Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast on a Friday morning, 13 days from the NBA trade deadline. It's Rivalry Week. Had no idea Rivalry Week was a thing. Ramona Shelburne, how are you? You know, I learned about Rivalry Week a couple years ago when they were hyping the NBA schedule and I was excited about it. I think this is a new development. Can we have Load Management Abatement Week? Yes.
Oh, I like that. Yeah, that's a good idea. I think there's also some classic rivalries that make sense, like Lakers-Celtics. That's a good one. But then who do you match up Atlanta with? Who do you match up Denver with? Atlanta-New York. Atlanta-New York. Denver. Denver, we can think of some good ones for it. Denver Clippers has become a rivalry, except you know what has to happen for that to be a rivalry? The playoffs. The Clippers have to win a game from Denver at some point for that to be a rivalry. Yeah.
Um, Ramona Shelburne, we're going to hit a lot of topics today. You had a sit down with Pat Riley and let me tell people before we get to that sit downs with Pat Riley don't happen. Sit downs with Pat Riley are really, really hard to get. I had to get one.
For a bam at a bio profile a few years ago. And that was a lot to get that. He doesn't like to do media. So we're going to get to that. First, let's react to all-star starter announcements. And we were both voters. So let's start Western Conference. The announced starters, the winners, the all-star starters, guard Steph Curry, guard Luka Doncic, front court LeBron James, Zion Williamson, Nikola Jokic. Ramona Shelburne, what was your ballot?
I do not think I had Zion on my ballot, and that was not a knock on him. It was just – Yeah, everything's a knock. Everything's a knock. Everything's hate. It's all there is is hate. It's all hate. He just wasn't – he's hurt. So I did factor that in when I was voting. And I am trying to remember exactly where I had everybody. I think I had Ja on my ballot. Over Steph or Luka? Over Zion. Okay.
You got to have two guards. You got to have two guards. Yeah. So I think I had Stefan Jha. Isn't that right? So no Luka? No Luka.
I had Luke in the frontcourt. Can't have Luke in the frontcourt. Luke is a guard. Then I definitely had all those guys. Let me find my ballot. You go with your ballot. I'll do my ballot then, Ramona. Okay. All right. I had Luka Doncic at guard, Shea Gildress Alexander at the other guard, over Steph. I explained this in my column. We all know Steph's better. Steph's a top 10 to 15 player of all time. We all know he's better now. 400-something minutes. Shea's averaging 30 a game. I'm rewarding him.
And LeBron Jokic and I had Sabonis as my last front court player over Zion, over Markkinen. Zion, look, he got in. Oh, you know what? I had Markkinen on my ballot. That's right. I remember in that moment I went Sabonis or Markkinen, Markkinen or Sabonis. And I just went with the home crowd pleaser.
That's not a right reason to vote, but I did. He's going to make it anyway. He's going to make it anyway, but I thought he's had a great year for them. The game's in Salt Lake City. And I felt like Sabonis was going to make it anyway. Marketing would make it anyway. And yeah, I did go marketing. That was the last one. Do you have your Eastern Conference ballot prepared? I remember... Yes, I remember that one off my head. I did both Cleveland guards and...
And I did MB. I left Durant off because I thought he was injured as well. So I did Embiid, Giannis, and Tatum. Both Cleveland guards? You had Garland starting? Yeah. I think I did both Cleveland guards. Wow. Yeah.
What'd you do? That's bold. What'd you do? I mean, Darius Garland's had a really good season, but I had Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brown by a hair over Tyrese Halliburton, who should be in a lock. Let me say it clearly. Tyrese Halliburton has to be there. And I had Giannis coming off the bench. I had Tatum, Durant, Embiid.
Embiid got robbed. Embiid got robbed. Someone has to lose out of those four guys, which is stupid. It's stupid that we can't have all four of them starting. The numbers say mostly that it should be Giannis. Durant being injured gives voters a window to just be like, is he even going to play? But he's verbalized that he wants to play. And he's played more minutes than Giannis. I think he's been better than Giannis this season. And so if I have to pick, I'm picking...
I'm picking Giannis off the bench. It hurts. It hurts me. But Embiid got robbed. Embiid is like – remember when Durant was like, I'm always number two. I'm sick of being number two. I was the number two pick. It's becoming Embiid now. It is. And like there was a time when in the Western Conference it was like this with guards too. Remember you could never choose between Steph, Harden –
Chris Paul and Dame. And you had to choose two guards out of the four every year. And they really had, you could split hairs, right? Like, I always think the all-star vote, I don't think it's, it's split so many different ways, right? Like the fans have a vote in there. We have a vote, but it's not like all NBA where I feel like it's as serious as,
All NBA where there's legitimately millions of dollars tied to it and we really have to take all that seriously.
And so I think with Embiid, that's why I think this game on Saturday is going to be fun. We're going to talk about it. I can't wait. We're skipping ahead. Embiid-Jokic is on Saturday. Let me just be clear. I love Darius Garland. I have sung his praises on this podcast many, many times. I have said that I feel almost more comfortable with the ball in his hands late in games than I do with it in Donovan Mitchell's hands. I just don't –
I can't vote for him over those guards, but that's just me. I know. I think I wanted to vote for Halliburton, and I just felt like Garland. Yeah, he's injured too. And, like, there's a – that is weird. I tend to dock points for somebody who I think may not play, right? If they're hurt, it's like, okay, well, then maybe I won't vote for them, and I'll vote for the person who I think is going to play.
So at the time, I think Durant wasn't going to play. One of the cool things about how this voting works now is the NBA will break it down for you and say, here's where everyone finished with media, with fans, and with players. And I love to look at the player votes because there's always one or two or three players
Where it's like, ooh, the players think really differently about this guy than we do. Or just I'm surprised that we're in agreement with them on this guy. Because maybe our tastes kind of diverge. So there are a couple I wanted to highlight. Jokic. Jokic finished first among players in the frontcourt balloting over LeBron. Interesting.
And I think what's happened with Jokic is interesting. And that Draymond Green telegraphed it after the Warriors beat the Nuggets 4-1 in the playoffs last year. And all the Philly fans were like, well, this is why Embiid should have won. And Draymond was like...
Dude, that guy is a monster. We have more respect for him after this series than we even did before. Something to that nature. I'm paraphrasing Draymond. And I think the same thing has happened with the whole fretting over. Yeah. Is it okay to give Jokic three straight MVPs? That's just faded. Like everyone is just kind of recognized like this dude is amazing for him to beat out LeBron among the players was interesting. I have another one that surprised me.
