Lamar Hurd and Mike Prada
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And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. And I've had a couple teams on the mind. Two teams having kind of weird seasons, both of whom, as we podcasted about over the summer, locked themselves into gigantic contracts for franchise guards. First, we're going to start with the Portland Trailblazers, and we're recording this on Tuesday afternoon. What a difference.

A week or so makes the Blazers were on top of the world, nine and three. All the all the all the Blazers fans who heard people like me say it's kind of a lot team 500 team yelling, screaming, taunting. Then Damian Lillard's calf strain acts up. They've lost four out of five. And I'm interested to see what this team is and to talk about it.

I I'm going to gas you up right off the bat. Lamar heard who does the color commentating alongside Kevin Calabro is a star in broadcasting is and will continue to be a star. And you're annoying to me in that you're one of those people who can sit courtside. I don't know if you watch the game or you watch the monitor a little bit of both.

And every time I see some sort of interesting X's and O's wrinkle, like, oh, look, look how they rotated against this pick and roll from the strong side and instead of the weak side. And I'm going to write about this because no one spots this kind of stuff in real time. There goes Lamar Hurd being like, so if we slow down the film right there, watch how the players rotate. Lamar, man, it's great to have you on. I'm a huge fan.

Hey, thanks for having me. My fault. I didn't realize I was messing up your writing because, as you know, I'm a fan of your writing, as is most of the NBA world. And so I'll be a little more cognizant of that throughout my analysis because I'm not trying to mess anything up. And really, in all seriousness, man, this is my first time being able to join you. And I and I, I've had the chance to tell you this one time privately, but I like to say publicly, like,

Dude, I really appreciate you because my first year of broadcasting in the NBA world, I remember there was this one morning I woke up.

and my phone was going crazy and I didn't know what was going on it was my first two months of being with the trailblazers and the first thing I'm thinking is oh my goodness I got in trouble or I did something but I didn't know what I did and I opened up the phone and I see all these notifications about Zach Lowe uh writing about us and his uh 10 things he likes doesn't like and so um

That was really big for me, man. I appreciate you kind of welcoming me in to the world that you were already a part of. So I'm glad to join you today. Let's chop it up about the Blazers, who are 10-7, 7-4 with Dame, 3-3 without Dame. They are 13th in offense, 11th in defense.

And the West is they fell from first to eighth in like the blink of an eye. They're 10 and seven. I somewhat infamously called this roster blah, blah. I said blah many times before the season. And by blah, I just meant 500. Don't really see an upside better than 500. And although they've fallen back,

to not 500, but closer to 500 than they were. And it's clearly going to be a battle just to get out of the play in the West because the West is that loaded. I do think this team is better than I thought they were going to be. There's certainly the athleticism and the length around the two star guards and Nurkic in the middle really jumps off the page. They're creative. They're well coached.

I still don't really know where they stack up in the West. And that's in part because the big boys in the West haven't really been the big boys yet. I mean, Utah is still right near the top of the West. Golden State is 12th, I think, in the West.

What what's your what's your assessment of this team? Are they closer to the nine and three team? Are they closer to like a 44 win team? What you see them up close every day? What's your what's your takeaway from the first 17 games? Yeah, I don't know if I have a conclusion for you to your direct question. If I had to pick something, I'd say somewhere in the middle. What I have gathered from this team so far this year is.

They are going to be competitive in a way that they have not been in my seven seasons so far being with the team. So I've been a part of some good rosters.

I was here for the team that made it to the Western Conference Finals. And there's been a lot of big-time play. You know what Damian Lillard has done. You knew what C.J. McCollum did. You know what they did in tandem. The year when Yusuf Nurkic first got acquired, that was my first season with the team as well. And that was a team that went from outside of the playoffs to in. That's when all of Portland caught what was termed Nurk fever. I forgot about Nurk fever. Yeah, Nurk fever was rolling, man. Nurk fever was rolling. And really, it was.

was until he got injured in 2019. So that year when the team made it to the Western Conference Finals, Nurk wasn't healthy for that. That's the year he broke his leg. So he's, you know, been trying to bounce back and just get consistency from that. Um,

This team, though, Zach, every game I go in, I know that they're going to battle. And that sounds like something very simple, but that's not something I could have told you each of the previous few years where you knew without a doubt, like, I don't know if there's going to be a win or a loss or if guys are going to shoot well or if turnovers are going to be prevalent or what.

But at the very least, I know there's going to be some competition. And that's been the case with this group. So because of that, like you hear Kenny Smith say this all the time on Inside the NBA, he'll talk about how if a team just plays hard, they got a chance to win. Well, the Blazers are that team with some heavy offensive firepower as well with Dane, who's not available right now.

But Anthony Simons, I think he's gotten to a place where a lot in the NBA world, a lot of people have respected him and they realize like the kid can really play averaging 23 points right now and kind of plays a similar way as Dame. So even when Dame is out and Anthony's plugged in, the team doesn't have to revamp their style of play. They have a lot of the same moves. He'll get downhill. He'll find guys. And so they have the differences, but also their similarities that allow them to still be consistent. And so I think it's just too early to know really, oh,

with any type of true confidence what it's going to look like in the win-loss standings. But you can have a confidence that this team is versatile. They're going to defend. They're going to play as hard as they can from start to finish. And the one thing I'm looking for, Zach, right now is for the team to kind of

get back to some of the things they were doing in the first couple weeks of the season, which is they were playing with such a high level of intellect. Like I bet those were some of the games you were watching and saying, oh, look, they did that. Oh, they started off in two, three zone. Oh, they went three quarter court press. They fall back. They go zone for the first 10 seconds at a possession. Then they close the last 14. And man, they're switching within a possession. Like they were doing so many things, but everybody was always locked in. And there's been a couple of games here over this last four,

the last few games here and some of these losses where mentally they have not appeared as locked in as they were to start. And that's something I think they can and will get back. And then you'll see the wind start to pile up again.

Yeah, they I mentioned their 13th in offense, 11 and 11, the defense. I think they need to be better than 13th on offense and that they have the talent to do it. I mean, Dame and Simons are averaging 50 combined a game. And Dame hasn't really had like a Dame year quite yet. I mean, sneakily, I don't know how people have noticed. They know the injuries. Forty two percent, 33 percent on threes. His turnovers are way up and down.

Yeah.

It's been really weird. You're exactly right. I've commented on that a few times. And the best answer I can have for you is it almost feels like he's getting reacclimated in different ways. And here's what I mean by that. So he missed most of last season. He came back this year. It's his first time getting back in the games. Last season, his absence was the longest he's ever had in his career. He's never been injured like that.

And so getting going, I don't know if it's just, you know, the new style of play where Chauncey's trying to incorporate more passing, a little more ball movement. It just looked like he was trying to get that rhythm back. Then he has the cap strain a little while ago. He comes back in the game at Miami. That was one game that was very noticeable to me because I

I feel like in the first half of that game, he had like three turnovers where we go to commercial break and I look over at Kevin. I'd be like, man, what's up? What's going on with Dave? This isn't normal. This isn't like a normal turnover that he would commit. And that was him again, coming back, kind of reintegrating himself into the lineup at the time. So that's my best answer. I mean, we got to see what happens when he does come back again.

But yeah, it is unlike him. And what you pointed out is encouraging to me. The fact that this team has had the success they've had and Dame hasn't even been what we know he's capable of being. And that's saying a lot because he won Western Conference Player of the Week earlier on in the season and didn't even have the kind of games we know he's capable of having in addition to that.

