Vernon and Youngmisuk
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast where it's time. 25 games into the NBA season, it's time for me to do a mea culpa.

about my very slight, very cautious, not a big deal, just short-term injury related, but still slight anxiety, trepidation about the Memphis Grizzlies because boy, oh boy, the Grizzlies, despite Jaron Jackson Jr. and Desmond Bain playing zero seconds together this season, are 16-9, half a game out of first in the Western Conference, and do not look

Do not look like a team at risk of falling into the play-in tournament as I worried they might before the season. And the person who yelled at me about that, the person who's going to yell at me about that today from the ringer, from Grind City Media,

My friend over many years now used to just be a voice on the phone a long time ago as a radio host in Memphis and me as a blogger for Sports Illustrated. Chris Vernon, how are you? Oh, I'm so glad to be here, Zach. I can't wait to hear what you have to say now after only 25 games into the season. But that's not what's most important. What's most important is, as you said, I've been friends for a long time. I'm a loyal listener to the podcast.

And I was rooting for Croatia just for you. I wanted Zach Lowe to be happy. I found myself watching that game and I was like, you know what? I do have a minor connection to this game. I know someone personally who

that would be absolutely thrilled if Croatia won. Therefore, I am rooting for Croatia. And sure enough, look at you. You've got to be Mr. World Cup now. Hey, look, man. Pound for pound. Pound for pound. Little country of 4 million people. 4 million. That's it. How many cities in Brazil are bigger than Croatia? Several. Several. Third place in 98 countries.

Second place in 18 minimum quarterfinals this season, the amount of screaming and running around that was happening in my house during penalty kicks the other day.

was inappropriate. Like we, we had a, we had a babysitter come in cause it was early dismissal at school. We had to have some childcare and the game was going so long that my wife was like, we can't be behaving like this. It was the first time we're using this babysitter. Like we can't let her into this atmosphere and think that we're these insane people pound for pound. Look, man, Brazil, our wind probability is probably like 5%. I know the deal. Brazil is scary, but I'll tell you this.

They never give up. They're tough as hell. And a lot of teams are scared of Brazil. This is my, I have no soccer knowledge, by the way. I'm just going to be the guy who's watched like 30 minutes of soccer. A lot of teams are intimidated by Brazil, Chris. They see the mustard yellow jerseys and they begin quaking in their cleats. Croatia ain't going to be scared of anybody. And the last thing I will say is I've already alerted my producers. If Croatia wins tomorrow, NBA today at 3 p.m. Eastern,

It's going to be a little wobbly for me. If Croatia wins tomorrow morning...

You should tune in to NBA Today because I don't know what's going on in my house and what kind of shape I'm going to be in. But never give up, man. You never know. You get the first goal and you never know. That's all I'm saying. I need to know the setup. Is it just you and your wife at these Croatia World Cup parties or do you invite people over? And does your daughter get into this? Does she know what's going on? Does she have an awareness of it? Daughter has a Modric jersey and

And has a dance, has a dance. She does just, it's a celebratory dance, but she just does it at random times during the games. We had friends over for the game against Canada, which is on a Sunday, I think. And one of them brought a, one of them has at least one daughter. One of their daughters is born in Canada and is like five and announced that she was cheering for Canada.

And I said, you got to leave. No, I was like, you got to get out of here. You don't get any food. You don't get any snacks. And she just looked at me like, no, I don't. And I was like, you know what? You look at me like that again. You may actually have to get out of here because I don't need this energy in this house. So there's a Croatian restaurant near us that we were thinking about going to tomorrow. But it's just...

I don't know. Oh, a watch party. Well, I'm still, I'm still, I'm still on the cautious side, um, on the, on the pandemic stuff. So I don't know. It's also at 10 in the morning. So we'll see. So it was just the two of us the other day screaming, screaming. Um, you into this at all? Yeah, I was, I certainly was at the United States. So my daughter is playing soccer, like on the club soccer. And, um,

And so their coaches were like, hey, we want you guys to watch the World Cup and everything. And so she had gotten into it, which if I get her into it, my son is sports crazy, so he'll watch anything. And so we certainly watched all the United States games. And then if I have it on, they're not uninterested or don't want to watch it, but the

We were pretty well tied to the United States and what they were going to do in the World Cup. And of course, yes, we all became incredible experts. Oh, yeah. No, I know. Cross it. There's space over there. Like, what the hell am I talking? I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Yeah.

Yeah, it's I, by the way, I would like to apologize formally to a friend that I have not talked to in 25 years. Brad Strobel, shout out to Brad Strobel, was a massive U.S. soccer fan in 1994 when the World Cup came here. And I was the dope guy.

in high school being like soccer that's a stupid sport it's zero zero penalty kicks what kind of sport is that brad it's so freaking boring it's like watching grass grow brad was right i was wrong a zero zero soccer game is exciting i don't know i say this all the time i don't know how people watch these games they're too intense i can't the it there is there's

Like every World Cup soccer game is like the last four minutes of Warriors Cavs game seven 2016 when you're like gripping the arms of your seat. That's the whole game. It's unbearable. Anyway, go Croatia. Before we get to the Grizzlies, will you indulge me on a couple of teams? Let me hear it. Did you hear the Bill Simmons, Ryan Russillo speech?

listing of all the guards on the Bill Simmons podcast of all the guards they would take over Trey Young for the next five years and it kind of went semi-viral within Hawks Twitter as they listed the

guard after guard after guard after guard and questioned Trey Young's leadership, questioned his defense, which is obviously abysmal, questioned the Hawks' future. Did you hear that? Have you listened to that? Yes, yes. When he got to Alvarado, I almost drove off the road.

I mean, they got to Bain after Halliburton, and Rusillo just goes, I'm in. Desmond Bain. I'm taking Desmond Bain. And I was like, they're going all in. I will say, I don't think that there are two teams that met in a landmark playoff series.

Two seasons ago, that feels like ages ago. And a lot of stuff has happened to them that I want to just sort of gently not raise alarm bells, but want to talk about for a set for a few seconds. And one of them is the Hawks.

And look, I don't really care to rank where Trey Young is or isn't. I will say this latest thing with Nate McMillan and skipping the shoot around and blah, blah, blah. It's always something there. There's just always it's becoming one of those places where there's always something. There's always coach player attention, player, player attention, trade room or something, blah, blah, blah. Do people like playing with Trey? He's a great passer. Do people not like playing with Trey? He only passes to get assist. He needs to get off of it early. Oh, he was doing that when they made the conference finals two years ago. He's not doing it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I don't like what's going on there on the floor. It doesn't look good to me. They got walloped by the Knicks last night. DeJounte Murray got hurt four minutes into the game. So discard that if you want. Something I'm going to write about tomorrow. First 10 games of the season, Trae Young was running off.

Like 12 off ball screens per hundred possessions, like, like the JJ Redick off ball screens. Right. For him, that's a lot. His career norm is like six, which is, you know, the whole thing with Trey is, will he do anything away from the ball? Will he just be off your television screen at half court or will he be active? Will he set screens? No, he's never going to do that. But will he run around 12? That was encouraging.

A month later, it's back down to six or seven, which means in the intervening month, it's been like four or three. And you watch the Hawks and yeah, their numbers are fine when Murray and Young are on the floor. But stylistically, they're not amplifying each other. They're not playing off of each other. They're not leveraging each other.

And the role players, it's just all hit or miss all over the place. There's a deficit of playmaking other than Bogdanovich. Guys are hurt. I just don't like what I'm seeing, and I don't like the vibes. They're one game over 500. And I'll just say they're a team I'd watch over the next month because it feels like another three losses in four-game stretch. And it could get a little...

tense there. Do you agree, disagree? What have you seen? Yes, yes. Here's one of the things that I would say regarding this particular story that came out by Sam Amick. One of the major problems to me, which is something that Trey Young said in that disastrous interview he did in the aftermath, was about it being public. And while Trey had the disastrous interview, in my opinion, it

He is right in that sense. Look, there are all kinds of things that go on within the context of a team and happen behind closed doors.

The fact that the Hawks have leaks on virtually every bit of drama that takes place with that team is what is mega concerning to me. You have that situation with the whole John Collins being upset last year and the Trae Young stuff. And next thing you know, there's literally –

An exact recording of what Clint Capella said in the meeting and what the meeting was like with Trey and what like I'm talking word for word. And it's like, yo, who is reciting all of this for it to be out in the media? Then this comes again with Trey this year.

One of my great concerns about a franchise would be you have a franchise player. This is the face of your franchise. He's the one on all the billboards. He's the one everywhere. He's the one that sells all the jerseys. And you have this issue with him and the head coach. Again. You have the opportunity to stamp that out. So, number one, you let it get to a point where they're both angry and

And next thing you know, your star player's not showing up and he's not on the bench. Okay? That's bad enough. At that point, you say, all right, people are going to ask about him not being here. All right? So what's our answer to that? And then, Trey, when we're going to put you in front of a microphone, I mean, this is a billion-dollar industry, and everybody's got full-on PR teams. When we put you in front of a microphone, what are you going to say?

And basically, Trey Young's explanation was, this shouldn't be public. I'm just here to win championships, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then, you know, hey, fine, Trey. And that reporter that was asking him the questions, he's sitting there saying, okay, Trey, well—

It became public because you're the face of the franchise and you're not on the bench supporting your team. At that point, regardless of the story, that's public. And he says, well, so why weren't you there? I was hurt. John Collins is in a boot. He was there.

And then it's like, I don't want to answer any more questions. Let me get out of here. And it's like, hold on now. Where is the protection for this situation? Where is the damage control for this? Somebody from the Hawks wanted that out.

