Team USA Survives Exhibition Games, Next Season's Wins Over/Under Reactions, and Knicks Talk
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And now, The Low Post.

Welcome to the Low Post Podcast where it is officially late July. We are a mere three days away from opening ceremonies of the Olympics. The last bit of off-season free agency news is starting to trickle in a little by a little. We got some big name trades that could happen now, later, anytime. But we're coming towards the sort of dead time of the off-season at least until August 6th when a certain player on the Utah Jazz has the right to...

renegotiate and extend his contract. We'll see what happens there. There's also a team in New York City that has maybe some business left to do. Fred Katz of The Athletic. You cover that team, among other things. How are you, sir? I'm lovely. Always happy to come on with you, Zach. Thank you for having me.

We're going to do some over-unders, lines on ESPN Bet that we found most interesting. We're going to talk some Knicks. We're going to talk some other stuff, but we got to start with Team USA because that's the time of the year we are on. Team USA, for the third straight game, played a pretty close game. Well, three out of four, I guess. We had Australia close game, blew out Serbia.

And I saw that game, Fred, and I said, you know what? This team looks great. Like they're playing unselfishly. They're moving the ball. They've turned the paint into a complete no-fly zone for other teams on defense. The only way that we – and I'm just public service announcement. I'm saying we. Team USA is too unwieldy to say over and over again. I am an American citizen. I'm saying we. The only way we can lose is if we play bad and another team goes crazy from three. And then South Sudan.

Ultimate Cinderella story takes us to the wire. LeBron and LeBron is the story of the Team USA lead up so far. Hits a layup to ice the game and they miss a couple of good chances. South Sudan to pull the upset. And then yesterday afternoon, Fred, we both watched Germany. The defending FIBA world, the current FIBA world champions push the U.S. to the limit. LeBron again carries us down the stretch.

We should also mention that in a very cool thing, one kid born in Akron nominated another kid born in Akron to be the freaking flag bearer for Team USA, the whole damn Team USA at the Olympics. LeBron James is going to be the male athlete flag bearer at opening ceremonies this week, nominated by Steph Curry.

That's the first male basketball player ever to do it for Team USA. That is really, really cool. And Fred, it has been interesting to see in this FIBA environment where the spacing is a little more cramped and that's been an issue for Team USA. We can't get threes. Now we're forcing the other teams to take an enormous amount of threes because they can't get to the rim against us.

But in this environment where the spacing is a little tighter, the kickouts are a little harder, the closeouts are a little shorter, LeBron's bully ball physical game is sort of rising to the top even more so than it does in the NBA.

He and Steph have been a dynamic two-man duo. Everyone else is contributing. Joel Embiid has finally had a couple good games in a row. But they're deferring to LeBron at the end of these games. And LeBron has been the best player on the team. Maybe Anthony Davis would have a claim to that. But offensively in the half court, when the game gets tight, Steph has missed a bunch of threes late in some of these games. He's been sensational otherwise. But it's incredible to see LeBron...

And I can imagine the Lakers being like, really guys, you can't, you got to play him this many minutes and he's got to do this much stuff. He's almost 40. This is team USA. This is the greatest assemblage of talent since the dream team. Do you have to, does he have to carry it like this? It's been pretty crazy to watch, right? It's,

It's been amazing, honestly, from an interpersonal perspective where like you look at Team USA and there's always the incumbent guy. You know, there's always there's always the guy who's always been the guy. And then there's always the guy who is the uprising guy. And you kind of try to look at Team USA and you look at those interpersonal dynamics to see who that's going to be. And it is unbelievable to see LeBron at.

almost 40 years old at the point of his career where he has a kid in the league now and everybody is still just like, nope, your team. Everybody on that team is just turning to him when they need him most. And it's pretty incredible to see that happening at his age, that this group of not just unbelievably talented basketballs, but maniacally competitive people are like, nope, that's

that's our guy. That's the one who's going to take over. And you mentioned the bully ball. Yeah. I mean, there was a play late in that game against Germany when it was really close and I thought Germany played a great game, but when it was, it was close and there's a play late in Germany where LeBron is, is taken over and he kind of goes two steps, jump stop at the rim and just goes up two hands, lay up off the backboard where it's like, that is a,

that's like a move that you make when you're a high schooler playing against middle schoolers. You know what I mean? Where you're just like, I'm going to get to this spot and I'm going to go up. It's almost a little Giannis-like or Shaq-like in terms of what he was doing. And he was just pushing dudes around, getting to whatever spots he wanted. And it is amazing that at this point in his career, he's still the guy who has to take over late in order for them to win these games. And I can hear the contingent of fans saying,

Who are tired of LeBron. And I understand why they're tired of LeBron. Like I have been tired of his hourglass passive aggressive tweets for 10 years. I addressed very briefly the Bronny James mania last week. I don't want to go there.

So I understand. I get it. But this is not a media fabricated thing that's going on. He has been carrying Team USA at the end of games. Steph Curry nominated him to be the flag bearer. He's been unbelievable in the Olympics on both ends of the floor. Some of the rebounds he got at the end of that game to seal that game against Germany were just like monster, big boy, I'm just bigger and stronger and tougher than you rebounds. But

So all kudos to LeBron. I'm sure the Lakers are like, oh my God, really? Like it's our two guys that are going to have to do all this work for the team. But this is not, on the one hand, Team USA is 5-0. And they survived an outlier shooting game against South Sudan. South Sudan was 14 of 33 on threes and made a bunch of crazy two-point shots in the lane too. Shout out Carleek Jones. Team USA was only 7 of 28 from three in that game.

They only got 17 threes off total versus Germany. Germany shot 45 threes. So Germany shot as many threes in one game as the U.S. has combined in its last two and in fact made the same amount as well. That's a problem. And yet they found a way to win these games because the margin of error and the margin of talent is just that big. But I think in total...

The Serbia game is the only one that left me thinking, okay, like I took the team USA over the field last week. And then after the survey game, I was like, I'm now even more confident. I'm upping it up to almost 60% confidence level that I would take team USA over the field. I'm still about there. It might be 70% because I just think our talent level is that great, but we haven't played France. We did play Canada, beat them pretty well. But I think in total,

I think this qualifying run and look, I'm sure we have dialed down the intensity for some of these games and there's going to be a new level of hit in the Olympics. We have not seen Kevin Durant. We don't know when we are going to see Kevin Durant. He may be the greatest or second greatest Team USA player of all time. He completely changes the team. But I think in total, I've come away from this thinking, yeah, this is about what I thought. Team USA is the best team, but there's going to be a game or two in the Olympics where

When it's like, okay, we're, we're having a bad shooting game. They're having a good shooting game. Like it's not going to be a cakewalk. What would have been like, what, when you've watched these games and you're Steve Kerr, you're the coaching staff, you're Sean Ford, the director of USAB, Grant Hill, um,

um what are your what are your areas of concern what are you watching as we go into the round robin play starting with serbia by the way so i cover i cover tom thibodeau as you know and tibbs has this process that he goes to when he wants to make an adjustment and the first thing he asks is is the team executing it correctly and are they playing hard and he asked those two things and if the answer is yes they're executing it correctly and yes they're playing hard then you can say okay something's up with the scheme and you got to do something else and i

I keep coming back to, you mentioned the disparity in three-point shots, for example. Germany was playing so freaking fast. So fast. And Team USA just wasn't keeping up with them. And something that I couldn't quite tell was...

Is this team USA's energy in an exhibition? We're like, they're not dogging it. They're not not playing hard, but Germany stylistically plays this ridiculously fast, quick Twitch branded basketball where it's one second and then past that guy. Ops. Whenever he touches the ball, he is going to go. He's terrifying. Ops is terrifying. I'm like, Oh my God, this is like,

Steph Curry level terror threat level, like Klay Thompson level threat level. Totally. And if he touches the ball, it's going up. It's either going straight up or he's sidestepping into a three every freaking time. And like USA just wasn't necessarily keeping up with Germany in that sense. Like there's a play late in the game and it's a really close game. And after a free throw, Germany off of an inbound is able to throw a football pass down the field and almost get a layup out of it. And I just don't anticipate those sorts of things coming up

in the Olympics. And if I'd be interested, if you go back and you look at all of the threes that Germany got, how many of them came either because Germany went real quick and USA wasn't, wasn't able to get its defense set when maybe in another world where everybody is going at 110% that maybe they could get their defense set or

Or if they just got it because they were able to get some sort of mismatch or some sort of convolution on defense because they were able to move so quickly. I'm curious also, like teams that play really fast are set up well to go against USA because...