Okay. It's in the Eastern conference, the player vote in the Eastern conference. Can you guess what it is? The player vote in the Eastern conference. One of the player votes that is going to be somebody who's high or low, low. All right. Well, there's Paolo Bankaro coming in at eight. That's pretty good. Uh,
Oh, Kyrie at number one. Well, okay. I meant low, like low, double digits low, like bad low, not like high low. Kyrie being number one is what it is. I'm not going to talk about it anymore. Trae Young. Young at 12. Yeah. So Trae Young, it's like the media talks about Trae Young a lot. There's always a lot of discussion about his style of play.
Is he going to go down as a coach killer all of a sudden? Why?
Why is there always drama in Atlanta? People are stepping down, thinking about stepping down. Everyone's stepping in various directions. And Trae Young's the fulcrum of the whole franchise. So all of those things are somewhat connected to him to some degree. But you figure, you know, he's an incredible player, right? The numbers are what they are. The style, the passing, the sort of long range shooting, the Steph light in terms of his range and all that.
And the players voted him 12th among guards. Below the mellow ball, Darius Garland, Jalen Brunson, DeMar DeRozan, Tyrese Halliburton, James Harden, Jalen. 12th. That really stood out to me. It's like, huh?
I kind of thought he would get like a player bump and it was the opposite. The media and the fans were way higher on Trey Young than the players. That's interesting, don't you think? Yeah, that is. Last year, I remember when we were doing All-NBA games.
We all like there was a little of this talk a little bit, but we all still I still vote for Trey on an all NBA team last year because his stats really backed it up. And even though they were in the play in, that's a disappointment off to the year before. But I think if it's year after year, there's not two or three years now where they've underachieved.
Since they've been to the Eastern Conference Finals that one year, it feels like the same story and the same narrative, the bad stuff is coming out. When's the last time you heard the good stuff?
That's a good way to put it. Right? When it's just like the narratives of anything bad is coming out of Atlanta. You haven't heard a really good Trae Young story or a, oh my God, wow, how great that last game was. We haven't had those stories. I think when the narrative goes in one direction on a guy, it's hard to turn it around. But for the players are clearly...
Oh, I don't want to say ambivalent. Everyone realizes how great Trey Young is. And I don't know how close he was to fifth or something while finishing 12th among the players. That's pretty low. Even when I had Kevin Herter on this podcast a few weeks ago,
I asked him, this was right after all the drama with Trey and Nate McMillan and his Nate McMillan reportedly thinking about resigning, which Nate McMillan denied publicly in an interview. And I asked Kevin Herter and they had just played the Kings. The Hawks had just played the Kings. It was fresh in his mind. And I asked him, what was it like to did you like playing with Trey Young? Like, what was it like to play with Trey Young?
And I expected him, as candid as he was for that whole interview, to just sort of give the, oh, Trae Young's a great player. And like, can we please talk about Sabonis or something? And he politely was kind of like, it's a double-edged sword. He got me a lot of open looks, but of course everybody wants to touch the ball and do stuff and be involved in the offense. And if that's the public answer to a question like that,
I think the private answer is probably a little different than that. That's all I got. Yeah. I mean, I do think it was interesting. I thought the Zion vote was interesting as well, right? In terms of player votes for Zion. Player vote was... He finished higher among players. He's third. Third among players. Fans, fourth. Media, fourth. I mean...
I think that's impressive. Like, because like, I know when I watch him, I'm like, Oh wow, he's really good. But he has been, there hasn't been a lot of him, right? He's sort of in and out. He's been hurt a lot. He's still hurt right now. Is he going to be back to the all-star game? The last update we got was he'll be back in two weeks. So that's really cutting it close. But that's a real sign of respect from your peers. You know, usually I thought Zion would be very high in the fan vote, but,
And the media would probably vote for him middle of the pack because he's been in and out. But he's across the board.
This episode is brought to you by Experian. Are you paying for subscriptions you don't use but can't find the time or energy to cancel them? Experian could cancel unwanted subscriptions for you, saving you an average of $270 per year and plenty of time. Download the Experian app. Results will vary. Not all subscriptions are eligible. Savings are not guaranteed. Paid membership with connected payment account required. Bigger Picture Western Conference is a little teaser for later.
The Pelicans are 3-11 in their last 14 games. For a while, the conference was bifurcated between the top four and everybody else. Now it's the top two. The Kings kind of in a tier by themselves at three. And New Orleans is very quietly with nobody watching because Ingram and Zion have been hurt. Ingram just came back their last game. Have fallen to 26-23.
Three games over 500. They're tied with the Clippers for fourth, fifth. Like four is now in play for almost everybody in the Western Conference. And not only that, the Pelicans own draft pick is,
Now has a little bit more potential trade value than it looked like it was going to have a month ago when they were like a no brainer top four team. That's for later. Talk about Pat Riley and how you got to Pat Riley. LeBron James is LeBron James right now, as of this recording is 157 points away from tying Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most hallowed individual record in the NBA.
Uh, we've all been doing LeBron stuff, LeBron thinking, LeBron watching LeBron, all of that. I did not expect a Pat Riley just bomb to drop in the middle of my life. A couple of days ago, mostly focused on Kareem and what Kareem meant to him personally, what Kareem has meant to the game.
As both a player, a champion, a statesman, all of that. How did you arrive at this with Pat? And what did he say maybe that you didn't expect in that piece? And people should all go to ESPN and read it. Because like I said, Pat Riley is... Pat Riley's seen everything. He's seen everything. He's been around everyone. He's done everything in every role in the NBA for a gazillion years. When he talks...
It matters. He and I had been talking about doing something for a while. And I kind of was in the place where as we approached the record, and we talked about this at our summit at the beginning of the year. Remember, Zach? I do remember the summit. Yes. I felt like we really needed to write about Kareem a bit more. We really needed to focus on Kareem as...
as we approach this record because like you know the classic sports talk radio discussion is oh who's the best player of all time and it's okay is it you have lebron you have michael you know this generation will say well what about kobe and like the older generations when you have that conversation that kobe's usually further back like fifth or sixth or something but you
I feel like we've almost forgotten to mention Kareem all the time. Like Kareem gets lost out of those greatest of all time discussions a lot. And I think it's because of his personality. I think he played alongside Magic, who's megawatt, smile, personality, charm, everything. Like you could just forget anyone else is in the room anytime Magic's there. Remember their first game together.
Was it Kareem that hit a buzzer buzzer beater in their first game together and magic was like running around going crazy and Kareem and Kareem was like, yo dude, it's a long, it's a long season, man. The joy and the smile are cool. Chill out. And so I felt like this is a moment and it's, it's an interesting parallel and discussion with Kareem and LeBron because they do have a lot of parallels in their careers and in their way that you think about them. Um,
And this is really a record of longevity. And so as a kid growing up in L.A., like I grew up on the Showtime Lakers. So I have my real time childhood memories of Kareem. OK, so I was born in 79 and I started watching basketball probably, let's say, around 84, 85, like right when basketball.
