MacMahon, Katz, and Lopez
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast live from an undisclosed Los Angeles hotel. Los Angeles, the weather is always beautiful even if the teams aren't very good. The weather is nice. We're not going to talk about either of the L.A. teams. For a change, we're going to talk about three teams, deep dive into them that we haven't hit yet and that are off to interesting starts. Starting with the Dallas Mavericks. 7-5. 8th in offense.

Pretty good. Ninth in defense. Okay. Last year, kind of doubling down on last year wasn't a fluke. Sixth in net rating would usually portend a record a little better than seven and five. That's encouraging. Big games coming up against the Nuggets twice, the Celtics, the Bucks, and the flailing, flailing Golden State Warriors. So we're going to learn a lot about the Mavericks soon. Luka Doncic,

34 points, 9 rebounds, 8 assists, or maybe 9 assists, 8 rebounds. I don't care. It's a lot of everything on pace to break every isolation record in every database we have. Tim McMahon, how are you? Howdy. Howdy, partner. How you doing? I'm doing well. I'm in a good mood this morning. I can see. You seem very chipper.

so I guess the biggest storyline with the Mavericks so far is Luca is doing everything and we're 12 games in and there's already concern that Luca is doing everything. Um,

They have been figuring out how best to integrate Christian Wood. Their starters around Dinwiddie and Doncic have an alarming habit of all posting single-digit scoring games between 0 and 9, and sometimes 0 is in play for one or two of them. Reggie Bullock is off to his annual... Reggie Bullock forget how to shoot start to the season? That'll come. To some degree, they made their own bed with this when they screwed up the Jalen Brunson situation. He's doing very well in New York.

I don't know. This feels like team holding pattern, holding till the next move, holding till the theoretical number two guy is here. But Dinwiddie Tim, 18 a game on good shooting, everything you could want from him. Christian Wood, 16 a game on good shooting, feels like there's some meat on the bone there.

If this is a holding pattern, it's a pretty good holding pattern. And I saw Perk last week just right off the Mavs' first-round exit. That's the ceiling for this team. That's all they are. I'm like, I'm not doing that as long as Luka's on the team because he's that good. But I kind of don't know how to feel about them 12 games in. How should I feel about them? That's a good question. I agree with you. You can't just assume they're a first-round exit because –

odds are they'll have the best player in that first round series. And, you know, I can promise you this, the other playoff teams in the Western Conference aren't exactly eager to see Luka Doncic in a playoff series. Now, there is a reasonable question of how much gas is he going to have left in the tank by the time the playoffs roll around. And, you know, he obviously got off to this crazy start. He's 30 plus points ahead.

First nine games of the season, him and Wilt are the only ones who have done that. And then they go on this back-to-back Orlando without Paulo, Washington without BLA and KP. He stinks it up.

He looks like he's just on E. They lose both those games. He's well under 30 points, shooting at 9-29 in one game, 8-21 with some garbage buckets in the next game. And you're like, dang, man, we haven't even gotten to Thanksgiving yet. Is he already running out of gas?

And then he comes back the next game and goes for a 42 point triple double. And, you know, so obviously the fact that he bounced back, he talked about, he had a great recovery day. You know, Luca is going to have to be very diligent about taking care of his body. That means he's going to have to be very diligent about what goes into his body. You know, what, what's he eating? How much is he eating? What's he drinking? How much is he drinking? You know, and then just the, the,

The recovery, all the boots and this and that, all the hot tub, cold tub, all that kind of stuff. He's going to have to be extremely diligent because they are asking him to carry a load that I don't want to say it's unprecedented.

But it's certainly uncommon. You have to talk about Houston James Harden pre-CP3, maybe OKC Russell Westbrook, these kind of loads. And you mentioned they messed up the Brunson situation. They messed it up and they could have had him on an extension. But by the time he got to free agency, that thing obviously was – he was heading to New York. They weren't going to match that. They also messed up the Goran Dragic situation.

You know, Goran Dragic is playing really, really well in Chicago. And I'm not sitting here telling you, hey, Goran Dragic would have solved everything. He'd have been a 35-minute-per-game guy. The Mavericks didn't think he could be a 20-minute-per-game guy. They basically wanted him to be a foot shorter version of Boban. You know, go out to dinner with Luca, hang out, babysit a little bit, wave a towel at the end of the bench, and every once in a while get in the game. He's like, nah, I've got some juice. I've still got some juice. He's showing that in Chicago, and they really need –

that third ball hander. Having said that, Dinwiddie has been really good. Dinwiddie also has become, and the sample size is getting big enough to where you can say, this ain't small sample size. He's become a knockdown three-point shooter. That Blazers game the other day, he made three or four in a row right down the stretch to snatch them a little bit of a good home win there.

Right. And he'll tell you, hey, early in my career, I wasn't getting these clean catch and shoot opportunities. I've always been a pretty good catch and shoot guy. Now he's a great catch and shoot guy. That's important. They need Finney Smith and Bullock to get back to being really good catch and shoot guys. Both of those guys, just like last year, are off to slow starts. They went out and they used their one chip in free agency, that taxpayer mid-level chip.

to upgrade the starting center position. Oh, that upgrade was a DNP CD the other night. JaVale McGee's been a total bust. He's not better than Dwight Powell. It's painfully obvious. Dwight Powell's already back in the starting lineup, which anybody who's objective can see, hey, that should be the case. That's difficult. But I agree with you that they are, in terms of legitimacy,

legit contender. It's team holding pattern. And I think you've got to hold through this year after they, you know, pay the end of the Porzingis deal with the pick that they owe there. Then they've got the full compliment of picks and they've at some point, they've got to get a legitimate co-star. But man, when Luke is this good, when he's, you know, when, when just, Hey, when Luke is in reasonable shape, they're still dangerous. They're still dangerous.

The Brunson thing is interesting because when we say they screwed up the Brunson situation, we're likely – we are talking about the fact that they didn't offer him the four-year $55 million extension in a timely enough fashion. By the time it was on the table, he had clearly outplayed it. And usually my brain stops there. I had a GM ask me a couple weeks ago.

Forget that. Why didn't they just overpay him this summer? I mean, the cap is going up. It's not like his contract with the Knicks is like a bad contract. Why didn't they just throw $30 million at him? And you want to say by then the bridge wasn't burned, but it was like, it was like someone had lit the match and a couple of planks were on fire and some, some smoke was in the air, but money talks, man. I thought, boy, I didn't really think of that. That is an interesting point. Cause every contract that signed now, Tyler hero, Jordan pool, the reaction is, well, the cap's going up. Who cares? It's free money. Well, I,

That's why I thought all the hullabaloo for the Brunson deal was misplaced. I thought that was totally fine for the Knicks. I think I called it a nice B, B-plus contract. Why not give them a B, B-minus contract that you can trade down the line? I just hadn't thought of that. Was that even on... I guess it was on the table. I think the Mavericks would have given that a hearing for sure. I mean, not the Mavericks. The Brunson camp would have given that a hearing for sure. Well, and it's funny because...

Brunson, obviously, he had outplayed that extension by the time they put it on the table after the trade deadline. He knew that, so he was like, no, no, no, we're going to hold off. You're about a month and a half too late putting that thing on the table. And

And so, you know, but at that point, like you were hearing, yeah, four for 80, somewhere in that range. Then the playoffs, especially the three games where Brunson just, you know, he had 41 and 31 to lead them to wins when Luca was out with a calf strain. Now,

fortunate matchup where he got to play a Utah team that wasn't exactly stout on the perimeter defensively. And they've got to be still, they've got to be watching Donovan Mitchell in Cleveland and being like,

Where was this effort? Whoa, man, you're trying pretty hard. It turns out when you try really hard, like you're kind of like you got a long wingspan. You're tough. Wow. Who knew we may completed for the last few years for you to do that. But hey, but no Brunson, you know, it was apparent after the playoffs. Like it's this dude's getting, you know, somewhere in the nine figures.

And then Cuban, he said on the record, hey, we can pay him more than anybody, kind of puffed his chest out. And the kind of perception was that you're trying to scare teams away. I think one of the major miscalculations they made, they did not think that the Knicks could create that kind of cap space so painlessly. The Knicks didn't give up. They actually added first-round picks in the process.