And Sam Amick was on with Rajah Bell and Logan Murdoch and said that if you, this is the most concerning, if you pull the Hawks, he said he thought the players would, if you split them up, they would side with McMillan. That's the problem.

If that's so, if that's true and the players would side with McMillan in this situation, then you've got a real problem on your hands. Look, this is, this is a, um, where there's smoke, there's fire situation from what I've heard and, and, and learned. This is not a random, like one off. Oh, it was like a miscommunication. There was major miscommunication. Like the, the, the, the chain of communication there is, is not great. Um,

But there's something going on there. And look, there was not a lot of complaining about Trey Young when they were in the conference finals two seasons ago when they beat the Sixers in seven games and then took two games from the Bucs. Now Giannis was hurt for part of that. Trey was hurt for part of that. Whatever. I didn't hear a lot of like, oh, I would take Desmond Bain over Trey Young. I would take so-and-so over Trey Young. But...

A, Trae Young is not shooting the ball well. When he's not shooting the ball well, that'll change. Everything is better when people make shots. Look at Dallas. The sky was falling in Dallas a week ago. Tim Hardaway started making shots and now their two games are 500. Everything's fine again. I mean, we'll see. But the point is he'll make shots. I just don't.

I think that that bracket broke pretty perfectly for them, starting with the Knicks, who had no way to hunt Trae Young on defense, nor did the Sixers, really. And then the Sixers obviously went through an internal meltdown, the ripple effects of which they are still feeling today in that series. So the bracket broke right for them. But you know what? You still got to beat the teams in front of you, and they did. And credit to them for that. I just don't think they can get any farther than that or even reach that again

if he's the worst defensive player in the league. Well, and Zach, it's also, look, we're all going to be colored by recency bias in this thing, and Miami took him out. They took him out. That's the other thing I was going to bring up. I mean, most recently we saw him in the playoffs, and when you are an all-NBA superstar caliber player with –

With great blessings comes great responsibility. And he got just completely taken out of a series.

By Miami. And that's the other thing I was going to bring up because when they did make that conference finals run and I wrote about and I talked about it at the time, one of the changes he made to his game was he would get off of it early even when it was not necessarily going to lead to assists. I see that second defender coming at me on the pick and roll here. Kevin Herter, you take it on the wing. I'll get off it early. You make a play. Maybe the ball comes all the way back to me around the horn when I do that. By the way, the Kevin Herter trade

Which was partly to save money, I think. They could really use Kevin Herter, right? All the way to save money. Yeah, they could really use Kevin Herter right now. And I'm not sure that he's getting off of it early enough, again, in that style. I do think Trey and DeJounte, we all knew what the fit issues were going to be. I said at the time that I didn't really like that trade for the Hawks. I thought it was too big of a price to pay. Even though I think those two guys are so talented that they'll find a way

to make it work. They'll iron out. It'll never be. Trae Young is never going to run off 20 screens a game. He's never going to go around setting screens. He's never going to be the off-ball threat that you need around DeJounte Murray, who needs to have the ball a lot. It's never going to be perfect, but they're so talented that they'll make it work to some degree. It's just not. 25 games in, it's almost regressed in their level of cooperation from the first week of the season. And I just don't like what I'm seeing. I don't like what I'm hearing.

I don't like it. And it's just a team that I would keep. Like, I had them as a play-in team. Like, I had them seventh or eighth, I think, in the East.

Before the season, the six teams that if you had forced me, here are the six teams you're picking for like the six locked in playoff spots. Boston, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, team benefit of the doubt. That's Miami, Brooklyn. And who am I forgetting in the East? Top of the East, not Cleveland, not.

Who am I forgetting? You like Toronto. Oh, Toronto. Toronto, another team that I would – there's a lot of Toronto buzz out there, and we'll see how they look. And I think they're curious to see how they look over the next month. They're 13-12. Those were my six. I think I'm going to be wrong having Cleveland in the 7-8 spot. Well, hold on. You can't just get away with that because I listen to your podcast all the time, and you do this. And thank God Chris Vernon's on here today.

He's going to talk about himself in the third person. Yeah, you like that? I just Reggie Jackson'd you. Or my favorite was Bobby Jackson back in the day when he was playing for the Grizzlies. We asked him about what the Grizzlies need to do to get back on track, and he's like, look, Bobby Jackson just needs to start playing Bobby Jackson basketball.

So here's where I come in on this. You just kind of sniped out there. A lot of buzz out there about Toronto. What are you talking about? No, I'm just, I think rival teams, other teams are curious about. Are we going to be able to poach their guys or? Oh,

are generally curious about like if this this team is 13 and 12 i think they're disappointed in their record then again siakam's missed 10 games achua has done nothing this season other guys have missed games they barely had their starting lineup together at all gary trent's coming off the bench blah blah um van vliet's had a bad season vliet like van vliet's awesome deserved all-star last year when are we gonna just talk about the fact that he's not he's never hit

above 44% on twos his entire career. And he's at like 38% or something this year. I think it's just more, um, is Messiah Jerry and Bobby Webster. Are they going to be okay?

If in three weeks to a month, this team is still two games over two games under in the middle where no one is really psyched to be. And you have Van Vliet who's eligible for an extension and has a player option for next season. You have Ananobi who has been outstanding all season, has a player option for 24, 25 that he's going to for sure decline because he's going to make a gigantic amount of money.

You have this endless rumors that both, I think, Anunobi and the team have disputed and yet still keep popping up that he wants a bigger role, that he's not thrilled there, blah, blah, blah. You have Anunobi, Barnes, Siakam are all kind of powerful words of one ilk or another. I mean, they're really just power everythings, but they have a lot of overlap there. I just think there's curiosity. I said last week, I think Toronto is going to surge. I think they're too good to do a step back transition.

and in fact have the ammo to do the step up trade if they want to. They have all their picks, but I just think there's curiosity. How do we start talking about this? The Hawks. Yeah. Oh, yes. I had them in the seventh, eighth spots in the East, seven or eight with Cleveland. I'm going to be wrong about Cleveland. They're better than I thought. So I guess in one sense, the Hawks are meeting my expectations and I'm

If you just told me what the record was, I would say, okay. But the eye test and the ear test, I guess, is just a team to keep an eye on. That's all I'm saying.

Other team to keep an eye on is the other team in that series, the Sixers, who lost that series. The pass happened in that series. The pass. Sounds like a football play, like the drive, the fumble. Sounds like something bad that happened to the Cleveland Browns. The pass happened in that series. The Sixers are 500. They're two and five with Harden and Embiid. Harden just came back and laid a gigantic egg in Houston in a double overtime loss.

It's early, Chris. It's early. Two and five is seven games that they've played together. Max, he's been hurt for a while. He's going to be hurt for a while longer. I just I don't like the way it's looked this season with James and Joel. It's it's hard and ball and Embiid ball. And the thing that's supposed to connect them is the pick and roll between them. And oftentimes it does. And then other times they don't use it.

I don't think they use it enough, frankly, or even precede it with any action that would bend the defense a little bit before you go into the meat and potatoes. And then if a defense switches it, as teams are going to try to do,

It's just, okay, James has the ball. I'm just going to dribble around for a while. Joel, like he'll wave Joel out of the way sometimes. Like, dude, you can't just wave Joel Embiid out of the way. He's better than you. Or we just dump it to Joel. Joel catches it at the elbow, jab, step, jab, step. He's an awesome elbow mid-range shooter, awesome off the dribble. It just looks too slow and dispirited, not cooperative enough.

Max, he's going to need to eat on the fringes of that action when he comes back, like quick kick to him, attack, blah, blah, blah. I'm not going to sound the alarm yet because I need to see more games with them together. But the worst thing that's happened to Philly this season is that Boston has made a leap. Milwaukee is awesome as expected. They were supposed to be the third big dog in the East.

And they do not look that way. They do not look like a happy, spirited team. They frankly played the first 10 games of the season when Embiid and Harden were healthy as if they were the 2001 Lakers, as if they could just be like, yeah, we'll flip the switch when we get to the playoffs. You've done nothing. Play hard. Run back on defense. Like, I just –

and Sixers fans I know are I listened to the rights to Ricky Sanchez last week I saw Kyle Newbeck's column at Philly voice they're already like fed up with this team I think that's a little premature but I understand why man I just those two teams at the top are so good you gotta win right now Harden's a free agent after this season Joel Embiid is gonna look around and be like if they if they fail again

I don't know. What have you seen from them? I'm done. I actually saw them in person within the last week and rather uninspiring, as you mentioned. It was very odd because it was one of those situations where –

I think Embiid was maybe two assists off of a triple-double. And at one point, my producer looked at me in the fourth quarter, and he's like, Embiid's got 32. And I'm like, what? Like, he still had all this production and everything else. And in the absence of Maxie, in the absence of Harden, you know, Shaq Milton had been on a little tear when they came to town. Went great. Saw him. And the crazy thing was –

No one even, in the absence of those guys, you would think Harris would be a bigger deal. And he was lighting it up. He's like 5 of 7 from 3. He's dunking on people. He's done his job. He's done his job. Zach, when I tell you I don't think the guy touched the ball in the fourth quarter. They never even passed it to him. It was bizarre. And I'm like, you would think it would kind of be the Tobias Embiid show.

In the absence of these other guys, it's kind of been the Shake, Milton, and Bede show. And then you've got this weird Tobias thing who's an extremely talented player. But I don't know. And, you know, they've added some different guys. I think they are, rotation-wise, getting used to each other. But I am going to give them the pass in the sense of there needs to be

A better sample size of Maxie, Harden, Embiid, and those guys playing together. It's still very early. There's still not, I mean, with the way that trade went down last year, there's still not a huge amount of games that those guys, and minutes, that those guys have actually played together.