Right when the Lakers-Celtics thing is getting going. What a great time to come of age. Nintendo was about to come out. Atari was sweeping the nation. A little actor called Harrison Ford was on top of the world. Yep. So like the early 80s, that's like my era. Those are my formative sports watching years.
And I remember Kareem and Magic and Worthy and Byron Scott and all these guys. But I don't think I realized how old Kareem was at the time. Like, I don't think I had any idea that this was like, I wasn't reading the newspaper at that point. It was five. So looking back as I have gotten older and like looking back on that era, um,
Pat, like what I wanted to talk to Pat Riley about was how good Kareem was back in 84, 85, when I'm like little Momo watching TV. He was like 38 already. Like he's 38 in 1985.
And every year there's this talk of, is he going to retire? And there's three more titles coming. Yes. That's amazing. When you think about how good he was at that age and how his best years right in there were. Right now, every night, we are aghast and marveling at how good LeBron is at 38 on a fairly bad team right now. They're, what, 12th in the West? Yeah.
you know, they show glimpses and glimmers, but Kareem is, is he was the finals MVP in 85. He's led the league. He led the Lakers in scoring. I mean, it was like 22 points a game. It's not a big number, but in 10 out of 10 years there that he led the Lakers in scoring. And so I felt like that was something that I, in my looking back on it did not realize growing up. And I,
I kind of wanted to talk to Pat about it. Cause I think, I think I had some sense that he was into yoga. Like that was something that got covered in Kareem. Yeah. But I didn't realize how well he took care of his body at a time that nobody had that consciousness of how you take care of your body. Like Pat, Pat, I liked what Pat talked about. Like, you know, he'd go into a game and, um,
Kareem would just be sitting at his locker reading before every game. He was just very calm. You would often find him meditating. He's like the rest of the team would be doing stretching circles and they're, they're mostly just like goofing off for 15 minutes. And Kareem was like twisting himself into a pretzel. Like he was, he was really ahead of his time in terms of taking care of his body. And he played all the way to his 41 and he was still pretty, pretty good at the end there. Even the series against the Pistons. Like I love Riley just out of the blue with his,
He hit two of the biggest free throws in Laker history in that series against the Pistons. By the way, do not ask anybody from Detroit about those free throws because –
They will all tell you. And I think the video kind of agrees with the Pistons. That was a bogus foul that got Kareem to the line and swung the whole finals for the Lakers. But that's. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, that's history now. But the way I got Riley to talk to me, Dax, to go back to your original question, was that I had this sense. One, I was curious. That's always the best thing as a writer is when you're curious.
about revisiting a time in history. And two, I had this sense because I had been hearing about this Showtime Lakers reunion that they all did in Hawaii for a couple of years. It was supposed to be done before the pandemic and then they had to cancel it because of COVID. They ended up doing it this September, but they basically redid the Showtime Lakers reunion in Hawaii like a training camp. And
You know, now we've all been watching Showtime, the show on HBO. But this was like the real Showtime Lakers having their reunion. And so I just had been wanting to ask Pat about all this for a while. And I know some of the impetus for that reunion was that these guys are getting older. Kareem was turning 75 this year. They all had a birthday party for him at a game at Crypto.com this year where a bunch of the guys showed up. And I just felt like Pat would want to talk about Kareem.
And maybe I could ask him about LeBron at the same time. But he felt like the right person to talk to because how many people are close to both Kareem and LeBron? There's not many. I mean, I guess you could say Magic also because he was an executive, but not many. And that's why it's a big deal when in this piece, Pat Riley tells you Kareem is always going to be the guy. Yeah. Because Pat Riley runs the Miami Heat.
and signed LeBron as a free agent in the greatest free agent coup in league history, other than maybe the, the Shaq Kobe double summer in LA that Jerry West pulled off, which was half free agency, half trade, obviously. Um,
Won two championships with LeBron, witnessed LeBron, no pun intended, transform and diversify as both a scorer and a playmaker and a defender into, I think, the greatest years of his career. The peak of his powers was, I think, in Miami, even more so than when he won a title in Cleveland. 100%.
And it did not go unnoticed around the NBA, around Miami, around Los Angeles, around LeBron, that Pat Riley declared to you that Kareem is always going to be the guy. Now, I perceive that as Pat being very protective of Kareem and his legacy.
And also wanting to point out, and there's a quote in there. This is such a great Riley quote. Do you like the part where he goes to me? The biggest numbers were always nine Oh six and 1128 Randy Smith's all time record for consecutive games played. And, and then AC green AC green never missed a game. The first game he misses when he retired. By the way, let's, let's just stop it. Just say that again.
A.C. Green never missed a game until he retired. The first game he missed was the game he retired. So the easiest stance to take in media right now is that load management is bad and teams are overdoing it and the league has a problem because it's a populist stance, right? Like it's for the fans. The fans are losing out. Richard Jefferson told an incredible story on NBA Today yesterday. Did you see that? Yeah. Yeah. About being a kid and going to a game by himself because his parents could not afford football.
All the tickets for all the family. He wanted to see David Robinson specifically was his favorite player play and how heartbroken he would have been had David Robinson sat out that game due to what was not then not known as load management, managing the loads. And it's it's an easy argument to make. It's low hanging fruit and all that. But it's it's true. And I and I think the only Bill Simmons had a rant on it this week on his podcast. Yeah.
Cause Jokic missed that game in Milwaukee. Now Jokic plays all the time. I don't, I don't really know what went into that, but it's true. And I think the only, the only solution, the only realistic solution is the season has to be shorter because this is not going away. The start, everyone is going to rest all the time. And Steve Kirk talked about 72 games. I just think either the season has to be shorter or the penalties and the penalties have to be stiffer and the rules have to be clear about what you can and cannot do.
I just don't think there's any other solution. This is just what it is. But I felt like a lot of what, I mean, there was, there was a bit more to that rant that I'm not recounting to you right now on the pod, but it's, it's in some of it's in the story and some of it's some of it. I, I mean, you know, Pat Riley, when he talks, you don't interrupt him, right? You let him go. Oh my, no, you're not. And, and my limited experience talking to him or listening to him is that
You do not know what direction he is going to go. I mean, you could be talking about Kareem and then you could be talking about Schenectady where he's from in two seconds. We got on to Schenectady. I got to say that right. You got to really pause and make sure you pronounce that right or you'll end up with something wrong. But like Pat enjoyed telling me about he played Kareem in high school.
