ESPN and landscape contributor Dominique Foxworth has a new podcast every Tuesday and Thursday bringing his unique perspective on football the personality surrounding it in just about anything else he finds interesting or things you might find interesting so check out the Dominique Fox will show available wherever you get your podcasts. And now the low welcome to the low post podcast on Monday night it's media day everyone is optimistic and even some not all some normally reputable hard hitting outlets have one day of temporary amnesia where they forget that words spoken on ceremony do not matter and they come away from media they raving about people's performances. At the press what a performance by Sean Marks and Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving at the press boy they were polished it was a great performance at the press conference is if any of that matters and Nick Friedell you were at one of the best media days the biggest media days the most anticipated media days at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn with the nets coming off a summer that Kyrie Irving called a cluster and trying to reorient around a big three of Kyrie Irving Kevin Durant and Ben Simmons to pursue their goal of an NBA title the goal they were favored to win one year ago at this time before it all went haywire and very importantly we have to start here the most important development of optimistic media. Of everyone being so good at the podium as if that means a flying you know what on the court was Kyrie Irving's declaration that you Nick Friedell you will be Kyrie Irving's best friend by the time the season is over how do you feel about that do you feel like you have anything in common like something to really ledge in there and start the friendship and what has in all seriousness what has the last like six hours since he said that Ben like for you.
It's been awesome because the buddy cop movie that has a chance to make it Mr. Lowe is going to be fantastic there's gotta be room on ESPN plus for a buddy cop true detective series with Kyrie and I just rolling through the streets and seeing what's happening but as soon as he said it. My buddies are sending me the you're my best friend and all the all the videos that go with it was it was quite the moment given how many times you know I went back and forth last season usually about the vaccination stuff but everybody in good spirits at nets me. I had to laugh because on top of my newfound friendship with Kyrie that will certainly only grow throughout the year I'm getting ready to go on the Malika show and I'm standing there and I'm waiting for the camera to turn on and show Mark's watch by Sean has a smile on his face and I look at him I say Sean you made it and he goes.
Well you did too. We started laughing and he said here we go so I think everybody is far as the net your concern just wanted to get through the day without having anything too crazy happened but then Zach we say that and Kyrie acknowledges that prior to the start of last season. So two summers ago the nets in his eyes made him and ultimatum that marks push back on but he said if he had gotten the vaccination they would have given him four years 100 plus million dollars. He said no the city mandate went into effect and it all just kind of faded away but that was an honest answer from a guy now who he may get another max deal but to give that up based on how strong when he felt about that shot tells you where he stood and where he continues to stand on.
Yeah and he also during Kyrie's media availability yesterday talk someone asked him did you really consider leaving the net in the office before you before you opted in did you think about opting out and even signing for the mid level exception and he paused and he said yeah I had options. I had options not very many because of the I think he called it a stigma of uncertainty that surrounds him as if the uncertainty just sort of appeared from thin air for no reason and enveloped him in a fog of uncertainty that there was a stigma about that he would maybe not be available to his team when even prior to the vaccination thing. He left the nets for two weeks the season before without really explaining why and then of course he opted in and then he said something like I felt like it was the best option for me best and only maybe our synonyms in this case yeah it was making 36 million dollars for this season was the best option for you. And then we had there was just a lot there was a lot there was a lot today.
There's always a lot with this team always it never stops. I mean there are any number of ways we can start but what I thought was fascinating was Sean Marks sat there at the end of April couple weeks after the season ended they got swept by the Celtics and he said we need to get our culture back we need to build it back. We're committed here and we need to everybody be on the same page. We're sitting here at the end of September and I asked Sean hey what's different about the culture now and I'm not even sure how he addressed it but he tipped out around it because what else are you going to say but the reality is there wasn't much talk about a championship it was more that we could just get all out on the floor and see what happened so the the tenor was far far different than it has been for this team in a while.
Yes very soon the Brooklyn Nets presented by the Dunder Mifflin paper company will be a real team a real basketball team on the court and not a theoretical construction on a white board and here was the high you highlighted this from Sean Marks today about Kyrie he's committed he understands in order to get what he wants in free agency he's going to have to show commitment out here we're going to see a very determined Kyrie so here's the thing that that's top eight is really really good by position loosely it's Kyrie Irving Seth Curry paddy Mills Joe Harris Roy Soniel Kevin Durant Ben Simmons Nick Laxon that's before you get to TJ Warren a very promising signing who is they said today is not ready to start playing yet it's before you get to some of the young guys like the guy who's going to play Simmons at center and whether they're going to lean all the way there at the opening tip of the opening game I think the lineup frankly of Kyrie Harris O'Neill Durant Simmons has really really interesting potential I mean offensively it's going to be off the charge defensively you have three really two Durant is a seven footer Simmons is a defensive unicorn Roy so Neal is a really good wing defender Joe Harris is a little smaller than those guys but stout and solid on defense and Kyrie you just have to figure it out he's big and strong too and he's okay defender when he tries that lineup has enormous potential. You can look at this next team and see two very different outcomes and this next team doesn't do anything halfway there are no half measures outcome number one is all the stuff that's there on paper on the whiteboard coalesces Ben Simmons is healthy he buys into a Draymond role he and Clackston even find ways to play together here and there even though they're going to be probably separated most of the time some of the young guys pop in here they come this is the team everybody fear this is the team in the wake of the heart and Simmons River boy the pieces really really could fit here the heart of thing was a disaster and ended horribly and boy all those picks are out there over there recouped a couple the pieces fit they still have some picks to play with on the trade market maybe if they want to upgrade in season this could be a real true blue contender Kevin Durant ranked eighth and then they will ask me about that about NBA rank no but it's only matter it's not because I understand why right like he missed a bunch of games with the nets and he's aging and nobody knows what to make of this season Kevin Durant is not the eighth best player in the NBA might be the second best player in the NBA and on some nights he still might be the best player in the NBA so that's outcome number one outcome number two is by Thanksgiving Durant is asking to be traded the Kyrie situation is I mean I'm not going to get into the stuff on the Twitter account in the last couple weeks did not exactly reaffirm my faith in Kyrie Irving's reliability as a teammate Simmons is still afraid to get fouled and the specter of Kyrie's looming free agency and the very obvious threat of the Lakers and the comments that Sean Marks made about Kyrie's got to earn our commitment that all of that combines and just blow this team up 25 games within the season would you bet on disintegration or cohesion Nick Friedell disintegration here's why I lived through the last six months of this past season Zach I sat there all day of media