They thought, hey, worst comes to worst. They're going to have to give us a pick to create that cap space. No, Detroit was more than willing to help them out. So I think that was a miscalculation. But there was this thing of, well, he's not a perfect fit with Luka. He's really a point guard who's kind of –

figured out how to play off of Luka. Seems like that seems good to the player you just described. Poink already referred to how to play off of Luka. Wow, that's nice. I'd like to have that. I'm giving you their perspective, which I believe was absolutely wrong.

You know, you're always going to have some defensive issues playing Luca with a small guard who has some limitations on that in the floor, which I would say, well, you're still the number seven defense in the league last year. Great coaching job. But, you know, with the Finney Smith, the Bullock and Maxi Kleba playing significant minutes and, you know, you figured that out. The one thing I don't know and we will never know is how much would it have taken to

to keep Brunson. The Mavericks kind of put their line in the sand at quote-unquote Fred Van Vliet money, which you're talking five years, 105, 110, somewhere in that range. Well, obviously, he got 104 over four from the Knicks, so that was never going to come close. Like you said, could you have gone, and I don't remember what exactly the max number was. I want to say five years, 140. I might be off. I don't know because, listen,

He obviously has the family ties. You know, his dad's now on the Knicks coaching staff. The long ties to Leon Rose, who's his godfather, has known Jalen literally his entire life. Rept his dad, Rick, who's Leon Rose's first client as an agent. We all know that story. The other thing, though, is Jalen did see Jalen.

And, you know, he wanted to have the ball in his hands. And I'm not sitting there saying that like as some sort of a selfish thing. I think, you know, especially getting a taste of being the guy for those first few games in the playoffs, uh,

there's some confidence that comes along. Hey, I can do this. This is a guy who was out of the rotation previously, like two or three playoffs ago. He couldn't get on the floor. It was a big, big deal for him to do that in the playoffs. Right. The year before, they yanked him. They basically benched him down the stretch in their second series against the Clippers. So was there an extension coming that summer? He'd just been basically benched in a playoff series. So I don't know how much...

It would have taken for him to stay in Dallas or if it just got to a point where, hey, you know, he wanted to go to New York. He wanted to be with family and he wanted to be in a situation where he it was his offense to run his team to run. Well, if they are team holding pattern this year as we spin it back forward, that's fine. Dallas is team holding pattern still scares the hell out of pretty much everybody because of Luca and Luca being a god.

You're on the clock after this year. Yes. If this is this is not a multi-year holding pattern. This is this guy is this good. He's a top five player right now at worst. He's a first team all NBA guy. Every season he's healthy. He is a one man playoff defense scheme destroyer. Throw whatever you want at me.

Second possession of it, I've figured it out. I know how to counter it. You cannot do anything to contain me. It's just a matter of do we make enough shots and defend well enough. You're on the clock. Let's talk about, you mentioned unprecedented. You want to hear some numbers? I looked up some numbers right before this. You ready? I like numbers. The Mavericks are averaging 31 isolations per 100 possessions.

30 and a half of those are Lucas. Well, I don't even know. It's not quite that bad. He's got a few, but yes. Yeah, didn't we like to dance a little bit? I forgot that I'm on YouTube, and so everyone just saw me shoulder shimmy. Can't stay in front of Zach Lowe. At weddings, I get after it, my friend. 31 isolations per 100 possessions. That's the Mavericks as a team, according to Second Spectrum.

Number two is 23 per 100 possessions. So that eight isolation gap, that's the same as the gap between number two and number 22 in the NBA. So they're just lapping the field in isolations. Luka, 23 and a half possessions.

half per 100 possessions. You mentioned all his predecessors in ball dominance, the Hardens and the Westbrooks and currently SGA, honestly. No one else, no one else in the entire second spectrum database, which goes back to 2013. I mentioned Luca 23 and a half. No one else is over 19 and a half.

So what he's doing is just absolutely bonkers historically. Obviously, it is not sustainable. Obviously, this is not a model to win a championship. The question is, well, a couple of things. Number one, the stuff it's producing is crazy. Like, I said they're only eighth in offense historically.

They're first in free throw rate. I'm not sure how the hell that happened, except Luka is living at the free throw right now. Because Luka goes to the line 12 times a game. That's what happens. 11 and a half a game or whatever. They're taking the third most threes, the 10th most shots at the rim, put it all together. They have the best, the number one location assumed field goal percentage in the entire league. And they're not even shooting that well. So like whatever this offense is doing, it's producing –

Pretty much everything you want except offensive rebounds, but it's obviously not a sustainable way to win. History will tell you, unless you have Michael Jordan, even LeBron James couldn't win the whole thing at usage rates like this. We all know that. My question for you is, throw team holding pattern aside. Team holding pattern is still trying to win. What can they do about this with the roster that they have now? And this gets back to you saying, hey, they're on the clock. And when you say they're on the clock, we're talking simple NBA math.

Luca is on a four-year deal. Forget the player option. It's irrelevant, right? So when you get to be halfway through that, you got two years left, we've seen, and I'm not saying he would do this, but you have to be concerned. Hey,

If that trip to the West finals where you got pretty easily dismissed by the Warriors, then lost your second best player. If that's the high point of what would be his first six years, does he get itchy? Does he start angling to get somewhere where he has a chance to win a championship? So that's the concern. And I state that.

to say, I don't think the Mavericks can make any moves this year where they're giving up a pick. I don't think you can give up a pick as the Dallas Mavericks to make a move that makes you a little bit better. You have to be ready to bundle those things up. You're going to have your full compliment after this year. You have to be ready to bundle those things up and go get whoever your version of Drew Holiday is. The Bucks did it with Giannis, right? There was, I mean...

The hype about where's Giannis going to go? Miami, Dallas was lining up. I mean, the whole league was lining up, ready to go after Giannis. The Bucs go get Drew Holiday, and they gave up a ton of draft capital to do it.

And Giannis is like, you know what? I can win a championship right here. I'll sign another extension. Let's go. Boom. The Bucks won a title. The Mavericks have to keep their picks bundled up. And so I think it's going to be difficult to find ways to upgrade this year. Yeah.

No, I'm talking in-house solutions. Let's assume they do nothing. If this is a problem, it's on the coaching staff in the front office, but mostly the coaching staff say, we've identified it as a problem. All right, so what the hell can we do about it? Let's have a meeting. Let's bring Luca in. What's our options? I have one idea, but it's a very simple one. Okay, I'm curious to hear your ideas because there was talk going in the season of, hey,

We think Josh Green can be that third ball handler. Josh Green has taken a major, major leap this year, but what he is is a really good – he's hitting his threes, which is a huge development. He's a really good three and D energy kind of –

Have it creator. He's not a ball hander. He's a quick extra passer. Yes. Joe guy cut, move the ball. Maybe he grows into that, what they're talking about, but that ain't happening right now. No. And so, I mean, I'm curious to hear what your ideas are because, and look, you've heard like after they play the nets, you heard KD base say they don't have anybody else in the roster who can dribble.

After they played the Wizards, you heard Kuzma say, we know they're very limited outside of Luka. Now, I will say the context on Kuzma, Dinwiddie's brief stint in Washington did not go well. It was not popular. So I read that despite the fact that Dinwiddie had 30-something in that game. I read that as Kuzma taking an opportunity to get another shot in at Dinwiddie. But there's truth being told there.

I mean, Fakou's not the guy, right? Fakou is playing that. He's a foot and a half shorter version of Boban. You know, dinners with Luka, wave a towel, nice guy in the locker room. Everybody likes him. Neil Aquino's not the guy. So I don't know. You have an idea. I'm very curious to hear it. Look, my only idea is like it's not even really an idea. It's just like there are three guys on the roster who can create their own shot. Luka, Dinwiddie, and Wood. They've played 33 minutes together the entire season.

Maybe you need to play them together more and just sort of develop a little more synergy between them so that Christian Wood is not just kind of a pick and pop big when Luka's on the floor because you can do more than that. Now, their mind is 12 in those 33 minutes. Obviously, they're concerned about the defense no matter where they put Christian Wood at center at.