Pat Riley is two years older than Kareem. By the way, that's another thing that's cool about Kareem. In an era where now everybody –
Everybody knows every good high school player that's 14 and up. They all have Instagram accounts. They're all going to have NILs. They're all going to be famous immediately. Kareem was already famous as Luau Cinder, power Memorial high school star in New York city. He's the greatest high school player ever. He's the greatest college player ever. And he is for another few weeks, the all time leading scorer in the NBA. He was a celebrity in New York city.
in like the fifties or whenever he was in high school. Yeah. You know, that, that's another just Kareem. Yeah. And so Pat played against it. So Pat's two years older. So even, so he's playing as a much younger player, right. He's, you know, in high school, but he, he goes, isn't it amazing that this guy that I played in high school, who I think Kareem was probably six, eight, six, nine in high school, but he was still really big and powerful. And, and,
really good player goes on to become the greatest player of all time. And he said it multiple times, right? Greatest player of all time. And he, he means he goes, Michael's up there too. I mean, he did it. He, there's a line where he allows that Michael's up there too, but for, for Riles, the amount of games and the longevity that Kareem had, um,
Being as good as he is And remember Kareem played in college too They didn't have the age limit rule So that's why his age And by the way I meant 60s not 50s I'm aware of when Kareem was in high school Okay
He could have had two more years in the NBA if they didn't have the age limit rule back then. He couldn't play as a freshman. Right. He just couldn't play. Yeah, you're not allowed to. There are stories about how the freshman team with Luau Sindor would beat the hell out of the actual UCLA team and he couldn't play for the varsity team.
So I feel like I was glad Pat spoke on behalf of Kareem. And I have a feeling, you know, there won't be that many Kareem stories, which is why I wanted to run it early.
and set the idea early of, Hey, this is Kareem's record. And I know that people know Kareem from that show that we've been watching and he's the tall guy with the goggles and the sky hook, but he was, he was a lot more than the tall guy with the sky hook. You know, like he was, he was an incredible player for, you know, until age 41 and some of his best seasons were, um,
Later in his career, and that was that was the other subject of our interview, which he talks really eloquently on, which is that when you play this late, it's not just that you can't think of something else to do with your life. OK, there's Kareem had plenty to do with his life. LeBron has plenty to do with his life when he gets done playing basketball. He's a he's already has a thriving business outside of it.
But you have to want to still play. You have to have a reason to still play and to get up at five in the morning like LeBron does and post those Instagram videos of him working out to do what Kareem did. He was always year to year. Like there was always this sense of, oh, this could be the last year. This could, you know, but they were contenders every year.
And he wasn't going to walk away. Like, and Riley had this great quote saying, you know, Kareem was 32 when magic first got there. And I went back and I checked the stats and I was reading some stories from right before then Kareem had kind of fallen off right before. There's a great quote from Doug Moe in a sports illustrated story. I found he was, he was, yeah, six, seven years ago. He wasn't really all that good anymore. He looked like he was falling off. And then magic came and he just got reinvigorated because he,
You know, they got they got Magic and McAdoo and Byron Scott and Cooper and Worthy and they and he just felt like, wow, I have a chance to win every year. And I think that that's part of Kareem's legacy as well, is that he not only kept playing that long, he wanted to play that long. He was still really freaking good for a long time.
And in an era when nobody played that long, when he was in his 17th year in 1985, that was the most seasons anyone had ever played up until that point. Now we have plenty of 20-year guys. So you anticipated where I'm going with this. But first, should I get an Instagram? I do have an Instagram account. I never post there. I don't even know the password. Should I...
start posting videos of myself waking up at six in the morning and like watching Clippers Spurs from last night. Hashtag rise and grind. Just log on. Just me logging onto a computer. I love that. Do it. Yeah. So inadvertently in that Pye Riley interview, I think one of the themes was one of the reasons Kareem
played as long as he did it was because there were stakes. He could win. He had a chance to win. And I read that and I thought, he's probably not doing it on purpose, but that's just sort of throwing more pressure at the desk of Rob Palenka, who made one trade last week, trading three second rounders and Kendrick Nunn for Rui Hachimaru trade. I already talked about on this pod and like, still has two first round picks, still has Russell Westbrook.
still has other stuff to do um where do you get a sense of what and and as i said i mean number four in the west is now three games over 500 the lakers are three games under 500 and there are nine eight teams in between them so there's a lot to do but um there's the ceiling on what they can do if they get hot is actually you know they could they could get pretty high yeah um
Where do you think they are trade-wise? No one is more plugged into LA sports than you are. Where do you think the Lakers are?
I think they are going to try to do something else of the same magnitude since we're going to use earthquake terms. We just had a little one out here. Little one, like barely even qualifies as a 4.3. LA, one of the only cities in the world where a 4.3 magnitude earthquake is less of a big deal than a routine rainstorm.
Yeah, yeah, four points. It's got to be over four or five. Four or five is really the – it gets close to five. That's when people are like, oh. But when it rains, when it rains and you're trying to make plans with people in L.A., they're like, are you – is this – are you joking? Anyway. I'm not going out. So Lakers, another move of the same magnitude. No, I think that's about right. I don't see anything big unless – and the way it's been phrased to me is they're always – they're going to listen.
But they're not. But it's something big. It's probably not something they're proposing. It's probably something somebody comes to them with to loop them in on something. Right. Like the Hachimura trade, I think, has been that's a pretty good it's a good trade for them, but it's not a large scale. Let's call it a four point two that a four point two like like maybe if you were tired, you could have slept through that, you know, two point eight.
It's over a three. That's over a three. What's the scale at which you stop feeling the earthquake when you just don't even know that one happened? Oh, the threes. Most of the time you just kind of go, you're not quite sure if that was an earthquake. You're like, was that an earthquake? I don't know. Maybe. 3.1. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you felt it, but it's like that. Okay. So let's go over some stuff. Boyan Bogdanovich has been mentioned ad nauseum.
As we approach the trade deadline, I am actually starting to believe the Pistons rhetoric that they are unlikely to trade him unless they get an incredibly good first round pick and maybe a little bit more than that. If you ask me right now, is he getting traded? You have to pick 12 days in advance, 13 days in advance. Yes or no. I'm actually going to say no. And that's different from what my answer was two weeks ago, three weeks ago, because I just thought they were kind of bluffing. I don't think they're bluffing anymore.
Yeah, I don't either. The Indiana thing, I think, is despite the fact that they've slid down the standings, I think is gone. With no indication that this team is ready to do anything, the team that I'm still keeping an eye on is, I am so sick of the Chicago Bulls.
Yeah. Every time. Here they come. They're one game under 500. They go to Paris and they go to the Eiffel Tower and they win and everyone's happy. And then they beat the Warriors and things are going great. They had a chance. They had a three game stretch right now. Yeah. Charlotte, Indiana, somebody else bad. I think Orlando to go over 500.
Which would have been, sadly enough, a landmark moment for this particular Bulls team. A moment where they could have said, now we're in the running for sixth. Now we're in the running to be a frisky low-round playoff team that we were last year. Is that what we wanted to be when we went all-in? No, but it's better than being tied with the freaking Wizards for 10th in the East. What do they do? They blow a 20-point lead against the Pacers who have no Tyrese Halliburton, and they lose...
by 16 to the Hornets who stink. And oh, the Hornets had Lomelo Ball back and Gordon Hayward back. Big freaking deal. Are you a serious team? Are you a serious team? Beat the Pacers and beat the Hornets. The Bulls are not a serious team.