day and all I kept thinking at the end was this has the feel of when the parents decide to get divorced they decide to get divorced and then they make a U-turn and they want to do what's best for the family and I we're going to find a way to make it work and we're only going to look ahead but there was too much drama behind the scenes to just forget about and that is what scares me it's not that the talent isn't there if Kevin Kyrie and Ben stay healthy and are on the floor the nets are going to be really good you would think but there is that part of camaraderie that has been missing for this team for a long time and and JD he was pretty open about why he felt the way he did heading into the summer he said look I had doubts we weren't being held accountable we weren't playing at the level of a championship contender I did have to chuck a little bit when he says that he wanted to find a stable environment because I had plenty of my friends out there in the base and if Kevin wanted a stable environment why the hell was he leaving maybe the most stable environment in the league with the Warriors that's aside the point right now if it's me and I'm betting that the Nets can make this work all year long and that they will remain tied together when something bad happens I would not make that bet given what we just see I do sometimes think not to go off on an aside the what if of the vaccination in the pandemic is one thing that's that is a black swan event hopefully it's a black swan event if it becomes a regular swan event we're all but if hopefully it's a black swan event I think back to that hard and hamstrings week in the Milwaukee series and and just wonder I'll be thinking about that for a long time because I've said it before as as bananas as all has been as combustible as all those personalities were from the jump as much culture and draft equity and future and as many Paris laverts and Jared Allen's and Spencer Dinnwitties were sacrificed at the altar of Star Power to make that team they were so good and so terrifying that I really think they were going to be easily the best team of the league last year and then it went and then starting with that hard and hamstring the wheels began to fall off but that's neither here nor there I ask you a question so I owe it to you to answer my own question I would bet on disintegration I don't trust it I can't trust it how could you trust it and I we could go into all the obvious reasons why you can't trust it Kyrie's free agency being one of them Simmons hasn't played in I don't even know how many months now is it 16 15 months a year and a half we're getting down to a year and a half and I do think he's gonna be a great fit on this team I also know that he shot 34% from the line in the playoffs the last time we saw him and if you're afraid to get fouled then I just don't really care about the other stuff that much when it's when it's really time to go I mean he's gonna put up numbers he's a great player Durant I just Durant Durant had that moment today where then he took issue with it on Twitter afterwards where he said if you have any doubts about me that's on you or some such thing I mean I have the video queued up here I'm not gonna play it or recite it but it's not on you but something the effect of if you have any doubts about me that's on you my initial response to that was actually it's on you I think because you requested a trade and then when it didn't work out you basically took a blowtorch to everyone in the brain trust and said I want them all gone and then that didn't work and I are on the team but actually think if you go back and watch the clip and the reason he may be he's mad on Twitter is I think he's talking about his day to day commitment to the team his day to day playing and practicing and saying if you have any doubts on that that's on you and he's exactly right because through all of this when healthy that dude has played and he's played every second that they've asked him to play at absolute full throttle on both ends of the floor to the point that he couldn't even come out of play with him and he's playing with him and he's playing with him and he's playing with him and he's playing with him and he's playing with him and he's playing with him and he's throw things off against the box for one second and played every second of those last two games it was incredible in them but I just I can't trust it. I just can trust it I don't trust it and with the competition at this level and with everything they've been through it just feels like one obstacle could undo whatever Goodwill has been temporarily so up here so look what it shocked me if they want the title I mean a little bit yeah but yes and a really with it shocked me if they maybe conference finals and maybe yeet names of the finals no but I'm betting on this integration and if you told me the steam is done by Christmas I wouldn't be surprised.Hey you know me the VNay had reiterated his trade request byp, I wouldn't be surprised.That's what I to be the next to a one. be clear and put myself on the record of those two outcomes I'm betting on disintegration, there's a middle outcome where they're just a run of the middle good team and there's some break up of some kind at the end of the year.
That's probably the most likely outcome. The point about hard and hamstring and what they might have been, Zach, is important and it's very well taken because they all understood during those times just how great they were. If they stay healthy, I mean, there are people in the organization that are like, that title was ours. It was done.
It got hurt. Things happened. The point about the nets, belief in themselves though is crucial here because I'll take you back to about two weeks after I got on the beat earlier this year. Yeah, the Grim Reaper descends from the latest team.
The latest team that happened to fall apart upon his presence. Here comes the Grim Reaper for Dell where you go on. Have you plotted your next destination if Durant requests a trade by Christmas? Let me see.
The Pistons seem like a nice up and coming team. Why? Why I fly out and ruin that team? If it's really going to go down like that, I'd like it for it to go down in Miami.
There are a lot of workplaces to be around. The Heat who always handled themselves professionally and in Miami, Florida for a while. So that's my hope. But aside from that, okay, you heard it here first.
Watch out Heat fans. I am free to walk around South Beach. You see them at the Cleveland Urban Flemitard. That now matches.
People are like, is that your uncle? They're always asking me if I'm related to Levittards about because of just how great we look, I guess. But the part about the two weeks in with the nets is important because they played that game in Chicago. They absolutely friggin dominated the Bulls.
That was when the Bulls were like number one in the East. Everybody's like, oh, they turn things around here. They come. Kevin, Kyrie, and James Harden completely annihilated that team.
And they walked into the press conferences after that game and it was like, hey, we're back. This thing is over with. If we stay together and Kyrie's with us, we're going to knock everybody out. And a couple days later, Kevin heard his knee.
A couple weeks after that, Harden completely checked out and they were fried. And Zach, the belief that that team has now that they were the best and that they could beat anybody, it's not there. And whether or not it comes back in his weird year after the craziest summer that we've seen for a team in a while, I don't know. Again, I'm with you.
I wouldn't bet on it. But that is so important for any great team. Not just the comradery you have to have, but the belief in each other. These guys don't know Simmons.
They practice with him for a week now and everybody said, oh, he looks great. Okay, cool. Well, tell me about that in January or February. And tell me about that when the season has gotten tough for him and the shots aren't going down and he's not able to play at that same high level we've grown accustomed to seeing him in a time in Philly.
So there are so many different outliers with this group, but I can just tell you having been around them day after day since January, the belief that they had that they could do it. It's not there right now. And it would have to grow over the next year to make it happen again. And that's where I don't see it happening for this team, given all the other things that have been.
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It's all the ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Let's talk about the team itself. To me, the biggest question about the Brooklyn Nets going into the season is, let me tell you the biggest question of all the questions.
