assists a game? It must just all be like I randomly throw the ball to Durant and he makes a jump shot and whoop-de-doo. Some of it is that. Some of it like they're using him as a dribble handoff guy. They're using him as a screener in pick and rolls where he'll roll into open space and make the next pass. And he has this delightful connection with Kyrie Irving where they fool teams with the same thing once a game.

where he'll get the ball on the wing and Kyrie will come up for what looks like a dribble handoff and then cut like 10 feet in front of Royce. And he'll just cut to the basket and fool defenses who are thinking the handoff is coming in. Royce will hit them with that, with that pass for a layup. He's a good transition passer. Like he's been really, really good for them. Give me another one. I'm playing off of that because the more I thought about all this, it just led me here. And this is another slightly strange one, but not too far outside the box. There's an actual box involved in this one. Uh,

Joe Cy and Sean Marks, they took a lot of criticism and I think justifiable criticism, rational criticism for a whole lot of stuff in the way they've handled a bunch of things. Kyrie stuff, the trade demand, all the instability of the last few years is all on Nets leadership. But

They dug in and said, we're not trading Kevin Durant unless we get the moon and the stars and the sun. And they stayed the course. They made the coaching change at the right time. They didn't buckle in the off season when Durant was making noise about them or me and all that, which I never believed he actually wanted anybody fired. He was just trying to play the last card he had left to force a trade. They said no. And they stayed. They stuck with everybody. Yeah.

And again, they've screwed up a lot, I think, frankly. Well, and according to all the plugged in insiders, Jacques Vaughn was not their first choice as head coach. And there's that. And that was also problematic.

To say the least, to say the least. And thank you for reminding me of that because it was initially on my list of things that I wanted to caveat about their leadership. That was not a moment of glory for them as they they flirted with the idea of bringing in Miyadoko just weeks after he'd been suspended for a full season by another NBA franchise under a cloud. So there's and look, this could all still go sideways this season, as you and I have discussed. But yeah.

The trade for Royce O'Neal was excellent. The signing of Yuta Watanabe, the signing of TJ Warren, who's now become a really important rotation player. He's playing great. And again, the draft of, and I was off by one pick, Nick Claxton was actually the first pick of the second round, not last in the first round in 2019. Nick Claxton, you know, a Sean Marks pick and has now developed really nicely. I didn't like the James Harden deal at the time, in part because I didn't like them trading...

you know, a way valued role players like Jared Allen and Karis LeVert. And, you know, Jared Allen has become an all-star in Cleveland and you could, you know, over and over again, do the 2020 hindsight thing and say, look, if they just had, they just never made the trade and they just had Jared out. Well, Claxton is starting to make that look a little more palatable to say the least. So I just, you know, Marks and Cy have gotten a lot of, again, justifiable criticism for a bunch of stuff, but

on the, you know, broadly speaking and even on a lot of the details, they've done a great job to put the Nets in this position that we're now praising them for this 12 game winning streak. Give me your last one. I think that's, I think we've got one more left on the Beck list. I once again went off the court.

Evan Walsh at NBA headquarters. I'm not, that don't make me, don't make me do this. The play in the lottery. Play in God. Play, play in God, play Evan Walsh and his crew. They're the ones behind the plan. They're the ones behind a lot of these. He's the one, he's the one that LeBron by name, by not name, but without his name said should be fired. Yes. For coming up with the play in.

Until the Lakers needed to play and to get in the playoffs. I'm not hearing a lot of play and criticism coming from that camp anymore. Those elements in combination, I think, are at least partially responsible for a lot of the competitive, what do we call it, competitive balance. It's not really parity, whatever it is.

We have a really competitive regular season, and I think it is at least partially based on those influences. His crew is also, of course, responsible for all the schedule optimization that has reduced travel and wear and tear. There's still too many stars resting, frankly, despite all the schedule optimizing. I don't know if there's any more optimizing that could be done to get guys on the court more often. That's a problem the NBA is still facing. It is a problem that, back to our earlier discussion, is being discussed within the framework of the CBA.

