Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast on a Wednesday morning where Nick Friedel and I waited and waited and waited to do this podcast. We talked about doing it Monday, and then we saw the next schedule. Boy, they play Monday. They play Tuesday. A lot could transpire in those 36 hours. And what we thought would transpire would be that maybe Kyrie Irving would...
follow up his press exchange with our Nick Friedel from over the weekend in which Nick asked him pointed questions about Alex Jones and anti-Semitism. And Kyrie responded with something, words, words came out and he was essentially defensive and got off the postcard.
the podium. And that was it. And he has not talked after Monday's game. He has not talked after Tuesday's game and Sean Marks in addressing the, Oh, Whoa, firing or mutual parting of ways of Steve Nash, Steve Nash, the least surprising parting of ways. We'll say, I guess that's the jargon now in recent NBA history said we might not hear from Kyrie Irving for quite a while until we, I think he said, let him simmer down. So before the season,
In previewing the Brooklyn Nets, I called them the Dunder Mifflin Brooklyn Nets because on paper, on paper, it all looks great. One of the 10 to 12 greatest players of all time. One of the greatest ball handlers and shooters of all time. Draymond Green 2.0. Let's just ignore that he hasn't played in 16 months. On paper, a lot of shooting. Nick Claxton coming on.
And I said their over-under was 49 and a half or 50 and a half a care member. And I said, look, if you are betting on this team, you got serious problems. This is a stay away. But if you're asking me to choose between it all clicks on one end and complete disaster and everybody runs for the exits on the other, I'm betting on disaster every time.
I did not think disaster of this proportion on court, off court, firings, the whole shebang would arrive eight games into the season. The Nets are two and six, having lost a dispiriting game at home to the Bulls where Kyrie Irving would disengage the entire game. And here we are. Armageddon is here. Armageddon is here. Kyrie Irving's not talking to the media.
Fans in the front row are wearing shirts that say fight anti-Semitism because of the movie that Kyrie Irving tweeted out on his social media platforms, which what's the big deal? He has a huge influence on his community, but he's not. He's just a regular guy tweeting stuff out that's already in the public domain. Why is anyone asking him questions? He's just a guy. And Kevin Durant, who requested a trade not long ago.
Asked the team to fire his coach. Well, that's done. And fire his GM not long ago. He's just sitting here at two and six, four years left on his deal. Just requested a trade, unrequested it, and now Armageddon is here. Because if you think that unrequest was a permanent recommitment to the Brooklyn Nets,
I have the proverbial bridge in Brooklyn to sell you at a bargain rate. Holy smokes. None of this is even funny. And yet you don't know what to do except sit here and say, how is this? How is all just how Nick Friedel? Welcome to the low post. What a show, my man. Truly, it is. It is the most dysfunctional team.
In all my years covering the league that I've ever seen. They had a team meeting, a players only meeting before Halloween. That is incredible. Incredible. So after everything that's happened, after all that's occurred in the last few days, in between games, in a back to back,
to have Steve Nash and the Nets decide this is no more. And Zach, this is one I truly do believe. I truly do believe that it was a mutual party of ways, as they said in that release, to have it all go down like this. This will shock some people given my interactions at times with
A lot of different people in the organization besides just Kyrie, but I have friends in the organization and they were not happy with,
They said I was too negative in our initial podcast from a few weeks ago. They said, ah, this could work. This could all come together. You're being too hard on us too early. Just give us a chance. Well, we're a couple of weeks in and it is a complete dumpster fire right now in Brooklyn. It's not going great. It's not going great. And before we get into how it's not going great, I do think we owe it to this front office team.
And this brain trust to rewind a little bit because, you know, the Armageddon they're staring at is who knows what happens with Kyrie. I mean, we can we'll get into it more later, but everybody is watching Kyrie.
The next time he talks, because when you ask them those questions, correct me if I'm wrong, you and I think pretty much no one in the assembled media had yet watched any of this movie that he tweeted out. Correct. Right. That's right. Well, now many of us have. God knows I didn't pay for it. I watched some clips that are being distributed around. I saw some screenshots. I'm not paying for that thing. Well, now everyone has. And so question number one is going to be, OK, Kyrie, here's what's in it. Hitler.
Some something resembling denial of the Holocaust, all sorts of other things about slavery and true Israelites and all of this. Do you do you believe this? And if he does anything short of disavow those things explicitly, you and I talked about this offline over the weekend. Like, I don't know what happens. I don't I think everything, every possibility happens.
is then on the table. I would anticipate that he would do the safe and smart thing and say, I do disavow this and I'm sorry for posting it. If he doesn't, if he goes the opposite way and doubles down and triples down, I don't know if the league gets involved. They've already released a mealy mouth statement. I don't know if the union gets involved. They've already released a mealy mouth statement. I don't know what the Nets do. They've kind of talked around it and said, let it simmer down. That's one. Two is,
Kevin Durant is here. And when does he just throw the grenade again? Because this is, this does not appear to be going anywhere. And, and we can talk about why that is later. Nick, before we rewind, like I said, it was going to do, I will say like before the season, before any of this, before any of the games started, I had a very smart front office person on another team say to me, you know what the net should do? Let's pretend there's an alternate reality.
where um where they just have carte blanche to do what they want where they start off well where everything is going well where they're six and two and it's smooth or five and three and it's smooth and they don't have to consider what durant wants and what what rich climate wants which by the way they've already gotten a request for what he wanted over the summer and in a list of teams that may have just been one team but still like an indication of what he would do
If it's ever going well, they should, under the stealth of night, trade Durant out of nowhere from a position of strength and get the maximum return and move on from all of this because the writing is on the wall. Well, now eight games in, that's gone. Like they're dealing, if they get to that point, ever, they're dealing from a position of weakness and, and, and,
Boy, oh boy. But can we start from the beginning for a second, Nick? Let's do it. Let's go through it. Sean Marks takes over and little move by little move digs this team out of the deepest and gravest hole maybe in modern NBA history because of the Celtics' next trade from 2013.
Trades a veteran for a pick that becomes Karis LeVert. Trades a veteran for a pick that becomes Jared Allen. Joe Harris, scrap heap. Spencer Dinwiddie, scrap heap. Brooke Lopez and we'll eat some salary for D'Angelo Russell. We'll eat some more salary for more draft picks. Move by move by move from nothing, from less than nothing, he builds a playoff team. So the evidence is there. If they have to do it, they've already done it. If they have to start again and they got picks in the Harden-Simmons trade, which we will talk about later.
Then they sign Irving and Durant. They turn that good team and cap room into those two guys. The greatest moment since they made the finals as a franchise, one of the 12 greatest players ever said, I want to come to you.
The price of that is this other guy has got to come with me. And this third guy who's not good anymore, but is going to demand to be our starting center. And we're going to demand him to be our starting center. He's got to come with us too. You got to pay him nine or $10 million a year. You've got to put him ahead of Jared Allen, even though Jared Allen's better. And by the way, all of this is going to lead to us firing the coach in not very long. Great. Still, still a triumph and still something like as much as you're laughing right now,
10 times out of 10, if Kevin Durant wants to come to your team, even after an Achilles injury, you get him on your team. Every time. They still have LaVert, Dinwiddie, Harris, all that depth. They trade all of it, Allen, for James Harden. A risk, but one that was, I think, a calculated risk. And the evidence suggests, Nick, that before James Harden's hamstring started acting up down the stretch of the 2021 season and then again in the Bucs series...
