Kirk Goldsberry
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast on a Friday morning. Croatia are through to the round of 16 and the NBA is at its quarter mark. And it's time to take stock, to look around, to zoom out. And no one better to do that with than the king of charts, the god of graphs, former San Antonio Spurs genius, Harvard professor, everything. Kurt Goldsberry, how are you?

I am great, Zach. Congrats to you and your family on the Croatian triumph getting through to the knockout round. The World Cup is in full swing too. And I'm thrilled about that. But let's talk about

Some surprises, right? My guy, let's talk about some surprises. I got to get a couple of soccer things out of the way. First. Number one. Did you, did you notice he said Croatia are through to the round of 16? I'm getting the lingo down a little bit. Like Croatia are through my, my, my, I give it away with bad lingo all the time when I'm trying to have a sock. The jargon is so specific and so different. So English, let's be honest. I,

I get exposed very quickly when I try to talk about soccer just because of the vocab. I threw out a nil-nil the other day. Nil-nil. I was really proud of myself. And let me just say this. Canada...

Canada, all this time I heard, well, Canada, young up-and-coming team. There could be a surprise. Thanks for showing up, Canada. Thanks for showing up. I needed you to win yesterday against Morocco. I turned on the TV. It was 1-0 Morocco. I looked down. I type a couple lines in my 10 things comp. 2-0 Morocco. Thanks for showing up, Canada.

They had a great qualifying run, as I understand. Yeah, good for them. A great qualifying run. That's awesome. Great, good. That's great. Congratulations. Awesome. CONCACAF, great. Team USA, by the way, shout out. We have bragging rights on the North American continent. We're the only member of the North American continent to advance to the round of 16. Mexico ended a long streak of success with their failure in the group stage. And Canada, as you alluded to, a disappointing performance as well.

So I have a rule that I try to abide by in the NBA, which is,

Try very hard not to crow when you're right about something, because the next thing you're going to be wrong about is right around the corner. It's coming right around the corner. So if you say, oh, I told you so about this team, it's going to be, I told you so the other way about another team or another player. So that's why I wanted to hit the quarter poll with you and talk about what did we get wrong in the preseason? What teams have been better? Why?

worse or different than you and I expected going into the season in our sort of preseason predictions. So what did we get wrong? I will cede the floor to you. Pick a player, pick a team, pick whatever you want. Kurt Goldsberry, what did you get wrong? I got a bunch of stuff wrong. And as you said, that's not unusual for me or for any of us who try to do this for a living. But when you look at the standings, I think the answers kind of jump off the page for me and what I thought was going to happen, Zach, when we were sitting here in preseason.

The two big ones I'm going to lead with are the Indiana Pacers, who are a pleasant surprise of all pleasant surprises. We'll talk about them later. But the negative surprise I think we should lead with was on full display last night, in part because the NBA is doing this thing where there's just one game on Thursdays now sometimes. And last night, that wasn't a great game. It was Dallas at Detroit. And the Mavericks.

Zach are my biggest negative surprise. I expected them to go forward this season to build on that Western Conference finals trip last season.

And instead, they have come out and just been disappointing. And I thought a lot of that was on full display last night as they gave up 131 points and let Killian Hayes have the game of his life and a bad loss in Detroit. So my negative surprise is the Dallas Mavericks act.

So I didn't have them going forward because I was concerned about how they botched the jail and Brunson situation completely and lost their second most important player and did not replace him with a ball handler. They replaced him with a very good offensive player in Christian Wood, but not really a ball handler, although he can kind of herky jerky his way into some ISO scores here and there.

But I did have them in a tier in my top tier in the West. Here's how wrong I was. My inner circle of contenders had six teams in it. The three in the West were Clippers. Okay. I guess the Clippers exist and will at some point have a team that they have on paper. Warriors, who I think are coming around. I'm still pretty confident in the Warriors. And Denver, who just very quietly is rolling at 14 and 7.

Um, two guys having really sneaky under the radar. Great seasons are Aaron Gordon and Bruce Brown. Aaron Gordon shooting like 70% on twos and playing great defense. Uh, in the next year is where I had Dallas and I think they're over under was something like 48 and a half or 47 and a half. And my opinion was that's about right. And I just thought, look, I know the Brunson situation. It's a sunk cost. He's gone.

I just thought Luka plus shooting plus defense was just a formula for hold the fort until we figure out how to build this next team around Luka. And what's happened is that formula hasn't kind of played out because they really missed the second ball handler. Dinwiddie's now their second ball. He's been fine, but they really missed Brunson.

They have no two-point offense at all. They have no transition offense at all. I think they – the Mavs must think there's a rule that you just can't – the fast breaks are like illegal. You have to walk the ball up every single possession. And the shooting has not been there. Bullock's in a slump. Finney Smith broke out a bit last night. And what strikes me watching them and what struck me last night is –

They had a very fine balance of shooting and defense that really depended on Bullock and Finney Smith being two-way wings. And as soon as you remove one of those guys, and Bullock has been sort of the odd man out in the last couple games –

It feels like they just get a little out of balance and become just that one small change, become one of those teams that's like, well, we either have to go offense and sacrifice defense or go defense and sacrifice offense, and they can't kind of thread the needle. And I agree with you. They're not as good as I thought they would be, and I was wrong on them. What else have you seen? A lot of what you alluded to. I think if...

If we had done this podcast about a year ago, maybe a little bit later towards all-star break last season, Zach, I think my biggest surprise would have been Dallas's defense specifically. And I thought when Jason Kidd and Sean Sweeney and that staff came in, I didn't have high hopes for the defense. And like the Pelicans this year recently are showing this incredible defense relatively out of nowhere. It's a remarkable story. And I think you're right about the formula. And

And it's Luca plus shooting plus defense. The defense has taken a step back and the shooters aren't making shots. Luca,

You know, I had a very pleasant time this summer, Zach, in Cologne, Germany with our own Tim McMahon, drinking some Kohl's beers, watching Luka Doncic at Eurobasket. And I came back and I was the guy saying, this guy's going to win MVP and the scoring title. And he hasn't done much to dissuade either of those things. That's what I'm saying. So the formula, I still think you framed it perfectly. The formula, the Luka part's great. The non-Luka minutes are not.

every role player outside of Luca and maybe Dinwiddie, it may be Christian would have been a disappointment and we can talk about specific things, but it manifests mostly in that second thing. And that third thing, the shooting hasn't been good. Bullock is a notoriously slow starter from the three point line. Um,

That could turn around. Maxie could turn around Tim Hardaway jr. But if they're all off the slow starts in concert, we're starting to see that efficiency that they, they harvest a lot of their offensive efficiency from those three point shots that Luca creates. And when they're not going in their offensive efficiency drops. And then, as you mentioned,

They haven't quite been able to repeat that great success story of last year's defense. I think they're middle of the pack in defense, middle of the pack in offense, and they're middle of the pack in the standings. But it's the two second things in your formula, Zach, the shooting from the role player specifically, and the defense that I think are driving this negative surprise. Josh Green is playing great. Great.