The team as a whole is turning the ball over at a rate that just doesn't make sense for them. 24th in turnover rate, which is you actually associate the opposite with the Damian Lillard team. Kind of a totally not predictable, but, you know, he knows how to run this offense in his sleep. High pick and roll, wing pick and roll with the side of the floor clear. Nurkic slips, hit him with the mound spaz. Like this is this should not be a high turnover team, even with.

a young co-star guard, even with, you know, trying to figure out the bench identity with Winslow running a little point and shade and sharp being just the most delightful rollercoaster, the entire league, this can't be 24th in turnovers. And one of the trickle down effects of that has been,

They have the worst transition defense in the league on an efficiency basis. And if you boil that even further down, it's all off steals, according to cleaning the glass. Like they're fine off rebounds. They're getting killed off live ball turnovers. That feels kind of just random to me, but they've, they're not a team that's designed to,

to play the turnover game they don't they're not going to force a huge amount of turnovers they shouldn't commit this many turnovers definitely shouldn't be committing as many and uh everything you just said is is again an encouraging sign where those are things the team can control like they're having a lot of turnovers that the defense is not forcing them into some of that goes back to some of that ball movement the team was trying to play faster at the start um

It's not just Dame high pick and roll the way it has been in years past. What Chauncey Billups is trying to do is try to get some movement first, get the defense shifted, then go high pick and roll. You know, maybe hunt a mismatch, but go quick and get some movement. And the Blazers actually just lost the game against who was it? I'm losing track now here. Not San Antonio. Brooklyn, Brooklyn game against Brooklyn. Lost game against Brooklyn because in that second half,

They were going high pick and roll, trying to hunt mismatches. Brooklyn was switching. Now everything is stacking and everybody's sitting there and they were just forcing up a bunch of bad shots. So there's, if you look at some of these losses recently, it's stuff that's easy to point to, stuff that's easy to address. And throughout this season, I thought Coach Billups has been really good at

things, making certain adjustments, getting these guys ready to play. So I think all in all, the team's still in a good spot because they still possess that DNA of a team that is going to play hard all the time, play together and reincorporate the intellect and all that stuff. Then again, the wins start coming back. Yeah, I think Simons is a legit offensive star. I mean, the guys, he's averaging 23 a game. He's got more to do. And you

You've seen it. I mean, he goes on these streaks of three point shots where it just looks like he'll never miss again. It's so clean and so crisp. Nurkic is just doing what Nurkic does. Fourteen and eleven just lurking around. And Jeremy Grant has found, you know, I talked I talked for years about how he didn't like his role in Denver, went to Detroit and got to be the number one guy.

found out that that brings a lot of pain and losing with it and has found this perfect water level. I kept talking about how I want him to find a place where he gets in between that and finds his water level as a player. This is it. 19 a game, 47% on threes. Second option, sometimes third option, sometimes can focus on defense, still doesn't rebound, but what a perfect, perfect role. This team's going to be a good offensive team. The defense being 11th,

has been the surprise of the year for me, for them. And it was top 10 for most of the year until this slide. And let's talk about how real we think that is because there are a couple of minor warning signs. Number one, they allow a ton of shots at the rim, a ton of threes, and the second fewest mid-range shots in the league. That's not the shot diet you want to be allowing in 2023 for the most part.

And number two, you look at their numbers. That's early. Maybe the sample size means nothing. They're doing fine when Lillard plays by himself without Simons. They're doing fine when Simons plays by himself without Lillard. And they're minus 15 in the 253 minutes they played together, mostly because they're getting smoked on defense. And I've seen that movie before in Portland where two small guards are getting smoked on defense. If they can maintain that,

a top 10 to 12 defense, they're a legit 47, 48 wins, strong playoff team. Do you think they can do it? Yes. So here's my, here's the thing that I would have as a retort to what you said about the shot profile they're giving up. I would ask how many of those

How many of those shots near the rim are what you would consider a contested shot? Because when these guys have been locked on, like when I'm talking about the intellect that they've been playing with that's been different to me than years past, yeah, it might be a guy shooting a three. It might be a guy getting around a paint.

But these guys were flying around Zach at a level that I just hadn't grown accustomed to. And they were doing it with intellect. So it was the right rotations. It was the right size defender going out to contest a certain shot. It was communication in time of, okay, yeah, we're forcing it. Some of it was, was forcing the ball to certain three point shooters. So if, if they can tap back into, there was just a sharpness that they played with that was,

Has kind of dissipated a little bit over the last week. If they get that sharpness back, I'm not, I'm not fearful of that shot profile because as you're watching the game, you're not, it don't even feel like they're giving up good looks because they're

In theory and in concept, you tell somebody, yeah, he's got he just got a 10 foot shot. All right. But did you also tell him Jeremy Grant was flying at him with that wingspan? Did you tell him that, you know, the dude just got hit a couple of times before on a box out or communication things that that wear you down a little bit before you get those shots? So there was just a different level of attentiveness they were playing with before that. If they get back to that, which I do believe they will.

I'm just not as concerned about that shot profile as maybe I should be. No, I don't know the answer. This is a whole debate in analytics of like, is there such a thing as allowing the right three-point shooting, right? Or is it just all luck? I've been a believer that there is a real thing of coaxing the right kind of three-point shots from the right three-point shooter. At least to some degree. Obviously, there's always going to be luck. I just don't believe...

Maybe it's just because I want it to be true. Otherwise, like, what are we all doing here? If the whole thing is just luck, but I want, I want it to be true. And to your point, you know, before you said that, you know, they're pressing, they're playing zone. Only Miami has played more zone so far. They're switching between all sorts of schemes. They still play that aggressive pick and roll defense that got slaughtered last year where they'll come, they'll bring Nurkic and Eubanks who just, by the way, drew Eubanks just wants to dunk Eubanks.

everybody into oblivion and volleyball spike shots through the floor, man. He doesn't just block shots. He wants to demoralize you with his block shots. They'll bring them up to the level of the screen. Not quite a trap, but pretty close, which risks, you know, death by passing and, and moving the ball around that for open shots. But to your point, when the guy, when the other three guys around that are some combination of grant and

Josh Hart. Justice Winslow. Justice Winslow. We haven't seen GP2 yet. Correct. When they're long, fast, jumpy guys, all of a sudden you can cover the ground that you need to. And to your point about their intellect, I guess this is coaching and players being dialed in. But some of the plays I highlighted last week,

They're just on it, man. When they're on it, they're on it. So I highlighted this one play where New Orleans ran a play that happens 25 times a game, a pick and roll with one shooter on the weak side. And the goal is force that weak side defender who's the typical help defender. You got a choice.

You rotate inside to help on the big man roll into the rim and leave your dude open or you stay home on your dude because he's a shooter. And that big guy, Valanchunas, I think it was, rolls in for a dunk. The Blazers sniffed it out right away and said, hold on. We got two guys on the strong side. Normally we don't help off the strong side.

This time we are. And you could even see Justice Winslow. I think it was Justice Winslow pointing before the pick even happened. It's your help down there. And by the same token, Phoenix, I don't know if you saw this in my column, they had this play that they run a pick and roll with Chris Paul.

And Devin Booker, as the pick and roll is happening, will cut corner to corner from weak side to strong side. It's a very unusual cut that Danny Green used to make with the Spurs that you don't expect because you don't want guys cutting into the strong side. It works every goddamn time. Defense is like, what's going on? Where's Devin? Oh, Devin Booker just made an open three. The Blazers, my guess is,

They studied that play and prepared for it because when Booker started his cut, they knew what was up and sniffed it out. It's that kind of stuff, man. That's real. Dude, it is. That's what I'm saying. So when we went to Dallas a couple of weeks ago on that road trip where the team, where the Blazers went four and two, Derek Harper called me over and he said, hey, is this real?

Is what you guys are doing, is it real? Because I've seen a little bit. It looks real. And I told him what I just told you. I said, Hart, the thing that is new to me that I haven't seen at this level is how smart they are playing defensively and with how much energy. It's not just flying around just for the sake of it. It's exactly what you just did. Like there's been seasons past, Zach, where after a good play will happen in the game, I might go home.

and make like a video dissecting a play just so the fans can see it, just so they can see some of those little things that I know you watch when you watch games.

There have been more of those moments this year than there have been in my six years combined. The problem is we've been on the road. So a lot of it took place on our road trip, the 16th road trip. Otherwise, I would have been at home making videos of this stuff because there's been so much. And so that's what I'm saying. When you ask me, is the defense real? Can they be in that 10 to 12 range, maybe even crack into that? I truly believe they can like this.

I don't have any reason not to believe it based on the level of strong evidence that I've seen early on in the season. Speaking of road trips, you're on a Thanksgiving road trip. What, what, what are you doing Thanksgiving on the road? You got plans as someone like, can you get a Turkey or you're going to a restaurant? Like, what do you do on the road for Thanksgiving? So the team, the,

the team graciously invites us, the broadcast crew, the traveling party to all have a dinner together. So we'll have a dinner together. And then, you know, we got the two games, you got the Knicks and the Brooklyn game kind of before and after. And then also for me now,

Now, my alma mater, Oregon State, they have a big football game this Saturday against Oregon. It's the rivalry game. There's a thing you get in that game. Isn't there like a jug or a barrel or something? No, no, no, no, no. It's not one of those. An apple cup or something. Yeah, I don't know. But now you just get to talk smack for the rest of the year. But it's a big game because Oregon, I believe, still has a chance to make it to the Rose Bowl.