They had the best team in the NBA. They had a championship team. They had an offense that was beyond unstoppable. They had the rest of the league, every other team quivering that they had put these three guys together. They destroyed the Celtics in the playoffs with such ease that they left Boston looking around and be like, oh my God, this is our future. These guys are our future. In other words,
As crazy as it sounds right now, it worked. And it worked until James Harden's hamstring went bulky. And then he looks good enough now that it would still be working, except in between a black swan event occurred, a pandemic and a vaccination mandate that because of Kyrie Irving's stance on the vaccine, destabilized the entire team. And here we are. So like as much as it looks like a dumpster fire right now, and it is, there was a moment where
Step by step by step by step, this front office had built the team that it aspired to build, at least qualitatively. And now it's gone. And so what I will ask you to start with is everyone has sort of done the cliche thing where they traded culture for star talent and the culture has been poisoned since. And here we are. How how can we articulate how and why that happened? In other words,
Absent the vaccine mandate, are we still here? How can you, as someone who follows this team, sort of illustrate the gradual erosion of identity and culture? I don't think we're nearly to the point we've gotten to right now without the vaccination mandate. That is a huge, huge part of this story. But Zach-
We talk to people around the league all the time. Anybody who's covered Kyrie dating back to Cleveland and in Boston, they all say the same thing. It's only a matter of time before things go bad. And so as much as we can point to the vaccination mandate and say, ah, well, nobody knew this was coming and this just totally messed up everything. And, and the nets were never the same because Kyrie wasn't out there every single day.
The other part to this is, well, you made your bed with Kyrie Irving. And every team would have done it to get Kevin Durant. You and I have talked about this for a couple years now. Once that happened, and once you did that,
You have to pay the consequences and the Nets have been paying them for a while now. And I think that's where it starts. But the talk about culture versus superstardom, every single team in the NBA would make the move to get Kevin Durant on their team. Because as important as culture is, in order to win a title, you need culture and stars, right?
Nobody wins on culture alone and try hard players and players that are really good for a system. You have to have
Two parts. And there has to be a little bit of both. And the Nets were trying to make it work by retrofitting their culture with these stars. And it ended up exploding in their face. And as much as you want to say, look back in hindsight and say, well, we should have seen it coming when Penny Atkinson was fired. And in the very next game,
They put DeAndre Jordan in the starting lineup over Jared Allen. We should have seen it coming. And yet we should have seen it coming when Kyrie Irving said, we don't need a coach. Me and Kevin and Joe are running the franchise, managing the franchise. And I said at the time, how about how about you play for the franchise before before we do that? Despite all that.
In the 2021 playoffs, despite James Harden missing games two, three, and four of the Bucs series after tweaking his hamstring and most of game one, basically all of game one, and Kyrie Irving missing games five, six, and seven after I think Chris Middleton landed on his ankle or somebody landed on his ankle. There's still... It was Giannis, you're right.
There's still the proverbial Durant toenail from going to the conference finals. And who knows how healthy they get after that, blah, blah, blah, against the team that ended up winning the title that year. And Harden, to his credit, for someone who is dogged here and elsewhere for a bad record in the biggest, biggest games, I think game six of that series, I think game six and seven of that series are maybe...
In a way, the greatest moments of his career, because he gutted those games out, played 53 minutes in game seven and scored decently on one leg. And in game six, when Durant hit the bench for the first time after playing all of game five and like the first 16 minutes of game six, Steve Nash was like, dude, we just got to rest you. We got to get you something. James Harden was like, all right, time to see what I got. Time to see what I got left in this leg.
ran some pick and rolls, got an open three for somebody, a dunk for somebody scored a little bit himself. Like despite all this injury and stuff, they're, they're still right there. And then the vaccination stuff happens. And, and like you said, I don't know what you're supposed to do. If, if, if,
If Kyrie is the price of KD, you just, you do it every time, every front office, everyone you can say, well, Sean Marks was a young GM. This was his first job. And Steve Nash was a young coach. This is his first job. Every brain trust. Steve Nash wasn't even there. Obviously at the time, every brain trust does that. And I've written it before you we've talked about it. There go my headphones. Sure. In an ideal world. If you give me a choice of every version of these nets, I'm choosing Durant comes by himself.
We then trade a lot of depth for Harden and we have KD and Harden and still a decent amount of depth left over. And we roll with that team that wasn't available to them. So here we are looking back. There are so many different directions that we could go, Zach, but I think in the context of what's happening in the last couple of days, it's also important to remember that in that first year,
was getting respect from all over the place. People were saying, Steve Nash's offense is unbelievable. Steve Nash has these guys humming and they know exactly where to be and it's just something that we haven't seen before. So the narrative...
not only around the organization has completely shifted, but the narrative for Steve Nash has been completely altered because now people are saying, Steve Nash can't coach. Steve Nash can't keep all these egos in check. He's not a powerful enough personality. That first year that Nash came in, and this is what Nets staffers hold to now,
Steve Nash was one of the toasts of the league because of the way he had gotten everybody to play. And it happens. Things can change really quickly in pro sports. This is an example of it. But there are so many different reasons why. But in the end, what's going to be the mark of this team is that they didn't get it done.
And this, and you have said it, and we have discussed it many times, this is going to be the biggest what-if that we've seen in the NBA in a long, long time. The Harden, Durant, Kyrie, Nets are the greatest hypothetical team in the history of the league and maybe the history of sports. And it's not even purely hypothetical because we saw it for 16 games or whatever it was. And it was that good.
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I don't know. I mean, how the hell am I supposed to know what the circumstances he dealt with over the last three, two plus seasons? We only have two full years of Steve Nash and like a handful of games where everything was already. You know, I said before the season, all that toothpaste is out of the tube. The trade demand, the discontent, the Kyrie opt in all of it. You can't put it back in. I don't care how hard you try, how great you say the vibes are, how good the pizza tasted when you all went out to dinner and put it on Instagram. It doesn't you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. You just can't. These are human beings.
Um, but in that first year, I think he was lauded for some, some pretty, pretty creative and flexible lineup choices. He figured out a way to use Bruce Brown as a roller and that offense, when the three of them were on the floor, it wasn't always just your turn, my turn, even though it was designed to be your turn, my turn against switching defenses in the playoffs. Oh, you're going to switch and take away all our pretty stuff. We got this guy, this guy, and this guy to go one-on-one good luck.
They had Kyrie was cutting at the best level of his career. They would be setting flare screens for Joe Harris and the hardened Harris pick and roll was the thing. Like they had figured out some stuff. Now, after that, the personality management stuff came in, came into play. I think this year with Simmons, it didn't appear that they really had a good plan for how to use him. And yeah,
It did devolve into your turn, my turn. I think a little too much. It was a little too hard for them. The playoffs last year were a disaster. So, you know, their defense, even in the 2021 playoffs, like they figured out a way to defend at a decent level with Blake Griffin at center and their drop back scheme kind of took the bucks out of their offense for a lot of that series. So I think the record on Steve Nash is unbelievable.
Some good, some not so good, some chaos. Like, I don't know who does a better job with that team in these circumstances, but they've clearly moved on. Woj is reporting that they're close to hiring Yime Udoka, which is a whole other, I was going to say bottle of worms. I think it's can of worms and bottle of something. I don't know. I don't really know how to put the Nash era to bed any more than that. Other than, I guess, Nick, I guess the move here is,
Try to salvage the season, right? I mean, it's not like they're giving up on the season. They're not giving up on the team. They still have these three guys that are being paid enormous amounts of money. They have Joe Harris hasn't looked like himself yet. He doesn't look as fast and as sort of quick on the trigger as he is, as he is and hopefully will be. Seth Curry's barely played.