Yeah, this this team, it's been over for a year. The idea that this team has a path to ever contend for a title over. That's been forget the title. A second round playoff. That's over. Now it's like they can't even get out of their own way. And every time they have a stretch like this, they are. I'm not making that up. They are tied with the Wizards. They're actually behind the Wizards, I guess, because of head to head. They're 11th in the East right now.
And I think, well, I would posit this to you. If the Lakers have had their eye on the Bulls since September. Since September, the Lakers have been saying, we want to see what happens if that team craps the bed this season. What might shake loose? And you don't have to be a brain surgeon to think, to understand that in September, that meant DeRozan, the free agent who wasn't. The free agent who almost was and instead became Russ.
The name that's become more interesting to me as this season has gone on and it's become clearer and clearer that the Bulls are not going to get it together is Levine. Yep. Who is a clutch client who is on a gigantic contract. Yep. Who I know there has been some thought about with people around the Lakers as a potential –
trade slash that's kind of our cap space acquisition. Obviously they sacrificed a lot of cap space potentially in Hachimura, which I think I don't, I read that also as a signal that maybe the Kyrie thing is, is over for them too. Did you read it that way? Like if they're going to use X amount of room on Hachimura, like, and then Chris Haynes reports that not reports gets Kyrie's agent to say, we would be interested in coming back to the nets and,
And I think the Nets have started to have internal discussions about that themselves. Like, what does that look like? What kind of years? What kind of money? Anyway, what's the... Is the Levine thing...
I think they would, the, the Lakers would be among several teams that would be looking at Levine, right? Another team. I mean, I like if I'm Dallas, I'm picking up that phone too. If, if Levine is available. Okay. Just like teams that really need another playmaker, another, another guy who can score another guy who's got some oomph to
to his game. He's younger now that it's just a lot of money. He's just got a lot of, and it would, it would be sort of reminiscent of the Blake Griffin trade from a few years ago where the first year that you signed this super max contract, that's supposed to show how much your team loves you get traded at the deadline. Like that was, that was a rough one for, for Blake, for the Clippers, for the Pistons, for everybody involved in that.
It's in that category. Somebody has to really believe that you're an answer. You don't just take on a contract like that for a one-year deal. I mean, you're committing to $200-plus million. That's your guy for a long time. So I generally think deals like that don't get done at the deadline. Somebody with that much money on their deal, it's a hard one to do in the middle of the year. I would agree.
I don't know. Chicago keeps all their cards pretty close to the vest. Yeah. My best read on them all season has been they do not even want to hear this discussion. They don't want to they don't want to contemplate that this team may be a failure. They don't want to contemplate breaking it up in any in any real sense. But I said earlier this week, if the Lakers came to me as the Bulls and said, you're going to have both picks.
Yeah. Unprotected and whatever minimal protections we put on the second one. And Russ, I have to think about that because it might, to use your Blake Griffin example, it might end up a get out of jail free card. Now, I don't think Zach Levine has hit that point. I think he's actually looked a lot better, as I said earlier this week. In the last six weeks, he looks more like Zach Levine. He's in a slump again now.
I've never been a huge Levine guy because of defense and I think overall feel for the game. Just not my kind of player. Now the scoring and the shooting is undeniable. And I could, as the Bulls, retool around DeRozan. It does as a downside, I think, lock me into re-signing Vucevic, which I don't love because it gives him leverage over me. And I get some picks back in the kitty. I just, I'm not saying I would do it if I'm then because Russ by himself is
has to have a pick coming with him because he's negative value contract yeah and so i'm really trading levine for like one pick that's that's probably not enough for me but i think it's interesting um but the more chicago just can't get it together and here are their next here are their next games saturday at orlando tuesday home against the clippers then charlotte portland san antonio
four of those games are winnable. Four of those games are against teams like the bulls under 500. Even the Clippers is like, you can beat the Clippers at home. I know the Clippers have on a nice four game winning streak that Spurs Lakers Spurs are three of the games. So I'm not reading too much into it. Um, another bulls trade target is, uh, for a lot of teams would love Alex Caruso. Um,
A team that I've speculated about with Alex Caruso before, and I don't necessarily see it as a fit, but stylistically it's a fit, is the Warriors. Yeah. You're also very plugged into the— They've always loved Caruso, like ever since he was a rookie. Now my thing with them is I've got Curry, Klay, Poole, and DiVincenzo who's playing great. So I have four guards.
uh how can i fit another now alex caruso can guard fours a lot like he can guard up a lot of positions but i don't have a ton of space for him and the price it's going to cost i think is wiseman plus a pick at this point and that's that's that's not that's a lot of time but it's something uh you are as well connected as anybody to the warriors uh the bob myers dirty laundry was yeah this week um
They are another team that just can't seem to string momentum together, even within games. What's your read on their aggression level here? I don't think it's very high.
I think their aggression level has to be tempered by the money that any trade would bring in to next year, which is already a complicated year, right? I mean, obviously, Bob's in the last year of his contract. Everybody on that team gets very expensive. By the way, imagine my surprise when suddenly on the low post podcast feed –
Yeah. My last name is low. I am the host of the low post podcast. There was suddenly a Bob Myers interviews, Steph Curry, uh, episode of the low post podcast on the field. I don't remember doing that. What, how did that happen? Bob Myers is already like preparing for post warriors life on my podcast feed.
You know how many questions I got about that? Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Well, I mean, look, it is – I feel like their ownership group has shown a willingness to spend money on championship teams. Right now they don't look like a championship team. However, neither you nor I will ever count them out because we know what they can be when they turn it on. They just have to string together a stretch here. At some point we got to see an extended stretch of –
of warrior style dominance and play and you just you haven't seen it and so i think um i i could see them do something but i don't think i would i i would i would be surprised if they did something that added a lot of money to next year like if you have a player who's on an expiring or maybe there was something that gave them some flexibility after that okay
But every time I've called about this, it feels like that's a concern right now. Is that a good way to put it? I don't sense a lot of urgency either. I sense a lot of not just money realities, but also a lot of faith in what this court can do. The faith is, I wouldn't say it's wavering, but it is...
They're just like us saying, I thought 50 games in we'd be a little – we'd have hit a run by now. And I've said before, I do think a run is coming. I think the data suggests a run is coming. But it hasn't come yet. And they've had some injuries. They still have some injuries. I do think the time has come where, for me, James Wiseman is going to be in his fourth year next year. His fourth year. Yep.