And so there's nothing that would make Oregon state happier than knocking them out of the. Spoiler, spoiler, play some spoiler. Yes. Yeah. I know you're a four-year Oregon state guy. Unfortunately for podcast purposes, you're much younger than Gary Payton. Otherwise we would have had just some incredible Gary Payton college years stories that would have been, would have been delightful. Well, that's nice. I like to, I like to picture Chauncey with his chef's hat on to, to the Blazers. Some of the names we mentioned,

It's interesting to look back at that Covington, Norm Powell trade to the Clippers where everyone's first reaction, including mine, was like, that's it? That's all they got for those dudes? Those dudes are pretty good. It's just fascinating. And even before Robert Covington first got COVID and now is kind of out of the rotation with the Clippers, it became clear that I think

Joe Cronin, who's the GM now in the front office, kind of at least valued those players correctly. Like Robert Covington was on an expiring deal, like didn't didn't have a ton of trade value. Norm Powell's contract is really long. He's a really good six man spot starter. I think that contract had neutral to like maybe slightly negative trade value. And in return, they got Justice Winslow, who's helpful. Yeah.

Couple second round picks. Keyon Johnson, who they're going to they've given shots here and there and has looked OK. Yes. Yeah. And they saved a lot of money to sign Peyton and sign Simons. And and, you know, the New Orleans trade from last year, obviously, it's painful to part with CJ. I liked it for Portland.

Right away, because I love Josh Hart, I thought they were going to get a Pelicans lottery pick. That did not pan out. But they got a trade exception that they turned into Jeremy Grant along with that pick. And they've kind of just – they really did kind of remake their team in a way that feels –

more like kind of artistic and complete than it seemed like was just sort of tearing down chaos at the time. Yeah, it's not coincidence. I don't know if you've gotten a chance to meet Joe Cronin yet or have a conversation with. Yeah. Extremely bright dude knows what he's doing.

And he worked in tandem with Chauncey Billups throughout this offseason to make sure Chauncey had the kind of team that he wanted, the type of competitors, defensive minded type guys that he wanted. And he got that. And think about what you said about the New Orleans pick, almost got the New Orleans pick, didn't get it. So what you're seeing right now is like more on the spectrum of the worst case scenario than what could have been the best case.

Because you get that pick, too, then who knows what that turns into and what Joe's able to do with it. So the one thing you know about Joe Cronin is he is not afraid to make big decisions. It's not going to be an emotional spur of the moment type decision like he thinks this stuff through. He knows all the contingencies.

plan A through Z. And so even a situation like that, he knew what the worst case could look like. And this is it. And this is a pretty good worst case scenario. And he's going to continue to, you know, try to fortify this roster. He'll be the first one to tell you this isn't a done deal, but it's all worked out and it's, it's given. So we were talking about the defense, but,

One thing you've seen is the roster that Chauncey has now, I think, allows Chauncey to be the kind of coach he wants to be. He needed these kind of players so you can see what he's able to dial up. And so I think it's working well for everybody right now. But, you know, we'll keep an eye on it because, you know, Joe's work is never done. He's going to look to continue building this thing. But so far, so good. And you nailed the next big question, which is this is not the complete team two, three, four years from now. It never is.

They obviously signed Dame to a new max extension on top of the max extension that will pay him, and this is a real thing, $63 million in 2027. Simons, they got on a four-year deal about $100 million. Looks great. It's a good deal. Jeremy Grant becomes eligible for an extension on January 7th. Seems like a good bet he's going to get an extension. Seems like you don't make that trade without having thought that one through.

You do that, you're not going to have cap room, essentially, probably for the whole entirety of Damian Lillard's contract. Cap room in Portland never gets you much. That's how you end up with Evan Turner getting a gazillion dollars and Alan Crabb getting a gazillion dollars and all that. And so the question then becomes, if this team is just...

topping out at good and by the way there is nothing wrong with good there's nothing wrong with good good good give ourselves a puncher's chance it's something like 2019 i always defended them on that people always were like oh portland they'll lose in the first round every year yeah you know what they were good and ask the fans if they liked it ask the fans if they liked the memories damon cj gave them ask the fans if they like to think about game seven in denver they liked it it's okay

And this but, but this is why there's just this endless is Dame okay, not ever winning a ring? Is Dame going to trade his way out of Portland? The but then becomes if they lock themselves into that team, are they just, are we living the same movie over again? Obviously, they've got one big wild card, one big upside bet, and that's Shaden Sharpe.

I love what I've seen from Shaden Sharpe so far, other than getting lost off the ball on defense, which is every single rookie ever, pretty much. I just don't know if it pops in time for Dame's whatever's left of Dame's prime. When you zoom out and look at the team through that lens, is it just sort of let's enjoy the ride and see what happens? Or do we already need to start thinking about these questions? I know that these conversations are being had and I know just being good isn't enough.

So I'll tell you really quick a story, something that happened last season. So last season, Dame got injured. And, you know, throughout my time with the team, like I don't ask for guys' numbers. I have a lot of the guys' numbers just through our proximity with each other and our working relationship. But I don't ask for any of their numbers. So if they haven't given it to me, I don't have it. I never had Dame's number. I would see him, you know, maybe DM on social media. That's how we communicated, but I never had his phone number. So in the middle of last season,

I kept getting this text message from a California number and I had no idea what number it was. And so I wouldn't respond to it because I just typically don't respond to numbers. I don't know. Week goes by. I keep getting the messages. Lamar, hit me up. Give me. I'm thinking, Zach, I'm thinking this must be some college buddy asking for tickets to the game or something, you know, because I'll get that. I'll get the random numbers and stuff. And so I go to the arena one night and our former social media manager says,

comes to me and says, "Hey, are you like purposely not responding to Dame? Like, are you getting Dame?" He said, "He's trying to get in touch with you." And I said, "What do you mean? Dame hasn't been trying to get in touch with me." - Big time in Dame. You're big time in Dame. - And so I said, "Wait, wait, wait, what's his number?" And so she read out the number and it was the number that was texting me. So then I went back home that night and I hit the number back and I was like, "Dude, you gotta tell me it's you. You didn't say anything that said it was you, right?"

So, you know, we get past that and he kind of jokes about it. He said the same thing. He's like, man, you big time in me now. And I said, no, no, I just didn't know it was you. So we got past that. Zach, it's like midnight. He asked me, what do you think about our team? And I'm thinking, well, what do you mean what I think about team? Like just right now? Because last season was rough. Like, do you want to talk about this group or what are we talking about? He's like, no, zoom out. Big picture. What do you think? What do you think we got here? What do you think we can do? And he and I, we hadn't had this conversation before. We've had a lot of other conversations, but not this one.

We go for the next three hours. It is 3 a.m. And he is texting me about the whole big picture of what do you think is real? What do you who do you think we can get here? Why do you think that? Why? My wife is next to me.

She's half asleep at first. She's like, you still on the phone? I was like, I'm not. After I've been ignoring him for the last week and a half, I'm not about to tell him right now to end the conversation. So I got to finish this conversation. I kid you not. We go to like 3 a.m., 4 a.m. I don't even remember the time it ended, but it's around those hours.

And his whole thing was taking the the holistic approach of art. What's what's real and what's reasonable? Because as you probably have learned from Dame, he thinks everything is doable. Like he could be down 20 with six minutes to go. Or let me see that because that's too realistic. He could be down 20 with three minutes ago. And he thinks if he's hot, they're going to come back and then he's going to win a game winner.

And this was one of the first times where I had heard him. And it was through this conversation where like, he's really taken that same look you're taking where it's like, what is good enough? Like, do it say we are good and say, we do get back to the wrestling conference finals. Is that good enough?

And it's almost like he's having all these thoughts and he just needed somebody to bounce it off of him. For some reason, he chose me to be the person at the time. But it was having that same search. And what stuck with me is what he landed on. And what I remember him landing on was he felt really good about the level of trust that he had in Joe Cronin at that time.

So Joe Cronin had not yet been named the permanent general manager. He was serving as the interim at this time. But as Dane was working through all these scenarios and different people who he thinks are realistic targets for the Blazers to go get and people he wants. And what it came down to is there was this almost like this renewed confidence of, I really think we can take the big swing with Joe at the helm.

And because of that, because of whatever it is he felt settled on, I too felt settled on it. He's a super perceptive dude. He knows when people are real and when it's fake and

What's reasonable and what's not. And I know he got to a place where he really believed in what was going on. And in addition to that same trust and belief he has in Joe, he has that same thing with Chauncey. And he'll tell you, he'll be the first to tell you, he really wants to see Chauncey succeed. And he wants to be a part of it. So,

You're right, Zach. If you look back historically, there's been a lot of obstacles and challenges, but something just feels a little different. And I think he would probably tell you that if he was willing to have that conversation of now, I feel like I'm going to take this last wing with Joe in charge and we're going to see what happens. And I know Chauncey also believes that although in the past Blazers haven't been able to get certain free agents or certain targets,

Chauncey connects with dudes in a way I haven't seen a lot of head coaches connect. Like he's only been here for a year and a few weeks now.