They clearly got to figure out what to do at center, you know, because the Claxton Simmons lineups aren't working. Any lineup with Simmons isn't working so far. It's early sharps out of the rotation for the most part. Now they've got some stuff to figure out, but, but I guess if they do hire you may have Doka's وجas reporting there, they have not reached the,
The point of no return with this roster, they're going to try to, depending on what happens with Kyrie and what he says, I guess the plan is we still think we have some talent. Let's see what we can do. But Zach, this is the problem. They have reached the point of no return because this team was built to win a title and they're not going to do it. The Nets are kidding themselves.
kidding themselves if they think that Emei Udoka comes in if he ends up being the choice and then he's able to get him to play defense and he's able to get the pieces to work that is not going to happen
The coach of this team with this roster is not going to make the difference where you think, oh, okay, things are clicking a lot better. This is a title contender again. Never, ever going to happen. Ben Simmons has not been good at all. So you're right, and never going to happen is a strong word. You can only say never once. Never means never.
The Simmons thing, he's a walking triple single now, and he's afraid to shoot. He doesn't want to get fouled. Defensively, he hasn't been quite the same because he's being asked to play center a lot instead of hounding point guards, which is like, ironically, he was amazing at that with the Sixers against the Nets in the playoffs, taking D'Angelo Russell out of that playoff series. And he's never been...
Despite the endless Draymond comparisons, the one thing that he can't do like Draymond can is be a help defender, rim protector on the back line of a defense. That's never been who he is. But are we really ready to just cut bait on that, on him specifically after eight games? Well, the issue for the Nets is it doesn't really matter because with that contract, good luck. And that's the thing. If you wanted to blow it up right now, and I alluded to this with Durant,
This is beyond a position of weakness. I mean, Simmons is untradeable, borderline untradeable for anything other than someone else's unwanted stuff. Durant, all the offers you poo-pooed in the summer, and justifiable. This is Kevin Durant. Are the Celtics bowling you over right now? They haven't gotten better. Yeah, they haven't gotten better. And then Kyrie, look, I made a list of five teams that I thought,
not ignore, minimize all that other stuff and think about basketball. Here's where he'd make sense. I'd talk to a lot of people around the league over the weekend. And the sense I get is right now he's radioactive. Like even if you drop the price to nothing, the baggage is just too much. And you want to talk about, well, the Lakers are the most desperate team in the league. All right. The Lakers also play in a gigantic cosmopolitan city. All of the residents are following this story. Um,
I just don't know what else they're supposed to do except try to salvage this, and you're telling me it's unsalvageable. It's just not going to happen. And I think this ties directly into the Nash part of the conversation too, Zach. What Steve Nash got so frustrated with as you talk to people around that team day after day, me watching him, listening to him day after day, Nash wanted to come in and coach basketball.
He wanted to take Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving and then James Harden and make one of the most beautiful offenses that we've seen in the league and help bring a title to Brooklyn. But with the Nets...
It's never really about basketball. There's always some drama going on off the floor. There's always a distraction to take away from what's going on during games. And when that builds up within an organization day after day, week after week, this is the kind of situation that you fall into. And this is what any coach needs.
Any player who's coming to this team right now is going to deal with. But that's why if you're Joe Sy and you're Sean Marks and you've watched what's occurred in these first couple weeks and you've seen that Simmons is a shell of himself and you've seen that once again,
One more time, Kyrie Irving is involved in something that has nothing to do with basketball, that has been a huge cloud over the organization. And you've seen as great as Kevin still is. There are times when you watch him on the floor and you know he's thinking, what the hell am I doing here? When you have all that, how can you look in the mirror and say, hey, you know what?
Let's try to just run this thing back one more time and see what happens. You're not being honest with yourself if you're the Nets and you genuinely believe that you're going to bring a coach in, you're going to get healthy and get Simmons and Seth Curry back and Joe Harris looking better and truly believe that this team can make that kind of turnaround back to the top of the league.
I think I saw – I was not at the game last night. I think I saw a quote from Durant after the game talking about his turnover. I think he had six or seven turnovers last night saying – did you hear him say this? When you're guarded by all five guys, you're going to turn the ball over. Was it just what he said? That would set off some alarm bells in my head if I were a member of the Brooklyn Nets brain trust. That does not sound like a player who is psyched about –
His situation. How speaking of press exchanges, how so? So you're back and forth with Kyrie ends. Kyrie walks off, shouts at you, I think, make better choices or something like that. Change your life, bro. Change your life.
I mean, look, we all need to change our lives. I'm doing dry November, Nick. I'm in day two of dry November. We all need to make some changes. I mean, here and there. I don't know what you need to work on, but I- Yeah, we do. I can stop eating cheeseburgers at two in the morning, so I don't have a gut. I mean, that's how I can change it up. So that happens. What's the next 10 minutes like for you? Is your phone just going bananas? Did anyone from the Nets come talk to you and be like, hey, it's all right, bro. Don't worry, whatever. Did the assembled media-
you know, carry you out on their shoulders like Rudy. I mean, what happens? And what's the next 24 hours like? Have you had any interactions with Kyrie or his camp since then? Not one. My phone essentially exploded. It was burst into flames because people are texting me. They're calling me. They're, you know, are you all right? That was great. Thank you for doing that. But Zach, what's been really interesting to me is,
inside the league just how many people have called or texted and said thanks and that's what I wasn't prepared for in the moment and then what started to happen is the clip got viewed more and more times is that people from all over the place my friends who could care less about basketball a lot of Jewish people and I've got a lot of Jewish close friends and family they said
We appreciate what you did. We appreciate the conversation. And I was just doing my job. I was just asking questions that I felt like needed to be asked. You asked the Alex Jones one, which I thought was interesting because I
I had almost amid everything else forgotten about that. And I wonder what spurred you to, I guess it's obvious it's a dot to connect backwards after this latest movie, but what, what spurred you specifically? Did it, did that just come into your head in the moment? Because that was the question that started it. And when you asked it, I thought, Oh wow, I kind of forgot about that. Let's see what he says. And then he said about the new world order stuff. It's, it's all true. That, that part of it, that part of it,
Kind of got lost in the shuffle, but that was something. When I went into the press conference, given what had occurred, at least what I started thinking about was that question had never been asked. He had never been offered even the chance to explain himself. And I felt like if you're doing your job as a journalist, you ask the question and you allow the subject to explain.
discuss it however they would like to do so. So I felt like we started there and then trying to get into the next question was a mess for Kyrie because he clung to the promotion, the word promotion. And people keep asking me, well, did you think that that kind of stuff would happen? Anybody would watch last season. He and I got into it.
a bunch of different times about the vaccination stuff. All the time, we would go back and forth and back and forth. And I think that's the difference to me, Zach, is that certainly people in the Nets organization, they've gotten used to he and I having these exchanges. But in the moment, I didn't think that that exchange that we had was that much different than some of the contentious exchanges we
We had had a year ago. It was once my phone really started to explode. And once people started to say, oh, my gosh, like, what is he talking about? That I realized that it had taken on a different tenor. And I just add this to kind of end the conversation just about that moment in time.
people, a lot of people on social media, I mean, my mentions and Instagram, it, it's, it's really disgusting. The amount of people that have, have said and posted the stuff that they've said, but people are saying, Oh, you have an agenda. I have an agenda. I've actually enjoyed the conversations with Kyrie on a human to human basis. Uh,
I mean, everybody made fun of, ah, we're going to be best friends when he talked about it at media day. But I was in Minnesota, Zach, before a shoot around a couple of weeks ago at a preseason game. We had a great 10 minute conversation about basketball, about what it was like for me growing up in Orlando, what it was like for him growing up in New Jersey. It was just two people enjoying basketball.
getting to know one another. So to think that I was coming at Kyrie any differently than I would have any other day is ridiculous. I was just doing my job. But what I don't think he appreciated in the moment and certainly didn't appreciate in the next couple of days because we haven't heard anything from him still is just how many people he pissed off and upset.