I know the Warriors picked him number two overall over. We all know who was also on the board, right? And how those players would have fit. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, and teams are always reluctant to punt on picks that high, that defining, that beloved by the ownership group, that, that sexy when they're catching lob dunks and here's the vertical spacing we don't have. And I do think fans have been too hard on Wiseman considering how little he's played. Um,
There's an interesting player in there somewhere. But this is year three and he does not play ever.
Ever. And he's not going to play in meaningful games. There's no path. It's over for this season. Next season is his fourth year. I do think it's time for them to not be so precious anymore about, well, we couldn't trade James Wiseman for that sixth or seventh guy. We couldn't trade James Wiseman for Alex Caruso. Really? Alex Caruso? He takes two shots every 26 minutes. I get all that. It just...
What they have now is really precious with Steph. And it just doesn't feel like this is happening for James Wiseman. And it'll happen somewhere someday. And if you want to wait on it happening in Golden State, that's fine. That's your prerogative.
Yeah. If it's me and I get a good deal now, I have to get a good deal. I've already said to me, Jakob Pertl is like, well, I have Looney and I have Draymond playing center all these minutes. Like, why am I giving up a lot for Jakob Pertl? Is he really going to play that much? I just went through all the guards they have. Like, to me, it would have to be a Kuzma-
type player another big wing that can come in like they're starting this pool party lineup now that's too small they all know that's too small they don't want to start that lineup they started Kaminga last game when I think Wiggins was out like they want they want to be a little bigger that's the kind of player I'm looking for obviously Kuzma now
the wizards either are hell bent on keeping them or a good demand of King's ransom after the Hachimura deal makes, puts out the appearance that they're hell bent on keeping them. I just, I'm at the point with the Wiseman thing where I get, I get, I get the preciousness and the affection you feel for him. I just don't care anymore. I need to be a little more pragmatic than that. Yeah. So I, they're a team that I think the next, what, what is it? Two weeks now until the deadline.
I think that matters. It matters that like these next two weeks matter for them. Quick hitters. You mentioned six, six, sixers nuggets this Saturday. You'll get your bead. You know, MB cares about this game a lot, a lot, a lot. I want you to just take me inside the sixers a little bit because I don't feel like, and I've said this to our people on TV. I don't feel like we're talking about them enough. They are one game in the last column behind Boston.
Now they've got a lot of games in hand. So they're like four in the wind column behind, but they're, they're knocking on the door of first in the East.
I am on. I can't believe this is now fallen to me, among others. I am on the James Harden is having a wildly underrated season and should be an all star lock parade float. I don't know how I got there. I just sort of woke up and like, whoa, I'm on the James Harden team. OK. And not only that.
I keep saying this, and I feel similarly about Milwaukee with Chris Middleton, how no one is talking about how Chris Middleton's contract is up, potentially, after this year. It's kind of a big deal. It is a big deal. I just think the stakes...
Maybe the Clippers are the only team that has higher stakes to what happens the rest of the season than Philadelphia. Because as I've said many times, we are eight months removed from Harden whimpering out of another elimination game. The Sixers whimpering out of another second round playoff series that they arguably could have, should have won now and beat missed the first couple of games. It's a whole different series if he plays. Yeah.
And all the talk then was, what a disaster. What a disaster. They traded Simmons after a year off and they got Harden and this is all they got. And now Harden's entering free agency potentially or is eligible for a new deal, whatever it is. How are they going to upgrade this team? And then they quiet all that noise with a summer and offseason that we all agree is a home run. Tucker, House, Harden back on a... Melton. Melton, great trade.
Memphis could use Melton. Hashtag cap circumvention on the Harden Tucker house stuff. And that quiets it. But it's still there. Harden can be a free agent after this season. Woj reported that Harden's potential interest in a reunion with Houston. Now, I think you and I have both heard
the key figures on the Rockets may be there may not be total universal agreement about whether that's a good idea. They do owe the Thunder their top four protected pick next season, which is one reason it would be nice for Houston to not be crappy and why James Harden might be a fit there. But just like Embiid seen a lot. He's seen a lot. Simmons is gone. Yeah. And Simmons is
Harden has been up and down in Philly. Houston Harden is gone forever. That kind of bruising, powerful, get-to-the-rim-at-will finisher, that guy's not going to be there. But Simmons is a car crash right now in Brooklyn. You can't look away. And so it's hard to argue that the Sixers shouldn't have made that trade. Now, were there alternatives? Whoever, you can make it up. But that's done. What's done is done. Just take me inside a little bit the mindset there and the stakes and the pressure.
Um, I think there is a sense that they have to, there cannot be a second round playoff exit again. If they got to break through that second round of the playoffs, do they have to win the East? That will be an ownership question. Is it enough for them to get out of the second round? I, I kind of think they need to get out of the second round and do something beyond that.
And it also comes up because James Harden has a player option for next year. So it's, he could be a free agent as well. And that means that you can renegotiate with him as well. It's not just pick up the option. Like you can do another deal with him. And then we get back to right where we were last year, which is, are you doing the max for him?
And last year there was a sense when he, when the trade was completed with Brooklyn, like it was almost seen as a fait accompli that he was going to get a max extension and he sort of played his way out of it. Sure did.
Okay, so think about how much money James Harden has left on the table. There was that giant extension in Houston before he was traded the first time. It was like what two years $100 million or whatever that that number was. Then there was, he was offered I have confirmed this he was offered a max extension in Brooklyn, that summer.
KD, Harden and Kyrie, they were supposed to all sign together. That should have been the first tip off that things were not going to go well when Harden wasn't ready to commit. KD did it and he didn't wait for the other two guys. He just signed the extension. Harden was not ready to commit and then Kyrie was not ready to commit. And then there was the whole thing with the vaccine. And so that is so much money that he has not, that he's not accepted that it was offered, which may never be there for him again.
That's it's you have to think about it in that, in those terms. I talked to him for, it was the longest conversation James and I had ever had when he was out in LA a couple of weeks ago, probably 10, 15 minutes in the hallway where we really talked. He looks great right now, Zach. This is, this is the one thing that I will say about him. He seems like he's in the best shape he's been in, in like two, three years where whatever soft tissue injuries he's had, all the, all the, um,
I think their hamstrings and all the domino effect from that, he really seems better from all that. I agree with you, he's never going to be the same Houston Harden. But I would say about a month or two ago, this team very firmly decided that they are going to play through Joel Embiid.
And James Harden seems to have gotten on board with that. And in our, in our, for this team with this guy at center, the current James Harden, 22 and 11, James Harden shooting 39% from three. That's fine. That's all I need. All I need. And this, I know this is going to sound big Ramona. All I need is for that guy, 22 and 11 guy to,
to show up in the biggest playoff games. That's all I need. Like if I get that and I get a healthy Embiid without a Phantom of the Opera mask, that's all I can ask for. But think about like if they don't get out of the second round, I think everything's on the table there. I mean, I think you've had an ownership. There's only one thing I care about on the table. On that table, like really, there are big names all over the table. Doc Rivers is a big name. Daryl Moore. Hall of Famer. Daryl Moore is a big name.