and has made the case for more minutes and maybe even a starting role. And their lineup data is all over the place. Like everyone, the wood thing,

The Wood minutes have become kind of an obsession among Mavs fans. Jason Kidd's already said... I love... We've got cantankerous Jason Kidd. The over-under is like on 15 and a half games. And I think that was like that line was set right correctly, the line I just made up, because he's cantankerous and I just want to answer his question. Their lineup data is really interesting. So Luka, Wood, Kliba, that trio, so a second big man alongside Wood to kind of protect him defensively, has

has been really good destroying opponents. Wood is the only big man on the floor with Luka. So you got to have Luka or else the whole team falls apart. Yeah. Wood and Luka with Wood at center, no other big man, has a slight plus scoring margin, really good on offense, treading water on defense, about what you would expect. Weirdly, given that reality, Wood, Dinwiddie, Doncic, which is really the way they can ease the burden on Luka if they even want to do that by having both

Dinwiddie and wood on the floor with him is getting destroyed in like less than a hundred minutes. So it's a tiny sample size. So there, I still think they need to try that a little bit more, but it hasn't worked so far and hard away. Can't make a shot. JaVale is not even playing. It's just, it's just, and it feels like,

it feels so joyless. Like their games just feel like, it just feels like work. It just looks like work and feels like work. And it's just not fun to watch. It's fun to watch because Luke is a genius and he's brilliant and he's no looking and doing all these fakes and all this stuff. But the whole thing just feels like a slog, man. It's funny you say that. I had in my notes that there's a bad vibe and nobody wants to hear me talk about vibes, but you set me up. I do think it's joyless and I'll go a step further starting to remind me

of those very mechanical rockets teams with the hyper usage hardened

And a lot of us thought it was cool at first and then got bored with it. And it was slow and it was heliocentric and all that stuff. I also want to come back. You did a great job of nailing this out of the gate. I think the Jalen Brunson departure is big. This team, as Tim McMahon loves to say, has two dudes that can dribble the ball. I mean, and when Spencer did what he gets ejected,

in the Golden State game. You have Josh Green trying to play point guard. That's a Peter principle situation as good as he's been. When Luke is on the bench, there's no Jalen Brunson out there. And I think the people around the Mavs would say, hey, Spencer's done a good job filling that role a little bit for Brunson. But the old Spencer role, the old Spencer Dinwiddie role from last year, now we have a hole there. And to McMahon's point,

there's only two guys that can really initiate offense on this team. The hope now is that Kemba Walker comes in and can service that role. And that's a big hope. And you can find people who are very optimistic about that in a very limited role. Kemba can do it. And then you'll find people around the league who say,

Dude, it's Kemba Walker. I'm sorry to say this, but he's over the hill as a playmaker in this league. But I think the Brunson thing that you brought up earlier is a big part of why the non-Luka playmaking situations have taken a big drop. And Band of McMahon and I have done the Brunson thing to death. We don't need to address it anymore. The Kemba thing, look, everybody loves Kemba Walker. I love Kemba Walker.

He is a four-time All-Star, has had an amazing career. He says he's healthy. He came on this podcast last year before the season in New York and said he was healthy, feeling better than ever. And I have no doubt that he's going to go there just like he did in New York and have a couple of monster games. I mean, he had like two 40-point games in New York almost in a row last year. And it's just a matter of can his knees hold up? And the track record suggests the answer is no.

The fact that he was unsigned until after Thanksgiving suggests the league at large thinks the answer is no. I hope everyone's wrong. I really do. But it feels like a Hail Mary to me. And look, Tim and I have joked that the Mavs are team holding pattern, that they know this can't be the end vision around Luka, that they know the clock is ticking until he needs to see

something closer to the end vision. They have actually two first round picks to trade this season, even though they all went to the Knicks in the Porzingis deal.

I just don't know. I don't know what the deal is. I don't know that there is a short-term deal. I don't know that they have the players that really anyone's dying to have. And maybe this season just becomes actually a real holding pattern season. I don't know. But I know if they make the top six, no one's psyched to play that team and that dude in the playoffs. No, and a couple other things. I think, you know, one thing is,

If you look at how they started last year, and I don't know if this team is sort of established enough to go back into the previous year and take away stuff, but they started, I have it here. They were 10 and nine at the end of November last year. That's essentially where they are this year. They were 17 and 18 at the end of December. Okay. Like the Celtics started out poorly, mediocre. And then the Dallas Mavericks on 35 and 12,

after January 1st and before the playoffs last year. And I'll allow for some optimism in Dallas because of that that happened last year. And especially because of that thing, the shooting luck, some cold starts,

but dude, they're one in eight on the road. I mean, you can, I can argue both cases here. It's so early. The signals are messy, but one thing I do want to point out is that, yeah, they did this last year and then they became the best team in the Western conference, not named the warriors in the second half of the season and got all the way to the Western conference final. So I think there is a glass half full version here. Um,

I do want to extend that Rockets analogy, though. The closest that that Harden team ever got was when they added Chris Paul, a second-best

who could drive the car. And I know Chris has been in the news in the last 24 hours, but I'm alluding to a time where Chris Paul was an incredible second option in a Houston team that had the high usage, hardened, heliocentric shooters, five out thing going on that the Mavs are kind of doing now. Where's that coming from? Because as much as I liked Inwitty and he's been okay this year, they're missing that piece.

Yeah, they are. And they also they've played more close games than anybody in the NBA. The Mavs are in crunch time seemingly every night, including last night in Detroit, which went to overtime.

They only have two blowout wins this season. And as you know, blowouts are more predictive of like, okay, this is a real championship team, championship contending team, than eking out crunch time win after crunch time win. I mean, Phoenix has eked out a million crunch time wins. They also have a lot of blowouts. Like they've been great at both in the last couple of years. And we're going to get to them in a second. Their only blowouts, the Mavs, are the second game of the season against Memphis. Memphis was on a back-to-back on the road. The Mavs were rested.

Good win. Memphis is really good. And against Denver with Jokic and Murray both resting or out, I guess they were, I think they were both sick at the same time. So other than that, they've played more close games than anybody in the NBA. And it just feels like, just feels like a slog.

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Because I had two of these three teams. I'm going to name three right now. Two of the three were in my inner circle of contenders. So the fact that they're good or trending toward good is not a surprise. The third was on the next tier down and their fans, boy, they let me have it for not putting them in the inner circle of contenders where they think they belong and they are proving right now. Maybe they do. Those three teams have this in common. All of them, all of them were embroiled in contender.

Such crazy preseason drama that it made you think or not even just preseason drama that it made you wonder, assume that something in their ecosystem must be off that these events, you cannot experience these events.

