The Thunder’s Road to the Finals, Looking at the Wolves' Future, and Ranking the Entire Eastern Conference With Wosny Lambre

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Ball over everything.

Coming up on the Zach Lowe Show, the Thunder are in the finals.

We reflect on their last 13 years.

From the James Harden, Russ KD, big three to lots of stuff that happened in between, to a dominant win over Minnesota.

We got big Waz coming on, Knicks, Pacers, Wolves, Nuggets.

And then we respond to Bill by ranking all the teams in the East best to worst in terms of media-term futures.

Is Indiana really number one coming up on the Zach Lowe Show with Big Waz?

Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show.

It's Thursday morning.

I got a few hours before I head into New York City to see if the Knicks can can make the Pacers sweat just a little bit, can make MSG rock just one more time.

But before we go there, we got to talk about the Oklahoma City Thunder.

And we got a very special first-time guest.

He's wearing my favorite hat in the world.

Big Wallace, what's up?

What's going on, brother?

Proud to be up here, man.

Big fan of the show for years.

Well, you know, I'm a big fan of group chat.

I have called it the best NBA podcast in the world.

I'm a regular listener.

I told you that in person at, I think it was still Staple Center back then before it became the crypt.

And now we're teammates.

It's exciting to have you on.

Love the hat, and we've got a lot to talk about, my friend.

You ready to go?

I'm ready.

Let's do it.

The Oklahoma City Thunder

blew the doors off the Minnesota Timberwolves last night in game five.

And it's been a long time coming, Waz.

The Thunder are back in the NBA Finals.

From 2012, losing to the Heat, the hardened trade.

That was a big one.

Didn't work out great for them.

Some deep playoff runs still in the next couple of years.

A couple undone by injuries, including ill-timed Russell Westbrook injuries.

The rise of the Warriors.

The Klay Thompson game.

Game six play birthed in Oklahoma City.

And then those same Warriors, thanks to a once-in-a-lifetime cap spike, still.

The greatest player in the history of the Oklahoma City Thunder still.

Kevin Durant.

Then a Paul George trade happens.

That was interesting.

We're going to get back to that.

Still relevant.

Paul George just birthing great teams in his wake in every direction and every conference.

Everywhere he goes and leaves behind, there's a great team in the wake.

Then there's a Chris Paul year.

Do you remember the Chris Paul year?

I remember it well.

I remember that playoff series against Houston where Lou Dort had James Harden in his freaking pocket.

Yeah, I remember that very well.

You know what I didn't remember?

That Chris Paul finished seventh in MVP voting that year and made second team all-NBA for a strong playoff team.

We remember the Schroeder, Shea, CP, guard trio.

I didn't remember CP having like that kind of year.

And then they move on.

CP3 gets dumped over to Phoenix.

The signals are sent.

We're actually going into the deep rebuild mode.

Al Horford comes in.

Al Horford is sort of like banished into a closet somewhere.

Shea, you're injured.

Your ankle hurts.

Take all the time you want.

And it felt like a deep tank.

It felt like a tank that was going to take a long time.

Uh-uh.

Two bad years.

That's it.

Two bad years.

There are franchises littered across the Eastern Conference that would kill for just two bad years between periods of relevancy.

We're going to talk about some of them later.

Those bad years netted two high draft picks.

The first was Josh Giddy.

If you remember going into that lottery, the Thunder had a chance at two top five picks if the ping pong balls bounced right for them.

There's in Houston.

They got none.

They got the number six pick, Josh Giddy.

Now he's Alex Caruso.

And the second one, maybe not an underrated watershed moment, but a watershed moment.

The next year, moving up from number four to number two and drafting Chet Holmgren.

And my God, the difference between Chet Holmgren and number four and beyond in that draft is a chasm.

And then a play-in, a second round, and ahead of schedule, ahead of my schedule, ahead of anyone's schedule.

They are 12 and 4 in the playoffs with a net rating of plus 11 per 100 possessions, a defense that is three and a half points per 100 possessions better than the number two defense in the playoffs, and even better than it was in the regular season.

The Thunder are back, they're here, and they ain't going anywhere.

I just outlined the whole timeline was.

What are your thoughts on this strange journey from not even point A to point B, from it was just meandering, but we're back.

I mean, for me, it's the Paul George trade for both sides of that equation.

I just remember being at Summer League when that trade was executed, and there was just a consensus.

Like the Lakers had got punked.

Kawhi is on the Clippers.

They also got Paul George in one fell swoop.

Everybody just knew the Clippers were on their way to multiple championships.

This was also the same summer that the Lakers traded for Anthony Davis, and New Orleans was on the precipice of drafting Zion as well.

So they got Brandon Ingram.

They got Josh Hart.

They got, you know, the Lonzo, the whole package.

And I remember Griff was a genius.

He was the bell of the ball at Summer League.

And, you know, the shea piece was very just underrated, man.

Like, nobody really cared that much.

People in our industry really cared about the picks that they got.

Nobody was that impressed by Shea.

And

I had just started working for the athletic midway through Shay's rookie year.

And I remember I would go to damn near every single Clippers game.

And I remember talking to one guy that works for the Clippers and him being like, yo.

we think Shea is the next Penny Hardaway.

And I remember being offended by that.

I was like, are you out of your mind, Penny Hardaway?

Like, whatever, right?

And that was it.

It's not as if Shea had, let's just rewind the clock to Anthony Edwards' rookie year.

Like after that year, people would be like, whoa, this is a blue chip prospect.

You would have to, it would have to be something serious to move him, or even like an Evan Mobley, right?

After his rookie year, where people will call him the next Duncan or Garnett or whatever.

None of that applied to Shea.

Right.

When they got him at the time, and he's turning to the best player in the league.

He's turning to to the MVP.

To me, that's what's jarring about this.

It's like how they acquired Shea Gilgis Alexander and his journey from cool rookie prospect.

Like, doc even liked him.

Doc even played him as a rookie, which is like a miracle.

I remember Sam Cassell was working with this kid every freaking day before games, and now look at him.

The guy is legitimately the MVP.

He's been the best player in the NBA playoffs, and he's about to lead them to the, and he's led them to the NBA Finals.

So

Shea as a rookie, well, first of all, obviously the trade got them a million other things, including Jalen Williams via the number 12 pick, and there's more coming.

Shea as a rookie, 10.8 points per game.

Nice.

Finished sixth in rookie of the year voting, sixth.

Like, like you said, like there was, and he was the 11th pick in the draft, and they traded for his rights with the Hornets, if you remember.

It was Miles Bridges.

Here's what I know.

We're all wrong about a lot of stuff, right, Waz?

Like, I was dead.

I was dead wrong about like when the Pacers traded Paul George to Oklahoma City for Ola Deepo and Sabonis, my evaluation of that trade was like, I can't believe this is all they got.

You know, they could have got more, not a great trade for the Pacers.

We'll get into what they ended up getting for out there into that trade.

Here, I went back and I read my piece about the Kawhi Paul George Thunder Clippers thing.

Here's what I wrote.

Gilgis Alexander is a stud.

I bet on him making multiple all-star teams.

Undersold it.

Turns out way undersold it.

But I think I'm giving myself a tepid pat on the back for that.

Sure.

The Thunder.

And then I wrote some other stuff about how much they have.

This is a haul for Oklahoma City.

In five or six years, the Thunder might come out.

as the biggest winners of this trade.

Think about it like this.

In a roundabout way, they turned Serge Abaca into everything they got in this trade.

Now, in five or six years, the Thunder might come out of this as the biggest winners, undersold again.

And that's like paragraph 18 of a piece that was all Clippers' love for like 17 paragraphs.

But to your point,

first of all,

I don't think Shay's the best player in the NBA.

I still think Jokic is.

Sure.

But second of all, I'm with you.

Like one of the, one of the discussions I wanted to have was like, I ended up going Shay for for MVP.

I didn't have a vote, but I picked Shea as MVP.

Um,

feeling great about that.

Like, there was a whole, like,

midway through the playoffs, there was a whole like, oh, well, obviously we all made the wrong decision.

Jokic is the MVP.

I still think Jokic is the best player, but Shea has been amazing all year, matched him stat for stat, has been shooting 50% on mid-range shots the whole playoffs.

It's the shot that no one has an answer for.

It's a shot that Anthony Edwards, who we're going to talk about, does not have yet.

And it's the reason why the Thunder are going on and one reason and Minnesota is not going on.

And 30 a game, 47% from the field, 52% on twos, good defense, can't hunt him, try to hunt him, it doesn't work out.

And they're plus 14 with him on the floor, plus six with him on the bench.

And I just, I go back to like, for me, at the end of the day, 68 wins was the Trump card.

Like, I just feel like it's still underrated.

People are like, well, they won a lot of games.

No, they almost won 70 games.

They won 18 more games than the Nuggets.

Like, I was totally cool in the middle of that series when it was 2-1 Denver.

I'm totally cool now leading Shea for MVP.

But to your point, sixth in rookie of the year, people can talk now.

Doc can talk now about, oh, he saw it coming the whole time.

He saw it coming my way.

Nobody saw this coming.

Nobody.

The Thunder didn't see it coming either, or else they would have asked for a lot less in a trade.

Again, like Evan Mobley after his rookie year, my man Rob Mahoney was like, yeah, this guy could be the next Tim Duncan, right?