I can't, I haven't seen another coach that has had so many guys come over during the game, just because they want to talk to him. Same thing happens in the back tunnels by the locker room, like players revere him. And I know the team is hoping some of that can be helpful when it's time to be in pursuit for somebody. So it remains to be seen, but I feel a lot more confident about that just based on that exchange with Dame and how I've seen him respond since than I have before.

That's awesome. By the way, my favorite thing about the Dame championship ring discourse, which I generally don't like for any, I just find the whole rings, hashtag rings thing kind of tiresome and dumb. What's pleasant about it with Dame is he doesn't have to prove his clutch credentials. This isn't a case where people are like, well, can he rise to the moment? We know he's already showing

The guy has to walk off playoff series game winners. Like this is more people want to see him win. It's more from a place of like, this guy deserves a real chance to win when people bring up, well, should he leave Portland? This and that it's, I'm just glad we got like, does he, the whole, does he have to prove it in the, under the big spot? Like we got that out of the way. Look, let me be clear. I think the most likely outcome is that if they pay grant,

they probably will lock themselves into a team that's good and maybe never gets great. Maybe it gets very good. And I could definitely be wrong about that. They could pop higher if sharp as a star, if Simons can average 30, like, but, but I will say that sounds pessimistic. It's not because if you look at the West,

The only certainty about the NBA is we have no idea what the hell is going to happen in a month, a week, a year, two years, three years. We know Chris Paul has an expiration date. The Clippers have an expiration date. The Warriors have an expiration date.

The Nuggets probably are going to be around for a while. A bunch of other teams are rebuilding. We don't know what in the hell the Timberwolves are. We don't know what in the hell the Mavericks are. We don't know how long these rebuilds are going to take. The only two teams that I think you can look at, we don't know how long the Kings can be, do whatever the thing that they're doing with the light and the beam is. The only two teams in the West you look at today are,

And are like, boy, they're on an endless upward trajectory. Or Memphis and New Orleans. And you never know when that trajectory is going to stop. So when you think about Portland, you think, well, you know, Simons, Lillard, Sharp, Grant, Nurkic. Yeah, that's just, you know, probably tops out at 50 wins. Maybe that's true. Maybe that ends up being true. Maybe that's also not so bad. Maybe that team's good enough to make a run at some point in three or four years. We'll see. But I think, but to your point,

I don't think they can just sit on their laurels and be satisfied with like, this is the team. And I don't know what the, what the answer to that is. I know that Joe Cronin will look everywhere. And I know there's, there's one, there's one dude in Brooklyn who,

Who, if he reiterates the trade request, I pitched the Blazers. I pitched the Blazers as a place that's got to at least make a call. And look, maybe they don't have the goods because they owe that pick to Chicago. It's lottery protected for a bunch of years. They got to figure that out. Maybe the Nets say we won't do it without Simons. Maybe the conversation never happens. Maybe it just doesn't work. But that's just all I'm saying is they got to look. They got to look at things like that. And I think they will.

They definitely will. Joe's not sitting back here just trying to make the playoffs every season. Like if what he did in his first few weeks as the interim doesn't signal that this dude is serious and he'll make the moves that he feels are maybe even sometimes unpopular or questionable, and he does it with a belief, knowing, again, the contingencies. Like he knows all that stuff.

that I can't get into. You talk to him for five minutes, he'll go from point A to now this might lead to T and then now we're back at L. He knows it. He knows all the stuff. And that's one thing, again, in that conversation with Dame, that's something that stood out to him as well is how on top of things Joe is. So you're right. We don't know. A lot of this stuff is unknown. What I will say though is

That group, that group, you just, you just listed out like that's a group that could win. That group can win some games in the playoffs. If Dame stays healthy. I don't know if this calf thing is worrisome. The ab thing seems to be in the rear view. So let's just like, obviously that's the knock on wood. For sure. For sure. And health is dependent for everybody who's trying to get it done. But yeah, if he stays healthy.

That's a group that can win. It would not shock me to see that same group somehow end up in the conference finals again if that if that happened. However.

That is not how Joe is looking at this thing. And so I know that. So I'm just like you, Zach, where I'm waiting each time to see. I'm waiting to turn on ESPN, watch NBA Today, listen to you tell me about the report that just came out about the big trade the Blazers just made. Like it can happen at any point at any time. I know Joe is actively searching. So we're just really just enjoying what's going on right now, because right now what the team is doing is building some foundational blocks and

So that no matter who is inserted into the lineup, whoever is acquired, they're going to be a part of something that has already been built to a certain level where now you can take a next jump that means something. I'll tell you one thing you guys in Portland have going against you.

Hiring that hack Mike Schmitz from ESPN. What a mistake. If Mike is listening, he'll know that I'm joking. What a huge mistake. Real quickly before we go, I do, since you've seen him up close every single game, give me a minute take.

Early returns on Shaden Sharp. What do you see now? What kind of player you see him growing into? I don't know if you have a comp you like for him down the line in his prime, but what's your early takeaway on him? I always try to be careful when I'm talking about him because I just try to be mindful of setting unreasonable expectations on a guy. I just don't know if I can do that with him because any name I say, for the most part, I could see a path for him to get there.

Things come so easy for him. And I'm not saying he doesn't work hard to attain that and get to that level, but there's certain shots he just shoots. Like some of his most impressive shots to me have been misses. There have been plays. I think back to there was a shot. It was in the preseason game, the first piece of the game against the Clippers. And he did a move where he turned back and it was like kind of a half turn and he faded and he shot it and he missed it. But as soon as he shot it, I was like, wow.

I don't even, how did he get that to the rim? How did he get that to the rim as easily as he did? And he has those shots all the time. He can shoot the three. His athleticism is unreal.

He just plays with this calm, with this demeanor. Like all the guys, watch, watch the Blazers. They all have this calm demeanor. They'll give you 30, not crack a smile, not say a word to you. They give you 30, do the post-game interview, go home and do it all over again. And Shaden falls right into that line where it's all about business with him. And you're right, off the ball, he does get lost a lot. That's been happening a lot more. But again, what rookie does that not happen to? And quite frankly, it happens to a lot of veterans.

as well. So that's all stuff that he will get. But the natural talent, I heard a name. I was on somebody else's podcast a few weeks ago. And there's a guy here in Portland. His name is Brandon. He said, baby Kobe. That's what he called him. And when he said it, I'm not going to be the person that says no.

Like if we fast forward the clock 15 years from now and Shaden is, I'm not even going to say Kobe, but, but if he's Kobe ish, it will not surprise me one bit, not one bit at all. This he's unreal, man. He's unreal. He's got some natural stuff that other dudes just don't have. And he's a real score. Zach, he scores in mid range.

I think he could probably post up too. We haven't seen that yet, but just based on his footwork and how he moves about the, about the floor, I bet he can post up 15 foot fadeaway, all that stuff. So I couldn't be more excited about him. And even, even with some of his games, he's had some tough outings over the last week or so. It hasn't soured me at all on him. Like it's just been normal stuff that,

he'll get back to scoring and doing things the way he was doing before. And I know you said a minute, but I'm sorry, you can't ask me about it. It's just not going to happen. I liked that you, I liked that you announced your caution about setting expectations. They're like, you know, Kobe, Kobe, one of the top 15 players of all time. That's not crazy. I'm just saying, I will not, I'm not saying he will be Kobe, but I'm not saying he's not going to be Kobe ish.

Well, look, I'm not willing to say that he won't. I'll tell you this, no matter what, he's fun as hell to watch. He is a show and he's already been led into the upper room, as you noted by Vince Carter. You know, the last broadcast is already in the upper room. Wait a minute, real quick, because because you you disputed that. Right.

I just nominated somebody else. I don't remember who I nominated, but I, everyone gets to nominate someone for being sled in the upper room as a, based on a dunk in the last week. I've yet to, I've yet to win Malika cheated and nominated the college dunk. The Arkansas kids. That wasn't fair. That wasn't fair. I don't care if it's her show. That's not fair, but yeah, he's in the upper room. Look and the blazers, they're a fun watch and you know, there's not a lot of games on Pacific time. If you're awake,

and you want to see a fun game with a smart broadcast, Kevin Calabro, Lamar Hurd, you guys are awesome. It's wonderful to do this. I'm hoping to get into one of the games when Portland has Thanksgiving weekend in New York. I'm based in Connecticut. If so, let's say hello, grab a post-game beer or something like that. Lamar Hurd gave him a listen. He's a star. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Zach. Appreciate it, man.

