Play-In Reaction, More Playoff Previews, and Final Awards Ballots With Michael Pina

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All right, coming up on a new Zach Low Show, it is a loaded Thursday morning with Michael Pina of the Ringer.

We're previewing Rockets Warriors.

That's spicy.

Celtics Magic.

We're giving out awards.

We're talking about Fallout in Sacramento, Chicago, and yes, the closed-door no recordings meeting in Dallas with Nico Harrison.

That's all coming up on the Zach Lowe Show.

Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show.

The play-in tournament is almost over.

The real playoffs start in two days.

Two days.

We have four games on Saturday, four games on Sunday.

Once the remnants of the play-in is over, the real games are starting.

I'm very excited.

That first weekend of the playoffs,

it's like an orgy of basketball.

We have a lot to get to with the ringers.

Michael Pina, how are you, sir?

I'm great, Zach.

This is such an honor and appreciate you having me on.

An honor.

Let's take it easy with that, with the honor stuff.

Okay, so, Pina, we got a lot happening.

We only have the tail end of the play-in left, the eighth seeds to be decided.

We've got awards, ballots due.

I read your ballot.

Did you have a ballot?

I did, yes.

Okay, nice.

Congratulations.

That's a big deal.

And we have the playoffs starting.

So we're going to hit the ground running.

We've got a lot to cover.

And we are going to start with the results of yesterday's play-in games.

And Michael Pina,

sometimes by accident, the sports world, the NBA world, provides just a delectable bit of poetry.

Just a delectable, little, delicious bit of narrative symmetry that you just can't resist.

It might be low-hanging fruit, but it's delicious, low-hanging fruit.

You must pluck it.

And one such bit of poetry is the Sacramento Kings and the Chicago Bulls getting drilled in the play-in tournament on the same day after essentially like almost trading mediocre rosters with each other over the last couple of years.

And I'll tell you right now, the first Domanta Domanta Sabonis to Chicago rumor I hear this summer, if there is one, if it ever exists, because God knows Chicago needs to figure out a long-term center situation.

I'm calling the league office and I'm saying, hey, look, people wanted you to step in on this Luca trade.

Okay, that's how mad they were.

You got to stop these two teams from talking to each other.

No more, no more of this.

And they both lose in a hilariously embarrassing fashion.

The Kings immediately mutually agree to part ways with their general manager.

People are fleeing the Kings like the Titanic.

Coaches are like, yo, Florida State's job is open.

Can I be the assistant coach at Florida State?

Can I be a GM of a college program?

Is there anywhere else I can go but here with me and Vivek and Battina and Jeremy Lamb and God knows what else is going on over there?

So I will put this to you.

And by the way, there's pick drama with these teams.

Chicago trades Zach Levine, actually think an okay trade because what they really got was financial relief.

They could not get off that contract and they got off of it without having to include a pick.

They had to take the Zach Collins and Kevin Herter salaries.

Fine, those expires after next season.

They got their own pick back,

the 11 to 30 portion of it, that was the unprotected part.

It was top 10 protected via the DeMar DeRosan trade.

They got it back and boy, wow.

It really freed them to make a glorious deep playoff run in the daunting Eastern Conference.

Meanwhile, the Kings owe their pick with top 12 protection to the Atlanta Hawks via the Kevin Herter trade, who somehow Kevin Herter is just everywhere in this entire discussion.

They need some luck on the last day of the play-in to have a shot at keeping that pick.

Bobby Marks has a tweet up now.

They need Dallas and Miami to win, I think, in the last play-in games to jump them in the lottery.

Just a sad state of affairs.

So I will put this question to you.

Which of these two teams is saddest right now?

The Bulls or the Kings, two years removed from the Beam beam team?

What a question.

What a way to start.

Which team is saddest?

I think Sacramento is saddest right now.

And it's really funny to say that because since the all-star break, they have the same net rating as the Denver Nuggets.

And one team, I think, is a potential title contender that can win it all.

And the other is just one of the more disturbing messes of morass in the NBA.

But as you said, you know, they mutually parted ways with Monty McNair, their general manager.

Who could have seen that coming?

Nobody.

I was literally talking to people within the Kings organization 96 hours ago, like, who's going to replace Monty?

What's going to happen with Monty?

How much trouble is he in?

And just you have to wonder who

would want that job?

Who wants to take the life braft towards the Titanic and get on it?

Who wants to be the head coach?

Is Doug Christie going to be the full-time, long-term head coach of this organization going forward.

But fundamentally, for me, what is so troubling beyond ownership, which is something that you can't really do anything about, is just having Zach Levine, DeMonta Sabonis, and DeMar DeRosan on your team under contract as your three highest paid players next season.

And I know DeRosan is partially guaranteed the year after that, but Zach Levine has a humongous player option that I would imagine he picks up.

And so

where are you going with these three on your roster for the foreseeable future?

And when they were on the court this season, your net rating was minus 4.2.

Your defense was five points worse than the Washington Wizards.

So, I just think that right there, when you just look at kind of what the core is, if you even want to call that a core, it's really difficult to overcome and to get over, I feel.

I think the Kings is the correct answer, and it's my answer as well.

You just really,

you really have to sit back and admire the unbelievable own goal of having De'Aaron Fox and Tyrese Halliburton and spinning forward three to four years and having neither of them

and having in their place a very good player in DeMontis Sabonis, who, by the way, if you think DeMontis Sabonis is watching all this happen and be like, yo, I'm cool.

I'm just like so super happy to be a Sacramento king, You are not going to be correct.

I don't know what's going to happen there, but there's going to be some conversations this summer between his camp and the kings.

Like, what's happening here?

And Zach Levine and DeMar DeRosen, who I didn't mind that as a talent bet, but

it just hasn't really worked in terms of meshing with the identity that they had and then voluntarily gave up.

And, you know, they've got other stuff for Levine.

They got a fake first from Charlotte that's going to be seconds.

They got a Spurs first and a Wolves first in 27 and 31, respectively.

So we'll see how those turn out.

But to have, I mean, the Kings,

it's hard to say they run away from success because they've had so little since the Weber, Divach, Stoyakovich, Bibby era, one of my favorite teams of all time.

But the minute they taste any kind of success, it's like they do everything possible to sabotage it.

Like, how quickly can we fire our coach?

Can we fire the first coach since the one that we fired before, Michael Mullen, the first one to give us some stability, Mike Brown?

Can we fire him out of nowhere?

Maybe not out of nowhere, but rather abruptly.

And can we do so in a way that pisses off our franchise point guard to the point that he's no longer on the team?

By the way, Sam Amick reported today, Monty McNair did not want to fire Mike Brown.

I've heard the same thing.

That's probably why Monty McNair didn't do any media about firing Mike Brown and the whole organization left D'Aaron Fox out to dry and answer the questions about it.

And it just begs the question, like, who, to your point about who would take this job,

who's going to have the juice?

Who's going to have the decision-making power?

I've heard Calvin Booth's name.

Calvin Booth, look, his reputation has taken a major hit with all negativity in Denver.

As Italian about, as a talent evaluator, I would stand by Calvin Booth.

I think he's pretty good at his job.

I think he's a creative thinker who's not afraid to take risks.

But he's going to go in there and be like, so, so, what's so what's the deal?

Like, who do I have to talk to about making moves?

Is Vlad, like, Vlades around again?

Um,

You know,

it's been a rough couple of years since that feel-good team that I still would say if De'Aaron Fox does not hurt his finger, I think they win that series against Golden State.

I was super impressed with their general sort of demeanor in that series, their introduction to the playoff crucible.

And then here we are, and it's like, yeah, they have a couple extra picks.

That's great.

I just don't know.

They went from an identity in a direction

with Fox after the Halliburton trade.

And And again, Sabonis has been good enough that you don't just rue that trade every day anymore.

But now I just don't know.

I don't know what.

I just don't know.

I mean, I don't know where they're going anymore.

Well, they got Jake La Ravia, Zach.

So that's why.

I like Jake LaRavia.

I do too.

That's why I bring it up.

He's the one part of my notes where I wrote, I liked the Jake LaRavia trade.

That was the one positive.

part of this organization right now.

I mean, you have Keegan Murray, who's up for an extension, who struggled a little bit this year trying to

reshape his game a little bit to accommodate the DeMar de Rosen edition.

I thought not having Malik Monk has obviously hurt them, but at the same time, Malik Monk, who I think is really good, does not fit at all at the same time with DeMar de Rosen and in particular, Zach Levine.

When those guys share the court, the defense is a total disaster.

So

going back to your point earlier about Sabonis and

the conversations that he should rightfully have with whoever is making decisions for the Sacramento Kings.

Like, what is his market even?

And that's why I go back to just how troubling it is to have these three on your team, because what is the value?

What is the market?