Harden and bead was the most efficient pick and roll combination in the league. Once they made that trade now, Harden still doesn't look like Harden still doesn't have the burst. Everyone's like, Oh, look at his mid range game. It's great. He's shooting mid range shots. He's doing it because he can't get to the rim as much anymore, which is his, his bread and butter. I guess what I'm saying, bringing up these two teams is like, this is sort of the natural effect of so much bunching in the middle. Like Brooklyn is up to fourth.

And I'll get to Brooklyn another day. I can't. I'm not ready to dive back in to Brooklyn yet. And they are two games up on the loss column on the Bulls, who are 12th. So when it's that bunched up, you do get to this point. Trade deadline's looming. December 15th is a week from today when more players can get traded. Where it feels like we're entering...

a, what is this team stretch for like a lot of teams? So we mentioned Atlanta, Philly. I'm going to be watching the Clippers closely and I'm going to talk to Om about the Clippers after you. There's just a lot of teams like what are Toronto we talked about? Even Denver, who I think I'm going to talk about next week, 14 and 10 down to fourth in the West. Like what are these teams? What do they think of themselves? And I just need to see

A little more juice from the fully healthy Sixers. And like you said, they deserve another 20 games. But I want to see some juice in those 20 games. You know who doesn't lack for juice? Who's that? The fight in Memphis Grizzlies. 16 and 9. Yeah. Tied for second in the West with Phoenix, who lost to Boston by a million points last night.

How about that 69 spot in the first half? Woo! I mean, you know, I got this text from Simmons, and it's like, how about that Celtics first half or whatever? I was driving home from Grizzlies OKC, and so I, like, pull up the box score, and I'm like, did Phoenix really go one for 16 from three in the first half? Like, that's impossible. They get good shots. One for 16? Yeah.

Grizzlies are ninth in offense, tenth in defense, despite, as I mentioned, their starting five has played zero seconds together the whole season. Bain, before his injury, and he's going to be back, I think they announced last night, in probably three to four weeks. That's hopeful. Looks incredible. Has looked incredible. Has doubled his pick and roll volume, which is going to be huge for them in the playoffs. When Morant sits, they have to have another secondary source of offense. Jaron Jackson Jr.,

It never looks pretty on offense. Pretty is not the right word for how it looks on defense. It looks freaking scary. He is blocking everything in sight. We talk about second jump on offense a lot. His second jump on defense is incredible. He goes for a block or he jumps and...

A rebound goes to somebody else on their team. He jumps up again and obliterates the shot he's playing. He's averaging four blocks per 36 minutes. Teams are shooting 44% at the rim when he's the nearest defender. That's like beyond Gobert levels of rim protection. He's finally starting to shoot to three. All right. 56% on twos.

He looks better. It's early, but he looks like he's gotten better. Bain looks like he's made another leap. That's a legit big three with morale. And they were winning with offense, just playing these all-star game type games. They're now, as of last night, 42 and one when they score 120 points and they were getting teams in those games. And so if you want to play an all-star game, you're in big, big trouble. Um,

But their defense was like at the very bottom of the league. They were like 28th in the first 10, 15 games of the season. And then Jaron Jackson came back.

And you said now they're in the top ten in defense. And this happened a year ago where they were pathetic defensively to start out the season. And then next thing you knew, they were right at the very top of the league. And no small part of that is Jackson. I mean, last night he has five blocks. That's become commonplace. But it's not even just the five that he gets a hand on. It's the...

35 shots that don't get taken because somebody looks up and they see this condor that's standing there. He's got a real knack for it. And he now this year has a bulk. He's really grown into his body. He's got, uh, he's, he's bigger. He's stronger. He's rebounding better and playing bully ball. Uh,

On offense, where he'll just take that extra dribble to try to get all the way to the basket. He has been great since he has come back and defensively has been spectacular. I believe last night's only the second game since he returned that he has not had over 20 points. Zaire Williams came back last night. Yep. And there were segments of the game where he –

Jackson and Clark were all on the floor and the Jackson Clark four or five combo has been a big winner for Memphis for years. Now they win big when those two guys are on the floor, when those three guys were on the floor last night, there were so much speed and so many arms and so much jumping Jack guys everywhere that it just felt like they had six guys on the floor. And it's,

That's really the vision for this team around Morant and Bain is length and versatility. You can see it in the guys they drafted from Zaire to Roddy, who I already love Roddy just running around out there hitting. By the way, he's like almost 40% on corner threes. They're a corner team on both ends of the floor. They don't shoot a lot of threes, but they shoot a lot of corner threes.

They give up a ton of threes, but they don't give up a lot of corner threes. That's obviously on purpose. Taylor Jenkins has them doing what he wants them to do. And look, the reason we're talking about it is not just their 16 and 9. The Clippers are TBD. The Warriors are 500.

I thought the Grizzlies were going to be somewhere between fourth and seventh in the West because of Jackson's injury. Not only have they weathered that, they've weathered other injuries, including Bain now. And Morant missed, I think he's missed four games. They're right at the top of the West. And I think for both them and the Pelicans...

I think it's starting to be clear. Like the time could be now. The time doesn't have to be three years from now. The time could be now. Jackson and Bain have been so good. And Morant is so good that we need to start talking about them as like they're, they can win the title. They could win the West at least Milwaukee and Boston, maybe a stretch, but they are, this team is really, really good. And they, and they are ready now. There is always a,

Well, there's always a chip on their shoulder in Memphis in terms of, and now they're on national TV much more. They get talked about more. But it's kind of like they were a flash. And then even coming into this year, there were a lot of people that were like, ah, yeah, they're kind of in the mix, and then just kind of bypassed it. Or with last year, one of the things that has frustrated me is, look, last year during the playoffs,

They played the Warriors better than everybody, including the Boston Celtics. They played better against the Warriors. Ja Morant misses a game winner in Game 1. They win Game 2. They go to Game 3, and they get smoked. First home game for – and Ja gets hurt. They turn around. Game 4, they're up by double digits in the fourth quarter.

They let them off the hook. They lose that game. Come back, they beat them by 1,000. Beat the Warriors by 1,000 in game five. And then go to game six, highly competitive until the end. So, by the way, John Morant is averaging 40 or 38, 8, and 7 when he gets hurt. Like, no one ever talks about the fact that they are right there with the Warriors, would have had a game seven on their home floor.

would have had a game seven on their home floor and lost their best player, all NBA player. It's kind of like, oh, yeah, well, if they would have had Miranda, they would have lost anyway. It's like he's averaging almost 40 points a game in the very short amount of time that we saw him in that series. And I get it. Proper respect to the Warriors. They're a rightful champion. But they weren't that far off last year.

It's not crazy to think that if John Morant played last year, that could have been different because the margin was very, very small without him. They only had him for two games against the Warriors. And so then coming into this season, it's like, what, because they lost DeAnthony Melton and Kyle Anderson, now all of a sudden they're not a championship contender? You nailed it.

Those guys were innings eaters for them. They were really good for them. They just kind of bet like our second and third best players are going to get better. And we think that these young guys, Santi Aldama, we haven't talked about. Santi Aldama is kind of like, people kind of chuckle about him. I don't know. Like, oh, Santi Aldama, that's cute. They think Santi Aldama is good. And he looks like he's a good player. He's shooting 34% from three. He can pass. They rightfully bet.

We'll bring these guys into our culture. The holdovers we have are good enough. Jackson, Bain, Morant, Clark, Adams, Kanchar's shooting 39% from three. We'll bring these young guys into our culture. We think they fit. We'll be fine. We'll be fine. And they were absolutely right. And you mentioned Morant in the playoffs. Well, he's shooting 38% on threes this year. And you've already seen teams...

Not as many teams are ducking under picks for him like they used to and just giving him threes. And that just opens up the whole world for him. If you're letting him into the paint, and once you let that dude into the paint, it's like good freaking luck. He's going to dunk on somebody's face.

five times out of ten were like crazy layups where he's like he does the layups where he's like elevating twisting still going up almost hits his face on the rim the defender like falls backwards like what is this thing coming at me i don't even know what to do with this and sometimes he gets fouled sometimes he makes them man they they bet right and the jaw stuff you know the interesting discussion about the grizzlies last year was this team relies on offensive rebounding

defensive rebounding, the latter of which fuels their transition attack, forcing a crap ton of turnovers, fueling their transition attack,

Is all that stuff going to hold up in the playoffs? Can you win the slow down, grimy half-court game in the playoffs if you depend on offensive rebounds? Who's giving you those? Transition, that stuff goes away in the playoffs. And even now, the Grizzlies are 22nd in half-court scoring efficiency according to Cleaning Glass. 22nd right now, today. That's not good. I think they proved in the playoffs...

If 100% of that transition chaos game doesn't translate into the postseason, 80% of it does. 85% of it does. And if you have Ja on the floor, I think they can create enough half-court offense. If you have Ja and Bain, I think this team is – They would have to have Bain. They would have to have Bain. Have to have Bain. When they get healthy, I think they've got enough.

I think they've got enough. I think they showed their style works. So you saw it last year during the playoffs and Morant really struggled in the Minnesota series. Credit to Chris Finch. He decided and teams do a couple different things. One of which is he made Morant see two.

Every time. He guarded him with a bigger guy in many occasions, that being Anthony Edwards, and he made him see two. So when Steven Adams and or in that particular series Adams wasn't playing, whoever was setting the screen. Now, and there's some of these teams that play it this way, they make him see a second guy at the free throw line extended or certainly you're not getting to get into the paint without seeing a second guy. Okay? Okay.