At power forward, teams are going after him. His pick and roll defense isn't good enough. They're going to work the whole season on that to make sure he stays focused. He's a do his work late defender. Like he's always kind of late to get to where he needs to be at the point of attack. And when you're late like that, then you're lunging, you're lurching, you're out of position, you're vulnerable to blow bys. There's always just little gaps. The gaps are too big with Christian Wood, but they're going to work on that.

The problem then becomes like, all right, do we want to put Kleba on the floor so we have like our defensive bull work? Okay, well, that's up to four, and we haven't had Bullock or Finney-Smith or Hardaway. So some of our sort of steadfast wings are going to be not on the floor. Or do we want to just go all in with Wood at the five, which they've been hesitant to use? Here are the numbers on that. When it's Wood as the only big man on the floor and Luka –

You got to have Luka. They're plus 13 per 100 possessions, but they've only played 78 possessions together. So clearly they're afraid to play Wood at the 5 a lot. I just feel like if this is actually a problem, if this is a problem that you have identified as a not fatal, but we have to do something about this, I just think you've got to lean a little bit more into Wood, maybe Wood at the 5, Wood, Luka, Dinwiddie together, and just see...

How bad is it actually going to get on defense? Can we survive on defense? And if it ends up being too bad, you pivot back the other way. But that's the only in-house solution that I really see. Yeah, and we mentioned that road trip, which is rough. The two bad losses in Orlando and Washington to depleted teams. Lucas dunked it up, looked out of gas. Wood didn't make that trip. He had a little knee thing. He didn't make that trip. So like you said, one of the only other guys who can create offense –

uh, wasn't on the trip and, and they certainly missed him. Um, you know, he comes back against Portland, uh, fouls out in like 21 minutes, but I think, you know, he, I want to say he ended up with 17 points and there was a lot of, uh, a lot of hard role there, you know, Luca fed him for, I don't know, three, four, five dunks in that game. You know, you do see certainly some offensive, uh, synergy with, with those guys. Um, and you know, there's been a lot of, uh,

bemoaning from fans and certainly people who have Christian Wood's best financial interest in mind about Wood being in the starting lineup. That's not going to happen. Can he close games? Well, you know why you mentioned the minus 12 with Dinwiddie and Luka and Wood as a trio?

So minus 16 of that is in the last four minutes against Oklahoma City. And after that game, Jason and they lose that game in overtime would not play overtime, by the way. So it's not like pulling him off the floor was the solution either. In fairness to him. But after that game, Jason Kidd made a point.

To note that, hey, we tried to see Wood in the closing lineup, and as he says, it didn't go well on either end. And then he fouled out the other day against Portland, and they ended up closing with no center on the floor. They put Finney Smith at center, and they actually just kind of heated up and went bananas and won the game.

Now, it is worth noting that Nurkic didn't play in that game. I don't know if you can do that if Nurkic is out there just stuffing 220-pound Finney Smith in the bucket every time. But yeah, they're searching there. They're searching there. Wood has been very good in that bench scoring role where, as you noted, most of his minutes they are attaching him to Maxi Kleba. Right?

Right. And that's obviously for defensive reasons. And Maxie can just be a spacer offensively in those situations. So it's really not even like you're playing two bigs together. And he can roll. Maxie can roll to the numbers. Donchik would cleave a plus thirty four and one hundred and four minutes together. That that trio has been dynamite. And a lot of that is playing against other teams, second units. But it's been a really effective group.

But, you know, again, it gets back to Maxie Kleba has the trust of this coaching staff. He's going to be on the floor to close games the vast majority of the time. They have chosen to usually have him as the lone big and not have him with Wood.

And we'll see. And the Mavericks have stunk. Look, they blew a 22-point second-half lead. I think it was 15 in the fourth quarter against the Suns to open up the season. I just mentioned the 16-point lead they blew in the last four minutes against OKC. Teams with 16-plus-point leads in the last four minutes at the time. This is our stats and information group, obviously. I didn't do this research myself. It might surprise you. They were 9,975-1 over the last 25 years going into that.

9,975 and one. The Mavericks made it 9,975 and two. So they've had two. You know what? That's pretty cool. I think if I were a Mavericks fan, I would embrace that and be like, you know what? We made some history. At least we made some history. That's a memorable event. Right. And so you've had two massive meltdowns. You're talking about a seven and five team. So two massive meltdowns and then three losses. We're just like, what in the hell? You lost to the Pelicans without Zion and Ingram.

That was a bad way of saying it. You lose to the freaking Orlando Magic without Paulo. You lose to the Wizards without Beal and KP. So they've had two terrible meltdowns, games that shouldn't even have been clutch situations that they melted down to make clutch situations, and then three losses against, I mean, just inexcusable. So it's a weird team. But then, man, Luka is just playing at such an elite level, and you're sitting here, you're still 7-5.

You know, two guys that were huge for you in the playoffs and the whole second half of the season is three and D guys can't hit a damn three to save their lives. I'm talking about Reggie Bullock and Dorian Finney-Smith, although Finney-Smith did hit a clutch one the other night, kind of a dagger the other night against Portland.

You know, it's a confusing team. It is a confusing team. Well, as I mentioned, the schedule is about to get rough, so we're going to learn a lot about them, and they're going to have to play well to beat these teams. If they don't, they're going to be 500 or under pretty soon. But I

I just think they have a pretty high floor as long as Luca is there and they're going to go on a run where they look good. Christian Woods, 16 and eight on 57% shooting overall, 42% on three, 64% on twos. He's doing his job. Tim Hardaway Jr. is coming into form. Josh Green's coming into form. It's going to be an interesting next couple of weeks for the Mavs. Maybe we'll check in after that. Tim McMahon, Hoop Collective. Howdy, partners. ESPN.com. Doing it all. Thank you, sir.

It is nice to talk hoops with somebody who knows what they're talking about. They usually stick me with Wendy and bond Tim. So this has been an absolute pleasure. Yeah.

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Alright, let's flip to the other side of the Jalen Brunson sweepstakes. The New York Knickerbockers. 6-7. Okay, you know, kind of about what we expected the Knicks to be. For a while, they were beat the bad teams, lose to the good teams, and I thought...

Maybe that's good. The first step to organizational competence or one of them is beat the teams you should beat. And the Knicks were doing that. Then they got roasted in Brooklyn by the undermanned Brooklyn Nets by a thousand points. And then on Sunday in Madison Square Garden, the self-proclaimed world's greatest arena. I guess it can't proclaim itself that it's just a building, but certainly proclaimed every 35 seconds on MSG's broadcast.

They gave up 145 points in a regulation professional basketball game to the Oklahoma City Thunder and lost. And Evan Fournier played a lot down the stretch for some reason because he's not doing anything. And R.J. Barrett didn't play down the stretch for some reason because he's at least doing some stuff. And all of a sudden, 6-7 feels worse than 6-7. Here's why it feels worse than 6-7. The Knicks are 17th in offense.

Okay, fine. They don't have great offensive talent. The Randall Barrett Robinson, Robinson's hurt right now, but that trio continues to not be productive for spacing reasons. They're 24th in defense. That is not good enough. And their schedule, Fred Katz from The Athletic, their schedule, you know as well as I do, is about to get hairy.

Five games coming up out west. Five in a row on the road. At Utah. Oh boy. At Denver. That's not great. At Golden State, who can't win on the road, but they're okay at home. At Phoenix. That seems bad. At Oklahoma City. Well, they just beat our ass at home. Then we come home. That's great. Have Thanksgiving dinner. We'll all be good. Well, who we got at home? Portland? They're pretty good. Memphis?

Oh boy, that seems unpleasant. Already lost to them in overtime. At Detroit, that's a rice reprieve. Maybe that's the start of an easy stretch. Back home after that, Bucs, Mavs, Cavs, Hawks.

Uh-oh, Fred Katz. Uh-oh. How are you feeling today? I'm feeling better than the Knicks. I'm feeling great. I don't think they're feeling so good right now. I mean, it's funny because if you said at the start of the season the Knicks will be somewhere around 500, I'd say, yeah, sure. I mean, their over-under, I think, was 38.5. I think pretty much everybody had them somewhere in the realm of

eighth or ninth or 10th in the East. And right now they're ninth. And yet, I mean, I wrote this morning, it's just, the record is, is okay. It's, it's fine. It's about as expected, but something with them just feels off. And you mentioned it with the defense. I mean, they're giving up more three point attempts and the second most three point makes of any team in the league. They're screen defense. Oh my goodness. I mean, I,

I'm not sure what kind of pick and roll defense Julius Randle has been playing for a lot of this season and their screen defense, their communication, their point of attack defense. It's just been really difficult to watch. It's been really, really tough and teams are just bombing it against them.