Huge name. An icon among a certain level of dorks. Yeah, yeah. Harden is... Dork Elvis, as your friend Bill Simmons likes to call him. Harden is Harden. First ballot Hall of Famer, all-time great scorer. There's only one guy on the table, on that table, that I actually care about, really, for the next five years of the NBA. And it's Embiid. And that's what would make me nervous about another second round whimpering is a year, eight months ago,
Embiid looked just common sense, just common sense in the search always for who's the next guy to shake loose. Embiid was a common sense answer. I'm not sure why common sense would tell you anything different if there's another whimpering flame out this time around, except that he's now got so many years left on his deal that Philly has leverage. But we've seen it doesn't really matter. Like that's the guy that matters.
So here's what I will say about Joel. He is smart and he knows how this works.
he's already seen seven steps down the chessboard, right? So he knows all of what's at stake here and all the moves that are on the table and how this can play out. He also is very, very loyal to Philadelphia in the sense that we've seen a few other players like this recently. There's the Dame Lillard in Portland, Bradley Beal in Washington, DC. I think Embiid has that same kind of affection for Philly. He really does. He,
He will not be the bad guy. Does that make sense? He will not. That will be to the Sixers advantage here if they need some time to try to figure it out and recalibrate. How patient will he be? He's 28. He's he's approaching. He's firmly in the prime of his career at the peak of his abilities. I still think he's getting better.
He's incredible. He just gets better and better and better every year. I mean, you know, people like who is the comp for him? Like part of me says Shaq and Dirk. Like you put Shaq and Dirk together. It's like a, I don't know. How do we even say how good his game is? And that doesn't even account for how good he is defensively.
There's moves that I think they should have made that would position, that would have positioned them better for the future than, than where they are, where they're sort of all in. Like what?
When they were trading Simmons, I think it would have been there was at one point some talk with San Antonio. There was a about DeJounte and a Derek White thing. Like, think about how that team would look. OK, there was some talk with the Kings back then about Halliburton.
Oh, how good would that TV with a younger with Halliburton on the Sixers at some point? I think there's Bradley Beal talk, right? There's been a lot of one. There's been a lot of there's been a lot of other. So Embiid knows everything that could have happened that didn't.
And I just think though, he, he will not be the bad guy in Philly. That's the best way I can phrase it. He really loves and has an affection for that city. So it doesn't mean that there, he will stay there forever. It doesn't mean that that is a going to be a bad situation. I just don't think it would go bad the way that a Harden in Houston went bad or some of the other high profile guys that have asked out for
have gone bad, like where it, where it ends like that for a number of different reasons, it will not look like that if it ever comes to that point. But I don't, I think there'll be a patience level there for longer than maybe there should be. I don't know. We'll see how they do this year, but I, I actually kind of believe in that team. I think there's, they're not perfect. They don't all, they don't fit together exactly the way you want them to.
It's still like, even though Harden and a beat are great in the pick and roll together, it's not a natural thing. He's not Clint Capella. Like you keep seeing James try to pass the ball through his legs to get Joel to do a dunk. And Joel's like,
I don't really want to dunk it here because I might land on somebody's foot. I'd rather lay it in. It's not really my game. He's much more of a pick-and-pop guy than a pick-and-roll to the basket guy. James is still... There was a play in LA that I thought if you go back and watch, because I know you watch these plays individually, at the end of a game, they're winning...
Joel has a ball that he could go and try to, I think he was up around 40 points at that point. He could have scored some more. He kicks it out to James at three for three. James is wide open for a catch and shoot. And this is what they're trying to get James to do more of catch and shoot, catch and shoot. And Joel, it's almost like forcing the issue. Like James is trying to get Joel to do things he's uncomfortable with. And Joel is trying to get James to do things he's uncomfortable with.
And James catches it and then like feeds it over to somebody else. Didn't take the dude, didn't do the catch and shoot. You feel these things that they're both not quite comfortable with, but I, I feel them trying, which is important, right? Like they both seem like they're trying. And, and, and the conversation I had with Harden,
That was one of the better conversations I've ever had with him and where I felt like he was being real when he said, like, he recognizes how much money he's left on the table. He does. And he is, he really is sacrificing right now his game. Like he's, he could be doing the like dribble for 20 seconds and then do the James Harden thing. But about a couple months ago, they, they all decided we're not doing that anymore because
And if you, you know, it's not what you say, it's what you do. How many possessions you see James getting into the offense faster, pushing the pace, getting the ball downloaded to Joel early, putting him in better positions. He's even trying the catch and shoots. He's doing the things they're asking him to do. Okay. So first of all, there's actual sacrifice on the basketball sacrifice, right? There's like actual basketball sacrifice. And then there's James Harden deciding, um,
At age 32 or 33, whatever he is. Yeah. Oh, that dude is better than me. And so I'm not going to dribble for 18 seconds at the top of the arc. And I might, I know this sounds crazy. I might have to take some catch and shoot threes. And when I wrote in 10 things,
Two months ago or three months ago about Harden's aversion to taking catch and shoot threes. The amount of feedback I got from people who had been around James Harden for the last five years about, dude, it's been driving us crazy for five years. Yeah.
What you just described is not sacrifice. What you just described is common freaking sense that if you want to win, you, James Harden, don't get to do Harden ball anymore because you forced your way out of one place, forced your way out of a second place to get to the third place that has Joel Embiid on it and is better than you. I will – about the pick and roll, first of all, I completely agree.
I completely agree with you. This team has everything it needs to win the title. That's how good their upside is. Yeah. The Embiid Harden pick and roll is that good. I will say that game against Brooklyn the other night when Nick Claxton was the best player on the floor reminded me that in the playoffs,
All those little 13-foot pick-and-pop jumpers, pick-and-slip jumpers that Joel gets, teams are going to sell out to take that shot away. Against Brooklyn, that meant we're switching. We're switching Claxton on to Harden, and we're going to try to finagle a way to not have him beat Mashar guards in the post by fronting, by scram switching from behind.