They just haven't played that much basketball together compared to the rest of the world. You know, Germany just won the FIBA World Cup last year because they have all of these guys who have been together forever. The Wagner's have known each other since the second they were born. Like it's a team that knows how to play together. It's a team that understands where everyone's going to be on the court at all times and has a lot of continuity. And when you play with a ton of speed, that's also how you can make up for a large talent disparity, right? Like you see it.

Whenever a team, like a 10 seed in the NCAA tournament ends up making a final four run, usually the reason why is because they're just hitting the whole crap ton of threes and they're taking 53s and another team is taking...

you know, 18 threes and that's making up for the difference when you play fast and you take a lot of threes, you can close that gap if you shoot well and you play well. So to me, it's, it's hard for me to look at stuff from, from USA, even though it was really close against Germany and closer than it technically should have been. It's harder for me to look at it and think like, okay, there's a real true problem here because I feel like some of those issues that rose in that game aren't necessarily going to happen in the ones that count.

Well, and to your point about chemistry, like we're still seeing these turnovers where one player on Team USA passes to where he thinks another player is going to be and that player is somewhere else and the ball goes out of bounds. Those are just pure chemistry turnovers. As far as the way Germany attacked Team USA.

I think a couple of these are not weak points necessarily, but the only places where teams are going to really go to attack is when Embiid is on the floor. They're going to attack his drop back defense because that's where Team USA doesn't want to switch. And so you saw Ops, the ace shooter on Germany, coming off screens from Embiid's guy hoping to get separation and either Embiid's got to step out or Ops could could walk into an open three.

You're going to see the Curry-Embiid two-man combination attack defensively in the pick and roll and in those kind of setups that we talked about because there's nowhere else to go. You're going to see a lot of slips, like you're talking about speed. That's what Germany was really good at. They know when we have the AD, BAM, when we have any lineup that doesn't have Embiid, we're going to switch everything. And the way to be to switch is to slip hard out of those screens ahead of the switch. You saw some of that. But I just think defensively,

We can sit here and focus on the disparity in threes, and it's a little bit of a problem. But part of the reason the disparity exists is that teams cannot get to the rim against Team USA. The paint is like a complete no-fly zone. One of the reasons why Germany is an interesting opponent for us, and potentially Canada too, is...

They have these guards in Schroeder and especially SGA who can get into the paint against elite defenses who are taking away the paint and still get you at least some requisite amount of attempts and penetration into the lane. But for the most part, a lot of these threes are just desperation. Like we just cannot get into the paint, particularly when Bam and AD are in there together. And I did think, however, against South Sudan and especially Germany, that

The offense kind of got a little stagnant for Team USA in both of those games, a little mid-range heavy, a little ISO heavy. We have a lot of players who like to do that. And the Germany game was really the first time I thought the spacing issues of the BAM AD front court began to be a problem for Team USA. And Germany was just able to cover the whole court pretty easily. So that'll be interesting to watch. But yeah.

I just can't I can't wait for this because as great as Team USA is and I do think they're going to hit another level just by intensity and perhaps by the injection of Durant into the team. There's going to be a game. There's going to be two games where it's like, oh, OK, this is a three point game with four minutes left. And and that these teams are just too good for Team USA to roll through like they used to. 100 percent. I mean, look at Canada.

Shea Gildersland Alexander can be the best player on the floor in a game. Canada's got all of these ridiculously good perimeter defenders. You don't want to go up against Lou Dort. You don't want to go up against Dylan Brooks. Dylan Brooks spent more time in the last like three seasons guarding the other team's best player than any other team in the league. Can I just say, I'd be fine going up against Dylan Brooks. Bring me Dylan Brooks. Talk all your...

Bring me Dylan Brooks. Wave the Canadian flag in our faces. Get our guys fired up. I'm all in on that. Now, he did score 39 points in the bronze medal game. He wrecked them.

Dylan Brooks will take on the assignment. Lou Dort will take on the assignment. Nikhil Alexander Walker has turned himself against. I did not see it coming, but he's turned himself into a hell of a defender. You got Shea leading that offense. You got RJ Barrett has been solid during during international play where he can play more kind of off the ball is more of a cutter kind of how the Raptors were using him more like that's a team with a

ton of NBA talent that can play fast, understands how to play together too. Like this is not what did the dream team play five NBA players during their entire run? Something like that. This is not that it's not that. No. And a lot of people point out Canada. So I think Canada is the second most talented team in the whole tournament. Um,

Serbia is not quite as deep in A-level players as it used to be, but they have an A++ at the top of the roster, and Bogdanovich didn't play. Bogdan Bogdanovich didn't play in the exhibition. But when people look at Canada and the way Canada matches up with Team USA, the weak spot is always, well, they don't have any frontcourt size. They don't have depth. They're playing Dwight Powell and Kelly Olenek at the five, and Embiid is just going to eat those guys for lunch. And that's true, but I think...

Look, every team against Team USA is going to be an underdog. And any team with a stretch five, like even when Tice got rolling in the second half yesterday and made a couple of the shorter FIBA threes against Embiid yesterday.

Any team that's going to beat Team USA, it's going to beat us. I'm going back to patriotism. Us is going to have a stretch five who's just like it's going to take. Oh, Linic just has a random five of seven from three against them. Beat game drop. And like, so I get that that's a weakness for Canada, but it also increases their variance. And that's the way that a team like that is going to beat TV. I say is with shooting variance. I mean, look.

Zach, you want to go back seven years to an NBA example of Game 7, Wizard Celtics, Kelly Olenek against Marcin Gortat in the draft? Really just...

Really just peak late 2010s Eastern Conference non-Cavs playoff basketball. Wait a second. That Celtics team versus that Wizards team was like a high-level Eastern Conference. No wonder the Cavs made the finals every year and barely broke a sweat. That was to go to the Eastern Conference finals. What did Olenek have in that game? 30-whatever? 33-37? I watched that game at a bar with a Warriors coach who shall not be named in Oakland. And we were like, what is going on in this game? What is happening? What is happening?

But that can happen when you have a guy who's at his best in drop. You can have a guy who's just going to go off and win you one damn game. It can happen. It's happened with Kelly Olenek. It can happen again with Kelly Olenek. So I'm with you. I think defensively, Canada is going to have a tough answer for

For Embiid, for Anthony Davis, I think that's going to be really difficult for them. But they've got dudes on the perimeter. They've got switchable guys. They've got really tough players. And look, Shea Gilders, Alexander can be the best player on the court in any game, any day, no matter what. Like that dude is an incredible player.

Couple other Team USA things. The Embiid thing has been fascinating because he just plays a style that we have not really had on Team USA in a long, long time. And it's been fascinating to watch the U.S. sort of absorb, okay, we have this like back to the basket gigantic guy.

We usually play fast and shoot a ton of threes. And how does this all interact? And he's getting more comfortable every game. I think the passing reads have to be quicker for him. But smart defenses make those reads complicated, especially with no defensive three seconds. You can really screw around with the spacing. So we'll see on Embiid. I'm not like, oh, they've got to pull Embiid out of the starting five. Like, I'm cool with how they have it set up.

Issue number two, not issue is it's just a delight to watch Steph on this stage. Steph's never been in the Olympics before. He and LeBron, the two man game is just full throttle immediately, mostly with Steph screening for LeBron. And basically anytime Steph screens or takes a screen from any player anywhere on the floor, something good is happening. And he will have a game in the Olympics where it's just, he already had one. I think it was against Serbia, but he'll have a game in the Olympics where

where there's just a prolonged eruption of Steph FIBA threes. That's issue number two. Issue number three is,

Look, I'm going to take everyone at their word that Durant's on track. Durant's fine. Durant's just taking his time from the calf injury. They're not Brian Windhorst reported today. They're not pulling Durant off the roster. He's going to be on the roster, even if he doesn't play in the opening game, which Brian on, I think get up this morning, raise some doubt that Durant will be available for the Serbia game in group play. And so they'll just have 11 guys, which is fine because already Halliburton didn't play yesterday against Germany. Like,

Like, okay. I mean, every game that goes by, I'm like, if I'm a, okay, I'm going to take everyone at their word. But it's like, I like, this is lingering longer than everyone kind of thought it would linger. And if I'm a son's fan, I'm like, what's the way what's happening. He's still not playing. We traded everything. I'm a little, okay. Like knock on wood, I guess. And he's been day to day the whole time. That's the thing where you're like, what's going on. I'm with you. Like if I'm, if I'm a Clippers fan and I see Kawhi Leonard pulled, my reaction is, oh, good. Yeah.