Whenever someone says a team is difficult to watch or I think a team is difficult to watch, I always think back to the delightful 30 Rock bit about Tracy Jordan chasing an Oscar in a movie called Hard to Watch. And I usually – and I think of the movie poster, Tracy Jordan starring Hard to Watch. New York Knicks 2022-2023, Hard to Watch so far. The thing that stresses you out about the defense is there's nothing in the numbers –

that suggests any hope for something much better than this. You mentioned they've given up a ton of threes. This is year three in a row of them giving up a ton of threes. This is baked into how Tom Thibodeau wants to play. The first year, the year they got the fourth seed and got destroyed by the Hawks in the playoffs, they...

got lucky that opponents missed a ton of shots. And I do think they were rotating really hard and contesting more of the right ones than, and leaving some bad shooters open. Like I think there was some skill involved in that, but whatever skill was involved has not carried over while the luck has changed. They free throw rate average. They don't force turnovers. They're a terrible rebounding team. And they,

For a team that is built to play brute force basketball, they're not winning the brute force categories like rebounding and free throws. They just don't – they don't – they're just not playing with that kind of oomph. And you look at like – you look at opponent shooting numbers, they're average. They're not getting like crazy unlucky from three or mid-range or anything. There's nothing in the defensive dossier that suggests they're wildly better than the 24th ranked defense in the NBA. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, look, their best hope, I think, is Mitchell Robinson comes back from the sprained right knee that he's dealing with and just plays so well in the middle of the floor that guys just can't get to the rim. And so much of their issue is that

teams get middle against them so easily. You know, when they turn it over, their transition defense is really a problem, too. I haven't checked in a couple of games, but if you go on impredictable.com as of a couple of games ago, I believe they had the worst defensive efficiency after committing turnovers in the NBA, like by far. They just aren't really getting back in transition. And that's a thing where I think

is more clean up-able. Like you can just match up better in transition. You can run hard and try to get the person that you're supposed to be on because the issue isn't just fast breaks then, right? It's that you end up getting like a big against the wing or a small against the big. And then other teams exploit that in the half court. And that's how they're getting a lot of those threes too. So I think there are ways maybe they can climb better than 24th. And last year, if you look at the defensive talent on last year's roster,

It wasn't overwhelming. And New Orleans Noel didn't really play much and was supposed to be one of their best defenders. And they still finished 11th in points allowed for possession. So I don't know if they're 24th. I do think it could climb higher, but I'm nervous. It'll climb a little higher, but I don't – I mean they're not – they might be average, right? I mean that's what we're talking about. They might be average. Yeah.

The rebounding stuff is just not excusable. It's just not excusable. And it's on everybody. Hartenstein's a bad defensive rebounder. He's been starting for Robinson. Robinson's defensive rebounding rate is pitiful. I think that's partly because he's chasing a lot of block shots. I think he's been mostly good this year. Randall is missing way too many box outs. Just lazy. Just not boxing guys out. And again, a team that wants to be a brute force team, you can't be 26th.

in defensive rebounding. Offensively, they're 29th in three-point shooting, which is really last because the Lakers are so far last that they're almost in the G League for three-point shooting. So the Knicks are, let's just say, last in three-point shooting. And now there's all this angst, Fred. There's angst about Tom Thibodeau. There's angst about Randall. We got to trade Randall. Got to dump Fournier. Everyone's just mad. So let's start with zooming out.

All this, like, we got to – I think the theory with Randall and why we – despite the fact that he's been fairly productive this year, 21-9, 46% overall shooting, the three-point shooting appears to have been a fluke two years ago. He's been fairly energetic at times defensively. He's not giving the crowd the thumbs down. That's good. Sure. I think part of the trade Randall movement that's picking up steam is –

We now know, we always knew, but we now know that an offense built around Julius Randle taking a lot of shots and doing a lot of stuff and isolating a lot is a nice ticket to being a mediocre team. And we're sick of being a mediocre team. Well, the Knicks two offseasons ago, I liked their offseason when they signed Fournier, signed Kemba Walker, Burks, Rose, all the team options, all that stuff. I thought...

The Hawks series exposed the need for more ball handling, more shooting, and they kind of addressed those problems in totally non-spectacular, mediocre ways that you knew. You knew the critics were like, well, they're trapping themselves in mediocrity. And my counterargument was,

They're not trapping themselves. They're not deluded into thinking these are the players that are taking them to 50 wins. They're just trying to sustain the momentum that they built in this feel-good 2021 season.

Keep getting a little better until a star looks at them and says, I want to go there. Well, the star looked at them and said, I want to go there. And they couldn't pull the freaking trigger on enough draft picks in a timely fashion. And now that star is in the MVP conversation for the Cleveland Cavaliers. And now everyone's like, well, we got to trade Julius Randle. We're trapped in the mediocrity with Julius Randle. Guess what?

Everyone else in the league watches the Knicks. They know what Julius Randle is. You're not getting anything meaningful, really, for Julius Randle on this kind of contract. And so that's where the Knicks are in that sense. What's the coaching situation going to be? Because I just read you that schedule. If they are... I don't know how many games there are. Let's say I read 10 games. So there are 23 games in when that stretch is over. If they're 8-15...

You know, Ian Begley, our old colleague, reported last night that the seat's getting warm, that there's going to be a big change somewhere if they have more let-go-of-the-rope kind of losses. If they're 8-15 after 23 games or whatever it is, I don't know what the change is going to be, but something's going to change. Is Thibodeau watch on now?

I think the watch is on. Yeah. I mean, what's so weird about the way, I shouldn't even say weird, but something that's relatively unique to the way that the Knicks operate is a lot of places, for example, I used to cover the Thunder. And basically everything with the Thunder, as you know, is Sam Presti down, right? I mean, there's...

There is collaboration or whatever you want to call it. But ultimately, the decision maker and the person setting the vision is Sam Preston. And with the Knicks, they have so many different voices, right? And so many different voices contribute to so many different decisions. And I know there are people in that front office who have wanted to move on from Thibodeau for a little bit of time now.

The thing is, Leon Rose is one of those people who has been in his camp for a really long time. You know, Leon is now the president of the organization. He was Tibbs' agent or ran the basketball division of CAA, which is Tibbs' agency. I like, by the way, I just need to stop you because we had this exact same conversation just 10 minutes ago with Tim McMahon. I like, and I'm being sarcastic, how the Knicks, by their own doing...

Every discussion of them has to include like a three-minute aside about this guy knew that guy and that guy is somebody's godfather and that guy went to prom with that guy's daughter and that guy and that guy's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather were at Plymouth Rock in 1620 together. And so now, as a result, Cam Reddish is a Knicker. So I just – it's just every time with this.

But it's – look, that's generally how they've operated, right? Like when Leon Rose took over the Knicks, who were the stars that we talked about potentially coming to New York? Oh, God. Was Donovan Mitchell or was Carl Anthony Towns? One of them wanted to come. One of them wanted to come. You know what the problem with their plan is, which I would say? I actually don't knock them for not doing the Donovan Mitchell. No, I was going to say let me own it because I said at the time,

as everybody did, that Cleveland was well-constructed to go all in with Donovan Mitchell. And the Knicks were not. The Knicks were going to trade the whole house for Donovan Mitchell and have a mediocre team without a lot of tools to get the next guy. And so I got it.

A month or two later, it feels like, wow, I kind of would rather just have the guy and figure it, especially if he wants to be here and figure it out later. I guess. I don't know. It just, the clock is ticking on the next move.