Like, nobody was saying this kind of stuff about Shea Gildis Alexander, right?

I don't want to say he was a throw-in, he was, you know, in terms of a package of young players.

You always want a young guy with potential coming back when you move a superstar along with some draft picks.

He definitely fit that mold, but again,

nobody thought he was the MVP.

And I contrast it with the New Orleans trade because that's a team who for years we've been saying is mega-talented.

talented now imagine if they had an mvp perennial top three mvp guy on that team that they would have acquired during the ad trade it didn't happen and brandon ingram i would say had a higher pedigree when he was moved to new orleans than shea did when he was moved to okc right like and that's how these trades happen in the nba sometimes like sometimes you trade for a young guy that ends up being brandon ingram who nobody pretty much cares about anymore and sometimes you trade for Shea Gilgis Alexander.

I was just about to say, if you asked like a hundred casual NBA fans, what team is Brandon Ingram on right now?

How many do you think would get the right answer?

I'm putting like the over-under at 55 and a half.

You think it would be in the 50s?

You think less than that 50s?

You think it would be less than the 30s, 20s?

Are you kidding me?

I'm giving him too much credit, I guess.

I want to talk about the first Paul George trade, the Oklahoma City Thunder acquiring Paul George, because there was a school of thought at the time of the Clippers trade, the Shea trade, and still to this day that almost like the way people talk about Polinka acquiring Luca, like Sam Pressy just walked in to infinite leverage because the Clippers were so desperate to get Kawhi and had to placate him.

And this was the only way to placate him.

And this was the only place to go, Oklahoma City, to placate him.

So of course they asked for everything.

And of course they got everything.

You could have done that.

I could have done that.

It doesn't take a genius to do that.

Maybe, maybe not.

You know what was the ballsy move?

Acquiring Paul George in the first place.

That was not like really when people were doing fake Paul George trades, that was not it.

I remember I brought it up with Arnovitz on a podcast.

I said, you know what is like my favorite wild, it'll never happen Paul George scenario.

And I said, Paul George to the thunder for Ola Depot.

Indiana guy going back to Indiana.

And then I was like, but they'll never do it.

It's not a Sam Presti thing to do.

He did it.

He did it in part, I think.

I've never talked to him about it really, to keep the team afloat in the post-KD era, give Russ like a legit running mate and have some fun and maybe make a playoffs,

maybe win a playoff series.

They never did, but they were like good, fun teams.

But also, I think with an eye on,

we've got to position ourselves to make the next move somehow.

He knew Russ's contract was not going to be the one that made them get the next move.

Although, of course, they end up stealing everything from the Rockets, including Chris Chris Paul in the end.

And it ended up being that Paul.

Getting that Paul George deal done was an opportunistic stroke of genius and is the under-discussed element in the Thunder being back here today.

But so, and I got to make a confession about Sam Presti up here.

I think not getting Paul George, but retaining Paul George is when I changed my mind about at the party.

I forgot about that.

Like, who's like at a house party or something, right?

Nas performed.

It was like a whole, it was like a whole thing.

but when when paul george got traded from indiana there had been chatter around him that he was dying to go to la

um because he's an la guy even though he's from palmdale which is like saying like i put kipsie guys a brooklyn guy but whatever right like whatever um they got paul george and the idea was like this guy's leaving like he he didn't want to leave indiana to go to okc to go to the prairie like this guy wants to go to a big city like that's what he's been dying to do and when sam presti talked paul george into signing with the team which i don't know i i didn't report on this i'm gonna assume he told paul george if we if you want to get moved i'll probably move you in the future right if you sign this deal that's what i'm gonna assume happened either way he convinced this guy to sign back long-term and okayc

like that's when i changed my mind about sam presti because i was i don't know this is a sort of way like people in our industry talk about the gms and the gm is just the greatest and the smartest and oh, we love the GM.

We love the management types.

Okay, cool.

And the type of GMs who get the assets and get to this and get to that.

Where I'm just like, you know, teams put dope teams together without ever doing these kind of deals all the time, but whatever.

I changed my mind about Presty when he showed he had the juice to talk Paul George into staying.

I'm like, damn, not only does he understand all of this,

you know, sort of analytical, empirical data stuff that everybody loves, but he can do the people stuff too.

He can go up to Paul George and be like, this is a good idea to stay here, and I'm going to make it worth your while.

And that's when I was like, all right, this guy is the best at what he does.

And retaining Paul George to me, convincing that guy who everybody just knew for three, four years, wanted to be in LA or some huge market somewhere to stay in OKC for extra time and then moving him afterwards.

And people forget this.

Paul George had his best year ever with OKC.

Third and MVP.

Yes.

Okay.

Finished third.

Like, again,

these guys don't move all the time, especially as a wing.

You know, this isn't like some little point guard who finished third in MVP or a big man who we had all assumed were being phased out of the game.

This is a six foot nine, ball-handling, you know, creator.

scorer, wing type of player who finished third in MVP.

And yeah, he got a lot for him and, you know, changed the franchise around by doing it.

One of the things he got for him, as I mentioned, was Jalen Williams.

And here's the scary thing that's happened in the playoffs, and particularly in the conference finals.

J.

Dub in the conference finals, 22 points a game, 6.5 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 49% shooting, 46% on threes.

Chet in the conference finals, 18 a game, 6 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 57% shooting, 37% on threes.

Opponents are shooting 50% at the rim with Chet as the closest defender in the playoffs.

That's like Wembinyama-level rim protection.

Now, for the full playoffs, their shooting numbers aren't as good.

In fact, the Thunder are shooting 33.5% on threes for the playoffs.

That's 13th.

The teams that are worse than them are Orlando, Memphis, and Detroit, all long gone.

They've got another level to hit.

They've started to hit it.

And in particular, their second and third best players, the guys that were the X Factors of the Year, have started to hit it.

And that should scare the entire league.

And this is why, you know, these guys are both going to come up for extensions at the same time.

The Thunder are going to retain both of them.

They are incredibly well positioned to navigate all the apron crap that is coming for any team that's got a lot of talent.

It's and obviously, like, even getting to the conference finals, any panic move, any like

trade one of the young guys for Giannis or something, like is way off the table.

It would have messed up their cap sheet.

It's gone now.

And

what they, what those two guys did in the conference finals should scare the rest of the league.

And then, like, I mentioned Giddy Caruso.

You know,

Presty used, and he was open about it, used last year as like, this is, this is going to be our first, like, really good year.

I want to, I'm not going to rush it.

I want to see what these guys have in the playoffs.

I want to see what flaws emerge and what we have to address.

And everyone anticipated the giddy flaw emerging.

The Caruso and Hartenstein moves were such smart, like, okay, the era of mystery and intrigue is over.

The era of sure things has to begin now.

These dudes are sure things for the holes they fill in our team.

Mystery out, sure things in.

This is a super complete team that is still hitting its upside.

They're going to be huge favorites in the finals, no matter who they play.

And I mean, I don't even know what else to say.

Like,

they didn't even hit everything.

They didn't hit Shengun.

I mean, they didn't hit Poku.

You can go back and look at moves, but like,

as long as they're healthy, and that's obviously obviously a question for every team, like it's a pretty goddamn perfect basketball situation right now.

No, for sure.

We talked about it in a group chat last night, and it's almost like that scene in every Spider-Man movie where he realizes he can like shoot the web out of his wrist or whatever.

That's what's happening with the Thunder in real time, where,

you know, you talk about J-Dub

against Denver.

There were many moments where this guy was stinking up the joint.

And I would submit that if they didn't get Caruso, who made countless, I'm talking about series altering shots and defensive plays against Denver.

You need me to defend Jokic with our whole season on the line?

Sure.

Like, look, just sign me up.

I'll do it.

Yeah, let's do it.

Right.

So without those two signings, I don't think the Thunder as is could have beaten that Denver team, you know?

And by the way, like, because Hartenstein and because Caruso are able to step up in those big moments against Denver, that gets them over the hump.

And guess what?

Like, J-Dub is like, he's now got more playoff experience under his wings.

And now he's been able to blossom.

Like, if they lose in the second round again, he's got to get that experience next year.

So that's what you got to be worried about for the rest of the league, where it's like, it's not just that these guys are achieving stuff.

It's like long term, these guys are going, they have this continuity and this collective experience that's going to serve them in a way that they're just going to be a whale of a playoff team going forward, no matter what.

So long as Chet, J-Dubb, and Shea Gilgius-Alexander are on this team, they're going to be damn near impossible to beat.

A couple last things, and I'm not going to look ahead to the finals too much quite yet, because, you know, the Knicks have home court advantage.

What percentage chance right now, it's 10.30 in the morning Eastern Time.

We got like 10 hours till the game.

What percentage chance would you give the Knicks of forcing a game seven in this series?

That would mean two straight victories.

10, 5.

Oh,

I'm higher.

It's over for you.

It's over.

It's over.

They've demonstrated that they're just not

as good as this team.

They're just not as good.

I'm going 30%.

I'm going to try to be optimistic.

Really think?

Mike, here's my thing.

You got to win tonight.

You got some pride.

You got to to win tonight.

You have pride.

You got a lot of top-tier talent.

Win tonight.

At least make them sweat.

At least make them feel the pressure of game six as the team without home court advantage and what's looming in game.

At least make them just, you know, do they come out shaky?