The biggest question of all the questions is can Ben Simmons and Nick Clackston play together? And if not, can Brooklyn defend well enough to compete with the best teams? Because I think they're probably going to debate between two starting lineups. Kyrie, Joe Harris, Durant, Simmons, Clackston, but that same line up with Royce O'Neill in Clackston's place.
That line up with Royce O'Neill and I mentioned before, that's going to be their best line up. That's going to be, I think, their crunch time line up, their closing line up. But if Simmons and Clackston, because they're both non-shooters, to put it politely, I mean, Clackston might be a better shooter than Simmons, right? It probably is.
If they can't play together, then you have major questions about your defense. Because as good as that switchable line up is, it's small. It may struggle on the glass where the Nets were 30th in defense at Re-Bending Leasture. You can't win anything if you're the worst Re-Bending team in the league.
You just can't. It's just, it's going to be, they're going to score like gangbusters. And I'm just interested to see can that line up defend well enough? Remember with the Blake Griffin group, they defended through Smokin' Mirror.
They defended well enough a couple of seasons ago to win in the playoffs if they're offense performed. And I just, I want to see it with that group, because I think that group could be solid defensively. I am pessimistic on Simmons and Clackston as appearing. Wouldn't surprise me if the Nets tried it to open the season as they're starting five.
And even if you don't, you know, you can bring Clackston off the bench early in games and try to get him in. I just don't, I'm not optimistic about those two playing together. And if I were the coach, I think I would just right from Jump Street, lean all the way into Simmons at center and just say, this is how we're going to play. This is how we're going to do it.
Clackston, you're going to come off the bench. So they're going to play a lot. We're going to spot you some minutes even with Simmons here and there. But you're going to, you're going to come off the bench and be our sixth man or seventh man or eighth man.
And we're going all in on that style. And I like that line up a lot. The other issue they have is three of their top eight are small guards in Kyrie, Curry and Patty. You can't play all three of them together.
And against the best teams, you probably even can't even play two of them together for super duper extended minutes. But to me, it comes down to Simmons, Clackston. Does it work? Do they even try?
And if it doesn't, and they don't, can they defend well enough to compete with the very best? Mr. Low, what you just described is why I would be concerned not that the Nets would win in the regular season and build themselves back up a little bit in the win loss column. But are they going to win the playoffs right now with this team?
Not only are there a lot of question marks up and down the roster, but another huge part of this in the context of Clackston is he couldn't hit a free throw at the end of the season to save his life. Remember those games against the Celtics? He's talking a media day about how he changed his form and how he's doing what's better for him and he's got more comfortable. You cannot play a big man especially who doesn't want to go to the line and get hammered down low.
So if you don't have that, you can run any Simmons line up out there that you want. But how is that line up? Assuming that you plug Roy Severnile in there going to last from the start of the postseason all the way to the finish. So Sean Marks could always make a move.
You never know who gets bought out and all that kind of stuff towards the end of the year or once we get into it more. But those questions about the size are gigantic. And in this case, if you're leaning on Ben Simmons who hasn't played in almost a year and a half, you're leaning on him to play in a position that he hasn't seen that much of on a team that is already going to try and hide his weaknesses as best they can. I looked at them as a J-crouder team.
I'm going to do the J-crouder trade landscape briefly in a minute with Bobby Marks. But I didn't see a deal that I really thought made a ton of sense. But look, I mean, the good thing about the O'Neill Durant Simmons drill. Let's just zoom in on that.
O'Neill Durant Simmons. Simmons becomes your apex defender. By the way, he and Giannis have a really fun rivalry. People have forgotten it because it seems so long ago that Philly would walk you look like it was going to be a thing.
They had one game where they traded dunks and they were trash talking at each other. It was a cool little rivalry within a rivalry kind of deal. Royce O'Neill and Simmons, at least at the very least Durant can get through the season and even through some playoff series if they get there without having to guard the best guy on the other team because he just can't do that. You can't ask him to do everything anymore.
At least now defensively with those two. Look, to be Boston, to be Milwaukee, you need two elite wing defenders. In Simmons, they have one and Durant, they have another and in O'Neill they have a very good one. They don't have to oververt in Durant.
Simmons, Clackston, I think the only way that lineup survives offensively, even with all the shooting and talent around it, is if they get out and run like hell and they score in transition so they don't have to face set half court defenses. I'm just sort of, you can get by with that in the regular season because they'll have Durant earning and whoever else around them, the talent is so substantial. I just, I kind of want them to just go full blast. We're playing Simmons at center.
This is our identity. We're going to spend the whole season holding it and that's it. And just defensively, it's just a matter of doesn't hold up because I think offensively, whatever combination of guards you put out there around Durant and Simmons at center with Kyrie, undersized, whatever, they're going to score a hell of a lot of points. Well, here's the question I would pose back to you then and that is forgetting for a second the whoppers of, can Kevin stay healthy?
A, can be, will Kyrie be fully committed to the team day after day after day? The question then to me becomes, do you trust that Ben Simmons, who hasn't played in a year and a half, can handle the role that Steve Nazin and staff would then give him and be the type of player that they need him to be offensively to get everything moving up and down on top of then what they're going to ask of him on the defense of that? I do, I do in the sense that he's now going to be point Simmons in transition, point Simmons just orbited by shooting all around him and in the half court, sometimes he'll be point Simmons I guess, although everyone will just go 10 feet under screens and he won't get anywhere and he can still make hay out of that because he's still big and strong, you give him space, it's just a runway for him. But more often I think he'll be screen setting Simmons, dribble hand off Simmons, quarterback keeper Simmons, Dremon Simmons and he can do that.
I think with shooting around him, he can do that and without any other big man in the dunker spot, he's got more room to work with in that role. Still the getting foul thing looms and the Hawk series was not an aberration. The Hawk series was the end or the nadir of a trend. The end of Ben Simmons gradually diminishing in playoff series, the further they got into the playoffs.
It was not a one year thing. It was year after year, the further they got, the lesser his role was and it's one thing to have a role that's less than Kevin Durant and Kyrie Rean. That's fine. It's another thing to just do nothing on a lot of half court possessions and they can't have that.
But as far as him doing that role offensively, I think he will, I think he will give them enough in that role. It's just in the playoffs. It's it becomes a different thing. You don't have a lot of margin for error.
It's the thing that scares me to those act because it brings our conversation full circle in that everybody's sitting there after media days and all pensim and seems like he's in a really good place. And he answered the questions well and he did a nice job on JJ Redick's podcast and everything. Why do we do this every media day? Where we bring everyone brainwashing themselves into thinking that a press conference is a game.