Well, here's the thing, Zach. You want to zoom out. Let's like really zoom out, right? So their plan has been to trade for the next star, right? They're not tanking. Lord knows they are not tanking. And they haven't cleared out their cap sheet. I mean, they signed Mitchell Robinson long-term. They signed Julius Randall long-term. They extended RJ Barrett. They signed Jalen Brunson long-term. They gave multiple years to Evan Fournier. It's not like they've given one year, right? If they extend Toppin and Quickly –

That's it. They don't have cap room like for a long time. Yeah, that's it. I mean, right now, unless I mean, they get they can maneuver and whatever. But if all things stay as they are, like they're probably not having cap room till 2025 when everyone is going to have cap room because that's the year of the anticipated big spike. And

You know, I think if you look at it in like the normal macro, not trading for Donovan Mitchell for them made sense because it would have left the cupboard too bare to go out and get a second star. And then you have Donovan Mitchell and not much else. And you're still kind of in that not a contender territory, even if Donovan Mitchell makes the leap that he's made in Cleveland this year. But to me, if you zoom out even more than that,

My question for that front office is, OK, your plan is clearly to trade for someone. It's not to sign someone and it's not to tank and draft a star. It is clearly to trade for the next big star. You deemed that, you know, a bunch of picks and a bunch of young players was too much for Donovan Mitchell.

Okay, so you're going to wait on the next guy. Well, the next guy who's as good or better than Donovan Mitchell is probably going to cost as much or more than Donovan Mitchell. And we're going to be having the same conversation, right? About is there not enough left over to go get that second star? So it just seems like a conversation we're going to be having in perpetuity about them. And so you have to wonder, like, is the plan of trading for the first star in the door as opposed to the second or the third? Is that a flawed way to go about rostering? And by the way,

The other possibility is that the next big star who's available is worse than Donovan Mitchell and you end up paying more for that star. And I will not name names about who that might be. And by the way, Quentin Grimes had a foot injury in preseason. I don't really know what went on with that or what's going on with that. But he doesn't play. Like the guy who was the untouchable guy can't get minutes. It's very weird.

I asked him last night if his conditioning isn't there. Tibbs put him in against, especially against OKC, where like Josh Giddey is getting into the lane with ease. Shea Gildress Alexander is rocking RJ Barrett. Like in the third quarter, they put Derek Rose on Shea Gildress Alexander and didn't try Quentin Grimes, who coming into the year, I mean, everybody expected to be there easily their best point of attack player.

defender and did a great job as a rookie on on point guards and really stifle guys like trey young and all that like that's the guy who you would put on sga when he's going for 21 in the third quarter of a game and and and he doesn't he doesn't come off the bench they're going with an 11-man rotation by the way which is to me just the greatest sign of an overloaded roster

they are just due for some sort of consolidation trade, like something. We would talk about a move. Yeah, maybe for Donovan Mitchell. Maybe they should have consigned him. Maybe. But we talk about a move and you mentioned extending quickly or extending Toppin or paying them and restricted free agency. Like you have to make a decision on your young guys or something or else you're just locking in financially to a roster that's, you know, middling and play-in levels. So like,

I bet you, I'm not saying it's going to come before December 15th because that's when the trade market really starts to open up. But December 15th, between December 15th and February, I would bet you we're going to see some sort of consolidation trade where they move off of at least one or two guys who are currently in their rotation and try to bring in something, whether that means just bringing in picks and

and trying to play the other team's protected pick games, which didn't really work with Mitchell, right? Because those things were rendered mostly meaningless. If they're going to get a star, what's going to get the star is their own unprotected picks, or maybe just doing a two-for-one or something like that. What a tribute to your own two-decade-long run of mismanagement that you have.

we guys, we're going to have to trade our own picks. People think so lowly of us as an organization that the only way we can get these guys is to trade our own picks. That's a, that's a tough look in the mirror moment for the team. But that's what happened with the market, right? Of course. I mean, the market totally changed. I mean,

You know, it's really DeJounte Murray gets a couple of unprotecteds and then there's the Gobert one. It's like the market has changed where you just have to, if you want to start, you have to give up your own unprotected picks. And it's just, that's just the way it's going to have to go with them. The picks they have are relatively heavily protected, even though they're from some bad teams.

Now you mentioned Toppin and Quickly. Toppin has done his job this year. 20 points, 8 rebounds per 36 minutes. Obviously he doesn't play 36 minutes, much to the chagrin of almost every single Knicks fan on earth.

earth. 40% on threes taking nine per 36 minutes. So all the hype, all the work, all the talk about his three point shooting, that's real. That's legit. Quickly has been up and down, particularly from long range. And you know, the bench was their salvation for the last two years. It's not their salvation right now. They're getting outscored with quickly and topping on the floor. I, it looks like we're seeing kind of the end of Derrick Rose, uh,

as a really productive NBA player. He's not playing a lot of minutes and not producing much when he plays. So they're trying to figure out the bench. And they've tried Randall Toppin. They've tried it now. I would still try it more. They're minus 14 in limited minutes with Randall and Toppin on the floor together and no center. Tibbs doesn't seem to like it. He has tried it with Robinson injured and a little bit of a vacancy at center, although Jericho Sims has played a lot.

I would still run with it because I just got to see more of it, but that hasn't worked. We know that the starting five is – I think the starting five will get better as they get more reps together. So I don't – you look around, like I don't know where the salvation is going to come from, but they're a little better than this. I expect them to play a little better than this, but boy, those next 10 games are tough. Yeah. I mean you mentioned the top and stuff. Man, it is really –

interesting watching what is happening with him because he's better. And it's not just people focus on, oh, if only he could shoot. It's not just that he's shooting. It's what his three-point shooting is now allowing him to do. And they played Boston a couple weekends ago, Zach. He...

he looked like Bam Adebayo going into a fake dribble handoff on Marcus Smart, where Marcus Smart had to commit to a potential shot, right? He had to, and that's the defensive player of the year. And he ends up just fake dribble handoff him and going straight to the rim and getting himself a layup. Quarterback keeper. He's one of the best quarterback keeper guys in the NBA. And to your point, that tool gets a lot more powerful when underneath it is the threat of a real shot. Totally. And even the cuts, like he's,

Ogutopin's greatest trait is offensively his ability to make good decisions really quickly. And when you have an offense, especially that's devoid of spacing like the Knicks are,

are his quick decision making, whether that's screening, cutting, passing, whatever is so unbelievably helpful. And it's opened up different kind of cuts for him. Like he had two plays where against the zone, just zone busting cuts against Detroit a couple of games ago where he's on the right block and Hartenstein is on the left.

And he cuts around Hartenstein around the back of the baseline. Hartenstein screens his own man with a hammer screen. He gets two wide open corner threes out of it. But that's not a thing that we saw him doing in the past. And I'm just I mean, I know I'm in the majority here. I'm just surprised you could take a guy number eight. He could show that he's legitimately developing and you're still playing him under 20 minutes. Like you have to know how well he is. He doesn't trust his defense, which I get.

He's not a good defensive player yet. Randall's not a good defense player. Randall's okay. They're both okay. As you're saying this and as we're talking about how good of a three-point shooter he's become, it just starts to enter my mind. And the only reason I haven't thought about it more is because it's implausible and they'll never do it.

I do wonder what the team would look like if they just started topping at the four and brought Randall off the bench. It's sort of like, you know, it'll never, again, it'll never happen. Randall made All-NBA two years ago. But to replace the ball dominance with a spacing quick twitch four, because this offense is just starved, starved for someone to get moving off the ball, on the ball. I think that would probably work. I think it would probably look really good. They'll just never do it.

Yeah. No, I honestly, it's not even worth discussing. There's, there's, there's no way, there's no way that that's happening. I just, I just don't see them demoting Randall. Let's discuss. This is the big picture thing. And that would want to end with when I watched the Knicks, the thing I think most about is he's still only 22 years old, but I just watched the Knicks and even in games where he's productive and he's been pretty productive these years, averaging 20 a game shooting is. Yeah.

What is RJ Barrett? Like, what is he going to be? Because he's not shooting it well enough anymore. He had the same year as Randall, had a crazy three-point shooting year that hasn't sustained. I think he's probably better than he's shown the last two years, but maybe he's not. He's not shooting it well to be like a really great off-ball player. He's not...