Good. Get some, save Kawhi from putting some miles on the odometer. He doesn't necessarily need that from the Clippers perspective. And with KD, KD was actually healthy last year for all the talk of all of his injuries and whatever else. It was his healthiest season since before he tore the Achilles. He played, I think, 75 games, but he's in his mid thirties now.

And the sun's like, that's all they got. If they lose one of those three guys, like that's all they got. So I'm with you. I would be want to be very cautious if I was Kevin Durant. That being said, like he's still what?

One of the two or three best players on this team at worst, at worst, just tremendously important on both sides of the court. I mean, the Suns, he was the Suns' maybe most impactful defender last season, other than like Josh Okogie. Like they could really use him on both sides of the court. And he is the differentiator between them being really, really good and being the probable gold medalists and putting them over the top.

Two other Olympics notes, and then we will transition back to the league that we actually cover. Number one, this is purely low family shout out, Fred. This means nothing to you. I want to give a special low post shout out to swimming stars Gretchen Walsh and Alex Walsh.

Uh, I hope somebody, uh, in your family tells you that we shouted you out on this podcast. Everybody in our community is watching you. We love you. You guys are going to kick ass wall sisters. If you don't know who the wall sisters are, Google Alex and Gretchen walls. Cause you're about to know who they are. If you don't know who they are yet, uh, kick ass guys, we love you. Uh, and, uh,

Thing number two, this is just an aside, Fred. ESPN did the thing that we do, which is make a list and then argue about the list on ESPN programming. The list was the top 100 athletes of the 2000s, I think was the conceit, because why not? We're 25% of the way through the 2000s. And I don't want to get into it now, but I think one of my next life goals is

I'm just going to have to be one of the guys who takes up for Tim Duncan. Tim Duncan was 16th in the athletes of the 2000s. Now we can, you know, he started his career in 1997. He was behind Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James among NBA players. I'm not ready to do the full Tim Duncan thing yet. I just, he and Shaq, I think are becoming the most chronically underrated players in all of these like top whatever discussions. So I'm just going to read you some Tim Duncan stats.

16th all-time in points, 6th all-time in rebounds, 6th all-time in playoff points, 3rd all-time in playoff rebounds, 7th all-time in VORP, 10th all-time in PER, 15 all-defensive selections, which is 1st among all players ever, 15 all-NBA selections, which is tied for 2nd among all-NBA players ever, 10 first-team all-NBA selections, which is 4th,

Behind only LeBron, who had 13, Kobe 11, Karl Malone 11. Nobody would ever argue Karl Malone is better than Tim Duncan in any way. Five NBA championships, two-time MVP.

nine top five MVP finishes three finals MVPs, which is actually third all time tied with magic and Shaq. And I just, he's just always behind Kobe. And now he's behind Steph on this list of the top 100. And they played about the same amount of seasons in the two thousands. Um, obviously the end of that was Duncan sort of declined as he aged, whereas Steph has been in his prime more or less for the last 10 of those seasons. Plus, um,

He might be one of the three greatest defense players of all time, even though he never won defense player of the year. I mean, I just read all the stats. I just, I don't know why he's always behind all these other guys. Part of it is just scoring. I said 16th all time in points. His career scoring average is just about 20 flat.

And, um, his true shooting percentage is about, is the same tied with Kobe 55% because he was not never shot any threes and he was not like super duper efficient on twos the way Shaq was cause Shaq dunked all the time. He's like 50%, 52%, 51%, 49%. Um,

I don't know. I'm going to have to do the Tim Duncan deep dive Fred cats. Cause I just, I don't know if like it was the spurs, the era that he played in, which obviously disadvantages his counting stats for points. The fact that he sacrificed minutes for longevity, all of that, like boring basketball, Nadir of the post Jordan pre LeBron NBA, people got to go watch some Tim Duncan games. That's all I got to say. You know why though? It's because there's absolutely, his nickname was literally the big fundamental. There,

There's just nothing flashy. Tim Duncan would never stand up in the Instagram era. I agree with you, by the way, for what it's worth. I think Tim Duncan's what I'm not saying. I'm definitively ranking him over anybody. I got to like do the actual deep dive, but I have been pretty hard on the Island of like, I think I'd rank him above Kobe for sure. All not for sure. Let me amend that. I think I would rank him above Kobe all time. I think he's probably closer to, uh,

the sixth seventh eighth range i'm doing this off the top of my head then he is the 12th 13th 14th range of all time that's all that's all i'm saying i don't know someday i'm gonna have to do the tim duncan deep dive i'm sure he'll sit down for a long exclusive interview with me fred yes the spurs will hook you up with it they'll be they'll be thrilled to get it for you um but i'll do a definitive list of my all-time players another day

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Okay, the next assignment was I said, hey, it's the offseason. There's nothing going on. ESPN bet released its win total over-unders for next season. Fred Katz picked three interesting ones. And interesting, I left totally open-ended. It could be because you think it's wildly too high, wildly too low. Just right, and you want to talk about this team. Could be anything you want. I picked three. You picked three. I'm interested to see if we overlap. I picked one that I think is wildly low.

One, I'm worried is a little too high. And one I think is just right and bullish. And I'm interested to talk about the team, but you go first. Okay. You want to stay in San Antonio? Because that to me is kind of the most interesting. So ESPN bet has their over under 35 and a half. And to me, I think a lot of what it's going to come down to is how much do they actually want to win? And if they get off to a nice enough start,

How much do they want to sustain that? I love what they did this off season for both present and future reasons. Chris Paul is just a basically no risk, high reward signing. That's going to help them in the short term and potentially help them in the longterm. Look at,

All of those young players who Chris Paul has had like one year stops with. I've talked to like Lou Dort about how he learned about the importance of defense from the one year he played with Chris Paul. Chris Paul would sit him down and show him defensive film. And it just has this long lasting effect on Lou Dort on how he looks at defense now. And so it's going to have long term sort of ramifications in a good way of having Chris Paul on that team. They were desperate for a point guard when Wemby and Trey Jones were on the floor together last year. Plus 5.3 pro.

Per 100 possessions, the Spurs were. They drafted Castle. If he can give them anything at all. You want to look up the Wemby plus Trey Jones plus Devin Vassell trio? Because it's even bigger than that, Fred Katz. It's like plus nine per 100 possessions. Well, Vassell is such an interesting player for me this year because now they have Chris Paul and Paul can't really get by guys anymore. He doesn't get to the pain. He doesn't get to the rim. And he's not the same sort of like three-point creator that he used to be. But 64% of Vassell's shots last year

Vazell's threes last year were catch and shoot. And I'm curious, like if, if there's a goal there to get that up to like four out of five shots is catch and shoot and kind of see how he fits into that offense around more, because if he can get to a point where like, he's, he's doing some secondary stuff off the dribble, but he's hitting a ton of catch and shoot threes. He shot 40% on spot up threes last year. Like if, if he can get to that point,

They're in a good spot. They got Harrison Barnes for free. Somehow they got Harrison Barnes for free. If they want, if I mean, I can, I can tell you how the bulls pulled the rare accomplishment of making a trade with a player that somebody wanted and not getting back the asset. That was the golden ship asset in the trade, but they did get Chris Duarte in a second round pick. So it's all good. Do you know how many teams infuriated me with salary dumps this summer?

I mean, just like the Pistons setting the market with Tim Hardaway Jr. being three seconds when later Harrison Barnes goes for a 20-31 unprotected first round swap. And you could probably double dip. Well, the Pistons also gave up a potential rotation player for the Mavericks in that trade. And the one that we may not talk about, but the

The Nuggets salary dumping Reggie Jackson with three second round picks and then using I didn't realize that they used the tax MLE or whatever they used on Dario Saric and paid Dario like about what Reggie Jackson was making was a little bit of a surprise. And I say that is team Croatia fanboy number one over here. OK, Spurs continue.

I think they're really interesting. And ultimately I think what it comes down to is like, how good is Victor Wambanyama? Is he, is he a top 15 player this year or is he going to show up and just be like first team all NBA? You know, last year, the Spurs were playing him more at the four at the beginning of the year, more at the five at the end of the year. And you watched him in his first 2025 games, however many it was. And defensively,

He did rookie stuff. He was still fantastic defensively, but he was doing rookie stuff. He was the ball swung to the opposite way and he would rotate a little bit late. He would have to help as the low man and he'd be a little bit late coming in or he would, he would give up the pass to the corner or something as he did it. And then very, very quickly, he started to figure out the speed of NBA defense. And all of a sudden it's just like, if Victor get Wemba Yama is on the court, you're going to annihilate teams period. Uh,

If he takes a significant jump, which I think we can all agree is very much on the table, and he's just a first team all NBA player. I think it's possible having him with just competent NBA players around him. And Devin Vassell is a competent NBA player. Chris Paul, like I know he's fallen off, but you look at the numbers. Chris Paul's team is always better when he's on the court, always better when he's on the court.