Even if you wanted to shed one of them, shed multiple this summer and try to, I don't know, start over and build around Jake LaRiby and Keon Ellis.

Like, I don't know what you do there because as we saw with the Chicago Bulls, and I know that's a different front office with a different point of view and mindset and approach, but they couldn't get off of Zach Leviner.

They couldn't get value back for him.

So that's kind of where I'm hung up on

when I say that this team is just kind of in such a dark, dark place right now.

So I will be the Sabonis defender.

I get why people say, what value would he have?

Because

he's a known commodity in that you know your defense is going to have a ceiling with him in the middle of it.

Offensively, now he stretched his range out this year,

42% on threes, shot two a game.

Not much, but a little bit.

But you're going to have to play a certain way offensively to maximize him, and you're going to have to play on defense in many different ways to sort of minimize his lack of rim protection.

But he's a very good basketball player.

He's a very good floor raiser in the regular season.

And I think in the playoffs, he would be a very good floor raiser, too.

I mean,

his durability, his physicality, his creativity as a passer, I think there would be a market for him.

I'm not sure you're getting, you know, three firsts, whatever, two swaps and a great young player or two, but I think there would be a pretty strong market for him.

And honestly, like I brought up the Chicago theoretical, and not by accident, just like I could see those two teams.

This is, I'm just making it up out of whole cloth, to be clear.

I have no sourcing on this, but Chicago's biggest long-term question is who plays center for us?

Who are our big men?

And I just could see them looking at it at a number of different directions, including Calling the Kings, with whom they have a great familiarity.

But Sabonis has four guaranteed years left on his

three guaranteed years left on his contract.

43 million, 47 million, 49.9 million.

I mean, it's a lot, but he's pretty well respected around the league.

It's just, you know.

It's just, I can't believe that the kings are here in complete organizational chaos.

I guess I can.

They're the kings.

They live in organizational chaos, but it has descended quickly.

It has.

And I don't mean to denigrate for the record Sabonis as a player.

I love DeMonta Sabonis as a player.

I love that type of skill set, and I think you can win with it, but it's just very expensive.

And it's hard to kind of plop that into a different environment if you don't have the pieces around it, as you alluded to.

That makes sense.

Well, I mean, look, he's going to be ballpark 25% of the cap as the cap raises up.

It's not, it's one of those contracts that looks expensive and is expensive, but isn't quite that expensive.

But let's go to the Bulls.

The Bulls.

Traded Zach Levine.

Already talked about that.

Did not trade Nikola Vucevic, who has one year left now in his deal.

It'll be an expiring deal next year.

Had a nice flurry of fun, fast-paced play and winning play.

Finished the regular season on a 15-5 run before crapping out in the play-in tournament to the Heat, who don't mess around in the play-in tournament, baby.

They're not there to just play in the play-in.

I like how Tyler Hero after the game was like, The job's not done.

Yeah, I know.

You have another play-in game.

We all know that.

Job's not done.

Like, did you think anyone thought the job was done?

No.

Good game by the Heat.

So the Bulls have the following players age 25 or younger.

Kobe White coming off a career season on a cheap, cheap contract.

Ayo Dasumu, who missed most of the last part of the season, he's actually almost exactly the same age as Kobe White, believe it or not.

Both of them are 25.

Josh Giddy

coming off a nice season for him.

That trade is okay for the Bulls.

You can quibble with should they have gone a different direction and look for picks and all of this, but Josh Giddy is a good player.

He's only 22 years old, shot 38% on threes this year, which, if that is sustainable on even medium volume, begins to to answer the question of, can Josh Giddy exist as a second or third option on a great team?

Because I don't think he can be the first option on a great team, given his limitations as a finisher, as a shooter, and all of that, and his defense.

Pat Williams, 23.

I think I'm about done.

I think

extremely tough.

He is making $18 million a year.

Matas Muzelis, 20, immediately the most important and most interesting player on the team.

Fantastic close to his rookie season.

Jalen Smith, signed for some reason, four years, 36 million, doesn't play, 25 years old.

Dale and Terry, 22, Julian Phillips, 21.

I call them the do-something twins because, look, I love a good 3D role player who kind of does nothing but those things.

I watch those guys and I'm like,

so I watch them, like, oh,

the outline of like something interesting is here.

Like, oh, okay, that was like a nice 16 minutes last night for Dale and Terry.

He didn't play the game before.

That was 16 minutes were nice.

Julian Phillips, hey, he got in for eight minutes and like looked the part of a player.

And then I get into like caveman box score guy mindset.

And it's like, oh, zero points, zero rebounds, one assist, dribbled the ball like four times.

At some point, you like have to do something.

You have to do a thing.

with the ball.

You have to put it somewhere, either in the basket or on the floor.

You bounce it off the floor, you pass it to someone who does something with it, and they're only 22 and 21, respectively, but they just don't do anything.

So I look at that core and I'm like,

Kobe White,

his next contract will be very interesting.

Giddy, obviously, free agent this summer, his contract will be very interesting.

Boozelis is a cornerstone.

Those two guys, White and Giddy, are like

good players.

I don't know how good they are

like building a championship level team.

Are they second and third, third and fourth, fourth and fifth?

So I don't know the answer to that question yet.

The rest of it is like, I like IO fine.

I think Io could be a fifth starter on a team that's just loaded with offensive talent around him.

More likely like a sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth kind of guy who comes in and gives you really good minutes.

The rest of it, I'm like, I don't know what any of these guys amount to.

And I guess what the Bulls really have going for them is potential max cap space in the summer of 2026, owning all of their first-round picks, including this one, wherever it may fall.

And just sort of giant question mark of what do all those young players actually add up to going forward?

What's the biggest void on the team?

And if they can't fill it via insane lottery luck, which is always in play,

how are they going to fill it?

Are they really counting on free agency?

Their record as a free agent destination is not great, although it's Chicago, it should be better.

They've gotten some guys, they've got Palgasol, they've gotten meetings with lots of big guys before.

Is anything interesting going on here?

Bringing up Dalen Terry was funny because you're right.

Him and

Julian Phillips are very anonymous.

And to the point where last night, kind of marrying the thing you were saying about Josh Giddy's three-point shooting.

I mean, last night, first of all, like the Miami Heat, despite Giddy making 45% of his threes over his last 25 games, they completely ignored that number and treated him like someone who cannot shoot three-pointers.

They put Bamatta Bio on him, they sagged off.

And

Giddy lost all of his confidence as that game went on in his outside shot to the point where Dalen Terry passed him the ball in transition

and Giddy looked at the rim and did not shoot it, passed it to Vuch.

Vuch passed it to Terry on a cut, and Terry got his shot blocked.

And I put this in my notes, but Dalen Terry then looked at Josh Giddy and clapped angrily at Giddy for not shooting the ball.

And that was the most emotion and I guess just the most

notable thing that Dale and Terry has done this season when I watched the Chicago Bulls play.

But I think just for me, it's a question of like, what is the strategy for this organization?

do you seriously want to build from the middle and make the play-in every year re-sign giddy give kobe white the extension have that be your very pricey backcourt um hope modest bezelis evolves into someone who i think can be an all-star type of player i really love everything that i see out of him As a rookie, he was on my first team, all-rookie team, which is an incredible honor, especially this year, as you know, Zach.

I had him on, I don't have a ballot.

He was on my, I see you smiling.

He was on my second team.

I had the first, the last first spot came down to Kole Ware

and

Matthews Buzzell.

We're going to sprinkle in my awards.

I've made my official choices, which are not officials because I don't have a ballot.

I can't wait to hear that.

Let's just do rookies right now, since we're on the topic.

We're going to do rookies.

Put the rookie of the year and the rookie, all-rookie graphic up.

My first and second team have not changed since I did this on the pod last week.

First team, Castle, Resachet, Wells, Edie, Ware.

Second team, Saar, Filipowski, Boozelis, Klingen, Misi.

Apologies to lots of people that I've already apologized to.

And my rookie of the year ballot, after much thought, would go one Castle, two, Wells, three, Reese.

I've already done the podcast.

I am not going to justify it any further.

That's my choice.

Not particularly excited about it.

But on Boozelis,

let's say he hits.

his absolute ceiling, which we don't even know what that is now because he had such an intriguing last part of the year.

But I'm just going to posit that his absolute ceiling is like a plus number two option on a great team.

Like, like all-star, like that, that's an all-star player, like an A-plus do-it-all power forward option on a great team that needs a number one option ball handler type on his level or slightly above if you're really going to contend.

That's an amazing outcome for the 11th pick if that's happened.

Let's just posit that.

I still don't really know what the rest of this,

like, have we reached sell high point time on Kobe White?

I don't even know because his next contract, frankly, scares me a little bit.

He's eligible for, he's going to be extension eligible in a year, I think, but he's not, maybe even now.