And it was far deeper than just people in the NBA. By posting what he did, by promoting what he did, he really, really upset a vast number of people. And then to respond the way in which he did when offered the chance to explain himself further made it so, so much worse. Well put.
I mean, there's just not much more to say about, about the team other than they're two and six. Kevin Durant's averaging 33 points a game on 53% shooting 59% from twos. Kyrie has been sensational until last night when he looked like he didn't want to be in the game for some reason, even though the nets are protecting him from talking, which I don't know if he wants to talk or not. Um,
There's nothing to do now, but whoever the coach is, but go forward and try to salvage the season. And as Kevin Pelton wrote yesterday, their defense is probably a little better than it has appeared because teams are just making everything from three against them. But they're not going to be a good to great defensive team. They're going to be a horrible rebounding team that's just baked into how they are. They need to be an incredible offensive team.
to win a lot of games. And we knew that going in and to be an incredible offensive team, they need Ben Simmons to be 16, eight and eight all-star attack the rim drive Ben Simmons. And he hasn't been that guy. And without him, they're just, they're just sort of treading water. Do you think that guy's ever coming back?
I don't know. I hope so. As a human being, I root for him to come back. I just, I don't want to get, we all, we all can see the games. We all know how he's playing. I don't want to hammer him too hard now. Like we just, let's give him some time. But look to your point earlier, when you trade the whole thing for Harden after signing these two guys, you are, it's, it's, it's finals or bust. I mean, it's hard to say championship or bust because you need a little luck. You need, you need to stay healthy. Every way. It's hard to win a title, but it's like, make a real run at it.
And right now it's bust. And I don't want to have the Durant like legacy conversation yet. Why did he leave Golden State? Should he have ever gone to Golden State? Did he not realize that Golden State was never going to be his team? It was always going to be Steph's team. Is that why he left? Should he have gone to Boston? Should he have stayed in Oklahoma City? Should he have gone to DC? Can he win as the leader of his own team? That's the one that really seems to be. Because we did that over the summer and we talked about, you know, his next team is
is going to be crucial to how we remember him. I'm going to remember him as Kevin freaking Durant, no matter what happens from here on out. But there are definitely, to put it politely, more questions than answers about the Brooklyn Nets right now. And I think we're all glad you're there to chronicle whatever happens next, Nick. I don't know. I don't even know what to tell you, except I'm going to be
I think they go on the road now for a bit. You'll see me at their next home game, I think. And God only knows what will be going on then, my friend. It's a situation unlike I've ever experienced as a journalist. Every day with this team brings something different.
Sometimes it's stuff related to basketball. Sometimes it has zero to do with the game. But, Zach, you and I have covered the league a long time. I've never seen a situation with one team so volatile on a daily basis. And I can't tell you in the last few days, and it was in the wake of the Kyrie press conference exchange, but how many people in the league
are texting me and they're saying, I can't believe how bad it is there. It's constantly working through all kinds of different stuff. And this goes back to why I use the word never with this specific team.
I don't believe when you have all those other distractions, even when you have someone as historically great as Kevin Durant is that can't make up for all the other stuff that they are dealing with to try and work through to win basketball games. And to your point about the volatility, you and I were both at the Mavericks game last week, which was a fantastic game, a great duel between Luca and, and Durant slash Kyrie. Um,
They almost won that game. They've had a couple other close losses. And, and, and at that game, the vibe around the team was not like this, the vibe around the team. Then that's six days ago. We got, I don't remember when it was a week ago was patience, calm. Steve's not in trouble and, and, and everything. You just sort of wonder like, what if they had won one of those games? Like, would that still be the vibe? But here we are. And, um,
Where we go next is who knows. I mean, the trade deadline is still three months away. We'll see. But Nick Friedel, keep up the good work. We'll see you across the airwaves. We'll hear you across the airwaves. And I will see you in Brooklyn, I think, next week when they get back from the road. I always appreciate you having me, buddy. And I always look forward to the conversations because it's just it's incredible how
The craziness that surrounds this group on a daily basis. All right, let's transition from all the vile stuff happening in Brooklyn and play a game of Are We Worried Yet? with a Western Conference focus, which means we're bringing in from the Hoop Collective, from ESPN.com, from the YouTube digital sensation, Howdy Partners. Tim McMahon, how are you? Howdy, partner.
It's great. Hey, it's great to be here. You know, anytime you want to lighten the mood and make it all, you know, warm and fuzzy, you bring me. Oh, wait, we're talking about disappointing teams. So much for warm and fuzzy, but let's get to it. I did Utah many times last week. I did Portland last week. It's time to dive into the out. How are we worried? And we're not going to do Lakers. We're not going to do Clippers. We've done plenty of that. We're only going to do three teams, really. And these three teams are off to very –
I'm interested to talk about them because they are often very strange and confusing starts and could be interpreted in lots of different ways. And we're not going to do your Dallas Mavericks either. They've only played six games. We're just still learning about the Mavs.
We are going to start, however, with the Golden State Warriors, who lost their third consecutive road game against an Eastern Conference team last night in Miami. They are now three and five. They have lost four of their last five games, with the other loss being a blowout against the Suns, where Klay Thompson got ejected and indicated that he has won four championship rings to Devin Booker several times. The Warriors are 20th.
Yeah, put them up. Put them up. All four. Oh, that's right. I can do that now. Four. There's one. I got one right there. Tenuous. Holding tenuously onto that. The Warriors are 20th in offense. That doesn't seem good. 25th in defense. That seems really bad.
23rd with a minus 4.1 differential per 100 possessions and in a stat that either gives you optimism or pessimism are plus 29 in Steph Curry's minutes and minus 59 in 114 minutes about a point every two minutes losing pace with Steph Curry on the bench they are obviously experimenting with five-man bench mobs and James Wiseman and Kuminga's in and out of the rotation um
But three and five is three and five, man. Are you concerned or is this all just part of the growth process of figuring out the team? So I think there's certainly legitimate reason for concern, but
But I wouldn't push any panic buttons. And here's the thing. I think the Warriors season ultimately is going to be about how much are they willing to invest in the development of those young guys, of Wiseman in particular, and at what point or do we get to the point where they kind of pull the plug on that? And certainly...
I think it's safe to say that the way things are looking now, at least come playoff time, Steve Kerr is going to have that decision to make. And look, if it, if it,
Is going the way it's going right now. Wiseman will take a seat during the playoffs and watch the watch the vets play. But they have to give him, you know, he's a number two overall pick that you can't like his talent does pop off the screen. Like you watch him play. And if you just look at his counting stats, you're like, what do you mean this guy stinks?