The team shot pile shot profile is always really good when he's on the court. He's always getting guys, good open shots, uh,

Castle, I think is, is, is a talented guy. And if he can be somewhat decent coming in, then they're in good shape. Trey Jones, I think is, is it was kind of miscast as like the guy in terms of being the point guard for a team last year. And now you've got him in more of like his Tyus Jones sort of role, the idealized role for Trey Jones. I just think they have a decent amount of competent players around a guy who, who really might end up being what a top five, top seven player this year. I think that's in the cards. And if that's the case, like,

I think we're talking like Spurs play in tournament. And I think it's possible we're talking Spurs winning a lot more than 35 and a half games is as unbelievably difficult as the West is. Top five to seven feels a little aggressive to me. But then again, we just haven't really seen anybody like Wemby before. But all NBA discussion in general does not feel aggressive at all. In fact, he was already kind of on the fringes of it.

This year, this line is perfect. 35 and a half is perfect. It's a huge jump on paper from their win total of 22 last year, but they tried to win 22 games last year in multiple ways. Sohan is point guard. Wemby is the four, you know, kind of pulling the plug a little bit down the stretch, although their win against the Nuggets in game 81 or 82 is like an all-time what the hell just happened and changed the whole playoffs overall.

for Denver. I have said that I'm, I think the Spurs are going to be in the play-in race next year. So I guess that by default, I'm taking the over on this. I agree with everything you said. I co-sign everything. I think, I just think they're going to be good if they want. They're going to be decent if they want to be decent. And to your point, maybe that just depends on how the first 25 games go. Okay. I will let you pick again and see if we overlap. We did not, the Spurs were not one of my teams. How about the Cleveland Cavaliers? Aha! We have overlapped, Fred Katz.

I will let, well, you know what you go, why did you pick the calves? I picked the calves because I look at all of the general peripherals around them. And I see, this is a team that won 50 some odd games two years ago. It's a team that won there. They're over unders 47 and a half.

They won 50 some odd games two years ago. They won 48 games last year in a season where nothing went right. Mobley, Allen, Garland, Mitchell played together for only 28 games all year. Everyone's hurt at different points. They can't figure stuff out for a lot of it. By the end of the year, they look like just a team that could be losing in the first round and they still win 48.

And they bring this group back together. They have a new coach in Kenny Atkinson, who I think has shown that he at least has had success as a head coach before. And we'll see how he does with a different roster in a different place. And yet I look at them. Donovan Mitchell is committed long term. You don't have that question looming over you anymore. And you see that and I'm like, OK, chances are they're not going to have the health luck they had last year, which was some of the worst in the league.

They're still really young. Mobley's young. Garland's young. Mitchell is in his prime. Allen's in his prime. They, they, Struess was a good signing, made sense last year. Like they should win 50 games. You would think, especially in a relatively weak Eastern conference compared to the West. And yet I just look at them and I'm,

I feel the point of being a good basketball team is putting together a bunch of players who can make sure the team is at its best when they're all playing together. And you look at where they are with Mobley and Allen, who are both really good players, and they just won't play them together in important moments. And,

Garland and Mitchell, I think are still figuring out how to play together. Garland had a down year last year. And part of me is like, okay, Darius Garland was an all-star when he was, you know, what second or third year player. He's still really young. He's very talented. He plays the right way. You should be betting on that guy coming up and that last year being a fluke of all things. But,

Garland played his best basketball when Mitchell was out last year and Mitchell played his best basketball when Garland was out last year. Meanwhile, you look at their playoff run, which they may end up making it to the second round. Mobley and Allen played in two fourth quarters together. Like they just won't close with those guys together. And I'm like, this is a team that has a lot of talent and it should work. And I look at it. I'm like, this should work. And yet, uh,

They're kind of telegraphing to all of us. We don't actually think that it completely and utterly works. And so I don't really know. It's not saying I don't think they're going to be good. They're obviously going to be good. I just I just I just feel a little off being like really high on them. You know what I mean?

So I mentioned that I had one line that I thought was wildly too low. This is it. I think this is too low for the Cavs. I think because of everything you just said, people have gotten too low on the Cavs. I

I get the fit issues like I get it. I also just don't really care that much in the regular season. If I'm talking about regular season win totals, I just don't care. I care about the talent more than the fit. And I also think people have decided that the fit is an open and shut case. It's over. It doesn't work. And I'm not even convinced that we should be there yet. Evan Mobley is 22 years old.

And look, the spacing is going to be what it is. It's going to be different and it's going to be worse in the playoffs if his three-point shot doesn't come along than it will be in the regular season. In the regular season, you can live with it just by staggering minutes. I don't think the fact that you have to stagger minutes a little more dramatically than you might on other teams between both the guards and the bigs is necessarily a bad thing. I think that can make up for...

spots nine through 12 being perhaps not what you would want them to be. And by the way, spots, you know, with Levert, Niang, Dean Wade, Sam Merrill, like I, there, that depth isn't great, but I can get to 10 guys where I'm like, all right, I feel good about that. Particularly if I can play two starters at one, like it doesn't even bother me that they went on that run when Mobley and Garland were hurt last year. I'm not saying it's a great team. I'm not saying I like all problems are solved, but,

I just think the fit will improve. I think Kenny Atkinson will help the fit improve by introducing a little more juice and complexity to their offense. I think their young players will get better. One of the reasons Wobbly and Allen only played in two fourth quarters in the playoffs is that Allen missed the entire Boston series. So there's five games just vaporized right there.

And Mobley looked awesome playing center in those games. Yeah, that matters long-term. I don't like, I'm just interested in looking at this number short-term, not long-term, not big decisions I've got to make going forward. Darius Garland had to eat out of a straw for like a large chunk of last season because he had a broken jaw. I'm in on a Darius Garland bounce back. They got to figure out Isaac Okoro. This looks like it's going to be a restricted free agency standoff. I just think

Yeah, there are warts. There are fit issues. They got to figure it out. Last year, their core four guys, Mitchell, Garland, Mobley, Allen, only played 392 minutes together. They were plus two per 100 possessions in those 392 minutes. That's not great. You'd like it to be better than that. That's your point. Two years ago, in many more minutes, they were plus nine per 100 possessions with those four guys on the floor. I think there's a version of this team that even if it doesn't work at a

Oh my God, we could make a real deep playoff run and a top heavy Eastern conference level. It works in a, why are we being lumped in with Orlando and Indiana? And now they Orlando went, took them the distance and in the playoffs, I get it. I just think they're better than 47 and a half wins. And I would hammer, hammer, hammer the over. We should mention a news wise, Evan Mobley signed his five year, um,

Max extension this week. I don't know how many of the details have been reported, but like Cade Cunningham, like Scottie Barnes, and like Franz Wagner, there is no player option in the fifth year. Teams have successfully pushed back against that. And from what I've heard, the all-NBA language is as follows. If he makes first or second team all-NBA, he will get bumped up to 30% of the cap.

If he makes third team, it's 27 and a half percent of the cap. I think I haven't seen the final contract yet, but that's what I've heard, which is a model that I know teams have kind of talked about. Like we got to separate third team from first and second. I've said before many times, I will take all your Evan Mobley stock. I'm an Evan Mobley believer. The offense hasn't come as fast as I would hope. This is just, I think this line is too low. That's all. Yeah, I get it. We've also seen like people look, Mobley's defense is there.

And you're right, the offense hasn't all the way come. But we've seen flashes where you're like, damn, Evan Mobley can really facilitate from the post. They're a monstrous defensive tandem. Allen and Mobley are in the regular season. And in the East, the other thing is I've got Brooklyn, Washington, Detroit, Charlotte, Chicago. We'll see where Chicago falls and where some other teams fall. If I got like 18, 19 games against those teams, if I can go 13 and 5,

I just got to go 500 the rest of the way to get up to 45, 46. And I get that the rest of the schedule is going to be West teams and top East teams. I think the Cavs can go better than 500 in that, in those kinds of games. Yeah. And if you have to stagger, that just means 48 minutes of rim protection at an elite level, which basically no other team in the Eastern conference can do because, you know, you've got two great rim protectors in Milwaukee, but you're not going to stagger those. So they're separated for 48 minutes with, with Lopez and, and Giannis and,

Yeah, I'm with you. And I think offensively there, there could be something more there that we haven't seen. Mobley has shown the ability to, to do, do some stuff as a facilitator from the high post. I thought, I thought Alan had his best passing season ever last year. He's always been a smart passer, but like, especially when, when those guys were out and the cows were feasting on Mitchell, Alan pick and roll. And Alan was just making these beautiful plays out of the short role. He's become one of the better short roll centers in the league. I think,

They understand how to play basketball. And that's part of where I'm like, can they just figure out how to make this work? This should look better than it looked last year. It should look better. Two years ago, their first year that they were this, the complementary parts were a little bit different, obviously. Chetty Osmond was still there and Struis wasn't there yet and all that. But two years ago, this team had the second best net rating in the league during the regular season.