And not have some negative effect on your chemistry, your culture, something. And to some degree, all three of these teams are actually making that a really interesting discussion. Like, does it actually matter? So here are the three teams. Boston.

whose coach is suspended right before the season in a workplace sexual scandal that we've talked about on many other podcasts before. Robert Williams is injured. Gallo's injured. Boy, how can they take it? They've got their boy. That's got to happen. I remember saying it can't help. It can't help. And they're just destroying the entire league. Golden State. Draymond Green punches Jordan Poole in the face. Knocks him down. It gets leaked to the media.

That seems bad. Must have some effect on your chemistry. They send Draymond Green away. Flash forward. Yeah, the Warriors are only 11-11, but they're trending right. Steve Kerr's made some adjustments in the rotation, putting Draymond and sometimes Wiggins and sometimes Clay and sometimes Steph with bench units. Particularly, there's one with Draymond that is really playing well. And they seem to have stabilized. And Draymond himself is playing outstanding on both ends of the floor. Much better.

And Phoenix, who has the best record in the West, the second best point differential in the league. And their drama was at the very top with Robert Sarver. And then the game seven humiliation against Dallas, where I remember saying, you just never know when a game like that breaks you. The Aiton situation, the comments about Aiton and Monte Williams about, oh, yeah, we haven't talked this whole summer.

All the fireworks and drama there. Jay Crowder. Jay Crowder. Out. Like, I'm out. Trade me. Cam Johnson's injured. Chris Paul's injured.

Chris Paul's injured. We're going to leave it there. And all of these teams, it's got to affect them. They've got to have some effect. And it's like, maybe that stuff matters way less. I mean, obviously, every team is different. Every roster is different. Maybe that stuff just doesn't matter as much as we'd like to think it does because two of those teams are cruising along and the third one seems to be finding its footing. And again, it's not that I was wrong about any of them. I think I had them properly rated. I still think Phoenix...

in a playoff series against full throttle Clippers, if they ever exist, full throttle Warriors, full throttle Nuggets. Phoenix is, I might pick all three of those teams over Phoenix. And again, I haven't seen full throttle Clippers. They may not ever happen.

But they're really damn good. You can pick either of these three teams. It's not that I was wrong about them, but you worked for a team. Does this stuff just maybe not matter? It's interesting. Oh, it matters. And I think one of the things these three teams have in common too, Zach, is pretty good leadership in the front offices. I think that they are able to absorb chaos effectively.

in Phoenix because they have James Jones. I want to talk about that. Monte Williams is also just the coolest coach around and can deal with like a Jay Crowder situation, which was like you said, one of many. And he's just, he just is such a level headed presence, you know, Brad and Boston able to navigate the chaos. And the underrated thing is my friend, Will Hardy also leaving. I, I was very, I,

about Boston too in the preseason because of the respect I had for specifically Will and his ability to coach. And if all the stuff that went down with Emei happened a few weeks earlier, a month or two earlier, Will Hardy is probably the coach of the Celtics. And they didn't have Will to go to. And then Missoula obviously has done a fantastic job. But the organizational culture, and credit to the players as well in these situations, for having resiliency in the face of chaos. Yeah.

But let's start with the Suns, because like my beloved Spurs of old, they'll never be in the A block of NBA Today. They'll never be on the A block of first take. Despite my vociferous, if people could hear me on the pre-show NBA Today calls,

where I'm like, do we have to talk about the Lakers again? They made a whole bit out of me saying on TV, can we talk about the Bucs? Can we talk about that? That's like a whole bit now. So, yeah, look, someone has to fight the good fight, and sometimes it's me. And they'll never be in the A block, but they might have the best record in the West for three straight years, like those old Spurs teams. And people almost disdain talking about them, even in podcast media.

it's like they're boring. And to me, it's a sign of organizational strength when you can have that resilience in the face of chaos. But Damian Lee's played more minutes than Chris Paul this year. And the biggest thing I'd be wrong about if you had told me that

with the eight and chaos with the cam injury is that this team is still the best offense in the Western conference right now with all the talk that the Sacramento Kings have gotten and rightfully so for that high power, fast paced offense. And the numbers still say Phoenix has a better offensive efficiency at the quarter way Mark Zach, and they've done it with an MVP candidate level performance from Devin Booker who deserves credit for

For for taking a leadership role, but the offensive numbers, the thing I would have been wrong about here specifically in Phoenix, and that is driving them again to one of the best records in the NBA credit to Booker, Monty and everybody who's playing minutes for that team. Yeah, Monty Williams is, you know, I think I voted him coach of the year the last two years. I know I voted him the year that Thibodeau won as stable coach.

of forces there is atop any organization as a coach. But still, for them to be their second in offense and sixth in defense, second in net rating behind only Boston, despite all of the stuff that we've talked about, you said they're kind of boring.

I mean, we don't think they're boring, to be clear. Not to watch. I'm saying in the quote-unquote discourse, they're not salacious. Even in these scandals you're alluding to, the Sarver thing was salacious. But when I said boring, I mean to like this generic national media conglomerate, the quote-unquote apparatus of...

of nba uh discourse they're the a block point was what i meant they're boring to the people who determine the a blocks and no offense to my beloved producers you know yeah look i mean the aiden thing is what it is right they made him go out and get a deal and matched it clearly something went on there that were they were not they soured on him last season after going out of their way the year they made the finals to talk about how proud they were of him adapting to a

a kind of secondary screen and roll, defend, rebound role on the team. He plays only 14, 15 minutes, whatever it is in game seven, gets pulled. There's drama there. The last two weeks of DeAndre Ayton has been maybe the best DeAndre Ayton we've ever seen in the NBA. He is allergic to free throws. And in four of his last five games, he's attempted at least seven free throws.

Um, he is rolling hard to the rim. They're running these side pick and rolls with him and Booker with no other player on that side of the floor. And he's just diving to the rim dunking. Yeah. He still spins away from contact. Sometimes he has a soft touch. So it doesn't matter that much.

defensively, he's super engaged. He's just, I said in the off season, like I wish Detroit had gone after Deandre and before they got jail and during the draft, I thought he was a great fit there. I would bet on, I just think Deandre, look, he's not a sexy player. He may never be an a plus on either end of the floor, but he's like a solid a minus B plus at almost every part of the game. He's playing really well. And book, uh,

you know, he told my buddy saying, Hey, Mickey, I'm not really in the MVP discussion. Hey man, 51 points following up a 44 or whatever. He's now at 29 a game, six assists, five boards, 49% shooting 38% on threes, 54% on twos. The sons for the season are plus 156 with Devin Booker on the floor and minus one with Devin Booker on the bench.

If he's not in the MVP discussion, A, you need to change the discussion. And B, it's a sign of how crowded and amazing this MVP race is going to be. Knock on wood if everybody stays healthy. But this team, they just know who they are. They know how to play. They do not make mistakes. They run their stuff. They defend like all hell. They make precise rotations. They are just a machine of precision.