Without Durant, they're not the best equipped team to do that, but they actually slowed the Sixers down a little bit with that and his own defense. Other teams will be better equipped to switch that pick and roll and make the Sixers better
work around those switches other teams will just swarm and bead early so that Harden can't even get that pass to him and say PJ Tucker you got to shoot threes you got to shoot threes melt Melton Maxie and I think they have enough shooting to beat that strategy but it is going to be interesting can we just do a couple what else let me let me give you two two quick hitters I am so excited for Saturday's game so yeah
Okay. And a couple of things that Joel has realized in the last couple of years, like it sucks finishing second. Like he's like the Susan Lucci of the, of the MVP rings, right? Like two years in a row to finish second to the same guy. Like that's, that's a rough one. But part of the reason I think he has finished second is not just because Jokic is really, really good and his stats look great. It's because in some head to head matchups, like,
late in the season, the signature moments have gone to the other guy. Do you remember last year when Joel actually outplayed Jokic during the game, but Jokic hit this weird fall away that ended up being the winner? Those kind of moments, it shouldn't matter as much as they do, but they kind of do. They're like these lasting impressions. The game against Giannis. Remember Giannis has the block in the last...
in the last couple minutes of that game last year. And I think Joel has recognized those head-to-head matchups with the guys that he's competing against for MVPs.
Those matter, especially now. Like it's like we're, we're into the second half of the year when people are really watching. I asked the other day, you know, about the matchup with Ben Simmons and that was a fun game to watch, right? The, the, the hatred was real on both sides. You could see it. I love how they don't call each other by their names. Like Joelle calls him the other guy, you know, like that's only fun, but yeah,
I think the bigger game is Saturday. I think he's more hype for this Saturday game than the matchup with Ben. Ben feels like a matchup from the past that feels like history. Jokic feels like, I mean, this is like Magic and Larry watching each other in the box score every game. That's the rivalry that's happened between these two now. And then my last note on the Sixers, which I don't think is getting nearly enough attention,
is that Tyrese Maxey, who is in a contract year himself, like, is not going to leave, but is due for a really big payday, has just very quietly said, okay, I'll come off the bench and be the six man. Like,
that's that's a really big thing to ask a young player to do um and he's he's such a great kid that he's sort of done it willingly and he's gotten used to that it's not that easy to do either um but i i he's done well in that i think it's really unlocked their team for him to be willing to do that i i agree their current starting five is plus 12 per 100 possessions plus 80 raw points in 278 minutes
I like the fact that attached to that, Doc is experimenting, is leaning into Maxi, Harden, Melton together with MB. Now, those lineups are shaky so far, but I think that's worth investing in. They've got everything they need. It's going to be hard for them to make an upgrade at the deadline because they just don't have much.
But I agree with you on Maxie, and he's got his three-point stroke back lately. He's looking a lot better. And this game Saturday is must-see TV. I mean, this is like WWE Royal Rumble, maybe? It's not quite SummerSlam. He's already doing the crotch chop, and KD didn't like the crotch chop, right? What did KD... Totally. Was KD... I don't think... I don't...
I don't ever know if KD on social media is serious calling that a trash celebration because I don't think he's like the morality police on the DX crotch chop. He's like what Joel used to be. He used to just comment on everything and then Joel's taking a step back because he realized it's a distraction. But Joel jumped back in there too. Didn't he answer KD on Twitter afterwards too? He did. I will say by crotch chop number five,
I'm like, okay, I've got it. Enough of the chopping of your crotch. The last island I'm on, and then we have to stop. Not island, but this is totally unrelated to anything we talk about. I just want to say it and get it on record. Every time I talk to a league executive about John Collins...
I feel like an insane person because they're all like, well, John Collins is overpaid. His contract runs so long. He's I think whoever gets John Collins, I think whoever gets John Collins in a trade is going to be very happy with the player that they get. And Utah has already been reported as involved. I think that is still alive. There are other teams that I'm, I'm less of a feel for, um,
I would keep an eye on Phoenix. And I think a big story this week that Baxter and Woj broke is that the new owner is going to have control of the team before the trade deadline. I know Phoenix has kicked the tires on John Collins before. One of my favorite fake trades I ever made before this season was Crowder, salary filler, and two first-round picks.
to Atlanta for Collins coming back to Phoenix. I don't know if Atlanta gets two first round picks for John Collins anymore, unless they're bogus, you know, highly protected first round picks, but,
I'm just saying the Suns now, they lost to the Mavs last night, and we should probably mention that Luka turned his ankle. We'll see how that goes. Hopefully nothing. Sunder 25. Wolf literally just tweeted for you. What did he say? He says, after hurting his ankle in the victory of the Suns on Thursday, Dante's expected to be day-to-day with what's described as a mild sprain. Look at that. Rejoice. Rejoice. The Suns are 25 and 25. I'm just saying this.
Booker will be back soon. Paul's back already. Cam Johnson is back now. Campaign will be back at some point. DeAndre Ayton's back. A lot of guys coming back. If you got me a top six of Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Mikael Bridges, Cam Johnson, DeAndre Ayton, and John Collins, I don't care where John Collins fits in. If he's starting, if he's coming off the bench, if he's some four next to Ayton and he's the backup five after Ayton.
That's an exciting team. That's all I'm saying. Keep an eye on John Collins. People need to go back and watch the playoff run that the Hawks made that has been now dismissed and laughed at as the worst thing that's ever happened to their team. A fluke. Whatever you want to think of it, that's fine. John Collins in that playoff run decided, I don't get to do the stuff that I really want to do on this team. They got Trey has ball all the time.
Clint gets to be the rim runner guy. I got to fit in. I'm not going to score 25. I'm not going to be able to face up and drive. I'm not going to get to be John Collins. You know what I'm going to do though? These games really matter. I'm going to play the best defense in my career. I'm going to be the best rebounder I've ever been. And I'm going to scrounge my way into 16, 17, 18 points because I'm that good in a limited role.
And he really impressed me in those playoffs. And since then, it's just kind of been, you just get the feeling that the situation is now played out. I think whoever gets him is going to be, is going to be happy. That's the end of my John Collins take Ramona Shelburne.
Insider extraordinaire. We didn't even talk about the Clippers or the Raptors. I gave myself a one-episode Raptors prohibition rule. I thought you were going to ask me about Fred VanVleet going to the Lakers. I mean, I thought that was where you were going to go. Lakers or Clippers? Either, right? But really, the Lakers have the cap space. Well, a front office person told me yesterday. I thought for sure you were saying that. Oh, you meant in free agency. Yeah. A front office person told me yesterday.
If the Clippers need to trade Terrence Mann to get Fred VanVleet, they should do it. And I thought, whoa, that's interesting because they don't want to trade Terrence Mann. They love Terrence Mann. He's young. They need him. He brings them some juices. They're starting point guard now. They certainly are going to be hesitant to trade him and a pick. But it was – I don't know that I'd do that if I'm the Clippers, but his point was –
This thing is like... How long do you have with this group? This thing is not... It's not teetering now because they're now winning. But they're three games over 500. You got to win now. And if you got to win now, you can't be too precious about Terrence. Man, I thought that was interesting. But we got way more time to talk about this. Ramona Shelburne, read her Pat Riley piece now on ESPN. You know everything about all these teams and everyone. Ramona, thank you. Thanks, Zach.