Is it 25, 10 Knicks three minutes into game six, five minutes into game six?

That's all.

The only thing I will say is.

We all knew Minnesota's turnover issues were just, if they had a high turnover series, they were dead.

And it's like every time Julius Randall dribbled the ball, it was just like, stop stop dribbling.

Just pick the goddamn thing up.

It's not going to go well for you.

Indiana doesn't turn the ball over.

That's one thing you have.

That's one box you have to check to have a chance.

I will say this.

The Pacers live in this like frenzy world where there's just movement.

They're just moving around, flying around, setting screens, handoffs, pitches, and their randomness throws off every opponent they face.

I think the Thunder like that frenzy.

I think the Thunder defense is well suited to like, oh, you want to live in a frenzy?

We'll live in a a frenzy too.

Like we can, we can frenzy right next to you.

Like, that's all I'm going to say.

And last thing on MVP that I forgot to mention and why I'm okay with it.

The 68 wins was underrated.

The fact that Holmgren and Hartenstein missed like enormous amounts of the season and Caruso was clearly load managed the whole season.

It's not like the Thunder were a fully healthy 68 win team.

They were missing key guys the whole season.

That's it.

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Okay, I have some follow-up questions from the Thunders, Victor.

Are you ready to go?

Yeah, let's do it.

Number one,

Anthony Edwards.

A lot of ant discourse.

in the last 48 hours about his level of aggression about

when you're the number one guy, guy, you just got to do it.

You just got to take the ball to the hole.

For the playoffs, 25 points a game, eight rebounds, five and a half assists, 45% shooting.

It's like sub-ant expectations, I think.

Sure.

For the West finals, 23 points a game, 4.5 assists to 3.5 turnovers, 48% shooting, 47% from 3.

Only took 17 shots a game.

Overall in the playoffs, he took 20.

Definitely shot less.

Minus 41 when Ant was on the floor, plus 10 when Ant was on the bench.

Where, like, what of this Ant angst do you buy?

What do you not buy?

What did you see?

Where are we in the Anthony?

Anthony Edwards, by the way, not yet 23 years old journey here in the NBA.

I

not panicked.

Like, folks have to understand.

Not yet 24 years old.

Sorry, I misstated Azee.

Folks need to understand that there are no contextless superstars, meaning you know lebron james peak kd

you know uh peak duncan or shaq like

no matter the context they're going to dominate they're going to elevate their team to contender status no matter what most other guys

need

to have complementary

pieces around them in order for them to play at their peak levels at every turn.

Like if you watch these games, they're loading up on Ant.

Sometimes he's making the right decisions.

Sometimes you're like, yo, in this moment right here, you got to force the issue against Caruso.

Stop dancing and force him to foul you, right?

Like, like, there's things that he could be doing better, but I don't think this team that was built on the fly, you know, they traded.

They traded Carl Anthony Towns because they thought his deal was a little bit too much on the fly and was just like, we'll figure this out.

In the meantime, nobody thought Julius Randle was some amazing Anthony Edwards fit when they did that deal.

Let's not to make mistakes.

I'm just saying, like, this team getting to the conference finals is a big deal.

Ant being incredible for most of that run is a big deal.

And I think

they ran into a team that was just a horrible matchup.

Now, I think Ant could have played better.

in this matchup, bad as it was, but I don't see this guy, like, this isn't 2007 where like LeBron James could take, you know, Booby Gibson to the freaking finals.

Like, that NBA is gone.

Like, and people need to understand that when they're evaluating individuals based off of what the team has produced.

Like, just get that out your brain, bro.

Like, Ant can be an awesome player while also coming up short, not playing to his standard against, again, a 68-win team that built that record on a historically great defense.

Now, do I think Ant should have played better?

yes do i now think less of ant as far as a talent or his pedigree i think that's absurd like this guy is amazing the fact that he's developed this pull-up three-point shot that i think is an essential weapon for a lead guard like if you can't shoot off the dribble threes off of pick and roll it's going to be hard for you to be an elite you know ball dominant kind of guard so he has that the playmaking has every single year gotten better and better and better.

Now, is he a Chris Paul?

No, he's not, but he's getting way better.

And he's doing it in the context of the bigs being

Rudy Gobert

and

Julius Randle.

Like, these aren't the dream spacers operating space.

Let me figure out, make the D, put the defense in a bind with my driving ability and all these great shooters I have spaced out.

Even Nas Reed, like, yes, he makes threes but like let's be real here guys like the context of what ant is doing has to matter if you

freeze some of these drives whether it's pick and roll or just iso getting by caruso getting by the first layer of defense getting by uh dort whatever the moment he's in the paint literally i'm not exaggerating all five thunder defenders have a foot in the paint all of them and they're like not they're like on top of him now a couple of things there that are, and so like, you're like, what are you supposed to do?

You can't just plow through four dudes.

These are big, strong dudes.

They're walling off your path to the rim.

A couple of things that I do think are on in.

Number one,

he's like a B minus B passer that needs to get up to B plus A minus A.

And so like, there's one play, the game's already getting out of hand, but there's like a minute 10 left in the first quarter last night where he beats Caruso one-on-one, gets into the paint.

Everyone's around him.

And he doesn't see Alexander Walker wide open in the strong side corner.

And I don't know who he passes the ball to, but it doesn't go well.

Nothing went well.

Number two,

in all of these possessions, the crowd comes when he's like 12 feet from the rim.

And that's the point I was making earlier about Shay and the mid-range shot.

Ant just hasn't developed a reliable long two.

He's high 30s every year, which is bad.

And his frequency of shooting those shots has dropped every year.

It was like 10% of his shots are long twos.

He's going down the hard end path of it's all or nothing.

It's three or rim.

And I think against a defense like this, you just need different ways to attack the defense.

One of them is be a good 16-foot jump shot shooter who will actually take them.

The other thing is, and I remember I talked with Ant on the phone in an interview about this after they beat

Memphis in the first round.

Or no, they lose to Memphis.

Whoever won that series?

I think Memphis won that series.

The very first one Memphis won.

Yeah.

But every game came down to the wire in Minnesota.

It was a crazy shoe.

He should have won that series.

But he attacked Morant a lot in that series.

I remember talking to him, like, do you want to, like, where are you on the back to the basket?

Just like post up, bend the defense that way.

And he was super excited that anyone asked him about it.

He wanted to talk about it.

He wanted to develop it.

And he hasn't developed that really much at all.

And I think all of those pieces, he's 24 years old almost.

All of those levels are getting a little higher every year.

You talked about the experience that J-Dub and Chet got.

This dude has been in playoff wars against the best teams and best players of this sort of mini half decade in the NBA.

He's going to come out of this series with new tricks, with a renewed commitment to doing stuff, mid-range shots, and better for it.

But the passing is real.

The mid-range thing is real.

And the other thing I'll say is, like, and Russillo nailed this.

There were just too many possessions where

he doesn't have the ball and Dort's face guarding him.

And he just does nothing.

Like he just like Jaden McDaniels took five shots in the first four minutes of the game last night and Ant took either one or zero.

You look at the second possession of the game.

The second possession.

He stands in the right corner the whole time, like just strolling around like he's walking on a sidewalk outside of Bodega.

Just nothing to do, doing nothing.

He points at one time like you like,

hey, you do something.

And it's like, there are just too many possessions.

There's a couple where he's literally not on the screen, where he gets doubled at half court, passes the ball, and you do not see him again.

That passivity off the ball.

And I think Rosillo, that's what Russillo was getting at when he talked about being disengaged.

On the second possession of the game, that just could not, it could not happen.

And in the first quarter, as the game was spiraling, it happened like every other possession almost.

Yeah, I mean, they scored nine points in the whole quarter.

That felt like bags were packed for Turks and Keikos, it seems, between Ant and the rest of his compadres.

So, you know, I'm not going to make too big of a deal of the game five where these guys are down 3-1.

They've been outclassed essentially the whole series.

Game four, like down the stretch, they just got crushed.

Like every single thing was answered.

And, you know, I'm just not going to go too crazy about it.

I think he's proven himself that he is a potent, like highly competent, star-level playoff player, which is like the number one thing you need to to figure out in this league as a team.

Do I have one of those guys?

Well, Minnesota has one of those guys, and he's doing it with Mike Conley on the back end of his career, Rudy Gobert,

who, again, offensively, golly, Jesus Christ.

Okay.

And Julius Randall, who like, you know, after

the

Warriors series, I'm talking to somebody.

I'm like, they got to pay this guy, right?

Now, after this series, it's like, they can't possibly pay this guy, right?

Oh, we're going to talk about this, don't we?

You know, like, so

again, I don't want to sit here and make excuses or cope for Ant, but I don't think this, the, the context here is so infallible that we should be looking at Ant like he's some big failure in this postseason.

Here's some more context.

So he started getting aggressive midway through the first quarter last night.

More drives to the basket, got to the line a couple times, made a floater.

What happened between not aggressive Ant

getting played out of the game, playing himself out of the game, Ant, to all of a sudden attacking Ant?

What happened was the Thunder went from two big men on the floor to one.

And once that happened, a switch goes off in Ant's head where it's like, I can call Chet's, let's say Chet's the only big man on the floor, Hartenstein's on the bench.

I can call Chet up into a pick and roll.

And if I get by that layer of defense, it's all guards.

Now, they're all awesome guards and big guards, but they're dudes my size.