Like he did really well, he did really well up there. He was only kind of a below average performer. It doesn't matter. It literally doesn't matter.
It has zero impact whatsoever on the win loss record of whatever your favorite team is. Nothing. And this is the part that I keep coming back to having watched the whole Simmons experience unfold in Brooklyn those last few months. I understand that he was going through back issues.
I understand. And he discussed it a little bit more that he was dealing with a lot of mental health stuff. He had a lot going on. The difference to me is that with Kevin Durant, you have always known no matter what was going on off the floor.
And this is what he was talking about in his own press conference. He was going to bring it every single day. You knew that he would put in the work to be the best player or one of the best players in the league all the time. With Kyrie, there were plenty of different issues last year, but you knew the talent was always there.
And while he might fight coaches on the schedule or when he wanted to put in the work, you knew that he had the love of the game and would do what it took at least most of the time to still be one of the best players in the game. What would scare me if you're a net stand based on Simmons time in Philly and what we saw as he tried to ramp up a little bit more early in his Brooklyn 10? Is he willing to put in that work day after day, game after game to be one of the best players in the league? And that is what I'm trying to find out with him heading into the season because he can answer the questions any way he wants now.
And Sean Marks and Steve Nazkin talk about all they want. Ben's looking good. Oh man, we're going to be scary when we're all healthy and we don't really care. We don't really care anymore that Durant tried to get us fired.
Yeah, that's cool. Like, forget it. Who hasn't who hasn't had that happen to them? The perfect tagline for the 2022 Brooklyn net summer was exactly what Kyrie said.
A cluster. People think I voted Simmons 13 all NBA in 2020 in the bubble season. I picked the next win the championship last year, like emphatically. So I don't want to hear how unfair and all this.
And I will still say, I think the most likely outcome is they're just a good team that's not good enough or maybe even a very good team that's not good enough and then the offseason brings more drama. If you're asking me between, to just forget that one and pick between, oh my god, it all came together and oh my god, it all blew up and going, oh my god, it all blew up. But it's not like I hate the team and it's a good team. We'll see what happens.
I will say to your earlier point, TJ Warren's a wild card that could change this team if his foot and his body allow him to. That's an obvious one. The other thing is they do have a 20, 27, six or spic and they have access to an unprotected Nets pick now either 20, 28 or 20, 29, they can pick one and as you know, teams view those distant out of an unprotected pick from this team in 20, 28 or 20, 29, that's right up there with whatever unprotected stuff that Lakers can peddle try and help their team. If you, if things are going well enough with all of your wings and guards that you can take one of those salaries, Joe Harris is the biggest at 18, six cobble together, O'Neill with something else and throw both those picks in, you'll be able to get something.
I don't know what that something is. What I would dream it to be is Miles Turner or a Miles Turner as player who solves this entire problem of how Clackston and Simmons don't fit together. But I need shooting and shop locking. Well, there is maybe a Wendell Carter Jr.
a flyer on him. There just aren't guys like that available because those skillsets are very coveted. And if they are available, there's going to be a bidding war for Miles Turner. I'm not sure that then that's have enough to win it.
But I can tell you this with some of their contracts, like all these dudes are on good contracts, Patty Mills, Seth Curry, Clackston, O'Neill, here, all of them and a young player and that unprotected pick, they can get into some conversations. And if they're good, if they're good, they're going to get in on some of those conversations for whatever ends up being a bit maybe it's just another player like a Harrison Barnes, I'm just making up names another sort of tweener forward who allows you to play even sturdier five out centerless lineups. They'll do something if they are in the picture to win the East. Every team has ifs, but Zeklo, the nets just have too many gifts to overcome to me.
And that is the point to hammer home and all this. If you believe that it can all come together and that it can all work, then you have to believe also that they'll be able to stick together when things go bad. And there is no recent history to suggest that that is what would happen. But nets were looking great up until the first of the year, around there, they were in first place, they they withstood the COVID outbreak, they maintained themselves with Kyrie not being there and are hard on doing do some nagging stuff.
Kevin got hurt and the wheels completely fell apart when they tried to add Kyrie back into things. So you're telling me that a Kevin Durant's going to stay healthy, b Kyrie Irving's going to be committed to the cause of his basketball team every day and see Ben Simmons, who we haven't seen play in so long, not only is going to knock off the roster really quickly, but it's going to be awesome for them on both ends of the floor. Too many big ifs to buy what was being sold by this team. And I think there's to me, there's just too much toothpaste out of the tube.
The toothpaste has been squirted all over the mirror. And so it's all over the floor. You can't put it back. You can't put a trade demand all the way back in the tube.
You can't put an ultimatum about the coach in the GM all the way back in the tube. You can't put what Sean Marks has clearly laid out to Kyrie Irving about commitment and what we need to see back in the tube. You can't put Kyrie Irving's looming free agency back in the tube. There's just too much stuff has been done and said for me to sit here and say, yeah, I mean, this team on paper should absolutely translate.
I just don't trust it. I don't trust them to deal with any adversity. I don't trust them to really gather themselves when something goes wrong and something will go wrong. So that's that's my take on that.
Maybe we'll end up looking done, but I just I don't I see the talent. I see the road map. I see the structure. I just don't trust it to persist.
And maybe they'll prove me wrong. And if they do, hell, I live very close to Brooklyn. I'd love to have a functional New York City basketball team going deep into the playoffs. I'm winning way neither way Nick Friedel.
I am too, because the soap opera that will entail with this team will be the talk of the league all year long. And the only thing that can put all that analysis and worry away is for them to win early and win a lot. And when you look at their schedule in November, they have a ton of road games. They have a ton of different ways in which it could slide the wrong direction early.
And once that occurs, I don't think that this team has the mental toughness as a group to be able to turn it back around. We'll see. Well, look, you and Kyrie can talk about it in his apartment over dinners over drinks. Nick Friedel, it's always good to see you as great senior in Los Angeles have a few drinks last week.
And I'll see it. And that's I think they open with the Pelicans right? I'll be there for opening night, maybe a preseason game or two. And everybody Kyrie brings me best friend Nick Friedel.
Thank you, sir. Always buddy. And when the buddy cop series premieres, you will be there. We just we need somebody to come up with a working title.
That's the next step in this in this whole thing. I'm gonna end the podcast before I start trying to come up with working titles that will do nothing but get me into trouble. Nick Friedel, thanks, sir. Always.