I can't remember what the exact rule is.

Next season, I think.

Yeah.

But, but the money doesn't make any sense for him to be extended.

He makes too little now for the extension rules to really apply to him.

Giddy's contract is going to be big.

I know they have all the leverage of restricted free agency.

The Bulls have not been a team that has used any kind of leverage particularly effectively in any of their negotiations with their own players or acquiring players, which is fine.

Like, it's just, I remember people hammered them for paying DeRosan when he appeared to have no market.

It's like, guys just get paid.

Guys of a certain stature just get paid.

It's sort of the politeness of the league.

You're just like, they're not going to just lowball Josh Giddy ridiculously because they can.

They might squeeze a little.

But I mean, I don't know.

We'll see where they go.

I just,

the questions obviously outnumber the answers because the best answer they have is Boozellus and whatever comes of White and Gideon.

I don't know exactly what that adds up to quite yet.

So, I mean, that just kind of gets back to my fundamental problem here, which is just like, what is the strategy?

Because

publicly, Arturis Karnasovis keeps saying he does not want to be mediocre.

He does not want to be in the middle.

And yet every single season, this team is in the play-in.

And so when are you going to actually take steps as an organization, as a front office to

like bottom out?

You know,

like not dumping Vooch was kind of,

I don't know what you're expecting to get back for him where you don't see something.

I know there was talk with the Golden State Warriors that kind of disintegrated after the Jimmy Butler trade.

That could have been something.

But like dump Vooch this summer.

you know, play Patrick Williams 38 minutes a game next year and just like be as bad as as possible and try to actually get that cornerstone piece besides Modest Boozellus that you're referring to in the draft.

I mean, that's like I, you can't really do anything if you're constantly picking 10th or 11th or 12th.

It's wonderful that they have all their own draft picks

and that gives you a lot of versatility going forward for sure.

But

it's just, it's going to be really tough, particularly with Giddy and if Giddy, who I

have grown fond of the more I watch the Chicago Bulls play, to be honest with you, but I do think at the same time, when push comes to shove and you're actually trying to be a competitive team,

the three-point shot is really wearisome.

And his ability to compliment an actual all-star is a big question mark, particularly if you're paying him a ton.

So, yeah, it's just they're not as depressing as the Sacramento Kings, which I guess you could put on a banner and hang it in the arena, but it's pretty bad there.

It's pretty bad.

Can I throw one at you?

Sure.

It's not a very bullsy move.

It is a ballsy move, but it's not a bullsy move.

You have any

interest in Zion Williamson if you're the Chicago Bulls?

Making a couple calls?

You're talking my language now.

This is what I'm talking about.

I would love that.

Like, what is wrong with that?

Obviously, there's the ball.

I can tell you what's wrong with that.

He doesn't play.

I understand the downside for sure, but I feel like when you're in an organization that has been just

so

dispiriting for over a decade, I feel like taking a chance on someone who is an obvious,

like

all-NBA talent when he is healthy enough to play and can do things on a basketball court that, you know, I can count on my...

hand the number of players who have been able to do.

If you can acquire that talent and bring it in, I think that that's a gamble worth taking for the Chicago Bulls when the opportunity cost is we do nothing and we are either mediocre or depressing for another decade.

I don't know.

I think that that's worth it.

Whatever happens, the Bulls will always have the first 35 games of the 21-22 season when Lonzo was healthy and the team was 26 and 10 and everything looked great.

They have clung tenaciously to those 36 games.

Not as tenaciously as Nico Harrison has clung to two and a half quarters of basketball where Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis played at once against the Houston Rockets.

And boy, you could see it.

You could see it in those two and a half quarters of one game.

You could see it.

We must address the no cameras, no recorders.

You can only write with your weak hand in an old school reporter's notebook.

Media, roundtable, according to shams shams, orchestrated by Patrick Dumont.

The rules, at least, orchestrated by Patrick Dumont, which again, I would just reiterate, just no more PR for Patrick Dumont.

Just immediately, you are setting the whole thing up to be lambasted as a humiliation and a failure.

Like nothing has even been said.

And by setting these insane rules, you have already shot the thing in the foot.

to the point of no return.

A bunch of media were there.

Nico Harrison said a lot of things about the Luka Dante's trade, centering around the mantra of defense wins championships, which is what I said to the 11 to 13-year-old water polo team I coached in the mid to late 90s when I was trying to get a bunch of 11 to 13 year olds who only wanted to score goals to play defense.

Defense wins, offense sells tickets, defense wins championship.

That went over amazingly with the middle school crowd.

They're like, that's it all.

Yeah, I like that.

And did not really answer Tim McMahon's pointed pointed questions about um

so you traded 25 for 31 age-wise to set up a short-term contention window yet you keep saying this is also a long-term move and yet to build the team that already went to the finals you traded all our draft picks from 2027 to 2030 but when we get there kyrie is going to be older ad is going to be older Luca is going to still be in his prime.

Luca was the insurance policy against those picks, spotting him out.

He is now the insurance policy for the Lakers.

Just reading these quotes,

anything resonate with you?

I actually wrote down every time he said defense wins championships in the context of the sentence.

I'm not going to read them all here, but the last one I thought was really funny because he said it last after he said it five times already.

Quote, I think the biggest misunderstanding of why this trade happened is that we feel that defense wins championships.

So that's the sixth time you said defense wins championships.

Contextualizes it's a misunderstanding that no one gets it, that that's why you did it.

I think that everyone understands defense is important to you and to the Dallas Mavericks now.

I mean,

it all just goes back to trying to explain and justify a trade that has no explanation and no justification,

particularly for how it went down and the fact that Anthony Davis was so,

they were so locked in on Anthony Davis as the two-way centerpiece, the all-NBA player who also is an all-defensive team member, to which I say, why didn't you call the Milwaukee Bucks about Yana Senta de Cumpo, who also fits that bill and is better?

Maybe they did.

Maybe they did.

But I just thought that a lot of this was, you know, astonishing and

it's a small sample size, but we're clearly a dominant defensive team when we have Kyrie Irving, Clay Thompson, P.J.

Washington, Anthony Davis, and Derek Lively on the court.

And I, you know, no disrespect to Kyrie or Clay, but, you know, Kyrie Irving is not Tony Allen.

And Clay Thompson.

is not who he used to be as an on-ball defender.

It's one of the reasons the Golden State Warriors couldn't afford to pay him to be beside Steph Curry in that back court as much as he wanted.

So, yeah, I just think it's kind of all, you know, totally ridiculous.

And one of the other parts of it is that the justification Nico has had

for doing this falls back on,

you know, basically trust me, because I made the Kyrie trade and everyone criticized the Kyrie trade.

Look how that turned out.

I made the P.J.

Washington trade and the Daniel Gaffer trade at last year's trade deadline.

Everyone was killing me.

Look how that turned out.

Time will tell.

And the thing is, like, yeah, you made those trades when you had Luca Doncic on the team because he's incredible.

And he's the reason that you went to the NBA Finals.

And by the way, like, defense wasn't the problem in the NBA Finals.

I know Luca did not play particularly well, and Kyrie did not play particularly well on that end, but you were going against a team that was like a really terrible matchup for you that didn't have a great offensive series.

So I just, I think, like, fundamentally, this is so ridiculous, and I'll never really get over it.

And I wrote a column at like 2 a.m., my first reaction to the trade when it happened, calling it the worst trade in NBA history.

I still believe that, maybe even more so in hindsight, after all of these injuries have happened.

It's been just a worst case scenario for the Dallas Mavericks.

I feel for their fans terribly.

And I think that that press conference is another like just notch on

a long string, a continuum of absurdity in the post-Luka Dallas Mavericks existence.

So

we've long passed the point where quotes come out from the Mavericks about this trade.

And I have to,

I'm like, is it fake?

Is it real?

Is that a real thing?

It really peaked with the

Babe Ruth comparison being really, quote, really cool or kind of cool.

That's not, it's not cool.

Like,

it's a lot of things, but it's not cool.

And then yesterday I saw this, like, Rick Weltz, who, God bless him, has been a lifetimer in the NBA, a Hall of Famer.

He is, I don't even know what he is, the CEO of the Mavericks or something.

Now, he was with the Warriors forever and ever, all-time legend in the business.

He's a CEO.

And many, many people have made the same joke to me in the last two months, which three months, whatever, since the trade has been like, well, it's a good thing Rick Weltz got paid a crap ton of money to go be the CEO of the Mavericks.

It's presumably his last lap in the NBA.

This quote comes out where he's comparing the trade

of Luca to when the Warriors, when he was with the Warriors, traded Monte Ellis for Andrew Bogot, and it was wildly unpopular.

And Joe Lacob and Chris Mullen got booed on the court right after the trade.

And look how that turned out in the end.