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All right, I just wanted to briefly hit on what was one of the more anticipated games of the year, Ben Simmons' return with the Brooklyn Nets to Philadelphia, which turned out to be a total dud for the Nets.

for the fans who were kind of booing but it wasn't like the scene that we expected and i think frankly it's a scene that's befitting of what has happened to ben simmons the player since leaving philadelphia they the fans just said yeah he's worth some vitriol but not that much vitriol we got james harden who's injured along with tyrese maxi and joelle and bead and somehow we still won the game because b-ball paul was amazing and tobias harris played some bully ball and shake milton and the anthony melton the melton milton milton melton backcourt made a bunch of jump shots

We'll give him some vitriol, but that's all. Ben played fine. Fourth straight good game. Not sure I would do the MJ shrug after making two free throws, but I've never been in that kind of atmosphere. You want to shrug, shrug. Played well. The rest of the team did not play very well. And again, they lost somehow on the road to Philadelphia without all of those aforementioned Sixers, their three best players. That said, and I can't believe I'm saying this,

You are starting to finally see the team that the Nets kind of envisioned when they, at metaphorical gunpoint, made this trade for Ben Simmons. They have so much shooting on the floor when they put Simmons at the 5.

And you could see it last night. He screens, he rolls, and you just got like Seth Curry in one corner, Joe Harris in another corner, Durant up top, O'Neal up top. And you're like, oh my God, what are we supposed to do? We have to help from somewhere because he's going to dunk. Ben can still dunk.

Got to help from somewhere. And the Nets got an absolute crap ton of wide open threes. They missed most of them. They were nine of 32 on, I'm sorry, nine of 28 on threes, 32%. In terms of shot quality, if you look at the tracking data from our buddies at Second Spectrum, the Nets had a much higher shot quality than Philadelphia. They just missed a lot of shots. It wasn't totally a make or miss game as we're going to talk about, but you could see the vision Kyrie's even cutting again.

Getting, getting, moving off the ball. He had a beautiful backdoor cut against Memphis the other day. Utah want the knobby who's playing out of his mind. Didn't play last night, fed him. And like, that's how Kyrie was playing in the brief time they had hardened Durant and Kyrie was moving off the ball. They were running split actions. And you looked around like, my God, what do we, can we guard this team? Can anyone guard this team? And although I, like many others have sort of been,

impatient and critical of the Nets in the last month or two. How could you not be? It's been complete chaos there for much more than a couple of months. I did pick this team to win the championship before last season. I thought they were just going to be unbeatable, unstoppable offensively if they could stay healthy. Obviously, a bunch of stuff we don't need to rehash happened, and here we are. We're just starting to see what I thought was going to be their closing lineup this year, which is Kyrie, Joe Harris, Royce O'Neal, Kevin Durant,

And Ben Simmons. And if Joe Harris regains sort of his, his lateral mobility, and we're starting to see that we know the shooting, he can defend. Okay. He's, he's kind of stout and you put him Harris, Durant Simmons. Those are four pretty sizey switchable guys. That lineups only played 31 minutes together all season, just 31. That's nothing has an offensive rating of 125 points for 100 possessions. That is blowing the doors off teams. All of those are good signs, but,

And signs of the team the Nets want to be. And yet, boy, oh, boy, they're just so small with that lineup. And that's the ultimate question is, can it can it defend or in lineups like it defend well enough and rebound well enough for them to have a chance? And last night we saw the answer is still no. 20 offensive rebounds for Philadelphia. 20. Can't you can't win. You can't win.

If the other team is just playing volleyball every time down, the Nets are 30th last in defensive rebounding. They've been 30th and last in defensive rebounding for most of the season. They've been a bottom five defensive rebounding team essentially for the last four seasons constantly. It's just an unsolvable problem. It doesn't appear to have any solutions. You can bring in some sort of stopgap big man. Like, you know, you think Dwight Howard's going to come back and change the Nets? Fine. I mean, how many minutes is he going to play?

And we saw last night, you know, they targeted Joe Harris on post-ups for Tobias Harris. Shaq Milton was just shooting right over your Seth Currys, your Patty Mills. And by the way, when you switch Harris or O'Neal out of that lineup and you put Curry or Mills in alongside Irving, it's just too small. The shooting is incredible. It's just too small against the best teams. And Patty Mills, I'm starting to worry that they played

The remaining really good basketball out of Patty Mills in the first half of last season, when he was playing like 30 minutes a game and playing extraordinarily well and looking like they had absolutely made the right decision to use their mid-level exception on him instead of Jeff green to use that salary slot on him instead of Bruce Brown on whom they had bird rights. And just like inexplicably showed limited interest in resigning. He's exactly what they need. He's exactly what the nuggets need. How the hell nuggets lost to the Pistons at home last night. I will never know, but still, um,

It's just too small. And your solution, the biggest hovering question of this team was, okay, if that proves to be too small, can we play Simmons and Claxton, two non-shooters together?

To fortify our defense, to fortify our rebounding. So far, the answer has been no, although they tried starting it last night. And I do I don't mind Jacques Vaughn saying, what the hell? Let's see. Let's see if this is going to have to be something we're going to do. We got to see if we can do it. Simmons and Claxton have played one hundred and twenty two minutes so far. One hundred and five offensive rating. That's really bad. One hundred and fifteen defensive rating. That's really bad. That's minus ten by my math per one hundred possessions. That's really bad.

Minus 35 points total in those 122 minutes. That's really bad. 62% defensive rebounding.

In other words, opponents with those two guys on the floor are getting 38% of their own misses, almost 40%. It's untenable. You can't win like that. And so the Simmons-Claxton lineups are hurting your offense like you'd expect and not helping your defense or your rebounding like you'd expect or hope. In fact, it's even worse when they're on the floor. And if that's the case...

This team as a championship contender is pretty much dead on arrival. And again, I don't mind them figuring out if that lineup can work. It's only been 122 minutes. And when you play two non-shooters next to Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving and one other A+++ shooter, you have leeway to get around the shooting limitations of those guys. You can stick both of them in the dunker spots, clog it up the lane. Kevin Durant doesn't carry seven feet tall. Kyrie Irving doesn't care. He can shake anybody anytime. They're going to survive.

some stretches offensively just because of the star power I

I was skeptical at the beginning of the season that it's really offensively workable against the best defenses, and I'm still skeptical now. But look, like I said, even in a disaster loss last night to an undermanned but feisty team, you could see the outlines of what this team thought it could be, at least offensively, an unguardable shooting machine that is going to have to outscore you because of its defensive limitations and its just horrendous rebounding limitations. We'll see. It's early.

It's early there. Eight and 10. Joe Harris is barely getting healthy and Seth Curry is barely getting healthy again. Kyrie Irving just got back from his suspension. Like there's a lot of stuff. Utah wants an obby is now a big part of this team. He just became a big part of this team and he was out again last night. Like they do. They should. Ben Simmons, after back surgery and a year plus away from basketball, is just finding himself again. He's not all the way there. Let's not get over exuberant. Not all the way there.

But there is a world in which this team in the next month clicks. It's hard to see the clicking, the upside getting to where they thought the upside would be. But let's see. And I'll end by just saying this. It might just be now or never for the Nets after all of these absences.

After all this drama, after all this nonsense, after trade requests and coach firings and coach firings requests and GM's firings requests and all of that, this is the team now. The team is here. Kyrie's here. Harris is here. Curry's here. Simmons is somewhat here, getting more here every day. Here are your next, I don't know how many games. Let's just read their next games. At Toronto, at Indiana.

home against the Blazers, home against the Magic, home against the Wizards, home against Toronto again. That's six games in a row against teams that the Nets either thought were definitely better than them or at worst, they're our peers. Like on our worst day, we're peers with Toronto on a B plus day for them. Then home against Boston, that's tough. Okay, scratch Boston. Let's assume they lose. After that,

Home against the Hornets, home against Atlanta, at Indiana, at Washington, at Toronto, at Detroit. I don't know how many games I just read, like 15 games, 13 games. Then it gets tough. Golden State, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Atlanta. Like this is it. This is a stretch right now. All those games I mentioned.

The Nets before the season, when we kind of assumed like they'll be this very talented team on paper, the Dunder Mifflin Nets, they'd be favorites in a lot of those games other than the Boston game. Now is the time to show that you're a team that is going to become something. Now is the time to show that you may have an upside here that's graspable. And it also might be now or never because –

If you get through that stretch at 500 and you're still a couple games under one game over, whatever, every day this team goes by without hitting its upside upside is a day closer to the Durant drama potentially exploding again. The whole league is obviously waiting to see if that happens. And at some point you just have to be the team at some point. You just have to become the team. And last night was a demoralizing loss on that journey.

But the journey continues. And I just read you those games. It's now or never for the Brooklyn Nets. And maybe now or never anyway. And with that, let's transition into everyone's favorite, everyone's favorite, most exciting team to talk about the Washington Wizards.