I can plow through them.

If it's Hartenstein up at the level of the screen and Chet's on the back line, I just got problems.

Like, I got, I got problems.

And if you double me, there's a possession, and I highlighted this for our producer, Jesse.

I hope we can make something fun social out of this.

There's a possession, 745 in the first quarter.

The two bigs are in.

Ant runs a pick and roll.

They blitz him.

And I thought it was smart they started to blitz Ant more as the season went on.

It's Ant Gobert.

And they blitz him.

Ant makes the right play.

He hits Randall on the wing, who's open, because Randall's guy dips in to help on Gobert rolling to the rim.

Randall, touch pass to Gobert, rolling to the rim.

Rudy, what passes for a touch pass for Rudy?

It's not going to be one-handed.

One-handed lefty pass to McDaniels in the corner.

McDaniels misses a wide-open three.

It's like, what is he supposed to do?

It's a wide-open three.

It's just how DiVincenzo and Alexander Walker went bananas in game four when everyone hammered Ant.

And by the way, the Wolves played their best offensive game of the series by a a long shot.

What struck me about that play was it is exactly the same,

minus a little bit of grace and precision on the same floor in the same round as a play that I will always remember.

It's memorialized in a Spurs fandom YouTube video from the conference finals in 2014 that I coined the word, not that anyone uses it.

I called it a Spursgasm.

It was when the Spurs went crazy, and that play is the same exact double the pick and roller.

It's Genobley to Mills to Duncan to Diao in the same corner on the same court.

Beautiful basketball.

Shot goes in.

Correct basketball last night.

Shot doesn't go in.

Like, what is Ant supposed to do?

Like, I hope we can put them side to side on Instagram or something.

It's the same exact play that was lauded for representing the beautiful game 10 years ago, 11 years ago, and now is criticized for, well, here's Ant giving the ball up to his teammates who can't make shots.

Well, someone's got to make a goddamn shot.

Yeah, Jaden McDaniels, who overall shot pretty well for the playoffs.

Love the contract.

Last night, those corner threes wide open had no shot.

Okay.

And it was like five or six of them in the first quarter, like no shot.

Like, this is, it is what it is.

We want to make these grand proclamations after every season.

I get it.

Like, it's more fun to be that way, to be like, oh, and it's a failure.

He's not who we thought he was.

Oh, let's move on from him.

I'm, I'm good.

Like, I love Ants on schedule.

I got no

absolutely crystal clear.

I got zero worries about Anthony Edwards on the floor.

None.

I mean,

what year is this of Jason Tatum, which to me was the best year of his life?

Is fully realized Jason Tatum.

Where, like, I know people might snicker, but I'm like, man, this guy figured out his drive game, his post-game.

Eighth season.

Eighth season, where you were like, oh, like the

everything that we ever foresaw for this guy, like being 6'8, being able to handle it, being a playmaker, being a great rebounder, guarding bigs when he needs to, guarding smalls when he needs to.

Like, all of these things that finally materialized and coalesced happened for Tatum this year.

Where I'm like, this guy's legitimately probably the fifth best player in the league this year.

Watching him all year sucks that the, you know, that the Achilles happened.

Like, this is year eight that happened for Tatum.

So let's, let's relax.

Follow-up to the Western Conference Finals destruction number two.

I had a coach text me, coach, not a head coach, just a coach, I'll just say, who I really respect text me after game two when it was 2-0.

And his argument to me was: Minnesota was never really that good.

And then he went on, said, you know, they're not as good as healthy Golden State.

They got lucky that Curry got hurt.

Not as good as healthy Nuggets.

Not as good as healthy Clippers.

They got into the right side of the bracket.

They caught a huge injury break in the second round this was more or less fool's gold for them and now they have as you mentioned with randall and nas reed and alexander walker all these questions going forward what's your take on the minnesota timberboods after this were they not as good as we thought they were or was the where are we i i i again the grand proclamations i i can't quite go there because one

A lot of people were picking the Lakers to come out of that side of the bracket.

And they house.

They picked the Lakers on national television to win the Western Conference.

That's a thing that happened.

And it wasn't just the TV guys, the mainstream guys.

Like a lot of people thought the Lakers were good.

A lot of people thought the Lakers were going to win that series.

They housed that team.

I did.

I picked the Lakers in seven.

So did I, right?

Now, Golden State, while Steph looked right, was running rough shot over these guys.

Again, it's one game.

It's one quarter.

They took, yeah, it was one quarter.

They took

care of business against that team, and then they got beat up by OKC.

But guess what?

OKC was on the brink.

Game five was on the brink.

Lost game six.

Like, they could have easily lost to Denver.

That's a seven-game tight-ass series.

Two times they came back from double-digit fourth-quarter deficits in order to win that series.

Are you telling me after what Minnesota had been doing to Denver for a year and change, you think Minnesota would have got smoked by Denver in the conference finals?

I don't think so.

So, like, I get it.

I think the league now with this apron stuff, and you're not allowed to retain a bunch of players and all of this other stuff, like it is a matchup-dependent playoff process, man.

And yes, they look horrible against OKC, but I think they would have looked pretty decent against a team that damn near what is probably

going to end up being OKC's toughest series.

Minnesota has whooped their asses up and down the court for over a year now.

So,

like,

do I think

they're a two-seed level normal Western Conference team?

Probably not, but I think they're more talented than the average seven seed, for sure.

I disagreed heartily with this coach.

We texted back and forth about it.

I picked Minnesota to beat Golden State before the series,

I think in seven as well, maybe six, probably seven.

So it's not like I can say, well, they only won because Steph was injured because I picked him to win the series regardless.

I don't know what would have happened, but that's a great series, I think, either way.

And their numbers, once Randall came back for the last 30 games, whatever of the series, are on par with all of those teams, like on par or better than most of those teams, or with most of those teams.

And like, there's some truth to the fact that are all of those teams, Warriors, Clippers, Nuggets, Wolves, like roughly equivalent?

Like, could you are they roughly equivalent in that their universe of possibilities is make the conference finals or lose a bad second-round series?

Yeah, they're roughly equivalent.

It just so happens that Minnesota got a pretty friendly bracket and got to the conference finals.

I don't think they're like amazing, but I can't call it fool's gold.

Now, you mentioned Julius Randle.

Quickly on the future of the Wolves:

Randall, player option, 30 million.

Nas Reed, player option, 15 million.

Nikhil Alexander Walker, unrestricted free agent.

If you just pencil in the player option numbers, just for math purposes, for Randall and Reed, they're pretty much at the first apron already with zero dollars for Alexander.

With no raises, yeah, no raises, no nothing.

Now,

they could go, those guys could do lots of different things.

They could opt in and extend, they could opt out and sign new contracts with the Wolves, whatever.

The let's really clean up our cap sheet move is to let Randall walk if he opts out or just let him opt in and expire.

Bring back Nas Reed on some number and bring back Alexander Walker on some number, maybe bite the bullet on a really expensive team for one year and then Riando goes away.

If I had to bet, I don't know.

Actually, I don't,

here's, I don't think all three of them are on the team next year.

I just don't think that's feasible.

And just because of the option mechanics, Alexander Walker, I think, is the most likely candidate to leave, particularly with Dillingham waiting to get minutes.

Is that make them demonstrably worse next year?

Probably.

I mean, it hurts.

He was awesome.

There's also the Durant thing, which may or may not have been real.

I don't know what's going to happen with that, but that's just my temperature take on the Wolves.

They're going to lose one of these guys next year.

And

I guess it would have to be Alexander Walker based on logic is the most likely one.

That hurts, man.

He was good.

He was good.

And by the end of this series, by the way, credit to Oklahoma City.

This is what great teams do.

They had the Wolves being like, do we just play one big man?

Which instead of two, our whole identity is we're going to play two of these guys almost all the time.

I liked when they would go the other way and just like tweak it and play McDaniels at the four or Shannon all of a sudden can't miss a shot at the four.

But it's like, okay, we'll try Gobert.

We'll try Randall.

We'll try Reed.

We can't play two.

We got to play one.

That's what great teams do.

That's what the Pacers are doing to the Knicks.

They're making them question things that they thought they understood about themselves.

I don't know.

That's my, You have any thoughts about Wolves' future?

I just don't understand how the logic of last summer, when you moved off for Carl Towns because you didn't like his long-term deal, makes sense to pay these guys on extensions with raises

from their current salaries.

How does that logic hold when you got beat up in the conference finals last year and you did that move?

You get beat up in the conference finals this year.

Like, why would they

be like, Yeah, that thing that we didn't want to do last year, which is bring back Carl Towns, run it back with this cap sort of sheet being as dirtied up and muddied up as it is?

Why is that a different logic now?

Maybe some people will say, Well, Glenn Taylor is gone, and the you know, the sort of up-in-the-air nature of the ownership situation has been settled.

And you know what?

Let's bring Julius Randall back at 40-something million per for the next three years.

He's good.

Juzer's a good player.

That's why I played Nas Reed like 22, 23 million for the next three something years.

Now you're paying those two $60 something million dollars to play the same position.

I don't see how that happens.

I don't see how the logic is different this year.

Like, I think they're going to move on from these guys.

You think so?

Yeah.

I think so.

I think it's like, yo, we got Ant Edwards.

We can figure the rest out.