I, you know, you watch him run the floor, you watch, you know, you watch him finish, you watch some of the lobs that he catches, you know, he'll have a spectacular block shot. I mean, he looks the part, but man, they just bleed points when he's on the floor. He doesn't know how to play in the NBA. And it's not shocking. Like look at all the time he's missed. He played what? Like three games in college, uh,
But that's why I don't panic right now. I'm not too worried about the Warriors. And then the other thing is, you know, Clay didn't play all summer long. Yeah, that's been well chronicled. He's clearly not himself. Now, is he ever going to get back to being Pete Clay? Of course not.
not coming off of two major injuries, not well into his 30s. But Klay Thompson will be better at Thanksgiving than he was at Halloween. He'll be better at Christmas than he was at Thanksgiving. And so that's why I don't worry too much. Yeah, Klay is 13 points a game, 35% shooting, 29.5% on threes. Defensively, he just looks great.
Okay. Like Kyle Lowry is blown by him a couple of times in the last two games that they've played against each other. And Kyle Lowry is not blown by a whole lot of people these days. And look like we can talk about the kids. Right. And I agree with you. Like the young guys are, this is all like the warriors when it matters are never going to have Steph clay and Draymond on the bench at the same time. And they have them on the bench at the same time for extended periods of every game this season. But yeah,
So the young kids will either be in the rotation because they've earned it at the end or they won't be in the rotation sooner rather than that. Maybe not sooner rather than later, but in the end anyway. At least when it comes time. And, you know, it might that time might come sooner than later if they're looking at saying, dude, if we don't turn it on, we're good. We're looking at a play in type of scenario. Like at some point it might not just be about, OK, hey, what are we doing for the playoffs? It might be about, hey, OK, OK.
We need to fight for some seating here. Yeah, at this point, it's even early for that. Phoenix is the only team in the West, as we're going to talk about, that has really sort of blown the doors off people other than Utah, and we'll see what happens with Utah going forward. Don't you discount those Sanford?
San Antonio Spurs. Oh, yeah, the Spurs. Come on, baby. Can I go ahead and just discount the Spurs long-term playoff chances? I'm going to go ahead and discount the Spurs. I'm waiting for Pop to say, you know what? I was wrong. Put your money down on us, baby. That's right. That's right. That's a great point. Pop has to reconsider his advice from earlier in the season. But what I was going to say was the young guys, everyone wants to focus on the young guys, and that's fine. Wiseman is...
On offense, he's just a pure finisher. That's all he can do. He can't pass. He can't play make. He can't DHO. He can't do any of the Warriors things. And that's fine that they knew that when they drafted him. That's what he is.
defensively, he's a little bit lost his height and his shot blocking impacts the game tangibly, but teams are shooting 70% at the rim when he's the closest defender. That's really bad. And like he's, when he drops back, he's so far back in the paint that you can't give NBA players that amount of runway to the rim or that, that much space to make a pocket pass. It's just too much space. But again, that's, that's a project. This is about clay, uh,
and Draymond to me. And Klay, I think, will look better as the season goes on. Steph is Steph. It's just insane how good he is. Wiggins looks just incredibly comfortable in every facet of the game. Looney is Looney. Their starters are blowing. Their starters are plus 58 in 92 minutes. The starters are amazing. Draymond looks...
like a B right now. He doesn't look... I don't mean a B like flying around. I mean like a letter grade B. Not like the B that stung Rudy Gobert before his final game in Utah. Oh, boy. We'll get to Gobert in a little bit here. We will. Draymond looks good, but...
but not like the all court wrecking crew. He was on defense before he got injured last year. Just, just good. His blocks and steals are a little bit down. His rebounding is down and this team does not rebound very well. And his rebounding personally is done. If they're going to play him at center a lot,
He needs to rebound a lot. And that's what you're talking about. When you say like, if Wiseman's out of the rotation, who goes in? Well, it's more Draymond at center. I actually like the idea of Draymond Green and Jermichael Green, the greens playing together at the four and the five. They haven't done that much. Jermichael Green is added in the main, the main green.
Oh, great mascot. Love the mean green. Joe Michael Green has added like a nice offensive rebounding dimension to this team. Dante DiVincenzo, who I think is an important part of their team, has barely played this season due to injury. He needs to get healthy. I'm a believer in Moody. I think Moody is a good bet to get into their rotation. I might I might have to take the L on something here, Tim. Oh, yeah.
Middle of last season, I was just head over heels for Kaminga because athletically what he can do is so special. And I even said...
I understand that Franz Wagner would have been a better plug-and-play fit for the Warriors. But I'm not losing any sleep over drafting Kamingo over Franz Wagner because of the potential. Right now, I'm losing a lot. I'd be thinking about Franz Wagner. Head on the pillow, I'm just...
Oh man, that Dirk shot. Oh, closing my eyes. That Dirk shot. He's got the running, the running hook. He just always knows where to be. Oh, he can run, pick and roll. He can catch and shoot. Yeah. I'm taking the L on that one. And the Warriors are taking the L on that one. Yeah. That's a, that's a pretty, that's a pretty significant L and, and look,
Maybe Kaminga develops. He's clearly not ready yet. I think he was DNPCD last night in Miami. He's been DNPCD in several recent games. Yeah, and the other thing about that, we're talking about are you worried for this year? That's obviously a long-term developmental worry because here's the thing. If Kaminga's not a dude, can they afford to part ways with Draymond? Or does Draymond have them back over a barrel?
Well, you know, let's just let's just say that that's something that will be revisited as we go. Yeah. The idea maybe this is a last dance season for the Warriors and maybe it's not. I think it's going to depend a lot on how they play both the veterans and the and the young guys. But yeah, I mean, the Wagner one, I'm taking the L on because you did have to approach those picks differently.
At least one of them with a shorter term lens. You couldn't go home run prospect on all three because Curry Thompson and Green are just not at the age. If you're trying to do both win now and later, you had to pick one win now guy and they didn't. I guess Moody would be the closest one. But Moody is the only one of those three lottery picks that is ready to contribute.
consistently right now. The other two guys, Wiseman, there's flashes of brilliance and then overall it's like, oh goodness sakes, that's a problem. And then the fact that Kaminga's not getting consistent minutes tells you all you need to know right now. Here are a couple things that are slightly concerning other than the young guys.
Warriors are sporting their opponents five and a half free throw attempts a game. They're fouling the crap out of everybody, which I think speaks to some of the holes that are emerging at the top of the defense, and they don't get to the line very much themselves. It's hard to win when you're giving away five points a game. They are 30th
last there are 30 teams in the base that's last thanks for that math lesson in in shots at the basket which doesn't sound like much because you think of them as a long-range shooting team they're a jump shooting team one of their secret sauces in their best years was that they actually got to the basket a fair amount at an average or a little bit better than average rate because of all the space their incredible jump shooting opened up in the middle of the floor for them to be 30th
raises alarm bells to me. And I'm especially given how much they try to get out in transition, which should finish with some shots at the rim. It's something I've got my eye on. And, and,
The last thing, Curry, Poole, Thompson. So the three guards that they've invested $9 gazillion in minus 22 in 54 minutes. They blew the doors off everybody in the regular season last year. And as the competition got stiffer and stiffer, we saw less of the pool party lineup, less of the three guards together. So those are some things I've got my eye on that one at the rim.