And my assumption, I saw it on Twitter and like, well, that's fake.

Like, there's just no, there's 0% chance that could be real.

And I'm googling it now that appears to be a real quote that appears to be an actual comparison that Rick Weltz who knows more about the business of basketball in one brain cell than I do in my whole brain said

even if that thought entered my mind

at the very word

conjuring of the word Monte

I would have been like, no, you know, no, I can't.

Luca Tantras is a five-time first-team all-NBA player player who's been to the NBA Finals.

It's just really unbelievable.

Look, there are multiple championships.

Nico's right in this sense.

There's multiple ways to win an NBA title.

I kind of like the idea of tripling down on defense in an era where we're not far removed from the whole discussion as like, have the NBA made defense impossible?

Is defense even important anymore?

I love that the Thunder are going all in on that end too.

I don't mind.

like sort of stamping that as that's what we're going to be about.

We are zigging in that direction when the league is zagging in the other direction.

The reality is you need to be good at both to win an NBA championship.

And you generally don't get to decide to this degree which you are elite at.

If you can't be absolutely elite at both, you got to be elite at one and good at the other, right?

And you don't generally get to decide.

go to the team building grocery store and pick out whatever model fits you.

You generally just step one is get the top five guy in the NBA and just build what makes sense sense around him.

And what makes sense around Luca is elite offense, good enough defense, much like the Denver Nuggets when they won the championship around Nikola Jokic.

And they had that model down.

They had it.

It was already there for them.

Their defense was very good in 2022 and they made the conference finals.

Their defense was quite good again in 2024 when they made the NBA finals.

Like not far from defense wins championships.

The last word of that is championship.

Three games away from championship.

That model is a proven model.

It works.

And to swap it out in chasing this other model, which would presumably be good on offense, great on defense,

is just needless when you consider the cost and the return of this particular trade.

There is a very good chance that if healthy...

With Kyrie, with AD, with Lively, with the burgeoning young cast of interesting players around them, that does not include Quentin Grimes Grimes anymore, by the way.

They could have absolutely landed on a team that is, let's say, eighth in offense, second on defense, championship worthy, near championship worthy if everything goes right.

Well, everything hasn't gone right.

And as I keep saying, this trade squeezed your timetable so narrowly that you can't afford really anything going wrong to the level that it is going wrong.

And, you know, we'll see when Kyrie comes back and in what condition he's in.

But this year's a wash, next year's TBD.

The history of ACL tears would not make me super duper optimistic about it, but we'll see.

But that's that.

I just, I can't believe it.

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All right, should we talk about some playoff series?

Absolutely.

Can't wait.

We're going to preview the two set series that I have not previewed yet.

that have become set in stone since Monday's podcast with Bill and Mo DeKill.

And we're going to start with the headliner.

The Golden State Warriors win the play-in game against Memphis, and they draw the Houston Rockets.

A lot has been said, Michael Pina,

that boy, the Warriors may have accidentally lucked in to a good playoff route for them.

They get the inexperienced, sometimes offensively challenged Rockets in the first round, although you wouldn't guess, but Houston had a higher offensive rating this year than the Warriors, just FYI, although they were 21st, I think, in half-court offense, which is quite pertinent now.

They are on the opposite side of the bracket from Oklahoma City, the red-hot Los Angeles Clippers, the team close to your heart, and the Denver Nuggets.

So

that's good.

And I can squint, and I can see that actually.

But this ain't going to be no picnic against the Houston Rockets.

These teams played five times in the regular season, twice after the Jimmy Butler trade.

Overall, it was an absolute defensive slugfest across the board.

104 offensive rating for the Warriors, 103 for the Rockets, both of which would rank dead last in the NBA.

There is a ton to unpack here.

These are both great rebounding teams.

That's going to be an interesting battle to watch.

We have the Warriors offense, which takes the second most threes in the NBA against the Rockets defense that gives up the third fewest.

I think Warriors role player threes are going to be a bellwether in this series.

They need Pajemski and Moody and Peyton and Buddy Healed if he can survive defensively to make enough shots because shots are going to be funneled in those directions.

There's a lot to unpack here, but I would start here.

I think this is going to be a tough series.

It's going to be an exhausting series, regardless.

The Warriors against length, athleticism, and youth has always been a challenge for them that they have to puzzle solve with their veteran guile and shooting and skill.

Big picture question number one: How do the Rockets score enough to win four games in this series?

It's a great question.

I think that the key for Houston all season long has been the possession game, right?

So Houston does not turn the ball over, and they are the best offensive rebounding team in the league.

They averaged five more shots per game than their opponent this season, which was second only to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

And I think that maintaining that, if not increasing it, on a team in Golden State that forced the most turnovers in the NBA since the trade deadline and had the best defensive rating in the NBA since the trade deadline,

is just absolutely critical.

And I know that

since the trade deadline, the Rockets have been just average in offensive turnover rate, but a lot of that is because of them not having Fred Van Fleet, who I think will be huge on both ends for them in this series.

But yeah, offensive generation in the half quarter is going to be really tough for them.

And

pounding the offensive glass with Ahmed Thompson, Tari Eason, Shangoon, Adams, just being incredibly physical.

Just saying those four names in a row in the context of offensive rebounding, my spine, I felt a shiver down my spine.

Like, how unpleasant would that be?

Again, I always think at Summer League, they should have these challenges for media.

Like, get around a screen from Stephen Adams would be a challenge.

And like, box out Tari Eason would be another one.

Or just forget Adams and Shangun, who are huge and mean, and Adams will just beat the crap out of you.

Just how about Tari Eason's coming from half court?

Box him out.

I would, I would, no chance, I'd be helpless.

I had to lift my son and his stroller up this out of the subway two days ago, and my back is ruined.

So, that exercise I'm tapping out of right now.

I just want to let you know, it's absolutely not something I'm interested in doing.

All right, continue.

But I will say that I think Shengun is just really important.

I mean, obviously, he's their best player.

I think he's really important in this series offensively.

I think whether he is posting up Draymond Green, using his size, using his quickness, drawing fouls,

that's huge, drawing double teams potentially,

creating open looks for okay outside shooters on his team.

or just even finding

mismatches with inverted pick and rolls that they do a little bit of.

You know, there was a play where in their most recent meeting where he got Pajemski on him around the nail and he started to back him down.

And Jimmy Butler helped early off Ahmed Thompson in the corner.

Ahmed Thompson baseline cuts for a dunk.

I think that this is the type of offense that Houston can generate sometimes.

I think fundamentally, like

why it's so difficult to pick them, though, is not that I won't, but it's tough just because

it comes down to like tough shot making and who are the tough shot makers on this team.

And

like, can Jalen Green go off in two or three games?

Can Dylan Brooks shoot well over 40% from behind the three-point line?

Can they survive if Fred Van Fleet has another clunker?

Like, I don't think that they can.

So there's a lot of stuff they can do, a lot of pieces they can, or like areas they can poke at.

But

generating good offense for this team is going to be tough.

And I will also say that the double big lineup, which I think has been much bally hooed deservedly

with Shangoon and Stephen Adams.

You know, the last time they played, Eme Odoka plays that

duo.

It had a lot of success in that game, but he also played it when Steph Curry was on the bench intentionally.

And so you can't really do that.

Like, how much are you going to squeeze out of that if

Curry is playing more minutes?

I mean, we're in the postseason.

So I think that that's really fascinating.

They go zone a lot when those two are on the court.

Can't really do that against the Golden State Warriors when Steph Curry's out there.

So

I don't really have a good answer.

I hope that was a good answer.

I don't know what the answer is.

I don't know how they do it.

I mean, the first answer is obviously they need to defend the Warriors as well as they did in the regular season to give their offense a chance to just score enough points.

You nailed it with the double big lineup.

They intentionally avoided Seth with it completely.

We'll see if they do that in this series.

Look, I think for Houston to win this series, a number of things have to happen.

One of which is they take care of the ball, as you mentioned.

Another of which is they need to win the rebounding battle.

The Warriors actually is sneakily, really good rebounding team on both ends of the floor.

And I think hovering above all that is we'd get to the end of the series and there would have to be a debate about was Shengun the best player in the series?

Because I just think he is the

he's going to have to be the answer to this question of how do the Rockets not even just generate buckets late in games, how do the Rockets bend the defense late in games?

How do they draw two on the ball late in games?

And that's been tough sledding for Shengun against Draymond Green.

The Warriors have mostly let Draymond guard him straight up.

They'll like surprise attack with a double or a half help here and there.

And this season, Shangoon post-ups against the Warriors, Warriors, 0.6 points per possession when he shoots out of the post or passes to a guy who shoots right away, 0.89 points per possession overall.

Those are horrid, horrid numbers.

Draymond's been very physical with him.

It stood him up.

He can't back him down.