All right, let's take a little interlude, a J Crowder themed interlude. Very brief, very brief J Crowder themed interlude because Bobby Marks, there's a rule that I'm pointing now on the low post podcast. Are you ready for the rule? Let's go.
No matter your stature in the league and I'm a big J Crowder fan, wrote a whole profile of J Crowder during the 2021 finals. Winning follows him around or maybe he follows winning around or something like that. If you make a hype video, you or your social team make a hype video hyping your own potential impending trade as you skip training camp with permission, mutual agreement from the Phoenix Suns, you get a podcast segment. I don't think I've ever seen a trade hype video before featuring our own Brian Windhorse.
Did you watch the video? I didn't watch the video. I'm gonna have to. Boss Man 99 Twitter, I mean, you gotta go.
I think it's legit. It was some people on Sun's media, people on Sun's Twitter tweeted it out. It's if it's not legit, then someone has made it incredible. Boss Man 99 Twitter hype video for his trade.
I didn't see it now. You know, you know, you're always getting to that. Whenever you're going into that last year of your contract and you're one of these 32 to 33 year old guys and they probably say, you know what, we were probably playing Cam Johnson in front of you and your minutes going to be decreased. You probably think, okay, how do I get out of here?
Yeah, so people are sort of baffled by this and I was too because the sons have had an enormous amount of success with Jay Crowder as they're starting power forward. Chris Paul and Devin Booker either FaceTime during the call at him at the same time through Krewdim Defenix. It was one of the big moments for him. He felt wanted.
He told me like they was the difference between feeling needed and wanted. Those two guys getting out of the phone with me. And he has experienced a great deal of success there. He's become kind of a household name.
There was the F.J. Crowder chance in New Orleans during the playoffs, which became a t-shirt. There was the salsa dancing LeBron and the Lakers right out of the playoffs the year before. Like he's become sort of the role player to do it.
And yet he wants out without a clear destination. I think this is really interesting for two reasons. Number one, just what you said, the indication I think that Cam Johnson is going to likely start may have started this cascading effect. No extension, right?
There were even talks. I don't know what you heard about that, but no extension to this date. And so Jay Crowder is unhappy and he skips training camp on the flip side. Boy, oh boy, what a test of an organization that to put it likely is in some form of chaos with their owner being suspended for a year and selling the team and interim governor.
A huge tax bill that will be impacted by whatever happens here. And a player who, even if you're going to put him in a backup is a good player. If you're serious about winning the championship, trying to win. If you're serious about showing Chris Paul and Devin Booker that you're trying to win, you can't just like salary dump Jay Crowder to the Spurs just to save money.
You can't trade him for like a completely untested 12th man and hope that guy clicks on your team. That's going to send the wrong message. So I'm fascinated by this. First, so I'll just give you the floor.
What interests you? Did you find any good trade destinations? This is tricky because present for present trades are hard. Present for present trades where the team may be seeking a player who plays a good player who plays the same position as the guy they're trading are really hard.
Did you find anything? Well, and to add probably a layer three and a layer four, what's even harder is you now you have a team that's for sale, your owner suspended, and you're in a kind of a spot where you're in the luxury tax and you're not really willing to take back a lot of money to deal. So if there's a 12 or 13 million dollar guy out there for Crowder and that could help you, those Phoenix have permission to go out and add another seven or eight million dollars to their luxury tax bill. That's a big question.
Let me answer it for you based on what I've heard. I will be absolutely blown away if Phoenix adds salary, net ads in the straight. I expect them to net minus and I will be especially blown away if they add any too much long term salary. I expect them.
I expect this trade, whatever it is, to reduce their pay. Well, I could be proven wrong. I could be proven wrong. I can throw this in my face, but that's my guess.
No, I mean, that's so you're looking at guys in that seven to eight million dollar range or unless it's expanded and then you're adding another player. The other, I guess, layer four to this is that because of where they are financially next year, like you're right. You don't want to just salary dump J Crowder and save luxury tax money because they're basically kind of in the same spot next year when the Johnson extension or new contract comes in where you're not going to be a team that can go out and go out and spend money in free agency here. So when you're looking at trades and areas for Crowder, two things that you're looking for.
A guy that's coming back that's got early or full bird rights. So you have the ability to go out and exceed the cap to resign that free agent. And then the second thing is a player that's got some length left on his contract. So not just an expiring contract.
A player that's got two years, 14 million dollars, two years, 15 million dollars on his contract. So that's how you're trying to fit the puzzle piece to J Crowder. And when we talked, we texted last night, like I said, like, hey, what about Indiana? So if you're Indiana in your Phoenix, it might be a little bit steep, like a TJ McConnell, O'Shea Bursett type package as far as what in Phoenix would get back with Crowder.
And, you know, I mean, I said, first maybe you put two seconds in the deal. I'm not trading a first and the best player in the trade. Yeah, so maybe let's put two seconds in the deal. So like, that's the type of framework where I'm looking at where you got you got TJ's got multi years left.
O'Shea is an unrestricted free agent. I'm a fan, by the way, I think it's a sneaky good role player, but what not exactly experienced in big situations or proven on an NBA level. Yeah, so that's the kind of framework of a Crowder type deal, you know, Phoenix could probably be looking at. Let's go rapid fire for this man.
I mean, rapid through some team. Yeah, the most obvious team, of course, is his old friends in Miami, who loved the J Crowder experience, although not enough to keep on the team once the sun's came in with an offer. You know, they like to tell this story about the bubble and the beginning of their bubble run. And one of the sort of defining moments of it was Crowder and Butler, Marquette guys going back and forth in practice at such a profane personal level trash talk wise that it made people uncomfortable a little bit.
And then they cleared the court and played these like brutal one on one games for a half hour an hour until Butler finally won the last one. And he was they kind of valued him as the guy who would stand up to Butler who fit their culture and all that. The problem is right now they can't trade any of the guys who would make a natural salary that Caleb Martin just signed in for agency doing dead men, Victor old people, those guys are not tradable to December, January, then you're looking at bigger deals where Crowder and Sarich are involved, Crowder and Shammett, all of a sudden Duncan Roberts is going out who's throwing in draft compensation, how much will Duncan Robinson make a lot of money. That feels like a tough one for now.
If J Crowder somehow got traded to the Spurs and bought out Miami would be the favorites, but I don't that's a scenario that's been floated to me by multiple GM's. I don't see him doing that if he has any agency in it at all. Because as you know, when you're bought out, you lose your bird rights, which are very valuable for him. Any heat deal you like before I move on to team two?