And I don't know what the solution is there. There's still too many stars missing games. But, you know, I want to throw Evan Washington's crew in there just because, like, I do think that the way that the regular season is being reimagined with some of these other influences, the midseason tournament is almost certainly coming. I've been skeptical of it. I remain skeptical of it. But, you know, they're batting a very high rate on these tweaks that are trying to revive –

or, or energized, I should say the regular season. And it's been pretty good by the way, they got the Christmas schedule. They also do the schedule, Evan Washington's crew, and they got the schedule mostly right on Christmas too. We had like, you know, what five MVP candidates playing,

on christmas and and you couldn't foresee that zion and and was going to be healthy enough for the pelicans to be there or that kevin durant was even going to be a net for the for the nets to be there you couldn't foresee the steph injury or booker i could foresee that the knicks would not be quite good enough to merit the christmas spot for the 17th consecutive season they're the detroit lions of of the nba they're just like the lions are always on thanksgiving right it doesn't matter how good or bad the lions are there's art is that still the case they're always on

But you could tell me, yeah, Zion's health and KD's. Still, just put the Pelicans on. Get the Knicks off, put the Pelicans on. I agree. It's some kind of weird NBA tradition now. Play-in is a home run. Mid-season tournament, I think it's going to grow on us. I've been a skeptic, but I think it's going to grow on us. Lottery odds shift was correct. It's all coming up roses for Evan Walsh, unsung hero. Didn't get fired. Sorry, LeBron. I'm going to just fly through mine. I already said Royce O'Neal.

Also receiving votes slash apologies, George Niang and Malik Beasley. I think Malik Beasley is going to butt into the six minute of the year conversation. Just takes a lot of threes and makes a lot. I think I looked it up yesterday. I think there are four guys in the league taking more than 11 threes per 36 minutes or 11 point something threes per 36 minutes per

guys who have played more than a token amount of time. And it's Steph, Clay, Damian Lillard, and Malik Beasley. That's about right. Malik Beasley's letting them fly and hitting them a lot. I would like to give Torrey Craig some love. The Suns might be in trouble, by the way. 20-18, their offense is in the toilet without Devin Booker and Cam Johnson and Jay Crowder and on and on and on.

for the season with Chris Paul on the floor and Devin Booker off the floor, they are minus eight per 100 possessions with an offensive rating that would rank in the eighth percentile among all lineups in the NBA. Not good. Not good. And Chris...

This may be finally the year for whatever reason where Chris Paul just can't bring it every game. He can bring it for parts of every game. He can bring it sometimes for the whole game. Yesterday against the Knicks when you looked at the score and were like, wait, they have 30 something points and it's like almost the third quarter. He couldn't bring it and they had no shot.

Their next set of games is Cleveland, Miami, Cleveland, Golden State, Denver, Minnesota, Memphis, Brooklyn, Indiana. They need Devin Booker to get healthy really soon because this could get ugly. Brian Windhorst detailed their ownership situation and how it's limiting their ability to make trades today in a must-read hoop collective. But Torrey Craig...

He's one of those guys. He's got Elmer's glue in one hand, some duct tape in the other hand. He's like, what can I fix? I'm shooting 40% from three. I'm getting a lot of offensive rebounds. That's the thing we do now in Phoenix. I'm defending one to four. I'm trying my best. I got all my tools. I'm trying my best to plug all the holes. That's one. Aaron Gordon. Yes, I thought about Aaron Gordon. Maybe too sung. He's averaging like 18 a game. I just don't. I hear a lot of, obviously, Jokic. A lot of focus on Murray and Porter and how they're coming back.