That's a little bit worrisome to me.

And beyond that, like the pick and roll with Jalen Green and Shangoon and Van Vliet in Schengun, the Warriors just kind of drop back on that.

And Draymond is as good as it gets at playing two at once defensively.

they haven't gotten a ton of traction there.

And then the next place they go is, well, if Held's on the floor, if Steph's on the floor, can we hunt him at all with our guards?

So you'll see like Jalen Green.

He's off, Steph will often guard Dylan Brooks.

Sometimes I'm in Thompson.

Dylan, come up, set a screen for me.

I'll get a switch.

And then it'll be Jalen Green or Fred Van Vliet trying to attack Steph one-on-one.

And they'll have moments.

I just don't think that's good enough in the half court without a massive Shangoon series.

One thing I noticed from Jalen Green is like when he gets that switch with Curry, if there's an angle, if Steph switches in a way that gives an angle even slightly, Jalen Green has success when he just goes right away.

See the angle, go to the rim.

The minute you start dancing with the ball, it's a win for the Warriors.

It's going to be a tough shot.

And so I just, I do worry about their half court offense in this series, but I also worry about the Warriors' half court.

Oh, one thing about Shangoon, by the way.

I mentioned Draymond on him.

He's often, Shangoon is often not going to guard Draymond Green on the other end of the floor, even though they are matched up at center.

They will put him on Moses Moody a lot and sort of dare the Warriors say, okay, you want to involve Shangun in the pick and roll?

You're going to have to use your least dangerous starting offensive player to do it, your least creative starting offensive.

Now, I think Moody's had a nice season, but if I have my choice, I'm going to choose Moody to have to play making the pick and roll in all of this.

And the result of that, there are lots of trickle-downs of that.

But one is

if they ever catch the Warriors

on defense with Moody stuck on Shangun or anybody but Draymond and Kavan Looney stuck on Shangun, the whole possession has to, whatever your plan was, scrap the plan and give the ball to Shangoon because you're not going to have many opportunities to do that.

But look, the Rockets have a lot of answers against the Warriors defensively.

We know what the Warriors' answers are going to be.

They're going to lean into their split actions, their off-ball movement.

You know, you might see like some Steph picking rolls to hunt Jalen Green and try to go against him one-on-one.

But the Rockets don't have a lot of weak points to

pick at.

Ahmed Thompson is as good as it gets defending Steph, and Fred Van Vlee is as good as it gets after that.

And we saw that in the last game they played.

Steph couldn't even get the ball, basically.

What else are you looking at when the Warriors have the ball?

When the Warriors have, I mean, how do we get Steph going?

My mind is recency bias off of that last game that I watched, I re-watched a couple of days ago.

But, you know, you mentioned the, well, first of all, I want to say, like, yeah, the Warriors, they got some good stuff doing typical Warriors stuff in crunch time of that game.

You had Jimmy Butler back screening Curry and then back cutting.

Draymond hits him out of the post for a layup.

You have Curry cutting through the paint, Ahmed Thompson trailing him, Dylan Brooks, for whatever reason, abandoning Jimmy Butler and leaving him wide open under the rim for a layup.

But

I think

there is a possibility that Ahmed Thompson, who is first team all defense for me and someone I flirted and considered with for defensive player of the year, that he is a true nuisance on the level we have never seen in a playoff series for Steph Curry.

And in that case,

the reason that you got Jimmy Butler is that you can tilt your offense more towards Jimmy Butler.

And one of the great questions that I have going into this, and it's one of the more existential questions I've had about the Houston Rockets since they've become pretty good, is how does Jalen Green hold up defensively in a playoff series?

And I think that we haven't seen a lot of it when these two teams have matched up.

But Jimmy Butler

hunting mismatches is kind of his calling card in the postseason when he wants to make something happen and make himself felt.

And I feel like Jalen Green is the obvious weak link there.

They did it one time, I believe, in the last meeting.

It was a pistol action.

Brandon Pojinsky sets a ball screen, step up screen for

Jimmy, force the switch, and Gary Payton cuts from the weak side, hits a floater.

But that action right there is something that I think, like hunting Jalen Green fundamentally with either Steph or more so, I think, with Jimmy and his physicality and his size.

I think that that's something that could

create a lot of ripple effects for Houston's defense and just really be disruptive because they need Jalen Green's offense.

But at the same time, he may be unplayable on the defensive end.

Well, I mean, he's going to have to play.

And I think he's made strides defensively enough that I trust him to play heavy minutes in the series.

But, you know, sometimes someone is the weak link almost by default.

Yeah, the matchups, Amand Thompson is going to guard Steph a lot and Dylan Brooks is going to guard Jimmy a lot.

Part of the benefit of that is if you even try a two-man game on or off the ball between those two players, you are size-wise programmed to switch.

Now, Ahmed Thompson was clearly instructed, don't switch, don't do anything, just stay on Steph at all times, disregard everything else.

And he did that excellently, which is another reason why I just think they're going to have to use every trick in the Warriors book to get space for Steph.

Sometimes that's just going to be like, you know what?

We're not a heavy pick and roll offense, but Shangoon is on Draymond dispossession.

Like, let's run a Steph Draymond pick pick and roll, see what they do.

If there's two on the ball, boom, we know how to play out of that.

Our guys are just going to have to finish.

And like, that's what I mean about shots being funneled to the shooters and to Gary Payton the second, who is going to get a lot of those moody minutes.

I think is the fifth guy in that starting lineup or closing lineup or whatever.

They ran a couple of plays against the Rockets where they essentially like cleared a side of the floor for Steph pick and rolls with the work against the Rockets center to create like easier passing angles, easier four on threes.

Run a half-court pick and roll for Steph when he's bringing the ball up.

Just spring a few of those every game.

Get him going downhill.

And Jimmy was quiet in the two games he played against Houston for the Warriors.

I don't expect him to be quiet in this series.

By the way, we should mention,

should have mentioned off the bat, bigger picture stuff here.

First of all, it's a renewal of one of my favorite rivalries in the NBA of the last 15 years.

Rockets Warriors, which during the height of the James Hardin, Maury Gate about the officials releasing the report and the mathematics behind it and all that was just one of these rivalries that elevated beyond just Warriors rockets and somehow became like a battle for the soul of basketball and how it should be played and what was the right way to play.

And then just two weeks ago, Ime Odoka sitting there talking trash to all the Warriors and after the game says, oh, they were crying.

Steph was crying.

They were crying.

That's when we know we had them.

All right.

Okay, you called your shot, man.

You said they're crying.

You didn't say they're complaining or whining.

You intentionally used the the term crying like they're babies.

And now you got to face them seven times, maybe in two weeks.

Um,

who would you pick to win this series?

You don't have to make a pick.

I'm going to make a pick, but you don't have to.

No, I'm not a coward, Zach.

I'll do it.

Um,

I'm going to say

I'm going to say Rockets in seven is what I'm going to say.

And I, you know, I don't feel great about that, but I

have a lot of faith in

this team's self-belief.

I know it's their first time.

A lot of them, it's their first time, not everyone's first time on the team, but I have a lot of confidence in their self-belief in that they know their identity.

They do not beat themselves.

They are poised.

And

I think, as we know from our last segment, you know, defense wins championships.

So

Rockets in seven.

I think it's going to be a long series.

I can't, I can't abandon the old heads yet.

It's entirely understandable.

I'm going Warriors in seven,

and

they have a history of

gut punch eliminations of the Rockets on the Rockets home floor in both 2018, the 27 consecutive missed threes, and 2019, the late game meltdown where Steph went insane in the second half half and made three after three after three on the same exact play in the same exact spot, right wing, time after time.

I see a third one coming.

No disrespect for the Rockets, and we know the implications of that.

Will that accelerate the Rockets team building?

If indeed they do lose in the first round, I would, we'll see.

We'll see how it goes.

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All right.

You want to do an awards interlude?

Sure.

All right.

I mentioned we started doing all defense.

So I've changed my all-defense and defensive player of the year.

When are ballots actually due, by the way?

I don't have a ballot.

They were due yesterday, I believe.

So they're due.

Great.

So what I say has no impact at all.

Defensive player of the year,

I flipped back to Evan Mobley at the end.

I went Mobley, Draymond Green, Lou Dort.

I don't think Mobley is a perfect defender.

I don't think he's an A-plus defender yet.

I think he's a solid A, and with Wemby not eligible.

I think start to finish, he had the cleanest campaign

beginning to end.

I went with Mobley.

Again, I did all these awards previously.

So if you want deeper analysis, you can find it on earlier episodes.

First team all defense, I went,

there was a couple agonizing ones here.

I went Mobley, Draymond Dort, my top three on the ballot, Ahmed Thompson, and Dyson Daniels.

I shifted Jaaron Jackson Jr.

to second team.