No, I mean, there's no sweet spot contracts, right? There's no five and six million dollars guys except either hero, because everyone else is, as you said, can't be traded. And then you're looking at expanding the deal, basically now you're adding three or four players in a deal. And I don't see that right now.
Do you have another team you want to hit before I go to my? No, you go ahead. Yeah. I tried to find a Cleveland one because I do feel like Cleveland needs another guy and particularly a guy who now, Jay has lost some quicks on the wing defensively.
He's kind of a 3.5, but they need that guy. Obviously, everyone has said they've got the four guys and who's the fifth starter? Do they have the big wing that everyone needs? Deep into the playoffs?
Is Isaac a core going to make enough shots? Well, I just couldn't find one unless you're trading out Jeddi Osman. And I don't know if that's a straight up trade. There's someone throwing in seconds.
And if it's just one for one, I'm not adding a guy to my rotation. I think Jay Crowder is probably better than Jeddi Osman. But you know, Jeddi, when he's making shots as a solid player, plus Jay Crowder tripped through Cleveland 1.0 did not go well. Yeah.
And then you're probably, he's coming off the bench. You know, what minutes is he playing? Is he going to be a happy camper, right? I mean, you kind of add all those other factors in there.
So I don't, I don't say anything to Cleveland either. Now, if Phoenix is coming up empty and the Bogonovich trade, the Utah Bogonovich trade now that Detroit Bogonovich trade that has sailed for now that has sailed for now. Well, maybe you called it right now. Well, I think Detroit's going to go into the season and see what they have with this group.
See if they can be frisky, which by the way, Pistons fans, we got preview of the Pistons coming later this week. I think they can be frisky. That's sailed for now. I don't know exactly what happened between Phoenix and Utah.
They definitely talked. They definitely made some progress. And I think from what I've heard, and there's been a lot of noise out there about this player, that player, I just think it became a little too clunky and Utah just shows a simpler, a sort of a simpler solution. So that was an obvious place to look that is now gone.
How about this? If they got nothing, if they're struggling, you can't have enough guys like J. Crowd, right? Everyone needs the 3.5 guys.
They're from the 2.5 to the 4. If you're Philly, do you just say, hey, would you take George and Yang, Firkhan Korkmaz and like three second round picks for J. Crowder? Can you sell that to Chris Paul and Devin Booker?
Like, George and Yang can make shots? Like Firkhan Korkmaz, you know, can make shots? We're still competing. I just don't know if you can sell that.
If I'm the Sixers, I'm making that call. Yeah, I mean, you're looking at just kind of, you know, you're building up your bench now, right? So you got, you know, in the end, you can start the four if things go south with Cam or you can come off the bench, Korkmaz can make shots. If one of your minimum guys, because you just signed a bunch of the Damian Lee's, the Josh Ocogi, those players, yeah.
But as you said, like you don't have one to put in a deal and you're basically moving out all seconds in a trade. That's probably more intriguing. That's kind of, that's the thinking as far as in that deal. You're getting early bird rights on the yank.
Korkmaz has another year left on his contract. So that's kind of un-alignance of, you know, making a little more progress there. Now, look, if the Suns are willing to put in an unprotected first, it opens all sorts of other doors. If they're willing to put in multiple firsts, then you're getting into entirely different conversations with you.
That was obviously in the Kevin Durant conversations and probably would have planned to put in four firsts and three swaps. So let's leave all that aside for now. For now, I tried to build one with Chicago with Derek Jones Jr. and Kobe White coming.
I just couldn't find one that I really liked and that did enough for the Suns. I just didn't, I didn't find one. I think there could be something there, but I didn't find it. I tried to build one with Memphis around Dylan Brooks, but I just think Dylan Brooks is probably a little better than J-Crouter.
Similar players, one's a nominally a two, one's nominally a four, but they're kind of similarly built, both on expirings, both haven't gotten extended. I could just see that one devolving into, well, who sends a pick and how many and then, well, could I get, could I expand it by throwing Danny Green in and then it just fell apart. I thought about New Orleans, couldn't find a good deal for New Orleans. Like I thought would they do Larry Nance for J-Crouter?
No, I don't think they would. I just think Larry Nance fits what they need better than J-Crouter. Here's a sneaky one for you, right Bobby? Okay, let's go.
The Milwaukee Bucks have kind of been searching for PJ Tucker 2.0 since they let PJ Tucker go. This is the closest thing. We're talking about the guys who have played powered forward for the heat for the last two or three years. Grace and Allen for J-Crouter?
Well, yeah, because then you get, you save money on a deal and you got to know you have Grace and Allen. Now, do you need another shooter to your group in Phoenix? That's, you know, I mean, but you could certainly move him in another deal down the road. As you say, I don't have enough, I don't have enough there.
If I'm Phoenix, I may just say, well, that's that replicate stuff I've already got. The Bucks will look, though, I bet, because the Bucks were sneakily kind of sniffing around Jeremy Grant in Detroit before Portland swooped in. I think they liked the idea of the switchable, switchable, switchable guys. All right, can I give you my, can I give you my coup de gras?
Well, hold on, hold on. I thought about Boston in the wake of Galenarri's injury and Williams injury, just adding another guy. I thought about Gallo and Peyton Prichard and some second round picks. Didn't really, didn't really like it enough for either team.
That's, that's an interesting one. Okay. All right. Here you go.
All right. Jay Crowder, Landry Shamett, Dario Sarge, two unprotected Phoenix picks, maybe another draft asset that we can debate about to Atlanta for John Collins and Mo Harkless, which is almost an exact salary match. Let me sell it to you as the Hawks. I can see that.
I can hear the Hawks fans saying John Collins is way better than Jay Crowder, way younger, way better, all of that. All true. All true. John Collins has been on the trade block off and on for like four years, it seems like.
Doesn't seem like there's sold on him as a fit with a rim running center like Clint Coppella. And if you say well, Clint Coppella may not be part of their long, long term picture, John Collins is much younger. Well, does he fit with a Kong who's not quite a rim runner necessarily like Coppella, but can do lots of different stuff, including rim running. Haven't been sold on him really, definitely not sold on John Collins as a five defensively.
That that ship I think is sealed. Maybe crunch time here and there, maybe some closing lineups here and there, maybe match ups with it. They don't view him that way. Crowder comes in, play him next to DeAndre Hunter at the three and the four.
I, he's a catching shoot option up and down. Dan can make the extra pass. I keep my present kind of a float, kind of a float. And if I recoup the draft, the draft assets, some of which I traded for Dejante Murray, I feel good about restocking my sort of my, my, my baggage draft picks.