Bruce Brown, everything they've wanted. A lot of rigmarole about the backup center position. I don't hear a lot of talk about how Aaron Gordon is averaging 18 a game on like 62% shooting. Drawing double teams in the post and passing out of it. They played Miami the other day. He posted up Kyle Lowry. That's like no-no number one. You never post up Kyle Lowry. He's a six-foot fire hydrant who will steal the ball from you even if you outweigh him by 150 pounds. First possession,

Miami sent help and he kicked it out to somebody for an open three. And you could see everyone on Miami's bench and Kyle Lowry being like, dude, nobody needs to help. I'm Kyle Lowry. You don't need to help me against Aaron Gordon. Two possessions in a row. They stayed home. Kyle played him one-on-one. Shooting foul and and one basket for Aaron Gordon against Kyle Lowry one-on-one. Awesome season for Aaron Gordon. Obviously, he defends everything. Tyus Jones. Everyone says best backup point guard in the NBA. Yeah.

Oh, the king of the assist to turnover ratio. And that's kind of where it stops. Tyus Jones averaging 10 points a game, five assists, shooting 40% from three. And the light went off sometime in the last two years of, oh, I can be aggressive and hunt my own shot. And I'm pretty good at it. And I can be a little bit shoot, if not shoot first, like shoot neutral sometimes and put my stamp on the game as a scorer. And the team's going to need me to do that. And he's done that. And, um,

He's been invaluable to them. They're staying afloat with Ja on the bench. They've actually been quite bad with Morant and Tyus Jones together. But just he's more than this sort of like game manager backup stabilizer now. Yeah. Last one. And I've been living on this island. It's been lonely. It's been tough times. You have a lot of islands. You have like an archipelago or something. Yeah, this one is a real island, though. This one is like...

I don't really think that many people in the world have like thought about this guy for the last two years, three years. But he never played for the Celtics. Almost never played. Didn't make enough shots for a guy who was supposed to be a shooter. And I always, every time he played, I was like, I kind of, there's something about him I like. The size, the force he plays with. I know he's not making shots, but if you're a shooter, you tend to eventually start making shots. Like I kind of feel like they should invest more.

Just give them a little bit of time to see what they got in him. And I would write this and say this. Then he became a throw-in in the Malcolm Brogdon trade. And now he's the starting power forward for the Indiana Pacers. Aaron Neesmith shooting 37% on threes. Defending last night against Toronto, he defended Fred Van Vliet in the first half and Pascal Siakam in the second half. And if he's coming at you at the rim, Howard Beck...

You either get out of the way or he's going to hurt you on his way up to the rim. He plays with so much force. He's a good rebounder. Just a nice little story. Those are my unsung heroes. Any thoughts? Anybody I left out? Anybody you'd go with? No, I like the Neesmith one. Unsung is like we're now like there's not even a – there's no music. There's no musical sheets. There's like you're beyond the unsung. It's like there's – no one's even heard of the concept of music by the time you're getting – because Aaron Neesmith is not going to be on –

anybody's top 100 of anything, but you're absolutely right to point him out. No, I think you hit some of the highest. I'd flirted with the idea of Landry Schammett, speaking of the Suns and guys who are keeping them afloat at critical times. And he's had some nice moments over the last few weeks in particular. Norm Powell, I'd kind of kicked around.

Coming on, not last night, one of eight against the Heat. Yeah. Coming on. But, you know, listen, on a team where, you know, any given night, Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, you know, might be, you know, wrapped in bubble wrap, frozen in carbonite and, you know, stored in a vault under a large mountain in Colorado with the nuclear codes. I've gone too far. He's been really important for all of those reasons.

Zoo bots would be, we'd be a good one for this, but I feel like I just, I can't talk about the Croatian guys. Cause my, my, my marital links are too obvious. So zoo bots. Oh, Bravo. Also you bring up zoo bots. It's just, it's just another sore spot for Laker fans that they have to deal with of all the guys who have gotten away or been traded away and given away over the last year. Hey, you know who has the best, you know who has the best net rating on the Oklahoma city thunder by far best Mike Muscala. Oh,

I'm not kidding. They're like plus 10 per 100 possessions with Mike Muscala's on the floor. But you went deep in the well for that one. Dang. This is what I do, man. I got nothing going on in my life. This is all I got. Well, not if you're researching deep Muscala stats. You have no room for anything left after that. No wonder you haven't seen Andor.