I love the Aiton point. I always say spacing starts at the rim, and when you have a rim running big and he has good hands and soft touch around the basket, you can open up the three-point line for everybody. And to borrow a term from Jalen Rose, the Suns have really beautiful basketball geometry. They threaten the defense at all three levels of the scoring area, but I think Aiton's emergence as the team sort of

leading shooter and rim threat opens up space for their shooters and especially Devin Booker. And again, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but if you had told me they would have been putting up these numbers without Chris Paul, one of

one of the great quarterbacks of modern basketball. I would have been totally wrong about that. I would have said no way. And that's why I do think Devin Booker at very least has got to be the MVP of the Western conference right now. And this team is right back to where they were the last two years, despite all of the chaos that we've already covered in this segment here.

Look, I haven't sat down and done all the All-Star candidates. I know it's an absolute bloodbath to get in in both conferences, and you could probably make a list of 25 guys in every conference, in both conferences, for 12 spots. I just know that if Phoenix has the best record in the West, and it might not – I think it'll probably be close, but if they have the best record in the West, they need to have Aiton and Bridges get a look as a second All-Star. I mean, obviously, Devin is a lock.

Chris Paul's not going to make it because he's off to a slow start and he's injured. I know those guys aren't 20 point a game scorers. And, you know, you start talking about all the great, great players averaging 30 a game. It's going to be hard for them to get in. I just think they're going to have to be on your long list. If this team is this good with this many guys missing, including their second best player, presumably.

Aiden and bridges for what they are doing deserve to be on your long list of all-star candidates at the very least they are playing that well. And bridges is just bridges is a mid range machine. He's a transition finisher. The defense is what it is like. Those two guys, you can talk about Booker and Monty Williams in the ecosystem, but

Those two guys at numbers two and three on the team right now are playing outstanding. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up Bridges. 50-40-90 candidate, by the way. I mean, yeah, and, you know, he's getting 16 points a game. He is one of the, if not the, prototype 3 and D guy in pro basketball right now. He blocks shots. He gets steals. He's a smart, willing defender. He's just such a great player.

weapon to have on that side. And we haven't even talked about the defense hasn't dropped off and that's incredible. And then eight making over 60% of his shots. So you're exactly right. Whether they're stars or not, I'll let other people fight it out for that. But,

As a club, the Phoenix Suns basketball team has two incredible players right below Devin Booker right now and right below Chris Paul. And when Cam comes back, again, that Jalen Rose thing, the geometry here is so beautiful. You have the three and D, you have the point guard, the superstar score, and you have the rim running big. It's just, there's a lot of talk of positionless basketball. Well, they still have positions in Phoenix and all the guys at those positions are

are really good at their jobs. And it's fun to watch. And I didn't mean to say they're boring in that sense. I love watching them. And they're going to be a problem because they're not whole right now, Zach. And they're arguably the best team in the West. And I do think Crowder will get moved. It may be a situation where they're just waiting for December 15th

Obviously, there were reports that they were close to a deal a couple weeks ago. It didn't happen. Allegedly, it was a three-team deal. I've heard all sorts of different intel. One team I would keep an eye on in any Crowder trade or really any trade like that budding in is the Rockets with Eric Gordon. Just keep an eye on it. I'm not saying he would be going to any specific place. I'm just saying keep an eye on it.

And so they'll get something for Crowder and Cam Johnson coming back is big because I do think they have recognized internally. We can't just be this team that is completely, completely dependent on mid range shots in the playoffs. We need to have more tools in the toolbox and Cam Johnson's tool is we're going to shoot a crap ton of threes and more by our standards anyway, by Phoenix's low standards, they'll shoot more threes. There's six and offensive rebounding after being a bottom 10 team for years and years.

Part of that is Aiden. Part of that is they're kind of random scrap guys like Torrey Craig, Bismack, Biambo, Jock Lando, who's kind of on the fringes of the rotation now. I like the fact and with Aiden's free throws, we'll see if that persists, but they've found more sources of offense. And I think they needed to do it. They're also, by the way, you watch the play. And I looked at the numbers. I was watching the other night.

They are the best transition defense team in the NBA. They never, ever mess it up. There are never Minnesota recently. We should talk about them because I was wrong about them. They have five possessions a game where somebody shoots a three and both the shooter and whoever else is at the top of the arc or around the arc. Just stand there like, oh, look, a shot.

Oh, I wonder if it's going to go in. Oh, it missed. Oh, two guys just ran behind me because we didn't move. Our first step in transition is such a dunk. Hey, to be fair to those guys, there's nothing more seductive in the sport of basketball than that one or two seconds where the ball is in hanging in the air. The ball is tipped. We're either getting three points or there's going to be some weird clang. And as a fan of the sport, I love that moment.

I love that suspense and we get it a hundred or 200 times a game sometimes. And it's just great to watch these jump shots. Will they go in or not? So to the Minnesota guys, I feel you. It's a very, it's a very distracting part of basketball. Anthony probably should be doing something else as a player. Yeah. Anthony Edwards. I love you. You're going to, you're going to be a future superstar. When the Angela Russell shoots a three on one side of the court,

A, assume it's going to miss. And B, get your ass back on defense because the other team is leaking out. And the guy in that Anthony Edwards position on Phoenix is getting back every single time. And if you look at cleaning the glass, they allow the fewest transition opportunities in the entire league. And they have a low points per possession on those opportunities. They just nail all the little things. And look, my inner circle of contenders at the start of the season was six teams.

Boston, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Denver, Clippers, and I think Philly. I should probably remember that. No Mavs? No. Phoenix was one tier below

I was wrong about that. Phoenix, again, I have my playoff suspicions a little bit, but they're better than I thought they were going to be. Wait, that's the last question. I'm going to ask the great Zach Lowe this question. If you had to say the 2021 Suns playoff run versus the 2022 Suns playoff run, which one do you think is a better sort of example of what we might see in the 2023 playoffs?

Well, there were, there are people who would discount the two 2021 sons playoff run, right? Oh, Anthony Davis was injured. Kawhi was injured. You know, the nuggets were out of gas and banged up and on and on. I just, all that is true. You just got to win. You got to win the games in front of you. They roasted the nuggets. The Clippers series was probably more competitive than I expected it to be, but the Clippers just, they're good, man. Like

everyone's sort of down on the Clippers right now. And I get why, like the Kawhi thing is weird. He never plays. They have missed Kawhi almost the entire season. Paul George has missed some games. Luke canards missed a million games. Guys are injured all the time. They're 13 and 10. Like they've had an easy schedule, but they find ways to win. Whereas other teams, we don't have to say their names suffer one injury. And it's like, well, how can you possibly expect them to win any games? You know, the blah, blah, blah. Um,

So I think that run to the finals is a legit run. And they won two games against the Bucs in the finals. And it took one of the greatest finals performances of my lifetime to end that series. And Giannis, all credit to him. What a monster masterpiece he put up in game six that year. But I'm with you. We still don't talk enough about... I have to go back and watch it.