The fouling and the late season slides started to irritate me to the point that I put him on second team, and I moved Dort to first team as a deserving Oklahoma City representative.

The heartbreakers on my second team were I badly wanted a first team spot for Avitsa Zubats, and I badly wanted a first-team spot for OG Ananobi, whose name I have not seen mentioned enough in the first team all defense debate.

Just an incredible defensive season, steals, blocks, taking on whatever assignment, playing a ton of minutes, obviously, as a Nick.

That's sort of job description number one.

I just, who am I taking off for those guys?

I can't take off the top three on my defensive player of the year.

I feel like I should reward a thunder player.

And Ahmed Thompson is just like a phantom on the court.

I can't take any of those guys off.

And so my second team was Darren Jackson Jr., Zubats, Anunobi, Rudy Gobert, and Jalen Williams from the Thunder.

That's where we are with that.

Sixth Man of the Year:

Peyton Pritchard, Malik Beasley, Nas Reed, unchanged from when I did this on my prior podcast.

Most improved player I have not done yet.

Who was your most improved player ballot?

Most improved player I had,

let's see, because I had Ty Jerome in as the fake.

Just that is clearly the most

carefully.

Yeah,

I actually voted for Zubats, number one.

And then I had Cade Cunningham second, which I didn't feel great about, but honestly, there aren't, there weren't a lot of great.

So basically, let me, let me, my quick caveat: like, I don't vote for guys who are in the first three years of their career.

I don't consider them for this award.

So, you know, Dyson Daniels, fantastic, obvious improvement,

deserving to win.

Christian Brown is someone else who I believe made a huge leap,

really filled his role, scaled up in a lot of wonderful ways.

He does not qualify for my personal ballot for my personal reasons.

So I had Cade second and Peyton Pritchard third.

All defensible.

There's a million guys that you could pitch for this award.

First, second, third, fourth, fifth.

you know, whatever.

I went Dyson Daniels one.

I just think the offensive improvement is

what swung it for me.

The fact that he's a reliable 15-point a game guy who, when he scores 20, 22, 23, it's like, oh, wow, his floater was really on today.

Now, the three-point shot isn't quite where they want it to be, but he's just become a very artful bully ball, get it to his spot, elevate, and the defense speaks for itself.

I just didn't see that level of two-way play coming.

even in an elevated role coming from New Orleans to Atlanta.

It's legitimately shocking some nights to me how effective he is as an offensive player.

So I went Daniels, Zubats, and then third place,

you could have gone a million different directions with Ty Jerome not eligible.

I went with Quentin Grimes.

I think his late season stuff in Philadelphia, but I don't think he's going to score 25 points a game, but it didn't feel to me watching those games like it was ball hoggy.

or like out of regular NBA context improvement.

He looked like a real player doing real stuff.

His passing, he was like averaging six, seven assists a game.

I'm just going to give him the nod for like making the most.

He was already starting to play better in Dallas.

And what he did in Philly felt real to me.

So I'm giving him the nod.

I knew Cade Cunningham was going to be good.

I always thought Cade Cunningham was already going to be good.

You could see this coming.

So I wasn't, he's not on my ballot.

Okay.

Coach of the year, I went Kenny Atkinson, J.B.

Bickerstaff, Ty Lou.

Apologies.

I already did all my apologies to Ime Odoka, many others.

All right, let's get to the big one.

I took this one to the wire.

You voted for Jokic, right?

I did.

I legitimately couldn't decide.

Like, legitimately.

I've texted 40 people in the NBA who I really trust-ish in the last 48 hours.

Nobody can decide.

I mean, the amount of responses I've gotten from GMs, coaches, scouts, whoever, that ref that that start with, well, it's 49, 51, 51, 49.

Or one person said to me, this is not a Russ or Derek Rose situation.

Anyone, either of the two you pick is fine.

I thought that was a little disrespectful,

even though I didn't vote for either of those guys in those particular years.

I would say the response is leaned, Shay, but more is just a shoulder shrug of like, well, they won the most games.

This is the rare time

when I think both choices are right, and I think both choices are okay.

And

when you really, we can get bogged down in the numbers and this and that, and who's got the edge here.

I would say the stats are relatively equal.

Jokic has a slight edge, I think, in the aggregate.

If you take all the counting stats, all the advanced stats, all of it, like teensiest edge to Jokic, but such a small edge that I don't really care all that much.

These are historically two of the best seasons of all time.

I do find it ironic that the thunder of all franchises are arguing against a guy winning who averaged a triple double in an NBA season when all those years ago was like, well, it's simple.

It's all, it's just, it's just reductive.

Triple double equals MVP.

So in the end, it comes down to, if you zoom way out, my brain goes to two different places.

Two different arguments, one for each player.

Just the dumbest zoom out arguments that are not dumb, actually, that resonate when you get to it.

Over here is: we all know who the best player is.

Every one of those 40 people who I polled, everyone,

even the 28 who were like, were leaning Shay, would say Jokic is the best player.

Every one of them.

I feel, I don't think there's one that would not say that.

Maybe one.

One said, one gave me the cop-out of Jokic is the best offensive player, Shay is the best two-way player.

I guess that counts as saying Shay is the best player.

I don't know.

So that's over here.

Over here on the other side is 18 wins.

That's a lot.

That's the gap

between Shea

and the Thunder and Jokic and the Nuggets.

And I know the Nuggets are plus 10 and a half with Jokic on the floor.

That's an elite number.

That's first, second in the NBA most years among teams, like on the team level, and minus nine when he's on the bench.

Catastrophic.

The Thunder are plus five with Shea on the bench.

That would be top five in the NBA for teams most times.

They're plus 17 with him on the floor.

Obviously, his supporting cast is better, more reliable, more stable.

And you just get into this endless sort of spiral of what is the appropriate amount, if any, to quote-unquote reward Jokic for stabilizing

what has been a not functional team with him.

I mean, just call it what it is.

It's not a functional team team with him off the floor.

And are you there for punishing SGA for the sin of having a functional team when he's off the floor?

What's interesting about Denver is we know their bench stinks.

Jamal Murray's numbers, like you net out this Jamal Murray season.

It's just like kind of another Jamal Murray season.

It feels like it hasn't been a great season and it was a bad, it was a bad beginning and an injured ending and the middle was sensational.

He ends up at 21 a game on 47% shooting, 39% from threes.

Like, that's a normal Jamal Murray season.

It's like even a little better than normal statistically.

It didn't feel that way.

Here's where I went in the end.

And again, I don't care.

I don't care who wins.

Like, I can't.

I am team Jokic all day long, every day.

He's been my favorite player ever to cover, probably.

I think 68 wins needs to be respected.

It's not the 18.

It's not the 18.

It's the 68.

This was a 70-win team almost

with a net rating that is flirting with the best ever in the regular season.

I know it's all meaningless if they shit the bet in the playoffs, and we'll see if they do or not.

I don't think they're going to, but we'll see.

I think 68 wins needs to be respected.

And I think when you look at the on-off numbers,

They suggest to you that A, this team still has no viable offense without Shea Gilders-Alexander.

And B, he is the reason that they are not just a good regular season team, not just a great regular season team, but an all-time great regular season team.

He is helping them on defense, helping them.

He's not surviving because of everybody around him.

He's actively helping them.

We don't need to talk about the offense.

It's incredible.

And I think what has kind of been missed in all the rigmarole of, you know, Aaron Gordon played 51 games.

Jamal Murray wasn't himself at the start of the season.

The bench was bad, and then Julian Strother got hurt, and it got worse.

Zeke Najee had a hot second where he was productive, and then he's gone.

Like, Chet played 32 games, I think.

Hartenstein played 57 games.

Caruso, just, I guess, is on just permanent load management, played 50-something games, and just like eight minutes here, 16 minutes there.

Like, when you take Chet and or Hartenstein out of that group, it's not like they're loaded with incredible offensive talent in Oklahoma City.

He is making those guys better by getting them easy shot after easy shot after easy shot.

And I say that knowing that he's not as good of a playmaker as he might need to be for this team to go all the way.

Now, maybe he proves that wrong this coming postseason.

I will say this.

Look, the Thunder had 111 offensive rating with Shea off the floor.

That would be like 25th in the NBA.

That could be your case.

Just interestingly, with Chet

and J-Dub and No Shea,

they scored 121 points per 100 possessions, about 90th percentile of all lineups according to cleaning the glass.

That would seem to be like, huh, does that undercut Shea's argument a little bit?

And maybe it does if those guys had played more.

That's 180 minutes about for the full season.

So in the end,

I don't feel good about it.

I never feel good not voting for Jokic because he's the best player.

I think they've been close enough to the best for this 82 games is close enough.

Like best players to build a team around, best player in the world, best player for game seven.

It's Jokic Jokic Jokic.