That, that, that worries me a little bit. And I'm not, I can't honestly pinpoint really why that is, except maybe clay and Draymond just don't quite have the same amount of juice that they usually have. I don't know. I can't pinpoint it. Well, and, and pool has been his, his numbers overall this season stink. Now there's been two terrible games, including last night in Miami that are really dragging those down. His, his plus minus is absolutely atrocious. Now, how much of that is because he's having to play with these young guys and
But man, if they overpaid significantly for Jordan Poole, that is a massive problem going forward. If he's not a $120-plus million player, or whatever the math works out, a $300-plus million player when you get done with luxury tax, that's pretty scary.
Yeah, I'm looking up looking up his numbers now because he has been up and down. I don't know. I have faith in his sort of creativity and his age and the fact that the cap is going to go up so dramatically that I'm not that worried. But yes, 17 a game, 44 percent shooting, 32 percent for three is 58 percent on two. You like five assists. The game is passing is, I think, the most underrated part of his game. I love him as a passer.
I'm not. So my verdict is to the question, are you worried? What is your verdict? Are you worried? You can say whatever you want. You don't have to say yes or no. I'm a kind, generous host. You can hedge. Uh,
I'm giving the Warriors the benefit of the doubt as a four-time championship franchise that is doing a lot of tinkering and experimenting and trying to develop. I still think we're going to look up late in the season and the Warriors will be... I don't think they'll be at the top of the West in the standings, but I think they're going to be right...
in the thick of things. And there's certainly not going to be somebody that anybody's eager to see come playoff time. No one is eager to see Steph Curry. It's just you can hear people shrieking every time he catches the ball anywhere on the floor in transition. The guy is a freaking God. My verdict is I am only a little bit worried. Like, I'm not that worried. I'm worried like...
Like the check engine light is on in my car and like I just got to, you know, ignore it for a while and maybe take it in a thousand miles or so. I'm not that worried, but it is. It's not. It's not nothing. It's not nothing. Losing. How long is a thousand miles in an NBA season? I don't know. Ten games, eight games, 12 games. But, you know, three straight, though. Charlotte, Detroit, Miami. Like that's.
That's unusual. I don't care who you're playing and in what combinations you're playing them. For the Warriors, that's a little unusual. Well, let's be honest. Losing to Charlotte and Detroit is unusual, period. Although they've had some flashbulb losses in Charlotte over the years because those are the Steph Curry homecoming games and everyone pays extra attention to them. Yeah, and Steph did admit that he got sucked into a hero ball hometown moment at the end of the game, and he owned that one.
Are you worried? Part two, the Minnesota Timberwolves traded everything short of a lake and a target store for Rudy Gobert in the offseason. Four and four. Six of those eight games have come against Oklahoma City, San Antonio, and the Lakers. So that's a friendly opening season schedule. They're four and four. Okay.
San Antonio certainly wasn't friendly to him. It wasn't friendly to him, but if you're a serious team, and in one of those games, I watched the most recent one, half the Spurs rotation players weren't even playing. They were starting Kata Bates' job. It was like, who are these guys? What's going on? They're 24th in offense. That's not right. Eighth in defense. That's pretty good.
Average in net rating with Kat and Rudy on the floor. They are awful on offense and good on defense, but the good does not outweigh the awful. That's a net negative with Kat by himself. No, Rudy. Amazing on offense. Crap tire fire on defense with Rudy and no cat. Amazing on defense. Crap tire fire on offense. Exactly what you would expect from
I watched this team. I don't know. I've watched probably half their games all the way through. I just don't even know. I don't know what to make of it. It's just a morass of confusion to me. And obviously we knew that the Cat-Go-Bear fit on both ends was going to be
And it was weird last night to watch cat chasing cam Johnson around on the perimeter on defense and getting lost in all sorts of screening actions. And you look at cat's numbers, 22 and eight, that's pretty low for him. Five and a half assists. That's up. He's facilitating more. His shots at the rim are way, way, way down. And it'd been replaced by mid range shots and some threes. That's sort of interesting and not surprising given that there's another big person near the rim. Um,
I knew we knew it was going to be clunky at first with a high upside. I didn't think it would be. It's a little clunkier than I thought. You are a Gobert expert. You've watched this team closely. What has struck out to you so far? Yeah, I actually went up to Oklahoma City to see them in one of the games they managed to win. And so I'm going to make some excuses for them to start off.
I don't think you're excused. This is just real life. It's not easy to do all this. And Kat, you're going to say Kat was in the freaking hospital shortly before training camp started. Right. So Kat missed training camp most of the preseason. Gobert coming off of a, you know, a
a Eurobasket run where France went all the way to the final. So they had to kind of manage him. So you're making these massive changes and you don't have time for those guys to work together. I don't think a slow start is necessarily surprising, but yeah, I am worried because, uh,
The things that I was worried about specifically, the spacing offensively, how's this going to work offensively with those two guys together? We've seen it. And then also every time Anthony Edwards opens his mouth, he's basically kind of grumbling. Last night he had another doozy. Not too long ago he had – actually, right before I saw him on OKC, he said something along the lines of, the smaller the lineup, the better for me.
And then when I was with him in Oklahoma city, some local guys are asking him about lineup stuff. He's just like, Hey, do me a favor. Don't ask me about lineup stuff. You know, and he's walking out with the, with Sarah Perez, their PR chief. He says, Hey, you know, those guys work for us. We tell them not to ask me about life. She's like, that worked for us. So he's got a lot to learn, but essentially he's like, that's a real, that's a real thing that happened. Yes. But he's like, don't ask me about the lineup stuff because essentially he's
It ain't his job. He didn't want to be put in a position where he's not thrilled with the lineups. And then last night, this is a shocking stat. Anthony Edwards has zero dunks this season. I couldn't believe that when that made the rounds. They asked him about that. And this is from Dane Moore does a great job covering the Timberwolves.
Uh, aunt says, everybody is in the paint. I'm only six, four, six, five. I can't just jump over everybody, man. I ain't as tall as Giannis. Everybody be asking me to dunk the ball. Like it's all peaches and cream. I've got to get a good lane to dunk the ball. Now there's some truth to that. I would also say perhaps all the peaches and cream is part of the problem, man. I mean, you heard cat grumbling about Popeye's and showed up fat.
Now, he'll tell you, well, I was in the weight room. But, dude, and they did a slick job of calling him out by putting his actual weight on the official roster. They put 6'4", 239 on the roster. Now, I guess you have to put the official height. Trust me, you don't have to put the official weight. I know that because I cover the Mavericks on a regular basis, and they still list Luka at 230.
If Lucas 230, he ain't got both feet on the scale. I can promise you that. But so that they wanted everybody to know, hey, Ant showed up weighing 239. He showed up looking like a middle linebacker that you got to take off the field on third down. Okay.
When do you get to change your weight? Can I do a... If we did that at ESPN and I got back from vacation and we're like, everyone's going to weigh in. We're going to put low. 5'11 to 3 quarters. I claim six feet. Let me claim six feet. First of all, I'm claiming six feet. Second of all, can we do it again in a month and we can just switch that we can update it, please? Ant's thing is, hey, I'm back down to 230. But like
You know, if you ask him, he'll tell you, yeah, I've got to get in tip top shape. And so like, that's part of the problem here too. Yes. You don't have as much space. The other thing is you're not like you take up too much damn space. You're too big. And dude, it's just, it is an immature team. It is a team that really needs leadership. And I know Rudy, I know Rudy wants to be that leader, but for whatever reason, and we saw this in Utah, uh,
Teammates don't really respond to Rudy as a leader. I don't think D'Angelo Russell is the right point guard on this team. If you're going to have funky spacing issues and stuff you're going to have to figure out, I think you've got to have a real...
you know, floor general type of point guard. I don't think he's that guy. 14 points and six times a game on 40% shooting 28% from three. And I just wrote on my notes next to those numbers. Oh, let me ask you this pure hypothetical. Oh, would you go back to the jazz? Well, would you trade and the salaries aren't a perfect match, but whatever, figure out the, the et cetera. Would you Danza Russell or Mike Conley?