Well, go look. Desmond Bain averaged over 25 points a game against Minnesota. Brandon Clark was crazy against Minnesota because he's the other big that's running around. Bain is the outlet. And then you get to the Golden State series. Golden State, they're like, we're going to guard this guy straight up. Okay? Now you're getting 40 put on your head because if you're going to guard him with one guy –

Now that screen comes, and as soon as he turns that corner...

It's over. It's over. Now if you're bringing the other guy, that's where they have to have Bain. And that will be in the half court. And that's why you saw in that Minnesota series Bain go crazy. And then what Golden State did is they said, all right, we're going to play all these guys and we're staying at home. We're staying at home on Bain. Dezen Bain's not doing what he wants to do. And Brandon Clark's not doing what he wants to do. Those guys aren't going to beat us.

And I do think that because of Bain getting so much better and shooting 45% from three at the time that he went out, I mean, now you've got some very serious choices to make defensively of which there are no good answers for. And look, when they get whole and they can –

turn Aldama and Roddy. I mean, the Ravia is not even playing anymore into from like really decent minutes, rotation players to fringe rotation players to

All of a sudden, they get really, really good and really, really scary. And they'll have the depth to do that. By the way, I think the Wolves did this a lot. You saw the Thunder do it last night. Teams are going to go at Morant on defense. They're going to attack him when the Breezes are on defense. They're going to drag him into pick and rolls. I think he's been better on defense this year. I don't think he's as much of a liability as he was last year. I think he's fighting harder. And that's the kind of career trajectory that he's going to have to be on

As they get deeper into the playoffs. He's not unwilling. No. Some of these guys, they do, you know, they've got the ball on offense all the time. And then you go and you watch them. They're kind of standing around on defense. It's just kind of what you have to do when you're not playing offense.

He's not an unwilling defender, which is what's important. And he does have, I mean, he's got to share a pretty spectacular chase down blocks and some steals this year. Oh, the chase down blocks are outrageous. He's the best show in the NBA. He's the best show in the NBA, full stop. So here's my question.

Having said all that, having said that they're probably deep enough to like when it really, really matters, is David Roddy ready? Is it when it really, really matters? Is Santi Aldama ready? I don't know the answer to that. I doubt it, but maybe they are. Maybe I don't know if they're ready, ready, but fill in. Sure. Here's my question. There has been this Durant fixation since he requested a trade from Brooklyn, which has since been rescinded. And as I said, the Nets are fourth in the East rolling right along. Maybe that never comes up again.

Separate from the Durant discussion, there's always been this, what are they saving their stuff for about Memphis? Who's the whale to bring in with all the picks and the prospects? Jalen Brown was once mentioned, right? Back when the Celtics were scuffling around 500. He's the perfect 3 and D guy. He's like the player prototype you want next to Ja. What if there is no whale? And what if this season...

What if they just decided to trade like one pick plus Danny Green plus maybe another small salary for just someone who can take those Roddy Aldama minutes and turn them into a weapon? Like I try. I really tried to get Boyan Bogdanovich to Memphis. He makes $19 million a year. Danny Green makes 10. Getting the intervening salary is really, really hard without taking a player. Memphis doesn't want to trade.

Is there, would they ever cannibalize a small portion of their asset base to do that? Is there a guy you like for that? Because I do think if you just upgraded that spot to a shooter 3.5 kind of player, Kuzma came to mind for me, although the wizard said he's a cornerstone. Okay. Um, is there a player you like, does this make any sense to you? Or do you just say like, we got enough, let's hold our stuff. I think, um,

They will not move John Morant. They will not move Desmond Bain. They will not move Jared Jackson. Those three guys are not getting traded. Yeah, they're off the table. Oh, I think anything else that could possibly improve the team. And that's why I got interested. All right, now I get to confess. So when you were doing the whole, you know, there's some buzz around Toronto, whatever. And Anobi. I covet him. It's not going to happen. But that would be great. I mean, the thing about Anobi is...

If I'm Toronto, why am I even entertaining it? He might be the defensive player of the year. He's exactly the player every good team needs. He's young. Do I really care that he's going to be up for a huge contract in two years? Or am I just happy to pay that contract? I just don't see them doing that.

But yes, that is a name I thought of. That's a bit that's almost if that's not a whale, that's like a like a shark or something like I'm talking about a smaller deal that doesn't come out completely. Oh, boy. This is going to this is going to stun you. Are you out completely on Reddish? Now, let me hear. Hear me. First of all, I was never in. So can I be out if I was never in? Yes, you can. He's on my list, by the way.

Solo, my beloved Solo, Solomon Hill, the other night, I don't know if you saw him tweet this. He said, free Cam, get that boy to Memphis.

And then he responded to somebody by saying, look, sometimes with these players, it's where they go. And Cam and Ja have had this, like, back and forth where they love each other, love each other's games and all this stuff. Solo, who had been a part of the Memphis thing, at one point says, like, hey,

This kid is mega talented, and he needs an environment like they have there in order to harness what he could be. And I'm thinking to myself, like, you know, that's one of those, like, again, I don't know if it's needle moving in any kind of way, but I found it fascinating nonetheless. What are you giving up, though? Just anything? Nothing, nothing. Yeah, I mean, like, nothing. Right.

They like Danny Green, by the way. I don't know. Oh, they do like Danny Green. They're like, we love Danny Green. We love his presence. We're not looking to trade Danny Green. So maybe there's just nothing to do. They love Roddy. They obviously traded for Roddy in the draft. They like they like all these guys.

I just, if you could plop Bogdanovich is the perfect guy to me. If you could just plop him into 25 minutes a game for them, holy cow, would he open up so much for them? But I just don't, I don't see a way for them. My only point was there's just been this fixation of who are the girls he's going to trade like four picks and three swaps for. It's like, well, why can't you just, isn't this team good enough to do the sort of like

Well, the Marc Gasol trade for Toronto or just like the sort of like marginal small trade to get us just a little bit better. Haven't they proven enough? Because I'll tell you, man, the West is all topsy turvy. But the Grizzlies, I was wrong. I was wrong to be worried. They're tough as hell. They play super hard. They know who they are. They have star power. Their second and third best guys have gotten better. And that's the reddish thing.

The way he plays doesn't scream Memphis Grizzlies to me. No, and he might be – I mean, look, they love Zaire Williams, and he just came back last night for the first time. And let me tell you something about him to keep an eye on. Next time you watch, you mentioned how long and athletic they looked last night. So I have a theory on this, and the only reason I have a theory on this is because –

My son is playing now, and he had, over the course of the last month or so, this extreme agony in his knees.

after he would play, would run and jump and whatever else. So we'd go and we'd get checked out. It's this thing that a lot of kids have, a lot of your audience will know, Osgood Slaughter is what it's called. And it's this stress on the patella tendon that takes place when you are growing, right? This happens to a lot of kids as they're growing. He's 12 years old. He's hitting a growth spurt. His knees are killing him, right? So I'm going through that at home.

All the while, every time I start asking about Zaire Williams, it's not an injury. He never had an injury. If you ever go back and look at the injury reports, it always says patella tendonitis. That's what it says, which means I have a sore knee. Now, I'm at home with this kid, and I'm like –

I'll be damned. I was like, I bet this dude is growing. I bet that's what's happening. And that's why his knee's hurting like it is because I'm living it. And I'll be damned. About two weeks ago, I start getting all these tweets because, as you know, as you watch Grizzly Games, after the game, when they're doing the walk-off interview, the whole damn team mobs everybody.

And Jaron Jackson's doing the post-game interview. And Zaire Williams walks up next to him. And I start getting these tweets. Holy hell, you were right. He's like head and head with Jaron Jackson.

Just wait till you see him again. Well, look, I got to go. I got to go investigate this. I think this guy may be near like seven foot tall now. I'm not kidding. And then he's been out because he's been on this growth spurt. It happens. It doesn't happen with guys. Look, he's the one they traded up from 17 to 10 or whatever to get. He looked ready for the playoffs last year. He made threes.

enough threes for them didn't look didn't look scared at all by the by the environment and it's funny he played he played more than brandon clark and more than d anthony melton in some of those games melton was on the fringe of the rotation for a lot of the playoffs it's funny you mentioned the height thing i was watching the grizzlies broadcast last night of grizzly stunder and pete pranica the play-by-play guy who's fantastic

um says to brevin knight when zire williams gets into the game says to brevin knight and you you know these the team announcers they always know stuff they always they both know stuff and they have to be careful how they frame and reveal what they know so pete says hey brevin doesn't is it me or did zire williams grow a couple inches did he grow a couple inches and there's this pause

And I'm just projecting now. But in that pause, I was like, is Brevin thinking about what he wants to say here? And Brevin says, you know, partner, he's always been pretty long. And so that I and he like deflected it out of the way. But Pete brought it up and I was like, it rang a bell. It rang a bell in my head. Look, man, this team, it's a it's a really fun team. It's just really fun. It's a great story. Taylor. Oh, but you mentioned Zaire. And this is it.

the coaching piece of this and how they have things that they do and they do them every game and they do them. Well, Zaire Williams, John Conchar and Santi Aldama are all doing the no dip three, the three where you catch it and don't bring it down. It's all of them. Zaire did it right away. First game last night, he did it. Conchar is doing it every game. Aldama is doing it. This is clearly something that it's like the Luke Cornett closeout in Boston, like the little jumping Jack closeout that looks ridiculous. It,

It's obviously something that this coaching staff has decided. We have to teach this and we have to try it in games. It's going to be a marginal gain for us. And they're all doing it. And like Bain doesn't need to do it. He's just boom, boom, boom, quick trigger. But those three guys are all, it's clearly a point of emphasis. Like it's not a secret. You know who's not doing it? Brandon Clark. If you saw last night, we get towards the end of the game. Moranth is one assist away from a triple-double.