For these 82 games, who was best is close enough, then I am going to go with Shay because I just think 68 wins need to be respected.

If they were 59 and 23, 60 and 22, 57 and 25, I think it's Jokic, Jokic, Jokic.

50 wins, by the way, for Denver, considering their turmoil is a shit ton of wins in the Western Conference.

I don't, there's no wrong or right answer as long as you have these two guys first and second on your ballot.

I just think 68 wins is so many goddamn wins, and he's the reason they win that many games.

I would, I would vote Shea one, Jokic, two, Giannis three, Tatum four, Mitchell five, and then I throw this away forever and never have to think about it again as Jokic runs roughshod through the playoffs.

I am scarred from voting Embiid two years ago.

You are.

I mean, I think it was a defensible choice, right?

Like, it's it just that season and the way that Jokic kind of tanked the end of the season, almost as if he didn't want to win the MVP, I think gave it to Embiid, who was sensational and the best scorer in the league that year.

But you knew as you were voting it, like

playoffs could really

go the other way.

But I think I would feel fine voting SGA.

And I think there's just something to 68 wins, the story of the season.

Ty goes to 68 wins.

Thoughts?

That's totally fair.

I agree with you saying that these are two historically great seasons and Shay

being on such a historically great regular season team as their leading scorer and the leading scorer in the entire NBA by a significant margin is incredible.

Hats off to him.

I also think that if I'm giving credit to the Oklahoma City Thunder for all their success, it is Shea one and probably two and maybe three,

but also like having one of the great defenses of the last 25 years and also being one of the deepest teams in the NBA.

And saying that makes me sound like I'm denigrating SGA and that's like the last thing I want to do in comparing these two guys.

But I also just am

so

enamored with the season that Jokic had, and I wrote it in depth about it, so I don't want to go long here at all.

But I just think he's,

they're both, they're,

this is a one-of-a-kind season from Jokic, and I, or I feel queasy in my stomach.

Yeah.

Where else would I feel queasy?

Do you feel queasy?

Anywhere else?

Not voting for him.

You know, you mentioned winning with defense, and this is, this gets back to like Hardin's all-NBA case.

I ultimately put Hardin on third team.

It's like the Clippers are winning.

If you had to boil it down to one reason, it's because their defense has been sensational all year.

Is James Harden really contributing to that?

Is like that really,

how much credit are we going to give him?

But they had to survive on offense, and he trended the right way, and he trended the white way when Kawhi came back, and I think he ended up in a place where I had him on my ballot.

Thunder, you're making the same kind of argument in terms of like, well, the reason they're won 68 games is because of their defense.

How critical is Shay in that?

I would say he's actually important enough

that I'm giving him a chunk, some size chunk of the credit for the fact that they're number one in defense.

And I say that because when your

weakest or second weakest defender is a good defender who's helping your defense and you're not like working around him in any way,

I think that's like massively valuable.

And again, their offense was bad without him.

And their offense overall was in a virtual tie with Boston for second in the NBA.

So they may be winning with defense.

Hashtag defense wins championships.

They're also winning with what in the regular season is an incredible offense.

Like if I told you they were roughly equivalent with Boston, I think people would be like, whoa, that's the three-point shooting we've seen in Boston.

And so I, I, I, look, I went back and forth.

Bill and I discussed this all the time.

There were days where we were both Jokic.

I don't know where he ended up.

I was Jokic yesterday.

I just, at the end, settled on this, James.

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Speaking of the Celtics, last thing we got to do:

Boston Orlando, round one.

Not a lot of relevant footage between these two teams this year.

Only played three times.

One was the season finale where Boston sat almost everybody.

Other guys missed games.

Paolo, Franz, Tatum

along the way.

I even watched footage of last season's Celtics Magic matchups to prep a little bit for this.

Obviously, Celtics second in offense, fourth in defense, plus 9.4, second net rating.

Magic 27th in offense.

Second in defense, flat zero net rating, 17th.

There's an interesting contrast in styles here,

both in free throws and turnovers, most sort of dramatically.

Boston never gets to the line, and Orlando fouls the hell out of everyone.

Boston is dead last in free throw rate on offense.

The Magic are dead last in free throw rate on defense.

I don't know who that helps or hurts.

Maybe it helps the Magic because their weakness is irrelevant.

Maybe it helps Boston because, hey, there's like seven extra points that we normally don't get because they're hitting us all the time.

Orlando's offense is second in free throw rate.

Boston's defense is first in free throw rate.

That would seem to obviously help Boston to me.

Not that they need any help to win this series.

I mean, I think we'd all agree this is a 4-1 type gentleman sweep.

Maybe something

less than that.

I'm just trying to help.

Orlando, like, can I make this interesting?

And then, you know, the most interesting one is Boston takes the most threes.

Orlando allows the fewest threes.

Can they coax the Celtics at all into settling for mid-range shots?

Basically, the only way the Magic compete is bad offensive series for Boston, some of which is foisted onto Boston by the Magic's great defense, win the offensive rebounding, take care of the ball, which is a weakness for Orlando, but Boston doesn't force any turnovers.

and get insanely lucky.

And some of those things are plausible, some not.

I don't really know that,

you know, they have a chance here, but

Boston is ideally suited to defend almost every team, and they are certainly ideally suited to defend Paolo Bancaro and Franz Wagner.

They have guarded them with any combination of Drew Holiday, Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum, Al Horford will chip in, and they will switch a lot of, they'll switch a ton and put Derek White on Paolo or put Christophs Porzinkis on Paolo.

And you know why they do that?

Because they don't care if they have to send help towards Paolo Bancaro in a bad matchup because they are happy to let everybody else on the Magic shoot threes, particularly with the injuries that the Magics are facing.

I just don't know how Orlando scores enough to make this a competitive series.

Can you talk me into that at all?

Besides Cole Anthony's, Cole Anthony's back, baby.

Yeah,

I will say in their first meeting, Jason Tatum did not play and Franz Wagner and Paolo Bancaro did not play either.

Boston attempted 33 threes in that game, which was their lowest number for the entire season.

In the second game, no Franz, but every Celtic played.

They took 37 threes, which was tied for their fourth fewest this season.

And I think...

How did Orlando do that on the film?

What are they doing to limit Boston's threes?

So they

switch everything first and foremost, and then they do not help.

And so, and they don't, meaning they don't help off the three-point line.

They don't dig.

They don't hard double.

If Cole Anthony switches onto Christaps Borzingis or Anthony Black switches onto Christaps Borzingis, they don't care.

They want to play that matchup one-on-one.

They'll stay home on the three-point line and they'll make Christapsporzingis either draw a foul or make his 12-foot turnaround.

And this is kind of how they play this entire season against everyone.

This is their style.

And so

in the game that I re-watched, which I think was the second game, the one where Tatum did play,

every time they switched and Tatum got a matchup that he liked and isolated, they did not help.

And Tatum had like four, it was a second quarter, it's like three or four straight possessions of driving to the rim and finishing.

Jalen Brown had multiple plays in that game where he got Wendell Carter on him on a switch, drove Wendell Carter right to the basket, and there was no help, no dramatic rotation.

And so, eventually, in that game,

the magic bent and the magic started to help.

The magic started to double.

The magic started to over-rotate.

And

the magic were not switching as much on the perimeter as they were early on.

And that's when the Celtics kind of blew it open and got the threes that they do against every other team.

And so, what I would say is, if you are the Orlando Magic, your only chance in this series, and it's not like a great one, but it's to

not deviate at all from your core philosophy on defense and to play,

like guard your yard as best you can,

sprint to run three-point shooters off the line, which is something they're very good at, best team in the league at.

Like they'll foul you when they're running.

Like they, they, like, before you can even get the shot up, they don't care.

That's what they, that's what they do.

that's their personality.

And I think, like, once you kind of shift and defend like everybody else, and you're put into rotation, you're dead.

So, don't do that.

As hard as it is, and how painful it is to watch Jason Tatum destroy Corey Joseph or whoever it's going to be, like, I think Franz Wagner, his size, and he's a pretty good defender, pretty good help and on ball, he'll help in this

uh scheme.

And you might see more Jonathan Isaac than normal, but I just wouldn't deviate.

I think that that's like the key thing here: that

I'm living and I'm dying by how I've defended all season, and I can't fall into

the trap of playing how Boston wants me to play, is what I would say.

Well, and what you really have to hope for is that through some combination of malaise, disrespect, whatever is going on with Jalen Brown's knee, if anything, still, you know, Ramona at ESPN reported that he had gotten painkilling injections that was since confirmed.

He's talked openly about the pain he's felt.

Through a combination of all those things, they just get into a pattern of, oh, yeah, we're going to settle for step back 20-footers.

We're just going to, we don't respect you.

We're having fun out here.