Such a great on-ball player that you're like, well, we're just going to build our entire offense around R.J. Barrett. And obviously there's a huge middle ground between those two poles of players, and that's the middle ground that he will inhabit. I just kind of don't know what it looks like, and I was just kind of thinking really quickly in my head – you can't say quickly on a Knicks podcast, but I was thinking very fast in my head –

Like, so who does that end up being in four or five years when he's in his prime? And the first name that came to my head was Jeremy Grant. Is he just going to be, is he going to grow into like a really good third banana, jack of all trades, can do a little bit of everything? Like what, what is RJ Barrett, Fred? I think RJ Barrett is trying to figure out what RJ Barrett is, to be honest. I will say for RJ, I agree with everything you said. I will say for him,

Part of the reason why I think the people with the Knicks who do believe in him, believe in him to the degree that they do. I've been a believer too. I've been like higher than consensus on RJ Barrett for sure, to be clear.

Yeah. And I think part of it is because, and this sounds like a cliche, it's not just the work ethic. I think there are situations where organizations will bet on the person. Like I remember, I think it was you who said when the Hornets extended Kemba Walker on that, I think it was four for 48 deal years ago, people said it was too much. Kemba's shooting under 40% from the field. His three-point shot's too inconsistent.

And the Hornets were betting on the person that he was going to improve to that degree. Right. And it was right. And all of a sudden, that deal is looked at as extremely team friendly. With Barrett, I think there's with the people who believe in him, there's a similar sort of thing. But they're also betting on the self-awareness. Like, I think RJ works on the right things. One of the things that he's really focused on is his decision making on his drives.

Because I think he knows that is going to be a really, really important thing. And that's going to help his percentages around. And again, he's 22. We get so fast with these guys. Like his prime is four years away.

Completely. And I think that decision-making on his drives, if he gets there, he's still not there, by the way. He's better. But I think that will help his percentages. And Tibbs thinks this too, even more than if he just adds some sort of Kyrie-esque sort of layup package. You know what I mean? We've seen with him the percentages around the rim are actually up this year,

I don't know if he's got way better moves and he's more fancifully finishing there. I think, honestly, there are just fewer crazy flailing possessions in which he just misses everything. I think that's a positive progression.

The next step for him also is being able to find shooters when he gets into the paint. I mean, it's just so important. But look, we talked about the lack of spacing. Like RJ is a slasher. And this is not the type of offense that you put around him. You know, it's not the type of offense that you put around Julius Randle. It's not the type of offense you put around Jalen Brunson, who can shoot. Who's been fine. Jalen Brunson's been fine. He's not shooting well from three, but he's shooting well from two. He's doing his job. He's doing his job.

Totally. And you want to give him, but it takes a while to get off those funky, low-post moves. He likes to drive and then stop and then pivot. He needs that time and spacing gives you time. So I think it's tough to really look at RJ and say, okay, this is definitely where he's going to go because he's in maybe a four-out offense.

I think maybe we see him operate a little bit differently. But to be honest, I don't know where RJ is going to go down the line. I think the passing needs to get better. I think the percentages around the rim need to get better. And I think once he gets with those things, then he can build out. People concentrate so much on the three-point shooting. Ultimately, one of the guys he watches the most is DeMar DeRozan.

And I know that, look, it makes sense. Like RJ is a controversial guy in some ways, right? And so is DeMar. But I think maybe if we're talking about RJ realizes all of his full potential, maybe it's like a not quite as athletic DeMar in that sort of sense where he's just able to force his way to the rim.

all the time. He took the ninth most, or he took the third most shots at the rim after New Year's last year in the league behind only LeBron and Giannis. I mean, he is really good at getting there. He just needs to finish the job. Look, the whole idea of the Knicks' last two years was biding their time and while biding their time, continuing to steadily improve. You can chalk up last year as like, okay, crap happens. We had a bad season.

The next 10 games are going to go a long way to determining whether there is steady improvement, whether this becomes one of those feel-good, plucky, you know, we're still waiting and the trajectory is good kind of seasons, or it blows up. And the schedule just is what it is. Like, they've just got to be better. They haven't been good enough. And things turn fast in New York. And Fred Katz from The Athletic just – I like seeing you at games because I can tell just –

how much work you're doing talking to everybody you you got the you got the pulse of this team the way you want to beat writer to have the pulse of a team so it's nice to have you on and i will see you when i get back to the east coast i will see you at a game somewhere my friend well that means a lot coming from you thanks

All right, let's wrap with another team. I mentioned how the Mavericks 7-5 record, kind of their underlying numbers were better than that. Well, let's stick with another Western Conference team that is 7-6, but with numbers that would indicate usually a better record. The New Orleans Pelicans.

One of the most hyped teams in the NBA with one of the most hyped superstars in the NBA. Someone we were all excited to see again after a year off with more trade assets than almost anybody. And certainly more than any team that's really trying to win this year. I guess maybe we've got to start counting Utah in that. New Orleans. There you go. Andrew Lopez, how are you? I'm good, Zach. I am...

It's been interesting watching this Pelicans team so far this year. They get off to the great little 2-0 start, and then they run into those jazz men that you mentioned just now, and then it's kind of been up and down since then because of a lot of injuries. But those two games when this team was really healthy, really, really good. And then I guess we saw that against Houston the other night too. Yeah.

They have missed Brandon Ingram from four games. Herb Jones missed a few games. Zion missed a couple games. So they have been nicked up big time, which is one of the reasons why they are 7-6 despite being in the top 10. Now, we're not on the edges of it, but still, we're just going to be optimistic. We're going to count it. We're going to count it. Top 10 in both offense and defense with the seventh best net rating in the league. They have one of the funkiest bits of shot selection in the entire league. They are dead stinking last in threes today.

attempted threes, and third in shots at the rim. And I think they're proud of it. I think they like that we're just the New Orleans Pelicans. We beat the hell out of you. We don't really start. I mean, CJ McCollum's a good three-point shooter. His threes are down. Brandon Ingram's a good three-point shooter. His threes are down. JV, check the wind, baby, but he'll let it fly. Herb Jones, I think Herb Jones is shooting 10% on threes this year. It's not going great. Not great.

He's probably shooting like 60% on foot on the line twos, though. He's got to be the NBA leader in foot on the line twos. It's kind of funny. He mentioned, I think, before the Houston game, Willie Green did, hey, we got to shoot more threes. We want to see the numbers go up just a little bit. Have to.

Brandon Ingram and Trey Murphy both hit foot on the line twos as they were trying to get those numbers up. The old Danilo Gallinari foot on the line two. I used to joke that I think Gallo –

I don't know if there was a rule like the Italian Youth League where you got four points if your foot was on the line. I don't know if that – because Gallo just loves that shot. One of the reasons they have to shoot more threes than they do, even though they live at the rim, they know what their identity is, they lean all the way into that. Zion – I like to think Zion walks down the sidewalk and in the supermarket –

is making spin moves to get to his left hand in just real life. Like, oh, you think, Andrew Lopez, you think you're going to get the last cantaloupe before me? Here's a spin move, get to my left hand, get the cantaloupe, dunk it into my grocery cart as if Zion is going to the grocery store. But that's a whole different story.

They have to shoot more threes because they give up a lot of threes. I think they're minus eight in three-point attempts per game with their opponent. That's a hard math disadvantage to overcome. One of the ways they overcome it is they get to the line a decent amount. They take care of the ball. They're a monster rebounding team on both ends, and they force a lot of turnovers. So they kind of win the possession game.

And the free throw game, they get to the line and they don't foul, at least not yet. And so they're kind of making it up for it in those margins. But I want to zoom out for a second.

My number one take, I was high on the Pelicans as you and I talked about coming into the season when they opened the season by just stampeding the Brooklyn Nets in Brooklyn. And then I think one did, were they three and oh, they were three and one. Yeah. Three and one. They lost to the jazz in that third game. That was the game. Brandon got the concussion.

Zion missed the end of that game as well after the hard fall. Basically, you go to overtime without Brandon and Z. Then obviously Utah's playing a lot better. We've seen that. And then they beat Dallas the next one. And then it's kind of been trying to figure it out. I was super optimistic after that. And obviously the injuries happened and it's been uneven since then. But I want to just, when I watch them, my number one, just sort of throw the numbers out. Gut feeling. It's called an emotional take. What's my emotional takeaway? There you go.