And he goes and he drives it. He kicks it out to Brandon Clark. Brandon Clark's wide open. He can shoot it. He puts the thing on the ground. He starts driving it. And Morant's like, what are you doing? Like, at least I had a chance, a 30% chance maybe that you make that. Now, he ended up getting it by throwing him an alley-oop. But they've gotten these guys like, you know, the ones that are supposed to shoot,

They do shoot. And in fact, if you ever notice, Morant will yell at them when they don't shoot. He'll yell at them if they don't shoot the ball. I mentioned the corners. Roddy doesn't seem like a shooter. 39% from the corners. Dylan Brooks, your favorite Memphis Grizzly, doesn't seem like a shooter. Every box score you check is like 7 of 22. That's a lot of shots.

42% on corner threes. Made three of them last night. Let me say something good about him. By the way, could that be a Bogdanovich deal? That's the name I thought about. I can't tell how much of a core identity piece he actually is for them. Obviously, he's extension eligible. Didn't get an extension because he's going to make more than that. I can't tell...

Kind of how legit it is that, like, no, he's part of our fabric. His toughness, his defense, his in-your-face mentality. Like, we take our cues from him. Yeah, but if he's really the piece that gets you something else, is that going to stand in the way? I don't know, you know? Well, I mean, in fairness, he was out last year and they won 56 games. That's true. But let me say something good about him. It's been twice over the last 10 games that Shea Gildas Alexander has not scored 30 points, both of which...

were when Dylan Brooks saddled up

for the game with the expressed written consent to shut down fellow Canadian, everyone's favorite Canadian, Shea Gilgis-Alexander. And earlier, just a couple weeks ago, I think it's his worst game of the season. He did it to Zion. And so I got to give this guy credit. He is one of these guys in the league that has decided, I'm going to do the game film thing, right? Yeah.

and I'm going to get the clips of everything that my assignment, that player, I'm going to get the clips of everything they want to do every time they've had the ball over the last five games. And I'm going to know exactly where they want to go and what they want to do before they do. And they're going to have to play in a manner in which they are uncomfortable because they're not going to get to do. So, Zion, you don't get to get to your left hand. Not against me, you don't. I'll sit on it all night.

Gilchrist Alexander, I'm staying in front of all this herky-jerky stuff. And if you look last night, Gilchrist Alexander made four shots. He made 17 free throws. A million free throws. But he made four shots. And Brooks on a regular occasion, now if we could just figure out the other end, which I've got this, you know, on regular occasion, I say, look, man, I love you, brother, but there's two things. You've got to shoot less or make more.

That's it. That's it. Either shoot less or make more. I'm fine either way. If you want to shoot less. That's why I liked those corner threes last night. And did you notice who they put on Shea when Dylan was resting? David Roddy. They are throwing David Roddy into the deep end of defensive assignments, and he's doing well. Chris Vernon, just a pleasure to listen to. I listened to you, and you're Kevin O'Connor. I don't want to give Kevin O'Connor anything. Kevin O'Connor, whatever.

Whatever, Kevin O'Connor. Are you listening, Kevin? I listen to you guys twice a week on my Peloton. You're my Peloton entertainment, one of many pods. You do fantastic work. And I was in Memphis in March last year. Maybe I'll make a return trip this year and we'll grab a beverage or two. That'd be great. Great to see you here. Thanks, buddy. All right. It's time, I guess, to talk about the L.A. Clippers, who you may be surprised to know exist as a basketball team and not just

a conceptual basketball team. They are 13 and 11. Kawhi Leonard is back for the second or the third time. He's back for the third time. If you count the beginning of the season, hit a game winning jumper in Charlotte, not exactly a rousing win to beat the tank tastic Charlotte Hornets by two and then played 30 minutes in an overtime loss to the Orlando Magic who had the worst record in the NBA until beating the Clippers. I'm young. Masuk. How are you?

What's up, Zach? I'm loving the jersey for sure. You got the World Cup fever. So Clippers magic. I tune into the game. Haven't seen the Clippers in a few games. Let's watch the Clippers. Okay, well, let's see. Then we get to play America's favorite game show. Who's playing for the Clippers? John Wall, street clothes. Okay, he played the previous game. Guess two games in a row is just too many.

Luke Kennard, street close. Norm Powell, street close. Am I forgetting somebody? Marcus Morris. Marcus Morris did not play. Marcus Morris, street close. Norm Powell out. Norm Powell's out with a groin injury. He's been out a couple games, a few games now. Kawhi and PG on a minutes restriction. Game goes to overtime. Kawhi and PG and Reggie Jackson.

All off the floor for overtime. Okay, sure. Then the overtime goes on. And then the last minute of overtime, Kawhi's back in the game. Paul George is back in the game. And I'm digesting all this and their play tonight. We're taping this at 3 p.m. Eastern, about four and a half hours before they tip in Miami against the Heat.

Some of those aforementioned players who didn't play last night will play tonight, presumably. Kawhi, I believe, is out tonight after playing last night. Paul George, do we know him? Is he playing tonight? Paul George is set to play. He told our friend Andrew Grafe that they like times he is going to play. All of this, the minutes restrictions, they're out for overtime. Well, they come back in for possession, this and that. These guys are out tonight. These guys play tomorrow.

I know that I shouldn't be growing impatient, okay, with the team that I picked to make the finals in the year they came together in 2019. For some goddamn reason, I picked them to make the finals again this year. They are plus 39 in 122 minutes together with Kawhi and Paul George on the floor.

Hooray. That's a good sign. That's the two best players on the floor there, plus 15 per 100 possessions. I digest all these absences and rules and who's allowed to play when, and I ask myself as we enter game 25, um...

At what point do the Clippers become a basketball team that exists to win basketball games and not like a science experiment in load management and longevity and playing for May and June when if you're not careful, you're going to mess around and finish eighth in the West and not get to May. And I know, I know I've got to take the long view. They're playing for May and June.

They have Kawhi. They have PG. They have depth. They're plus whatever in those Kawhi PG minutes is precious and rare as they are. I know. I know I shouldn't be a prisoner to short term thinking and impatience. But at some point, you got to be a team. And we've been having this conversation for four years. At some point, you got to be a team. At some point, you can't get to April and May and have all the commentary about you be gone.

Well, boy, we took the regular season for granted. We didn't build chemistry. How did that happen? Oh my God. Why do we have no identity? Can you please say something good on, because I'm starting to get a little worried and impatient. Uh, for, uh, for those at home who can't see Zach, he, he, as he's talking, had his hands over his eyes, ready to rip out his hair in frustration. And I would say that's what Ty Lewis looked like for the last two weeks or three weeks. Um,

Ty Lue has been pretty frustrated. I'm not going to say he's frustrated at the medical staff or anything like that, or at Kawhi Leonard and Paul George specifically, because he doesn't think that they don't want to play. But the frustration has just been that they have not been available, or anytime they get somebody back, somebody else is out. I would say last weekend, the frustration was palpable throughout the organization, especially

When we all thought that Paul George and Kawhi Leonard were going to play in a one o'clock game against the Sacramento Kings, they had practice on Friday. All indications were that they were going to be cleared if they made it out of that practice. Okay. And then Saturday morning, when we get Tyloo, Tyloo,

It's just like they're out. And the one question someone asked him, I think it was Jamie Maggio asked him, hey, you know, your second quarters haven't been that great. And Ty frustratingly just goes, well, we need players. And so...

we need guys out there. And so that to me was, you know, he's really starting to show his frustration. Finally, the next game against Charlotte, these guys are back. Zach, we've been, I said this in the preseason. I think when we talked about the Clippers that you could see a scenario in which it was going to be very up and down all season long. Kawhi Leonard starting on a minute's restriction, not playing him back to back. Same thing for John Wall. The case is still the same, except for the fact that we didn't see Kawhi Leonard missing, you know, 15 straight games or whatever. Um,

When he got hurt again and then spraining his ankle and being out another six games, Paul George with this hamstring injury, these things are going to pop up and this team for better or worse, the Clippers, they're just going to take it safe. Their whole thing is they're going to wait until the playoffs to make sure everything's right. But you can see a scenario again.

When we're talking about this, Zach, they don't have the chemistry. They don't have the time together. They're still learning one another. Oh, all of these great deep pieces they have. Well, they just don't have the time together. And guess what, Zach? The schedule as it was, the schedule makers, and I don't know why they do this. They packed in 61 games for the All-Star break. They got 21 after the All-Star break, which means it's a good and bad thing, Zach.

A lot of practice time for them, but not a lot of on-court time for them in games. And you know what's going to happen probably that last week of the season. Clemson are probably going to arrest a bunch of guys, you know what I mean, to make sure that they're okay for the playoffs. And we're going to be looking at like Kawhi Leonard's only played, what, I don't know, 15 games with the team going into the playoffs after All-Star break? Who knows?

Well, I mean, look, when you it's like I need a vacation from my vacation. Like when when I take a nap, I need another nap. I'm so tired. Like if if we've rested so much by April, we got to rest again for the playoffs. Again, I get I get all of it. We want to be fresh for the playoffs.

You mess around, you might be fresh for the lottery when you don't even have your pick, by the way. But so that great you're fresh for the summer. Like it's awesome to be physically fit and fresh. You're trying to win the title. And speaking of the schedule, well, they're 13 and 11, which is I don't know where they are in the West. The standings are still bunched up like six or something like that. Nine. They're 14. I've lost track of the record. 14 and 12. Okay. Yeah.