I mean, that would be,

that would be,

I mean, they're not exactly overflowing with trade assets either.

So I don't know exactly kind of if they wanted to work some sort of trade where they get back something for one of them.

I don't know how that, what they would get.

But I think the logic would be just breaking one big contract into two and maybe one of them is shorter.

Although Towns is dealing, Towns, again, sneakily extension eligible this summer.

Right now it expires in 27, 28 for 61 million.

But

it's interesting.

So something more dramatic you are putting into the world.

Okay, then just re-sign and figure it out.

I mean, I'm sure one of Nas and Randall will come back.

I just don't see how you give them

this.

Yeah, I guess it would be, I break up Randall's, excuse me, I break up Carl Towns into two contracts.

But like, if you give them raises and you extend them for three years, it's Carl Townsend's deal plus more.

Plus, like, I mean, you know, is Randall more tradable than Carl Towns if he's making just 15 to 20 million less?

Like, what's the gap in terms of player quality?

And if they could have traded him after the Warriors series, yeah.

Unfortunately,

that's not how life turned out for them.

So, why?

It's wild being a Julius Randall supporter, which I am.

It's just a wild swing of emotions.

Okay, follow-up question number three in the last one.

It's been hovering now for a while.

Does Oklahoma City rolling to the finals over Minnesota change the way you feel about the Denver Nuggets, who took them to seven games despite injuries to Michael Porter Jr., who was playing with one arm and depth issues, and Aaron Gordon just limping around, but still playing well at the end of that series?

Does it make you reevaluate what felt like a disappointing season for a team that, you know, was wasting Jokic's prime, had to fire his coach and its GM?

Does it make you think, huh, maybe they're actually a little closer to being a championship team than we thought?

I mean, I'm one of the biggest nuggets truthers in our industry.

Like,

I felt in my bones they would take OKC to the distance.

I've thought all year, like, look, get these guys in the playoffs.

This collective experience.

These guys are going to be.

Awesome.

Like, I guess they've grown in my estimation, like, with Porter Jr.

being so limited and with Jamal Murray, like every other game looking like an all-star worthy kind of player.

I guess they've like risen in my estimation, but like, I don't know, like, I thought Denver was a great team before that.

I thought they were a sleeping giant before that.

And so,

yeah, I think they need to add some more depth.

Like, I don't know that Strouther is the answer or Pickett or even Russell Westbrook.

God bless him.

He had some beautiful moments in the playoffs, but

man, you have Nikola Jokic,

you got Aaron Gordon, you got Jamal Murray, you got something, and now Christian Brown, you've got a thing that can work against damn near anybody.

Nobody has made OKC's defense look average as many times as Denver did in the second round.

Now, granted, there were games where Denver's offense looked like trash in that series but at the same time like there were games they're putting up 120 on this team back to back with no problem right and you know obviously jokic is one of the greatest players we've ever seen um i know people are going to be like oh but the rings but i'm sorry like to me this guy is a lebron james he's a magic johnson he's a he's that i think that argument is over like i i don't know how you could say hey people will say because of the rings well i don't want to rings well but like, you know, whatever.

Like, you need a lot to go right for you to win all these games.

This guy plays, Zach.

Like, he's one of the greatest players we've ever seen in our lives.

Like, easily.

Like, watch the freaking games.

This guy is something else.

So, you know, part of it, too, for me, Zach, was I was in my house all alone

watching Team USA mount a comeback against Serbia when I was just sure they were going to lose that game.

And, you know, we make the joke about Jordan playing against a bunch of mechanics.

Serbia, it felt like threw out a bunch of

things.

Easy.

Easy.

Easy.

Easy.

You're talking to a Balkan adjacent guy.

Easy.

And

they damn near beat Team USA.

Like, I just think the world of Jokic.

And so, yeah, I guess my estimation of Jokic has risen after that series for sure, dude.

It's such an interesting Rorschach test because it went to seven, right?

Obviously, that's a feather in your cap right off the bat.

You took the presumptive NBA Finals favorites to the distance.

I picked Thunder in six, so the Duncan's did better than I anticipated them doing.

For the series, Oklahoma City was plus 64.

And so you're like, well, that's, and there were two blowouts.

And if you, in those blowouts, they were plus 75.

So that means if you took the other five games, Denver is plus 11.

Like, okay, that's encouraging.

And that's like kind of the formula for Denver, right?

Like, they walk you down in close games and they have the best finisher and they have a a championship formula.

That's how they win.

I would say like blowouts are part of it.

Like

being able to blow another team out is a massively important thing because it gives you just a margin for error in the other games that other teams don't have.

And like the blowouts count.

They count.

There were two wins and then you just split the close games basically and you end up winning the series.

It's why the Knicks are in trouble.

They just can never win an easy game.

Every game has to be difficult.

And it just like, so you're going to lose some of those and lose some of them in crazy fashion.

Game one was an outlier, but still.

But I, I'm kind of with you.

Like,

even if they can't trade Michael Porter Jr.

or don't even try

and his contract is not going to make any attempt to do so easy, I just think like that starting five is a real thing.

They can go toe-to-toe with anybody if that starting five is healthy and it was not healthy.

And if Murray is Murray for 80% of the series.

I'm going to ask you about Murray, though.

And he's the guy that I'm most worried about because they paid the hell out of the guy.

And

like, is he ever going to physically be 2023 again?

I think that is the number one concern on the within and without about the Nuggets.

I'm looking at his playoff numbers now: 22 a game, 44% shooting, 35% from three.

Like, that's good.

It's good.

Two years ago, it was 26 a game, 47, 40% from three.

That's

even if he can be somewhere in between those two guys,

I just and

they can get one ring chaser who can actually contribute, like not Sarich, not, you know, whatever, like a dead salary.

They can't have two dead salary slots in Najee, who's not a ring chaser, he's their draft pick, but and Sarich.

And just the other young guys can get better enough that I don't know if this is pie in the sky.

Two of them can play for 12 minutes in a high-stakes playoff game.

I think Peyton Watson can.

I think Peyton Watson should get there.

Like,

I just believe in that core four guys, but Murray to me is more of a wild card.

I know exactly what Michael Porter Jr.

is and is not when he's healthy.

And this was not representative of him.

And I think he fits well with Jokic.

I don't know what to tell you about Jamal Murray.

He's only, what, 27, 28 years old.

He's 27, and we're just, we just conceded he's past his complete past his physical prime.

Shouldn't be that way.

Let's look, what's going on?

What

couldn't really even play for like Team Canada last summer?

The whole thing was a disaster.

Like, that's what, that's the thing that gives me pause about Denver.

It's like,

you know, we talked about Bubble Murray.

Murray before

the injury after the bubble, that guy was dropping 50 on guys' heads.

Like,

that he was a special player, and I don't know if he's ever going to get there physically again.

But I, I mean, I remember arguing a little bit with

Bill before the series about Thunder Nuggets.

He thought the Thunder would have an easier time with the Nuggets than I did.

And I just said, like, when they're healthy, and I mean, like, when their guys around Yokich are available, they do not get rolled a series.

Every series is a, is, now they don't, they don't, like, they, they haven't had enough like they don't just screen people either.

Yeah, but they're in these series.

So I'm with you.

Like I come out of this feeling a little better about Denver than I did two weeks ago.

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Okay, last topic.

Bill raised some eyebrows on his pod with Rosillo when he said that if he had to pick an East team

just to like run or to bet on for their outlook in the next, I think he said three years.

I'll expand it to three to five years.

It's now the Pacers.

The Pacers have now eclipsed Cleveland, Boston.

Philly, Milwaukee, all of these sort of like,

in his mind, New York, who they're beating and is more expensive than the Pacers and more capped out.

All these other teams have had like injury-related catastrophes.

Maybe some young teams are rising, but they're not ready yet.

Cleveland is the team that he would pick in the Eastern Conference.

I said, well, that's a fun, that's a fun little topic.

Let me get Waz and I.

And I just want to caution everybody.

This is like quick and dirty.

I spent like 15 minutes per team looking at cap sheets, picks out the door, picks in the door, talent in the door, all this stuff and let's go 15 to one like three to five years worst to best does indiana really have the best outlook and let's give some of these other teams love so let's like let's do it in chunks why don't you give me your uh the worst outlooking oh that's easy that's super easy

let's just can we start from the bottom yeah okay i mean bottom the last team is easy as hell okay give me your i was gonna say give me your 15 to 11 and let's do it in chunks but you do whatever you want No, but I think this first team is in a league all by itself in terms of horrible outlook for five years.

It's the 76ers.

Horror, dismay.

Two overpaid, over-the-hill ass veteran players, okay,

one of which will not, cannot stay on the court whatsoever.

And Joel and Biade and Paul George, whose injury history, let's just say he's not exactly an Ironman, right?

Paying the hell out of them on horrible deals, no value whatsoever to those deals.

And then, you know, they got Maxie, who's nice.

But again, I think the MB'd one, I think there's a universe where a team could talk themselves into thinking they'll load manage Paul George and they got enough young guys.

And like,

let's say

Denver.

got smart enough and said, yo, let's move.

Like, would you guys like Michael Porter Jr.

and we'll, we'll take a shot on Paul George making it work this evening like that?

He's been around trading for Paul George like multiple times.

You know, like Denver, like a team could talk themselves into the Paul George thing, horrible as his contract is.