This was a team that people looked at going into the playoffs, and they ended up getting waxed by the Knicks in the first round. I was going to say, let's not talk about how the playoffs unfolded for them. None of this is about the playoffs. None of this is about the decisions they've got to make long-term. And by the way, in 25-26 with Mobley on the books, they've got...

170 something million to just seven guys in the next season with no Jared Allen, no cares of our, no, no nothing for five dudes. They've got almost 160 million. So they're going to be pushing the second apron with this team as is. They're probably not going to be able to get to the full mid-level exception to round out the team. So there's going to be some, some decisions and some, some financial squeezing, but I don't know. I think this is a good team. Can I go next and pick another one? Go for it.

So this one I would describe as the, it's the, it's a correct number. And yet I wouldn't, I don't bet at all. I wouldn't bet on it. I just think they're an interesting team. And in the West, it's a number that like it, I'm worried is too strong a word. The Sacramento Kings at 46 and a half.

is a big line. It's above the Lakers. It's way above the Warriors. It's above the Pelicans by a game. I think the Warriors are 42 and a half, which strikes me as quite low, by the way. We know that the Kings traded Harrison Barnes and a draft asset for DeMar DeRozan. Their presumed starting five will be Fox, one of Monk, Keon Ellis,

and Kevin Herter, and then DeRozan, Murray, Sabonis. So small, potentially defensively challenged starting five. Their bench will be two of those three guards that I mentioned, Trey Lyles, who's a critical player for them, and Alex Landis, Sabonis' backup. And now they can do some interesting things with their backup units where they might be able to keep two of three of Fox, Sabonis, and DeRozan on the floor at all times. They may not have to stagger defensively

um, minutes so strictly so that one of Sabonis and Fox is always on the floor. They might be able to rest both of them together and have Damar prop up the offense. They will see what duos between those three work. Um, I don't, I'm not saying it's too high or too low. I'm saying when I saw it, I thought, Hmm, that's, that's pretty bullish considering how good the West is. Um, I see the upside. The

I very high on DeMar's fit offensively there. This team shot the third most threes in the NBA last year. So I, even if they fall off a little bit, I don't think that's any kind of crisis. We've, we've already seen that he can play fast. He's a good distributor. He gives them another crunch time option. As I said previously, I think an underrated part of this acquisition is that he and Fox will form a nice two man game together where they can hunt mismatches and try to get switches and all that stuff. I think this is a good team. That's,

It's like one or two wins above where I thought the line would come in, I guess is what I would say. I think there's a very large burden on Keon Ellis. That dude is going to have to be really good at the point of attack this year because I think a lot of it will start with them. If teams are just getting into whatever they want to get into against them and you've got

demar on the wing and sabonis is your kind of top rim protector i think they could end up becoming a sieve and that's what makes me nervous but i agree like offensively they're gonna score demar gets a lot of crap because of his shot profile but he's unbelievable from the mid-range and people he's an awesome he's an awesome offensive totally he's

People talk about DeMar the same way now that they did when he was in Toronto. And the difference is when he was in Toronto, he was shooting 38% on long twos and now he's shooting like 48% on long twos. And that is a huge passer much. Well, that really happened in San Antonio when they, they, they,

played him at the four a lot that one season he started kind of attacking mismatches at the four and really became a much better passer there he's a much better passer he's a much better shooter from the mid-range is a far more efficient player like I think offensively they're going to be really good the question is just are they going to be unbelievable because they kind of have to be in my mind I feel like they kind of have to be top five offensively maybe top three offensively in order to be able to hit this number because I just don't have a ton of confidence in

in their defense right now. I don't know. Do you disagree? Do you see a world where they're like 18th in defense, 20th in defense, and that's enough to get them up to 46, 47 wins? I do. 18th, I think. I think right now they'd sign up for like fifth in offense, 18th in defense. I'm not saying they would say that publicly. I'm just guessing that they would sign up for 18th in defense, given their personnel and their issues protecting the rim. And in

you know, they got a little smaller. I think a lot of this is also like a bet on Keegan Murray continuing to take little leaps every year. I like the, you know, I'm on the lookout for

The Fox, DeRozan, Murray, Lyles, Sabonis, bigger group. I liked the way those four. So Fox, Murray, Lyles, Sabonis played last year. Plus 28 in only 116 minutes. Plus 11 per 100 possessions. I wanted to see more of that lineup with Monk as the fifth guy. I just, I think Trey Lyles' size, switchability, and if he hits enough threes could be big for them. I think it's just a good team. I mean...

Their health luck obviously flipped a little bit last year. Everybody was skeptical that they could carry that over. We didn't mention Jada McDaniels, who's worth a flyer. Colby Jones is here in his second year. We'll see what he can bring them. Devin Carter, the guy they just drafted, is hurt for the bulk of the season, if not all of it. I just think they're interesting. And that number is just compared to some of their other, what I would say, peers in the sort of like

the sixth seed or fifth seed would be a great outcome. And the play in would be a more likely outcome. I, it was just a little higher than I thought. I think it's the same as the sons. I think the sons are 46 and a half, which by the way, I have no, I have no quibbles with considering that Durant still hasn't played in the Olympics lead up. Anyway, the sons, the sons are a team I started doing analysis on. And I was like, I don't know, this isn't that interesting to me. It's just, will they be healthier? Won't they? Um,

Yeah, I'm not that interested. Okay, give me one of your other teams. Zach, this is going to be my famous. I only have one left, so we'll see if we overlap. This is going to be my famous last words. I'm into the Hawks over. Okay. 35 and a half. They sneakily have a lot of solid NBA players, and they kind of have a team that doesn't.

Make a ton of sense. They have a lot of guys who are, who are jammed into the forward spots because you've got the Andre Hunter there. You've got research. Now you've got Clint Capella and Nance is basically a third string center and Onyeka Kongu. But they, what they have is they have a number of guys. If they choose to go this route, they have a number of guys now who are good, quick decision makers and,

And can do stuff off the ball without ever touching the ball or without having to touch the ball for more than half of a second and can still contribute, which is a pretty good way to compile players around Trae Young. I also think I could see Quinn Snyder, the head of the once blender in Utah, I could see him falling in love with Larry Nance, who just like is just...

People talk about 0.5 seconds in terms of decision-making. He's like a 0.25 in terms of decision-making, right? Larry Nance is always either setting a screen or cutting or immediately going into a dribble handoff or something in order to just keep the motion going. Like to me, the most underrated skill in basketball is the ability to make a good decision really quickly. And

And they kind of have some of those guys. I think Dyson Daniels could end up having a really good season for them just as a really good defender on the wing. Like that guy is all over the place on the wing and they could use that. I, I think they have some sort of move in them. I don't know if it's like,

move on from Capella because you kind of have to start a Congo at this point and you have Larry Nance there too. And, and, and it's just too much of a log jam there. I don't know if it's move on from Capella. I don't know if it's find a home for Deandre Hunter, who, who I feel like they've been open to moving for a really long time. I'd,

I don't know what it's going to end up being. I haven't even mentioned Jalen Johnson, who missed a lot of last year and is probably going to be better this year and was just freaking awesome last season. He's another guy who's part of the mix at that sort of forward big spot. It's going to take up a lot of minutes. I just feel like they have a lot of solid NBA players. Bogdanovich is one of the best bench scorers in the league coming off the bench.

And you look at them last year, Trey young with Murray off and, and young and Murray just didn't work. It just didn't work. But Trey young with Murray office plus 3.1 per a hundred possessions. And it's not amazing. It's not great, but I just feel like, especially in, you just mentioned all those teams in the East that are like,

Going for it with Cooper Flagg. They just want to lose. They want to lose. I feel like the Hawks are just going to kind of pick up some wins and end up kind of walking into 41, 43 games or something like that. I've said before, Fred Katz,

The 9-10 game in the Eastern Conference play-in should be named the default bowl in honor of Homer Simpson declaring default, default, the two sweetest words in the English language, default. Someone in the East is going to get in that game. And the Hawks and the Raptors might be looking around like, wait, is it us? Wait, us? We're in the play-in? This is great. We made the playoffs, quote unquote. We have some breaking. By the way, the Hawks, I've talked a ton about the Hawks. I did a Hawks segment last week.