All right, the other guard who inked a gigantic long-term extension, this one complete with a no-trade clause. I didn't even know they made those anymore. It's an antique. The Washington Wizards and Bradley Beal. No one's talking about the 10-7 Washington Wizards. Oh, my God. 10-7, they got pink jerseys. They got blossoms on the court. They're winning games.

Why is nobody talking about them? I think I have a pretty good idea why no one's talking about them. And frankly, I don't even want to talk about them that much. I don't even like watching them that much, but they are 10 and seven. Is the roof about to cave in Mike Prada?

from the athletic and the author of this book look what we can do on youtube now this book right here based out how the nba's three-point revolution changed everything you knew you thought you knew about basketball i haven't read it yet mike and i have a rule for podcasting i'm not having book authors on until i've read the book i don't want to do the thing where someone's like just read the blurb from page 140 i want to read it so when i read it i'm sure it's amazing because your writing has always been amazing we will do a proper podcast but for now we

We will talk about your beloved Washington Wizards, as Joe House likes to say. How are you feeling, Mike? Is this the year? Is this the year they get the sixth seed? Is this the year they win more than two playoff games for the first time in a while?

I don't think so, but this is fun. Thank you for allowing me to pull your leg to talk about this team that you don't want to talk about. I'm being a little bit facetious, but I do have to say, I don't know if it's 24th in offense. I don't know if it's a negative point differential despite their winning record.

I don't know if it's that they played 11 home games and six road games and they're about to play 13 of 17 on the road. And so I'm just assuming it's all going to come crashing down for all those reasons. I just also don't find them like that fun. What are they? What is this team about? What do they stand for? What's their thing? I don't I don't I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, it reflects where the organization is ultimately. What are they about? Where does this team stand for? So as a fan, it's sort of hard to separate what's happening on the court with just that reality of like, where is this team going with Bradley Beal, maybe the 25th to 30th best player in the league, having a no trade clause, the only one in the league, I believe. So it's hard to separate that. I will say that I have enjoyed the Chris Sass-Forzingas renaissance.

and it is a renaissance and I think it's been the only way this team I think was ever getting to I don't even want to say where they want to go because I don't know where they want to go but to like kind of oh maybe we can make the six seed this year to me was if Chris Asporzingas played like the player we all thought he could be back in 2016 if he was the best player on the team and he's delivered he's

He has been outstanding. You know, he is, he looks a lot better mobility wise. You know, he is shooting his threes a lot more. He is kind of operating as this fun little hub of the offense. Not, not, not quite Nikola Jokic without the, because of the passing. But I think a lot of the same concepts of you pull him out and it opens up space for everyone else. And most importantly, he's defending quite well.

Their defense is, I believe, what, seventh now? Seventh. Seventh. And I don't know if that's going to hold, but you consider the defensive talent and the problems that Porzingis has moving laterally. That's pretty impressive. And so that has been fun for me to watch. I did not expect him to be at this level, and he is. And it's just been enjoyable to see him get his career back on track.

Yeah, Porzingis has looked good defensively. Teams are shooting like low 50s at the rim. Actually, it's now 58% at the rim when he's the nearest defender, but that's good. Like for a big man who challenges a lot of shots, that's good. Their starters, Monte Morris, Brad Beal, Denny Avdia, Kuzma, and KP,

We haven't played that much together because of injuries here and there. And Denny Avdia lost his starting job for a hot second to Anthony Gill, which wasn't great. I don't know why they – I'm not sure why they did that, to be honest. Because he wasn't shooting. He would get the ball and be like, oh, I'm open. No one's guarding me. I'm shooting 22% from three. How about I just do nothing and move the offense along? But that lineup is blowing the doors off of people. It's plus 41.

The rest of the team, all other lineups combined are minus, I don't know, whatever, whatever, minus 55, I think. It's been great on offense, great on defense. Abdi is a grinder on defense. KP, you talked about. Kuzma leads the team in defensive rebounding. Again, by the way. He did last year, too. They are sixth in defensive rebounding, which is great considering they don't look like they should be an incredible rebound in team portion. This has never been a great rebounder. And you look at the numbers, Mike.

Now, we went through this last year where the defense got off to a hot start. It proved to be fool's gold. There's nothing in the numbers other than the level of competition they played and the amount of home games they've played, and they've caught some teams with injuries and all that. There's nothing really in the numbers that suggests this is fluky, I don't think. Did you find anything that says numbers-wise the roof is going to cave in? I mean, I don't think they're going to be 7th, but if you told me they finished 10th, 11th, 12th,

like slightly above average. You'd be like, that seems realistic to me. Yeah. I mean, I think the only Washington scorekeepers are kind of quite kind on mid range versus floater range versus rim. So perhaps the numbers conceal a little bit. I'd also say that it's not the most scheme versatile team. You know, they're playing a drop coverage most of the time to protect Porzingis. They kind of stink at switching on the perimeter. I would assume teams will figure that out, but yeah, I mean, I think,

The most impressive part is they kind of know who they are. They have that identity on defense. And, you know, I think one of the other underrated stories is when you staple Avdi at a Porzingis,

it sort of masks a lot of Optia's flaws and it gets Optia kind of, and his defensive grit into the game. Those two guys together are playing great. And when you separate them out, Porzingis lineups are kind of average and Danny lineups are just terrible without Porzingis. So there's kind of a nice little synergy there that I think helps the defense and mask the offensive flaws that I really like. And yeah,

You combine that with, I think, Beal's playing harder defensively. I think they kind of, again... One of the other things that I think is underrated is that this team has been very good at balancing the floor. They are, I think, number one in the league in most possessions in half-court defense, according to Cleaning the Glass. That was not something that happened last year. Their transition defense is much better. And so...

I think they kind of cut out a lot of the stupid stuff. They're fouling less. And I think those things are sustainable because, you know, they're always going to be flawed defensively because of the personnel and because of Porzingis' limitations. But if you keep cutting out the dumb stuff and you prevent like kind of easy transition buckets and you balance the floor a little bit better, that's something Wes Unsell Jr. talks about a lot. It's...

It's kind of like I used to call Mike Budenholzer facetiously Coach Low Hanging Fruit, because the first thing he would do, the first thing he did in Milwaukee is going to say, OK, here's what we're going to do. We're not going to foul. We're going to get defensive rebounds. We're not going to screw up in transition defense. And it's all stuff.

that is so fundamentally essential to just competence. And that's all we're shooting for in Washington right now, competence. And if you can just check those simple that are not really that simple, but simple boxes, right?

You're on your way to being a competent defensive team, which is the best way to just give yourself a shot every night. And Wes Unseld has plucked the low-hanging fruit. They are top 10 in opponent free throw rate, sixth in rebounding. You mentioned the transition defense, which, frankly, I was not aware of. I mean, now that you say it, I watch the games and like, OK, they seem competent. Like, I think their defense is pretty good. Beals, I mean...

Look, the contract is the contract. I have no idea what his trade value would be if they just made him available now. They sacrificed a good bit of leverage by giving him a no trade clause because he can pick- What trade value? He can do whatever, it's wherever he wants to go. But he's playing pretty well, 23 and six on 51% shooting, shooting well from three and two. Like Brad Beal's a really good player. I just, I find them kind of boring to watch stylistically.

And I think you're right that the boredom is more even because of just a hovering, just what are we doing here? So what are we doing here? Well, I don't know what they're doing here. I think what they're doing here is to shoot for exactly the type of team that they have, this competent team all the time. You know, Leonsis has always talked about needing to make the playoffs and not wanting to tank. What is the evidence? You're a DC guy. You're a lifelong fan. Like, what is the evidence that...

is there do fans want this like what is the evidence that this is what they should do this i don't think fans want this um i don't know why he wants to do this i mean the cynical answer is that if you look at monumental as a collection of teams rather than one team it doesn't pay if one of them just totally sucks uh it hurts the whole brand but other than that i don't know why he why he's so insistent on this you know it

I think it's Pennywise and Pound Foolish. I think, frankly, a lot of Wizards fans agree. You know, I think they would just...

love it if the team kind of restarted. Like you look at Oklahoma City and you look at some of these other teams that have just bottomed out. I think everybody would love that. But for whatever reason, maybe it was some of the bad experiences they had trying to bottom out under John Wall. But it is weird because also Leonsis came in saying, here's my 10-point plan for rebuilding. And rule number one was don't get locked into a team that can't win a championship. Is that true? That's basically rule number one.

Did he delete that blog post on Tedstake.com like he did with... What was my favorite one? Who was the new big three? Blatch? Andre Blatch, Jordan Crawford, and John Wall. That's just...

That blog post is gone. I hope someone screenshotted it and it lives on somewhere. Was it Ted's Take? Tedstake.blogspot.com backslash 8279wiz or something? Something like that. Now, the 10-point plan is live because he didn't publish it on Ted's Take. This was back in the day when he would give interviews to blogs. And it was on Hogshaven, SB Nation's Washington Commander's blog.