Joellen Bede,

that's not gonna happen, guys.

They're done.

They're finished.

Stick a fork in them.

I'd rather be every single other team in the Eastern Conference for the foreseeable future than the Philadelphia 76ers.

You had a different 15?

I had Philly 12th.

Now, again, blink test, blink test, as Bill likes to say.

Look, they have Maxi plus McCain plus the third pick in this draft is like at least somewhat mitigating to me the disasters that you just outlined.

And maybe I can just, can I hope?

I can't even hope anymore.

I can't hope that there's one year where all this...

Join B?

That Joey B is going to be good.

I said to Bill the other night, I can't count on him ever playing 50 games in a season again.

Like, I just can't.

And I certainly can't count on those 50 games being perfectly timed for a playoff run.

Where, if we get to this round of the playoffs, which we, by the way, we've never even gotten to the round that's going on right now, I got to play every other day in high-intensity games against elite defenses.

Like, I can, it's just like, I okay, I had them 12th.

Here are the three teams I had below them.

I want to hear where you had them ranked:

Washington,

Brooklyn, and Milwaukee.

Yes.

Yes.

Those are the

Bucs are 14 for me because they have nothing in terms of a future and they're inevitably going to move Giannis.

Like, that's going to happen.

Now, if you told me they were going to be resolute and just being like, yo, there's value in actual money, meaning gate receipts, and just keeping Giannis being a seventh seed type of team, whatever.

If they were dedicated to that and Giannis was just like, screw that.

I'm not going to ring chase.

I don't want to end up like KD, ring chasing in Brooklyn, that blowing up, ring chasing in freaking Phoenix, that blowing up.

I like it here in Milwaukee.

I'm a lifelong buck.

I'm going to be the greatest buck ever.

Whatever.

I'm a pillar of the community, statues, all of that stuff.

All right, cool.

If you told me both parties were committed to that future, then I would have them,

you know, further up the chain.

But it's obvious Giannis is going to eventually move on, and that thing is going to be desolate.

And so, yeah, yeah, I got the Bucs at 14.

And, you know, the Wizards and the Hornets were fighting for the spot after the Bucs for me because

what's so good about the Hornets?

You're going to laugh at where I have the Hornets, but let's talk about.

So, let me, the Bucs.

They still have Giannis.

I can't put them any further down than 13th if they still have Giannis.

What they get for Giannis, if they do indeed ever trade him, is going to be interesting.

And like, presumably, they'll get a lot.

Can they triangulate it so they get some of their own picks back?

That would really help.

I don't know that that's going to be possible.

We'll see.

Let me just defend my Brooklyn and Washington.

Where did you have Brooklyn and Washington?

I had them 15 and 14.

Brooklyn is 12 for me.

And yeah, Washington is 13.

So, but again, like, this is a whole morass right here.

Hornets,

the Wizards, like Brooklyn.

Like, there's no, I look at them as they don't have a young guy on their team, like, say, the Hawks, right?

Like, Jalen Johnson, I think the world of.

There's nobody on the Wizards who I think that of.

There's nobody on the, well, I guess I like Brandon Miller, but like, there's, he's a young guy that I'm like, they seem nice, but do they have all-star perennial all-star written all over them?

I don't see that on any of these rosters.

Do you two things?

Because Wizards fans, the 19 of them that are still out there, are going to be so fierce.

He's like, what, we've done all this great stuff.

We have swaps.

We got picks.

Like we've done the right thing.

And I'm like, that's all true.

Like, I like,

I like Alex Starr.

Fine.

I like Kulabali.

Fine.

Keyshawn George, all right.

Like,

like, to me, all, all of these like theoretical teams, it's very hard to build them into an actual good team, particularly when the lottery gods knock you down to sixth in this draft.

They have six and 18 in this draft.

A bunch of young guys that are like, sure, whatever.

Like,

like all of these teams are, it actually going through this exercise makes you appreciate that like there aren't a lot of teams that are like, there's no team that's just grossly mismanaged and in a horrible position.

Like the Wizards are all right.

I just don't know what they are.

The Nets I have above the Wizards solely because those Knicks picks they have far out are pretty valuable picks and looking looking pretty valuable and maybe I'm underrating them by having them so low because they do, you know, they are in New York.

Free agents have gone there before.

But you got to have guys in-house.

Yeah, I don't know.

Is there one guy on the roster right now?

Is there one that's going to be on the next 50-win Brooklyn Nets team?

The answer might be no.

That seems hard to believe.

Like Cam Johnson, is Cam Johnson going to be on the next 50-win Brooklyn team?

Is Nick Claxton going to be on the next Brooklyn team?

Is Cam Thomas, who's extension eligible?

Are any of these dudes going to be on the next actually good Brooklyn Nets team?

I don't, I don't think so.

So I had Washington, Brooklyn, Milwaukee, Philadelphia.

I had,

so let's take this next group of teams:

Charlotte, Toronto, Chicago, Miami.

Those four.

How did you have them ordered?

I had the Raptors,

the Raptors,

then the Bulls.

Are we going

up?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then Miami.

So Charlotte, to me, is at the bottom.

Like, this is a team that's, they were floating, trading Lamella ball throughout the, like, their management is like, we're open to moving on from this guy in the offseason.

He's allegedly the centerpiece of their team.

They're openly shopping the guy during last regular season.

I don't think that bodes well for your next five years.

If the guy who, I mean, their best play is probably Miles Bridges, but like

the guy who made the all-star team or who people thought should be an all-star

is on the trading block, like your team is nowhere, you know?

And so, yeah, Charlotte at the bottom of that.

Raptors, to me, the Hawks are at the top of that because they do have an all-star.

And they got Jalen Johnson, who I think is on the cusp of all-star level, you know, playing as long as he can stay on the court.

So you're going to laugh at me.

I went nine Charlotte, 10 Toronto, 11 Chicago, 12 Philadelphia.

I mean, look, none of these teams, like, I think Toronto is in the most interesting position in the NBA because

what's so interesting about it.

Well, but they have all these guys.

Like, you've heard of all of them and like they're interesting and they pivoted from a lot of rotation guys.

They pivoted from this team that, you know, has several players playing very well in the playoffs right now to a young but not like that young team of like barnes barrett ingraham quickly that we in fairness have not seen at all and while they did that they traded stuff to get jakob purtle back and now they have all these guys like they don't have a lot of shooting they're really expensive for a team that's not been very good they're like right up they're like in tax danger the next couple years They're picking ninth this year.

Now they have all of their picks and all their swaps going forward.

I just like, I don't know.

They're trying to do this middle build thing again where lightning strikes and a Kawhi deal emerge.

Like, I don't know.

I mean, look,

they have a much more decorated pedigree than the Charlotte Hornets, who I have one pick, one spot above them.

But the Hornets do have LaMelo Ball.

Your concerns are legitimate.

LaMelo Ball has to decide, am I a carnival or am I a basketball player?

Because if he decides he's a basketball player, he could be pretty damn good.

They've got Brandon Miller, who I like, Mark Williams, who I like, and picks 4, 33, and 34 in this draft, and a couple of pretty valuable picks coming in, including a Dallas pick that they got in the B.J.

Washington deal, I think.

I don't know.

You could talk me into either way.

And the Bulls, where'd you have the, like, what's what's the argument for like high-level optimism about the Bulls?

There isn't one.

There isn't one.

Again.

All of these teams,

one, at least the Heat management have a history of putting together Eastern Conference finals, finals.

That's why I have Miami eighth above all of these teams.

You know what I mean?

Um, like, there's a healthy respect for that.

None of these other teams can claim this.

I think the Bulls, there's a sense that they know they're going in a certain direction.

Although, with the Bulls, you never really know.

Like, they finally picked a side of like, all right, we don't want to be middling, and middling not even being like 49 wins, middling being

41 wins and being dedicated to that outcome year in and year out.

It seems like they're moving in a different direction.

But in terms of what's already on the team, I know people love the rookie who, you know, showed signs.

Jealous is good.

Yeah, he showed signs the second half of the season, and Josh Giddy played the best ball of his life.

I'm a Kobe White fanatic.

I love Kobe White.

I'd like to see him get traded to a real team so he could like actually get some playoff reps someday.

But I think the optimism with the Bulls is that they finally chosen a direction to run toward.

What direction is the direction is what?

I don't know.

Embracing young guys?

The thing about the East is you can't even choose to bottom out.

It's like impossible to choose to bottom out.

And it's not impossible.

The Wizards did it and it didn't work, but like the Bulls are looking around like.

There are six bona fide, strong playoff teams in the East.

Everybody else can kind of talk themselves into thinking they should be in the mix for for the last two spots of the NBA playoffs.

And again, like the fact that I have the Bulls 12, it's actually not, their situation's fine.

They have all of their picks and swaps.

They are a big market.

They have a pick coming from Portland that could convey next year, maybe the next.

So they have an extra pick.

They've got a bunch of interesting young players, Boozelis chief among them.

And even though they have Giddy's contract coming up, Kobe White's extension eligible, I don't think they can actually extend him because he'll want more than they're allowed to offer.

IO's extension eligible.

They've got to figure out the Vooch thing.

He's expiring.

They could have a max slot next summer.

Do they have to figure out the Vooch thing?

I don't know.

They might, who knows?

Well, they might sign up for like a five-year, $150 million extension.

We're just going all in.