I famously was bullish on the Hawks last year. Did not work out for me. I'm staying away from the Hawks. Uh, we have some breaking news, minor, but potentially impactful. Reggie Jackson aforementioned on this podcast, uh, salary dumped by Denver has been waived by the Hornets and will sign according to Woj with the Philadelphia 76ers upon clearing waivers. Sixers continue to, to make the most out of their cap flexibility and now their minimum signings. Um,

We don't need to go through the laundry list, but now this is three point guard-ish players on the team with Maxie, Kyle Lowry, and Reggie Jackson. Obviously, you know, you can't play all three of them together. Maybe Reggie Jackson becomes an emergency point guard, but I'll tell you this with Reggie Jackson. Gets a little shot happy sometimes. Him and Maxie defensively together, you can't do. You can do Maxie, Kyle Lowry defensively together because Kyle is just a fire hydrant. You can't move him.

I feel comfortable whenever Reggie Jackson is on the floor. Like I just, I just feel like he's going to make some random step back threes. He's going to get, he's going to manufacture some buckets, which is what you need on your second unit. When some of your best players on the bench, it's, this is a totally good flyer for the Sixers who just continue to around a tailor-made central casting, big three, just add the right kinds of supplementary pieces, given the tools they had left over after using the bulk of their cap space to

on, uh, Paul George, even KJ Martin, who they resigned as like a, a walking trade ship. We can make it all walking trade asset team that now out of these teams are getting so smart with like the Rashawn Holmes deal in Washington. You might as well put balance units as the starting center. Like I'm like, whatever. Um,

KJ Martin I think KJ Martin's pretty good I would give him a shot to be in their rotation I don't know any we don't have to talk much about Reggie Jackson but kudos to the Sixers they continue to do good stuff yeah that's their ninth guy right so they basically have their nine man rotation now and I think you could play Jackson and Lowry together in a in a bench you know I think you're fine on that front like Lowry like you said is is still just an absolute truly one of the greatest maniacs of his generation and will jump in front of anybody so I think that's

I think that's fine. I love what Philly did this offseason. All the way down to Caleb Martin signing, getting in for that value was just incredible. I think Eric Gordon makes sense for them. They have a lot of fire hydrants now in that second unit with Lowry.

With Gordon. They're in a really good spot. I'd like to see a Sixers practice where Embiid posts up Kyle Lowry on a switch because no guard has ever gotten more excited. Maybe only Drew Holiday, and I don't think it's the same level of perverse anger, excitement as Kyle Lowry has when a big guy tries to post him up on a switch. Embiid may just be too big, but Kyle would –

Kyle would get some Ric Flair, like dirty tricks in there in the post. I mean, Joe Mazzullo will, will start drew holiday on center sometimes now and just be like, yep, we're doing it because they want to switch. But if you want to post them up, go for it. I, I, well, that's, that was one of my team USA takeaways from these games is I,

These international backup point guards against Drew Holiday's full court pressure is like you. It's like a car crash. You can't even watch it. It's so obscene what he's doing to them. He's like pick sixes, forced turnovers, traveling violations, like a backup point.

international team, non-NBA, maybe even like non-top EuroLeague point guard against Drew Holiday, full court pressure is like a throw the towel, where's the towel situation. He's horrifying. I'll say on Lowry, I have no idea if this is factually true. I'm just going to assume that it's true because it has to be true. Kyle Lowry must be the only player in NBA history to take two charges in the same quarter of the All-Star game.

So maybe we should say that he takes the cake because that is the most Kyle Lowry thing that's ever happened. Well, if you ask Kyle Lowry, and I know this because I have on a podcast sitting feet away from him in Toronto many years ago, I asked him about what was a very obvious flop from literally the game the night before in Toronto. We had pre-scheduled the podcast. It was like a viral flop. And he just looked me straight in the face and said, I never flop. I never flop. Never flop my whole life.

I don't know what you're talking. It was not like one of those, like there was a gleam in his eye that we were having fun together. This was like a, if you proceed with this line of questioning this, I might just leave the studio and throw the headphones at your face. Dude, the only floppers who want to admit flopping, Marcus smart will cope to cope to a flat every once in a while in a joking way. But like, man, I'll ask when the Knicks were playing the Sixers in the playoffs this year,

I would ask because the Sixers were basically just –

almost defending Jalen Brunson from behind in some ways. It was like that, that moment with, with James Harden in the playoffs a few years back when they were just defending against the step back. And it was a little different because it was Brunson's floater and his mid range. But because of that, Brunson was doing his thing where he, he gets touched and he, and he lounges forward and he wasn't getting those calls and he just wasn't getting the line that way. And I, I asked him about it and,

And his reaction was essentially along the lines of like, I don't know what you're talking about. I just, I go to the line when I get fouled and that's it. Players just don't want to admit. Even when you're asking not in an accusatory way, you're asking an actual basketball way. Like, do you have to operate differently because they're guarding you this different way and you're not actually getting those calls and it's not really working. Obviously behind the scenes, they're thinking about it. But if you confront them on it in any sort of forum, public, private, whatever, they're like, I don't know what you're talking about. I've never flopped in my entire life.

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I, when the line came out, it was higher than I would have thought. And I nodded and I gave Vegas an ESPN bet a hat tip. Cause I'm like, I'm glad that you believe in this team. I'm glad you believe that this young team was a real thing. And they did not, you know, as we always say with some of these young teams, development is not always linear. Like the wind totals don't go up in a straight line for a million different reasons and a diagonal line with it, with a nice slope.

But I think this team is a good regular season team. We'll see what they are in the playoffs. They will never get far in the playoffs until they develop an offense that is not one of the 10 worst offenses in the NBA. But I was very pleasantly surprised to see the Orlando magic come in at 47 and a half wins, the same total as the calves and more than a bunch of high profile Western conference teams. Again, the East has a bunch of easy wins baked into your schedule that

that's a fat total and they won 47 i believe last year so that's like not you would think of course that's where you said it but sometimes with these young teams you see sort of um

You see sort of unexpected setbacks in their development. You know, someone gets injured. Somebody's three point shot proves to be not have been real the previous year. Contracts get into it, whatever. Obviously, this team added Contavious Caldwell Pope, who should fit like a glove into their starting five. And I love this starting five.

Give me all of Jalen Suggs, KCP, Franz Wagner, Paolo Bancaro, Wendell Carter Jr. Off the bench, you want to talk to me about a good NBA bench? This is one of the best benches in the NBA. Cole Anthony, Jonathan Isaac, and Mo Wagner are the three most important bench players. And you can just fiddle around with both staggering minutes and who among the guards, whether it's a veteran like Gary Harris or is it Anthony Blacktime? Is Jed Howard alive? What's going on? I think this team is deep.

the defense was completely real. Like you look for little holes in their defense. This was the third ranked defense in the NBA. And you look at where all the holes going to be, where, where would be the evidence that this is luck? Okay. The opponent three point shooting. No shot, shot profile out. No, they allow a very good shot profile. Nothing outrageous. They, they do what they do really well, which is forced turnovers and get rebounds. And they foul a lot because they play ultra physically, like everything about their defense checks out as what you would expect and

Offensively, they were 22nd, which I believe is their either 12th or 13th consecutive year with a bottom 10 offense in the NBA. Truly a remarkable streak of incompetence offensively, but there's room for improvement across the board. I am a top 5% Jalen Suggs fan. I think Jalen Suggs is awesome. I hope that shooting proves real. Nobody's working harder at it in the NBA.

I'm not saying I'm like over, over, over. I'm just saying this is like if you had told me even after the playoffs when, yeah, they pushed Cleveland to seven, but nobody came out looking great in that series, especially not Franz Wagner. Bankero, I think, came out looking fine, but no one on the team level. You didn't come out like, OK, this is a rising juggernaut. Yeah.

I think this team is going to be rock solid again next year. And if you told me, Fred Katz, that we get to the end of the year, you want to lock in the top four Eastern Conference playoff seeds as Boston, New York, Philly, Milwaukee, you want to lock those in? Okay. I mean, you lock them in. That often doesn't work out. If you told me Orlando had home court in the first round next season over one of those teams and over Cleveland and over Indiana, I'd be like, well, it's not a shock. Not a shock.