Obviously, that's where it would be. Sure. Right. So you can still find it. It's quite ironic. But yeah, that's high up in the 10 point plan is don't get trapped in the treadmill of mediocrity. It's number one. It's not just high up. It is the main thing. Do you think he remembers this 10 point plan? I think he remembers this 10 point plan. Yeah.

Next time I get a chance to talk to him, I will ask him about it. But yeah, it's quite funny. I mean, you also have to remember that this was coming on the backdrop of the Capitals rebuilding with Alex Ovechkin and them experiencing so much success and kind of that proof of concept. Plus the Wizards, this was, he just got the team right around Gilbert Reyes and the guns, which by the way, I think it's really interesting that they finally brought Gil back the other day for the big three reunion. I think that was an interesting step.

You know, I don't begrudge teams for – or fans, frankly. Like, those teams were fun. I love those teams. They were good.

They didn't in the, in the, in like the studio show talking head sense, they didn't do anything. They didn't win anything, but they won. Like it's hard to be a good NBA team for three, four or five years in a row. They were good. They pushed, they had like a fun thing with LeBron and the Cavs going on in the playoffs. I think, you know, my, there's part of me that wants to be like,

Kind of how Jay Crowder has become like the worst player ever to be the center of an NBA trade drama. Like how many big threes are we going to celebrate with? What is the, what are we lowering the bar? Like to this big three becoming a big three, but it's also like,

It's just like, it's, it's the Joe Johnson Hawks. It's the Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum blazers. Like those teams are good. They did real stuff. I know that it's cute to say, what did they really accomplish? They accomplished a lot. And I think fans, fans in all those places had fun. Yeah. And I think the big thing is personality was, you know, they had a, they had an itch that they scratched the local market with. And I just thought it was interesting that given this is the first time Gil has come back since the gun situation, you know,

You know, they've always honored Karan Butler. They chose the game that Karan was there as an assistant coach with the Heat. Jamison is in their front office. But Gil kind of left us a pariah. So I just thought it was interesting that they came back. It was a wonderful tribute to that big three team that they nearly lost to a Miami Heat team with like seven players before pulling it out at the last minute. But I do think there's some parallels to how this team is being built. I mean, I think personally, I mean, wildly wise in particular, you look at someone like Kuzma.

he's in trade rumors for phoenix he's in trade rumors for all these other teams

I don't know why he loves DC. He's kind of got DC loves him. He gets a little bit more of a platform to do some of the stuff beyond the grit stuff like that. He did in LA. Like he's developed really nicely as a playmaker. He's improved as a defensive rebounder. His shot looks, it's kind of up and down and streaky, but it looks good. He's got this platform that he's not going to have anywhere else. And I think he really enjoys it. He's got his title. The city likes him.

Looking down the road 10, 15 years from now, why isn't Kuzma going to be looked at like Wizards fans look at Karam Butler? A lot of similar arcs. And I don't think Beal is as magnamic as Gil. And I think Porzingis is maybe a different beast than Jameson. But I do think that there is a sense that this is a franchise that has no players to call their own.

throughout their history. It's not just that they're bad. It's that they were bad with guys over the hill for many years and guys not that they didn't draft. And like those Chris Weber teams to have like one playoff appearance are still beloved in DC. So just to have guys that like we can say are ours. I think that was one of the reasons why Beal hasn't been traded yet. I'll never forget being in Staples center.

Whatever year it was they won the What are they in the southeast division I think it was 2017 2018 the year they lost to Boston In the 2017 Yeah

And I think they ended up winning 49 games. Like it was not an emphatic division win. And they, I almost expected champagne. Like they went insane in the locker room, pouring water all over each other, jumping around. And I barely even remember who's in what division and what the divisions are called. And it, it,

sunk in like this is how bad it's been that's the most wins they've had since 1979 and they've won i think um one playoff series since then is that correct more than one maybe 2000 2005 oh yeah they beat the bulls and they beat they beat the tibbs bulls and then they won the they they won the first round well that's the same year they faced the hawks in the second round and lost in six yeah so they won four playoff series since then four playoff series okay yeah so but yeah no i mean i and

I don't know if like this is sort of a small time thing or whatever, but there is sort of, I think just value and like kind of having guys that at least the organization sees it guys that we can call our own. We're not going to win the title, blah, blah, blah. And for me, like,

I don't know. For me, at least, I've been able to set aside the malaise of where they're going because I enjoy watching Porzingis. I like watching Kuzma. I like how Beal, I think, has kind of folded himself back into the team a little bit more. His usage rate is down. He's defending more. His scoring is down. And they have this weird thing where he's been out and they play well without him because they just sort of plug Corey Kispert in and they were fine. But I like seeing him kind of

be a part of something in a way where maybe in the last couple of years, he kind of was above the team because he was so much better than everyone. And I like to see this confidence. I enjoy watching Denny play. I know his offense is a little bit what it is, but I think you pair him with Porzingis. It kind of takes away some of his weaknesses. I think I like how he kind of pushes the tempo. I like seeing him develop.

I don't think this is going to result in a whole lot of super exciting long-term. Like I think they're still playing team at best, but you know, it's been, I've been able to separate the front office thing from the encore product a little more than I have in past years. Like it was very hard in like 2018 when that team was falling apart or 2019, or even last year as a team was falling apart and maybe the fall will come again here, but yeah,

I mean, their starting lineup is really good. Really good. It works. Like that's a great foundation. If they can just maybe get what Daniel Gafford to like grab one defensive rebound, then maybe they'll be okay. Yeah. Five 38 has them projected at 37 wins. Basketball reference has them right around 500. So although both those places see some slippage coming, they don't see dramatic slippage come. That's a play in team Kuzma. Let's talk about some of the players quickly. Kuzma.

If I had to guess what's going on with Kuzma, I would say it's his player option for next year and his extension eligibility now kind of forcing the Wizards to ask themselves,

Now, I don't know if Kyle would even take the 120% extension, which is, you know, do the math. It starts at probably 16, 17, 18 or something like that. I guess he wouldn't. Yeah, I wouldn't if I were him, given the way he's played. So maybe it's a non-starter. I think that's what's happening there. And I would keep an eye on him at the deadline as we approach the deadline. You mentioned Kispert and Denny, who's only 21 years old. And I love him as a defender and kind of a ball mover on offense. Everything else is, eh.

So here are four guys, Corey Kispert, Denny Abdiah, Rui Hachimura, who I think there were some last minute extension talks with at numbers that were fair, but ended up not being done in part because it was last minute. And Johnny Davis, who exists. Those are four guys who were picked 15th and higher, but no higher than eighth, I think, for any of them. I think Hachimura was eighth.

Denny was ninth. Kispert was 15th. Davis was 10th. So a range where it's already a crapshoot. A range where you could say Denny Avdija could have been Tyrese Halliburton, but he also could have been someone way worse than Tyrese Halliburton. In fact, much more likely to be way worse than Tyrese Halliburton. That said, you get all of these bites in that range. And yes, the expected outcome is what it is. But to be a good team...

to be on a path to somewhere one out of four you gotta hit like so it's just and i and there's no there's no science to it like every team is gonna have four year streaks where they miss even the spur the spurs have waived two of their most recent first round picks before they even got to their third seasons lucas samanage and of course josh primo now um so everybody misses

And when you miss like that, you're just bad for a while. You've got to hit once. So go through those four players. Are any of them plus long-term starters? Yeah, I'm more optimistic about Denny than most people. I know his offense comes and goes. I think he has some confidence challenges, but...

I think that he – his plus minus is among the highest on the team, and that's even if you separate him out from Porzingis, although it's more so with Porzingis with there. I think that his defense is important. I like him as a tempo pusher. He's kind of like a guy who kind of keeps –

The flow going, a team that can kind of get stuck doing the same things, need some of that chaos injection. He's more creative getting to the basket than he has been before. He's fouling less. I just think that's the kind of guy that helps you win. And he's only 21. I think the league is going maybe a little bit more in the direction of even –

With more shooting fives like Porzingis, I think the shooting from wings is in some ways maybe a little less important if you pair them up correctly. And if you can do some of the other stuff that he can do. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So I think he's worth keeping. I think Kispert has been pretty good since he came back from his ankle injury. He can play. He can shoot and he moves around without the ball. He's a smart player. Also looks great in the big headband, by the way.

I'm a big headband fan. He looks fantastic in his headband style. Good job, Mike Pittsburgh. Yeah. He's got to learn to shoot more. I think he needs to get a little bit on that J.J. Redick, be a little obsessed and get in great shape plan. But you're right. He's a great cutter. Defensively, kind of a mess, but he tries. I think he's worth keeping around for sure. And he still is only in his second year.