And all of a sudden, like, the magic is stolen the game, stolen the quarter, stolen the half, stolen the game, whatever it is.

You mentioned Anthony Black.

You know,

the absence of Suggs is huge for the magic all the time, but particularly in this series, because they have used Suggs on Tatum and they've used Suggs on Brown.

And,

you know, look, he's giving up size in those matchups, but he's a fire hydrant.

He's unmovable.

He's an incredible defender.

And that has allowed them to play around with, can we put Bancaro on Drew Holiday?

Can we mess around with matchups in different ways?

Without him, they have a little bit less flexibility that way.

And they don't quite have the answer, unless it's Anthony Black, of a fifth guy in their starting lineup who helps you on offense without hurting you on defense.

If they're continuing to start Corey Joseph, Boston has a place they can pick at every single possession.

If Cole Anthony's got to play 35 minutes a game because no one else can score, Boston has a place they can pick every single possession.

Anthony Black has been playing really well, including on offense the last couple of months.

He's big.

He's tough.

He's an incredible defender.

If they get enough offense out of him, it could be a big series as the sort of Sugs replacement in that sense.

I'm just skeptical that they're going to get enough out of of him, nearly enough against this defense.

Gary Harris maybe helps you a little bit.

I don't think more Gary Harris is a hugely productive answer for them.

So I don't know sort of

how they stop Boston in that regard.

It will be interesting to see the matchups because they've,

like you said, they switch a ton.

Even Wendell Carter Jr.

will switch.

So maybe the matchups don't matter.

They have toyed in the past with putting Wendell Carter Jr.

on Drew Holiday and a wing on Porzingus and trying to take away the Porzingas pick and pop game that way.

I just, again, if you just start doing the math, okay, if Wendell Carter Jr.

is on Drew Holiday, who's on Porzingus?

Well, if that's Bancaro, then where's KCP?

Oh, KCP's on Jalen Brown.

Like, that's not terrible, but that's a size advantage for Jalen Brown.

Bottom line is this:

I just don't think the match can score enough to make this a competitive series.

I'm going 4-1.

I'm giving him a game, and that's it.

Yeah, I think even just going back to the Carter-on-Drew mismatch or matchup, I should say,

like it took those Celtics three or four minutes to put, have Drew Holiday come up, flip a ball screen for Jason Tatum, and he drills the pull-up three.

So like they just haven't, they're a very smart team, obviously, the defending champions.

I don't think that they can't solve this defense.

And I mean, I think to be honest with you, after watching

them play and just,

I don't even like, I guess tricking myself into thinking that Apollo and Franz could have some type of offensive

awakening on this stage.

I've kind of talked myself into it being like a competitive four or five game series where like after three quarters in every game, the score is tied type of deal.

But beyond that, it's, yeah, the Celtics are going to win in advance and they are much much better.

And it's just a huge bummer for Orlando that did not have

the team that they envisioned before the season started with

Suggs, KCP, Paolo, Franz.

Bolt Wagner.

Bolt Wagner is a

big, big deal to this team.

And now he's dressed as an assistant coach, seated in the second row every game.

And it's a bummer.

And they had depth and they had continuity and they had chemistry.

And I thought that they were

really good.

Before the season, I thought that they were the biggest threat to Boston in the Eastern Conference.

I thought so highly of them.

So huge bummer

for them and not having Suggs in particular, as you highlighted in this matchup, makes it almost or definitely untenable.

I previewed the other four series earlier in this week.

I made broad predictions on a few of them.

I want to make specific predictions now.

You can join in if you wish.

In the East, when we recorded Dame's status was unclear, it has since been reported that he is going to miss the start of the playoffs.

I was going to pick Indiana either way, as I said

on the podcast.

With Dame's status uncertain, I will go Pacers over Bucks in six.

What about you?

I agree with that.

And

I think that there's, let me ask you,

if that were to happen, what is the like, I don't know if panic is the right word or just like existential

self-examination as an organization with regards to Giannis Atetakupo and his status with the team.

We're like three years into that.

It's just been DEF CON somewhere between DEF CON one and DEF CON three forever.

Nick's Pistons, Detroit, great story.

Very good team.

Very bright future.

I'm going Nixon five.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

I think Nixon's seven.

Ooh, I love it.

I hope you're right.

And now the two hardest ones to predict and the two most anticipated ones probably.

Lakers, Wolves, Clippers, Nuggets.

Previewed them extensively with Bill.

Not going to get into the X's and O's and all that.

I'm going to start Lakers, Wolves.

I'm going to go Lakers in seven.

I just can't pick against Luca and LeBron in the first round.

I can't do it with the extra rest, with home court advantage.

Don't feel good about it.

I went through it with Bill.

Minnesota scares the hell out of me.

They can absolutely win this series and multiple series if they draw the right matchups.

Luca hasn't been like AA Luca since coming to the Lakers, with the exception of a couple of games, including the Vengeance game in Dallas.

I'm going Lakers in seven.

I'm going Lakers in six, and I'm not a huge fan of the construction of this team for the purpose of a a playoff run but i'm with you i can't bet against luka docicich

and i i don't want to be mean but i picking a team that has luca to lose versus a team that has julius randall to win just doesn't feel that was mean you did you did want to be mean

so lakers in six All right, now the big kuna for me, the most interesting series, the one I'm most excited about and the one I'm least decisive on.

Clippers, Nuggets, the 4-5 series, Nuggets have home court as the fourth seed.

Wish we had seen more Jamal Murray toward the end of the season coming back from yet another hamstring issue.

We all saw the Clippers, man.

You want to argue the Clippers have been the second best team in the West for the last 40 games?

Awesome.

I don't disagree with you.

Kawhi has been unbelievable as a longtime Kawhi stand/slash MVP voter back in the 2017 MVP race.

Couldn't be happier.

I'm picking the nuggets.

Denver in seven.

In seven.

Game seven at home.

They have the best player.

They seem pretty hungry

to galvanize around David Adelman and get out of this organizational chaos that they've been in.

I will reluctantly pick Jokic at home in game seven.

against the Clippers.

Almost no outcome would surprise me in this series, though.

This has been like asking me

to choose between my son and my daughter.

I love these two teams so much.

I love Jokic.

I love Kawhi.

I wrote a column in August.

The headline was, I can't quit the Los Angeles Clippers after they get it.

I remember it.

I was like, well, he's obviously lost his mind.

And

I love a lot of the things that they do.

I love so much of how they built this team.

I think Kawhi looks so fantastic

on both ends,

which is really telling and important.

And I also am going nuggets in seven because it pretty much boils down to home court for me, honestly.

Like, I had such a difficult time with just kind of delineating the

advantages and disadvantages between these two.

They're so good.

And it's, it's like an unjust basketball crime that we don't get this matchup in the conference finals.

And

yeah, so Nuggets and seven.

And I don't feel super pumped about that pick, to be honest.

Yeah, look, the West is going to have minimum one first-round series every year, often two, where you feel like, well, this sucks that these two teams are meeting one in one.

Like, these are two teams that could easily make the conference finals and maybe the finals.

And that's just life in the West.

And there is no way to fix that unless you want to totally realign the league, not realign the league, but do the 1 to 16 in the playoffs.

And that is an issue that I don't feel like debating in depth right now.

It has a lot of interesting sides to it, a lot of interesting arguments on both sides.

But that's just life in the West.

Okay, those are my predictions for all the series and my awards, my breakdowns.

Michael Pina, I know you're watching the film and really diving into these matchups.

So it's been really fun to have you on.

I'm glad to be teammates in the world of Spotify/slash/The Ringer.

What do we got coming up from you?

What do we got to look for?

I have a piece coming out tomorrow on just matchups, breaking down.

It aligns with this conversation, dovetails very nicely, just fun matchups to look out for in the first round.

So check that out.

And again, this was a true honor.

I know you hate that word.

It was.

I've listened to basically every episode that you've ever recorded.

Huge fan.

You're the Michael Jordan of what we do.

I know you don't want to hear that.

I don't know.

I've never had a gambling.

But

yeah, this was great.

And I truly appreciate you having me on, Zach.

Michael Pina checked out the playoff matchups X's and O's preview at the Ringer.

It's one of those things where, like, if you want to know what's going to happen in this series, like, what's actually going to happen and not who's clutch and who has guts and who rises to the moment, like, some of that stuff is real.

But if you want to actually know what's going to happen, read that column.

Thank you, sir.

All right.

Hope you guys enjoyed that.

Buckle up.

A big weekend of playoff games is coming up.

We've got the two play-ins tomorrow.

Hurrah.

And then eight playoff games Saturday and Sunday.

Say goodbye to your loved ones.

Enjoy the games.

We will catch up on Monday, reviewing all the weekend action and looking ahead to some of the best game twos on the Zach Lowe Show.

Thanks, everybody.

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