That game five in Phoenix, the lob that drew Holiday through Giannis with like 10 seconds left in the game when the Bucs were, I believe, leading by one and could have just slowed down, gotten fouled.

and played the free throw game. And Drew Holiday was like, how about instead of that, I run the ball up the sideline and throw like a 30 foot lob to a guy who's a bad free throw shooter in general, not in that series, but in general.

And just kind of see what happens. Like maybe it hits the backboard and they get a bucket the other way. Maybe on like that is one of the all time crazy slash ballsy plays. And if it goes wrong, Phoenix might be up three, two in that series. That was an insane moment. It was. Yeah, it's World Cup season. And we're seeing how how soccer can have these moments with these goals to change a whole team's.

ability to come out of the group stage, for instance. But that was the closest I could think of, that moment you just described. It was such an inflection point because it was either going to be a dumb play that could cost you a final series or, as you alluded to,

the highlight that we all picture in our heads for the rest of our lives. That one in Giannis, Giannis is retreating block on eight. Oh my God. I forgot what he recovered, like a defensive back from the elbow to the rim. And then the one other one was the eight mob play that series, which was just a phenomenal out of bounds play. That was against the Clippers. That was, that was against the Clippers. That's game two. That was the game two against the Clippers. And they're still mad about DeMarcus cousins in defense on the inbounds passer on that play. Um,

Yeah. But anyway, I think the sons I'm with you going back to that point, the 2021 sons run, you can argue that to this team is in last year, there are, there are people who can give you a good excuse why that that happened last year. And I'm not going to say which side I'm on with that one, but I do think the bones of this team are so good and so diverse that they're, they're positioned on both ends of the court to win games. I think the sons are a real threat to come out of the West again. Yeah.

That play was amazing. By the way, how does anybody watch soccer? I'm watching that Croatia-Belgium game yesterday. I couldn't even watch. It was unbearable. What's that guy's name? Lukaku? Yeah, the Belgian guy. Yeah, of course. When he hit the post... Oh, it's so scary. I...

I just don't know how – I guess I don't follow the leagues. I guess the leagues are just like a – there's a lot of games, so every game doesn't feel like this life or death situation. These World Cup games are just absolutely agonizing, just agonizing. The win probability can switch in two seconds from –

a very big number one way to a very, and that doesn't happen in our sport very often. The drew holiday lob play was, was a big inflection point, but not like, you know, the foul is the U S fan, the foul on Gareth Bale in, in the 75th or 80th minute, whatever that was against Wales. I was like, Oh my God, that's a goal. Like that's. And then when we're ahead against Iran, it's,

just hanging on, just knowing that one, it's all, it'll take this one shot to end the whole USA world cup run. It's, it's pretty, it's pretty gut wrenching back. I have, by the way, by the way, I mentioned, we're not going to talk about this team yet because it's, it's just, it's not, it's not quite time. I mentioned Devin Booker's insane plus minus stats. Nope. Nobody wants to hear this. I don't think because I, I guess there's,

Something like voter fatigue. The Nuggets with Nikola Jokic on the floor are plus 173. That's a big number. That's bigger than Booker's numbers. Plus 156. The Nuggets with Nikola Jokic off the floor are minus 124. What the hell is going on? He is averaging 23, 10, and 9 on 62% shooting.

69% on twos. You may not want him in the MVP conversation. You may be tired of talking to him, talking about him. You may think he's a ground bound plotting, whatever on defense, he's going to be in the MVP conversation, whether you like it or not. And he's doing it a different way. He's not shooting as much. And he has two of his best friends back out there, uh,

Not to mention the emergence of Bones Highland, but they just spread the floor with incredible scoring. And who better, Zach, than Nikola Jokic to have those kinds of tools in the toolbox on offense? And he's demonstrated that he can win games without scoring a bunch of points. And that offense...

is simply put one of the best in the league. And that's not a surprise. We all knew if these guys were coming in healthy, that this offense, now those on-off numbers are kind of disappointing because this team should be deeper than that. The negative one I'm alluding to specifically, like Steph had a similar thing going on earlier this season. Like he still does. Steph was in the game. They had a net rating of eight or whatever. That's that's elite. And when he was off, they had a negative 15 net rating or something. I haven't checked that recently, but to me, that's one of the MVP things.

criteria is I go to that and be like, okay, when this guy's in and we all do the same thing, this would be the third best net rating in the league. When he's out, this would be the worst net. That's what Curry was at. Jokic is at. Booker is doing something similar. And I do think that's a big part of the MVP discussion. They may have to run the non-Jokic offense through Vlato Chanchar at this point because they're just running out of ideas and Vlato is flying around getting things done. Vlatko. Sorry, Vlatko.

You mentioned Indiana as a team you were wrong about. I think that's like, we were all kind of wrong about Indiana. They're, they're clearly a decent team. Tyrese Halliburton just never turns the ball over. I don't really know how that's possible. Let's talk about a team kind of on the flip side of that equation in, in their division, a team that I appear to have been right about. And again, I don't want to crow about it because we're wrong about everything. This whole podcast about what we're wrong about. And that's the Chicago bulls who are nine and 12.

And Bill Simmons on his podcast this week floated a trade idea that I had alluded to and talked about directly, actually, I think even before the season, I mentioned maybe the Bulls, maybe the Lakers rather hold their ammo and see what happens with a team like the Bulls, see what happens with a team like the Wizards. And I mentioned to Rosen specifically, and according to Twitter, I haven't gotten a chance to listen yet. Bill, your podcast is going to be my Peloton podcast today. Um,

The trade I saw on Twitter was Russ in both picks, one with light protection on it, I think, for DeRozan and Vujovic. I can tell you 100% for sure the Lakers have had internal discussions about that very possibility if it would ever come up. Not that they would do it. Let me be clear. Just like you look around the league, like any responsible team would,

and say, okay, we know the Pacers option is there. The Utah option was there. The Spurs option doesn't excite us very much in terms of where can we dump Russ and one pick two picks, no picks, whatever. Um,

And, and Yovan Buha at the athletic reported yesterday that, you know, they're more leaning towards a more conservative pick the trade. The Lakers are with none and Beverly and maybe one pick and his, his reporting is, is on the ball generally. So maybe this whole thing is, is nonsense anyway, but the boat, both picks for the bulls guys is certainly something that their brain trust is thought about. Otherwise they'd be irresponsible. Yeah.

And the reaction I saw on Twitter was, boy, why would the Bulls do this? This is a horrible trade for the Bulls. And it seems horrible because they just went half in, not all in, but somewhat in to build this team. The team was in first place 40 games into the season last year, whatever, 50 games, whatever the hell it was.