They were one of my favorite teams to watch last year. And just to add to your point, Zach, last year, Jalen Suggs, Franz Wagner, Paulo Banqueiro, Wendell Carter on the court together. Magic are plus 8.8. Now you're adding KCP to that mix. Usually it was Gary Harris. Now you're adding KCP to that mix, who is just absolutely perfect for them as a 3 and D guy. He's going to fit in so well for them. He is perfect.

purely additive. Takes nothing off the table, changes nothing about how they have to operate, and it's purely additive. One of the best players in the NBA who you can plop onto any team

And he will help them on both sides of the ball without disrupting their ecosystem on either side. Yeah. You know, there's, there's like, if I were, if I were a Western conference championship contender with the best player on the world, on my team, I would do KCP. Seems like a guy I'd want to have on my team. Like, it seems like a perfect fit. It might help, but I don't know. Can you trade him for Russell Westbrook? Then you might got to, you might got to do it. Zach. I, I will say,

I'm with you. I love watching them defend. And you talk about how there's kind of no outliers in the numbers, nothing that says that it's flukish in the numbers. If Jonathan Isaac can get to a place where he can just play 20 minutes, my personal opinion, I think he might be the best per minute defender in the Eastern Conference. I think he might be the best permanent defender in the league other than Victor Wimpanyama. I think he is. There are times where

He'll guard bigs. He's tremendous coming over from the weak side as a shot blocker. They'll just put him on the primary assignment on just a point guard. They'll just throw him on a point guard. They'll be like Jonathan Isaac, you're a center, but you have footwork like a wing. So just go disrupt that point guard with your speed and sane athleticism and unbelievable never ending length. If they can get to a place where he can play 20 minutes and play consistently, which I have no idea if they can, because he's been so hurt for so long, but he's,

If they can get him to that place, that defense is better than it was last year. Not, not worse. Then you can get to a place where you can just throw out these unbelievably long lineups that beat the living crap out of you. They have a fantastic defensive culture. I think what's so impressive. And I was talking about this with somebody last year is that Jamal Mosley came in and created this defensive culture of amongst guys who are

Obviously, when you're younger, you're not going to be as good defensively because you're not as used to the speed of the game and you're not as savvy in terms of just your IQ and all of those sorts of things. And you get wiser as you get older. But on top of that, somebody made the point to me, it could be really hard to get guys to buy into that sort of a defensive-minded, selfless, physical style when it's a bunch of guys who haven't gotten paid yet. And a lot of guys will say...

I get it. I get it. I'm not trying to be a bad guy, but like, I don't want to lose money. I don't want to be a bad teammate, but I also don't want to lose money because I'm sacrificing to this degree and I'm just running into walls all the time. And that's not going to get me paid on my next deal. And the fact that he was able to put together a team like that. And look, there are a lot of guys who are wired that way anyway.

Suggs is wired that way. Anyway, became one of the best guard defenders in the league last year. Mo, Mo Wagner would try to take a charge on his own mother. I mean, they, they, they are just wired that way to try to play. But the fact that he was able to cultivate that sort of culture of a team that played that kind of way with that sort of style and selflessness and physicality, I thought was really impressive last year. There,

They're young as hell. All their guys are just so young. They're in a good spot, but they could use somebody to initiate offense. Like they really, I was convinced they were going to be the Tyus Jones team. And I guess they still could be. Could be. But they could use somebody to initiate offense in some form, I think, unless we're just going to see some sort of massive leap as a facilitator from like both Boncaro and Wagner.

Well, they were one of my favorite Donovan Mitchell teams back when Donovan Mitchell was available from Utah for that reason. And I don't mind that they didn't go overpay. I mean, given what the Cavs paid for Donovan Mitchell, it would have taken everything Orlando had. And look, I get that Franz Wagner did not have a good shooting season last year and had a miserable shooting playoffs. I'm just generally a believer in his game. I don't have any very many quibbles with his

a max contract, even if, you know, I don't think teams are as aggressive as they could be with restricted free agency, but there's a reason for that. You want to treat your own player as well. And he's about all the right things as a basketball player. I just, I just think they're going to be, they're going to be a good team. They just need to figure out the offense. And, and I, in terms of, I understand why they're playing the long game. Like we don't want to, we, we, we want to see a little more

from what this team is, Suggs, Wagner, Bancaro, before we introduce a ball-dominant player to boost up this offense to where it needs to be. We want to see how far they can boost it. And we don't want to hurt our defense. Like a lot of those ball-dominant players are going to hurt our defense. So I get that they're like, we're still kind of in, not wait and see, but we're not going to like completely reorient our team. I will say about my lukewarm take that the Magic could push for the fourth seed in the East. I

The race for number six in the East is going to be one of the biggest and most important races in the, in the conference next year. Although maybe not since nine and 10 figured to be so bad, seven and eight would be huge favorites to get into the playoffs. But you know, Boston, New York,

philly milwaukee cleveland orlando indiana we haven't even mentioned miami who's always gonna fight like hell that's eight teams that if you ask the heat the heater like yeah the offseason didn't go great the caleb martin thing sucks we got jovich we got hakes where balled out in summer league like they're gonna put together a representative team that if they're healthy and that's a big if with jimmy butler they're gonna be like hey wait you're just penciling us in at eighth like

we're like we're worse than the Pacers all of a sudden like that's disrespectful two of those teams are going through the play-in and four of them are going to be on the road in the first round in the first game of the first round of the playoffs it's going to be very interesting I just very briefly give just give me another team and we will just like literally 30 seconds the Brooklyn Nets

Oh my God. Under 19. Thank God we limited this to 30 seconds. I just under 19 and a half. I was floored. I was like, I get it. This is the, this is the, the greatest, like a team wants to lose everything they could possibly lose.

And they're probably going to make trades, but they still have decent NBA players. And 19 and a half is so low. I still kind of think I would take the under just because the Nets are in one of the most interesting tank job seasons ever after trading for their pick back and having no control of their picks moving forward after that. And they have to get the high pick this year, especially with Cooper Flagg. But like just 19 and a half, I was like, holy crap, that is so much lower than anybody else.

Listen, listen. If you are just a diehard sick NBA fan, like all you want to do is go to an NBA game. You don't even care who's playing. You just want to be at an NBA game. And you live within a 200-mile radius of the Barclays Center. When the schedule comes out, the Warriors are always going to be a draw. The Lakers are always going to be a draw. The big teams are always going to be a draw in Barclays. It will be all fans of those teams, but it'll be an expensive ticket. Find like a Nets...

Magic, apologies to the Magic, Nets, Hornets, Nets, Jazz, Nets, whatever game in Brooklyn, and just wait to pounce on the best possible seat you can get for an astonishingly low price, and then just move up. I don't think the ushers are going to stop you. The ushers quit. Just move up. The ushers quit. They're not going to be there.

I don't know if the Brooklyn brigade is going to be making any noise next year. I look, you can even go with a friend and he could sit 30, 30 seats away from you. And then you guys can go sit together. Cause there's nobody in between you. I'm just like, there are not going to be many in, in a big market like New York. There, there are going to be some nice tickets available a day of for some nets games this year. That is definitely true. Do you want me to give you one more? That's more interesting than that. Since that one failed.

Sure. I think the bucks are interesting. 50 and a half. Yeah. I think they're interesting. Like they, they had that Gary Trent signing for the minimum, which was an incredible sign of how just like nobody is getting the MLE anymore. Like you mentioned Denver signing Dario Saric, even for the taxpayer. I think they're the only team to use the taxpayer. Right. I, I, I had to, I would have to check this.

Nobody got the full MLE for the full years this offseason. I had an agent tell me yesterday that only one player has gotten the full MLE years and money in the last four years. But I'd have to double. I obviously would have to fact check that. Yeah. Yeah. Anthony Melton got the non-taxpayer, but for one year. For a year, though. Yeah. For one year. For one year. And Sarge got the taxpayer. It's just...

Talk about taking advantage of it. And I like Torian Prince for them. I just feel like everything went wrong for them last year. Every single thing went wrong for them last year. Uh,

You know, they, I, I keep, I keep coming back to the fact that they basically chose not to have a training camp because what happened was they spent their whole training camp concentrating on this new kind of defense where they were going to send Brooke Lopez away from the rim and they were going to blitz more and they were going to be a more high pressure defense and they were going to be higher risk and force more turnovers and all of that. And four games into the season, they're like, actually, we're going to go back to playing Brooke Lopez in a drop and just do the old thing.

Training camps are important. And I feel like if you just have a regular training camp with a team where you're able to implement things and concepts and principles that you're able to use throughout the season, then just that is going to get you a couple extra wins. Everything went wrong last year, other than the fact that Giannis actually had a great year, but that's not going to change.