They're minus 45 for the season. That's their point. Raw point differential. That's the seventh worst point differential in the NBA. So again, that's, but they're fresh. Great. They're fresh and minus 45. Um, Hawaii has played six games, I think, or seven games. Um, uh, that sounds about seven games. Sounds about right. I think seven games. And by the way, you mentioned like Kawhi might end up playing. What did you say? 40 something games. I mean, who knows? Well,

Well, no, I said from the all-star break until the end of the season when they have 21 games remaining, does Kawhi play like, let's say, 15 of them? Because, you know, they're not going to have a lot of back-to-backs, so he's not going to skip a lot of those. I mean, he will probably sit out the back-to-backs, but I'm just saying, like, you know, if they decide to rest guys at the end for the final week or whatever, but to your point,

We don't know what place they'll be playing for in the standings because the organization is fully aware that they've had to let a lot of games go here prior to them coming back just because they haven't been available and guys have been hurt. And Saturday was a classic case of that. They got waxed by the

by the Sacramento Kings. And there was definitely a feeling in the organization that was just like, we are just kind of like throwing games away right now because, you know, these guys are just not healthy and not coming back. And, you know, they're taking the time or whatever, and they're going to have to make up a lot of these games down the stretch.

Did you say Kawhi might play 15 of their last 21 games? I'm not saying like that. I know you're not reporting that. That's the number you threw out, right? Off the top of my head. Maybe let's say, I don't know. I think there might be two or three back-to-backs in the last 21. I'd have to go back over to the schedule, but let me, you know, if that's the case, well, he's not playing in, in the second game of those back-to-backs. Right. So you can take those away. If they rest down the stretch,

In the last week to make sure guys are healthy, which they have done almost always has been the case. Of course, their standings in the end of their place in the stands was a little more secure. Well, then I don't know. How many games does he play after All-Star break? Because if you look at the Clippers schedule, it's like barren. They don't they they had to play so many games in the first half than the second half. They are loaded with practice time, but not a lot of game time.

Do they think the NBA is just a computer simulation? Like we can just put our roster into the computer and that's how you win the championship. Whatever computer, whatever the computer says, which team wins the most games. If, if Kawhi plays 15 out of 21 games in the season,

That's like a Cal Ripken streak for him at this point. That's my point. And asking you the 15 of 21, it, that seems like climbing Mount Everest now for Kawhi. And I realized he's coming off a tour in ACL. What a weird career, by the way, uh, that he's going to end up with top 75, all time, two time finals MVP. He has 11,000 career points. He's going to have the weirdest, like cumulative stats versus like, um,

Apex achievement ratio or whatever in the history of the NBA. Let's talk about Kawhi. In those seven games, he's averaging 11 points a game on 40% shooting, 17% on threes. And I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing, but he looks more deferential than I've ever seen him look in his career. He has the lowest usage rate he's had in a long, long time.

Even last night in Orlando, when he played 29 minutes, he spent a lot of time off the ball, spotting up around Paul George, picking roles. His pick and rolls per 100 possessions are his lowest since 2016 when he was emerging as an MVP level player. He's at about 20 per 100 possessions, according to Second Spectrum. That was up around 30, 35 in his best Clippers years. And his free throws are down at their lowest rate in a long time.

And I can't tell if I could read that two ways. Number. And by the way, it doesn't look, he doesn't look, this is the first time going back from an injury where he does not right away. Look like Kawhi. He's getting to the same spots. The shots just look harder. Like he's not creating as much separation. He's it's harder for him to shoot over guys. It's just not as easy. And again, that's to be expected, but this is the first time I've watched him in a long, long time and thought, Ooh,

This doesn't look like the same guy yet. And you condition yourself into thinking he's a terminator. He'll just come back and look like the same guy. And he's not imposed. He's not grabbing the game by the throat. Like he usually does. Like, get me the ball here in my spot. Do this. Me and zoo are going to run 30 pick and roll. Zoo has been fantastic the entire year. I could read that one of two ways.

Number one, uh-oh. Number two, he's self-aware that it's going to be a long process. He's not going to force it. And he also understands that this team has developed an identity in his absence all these years. And he doesn't want to sort of just come in and stomp away on top of that. How should I read that? Because from the outside, I really don't know.

I think we need to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't think we can say, oh, yet until maybe next season. He says by his own accord that this is a two year process. People think that coming off ACLs is a one year deal. He called it a two year deal. He definitely looks like he's feeling his way through. He before I forget, Zach.

They do have three back to backs in the last 21 games. That would mean that if he doesn't play one of them, he's now down to 18 games. My only point was if he plays 15 out of 21, I will buy you dinner at a restaurant of your choice. If he plays less than 15 out of 21, you don't have to do anything because that's to be expected. If he plays 15 or more free dinner in L.A.,

OK. And so I would say this. The three pointer has not looked good for him at all. He does not have any rhythm from behind three point. He definitely looks like he is more in more of a playmaking role. What I thought was so good, the Charlotte game was good for him and the Clippers is because they were in this tight situation where they got to see Kawhi bail them out. And in that situation, like Kawhi got to his spot.

He scored in the mid range, looked like old Kawhi. They needed that actually. They needed to be in a situation like that because they just haven't had that kind of time together. And what you saw was Paul, Paul had a chance. He grabs a loose rebound almost near half court. And now he's sprinting out and he's got one guy in front of him. Paul could have took it to the rim with like 15 seconds ago. He backs it back out, passes a John Wall in the right corner because he sees Terry Rozier on Kawhi Leonard on the right wing.

Charlotte switches in time, gets McDaniels onto Kawhi, but now Kawhi has the ball. Iso, Kawhi then scores at the end, the game winner. Clippers feel good because they're like, this is what we needed. We needed to be in a situation like this. We need to see Kawhi do this. And I think it was really good for Kawhi. You know, when you hear Kawhi talk after the game and he's talking about, I would have rather pulled it out. We're up eight to nine rather than having to grind it out.

But it was good for him to pull out a game like that to win like that, to see himself hit a shot like that. I think that was good for him. But you're right. Just just to just to just to clarify, this is against the Charlotte Hornets. Yes, it's not. Yes, it's this isn't like, oh, we went to Milwaukee. No. Well, we survived adversity. This is like, whoo.

Yeah. Mason Plumlee, man. We got out of Mason Plumlee's house with a W. No LaMelo Ball, Charlotte Hornets, okay? No Gordon Hayward, Charlotte Hornets. Then the next night, a couple nights later in Orlando, they're up by like 18 to start the game against the Magic. They look great. I mean, Paul George, Kawhi Leonard look great. And what I think you're seeing is Kawhi knows the impact of him just being on the floor, even though he's not two-time finals MVP Kawhi Leonard yet, okay? He's getting that respect.

So a lot of guys are more open. The Nick McToons that were benefiting because they're wide open and he's finding them. He is more of a playmaker. They jump out to this big lead, but then all of a sudden bench comes in. And then when the starters come back in the third quarter, it doesn't look good. And so all of a sudden Orlando is now in the game at the end of the fourth quarter. And you can tell like the execution is not good for the Clippers. They just,

I don't know what happened, but they're executing like they're the Orlando Magic and the Orlando Magic are executing like the Clippers. And so you see like these Aaron passes, these turnovers, Nick Patum, five seconds on the inbound. Yeah, I mean, it was it was painful to watch. And now they go into overtime. And guess what? Why? Leonard has one minute left on his minutes restriction. He's at about twenty nine minutes and Paul George is at thirty two or thirty three. He can't play.

So now they're like, we're going to save Kawhi until the final minute. They bring in Kawhi in the final minute, but by then they just couldn't execute and win that game. They brought Paul George in for the final five seconds. And these are all things that this is not a Ty Lue's doing, Zach. Ty Lue doesn't want to do this on purpose. He's not trying to act like Phil Jackson. Of course he doesn't. And try to be like, oh, I'm trying to prove something or anything like that. No, this is what he's been told that he has to do. And so you feel like,

it's, you know, I think after the game, Andrew Greif was in the locker room from the LA times, the beat writer and Kawhi said, I want to be out there. I want to play. I understand the medical staff is trying to keep us healthy, but I want to be there. I want to try to help lead this team. Same thing for Paul George. I would say this, Zach, I was surprised that they were already up in the 30 minute range. Uh,

for their what second game back. I get it. They had a long time off, but I thought the Clippers would be, you know, a little more conservative with their minutes. So I think that's a good sign to see that they're already in the thirties and maybe they'll ramp it up. But Zach, their schedule three times when December started three times, there are three weeks in the month of December where they play four games and six nights.

so they are packing it in in december that's a lot of games you're gonna a lot of there's back-to-backs you're gonna see quite not playing those back-to-backs john wall as well it's definitely a work in progress the science experiment as you call it is the perfect description zach let's let's be positive for a second um

They are fifth in defense. That's good. That's a good sign. They've been grinding on that end of the floor. They have a good track record as a, as a good defensive team. Norm Powell found his groove as we were all waiting for. I called him the most important bench player in the league at the start of the season, slow start, uneven start seemed like he was kind of uncertain about what his place and role and when to attack and went to defer and all that got a rhythm. Yeah.

Terrence Mann, I feel like is an ingredient that they're going to need and has used this time of being one of the only players who's available every game to kind of remind Tyloo. I think this is the kind of oomph and bounce and verve I bring to this team that no one else really does. Wall has looked fine off the bench. He's generating a lot of corner threes for them. He's amping up the pace. And that's a good stuff. That's a good stuff.

The bad stuff is they're 28th in offense, and the other two teams that are below them are not trying to win basketball games very hard. And the offense has been ugly and sloggy and all the stuff that we've talked about. And that's what's kind of so interesting about them. And to think back to their playoff run in 2021, where they broke the Clippers curse and finally got to the conference finals. And I think that was...