And I get, you know, I get Crowder, I get Shamid, I get some helpful players and the sons obviously take a shot on John Collins who that has the same sort of fit questions around DeAndre Eaton, but it's a star talent play for Phoenix. It's a bridge play to the next era of Suns basketball after Chris Paul gets sold. I don't hate that trade, Bobby. I don't hate it.
I don't want it to. A lot of people, some people didn't like it, some people really like that. I like that one. I don't, I don't hate it either because I look at Atlanta and I'm looking like, well, what happens when John Collins for the third year in a row is now the third best player and now his field goal attempts are the same where like there'll be a point where there's going to be disgruntled John Collins in Atlanta here somewhere when you have the Murray and Young back court basically kind of dominating things here.
I think it just kind of, I think it just balances their roster out more, right? Yeah, you lose a player like Collins, but you kind of basically, you patch up your depth with at the four when you can go Crowder, Sarge, you add another shooter with, with, with Landry that gives you protection with Bogdanovic who's, you know, coming back from that injury here. And you, as you said, you recoup some of those draft picks that you lost in the San Antonio trade. So like, I get it.
I get that. What that thinking is there. I don't hate it. I don't hate it.
I think, I think in the end, unless the draft compensation were overwhelming, the Hawks would get gold feet and say, well, just this guy's three points shot. And like, do we trust it enough? Is he losing a step? He's on it, expiring or the picks, unless the draft compensation was overwhelming, I think Atlanta would say, no, but I don't think that's a crazy trade.
And that is the end of my J Crowder trade. And I know that because we have reached the J Crowder saturation point, Boston man, 99. And look, I can't wait to see what Phoenix does there in disarray. I can't wait to see how they handle it because I don't know what the market is right now.
And I'm a little pessimistic. I'm a little, I guess, pessimistic that they're going to get a trade that maybe underwhelms the fans there. And that would make me a little nervous. Yeah.
And I don't think I would be surprised, you know, if there's something in a minute, like, I think this is something that could potentially go into the, you know, into the regular season. You know, I mean, I just I see that as finding, you know, waiting for the right trade, not just kind of as you said, you know, they can dump them. They want to, you can dump them. Which is the worst thing in the world.
Like, yeah, you wait till the regular season, maybe the Kings stink and you swoop in with J Crowder and draft compensation, good draft compensation, get Harrison Barnes. Yeah. Maybe you get J Crowder and draft compensation, get Kyle Kuzma if the wizard stink. All those heat guys become trade eligible and not enough.
Maybe that's not the worst thing in the world. You have the depth with Damien Lee and Kogi. You got to play some guys all the position. But you have the depth of weather.
All right, that's it. That's enough J Crowder. Bobby Marks, we'll come back to you for another interlude of a good but not great NBA player getting traded soon. Thank you, sir.
Thanks, Zach. All right. Well, we couldn't find a great home for J Crowder. If he wants a starting spot, if that's the demand, it's going to be tough.
Some of those teams that Bobby and I talked about the Hawks, the Cavs have some tax issues too. So let's ditch J Crowder and talk about what might be maybe my most interesting team in the NBA going into the season, certainly one of the hardest to predict. I'm very excited about the New Orleans Pelicans Andrew Lopez. How are you?
I'm good. I'm enjoying our fake fall for a few days and I'm sure it'll be 90 by the end of the week. But I'm going to enjoy this and oh yeah, there's Pelicans basketball, actual basketball on the floor now. They are one of the great variants teams to me in the league.
They're over under is set in most places at 44 and a half right behind the Lakers who are at 45 and a half in a lot of places. And then behind three teams, Dallas, Minnesota and Memphis who are about 48, 49 depending on where you look. So the Vegas people see a clear drop off between those teams who are basically 5, 6, 7 and in some order in the West in terms of over-unders, not sack-close order to be clear just over-unders and then the Memphis Lakers at eight and nine. And I think Mr Lopez that I'm higher on the Pelicans than that.
I think I would hit that over pretty hard. And if you told me there was a team down in that mid 40s range that we look up in April and is it 50 wins and it's a surprise? Wouldn't surprise me if it were the Pelicans. And that said, I have reasons almost to caution myself.
But before we get into those, I have a very important question for you. Okay, let's go. You were there in person at Pelicans Media Day yesterday. Okay, first of all was the King Cake Baby there.
No, he did send his regards to you. But no, he was not there. That strikes me. I don't have a Halloween costume yet.
There's got to be a way to dress up as the King Cake Baby. Right? That has to be a costume you can get. The King Cake Baby sent me a message and was very upset that I went to Los Angeles and didn't bring any King Cake Baby swag for you while I was there.
I'll tell you this, tell the King Cake Baby. I did not inform him of my trip. Tell the King Cake Baby this. Since you're my King Cake Baby intermediary, I'm afraid to talk to it in person.
It's not him or I don't know what it is. I attended a Mardi Gras themed event over the summer where King Cake was served. And it was delicious. Okay, so what's the Pelicans name?
The actual Pelicans? Pierre at Media Day? What did those Pierre up to? Okay, here's the important question.
You saw him up close and personal. How did the big fella look? Good. Real good.
I know I said on NBA Today last week that a couple people had told me he was in the best shape of his NBA career. And it certainly looks that way. He won a lot better than he did in last media day when he was still dealing with the foot injury and not really been able to run or do anything on the foot as he was trying to come back. Obviously, he doesn't play all last season.
But man, he looked very good. And Larry Nance was joking that he had seen him. He had seen him in the gym last week. And he's like, yeah, I'm gonna have to get some padding to deal with him down there.
And we're like, oh, so you're gonna just go walk next to him, go to the same facility and get some shoulder pads. He's like, no, no, no, no. I want the police dog full outfit. Like when they're doing police dog training, he's like, I need that.
Oh, like with a dog can bite your arm and stuff and it you'll see that he's like, he needs that. And you know, a lot of people took time to mention, hey, man, you see how he looks? He looks pretty good. Like, yeah, he does look pretty good.
So, I mean, when he sets down, you just see his arms and look, I don't know how it is conditioning wise. We'll see that when throughout camp. We'll see that throughout preseason. But just just physically looking at him.
He looked, he looked pretty damn good. Okay, I'm in, I'm in, I'm reeling myself in. This is one of the weirdest teams in the NBA and one of the hardest to project. Like when I do my five most confusing teams podcast, which is usually with Kevin Arteritz, but he's not here anymore.