It's a Star Wars thing, I know that. I'm so far behind on Star Wars that there's just no hope for me. I think I've seen the first three, by which I mean the three that were out when we were children. The first new one that came out in like 1998, 1999 with the kid.

And then the revenge of the Sith, that one. Yeah. When he becomes Darth Vader. Yeah. And that after that, I've just now there are prequels and prequels to the prequels and sequels to the prequels that are prequels to other sequels. I just don't know where I'm lost. It's gotten complicated, but it, but, and, and, and it's gotten messy too. Cause not all of it's real good, but, but Andor's excellent. I think it was, it might've been number one on Andy Greenwald, Chris Ryan's,

Top 10. I think one of them had it number one for the year for their best shows of 2022. And we're finally getting around to it because my daughter finally had some time because her school is crazy. And we finally had some time over the break to watch this because that was my thing. We're getting to a break when we can watch this. Not a subject for this podcast, but-

Being a teenager seems like it just sucks. Like I kind of felt like it sucked at the time, but now it seems to suck even worse. And I don't,

I don't, they, they have like a worse life than adults. It just, do they sleep? I don't understand when they sleep. It just seems horrible. There's a lot, there's a lot to that for an offline discussion someday, since your daughter has a good, what a good 10, 12 years to go here before she's going to catch up to where my daughter is now. So we'll, we'll, you know, I'll have things to tell you. Hey man, we got it. We got the eighth birthday coming up pretty soon. We're not that far away. Oh wow. Eighth. Wow. God, why did I think she was still only like five or six?

Howard Beck writing for SI.com. I mentioned the clay piece. He wrote a big piece about LeBron about two weeks ago and the Lakers wasting one of the, by the way, just to, we didn't talk about the Lakers. Here are LeBron's numbers since Anthony Davis went out. 35 points a game on 58% shooting.

Seven assists, seven rebounds. The Lakers, I think it's nine games, are plus 27 with LeBron on the floor and minus 58 when LeBron is off the floor. What this guy is doing is absolutely ridiculous. I have no idea what they will do at the trade deadline anymore. My sense is...

Who knows? I don't know. I would guess that if they trade those picks, it will be for a big name who is under contract for more seasons than just this one and is a quote unquote star. But I don't know what is on the table really for them. They're so far behind the eight ball, but he has been just beyond extraordinary. And you should read that piece and everything Howard writes and his podcast.

thank you the crossover um which i may or may not be appearing on soon uh may or may not uh hopefully may um i got i got so much backlash on twitter when i tweeted out the lebron thing and said and i phrased it in there i didn't say this in the story but phrase it as lebron's playing at an mvp level i didn't say he's actually in the mvp race i just said playing an mvp i got so much pushback backlash mocking people throwing every advanced stat they could find all this like

Like forget age. The dude is playing at an MVP at minimum. He's playing at an all NBA level, um, throwing the age factor also. And it's even more impressive, but like, he is still an incredible force in this game. And that is why I believe as I wrote,

the Lakers owe it to him, to basketball history, to the basketball gods, to everybody to do whatever they can to make the season meaningful. I know you on your last pot, one of your recent pods, uh, push back a little bit on the idea of, of, of going to all in on a season that may be lost anyway. I, I disagree. I think make it as meaningful as possible. And the guys you acquire, by the way, could still be on your roster next season. Well, that's, that's the key. That's the key. That's the key. All right, Howard Beck, we could talk more about this on the crossover podcast, starring Howard Beck. Uh,

It's great to see you. I'll see you soon. And happy 2023. You too, my friend. Thank you.