I don't know. I don't want to say the only time, but that was one of the rare times in four seasons. Now I understand four seasons with PG and Kawhi is really like closer to two, two and a half seasons with injuries.

where it felt watching them like, oh, this team knows who they are now. They all know who they are. They've embraced this identity of we're just a drive and kick jump shooting five out a lot of the time or zoo is going to be rim running. Drive and kick jump shooting machine. They were the best jump shooting team maybe in the history of the league, at least on catch and shoot jumpers. The Warriors will always be number one for just overall shooting ridiculousness.

They shot 42% on threes and they spread Utah out, drive, kick, drive, kick, corner three, Terrence Mann has a million points, Utah bye-bye. It was the first time really where they look like this is what we stand for as a team. And I think they still have the tools to get back to that once Kawhi gets reacclimated and PG gets reacclimated.

Um, because if you, if you look at what's different now between their 28th ranked offense and their offense that season, which was like top three in the league the whole year, they're not getting as many catch and shoot threes. They're not shooting as well from three because they're not getting as many catch and shoot threes.

And they're turning the ball over all the time. As you mentioned, they've got to lead the league in dribbling off their own feet. And the ball ends up with the other team. They clean that up. They reintegrate a little bit. They find that identity again. There's a good offensive team in here. They also have to figure out what lineups they want to play when Zubats is out of the game. And I don't know where you're leaning in terms of what the answer to that question is because those lineups were massively effective for them

Two seasons ago, there are no center lineups this year. It's like sometimes they haven't played Covington. I thought that was the whole point of getting Covington. Now he had COVID at the beginning of the year and without his rim protection to those lineups work. The numbers say they actually work pretty well so far. I think they're getting a little lucky.

In terms of opponent jump shooting in those lineups, although again, we haven't seen Kawhi and PG together much at all. Moses Brown has been getting a shot recently, which suggests to me that they think maybe we actually kind of need a little bit more size on our team. Where do you think they're going to end up there?

I think they're still going to end up at backup center with like, you know, a combination of Batum or Covington. I think the problem here is that you, you kind of hit the nail on the head is that when one guy feels starting to feel good, Norm Powell is really starting to hit his, his role, his rhythm. He's out groin injury, Terrence Mann,

realizing that I'm the only guy that relentlessly attacks the rim and brings energy. I think this season more than any other season that I can remember in a long time, the energy player is important and vital. And we're seeing it in guys like Yuta Watanabe, for example. The energy that he brought in Brooklyn, exceptional. Now he's hurt, okay? Terrence Mann, this team, a veteran team, needs that young energy. And he was starting to give it. And then guess what, Zach?

he's out against Miami concussion protocol. He took a, he did take a big blow the other day. So, you know, it's just like these guys are trying to figure out the roles when Kawhi and Paul went out. I think what we saw was the role players that were remaining. It felt like last year again, they started to settle into their roles. They knew that the big guys were out and we had to do this. And so guys started playing a little bit better. They started getting a little bit of rhythm. And then the big guy, the big guns came back in and here we go. We're starting all over again. The offense has not looked good. Uh,

I asked Ty when the big guys were out, do you think about simplifying the offense like you did last year? It really worked. And Ty said, no, no, no, I don't want to do that just yet because the big guys are coming back. They're coming back. We're getting close. And he doesn't he wants to be able to play the offense that he envisions. But and he also wants to play the defensive lineup that he wants, which is the all wing defensive lineup, which is, you know, the amazing thing to me is as good as Zoo has been.

Zoo's coming off a 29 and 30 game or whatever. Right. First ever in Clipper history. You know, he's done something that if he had gotten a 30 and 30, we hadn't seen since like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. OK, I mean, like I called him Shaq Zoo that night. Zoo told me he was on a podcast and they were referring to him as White Wilt, which is amazing. OK, yeah.

Which, yeah, it's hilarious. But even after those two games, Zoo could barely get in in the fourth quarter. I think it was at Portland and at Utah because Ty decided to go small and it was working. Or I think he used Musa Diabate. He was giving them energy and was looking good. And then he went small. And I think ideally this is still going to be the case. Down the road, Ty Lue wants to go small. Covington was out of the rotation when they were 100% healthy because they liked that the

Luke Kennard, when he's on the floor, there is a gravity to Luke Kennard when he runs around the court. He does draw the attention of the defense and open things up for them. And so I do think that you see Covington now, he's in this week, his hands are exceptional. I mean, the dude is always getting his hand on the ball, his deflections, whatever it may be. But I do think just like you said,

Just as we start to get a rhythm, somebody's out, somebody's hurt. The rules aren't defined. Everything was clicking magically that year when they went to the Western Conference finals. They need to find that. And it's going to be a little disjointed after the All-Star break when you only have 21 games to play to find that.

Those non-Zoo lineups are obviously going to look different and more fearsome with Kawhi and PG, both as part of them. If you put Kawhi, PG, Batum, one of the point guards, and then pick a wing, so no Covington, no Morris, no...

Those are small, but I am interested to see how they look. I don't like the ones with Morris as the biggest guy because I think teams are going at him. And he has trouble now keeping fast guys in front of him on switches.

So, I mean, and I think Kawhi, I think he looks better on defense than on offense. I think his defense looks ahead of his offense. He's been pretty active and looks good. Like he's moving well on defense, which I guess is encouraging. So those lineups to me, I want to see him more, obviously. I think there's been a lineup, Zach, that they've used where Paul was the point guard. That's how many wings that were out there. I think they tried that. And you know what Ty's doing?

he's playing Paul and Kawhi together the majority of their minutes. He's not staggering them out. He basically in his mind is like, we got to get this going. We got to get these two as many minutes as possible together to get them kind of reacclimated to each other. And I do like that he's doing that. Yeah, that was interesting. That's been interesting because it, you know,

conventional wisdom is when it, when the chips are down, you go the opposite way. And obviously when the chips are down in theory, they're both playing so many minutes that, you know, I'm talking playoff games, big playoff games that you make sure one is on the floor at all times right now, he's doing the opposite. And again, I think that's part of playing the long game. I mean, this is team long game. They're playing the longest game. They're playing like a, as if it's a 400 game season. Um, but, but, but that, but that's the way they have to play. Um,

Wall's been good. Reggie has been wildly up and down and has the wildest split on catch and shoot threes versus pull up threes that I think I've ever seen. He's 34 of 79 on catch and shoot threes. That's 43%. He's six of 37 on pull up threes, which is like 16% or something. But I don't know. My math is maybe wrong on that, but it's something like that. They've been okay.

Have we answered the age old question of do the Clippers need another ball handler? Is that still a thing? No, I think we've answered that. It's just it's just coming in a different manner of maybe what people want it to be. So Reggie Jackson, when the season started, when we were in Seattle in

In the preseason, I told Reggie, I said, are you going to become a catch and shoot three point shooter this year? Because John Wall and Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are drawing so much attention that the guy in the corner is wide open. And that's you or Nick Batum. And I said, so are you going to become like Steve Kerr this year as opposed to having to create your own offense? And he's like, yeah, we he's like a bunch of us talked about it. And, you know, I have to really work on that part of the game. He's been great at it.

The problem is that he's been so banged up. He took this fall in Portland that I'm telling you, I thought he'd be out for a week. I thought his hip was messed up or his back. I even thought his head hit the back of the floor. He was dazed, but he has stayed in the game and kept playing. But he also has not been able to really create any separation one-on-one. And I also don't think that

Like when the big guys were out, Reggie Jackson, it was now becoming incumbent on him to kind of create a lot of offense. And then we saw a little bit glimpses of old Reggie from a couple of years ago. But he also is trying to fit in when the big guys are back and do what he's doing. And then, of course, when John comes in, it's totally different. John has given them an element that they just don't have.

And he's forcing it, which is he's just going to go straight at the rim. It doesn't matter if anybody's running alongside with him. It doesn't matter if two or three guys are in front of him. He's going to attack the rim, push the pace. And I think this is good. He's like sucking the defense in a little bit and either the trailers open or there are guys open for threes and he's finding those open shooters and he's

The Clippers are exceptional at catch and shoot three-pointers. They were great at it last year. They're going to be good at it again this year, even better with John Wall finding them. So I just think we don't have that point guard

I wonder if we have that point guard when with five minutes to go in a playoff game, Zach, defenses are locking down on Paul and Kawhi. Let's say eight minutes ago, Paul and Kawhi are not able to get their own shots off or scores efficiently. They go a little bit through an offensive drought and that's where you need a point guard to create for them, to get them easier shots in a half court setting. That's where I wonder if they kind of have that point guard or not. You know, they're hoping maybe John can be that guy, but

But sometimes it's going to depend on what unit Ty wants to finish with. He might just finish with Reggie or he might finish with Paul at point guard. Yeah, you know, Paul George had an incredible playoffs two years ago. That streak of like 27 points or more in games or whatever it was. Pandemic P was buried forever. Way off P was buried forever.

Sometimes I just don't trust his handle, man. He gets so loose with it. He's so scattershot when teams blitz him and trap him. And he's been like this whole career. I am interested to see like start to reintegrate the Kawhi small pick and rolls Kawhi John Wall pick and rolls.