When CJ, B.I., Zion, and Valanchunas are on the floor and I watch them play, production's fine. Like they're scoring 115 points per 100 possessions. That's like equivalent of the third best offense in the NBA. I just thought it would look a little easier than it does. It doesn't look – it looks hard. Like it's a lot of one-on-one play.

They're clearly still trying to find synergy together with all these guys who need and want the ball. And that was to be expected. And I think – I just don't – every time Brandon Ingram makes like a 19-foot fadeaway, I'm like, that's cool. It's amazing that he can do that.

I just kind of didn't think this team with this level of offensive talent would be so reliant on difficult shot making to put up these kind of numbers. It's great that they can do it because you need difficult shot making in the playoffs. And I think part of that, part of why I feel that way is I looked this up today and I like triple checked it. In the Halcyon days of Point Zion two seasons ago,

He was running 12 and a half pick and rolls per 100 possessions. That's down to three and a half this season so far. Like point Zion is not a thing. Post up Zion is sometimes. I kind of want more of the offense to run through Zion, I think. So in the Houston game.

They started to go back to the Zion as the ball handler, CJ as the screener. Which I thought we would see a ton of. That's the whole value of all these guys is just like, who's ever around? Who's ever near me? Let's just flow, baby. I want to say it was, there's been a few games like that so far this year. I think Golden State, they gave him the ball a lot more. The Clippers game was one in particular where

They realized, oh, we're going to get into our actions a lot better if Z's the point guard, essentially. And ever since then, they've started to lean into it a little bit and they're trying to figure it out. Up until that Houston game, I think there were five total Zion ball handlers, CJ Screener pick and rolls that they had set all season.

they almost hit that mark in the second quarter against the Rockets. I think there were two for sure, a couple of ghost screens, a couple that Z rejected and was able to get to the goal. And by the way, I think this is one of the ways to get their three-point shooting up is to run more of the offense through Zion and have him kick out to these guys who are all good three-point shooters but when left to their own devices with the ball are going to pull up for mid-rangers. And look, I don't think it's like a crisis situation

But I don't think you can be 30th in threes. And I do think they need to run more of this. So keep going. So you think that they are aware of this? Yeah, they are aware of this. Willie Green, again, has said, I think it was before last game, we need to shoot more threes. They started going to the CJ action a little bit more. You go back to two years ago, the Zion JJ Redick action was one of the top points per plays ever.

pick and roll actions in the game. Somewhere in greater Philadelphia, Joel Embiid just felt like a little pang of sadness in his heart at the mention of the JJ Redick Zion two-man game. Can you have any sadness after a 59-10-8-7 game, though? I'm glad you brought that up. It's 9.40 a.m. Pacific time. We're not talking about the Sixers today. Sixers had a very weird season with Geisen and the lineup and all this. We are going to talk about Embiid on television later.

I'm glad you brought that up because I just want to say this for 30 seconds. You will not... You could watch basketball for the next 20 years. You might not see five games better than what Joel Embiid did last night against Utah individually. Everyone's going to pay attention to the 59 points and the seven blocks. Unbelievable. The seven blocks don't even tell the story of how dominant Embiid was defensively in that game. What tells the story just as much...

is how many times he was guarding the pick and roll and guarding arm spread on his toes, guarding both ball handler and screener at once to the point that the ball handler was like, what am I supposed to do? Like this giant guy is taking away every passing lane. I'm afraid to shoot because if I shoot, he's going to spring up and block it.

maybe I should just dribble around and you turn or kick the ball to this guy who's not even open. And the amount of times he did that, the amount of times people tried to fake him on those situations, he just stayed down. It was like, nah, I'm cool. Like you're going to have to find a more creative solution than that. Oh, you don't have one. It was a majestic performance. Also those 59 points, Andrew, they were, I didn't know if I should feel impressed or,

or sad on Joel Embiid's behalf.

that the Sixers entire offense now granted hardens out is just, Hey, big fella, there's eight on the shot clock and we haven't ran anything yet. Can you just either make an 18 footer or dribble by your guy and maybe get fouled and fall over? Like, please save us Joel Embiid. And like, God, God damn it. He did it. I don't know how we started talking about this, but it was like a hundred and what? 101 points in essentially 24 hours.

Because he did. He had a 40-pointer against the Hawks. I was watching the whole game last night. And you're just like, okay, he's going to get tired. Something's going to happen. And then he just kept going. Part of the reason they start actions late in the game with eight on the shot clock is, I think, to get him rest on the floor. Because, like, okay, we just got to wait because the big fellow is walking on the floor because no one else is doing anything. Colin, there was the three-on-one where I think he had Clarkson,

And I forget who he Clarkson was in the corner. I forget who else he had on the wing. And Colin Sexton's like, okay, Joel's tired. I can get this by him. And it's the fourth quarter. And Joel's no, I'm good. I'm just going to reject this off the glass. We're just going to keep going. It was, it was,

Just a crazy performance. Okay, so we were talking about Redick-Zion. Yes, that's where we're going. And your belief that they are going to sort of start figuring out ways to tilt a little more offense toward Zion, and perhaps that could start to result in more threes. Right, and you've seen that. Like I said, they started that in Houston with McCollum being the screener. I thought we would see a lot more of that based on the fact that the Redick-Zion pairing was so good. Yeah.

I remember a game against Memphis in particular during that season where I think they were averaging two points of play. They were hitting everything off that action. I think the other thing that will get this offense going is when CJ starts to hit shots. He's got that finger injury he's been dealing with, right? He's got a little bit of a finger. He had probably a two-game stretch where he was under the weather. In his words, I felt like...

and you kind of go on from that. But he's like, I'm not going to make excuses. Zion had the same thing, I think, against Golden State, where he takes himself out of the game late, tries to get some fluids on the bench, and they rolled on without him. But once I think he gets going a little bit more, you'll see that. CJ's under 40 for the year. He's like 27 for three. Yeah, not great. Miserable. This is a –

I mean, not to get cliche about it, but this dude is a walking bucket. CJ McCollum is going to wake up and maybe they don't play tonight. Maybe tomorrow have a 15 of 19, 36 point explosion coming soon. Right. And I think you've seen that. But I think Ingram's shooting totals are up. He kind of lost his three point shot last year for a good stretch from like December to March. He was he was just not very good as a three point shooter.

Once you figure that part out, once you kind of figure out ways to get Trey Murphy some more shots, things will start to, I think, pick back up on that end. But I do think a lot of it has to deal with CJ really getting going and Herb. I mean, Herb was...

Herb has not been very good as a shooter this year. He's been very good at nearly everything else he does, including his defense. They've obviously had that, but he's two of 18 from three so far this year. Again, maybe he has three more if he wears a half-size smaller shoe, but for a guy who shot 34% last year from three, you expect him to at least get back into that range. Again, I think those two things will help, but

This team loves the mid-range. They have done it. I think there was a game against Atlanta where they had 85 two-point field goals. First team to hit that number this year of any NBA team. They like living in that area. And I think obviously with Z, when you're rebounding offensively the way that this team is,

Imagine if these guys win the championship. I'm not saying this is possible. If these guys do well playing this way, every old school guy who hates threes and thinks analytics are from the devil, like literally Satan spawned analytics on the world, they've been waiting for their moment to be like, well, see, it's all a bunch of BS. This team, well, yeah, okay. There's more than one way to win. Offensively,

I said before the season, they're no brainer top 10. I think they could be top five. They're ninth style, difficulty, whatever. They're going to be a good offensive team. The talent is just the talent. I'll tell you, you mentioned Trey Murphy, the whole floor opens up when they, when they put one quick trigger spot up guy on the floor, the whole thing just feels different. Alvarado has been sensational off the bench for them. He won, he won that game. He won that game against Houston. They, they tried to blow it.

And because they played great in that game, I'd say for three and a quarter quarters. They had an eight minute stretch where they just let Houston just completely do whatever they wanted. And Willie Green changed his rotations in that game. He did a couple of different things. It's actually I want to see how he's going to continue this. First of all, tied Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson together before what he has done. First quarter, Brandon plays the full 12th.