The honest Dame chemistry never quite got there at all. And we haven't seen any evidence that it's going to be better, but that's kind of my evidence for why it's going to be better. I just refuse to believe that that conglomeration of talent is just not going to somehow figure it out and win 50 some odd games this year. I guess the argument against would be like, what is the health status of Chris Middleton? But, but yeah,

I don't know. It just, you mean the double, the double ankle surgeries in the off season are not, are a little worrisome. Not the best. Yeah. I had Jamal. I had Jamal Collier on last week. Our bucks guy. We talked about the weirdness of the bucks and what's at stake for them this coming season. I'm with you on Trent. I lauded that one and Prince as well. Uh, I don't know that any franchise is under more pressure next season than Milwaukee. If there is one, it's probably Philadelphia, uh,

and maybe Phoenix, depending on if you think they have real stakes to their season. Okay. We can't have you on without asking about the Knicks. The Knicks, obviously seismic off season for them with the Bridges trade and the Brunson extension, which we've talked about a lot.

What business do we have still on the table? You can talk to me about Julius Randall is extension eligible and the Brunson extension coming in. So low, obviously sort of gave them more wiggle room with that salary slot and backup center with precious to chew a hanging in restricted free agency. Jericho Sims is on the roster. I don't know that Tibbs is ready to just go like, okay, that's our backup center. Yeah.

Where are we on those two issues? Are the Knicks almost done, done quiet? What's going on in Knicks land? So I think with a Chua, they're in this weird situation that people who love cap minutia will just eat all up, which is that it's actually kind of advantageous for a Chua to wait to sign. And it's advantageous for the Knicks to wait to sign a Chua, just because if they're canvassing the market for a trade and they potentially want to make a trade for a third, uh,

for a backup center, there's a really realistic chance they're going to need a third team. And the reason why is because in this cap environment now, two teams that are both over the first apron essentially can't make trades with each other. Because if you're over the first apron, you can't take in more salary than you're giving out. Unless you're trading somebody who makes the exact same salary as somebody else,

then you're just not going to be able to do it. You're going to need a third team. And that's where Achua comes in, where right now we just talked about Gary Trent and how Trent, who's a good player with a real resume, having to sign for the minimum,

If the only offers that Achua has out there are just minimums right now, the way that he could actually end up getting paid is by being used as a sign-in trade because the Knicks need to use the money to make it work. So if they want to make a trade for somebody who makes $10 million and they're able to send out $7 million to that team, they could sign Precious Achua to a $4 million deal and sign and trade him somewhere else. So that way all the

all the cap stuff ends up working. And that way, it ends up actually getting paid. I also think we talk about human trade exception stuff.

I think the Knicks would be well off by if they don't end up finding something else with backup center. I think they would be well off by signing a Chua to a, to a deal somewhere in the seven ish million range, and maybe even paying somebody the taxpayer mid-level. And you can pair those two together and then come the deadline. You can pair those guys together, trade $12 million in outgoing salary.

$11 million in outgoing salary, depending on how much you give Precious to Chua. And you could bring back somebody who makes a little bit less than that. And you could make that trade without sending out anybody from your top eight. So if I'm the Knicks, I'm probably not going to be making a trade in which I send out... They technically have two first round picks. One of them is a heavily protected Washington one that is going to turn into two seconds. So they really just have the Detroit 2025, which is also protected, but it is a first rounder.

I would not be sending out the few resources that I have right now for something to fix them

today, because you don't know what's going to come up. You want to see what you have and you don't want to come into the season and realize, Oh damn, we actually should have addressed this thing, which is really important. And we already used up our resources to go trade for a backup center. I think they'll be fine if they go in with the Chua as the backup center heading into the regular season. It was totally solid. He's a legitimate, I think he's a decent NBA player. I've always liked him. He was totally solid. You know,

Tibbs is maybe best X is no strength as a coach is his ability to just squeeze every single ounce out of big men, especially defensively. He's really, really great at simplifying their roles for them. And you look at all the guys who have just played under Tibbs and from like, you know, joking Noah and Taj Gibson and the most famous examples to like,

New Orleans Noel, who all of a sudden turned into like a dude who could anchor a top four defense under Tibbs and Mitchell Robinson, who really refined his defense. He's, he's really good at simplifying roles for those guys. And I think that you is very much in that category. I think he'd be fine if they end up with him. The Randall stuff is very interesting. What about Randall? Yeah, this is, this is the, this is one of the bigger, um,

I don't know if, I don't know how, this is one of the bigger wild cards in the NBA over the next, let's say, 18 months. So first thing I want to be clear on, I have absolutely no indication the Knicks are trying to trade Julius Randle. None whatsoever. Nor do I, by the way. But he's going into the final year of his deal. He's extension eligible on August 3rd.

And I don't know, unless he's willing to take a way below market deal, I don't know if it's the best idea to extend him at this point. Brunson just took all that money less. And part of the reason that he took all that money less is so they could have a really good chance to be under the second apron in 25, 26. And if you extend Randall at a number that's commensurate with his ability, maybe even something a little bit less, then

Then all of a sudden, like right now they project to be, they have nine players rostered for the 2025, 26 season. Those guys make about $153 million. Second apron projects to be a little under $208 million that year. So you have about 54 million in payroll below. I'm ignoring like empty roster holds because who cares? You know, if you pay Julius Randall $35 million, all of a sudden you're pushing right up against that.

One thing that I do think is interesting

is that in this new CBA, it used to be like, if you're going to extend a guy, you're not going to trade him because you have a no trade restriction on that guy for six months. And it used to be that way. Now it's got to be a 20% raise in order to have the no trade restriction. And so I do think there's like a world where they would try to strategize like, okay, you could extend and then you could figure out some sort of home for him. But if you go through

All of these Julius Randle's supposed trades, it's just so hard to find one that makes sense for both teams because I'll tell you this much. There is no chance the Knicks are trading Julius Randle in a deal that makes them an ounce worse this season. There is no way. They will only trade Julius Randle if they believe it makes them better this year. And I think it's hard to prove that. Can I make one Julius Randle point, which is going to make me sound like a homer? Go ahead. I think it's overstated how...

People talk about how they played without Randall. I think it's overstated how they played without Randall in terms of ball movement and offensively. What we saw was that Jalen Brunson ended up running a lot of pick and rolls with Isaiah Hartenstein, who's not there anymore. And Hartenstein kind of turned into that short roll creator with Mitchell Robinson at the five. It's going to be really easy to blitz Jalen Brunson on those one, five pick and rolls. And something that you have to take into account is if you have Randall setting those screens, uh,

That's a higher level offensive player. Who's the one making those decisions in those short roles. He's a secondary creator for them. And if you watch how he played in January, uh,

Kind of looked like he found Jesus with the way that he was playing. He found the religion. Like he, he was playing a different brand of basketball, making the extra pass. You look at Jalen Brunson, spot up three point shooting after Randall got hurt. It plummeted, not a coincidence. He's better at creating spot up threes than anybody else on that roster. I just think that Julius Randall has become this overly criticized offensive player.

offensive player. And he does bring a lot of value to what this team does. They're not just going to trade him to trade him. If they trade him, it's because they're getting something that they think is awesome and will make them better right now. Yeah, he's he was cutting. He was running more pick and rolls as the ball handler. He was leaning into the

a faster by his standards uh uh more unselfish style of play which is what they need his shooting is always going to wax and wane his jumper is just what it is um i you're 100 spot on about why did like why it seems unlikely that they would trade them or they're not going to trade them in a deal that makes them worse only better um the ultimate test is going to be

Yes, they had this crazy record with Brunson and Ananobi and Randall was out for a lot of that. I think the playoffs showed they need another way to create offense other than Jalen Brunson is unbelievable as he is another guy who could just get you buckets and get double teams. The test is going to be.

Is Mikael Bridges enough of a secondary creator that we can really kind of reorient our team and trade that sort of player for other supporting players or whatever it ends up being? And we don't know the answer to that question. We have to see how that looks. But I think Randall is a very good NBA player.

who was leaning into the right style of play. And you just, if you're going to compete at the highest level, and that's what the Knicks are doing now, the Knicks are competing against the Celtics and everyone else in that stratosphere. You just need every tool in the toolbox. And Jalen Brunson doing everything is just not going to be good enough offensively to beat teams like that. All right, Fred Katz, I got to go. You got to go. Katz and Shoot podcast, athletic, anything else we're missing? Nope, that's it.

You're the best, Fred. I'll see you soon, buddy. See ya.

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