They're minus six per 100 possessions with Levine, DeRozan, and Vucevic on the floor after being outscored by a tiny margin last year. Outscored by a tiny margin doesn't seem bad, but when you build your team around three all-stars and you talk about how you've built your team around three all-stars, all-stars, all-stars, you just say all-star a million times, so it seeps into the brains of your fans like, oh my God, we have three all-stars. And you're playing dead even?

let alone getting outscored by six points per hundred possessions with those three also on the floor. That's not good. Levine is coming off knee surgery. He's, he's got a giant contract. He hasn't looked quite the same. Vucevic is on an expiring deal.

Is anyone that excited to get Nikola Vucevic on an expiring? They were not on the expiring, but we know he's a limited defender. And like this idea that he's a great three point shooter. It's just not true. He had one great season. And after that, it's like 34%, 31%, 32%. You can see teams just don't care. They don't care if he's open on some nights, he'll make them pay on some nights. He'll pass up a lot of open threes or some open threes anyway.

Does he have a lot of trade value? DeRozan has real trade value. DeRozan is also eligible for an extension after this season. Vucevic is eligible for an extension, I believe, already. Many, many people in the league have floated the Bulls as a, well, they owe this top four protected pick to Orlando in the disastrous Vucevic trade. There's some interesting guys at the top of the draft this year. Should they blow it up? Should they just get out of this business of Vucevic and DeRozan?

And tank those Lakers picks are valuable. Like, I don't think that's a crazy, awful trade for the Bulls. Those extensions decisions with those two guys are will be telling for Chicago. They would have to make a blow it up decision as an organization before they can offer to Rosen and extension. So maybe that's not so telling in the offseason. It will be, though.

I don't know, man. I never really saw it with this team. I know Lonzo's the connector. Lonzo's the guy who makes it go. Without him, their shooting and defense aren't the same. I know. I know. Also, though...

You keep hearing when I talk to executives around the league, well, the Bulls need to pick a lane. The Bulls can't sit here in the middle. They need to pick a lane. It's like they just picked a lane. They made these moves in 2020, the summer of 2021. That's like yesterday. They just picked a lane. Are they going to veer to the other side of the highway already? Like that is that hurts as a front office. If you wave the white flag on this team 18 months or whatever after building it 14, 15, 16, whatever it is.

That is that's an omelet on your face, man. That's not an egg. That's an omelet.

To extend the road metaphor, they did pick a lane, but they got a flat tire. And you don't just keep driving with a flat tire. You got to do something here. And the roadmap, I think we touched on Indiana, and I'll add Cleveland to this. Oh, I want to hit Cleveland because I was wrong about Cleveland. I'll give you a setup. But I think one of the things with Cleveland last year, they turned the corner, right? They won 31% of the games two years ago, 54% last year, 64%.

This year, but the key thing, Zach, I think when the pick a lane discussion comes up, the thing that Cleveland got as they went from a 31% winning team to a 54% is they got an identity. The Evan Mobley, Jared Allen, oh my God, this is a defense. We have a defense. We don't know what we're going to do. Arms, arms everywhere. We have arms everywhere and we're putting up when we're healthy top five defensive numbers. Let's build around that. I think the Pacers are going to go from 31%

last year to about 50% this year, let's say. But they got an identity. They have this incredible backcourt of young guys, and now they have a clear team building endeavor in front of them. How do we build around these students?

Cleveland has a clear team building endeavor. We know who we are. We picked a lane, but we also have a brand identity to work with. In Cleveland, we have these defenders. In Indiana, these other Eastern Conference teams that are on the roadmap to success, they have a brand. They have an identity. I still don't know what Chicago is trying to be good at as an analyst. I don't know what they think they can get to.

I have always been a Vucevic critic. Although when I mapped his shot charts, he had a beautiful Grantland era shot chart. Cause this guy, when we were still shooting 20 footers, he was great at that. And to be clear, like he's a good player and prime Vucevic was a really good player.

The defensive limitations are what they are, and he's just not as special on offense and as a shooter as I think people make him out to be. He's just fine. He's a good post player. He never gets fouled. His three-point shot I mentioned, he's just okay. He's not like amazing. No, and if you pay a center in 2022 a lot of money, that player better be good at defense, period.

That's, that's what I think. Okay. It's, it's, it's, it's the number one job requirement for a high paid center in pro basketball right now. And he is a great shooter. He's good rebounder, but he's not a rim protector. So I think their defensive identity is always lacked because of that. And I'll put that on any center in the NBA. That's their, that's their job. And then on offense,

I still don't know. Can you build a great offense around DeMar? There's people like our friend Bob Valgaris and some of my friends at the Spurs that say, yeah, just ISO DeMar. Have you seen the numbers? Just ISO, ISO, ISO. Just run. He should have the highest usage in the league. He should do this. Well, they haven't really done that. And they're not good at offense and they're not good at defense when you take the 10,000-foot view. Their off-ball defense is just a train wreck. They're not a train wreck. And I don't know where they're going.

They had, I think I'm leaning towards its time to at least consider quote unquote, blowing it up, Zach and Chicago. Well, again, like people scoffed at the trade bill mentioned. I don't think Vucevic has a ton of trade value. DeRozan has some, but those two first round picks are really, really valuable picks. Like that. That's not a crazy trade.

The Bulls play things pretty close to the vest, so I don't know right now what their mindset is. I don't think the league at large, and I've asked other teams, knows what their mindset is. My assumption has been it's too painful and too embarrassing to bail on this team so soon after trading the Franz Wagner pick, another pick out the door, Wendell Carter Jr., who's just flat better than Vucevic right now.

after trading all of that for DeRozan and Vucevic, and they didn't really end up trading that much for DeRozan, but still, that it would be too painful, too quick, too embarrassing,

I guess that's still my assumption, but I'm starting to rethink it. And part of the reason I'm starting to rethink it is, you know, look, the, the Orlando Detroit, San Antonio, Houston, and probably Charlotte quintet is going to be hard to beat in the tankathon sweepstakes, but you can get to sixth, right? Utah could get to six. Utah could get to six if they wanted to. And, and I don't,

I don't think they're averse to that scenario, but that's a different discussion for a different day. And I mentioned this when Minnesota traded everything for Gobert and Atlanta traded a little less than everything for your old buddy DeJounte Murray. I think part of what's going on with these trades is teams think we can go all in or mostly in and...

If it fails, we can quickly pivot and make the reverse trade with another team who's desperate to go all in. And maybe Chicago can look at the landscape and find a deal like that that kind of resets for them and eases. I don't know. I don't know what they're going to do, but I know that things are dispiriting enough now.

that they at least have to start having internal discussions about, okay, where are we here? What's the big picture? Yeah. I don't think there's a, there's a bright future on that picture and they, you know, they can trade Caruso. It could even look at trading Zach Levine. If they really want to start a rebuild, they can't, I like that concept of that reverse trade and, and they can sort of get back some of that stuff with some of these trade pieces and, and whether it's the Lakers or another team, like,

I do think Minnesota might start thinking like that too. It's like, oh, we can hit the edit undo button, sort of. I don't know if you can get five back. They can't trade Cat now this season because he's on the Supermax. I didn't say trade Cat. What are you talking about? But I'm just saying, I do like that concept you brought up, Zach, of justifying some of these trades.