Vooch needs to be sorted.

So I had Miami eighth

based on just like I've doubted them before.

Their ability to dig out of what looked like permanent mediocrity.

I'm not going to doubt them again.

I'm just not going to, I don't want to get, we don't have to get too far into it.

They've got some interesting young players, bam, hero, hero is sneakily extension eligible.

So that means my top seven.

I wonder if this match is yours.

Is in no particular order: Indiana, Cleveland, Atlanta, New York, Boston, Orlando, Detroit.

Does that match your top seven?

I had, I had the, I had the Hawks at eight and the heat at seven.

Fair enough.

I have the Hawks like preposterously high.

Um,

I like,

let's do it like this.

Well, let's just go straight to the top.

Who'd you have number one?

I ended up having Cleveland too.

Me too.

I have Cleveland too.

They have three all-stars on their team, all under the age of 28, or whatever Donovan Mitchell is at this point.

Again, I don't know how you like

watch Indiana play and say, we can't possibly beat them next year.

Like, that's insane.

Like, Cleveland has to think.

they can beat Indiana next year.

Mobley has so much room to grow even further as a player.

And he seems like the kind of guy who's going to put in the pain and the work to get there.

I still believe in, I still think Garland has an actual good playoff run in him.

I thought he was excellent this regular season.

In fact, underrated in how great he was this regular season.

You know, I believe in, I think their coach knows what the hell he's doing.

I think there's something to having an offseason where you know what your target is, where it's like, our target's Indiana next year.

Like, this is what every guy who matters on that team is thinking about how they can make themselves a better player in the context of a series against Indiana.

And yeah, the guys are young.

The guys are young.

They're locked in contractually.

That's the best, to me, situation when you consider like Tatum's freaking Achilles is going to take a year for him to come back.

And then even when he comes back, he's got to get worked in and stuff.

Yeah, I had Cleveland one.

I don't, all the reasons you just said, I don't really even care that, like, it's possible Sam Merrill and Ty Jerome are on other teams next year because of their financial crunch.

I don't care that they have a bunch of guys that are extension eligible, including Garland, sneakily, and we'll see what they do with like Hunter, Struce, Dean Wade, whatever.

Don't care.

I don't even care that at some point they may slash probably will have to trade one of the four guys for like multiple pieces and or salary relief to just reorient their team.

And as I've said before, I think that whoever they trade will not be Donovan Mitchell, will not be Evan Mobley.

And so you just start narrowing down like the suspects of who could be.

I don't care.

I'm taking them number one.

Did you take Indiana number two?

No, I took Boston number two.

Yeah, I think when Tatum comes back, they're going to be fine.

They're going to be a contender.

I really believe that.

I think...

Tatum is going to reorient the center of gravity of his game.

I think it'll be less perimeter-oriented.

I think he's going to lean on being stronger and bigger than most of the guys that he plays against in a way that he just doesn't right now.

I think he's like the Achilles is going to necessitate that transition.

And I think they're going to be damn good when he comes back.

So long as they keep Jalen Brown, because I keep, I don't know.

I saw somewhere like, oh, Brown might be on the move.

I think that would be an insanely stupid thing to do.

I think if they did that, it would be, A, they're getting real stuff back.

Like an actual all-star back?

I don't know.

I haven't found a Jalen Brown deal that I love because they have to get some quality players back, but B, like, again, similar to the Towns thing, just breaking a giant contract into smaller, mid-sized contracts, whatever.

I had Boston

three.

You could have talked me into Boston at anywhere from four to six.

I had Indiana two.

I just like they're really,

they have two guys making like 90 million combined and Halliburton and Siakam

and yeah, they're gonna be in the tacks next year when if and when they bring back Miles Turner they could slide a little down if they dump Matherin and I think he's the most likely dumped candidate on the team

Maybe the most interesting extension possibility of the whole summer that no one's talking about is Aaron Neesmith, who's eligible, I think, for like a three-year $67 million extension that would tack on three years.

He could hold out for more than that.

He might be able to.

I don't know.

It's a spicy one.

It's a spicy one.

Now he's got a couple more years left on his contract.

So this would be like tacking on

man.

And just something to watch for Indiana.

You know, everyone's like, oh, they never go into the tax.

The Simon family doesn't want to go into the tax.

Just something to watch.

I don't know how long.

They have a minority owner named Stephen Rails, who bought 20% of the team a couple of years ago.

Very involved.

I saw some of his family at the game in New York.

From what I've heard, if he ever would be able to get governing control of the team, he's much more willing to go into the tax than the Simon family.

It's just something to monitor.

I just like their team.

Boston, I had three.

But you could talk me in.

You could talk me into Boston, New York, Atlanta, Orlando, Detroit, and almost.

Wait, Atlanta, you could, you could talk me.

Let me make the case for

Atlanta being in the top four.

Let me make the case for Atlanta.

Yeah, make the case because this is interesting.

Their salary stuff is pretty clean now.

Yes.

Their draft pick stuff, considering that initial DeJounte Murray trade, the one where they acquired him was a disaster, is pretty clean now and very clean after like 2027.

And they actually have a pick that's coming in in 2027 to offset the one they have going out.

They're pretty safe from like tax apron stuff, assuming they let Capella walk.

And I think they'll do that and re-sign Lavert.

Now, obviously, hovering over this is like, if they decide that Trey Young is not part of their future at any point, they're going to take a step back.

Maybe they will, maybe they won't.

He's extension eligible too.

That's going to be a fun one.

He's got a player option for the year after next.

It's interesting.

I just think like Trey Young plus Jalen Johnson plus Rishoche plus Daniels is like, that's not a bad nucleus.

And when you have a little wiggle room financially,

you could like

you could talk, like, look, I'm just just saying, you like, are they, do you have Orlando above them?

Yes, and Detroit, 100%.

And this is why I ask you this.

Can you envision Trey Young

carrying a team to the conference finals?

I get it.

They did it that one year.

Get it.

Suspect East, but whatever.

Could you envision in the context of the East as it exists right now

being the engine of a conference finals team in the way that we've seen Brunson do it and Halliburton do it and Tatum do it.

And we, to be fair, haven't seen any of the Cleveland guys do it.

It's hard to see.

I just have way more faith in the Orlando guys, way more faith in Cade Cunningham to be that kind of player.

Like I said, you could put these teams in any order.

I didn't even mention Okangwu.

I like LaVer.

I love Akongu.

I like the, like, they've got something going there

that's interesting.

But, like, here's the thing.

Orlando's top two,

indisputably better.

Well,

better than Atlanta's top two.

Vancaro is a star who's going to be a playoff star.

Wagner, if he can ever figure out what the hell is going on with his jump shot, is an all-star level player for sure.

My question about Orlando is,

like, who are the other guys on the team?

Because they do have all their picks and all their swaps.

Jalen Suggs is definitely another guy.

Well, like, so Jalen Suggs is a great guy.

Love Jalen Suggs.

He's never healthy,

but I think he fits really well with those two guys.

I love that trio.

They're suddenly like really expensive.

They need, they need Anthony Black to hit because, and maybe DeSilva becomes one of the guys.

I like De Silva.

Jet Howard has barely played.

Isaac is like, I just can't play more than like 15 minutes in any game.

And they're suddenly kind of expensive.

And

like Wendell Carter Jr.

is all right, he's all right.

Like, I think they need a better center than him.

Um, I just feel like there's a like they haven't, they're so far behind figuring out their offense.

I feel like they have they're a little bit more like urgently have to ask themselves who's on the team that really makes a deep playoff run.

Now, maybe it's just they're healthy.

I think if they're healthy, they're a 50-plus-win team next year.

It could be a top 10 seed, so maybe I am underrating them.

You think the Hawks on the doorstep of being a 50-win team?

I definitely do not.

I don't think so.

The Hawks are like Eastern Conference playing.

They're 40 and 42.

Yeah, Eastern Conference playing team.

Yeah, I guess you have to take Orlando over Atlanta.

Boston is super interesting because I bet people would underrate Boston's.

like near-term, medium-term future based on what happened to Tatum.

I think they're fine in the medium term.

I think so too, because like they control their draft picks in 26 and 27, and basically 28, which is just a top one protected swap with the Spurs.

I guess they don't control it, but like they have a lot of

control over their picks for a team that's been kind of all in.

They're going to reset their roster a little bit, but like Jason Tatum is Jason Tatum, and they have one of the five to six best players in the NBA when he's healthy.

Let's just say if he's healthy, they only move on from one of Chris Dapps or

Drew Holiday this offseason because new ownership steps in is just like, come on, guys.

Like, why are we paying $400 million for a Jason Tatumless team?

I get it.

Insurance will cover some of it.

Whatever.

Why wouldn't that team be a top six team in the East?

That's a top six Eastern Conference team, that roster.

Sans, Jason Tatum, and Poor Zingus or

Drew Holiday.

Yeah.

That's a top six East team.

It's not deep.

They're staring at Horford's free agency and Cornett's free agency.

You know, obviously, Pritchard, White, Brown, one,

let's say, I mean, I'm not sure it's a lock that both those guys are on the team next year, Porzingis and Holiday, though.

That's the thing.

I think there are scenarios where neither of them is on the team next year.

Or we didn't talk at all about Detroit.

Detroit is my number number six.

I had them sixth as well.

What an exciting moment for the Pistons.

It's finally.