If you blitz Kawhi, just hit John Wall on the short roll. Hit Kennard. Kennard is good at it in the short roll. Let them make plays. We haven't seen a lot of that because Kawhi – We saw it at the beginning of the year. I think we saw it at the beginning of the season, the Kawhi Leonard pick and roll. Yep. I think he's easing his way back in. I agree with you totally on Wall. He's been a little bit – he's been up and down, but I think they need –

They just need that injection of pace and life and just someone run with me. Come on, run with me. If you run with me, I'm getting you with three. So get your ass in gear and run with me. It's not the efficiency isn't what it was in Washington when he was at his peak. The long two isn't what it was in Washington when he was at his peak. But I think they need that element. And honestly, man, like we've been talking for years now. Who's the point guard? Do the Clippers need a point guard? We started the year you and I talking about

They can trade a future first round pick now for the first time in a few years. Is there a consolidation trade to be made here? Is there a deal to be made here? Maybe there is. I'm sure they'll look around. That pick is real currency for them. If you trade an unprotected pick, if it's top three protected, unprotected, whatever,

Yeah, you may not have the sexiest salary to attach, but you can get another guy. I mean, the Pistons got Bogdanovich for a linic and second round picks. You can get another guy easily if you put that first round pick in play, even though I think Marcus Morris's contract has taken a little hit. I mean, he's been okay. I don't know if anyone is psyched to have Marcus Morris for $17 million next year. I don't know if anyone's psyched to have Covington for $11 million next year.

Don't know if everyone's psyched to have canard for 30 combined over the next two seasons, but to them, they need he's essential to their team. And then you're just kind of, I don't think anyone's psyched to have Norm Powell for 60 million over the next three years after this one. And the Clippers need him too. So you're kind of running out of, if you even have any salary, that's both expendable and appealing to other teams, but that pick it's interesting. They could get something for it, but if not, this, this is the team. And yeah,

It's it's, there's still, it's like 25 games of the season. I have all these numbers. Look at all these numbers on a sheet of paper. They don't matter. Like we haven't seen the team. They don't matter at all. You have a piece coming out on Saturday about wall. Tell us about, about that piece. Cause it sounds like it's going to be a good one. Thanks man. Wall's returning to DC. I,

I call it the return to the sequel because he returned back in like 2021 with the Houston Rockets for the first time from the trade after Russell Westbrook. But during COVID restrictions, there was nobody in the building. The stands were covered by tarp. There wasn't even the courtside seats where his mom used to sit. He had lost his mom.

uh, just a little over a year prior. And then his grandmother passed away weeks before he returned back to DC. So he was very much like a grief stricken. They played a video tribute for him. Um, he didn't really get to see it nor, you know, he wasn't, the fans weren't there to really show appreciation to him. And I think he, it's important for him to feel that and for him to thank the fans, he was beloved in DC. So the wizards will give him a video tribute. Um,

and you know, I thought he was interesting. A couple of things we, he, I asked him, is your warp speed fully back? And he was like, he's close. He's not a hundred percent yet. And I think he's right. I think we've seen him at fast. Maybe if it's like, if he's a five, five, you know, he might not be in fifth gear. I think he's in fourth gear. Um,

And he said like, I got to lose maybe like another five, 10 pounds at my age. You know, I need to get a little bit thinner. And so he was basically like, when I do that, it'll be back. But otherwise you've seen like the patented behind the back dribble in traffic. You've seen the no look passes. You see him running and attacking the rim. I think he's missing a lot more at the rim than he probably would like to, or he's used to. But that probably will come with more time because he's never had to play in six minutes stretches before.

and play under a minute's limit and not play on back-to-back nights and also come off the bench. I did ask him, I said, you know, do you have any regrets about your time in D.C. about maybe how things between you and Brad worked out because you guys weren't able to get past the second round? He said, no. He said, look, if anything...

A lot of people tried to divide us all the time and say that we couldn't work together. We didn't like each other. He goes, that was never the case. He's like, he called him my brother. He said, we always had each other's back. He goes, yes. Did you have two young guys who thought they should be the man and be the franchise? Yes. And sometimes you don't see eye to eye. Yes, that's true. He said, but he goes, the fun thing I think about back, if I could have done differently, he said, brotherhood.

Brad expanded his game every year that he was there. And then when I was out, he became a 30 point score. He goes, I wish I could have been there to be his roll dog when he was averaging 30. And when he was younger, I wish I gave him the ball more and let him work pick and rolls and let him handle the ball more so that he could become more of this playmaker that he is today, but earlier. And then who knows what would have happened. So I thought that was a little interesting because, you know, that,

That was the problem in DC. There was only one ball to go around with two guys that were terrific that needed the ball. And a lot of people thought that Beal would just be this, you know, a guy that would just be, you know, a spot up and shoot guy, but no Beal's a lot more than that. So it's going to be important for him to get the love. And I think he's going to get that on Saturday. Hopefully I will say this, Zach Tyloo better play John Wall a good amount of minutes, but

At Houston, when he returned for the first time, he wanted to show and prove to Houston what he could do. Remember, Houston sat him out the whole year. Ty played in 15 minutes, and I don't think he played in the fourth. And John was so furious and upset, he left the locker room very quickly after that game. So this is a very big game for him. That is the one game he looked at when the schedule came out. I would expect Ty Lue to play him, you know, a good amount in this game. Well...

I'll be watching that game. This is a TV piece, right? It airs over the weekend? Not TV. It'll be on .com. .com. Okay. Over the weekend. Om Yong Masuk, your coverage of the Clippers is fantastic. I hope you get to cover the real Clippers for a month. It'd be great if we just had a month of everyone is semi-available because the West is still there for the taking. No one has run away with it. And...

But to me, I don't know that there's a player that I'll be watching more closely for the next two months or whatever than Kawhi because he just hasn't – and again, it's to be expected, but he just hasn't looked like the same guy and he's not playing the same style, not quite.

And obviously, just as the Lakers team building model is null and void, if LeBron and Anthony Davis aren't incredible gods of basketball, the Clippers team building model is null and void if Kawhi Leonard is not Kawhi Leonard. That's it. It's over. And it's over for this season. It's over for the future. So it's obviously way too early to say that. I'm just saying that.

if he's not Kawhi, we're not talking about this team anymore. And, and I'm just, I want to see it. I want to watch it and you will chronicle it. My man, Om Young with Sook. Thank you, sir. Yeah, man.

I would just say one last thing about Kawhi. The key with Kawhi is not only what you see in the games. And of course, I think, you know, I just thought about this with this three point shot. We don't see that soft touch yet. The little arc that he has, everything has been like, like straight ahead and very low and like hard. But I would say think about the most important thing with Kawhi is how he feels the next day. That's, that's been the issue here. Every time he's had a little tweak here or there and he says, I'll be fine.

But you got to be like, how's he feeling the next day? Because if he's not feeling good the next day and all of a sudden we find out the next day he's out for like a couple of games and because something flared up or there was swelling or anything like that. The most important thing with Kawhi Leonard is how he's feeling the next day. You know, I'll never forget the morning after the morning after the morning after the Kawhi PG literal earthquake. There was an earthquake in Vegas that night. Yeah. Yeah.

I remember talking to lots of people about what do you think? What do you think about the deal? The deals, plural. And one executive said to me, it is simultaneously a deal the Clippers absolutely had to make

And a deal that could end up being one of the worst in the history of the NBA or most damaging in the history of the NBA. And I thought that was really a perfect summation of it, because if you get this opportunity to get these two guys together, you do it and they fit together really well.

And the dangers of it was obvious. The pick bounty that Oklahoma City got was bananas. And Shea is averaging 30 a game. And yet, even amid all the injuries and all the collapse in the bubble, all of it, I don't think the Clippers look back with regret at all. Now, if they get to the end of this season and they still haven't had the real team at any point in time,

They might start thinking that way, but I always thought that was an artful summary of that trade. A deal you absolutely have to make and one that has the potential to be one of the most damaging in the history of the league. And it's still TBD, I guess, but they yield. Look, I mean, they broke the Clippers curse. They made the conference finals and they damn well might've won the title that year. It had Kawhi not torn his ACL. If you don't, if the Clippers don't make it to the finals, once PG and Kawhi are done, let's say the Western conference finals is the furthest they made it to.

Are you happy with that being the highest achievement? Emphatically, no. No. You gave up five picks, three swore, whatever it is. No.

B, I think the one way that they will regret this trade is if Shea turns into a top five player for the rest of his career or something like that down the road. If he becomes a top five player and PG and Kawhi did not deliver a championship, then yeah, I would say, you know, that would probably be the one way you would really regret this trade, right? Yeah.

Let's be let's end on a happier note than that. Go Croatia. Shock the world. Let's do it. I'll see you in Los Angeles. Fifteen of twenty one. Remember, fifteen of twenty one at the end of the season. You get a dinner on me. I remember. And by the way, can we start can we dip into your bias for your countrymen of zoo? Can we start most improved campaign? Is that possible? Does he have a shot?

I have not thought for one second about most. Actually, that's not true. I went on a podcast last week. We talked about most improved. You know who's got to be the off the top of my head.

Is it Bol Bol's award to lose? Oh, Bol Bol looked very good against the Clippers. He's been a little up and down recently, a little up and down. I think Bol Bol, though, has to stay healthy the rest of the year. And I, you know, every time I watch him, I'm like, oh, my God, please don't get hurt. Please don't get hurt. Please don't get hurt. You know, but yeah, there's a lot of guys out there. I mean, listen, Shaq Zoo, Shaq Zoo, you give him the ball inside. He looks great. I just need to see him finish one more game. But how about how about that nickname? Whoever gave it to White Will.

You got to love Whitewell. And he put up that 30-30 or 30-29 game, whatever it was, against the Pacers, I believe, right? And Miles Turner. Yes, yes. Purported Lakers trade target, Miles Turner. And I got probably no less than eight text messages from executives around the league

telling me, woe the irony of Evita Zubats, whom the Lakers gave up for Mike Muscala. Yes. Blowing up Miles Turner, the guy who's going to help save the Lakers season all these years later. Anyway, I'll see you around, buddy. All right. Thanks for having me.