It's like, oh yeah, there's an edit undo concept here where we can maybe do the thing in reverse and recoup some of our own draft assets. Control Z. Command Z, whatever. Control Z if you're a Windows guy or an Apple guy.

I just – sometimes you don't even remember your hands. Just remember it subconsciously and you don't really remember like what the thing is. Just control whatever. Command whatever. I don't know. Command, control. I can't even identify which is which. Minnesota is a team that's worse than I thought. I don't really want to talk about them that much except I will say I'm interested to see how they look without Kat because –

It's not great to lose a player so good and one of the greatest shooting big men, if not the greatest of all time. It's obviously not great. Injury analysis is boring. How dare you? This came up last year, and I had to tweet out a reminder of Dirk Nowitzki's existence to the planet. And Dirk Nowitzki shot harder shots than Carl Anthony Towns has ever shot in his life. And he got to the same efficiency level. So just a short tangent there, Zach. Okay.

I'm here to defend Dirk Nowitzki's honor. I am a Dirk acolyte of many, many, many decades at this point. But injury analysis is boring in the sense that it's usually like, this is bad for the team. What does it mean that so-and-so is out? It's bad. It's not great. They'd rather have him. I am interested to see how they do

Because part of the bonus of that kind of trade is you can pivot into this very ready-made identity of, okay, well, let's play like the jazz played, except we don't have as much shooting as the jazz. We may actually have somehow less playmaking than the jazz. Like when Anthony Edwards found Gobert for a lob, it was kind of an awkward lob at the end of their win against Memphis the other day. I was like, oh my God, it's a miracle. Anthony Edwards hit Rudy Gobert for an alley-oop and they dunked it. He actually dunked it. It was amazing. Yeah.

If they can get Torian Prince healthy and get Jaden McDaniels healthy and get on a roll shooting-wise, I think they'll be fine. But they need time for this team to gel, and now they have six weeks or four weeks or five weeks or whatever. It ends up being less of that time. I thought...

They would just come out of the gate as a regular season wins machine. I didn't like the trade. I said on TV the day it happened, I am literally in disbelief. That's the word I use, disbelief at how much they gave up for Gobert. But I thought at the very least they'll win a ton of regular season games. And that hasn't been the case so far. No, I was not a happy person with that trade from Minnesota. And I didn't expect them to be very good, to be honest. I think they gave up. The underestimated part of that trade, the assets are –

deserved the headline in my opinion. But some of the human beings that left Minnesota are, they're missing too. And the offense just isn't good enough right now. And they're losing the minutes with Gobert. I mean, you pay that much for a guy and he comes in your negative team when he's on the floor right now. I just don't, I don't know what happens there. I'm not, I don't like watching them, but I am with you. It'll be interesting to see if they have like a more sort of modern traditional mindset.

one big lineup. Can they find something with space? Cause space has been the problem. And Anthony Edwards, well-documented frustrations in that department. I just don't get why that's more space. Why that's really the case because they have Carl towns. Who's the second greatest. We'll say second greatest shooting big man of all time and go bear starting go bear spot. Last year was Jared Vanderbilt who has been,

I mean, he's shooting these little corner threes every now and then for Utah, but it's not like he was spacing. I don't. Anyway, I thought they would be a little better than this. The Gobert trade is like almost every trade that is divisive and or unpopular.

you can find some people around the league who will be like, I kind of see what they were going for. Like I might've made that deal. Even like the Sabonis, how Libertan one is a good example. Like I thought people were way too good. I didn't like that trade for Sacramento. I thought it was a win for Indiana. I also thought people were like unfair in how much they railed against the Kings. You could find people around the league being like, no, I think Sabonis is really good. It'll work there. This one,

No, I don't think I've found anyone who's like, that's actually a good trade. Here's a hot take for you, Zach. That's actually a good trade for Minnesota. I don't think I found anyone around the league who liked that trade for them. No, I think that's correct. I think if you would have said two less first round draft picks, it would have still garnered a lot of skepticism.

And they gave us up so many, but let's end, let's end with the calves. Yes. Who I, I, I had the calves. I had the calves. If you asked me before the season to rank the East list, the six locked playoff teams and the play in teams, I had Cleveland and Atlanta at seven and eight in the play in that's going to be wrong. Cleveland is better than that. Cleveland is, is currently 14 and eight.

They are seventh in offense and second in defense. They have the third best scoring margin in the league. Interestingly, their big four is actually a slight negative together so far on the court. They're destroying people when it's just Garland and destroying people when it's just Mitchell. And they haven't had Kevin Love recently. They haven't had Rubio at all. They missed Dean Wade for a while. He's back and starting. Levert coming off the bench, I think, is the right move for them short term and long term. They just look like a legit team.

Really good team. That's a tier above where I thought they were going to be. My question for you, because I think you were higher on them than me. You were right about them. I was wrong to a degree.

Are they are they a title contender? Because that's the kind of hot debate. Now, you see a lot of analytics centric people being like, well, look at the scoring margin. This is a true blue. Like I heard I was listening to the Ringer NBA show last week and I can't remember if it was Rob Mahoney or Justin Barrier. I'm sorry, guys. Your voices sound similar. One of them was like, no, the Cavs are here. Like they're a title contender. And I hadn't gotten there yet, despite the numbers. Where are you?

I love Boston and I love Milwaukee. And I think they deserve a little more respect right now for roadblocks to this team that I think we'll get there next year. I just don't think they're quite as good as those teams, a whole Milwaukee, which we still haven't seen. I mean, Chris is just coming back, come back tonight. And if you're looking at the numbers, I don't know how you get to a world where the Celtics aren't the favorite, but

to come out of the East unless you think the Bucks are the favorite to come out of the East. But that takes a little blind faith analytically right now because we haven't seen them whole. So I love Cleveland. The only way you're going to get me to say something negative about Cleveland is what you just did to me. I don't think they're quite a title contender, but I've loved them. And if I was wrong about something within the Cleveland ecosystem, Zach, it was the Donovan Mitchell piece.

he's been outstanding. That thing. I was skeptical about that because as I mentioned earlier in the podcast, the vibe they had built there was sort of this grit and grind. I'll do respect to method. This defense. Yeah. Be careful. Be careful. No, I I'm the guy who owns the Tony Allen shirt. Okay. Be careful now, but they had built this, like we're the most physical young defense in the league vibe. And, and, and I was skeptical that Donovan Mitchell, who, if you watch the playoffs, uh,

would come in and fit, especially with that identity. And as you've already mentioned, the defense hasn't really fallen off at all. And in fact, now they have what they didn't have last year when they won 54% of their games is a guy who can go get you a bucket and crunch time. And I think that is a huge piece. I think that makes them one of the top six or seven teams in the NBA, like the Phoenix Suns,

I love the way they have that geometry. They have all their bases covered on the court. If there's a weakness, it's probably at the three and four positions. They still haven't had Rubio come back. And I think

They may have a move in there, but regardless, if you're a Cavs fan, I think you're set up for the 2020s. That's my point with this team. Who cares almost about this year? Same with the Pacers. Hey, congratulations. You guys won 31% of your games two years ago. Now you're at 64% and people are talking about you as a contender. That's fantastic news. And the best news about it is in the next five years, I still think they're going to, they have a lot of room to get better and actually win NBA championships. You mentioned crunch time.