Zion plays six, comes back with like two minutes left in the quarter, plays into like the eight minute mark of the fourth and then plays the last three or four. Kind of let him play 10 and eight, essentially in the first half. Getting those two together, I think helped. Putting the CJ minutes with JV helped. I think that they're trying to get CJ going as well. But the bigger switch was

He has been consistent with Devontae Graham as the first guard off the – or Jose was going to be the first guard off the bench. Devontae was going to be second, Devontae Graham, but that gave Devontae second and fourth quarter minutes. It gave Jose first and third, a little bit of fourth. They let Jose play the entire fourth quarter against the Houston Rockets because they put Devontae in first.

Jose was such a Jose. He was a gnat. He was annoying. He was getting into guys on defense. I have a great, I have a funny 10 things item coming from this week with Jose. He got a couple of guys with GTA. He starts off, he always gets- GTA, people don't know because the Pelicans are not-

They're becoming a little bit of a national draw. GTA stands for Grand Theft Alvarado, which is what you call the thing that is the most delightful thing in the NBA where he literally hides in the corner of the floor while you're inbounding the ball, hiding.

hides, sometimes he kneels, like literally his knees on the ground, and then springs up like a freaking crouching tiger hidden dragon ninja and comes from behind and takes the ball from someone who has no idea what's going on. I don't want to spoil my 10 things item. That's Alvarado. To your point, though. But he won that game the other night.

He, I mean, he, he gets back, he gets them back in and his energy, he does that. So I think the small changes that Willie is making is, is starting, starting to pay off as he has tried to figure out, okay, how do I get these three big, you know,

four big scorers who guys who want their ball, you know, what the hell what the ball in their hands all the time, try to figure out how to get these guys going, trying to figure out points. I on trying to figure out, okay, Brandon loves the mid range. CJ loves the mid range. They're starting to kind of figure things out. And I think it's just, it's taken time on court to see it. They didn't have time to figure this out in the preseason. They didn't play a preseason game with their projected starting five. They really only played probably two practices, uh,

what they're projected starting five. So now that they are starting to kind of pick that up, I think we're seeing, you know, just a little bit that how this offense can kind of start to take up a little bit. Yeah. One of the things I've learned is you got to give coaches, coaches know,

Coaches know what, quote, should happen, but they need 10 to 15 games to explore. And so one of the things that has annoyed me about the Pelicans so far this season, two of them actually, are being solved by what you just talked about. And Willie Green's a great coach. He was actually my pick for coach of the year just for fun in the preseason. I don't like lineups where there's just one of those four on the floor. Yeah.

For too long, I understand you got to get the bench guys in. You got to get everyone minutes. But you got this talent. I like to use it, especially when games are in the balance. And I just don't think Graham and McCollum should play together. I just think you're shooting your defense in the foot for absolutely no reason given how good Alvarado has been. And that was one of the switches he made against Houston was getting rid of those minutes and basically turning that into CJ Jose minutes. And the other thing that he does with that is

Now CJ doesn't have to be the point guard for 36 minutes when he's in the game. Now, Jose can be the point guard. You get CJ back to kind of some off ball stuff. Obviously we talked about points Ion and, and honestly, honestly,

In a clutch, they've had a couple of games where basically Brandon Ingram has turned into the point guard and you just let him start get going stuff. So I think he is an ice cold late game score. And I mean that in a good way. He the only time he's he hasn't been this year, I think, was the Atlanta game when he hadn't played in 12 days. And that was the second night of a home road back to back. Every other time he's been great. The Chicago game he won.

scored 16 in like a five-minute stretch in the fourth. Less than five minutes. There was one part in that game where Zion said, the action calls for me to go set him a screen. And I saw it in his eyes off the handoff. He goes, I'm not setting him a screen. He's about to make this anyway. He makes a shot and they go back on defense. Zion's like, I'm not doing that. He's in his groove. To your point on Jose, Jose McCollum Ingram,

Those three together, three ball handlers, mind you, have only played 22 minutes together the entire season. And again, the reasons are obvious, right? You throw Zion in there, then if you throw Zion and a center to round out that lineup, you have no Herb, no Trey, no other wings. Like, I get it. They're plus 27 in those 22 minutes. Like, that's a look they're going to go to a little more. Look, offensively, they're going to be fine. Let's talk quickly about the defense, where they're 10th. And if they hold at 10th,

Huge W. Huge W for them. Now, opponents are hitting absolutely nothing from three-point range. That will normalize at some point. The other fundamentals of their defense, though, are good. They don't foul. They force turnovers. They clean the glass. You know, their shot selection allowed. They're allowing a lot of threes, but everything else is kind of okay. This is going to be the determining thing of their season.

But Williamson and Nance, which is a 4-5 combination I love, they can get more switchy in that alignment. You know every team is targeting Zion on defense, and he's been kind of eh. A little better than the eh from previous years, but still eh.

That duo, 99 points allowed per 100 possessions. That's elite. Now they're getting lucky on threes. I looked up the numbers. Teams can't make a goddamn thing against those teams. There's a little luck going on. Zion and Valanciunas, which was the obvious concern point coming into the season. Is it just not enough foot speed at the four and the five? That has not been as successful. 111 points allowed per 100 possessions allowed.

The Zion Nance thing is where they've closed games. I think that makes sense. Nance has been unbelievable for them on both ends of the floor. I just, you know, you throw Herb out there with you throw Herb and B.I., some combination of their wings like they got the bones of something interesting defensively. Is it good enough or do you think this team is?

Actually makes a move with all their stuff. Now the Lakers pick is too good to move for some of the players who are about to get mentioned right now because the Lakers pick might be goddamn Victor Wemba Yama coming to New Orleans next year the way this is going. Just imagine that for a second.

Is there a Miles Turner trade? Oh, they have. They have imagined that. Trust me. Is there a Miles Turner trade? Is there a cheapo move for Jakob Pertl who helps you defensively but maybe messes up your spacing? Is there – if they're going to make not a – forget the big trades. We know what the big trades are. We know what the Brooklyn situation is. And if that blows up, that they have everything they need to go out and get that guy if they want.

If they're going to make a smaller trade than that, and no disrespect to Miles Turner, but he's a smaller trade than Kevin Durant, right? Yeah. It has to be a defense trade, I think. It has to be a defense trade. Do they, 15 games in or wherever we are, 12 games in, 13 games in, do they think they need to do that? Are you on high alert for that quite yet? I don't know if high alert is there. I think they recognize that...

The one real thing I think that they're missing on this team is a rim protector. Obviously, Miles Turner would solve some of that. Yeah, teams are shooting 70% at the rim. Now, they haven't gotten there all that much because the defense has been sound, but they're getting lit up when they get there. And again, I think they realize, hey, if we can keep teams away from there and force them into other shots that we want, we'll be fine and limit when you're shooting that well. Yeah.

They do still have, we've talked about this before, tradable pieces, tradable contracts. You put, let's say Devante and Jackson Hayes together that gets you into the, the 15, $16 million range and you can get some better options. Yeah.

There's not just a lot of rim protectors available. You know, that's why I went right to Yaka who's a fine player, but they're just like, you want to say, well, could they just like, just see what Rashawn Holmes is from Sacramento. He's not even in the rotation, but like Rashawn Holmes, isn't a rim protector. That's not, he adds a little lob threat dynamism to your game, but that's not changing your life as a team. So I know, I know they really do like the, the, the Nance minutes. Um,

He's essentially closed most every game where he's been available. I think he missed one where he thought he towards ACL, and it turns out it was just a hyperextension. He misses one game. That was quite the scare, I think, for that team. But if they're going to make a move, that is the direction I see them going. Just because you can tell the one thing I think that is missing is

overall on this team is, is somebody who could protect the remnants. JB is not going to do that. Larry's not really going to do that. Larry's just going to help you in switchable situations. The Z is not there yet, but I mean, to your point, they have had some success with the Z Nance minutes. They flirted with the Z at the five minutes, just a, just a little bit so far, but if they're going to make a move, I could, I could definitely see them in that, in that market.

Well, we are going to stay tuned. It's been – I like to see them have a stretch of they have everybody together and see what they can do because I think they're way better than 7-6 as a team. They're super exciting, and they're sitting on a goldmine of stuff to upgrade. And I think, honestly –

Sounds good.