I got to think about that. So here's the reason I think it would make sense for the jazz, because it kind of eliminates the, the issue of what do we do about Conley's money next season? 14 mil guaranteed. That's if you wave them and it's, I forget, I forget the exact number, but it's somewhere in the twenties if he's on the roster. And then for the, for the Timberwolves, it gives you a legitimate point guard, an adult in the room, which I think is, is a,
very necessary right now. A guy who has experience playing with Gobert. I think it would make the Timberwolves significantly better. Great Salt-N-Pepa album from the 90s, by the way. Very necessary. We'll throw it back for you. I don't know if I would do that. I haven't wrapped my mind around that. But to your point, both they and the Hawks and other teams had this sort of interesting choice, particularly the Timberwolves. I talked about it over the summer.
Do we throw our chips in for a big man, Gobert, or a point guard, DeJounte Murray?
And I was on team DeJounte Murray from Minnesota. I thought that was a great fit. Obviously, the jump shooting is a little bit of a question, but I pitched a deal of like D'Angelo Russell plus two first round picks or some draft compensation for DeJounte Murray. They went the other way and supersized themselves. And I think they're going to win a lot of games. Like, I'm not really worried about them yet. It's been a little clunkier, particularly in the half court than I thought it would be.
Um, Anthony Edwards hasn't shown that he's made enough of a leap as a passer, but he's young. I think, I think that will come in time and they obviously bet on it coming sooner rather than later. We'll see. Um, but that's the way I would have gone. And like, you look at the numbers, they're 23rd in three point attempts as a, as a percentage of shot attempts. And you know, that's not how Chris Finch wants to play. Like they bombed away last year until your adult in the room point.
When this team wants to get serious, you know how we'll know? They'll f***ing rebound the ball. Like, they're 26th in defensive rebounding after being 20. With the guy who's leading the league in rebounding. They're basically like, hey, Rudy, you grab all the rebounds and we'll be chilling over here. They got the human vacuum cleaner.
to their dead last rebounding team. And they're still almost dead last. And you look at the, all you do is watch the misses. Nobody on this team boxes out anybody at all. That's cat. That's ant. That's everybody except go bear. And when you're serious, then you'll start doing that. All that said, I do. I think they have enough on the bench. You know, slow-mo has missed a couple of games. I like the way slow-mo and cat fit together. I wouldn't play slow-mo and go bear together all that much. And they're not, you know,
Nas Reed's giving him some minutes. McLaughlin's fine. Prince is fine. Nas Reed's good when he plays, but there's not minutes for him. No, he's got to play with Cat, basically. Cat's not a serious star player. Cat is not a winner. He's never been a winner. Jimmy Butler got one season of Cat and burned the whole place down. I'm sorry. I cannot believe it. I'm going to believe it when I see it. He's deep into his career now. We have not seen it.
He's a losing basketball player.
I don't, I wouldn't, I understand why people say, look, I, I, I just called him out for not boxing out. I think offensively, he's so special that I'm not quite ready to put that label on him, but in the playoffs, he was not. Yeah. Except for when the lights are bright. No, it's true. He hasn't been as special in the play-in or the play. I mean, I said his stats before the season, his playoff stats are like 18 and 11 with more assistant or with more turnovers than assists. And like, it's not close and a ton of fouls. Like this is the year. This is it. This is put up a shut up time, but that,
That said, am I worried? I'm not worried yet. I still think they're going to win a lot of regular season games. I never really thought that they were going to be a championship contender. They were, I think, a solid playoff team, and I still think that at 4-4, but the schedule is going to get real soon. But I'm going, no, I'm not that worried because my expectations for the Warriors were higher, and so their weirdness is a little bit more striking to me. The Wolves being 4-4 and clunky out of the gates is not that shocking. So I'm going not worried. What are you going with?
I'm pretty concerned, and I'm concerned because I know that Cat and Ant weren't consulted on the Gobert stuff. They were surprised by it, which is pretty unusual in today's NBA for your franchise cornerstones not to know what's going on with a massive move like that. And honestly, I'm worried because I don't believe in Cat as a winning piece, and I'm worried because every time I hear something from Anthony Edwards, it's basically him grumbling.
I had heard at the time that Cat expressed his willingness to play with a traditional center before they made that trade. But maybe the Gobert part of it was... I don't know. We'll see. Can we move on to team number three? Absolutely. Are you worried?
About the Denver Nuggets, 4-3, 14th in offense, 26th in defense, 26th, minus 2.8 points per 100 possessions. That's 22nd overall. With Nikoli Okic. Stop me if you've heard this before. With Nikoli Okic on the floor, plus 36.
Plus seven per hundred possessions with Nicole Jokic off the floor. Minus 56 and 106 minutes. Minus 25 per 100 possessions. The starters are killing it. The Bruce Brown plus starters in place of Michael Porter Jr. lineup, which I love, is killing it. KCP is killing it. Jokic is not scoring or shooting threes like we've seen from him in the past. That's fine. Who cares? Jamal Murray, rusty, rusty, rounding back into form. Michael Porter Jr.,
hitting a lot of threes. That's what they want him to do. He's hitting a lot of threes still up and down. They've had good wins. They've had blowout losses. They've had bad losses.
Again, I've watched a bunch. I'm like, no, I don't know what's going on here. They just seem OK to me. And they've won four games. Are you worried? Well, I'm shocked that it falls off a cliff when they put DeAndre Jordan in the game. I mean, I figure when they signed him 12 seconds into free agency, they solved all their problems with Jokic off the floor. Can't believe this is working out that way. I know you as a guy who saw him up close in Brooklyn. You're pretty surprised by that whole development. Yeah, you know.
It's really what we started. I started this podcast with Nick Friedel by reminiscing about how Kenny Atkinson got fired in part for daring to realize Jared Allen was significantly better than DeAndre Jordan and construct his rotation as such. And the penalty for that was off with your head. Tell you what, that is a fireball offense if I've ever seen one. I'm not worried because
you got to give Jamal Murray some time. And, you know, I think Jamal Murray, how close he can get back to who he was before the injury that will determine the ceiling. Um,
for this team. The defense, that's interesting because I did feel like, hey, you go get KCP. You bring in Bruce Brown. I thought those were two pieces that fit really well and were pretty significant defensive upgrades. You know, you bring Michael Porter Jr. back into rotation. That's not necessarily a defensive upgrade. But again, I just...
But going into this season, I felt like patience was going to be a requirement for following the Nuggets. And so I don't think you can change that approach a couple weeks in the season. Yeah, they're allowing a lot of threes, 25th and three-pointers allowed, and a decent amount of shots at the rim. That's not a bad combination.
And they are 27th in field goal percentage at the rim allowed after being last last season. So they are not stopping anyone from making baskets at the rim or really getting there. Interestingly, Jokic is contesting the most shots at the rim in the entire league, 10.6 a game. And opponents have only hit 59% of them, which isn't great, but it's also not bad. It's like average. So I don't, you know, that's interesting to me.