Donovan Mitchell has been sensational for Cleveland. He's on the fringes, I think, of the MVP discussion. This isn't a scorcher, but a lukewarm to, you know, don't touch the stove take. I kind of trust Darius Garland with the ball late in games more than I trust Mitchell. I love Darius Garland. I think he's a better passer. I think he's a better pull-up three-point shooter. He's obviously not as physical as a straight-line driver, north-south athlete, finisher at the rim.

I just trust him to make the right decision almost every time. He's averaging 23 points and eight assists, shooting 42% on threes, just 47% on twos. You'd like that to be better. I've loved, he's getting to the line five times a game. That's a career high by far. I've loved what I've seen from Garland this year. And I, I just feel like he's going to be, if he's not already one of those guys that

Who's just comfortable late in close games because of everything he can do offensively. He just has a good cadence and rhythm and calm to his game. I really, really trust him. Not as much as I trust Luca Modric, who I would trust with my life at this point, but I trust, I just love Darius Garland. Um,

Is that a, that's not a scorcher, I guess. I remember I was writing about them and of course you've had this happen a million times too. You get an assignment. Okay. I got to write about the calf. So of course they go on this West coast road trip and just lay eggs over and over again. And then come home and I'm watching the game. It's the day before my piece that anoints them as the next best young team in the Eastern conference comes out and they lose to Minnesota at home. But in that game, Darius Garland, I think Donovan Mitchell was resting Darius Garland. I think had 50 points, uh,

and hit to your point. He was like one of these guys like Reggie Miller, not quite. I'm not giving him Reggie Miller status, but remember when Reggie was just at the end of games, not even an eight points, nine seconds, whatever it is, just the guy it's like, Oh my God, like this guy's a problem. Like the game's not over. If that guy's out there and he did that to Minnesota, they still end up losing. But some of the shots and plays he was making at the, at the end of that game, I was like, I had that same reaction. I was like,

And this guy's not your go-to guy at the clutch. So maybe there's to figure it out. It's just a luxury to have two of those guys. It's come out. No, that's not a slight on Mitchell. Mitchell's been amazing. And I, it's more just like, I think Darius Garland is even better than people might realize. Um,

But aside from that Western Conference road trip, Zach, this has been one of the best teams in the NBA, period. That's how good they are. I'm not going to go and be a ringer show with the contender over the Celtics and Bucs. I just have too much respect for them and the high level of play we saw from those two teams in the playoffs last year without Chris Middleton on the court. I'm not sure they can go into those gyms and win those kinds of games yet, but I love this team. I love it, and I love its future more than anything. Sometimes I am guilty, as others are too, of

of being slow to accept a reality that is unfolding before your eyes because it's happening faster than you expected. Sometimes there's a team that's just ready before you might realize they're even ready. Maybe that's the case with Cleveland, but I'm with you. I do not buy them yet as a title contender. I don't think they're on the same level as the healthy Celtics or the healthy bucks. Those teams are incredible, but,

And to your point you just made, I know Donovan Mitchell's been through some wars in the playoffs. Most of those wars have gone badly for his team, but he's had some great moments in the playoffs, obviously against Denver, Oklahoma City, when he was a rookie. I just like what the experience that Jason Tatum and Giannis, just as two of the five best players in the league, the experience of the supporting cast on those teams, the environments they've had to play and win in,

the stress they've had to play and win under, you just can't replicate that. And I do think that matters. And the gap in that kind of experience from those guys to like Mobley, Garland, Allen is huge.

enormous. And if the chips are ever down in the playoffs, I just think it matters. I, that's, I just don't, again, it could be one of these cases where no, the numbers are right. The numbers are right. They're here now. And I'm slow to realize it. I just, I, I don't think that's the case here. They've beaten Boston twice this year. Those are signature wins, but yeah. And for those of us who were at the, especially the Boston games in that series,

That environment in Boston in the postseason, and it looks like the road to the Eastern Conference title is going to have to go through Massachusetts again. That gym is a very, very difficult place to win games in the playoffs. And we've seen great players.

go in there and not get the results they expected for years, decades now. And I'm with you. I love the Cleveland Cavaliers. You're not going to make me say anything bad, but yeah, I think they, they have a year of, of, of learning some lessons in the post season ahead of them. I think that's generally the blueprint we see from emerging teams. I'm not going to put them ahead of schedule, but that does, that's not a slight, you know,

And one other thing is the Celtics sort of were that team last year, right? The Celtics, 17 and 19 or whatever it was. And then they turn it on and the numbers start screaming. And the little chart I put on Instagram and Twitter, it's like they start shooting towards the upper right every week. And you're like, is this real? Are they that good? And sure enough, they did. They got all the way through. That is a great point because the Celtics –

at the trade deadline last year were exactly the team I'm describing, the team that they realized internally what they had before I did. For sure, I was slow to accept

Oh, they're actually this good. I needed to see it longer. They didn't. They were right. That's a great call. But again, they had that experience, though, too. We know Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown had two trips to the conference finals before that. So, yes, they were winning the championship on paper. All the nerds, including, I think, 538, expected to win the finals, which a lot of us did when we made our picks for a similar concept here.

I'm not quite sure you're ready to beat Steph Curry, Boston. And they weren't. And all credit to that team. They're still on the path and probably the championship contenders right now. But it's a process to borrow a term from Philadelphia. And Cleveland deserves accolades for building a team that's even having this conversation right now. And maybe we'll be wrong. Let's check in again around the All-Star game. And as you said, even if we're right and they're not ready,

You didn't make that trade thinking you're winning the title this year. You made that trade because you have four under whatever Mitchell is 26 and under players who are all legit all-star types. You can build it for a few years. Kurt Goldsberry, you can see it in his background. YouTube watchers, you can see it in his background. Sprawl Ball, I

I had you on the podcast years ago to talk about that. It's a fantastic book. You can see on my wall right here above my ironing board, which they've asked me to, to, to kindly remove. And I said, no, I like it. Yeah.

You can see the Kurt Goldsberry map, the Naismith International Park that hangs in my office. It's a beautiful holiday gift. I have gotten it. I have gotten it for people for the holidays. And every week you write at least once a week for us. You're on the Hoop Collective here and there on the low post here and there. It's always good to see your face, Mr. Goldsberry. Thank you for your time. Enjoy the World Cup, Zach. Good luck to that Croatian side. That's a good soccer word for you. The side. There you go. Kurt Goldsberry, everyone.