Rory, I would say at least this year he's good at the things he's supposed to be good at. Mid-range shooting, scoring. Yeah, he's at least getting to the rim more, but he still can't pass. He doesn't pass to anybody. His defense is still hit or miss. His three-point shooting is predictably kind of falling off a little bit.

If I were them, I would not keep him long-term, but I don't know. He's also had a bit of a weird arc because of what happened last year with his mental health and some of those things. I think it's probably best that he didn't get that extension. To me, I would be looking to trade him. I don't know what value he has, but...

I would rather keep Abdi than Hachimura, just me personally. It will be interesting to see. You just mentioned Hachimura as a potential trade candidate. That's interesting. I mentioned Kuzma. It just will be interesting to see what they do because...

They've got to do something. They can't do nothing. I want to say they have to pick a lane, but they have to explore things that move them in one direction or another. And they owe this pick to the Knicks, this lottery-protected pick that has protections for four years on it, that has had a very interesting journey, by the way. They traded it to Houston for Russ, which was like a let's make the play in and dump John Wall move. And it worked. They dumped John Wall and made the play in, and Russ was fantastic for them.

Then it went Houston, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City, New York. So now it's in New York. And that limits their ability to trade future picks unless they eliminate the protections, which the Washington Wizards should not be in the business of eliminating protections on lottery picks ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. No.

But it will be interesting to see if they try to compensate for that by can we snare a first round pick from somebody else using one of these guys in a move that's kind of a slight backward move, but replenishes or floods our asset pool because they should be on the hunt for bigger moves. And that brings me to two questions.

The Monty Morris trade, I think, evinced their understanding that, like, we need a point guard. We need a real point guard. Spencer Dinwiddie didn't work out here. We moved him for Porzingis. We need a real point guard. It's the best we can do for now. Monty Morris is a nice backup point guard spot starter. Is there a point guard out there that you think they should be looking at as a trade candidate? Hmm. Well...

It's sort of tough to say. I don't know quite who's on the market. Like, would you, I don't think that this is a D'Angelo Russell team. Oh God, no. I don't think, I mean, I don't know if Toronto is looking to trade Fred Van Fleet. That's a name I had. That's a, that's a name I had on my list. And I'm, let me be clear. I have no idea what Toronto is going to do. I, I, I was hammering the over on Toronto. I think Toronto is good.

They don't have any other proven point guards on their team unless you count their point forwards, which maybe you do, but he is extension eligible. Hasn't gotten an extension. It's only natural. And again,

if the Wizards haven't brought that up in an internal spitballing session, I would be surprised. Yeah. And by the way, like, I don't think Morris has played particularly well this year. So even as a stopgap, like that hasn't really worked. Now, maybe this Jordan Goodman kid can come in. Oh, I like him. He's good. And DeLon Wright was playing quite well before he got injured. I am like...

I don't know, something about DeLon Wright. There's something like, why don't these teams keep him? You never know. Because he just doesn't shoot enough. He's not a good shooter, but he can make corner threes.

I have a sweet spot for DeLon Wright. I always will. If I were a GM, I would definitely overpay DeLon Wright to be my backup point guard and just be super excited about it. Me too. I mean, imagine if Atlanta had him instead of Aaron Holiday this year. That would probably help them out a lot. But yeah, so they might be able to get away with not upgrading the point guard position. Oh, for sure they could. For sure they could. To me, the bigger problem is...

The Daniel Gaffer thing just ain't working, man. Well, to your point, you look at their cap sheet, summer 2024 could be their summer, depending on what happens with Hachimura and Avdia and Porzingis. They could have some room, tons of room,

a little bit less room than you'd hope because that gaffer deal is sitting there. I mean, it's a big contract. It's like 14 a year after this year, they got a little overzealous when he had a few good games and it's like, wow, we got this bargain. Let's lock him up. It does not work. He just, it can't grab a rebound. He's out of position all the time. He's just not that reliable. Frankly, I can't blame Wes Unseld for playing Taj Gibson over him, which he's done a couple of times. And to me with Porzingis and his health history, he's,

along with sort of i think the need to have some semblance of a second unit that spot is a problem so can they get like the one guy i keep thinking about like is not a point guard but it seems a little over duplicative but i think might actually help them a lot is someone like a john collins who could play a backup five who i think would be an interesting fit with poor zingas um

Someone, this is going to be the year. Someone is going to rescue John Collins, who is like just regularly the best player going three or four from the field in 32 minutes on a team right now. Someone is going to trade for him. I haven't heard Washington as that team yet.

I haven't either. That's a good name, though. That's a good name. Lots of teams should be kind of making a little calls on John Collins. I agree. But yeah, someone who can be a bigger four but can play some five. Just someone who can prevent Daniel Gafford from having to play. And it's just tough because of that contract that looks really bad. But to me, that's a problem spot.

because Porzingis has played in 16 of the 17 games. First of all, you can't count on that. Second of all, I think you need a different look. The idea of Daniel Gafford is very valuable, but it just is not working. He has made no strides. I don't know. I think there's some questions about his preparation level. It seems like he's making the same mistakes over and over again. He's kind of a disaster in the short roll. He

He's not great. Even if you kind of get him right at the rim and he's contesting shots, it's great. But anything else is a problem. You can't defensive rebound. I think that spot has been a major problem for their second unit. That and Will Barton's game just totally falling off a cliff. Honestly, that trade has not worked out well for them so far.

I liked it for the Nuggets immediately. I didn't understand why there was any controversy about it from the Nuggets perspective. I thought it was a clear home run for them. Not home run, but like double off the wall. Mike Conley do anything for you? We'll see if he gets healthy. Emmanuel quickly?

Now that one's an interesting one too. Although aren't the Knicks kind of looking for a pick as opposed to a player? That's what I mean by sort of not quite pick a lane, but like put the turn signal on a little bit to see what lane you want to go in. Would Orlando trade Cole Anthony? Yeah.

I know they have like no guards now, but like if they can, if they get full. Yeah. Maybe they'll just go all in on guards. Who needs guards? Like maybe that could be their new, their new slogan. Like point ball, point ball, ball, just, just go all in on point ball, ball. There was a, there was a part of me that was wondering, should the Wizards trade their lottery pick for someone like a Cole Anthony or quickly by the draft? No, no, no. Like last year. I mean, Oh, okay.

It's an interesting discussion because you want to say no, because it just feels like this same Wizards, just like tiny incremental move, but at least it's for a younger player. Exactly. Yeah. I'll tell you this before we go. They're definitely watching Brooklyn.

and hoping for the implosion and not for Kyrie Irving. I was going to say, I think I know who you're talking about. For the other guy who's from the area. Unfortunately, I don't know. We're really going to do this again. I don't know that they have the assets to get it done with that pick already hanging out the door, going to the Knicks and what we said about their prospects. But they like everyone else in the league.

Is just keeping an eye on it. That's all. I can't believe they're going to try to do that again.

Well, I don't know if they're going to, but I mean, I would. Wouldn't you? I mean, yeah, I would ask. What else are we doing? I would ask. I'm just. You don't think it was. Don't get my notes up here. Like, there's just. Okay, let's go back to being hopeless. The Wizards are a nice team. They play competent basketball. They're not the most exciting watch in the league. They need to keep these pink jerseys forever and ever and ever. They're amazing. They are nice. And I'm not a, by the way, I'm not like a.

new jersey fan and i like that well there are there are i don't like them i don't like that we have too many of them and i like them um yeah i don't know i mean shoot if you ask me like just they should be tanking for vic but you know that's not gonna happen i was gonna bring that up earlier like i don't know many wizards fans i don't think anybody outside of like a 20 mile vicinity of whatever the verizon center is called what is it called now

Is it still the Verizon Center? Oh, Capital One Arena. Okay. The phone booth. I'll always call it the phone booth. I don't know that anyone knows a lot of Wizards fans, but the ones I know, as competent as this team is, would much rather be playing with tankathon.com every day this season than what's happening now. But look, you can only do what you can do within the parameters set by the people who are running your organization. And under those parameters, you're

This team is perfectly watchable. It's like a, it's like a, it's a Turkey sandwich of an NBA team. Not that exciting. Got to put a lot of condiments on it to make it super edible. Gets the job done in a pinch. Mike Prada from the athletic formerly of SB nation, formerly of bullets forever.com author of this book, which you should all buy right here. Spaced out, spaced out,

Steph Curry's on the cover. And the Kings too, which Kings fans have noted many, many times. The Kings are on the cover and maybe the Wizards should read this and start shooting more threes. They should. Mike Prater, thank you for your time. Go Wiz. See you around the block. Thanks for having me, Zach.