You know, the shot selection allowed is worrisome. The fact that they've never really figured out... It's never felt like they...
They were certain about this is how we want to defend with Jokic. The closest they've gotten is they like him up at the level of the screen instead of dropping back. But they know that that has pitfalls, too, just like it does in Minnesota. By the way, we're seeing this when when Kat plays center, they're pretty aggressive, almost in the style that they were last season. And he has not executed that well at the point of a point of attack. If you make a fake.
before using a pick and roll against Kat. He's going to bite on that fake, and you're going to have the other direction wide open. Jokic is okay at that. They have much better defenders on the perimeter. To get around screens, that was the whole bet with KCP and Bruce Brown, and even Jamal Murray's not bad at it. So I'm interested to see how that evolves. We didn't talk about the Kat-Rudy thing on defense either. Against the Spurs in one of those games, they put Rudy on Bates-Diop and put Kat on Pirtle.
And that's part of the learning process there too, is like, when does it make sense to use Rudy as kind of a rim protector on stretch fours and put cat back on fives? And maybe we can defend a little more conservatively with cat. That's interesting. But the Yoko's thing, it would be, he does need to shoot more threes. Like he's not shooting any threes. He doesn't want to shoot them, but you know, I'm with you. I kind of trust in the ecosystem of this team. Yeah. And you knew Jamal Murray wasn't going to be right. I will say, uh,
Porter already missing some games and the worrisome. Yeah, that, that, that's concerning. That is. And then, you know, I guess the flip side of that is, Hey, he's coming off his third back surgery. Like you knew he wasn't going to play 82. You knew they were going to have to, to manage him some. But look, if, if the nuggets are going to be a real factor in the Western conference, then Jamal Murray has to be an all-star caliber player. And,
And, you know, Michael Porter Jr. has to at least be one of the best third options in the league. Yeah. And the bench. Look, I love the Bruce Brown fit. I wish Zeke Nagy would play more. Jeff Green is fine. Jeff Green is going to be what he is.
bones highland it this is a i i said before the season i feel like everyone's getting a little ahead of their skis with bones highland as a six man of the year favorite and all that he's good but it's a lot for a second year guy he's averaging 12 a game shooting 26 on twos which means he's he's shooting well from three um
Christian Braun, I'm never going to get it right. Christian Brown, even though it's spelled Braun, it's going to dog me for the rest of my career. I'm sorry, Christian. It's been fine. They need to figure out the bench rotation a little bit, which we all knew going in. Well, and the Bones thing, he is fun, and he's an exciting young player. I think they miss Monte Morris, though, in terms of being kind of a –
calming presence, you know, kind of a, an, an, an organizer, a run your team type of guy where bones is a gunner. Like, you know, he's,
He's playing point guard with that second unit, but he's not really a point guard. I mean, he's a Lou Williams type of guy. He's delightful. Bones is delightful. But yes, he is not a stabilizing force of your offense. He is a force of his own kind, but it's not a stabilizing force. He's a destabilizing force in good ways. He'll destabilize the game in good ways. And so they've got some things to figure out, and he's got some growth potential.
to do. I don't know if he's ever going to become more of a point guard than he is now, but I think this team needs him to, whether that's possible or not, is a TBD. And I also think there are smartly
slow playing yoke at you a little bit. Like we're not going to overfeed you in the post. We're not going to ask you to do everything. We're not going to play you gazillion minutes because we've seen that movie and it ends with you being tired in the playoffs. And I think there's especially coming off a Euro basket, which is interesting. You know, I think I do think that's a factor. Uh,
uh, with the Oak, which I think it's a factor with go bear, you know, it's interesting, you know, Luke is 23 and, you know, with him, it's more like, well, at least we know he's in game shape when he shows up for camp and said, well, you know what we've seen the last couple of years, but man, the, the, what these guys have to do, the schedule that they have to go through with their national teams for Eurobasket is, is honestly, it's ridiculous. It's hard. It's hard. And, and,
You know, I but I think it's smart to just sort of I think it's smart for him to pace himself, too. I mean, and, you know, naturally, he he has embraced being a scorer, but, you know, naturally, he just wants to pass all the time, which is OK. Just fine. Pass all the time. Don't don't brutalize people in the post. Don't don't bang around all the time. I do wonder if they're going to have to when he sits on the bench.
If it's going to have to be like a kitchen sink kind of approach, like when Embiid sits on the bench and they put all the rest of their key players in with their backups. I wonder if that's going to have to be the case. But, you know, it's weird. I mean, you got to hand it to the Suns, by the way. One team we're not we're not talking about.
We all wrote them off as contenders. I didn't put them in my inner circle of contenders. I still am not really convinced that's the wrong decision, but DeAndre Ayton's missed time, and they just keep winning games, and they've blown the doors off some of these teams lately. No, I was convinced that the sign, again, not that they would melt down, but they would take a major step back for a variety of reasons. And we'll see if demons pop back up.
come playoff time, but it's pretty clear they're going to win a lot of games in the regular season. And, you know, they've – like, I'm sitting there at halftime of their opener. The Mavericks are blowing them out. Luka's dominating them again. I'm like, oh, my God, this is a bigger disaster than I thought. They've lost one game in overtime at Portland. That's it. And they've, I believe, are leading the league in net rating.
Yeah, and Aiton has missed the last couple games. Chris Paul has not been anything like Chris Paul, maybe at least as a scorer, as a distributor. He hasn't scored, but the guy's like 15 assists, one turnover. He had a turnover last night. I think the last two games, he's like 27 assists and one turnover. And he does the little postgame walk-off interview, and all he wants to do is bitch about the call and the turnover. Yeah.
Well, that's Chris. But they have needed his scoring in the past. And I guess what we're saying is it's a compliment to Cam Johnson and Mikael Bridges, both of whom, particularly Bridges, have been just sensational on both ends of the floor. I know you want to talk about Jock Landale. He's been good. Jock Landale's been good. He's been awesome.
He's been good. So kudos, kudos to the sons without eight and without Crowder just continuing to win games. But yeah, I'm not worried about the nuggets, but it's been a weird start to the season. Like these three teams we've talked about, you watch them a lot. And it's like, I kind of just, it's weird that I feel like I don't have a good feel for them yet. So I wanted to do a little temperature take on teams that aren't the Lakers or the Clippers in the Western conference. Mr. McMahon, any parting thoughts before you head over to a,
Well, can we say where you're going? I'm going to see those mighty scrappy little Utah Jazz, man. One of the Jazz, the Spurs. I'm seeing one of the juggernauts in the Western Conference.
Uh, no, I think, I think we've nailed it. I think, uh, you know, the, if, if I'm a Minnesota fan, uh, I've got some, some more gray hairs popping up in the beard, uh, Denver wait and see, and the Warriors give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that, uh, these young bucks, whether you're going to earn their minutes later in the season, or they're going to be, uh, sitting and watching down the stretch. Tim McMahon, your work is fantastic. It's always good to see you. Uh,
You can read them in ESPN.com. You can listen to them with those two other windbags on the Hoop Collective, and you can listen to them on Howdy Partners. Thank you, sir. That's a YouTube sensation. One windbag and one wind horse, by the way. They don't listen, so I can say whatever I want about them. But when they make fun of me, I hear it. So there's something to be said there. All right, Tim McMahon, thank you, sir. Appreciate you, brother. Thank you.