There's really like nothing not to like.

They don't have a pick in this draft.

Other than that, they've got their draft stuff.

Cade making all NBA, that bumps his salary.

Same with Mobley up to 30% of the cap, which is not great, but not great for them, but great for Cade.

I just like.

The Knicks were like, I don't want to play this team anymore.

This team's tough and nasty, and Durin seems to be figuring out a Sarah Sargon.

You can do the sports fan thing, Zach, and be like, look at the point differential of the first round series with the Knicks and be like, we're a conference finals team.

You can do that if you want to.

What do you think of

the big question I think is

Ivy?

What do you think of Ivy?

He's extension eligible.

Should he be a long term part of that team?

Is he and Cade the backcourt?

That makes sense.

I think you need another guy who can actually put the ball on a deck.

I don't think this idea that you turn Cade into like a Luka Donchich in Dallas type of guy,

even in Dallas, he had Kyrie Irving.

And I think you literally need another dude who can actually shoulder the burden of creating offense for himself and others.

And

another thing, I think Cade, you know, needs to be a better off-the-ball player in order for that, for that to be facilitated.

And it's, it's tough when you have two young guys because

I think Luca has kind of been a fully realized on-ball guy for like years, basically, since like year three.

So it's like, Luca, like you don't really have a lot more to learn on the ball.

Why don't you learn how to do shit while you don't have the ball in your hands?

I don't think Cade is there yet.

So there is an awkward tension in terms of that he has more to develop on the ball, but Ivy needs the rock too.

And so at the same time, he needs to be learning how to be a threat when he isn't pounding the rock, you know, for days at a time.

So, yeah, I think that I, I think Ivy should be a part of what they're doing.

A guy who nobody could stay in front of is a valuable guy, in my opinion.

I do too.

He was not forgotten about, but like, you know, the Beasley Hardaway shooting guard combo really worked for them for the most part last year.

Both of them are free agents.

Ivy broke, what did he break his leg, I think, halfway through the season, didn't play again.

I thought that you started to see

some hints of an improving fit with those two guys on the floor at the same time.

And he shot, I think he shot much better from three this year.

Limited sample, but you want the limited sample to be going up, not going down.

It's better, better than nothing.

And I totally agree with you.

Like, I like the contrast in styles with how they play with the ball.

And, and they,

you, like, look at what, look at Ant right now.

Like, they need another guy who can break defenses out off the dribble who's not deliberate with it, like Randall.

I, I liked, and, and, and that, and in the playoffs, I think you started to see some chemistry between like the Cade, Durin, Asar Thompson trio with like Durin in the short roll, hitting Thompson, cutting to the basket.

I like a lot of what's going on there, but if I'm the Pistons, I'm absolutely like going to Jaden Ivey, trying to get an extension done.

Maybe I get a slight discount because of the fact that he.

What do you think is a slight discount for Jaden Ivey?

Well, coming off a broken leg, kind of checkered first three seasons in the NBA.

He's making 10 million next year.

Could I get him four years

120 million?

Yeah, so like basically the Jalen Green contract, basically.

But this is

four years, 100?

Like, could I get, am I getting too great?

I think that's when you, yeah, and I think that's when guys start being like, I'll take my chances and bet on myself.

But I think he is in the Jalen Green territory extension-wise, where it's like

we don't think,

you know,

that you're bad enough that we'll be like, oh, you don't want to take this?

Watch, you're not going to perform well enough, and we're going to have you over a barrel.

But at the same time, like,

you know, it's not out of the realm of possibility that this guy could just completely just

almost Tyrese Maxie it, where the offseason before,

I think most people would have been like, ah, not a max guy.

And then comes in,

you know, plays without the extension and shows himself to be, you know, a high-quality guy.

I think just to thread that needle, you do the Jalen Green thing where it's like, well, I guess the Rockets realize Jalen Green ain't worth the money that he got.

But I was still kind of a Jalen Green believer and thought that maybe he could show that he was, you know, could be an elite talent there.

They're in a nice situation, particularly because I don't think any of these extensions, like Durin's extension, eligible too.

I don't think any of them are going to be like break the bank.

All of a sudden, we have like three guys making the max.

Then they have Tobias expiring after next year.

And I think that's one where, unless he's willing to take a discount, you just got to be like, we're kind of ready to move on from like our post-Tobias Harris era.

Thank you for serving your purpose and being feisty in the playoffs.

That was awesome.

New Tobias Harris.

Just a fun, fun situation.

Wait, I didn't get your thoughts on the Knicks.

What do you think about the Knicks future?

I had the Knicks fourth.

Me too.

I think there's a lot of angst right now with Knicks fans.

Like, angst about Tibbs, angst about did we miss an opportunity?

Angst about can a team with Brunson and Cat bookending the defense at point guard and center?

Is Kat even a center?

Like, can we really win three to four playoff series?

And it's like, cool.

This has been a tough series.

Game one was an all-time gun.

You're in the conference finals.

The East around you, a lot of it is collapsing or wobbling.

And all you, and like, yeah, Bridges has been a disappointment.

He won't take layups anymore.

There was like, is Durant in play?

Whatever.

Andanobi makes a lot of money.

Bridges extension is coming.

Like, all these dudes are good and in their primes.

Like, I think it's a pretty fucking solid situation, despite all your picks.

A lot of your picks are gone.

I think they're just like, if I could have

five to six good players in their primes, including two all-NBA all-NBA players, so great players, like, like,

yeah, it's not perfect.

Like, wow, you got to figure out like a kind of a strange roster.

It's a good roster.

I like that.

Question, question.

We know Cat is touchable.

And you just mentioned.

Oh, boy.

I'm just asking.

I'm just asking.

You just mentioned.

The difficulties of Jalen Brown and Cat and Jalen Brown.

Jalen Brunson.

Excuse me.

Jalen Brunson.

Sorry.

You know, he's got some limitations.

Is Jalen Brunson untouchable?

Oh, come on now.

Come on.

I'm just asking.

His dad is the assistant coach on the team.

They broke every tampering rule.

His freaking godfather is the GM.

The better question is: would you trade Jalen Brunson if you could get in the mix for Giannis?

Now, that is a better question.

Then I think you have to.

I mean, how could you not at least have a like a meeting?

Like, we, maybe we got to maybe

godfather, yeah, maybe we got to ghost Rick out of the meeting and just have it have it in secret.

But, like, you gotta have a meeting.

It's honest.

It's honestly together.

Like, that's interesting.

Like, I think that is the only kind of thing you do with Brunson.

Cause, like, again, he has his obvious limitations.

He's a perennial all-star.

He's obviously endeared himself to New York Knick fans in a way that, like, quite frankly, is just shocking to me.

I like, I didn't

literally know, literally.

And I know Knick fans would be, they would be so freaking conflicted, but

on day two, they'd wake up and be like, wait a second, we got Giannis now.

That's one where you gotta like, you gotta have the meeting and you gotta be like, hey, Rick, we need you to go.

Like, we left this thing at the office at the garden.

Like, we're, and then everyone meets at the practice facility for two hours in Terrytown.

They'd be like, Rick, can you go pick this thing up?

I think we left it there.

All right, Waz.

This was a lot of fun.

By the way,

I want to shout out.

We realized in the fall we were both in the same little city in Spain at the same time last summer.

How cool is Ceejus, man?

Oh, Citis, like total under the radar gem.

Everyone should go there.

Just an incredible place.

It's only like 30 minutes out from Barcelona.

Barcelona.

And yeah, like really cool beaches.

Like I'm somebody who's not afraid of like having being at a crowded beach.

I get it.

Most people like a more quiet beach cejes offers that and just like the view like it's just a beautiful place like all of these mountains and the hilly ass areas and just was really really cool a cool day trip ended up taking the because like you cannot get an uber out of there like you can take an uber to there uber doesn't exist basically in Segis, right?

It's like, and so we ended up having to take a train.

I don't speak Spanish and somehow figured out how to take the train back into downtown Barcelona.

Just an incredible day trip that I would advise anybody who ends up going to Barcelona to try to get out to see just if you can.

We were there for four days and we discovered it totally by accident.

I was just looking for places my daughter could swim at the tail end of our vacation.

It turns out my wife's college roommate lives there.

And so we're like, we're going there.

And it was awesome.

All right.

Big was.

Group chat.

When's the next group chat?

Depends on what the Knicks do tonight.

If the Knicks win, we're going live after the Knicks game on Saturday.

Let's go.

If the Knicks lose, we get the weekend off.

We'll be back top of the week next week, Monday.

Gut feel.

Knicks win or lose tonight.

They're toast.

They're toast.

They're toast.

I think the Pacers are just.

You know what?

Forget it.

I'm going the other way.

Knicks win.

Knicks by 25 at home.

How about that?

Big Waz.

Let's go, Mets.

I'll see you next time.

Let's go, Mets, man.

Appreciate you, bro.

All right, that's it for today and this week.

Unless something really crazy happens, we'll be back on Monday with a new edition of the Zach Lowe Show.

Will we have a finals preview?

Will we start talking about the finals?

I don't know.

We'll see.

We'll see.

Nicks.

Nicks, can you keep us alive?

Can you get us to a game seven?

Thanks, everybody, for tuning in.

Thanks to Jesse, Chris, Bobby, and Oscar on production.

We'll see you next week on the Zach Low Show.

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