So, I'm gonna have to find someone else to do that with. They're gonna be on it because on the one hand, I'm super excited about them. You look at their starting five, it's gonna be CJ, Herb Jones, and Herb Jones's arms. So it's like a starting six almost if you count that next player, BI, Zion, and Valentunus.
On the one hand, you look at the sheer amount of offensive talent other than Herb Jones, who I think will be fine as a fifth option, a distant fifth option on offense. When I asked Willie Green yesterday, hey, remember Herb Jones last year was your guy who kind of surprised some people in training camp and we didn't really think he was gonna show up and then all of a sudden he's starting by the first week. Who's that guy this year who's been impressing you in all season workouts and without missing a beat, he just said Herb Jones. You need to, you need to dilate back Andrew because you're gonna make me too excited about the Pelicans with this kind of reporting and intel.
I just, I don't need any more Herb Jones excitement. I was, I had him first team all rookie, much to the consternation of Houston Rockets fans. I don't need any more. And then, so that's the starting five.
Like the sheer amount of offensive talent is just outrageous. And, and you want to say, and then you like, let's do the bench real quickly first. Alvarado, just an absolute fine. By the way, somebody told me, I don't remember who told me this that Jose Alvarado actually practices like the hide and seek steals that he gets in the bed.
You'll see him in practice, like miming, hiding out in the corner and then skulking like in a cat burglar crouch up on some unsuspecting butt. So he actually, like Ray Allen practiced the moonwalk corner three. That's a basketball skill. You can see somebody practicing.
I don't know that I've ever heard of someone practicing like a long distance thievery from behind. So Jose will break that out in practices. He will break it out in pick up games. There was a, I think it was, I guess it was at Berkeley's gym where they were, they were running some pick up earlier this year when he was back home in New York where he got Trey Murphy and Trey, I don't think I'd ever seen Trey angry or on film where Trey was like, I can't believe I let myself get grand theft Alvarado.
He was talking about it yesterday about, all right, well, I've really had a chance to get zanyan. I got to get zanyan now. Like this is something like he works on this. He is, he's, he'll spring it out in practice.
Like he'll, he'll do do it to his teammates. He even said, look, my teammates know what's coming. So it makes it harder to do, but so I'm trying to, the same person. I can't remember who was it was a coach I was having dinner within LA or something in agent or something.
He said, he thinks other players around the league are going to copy this this year that we're going to see a couple wannabe Alvarado's that are trying to do the hide and seek seal in the back court, which is, which is just, as you call it, it should just be the grand theft Alvarado. That's all. Okay, we're getting off track. I'm too excited about this team.
The bench is Alvarado, Trey Murphy, Larry Nance, Jackson Hayes. Those are the four I have penned in as Ben Chudin. Now obviously you're going to see a lot of Larry Nance at center. No Jackson Hayes.
That's how they close games in the playoffs last year against the sons of what was just the Raucous playoff series, FJ Crowder, Chris Paul getting super annoyed by Alvarado is fantastic. I don't know who the second wing player is in that backup five or the second and third if you shift Nance to the five. I just know that when it really matters, if I have CJ McCollum, Brandon Ingram, Zion Williamson, and Jonas Valentrune said, I'm worried about my offense. I want two of those guys on the floor at all times and minimum one.
Now if you can run out some bench mobs in the regular season, but that kind of offensive talent split among four guys, you just should have one of them on the court at all times. So here's what I'm saying. The sheer amount of offensive talent, ball handling, mid-range shooting, all the Zion's, post Zion, point Zion, offensive rebounding Zion and Holy smokes. Or Zion and JV going to beat the living snot out of everybody on the offensive glass.
It's just hard to imagine them being worse than like seventh or eighth in offense, despite the fact that that starting five I just outlined has exactly one good three point shooter in CJ McCollum. Despite the fact that that starting five has three guys and maybe four of you include Valentrune as post-ups who function best with the ball in their hands, which is naturally going to make for some sort of growing pain, they're just sort of figuring out who has the ball when, how are we using Zion? Is he going to be a screener? Is he going to be a ball handler?
What pick and roll combinations in either role work best? They're going to have to figure all of that out despite the fact that if you look at this lineup, when they had BI and CJ on the floor last year, almost half of their shots were mid-range shots. And they made them at a crazy rate. They made 50 percent of them.
And as a result, they scored I think 119 points per 100 possessions with CJ BI and Valentrune is on the floor, which is like way beyond the best offense in the league. And you ask yourself, is that sustainable with such a mid-range heavy shooting diet without any three point shooting on the floor? And by the way, they were already fifth in free throws and fourth in offensive rebounding. So even though I think they'll get higher in both of those, there's only so much higher.
They can go. And to all of that, I say, injury Lopez, yes, they will be a top seven or eight offense because they have the big fella coming back and their one weak spot last year was they never got to the rim. And now they're going to live at the rim. I just don't see any way without injury that this team is worse than the seventh or eighth offense, which just raises the question, if they're going to go over 44 and a half.
If you're going to bet on it, you're betting somehow, some way, they can make this defense with Zion Williamson, Jonas Valentrune's front court and CJ McCollum is the head of the proverbial snake. Something close to league average. So start either end you want. What offense did anything I say strike you as wrong, interesting, or defense just how the hell is this going to work?
So let's start with the offense because again, I agree with you. I think anything outside of the top 10 is a disappointment. Huge. You're expecting top 10.
They can be, I think eighth is like the floor. Yeah. Top five is there for them. Now, if you start actually listing the five offensive teams, it's a hard territory to crack, but I think they can and maybe should be right around there.
When things were a lot different last year with CJ McCollum and for the first time for an extended period in his career, obviously when he was in Portland, you know, it was a game show and rightfully so. CJ has even said that himself. He's like, when you're playing with a top 75 player of all time, you let him run the show. And then he was there for being the backup point guard.
Once he kind of took over, especially when they decided not to go with the Devante CJ starting lineup, moved Devante grand to the bench, things picked up. CJ last year, just in his pelicans minutes, 24.3 points, 5.8 assists, 4.5 rebounds, 49% shooting from the field, all would have been career highs over full season. He shot a ridiculously high mind on twos. As you mentioned, the mid-rangers were just were there because you even though brain that NCC are living in the mid-range, I don't have to figure out where to go.
I don't think what they did those two. Now, were they going to shoot 52-53% combined? Maybe not, but they're good mid-range shooters on high volume. They're not going to shoot 40%.
At worst, it's going to be mid to high 40s. Like, that's not a fluke with those two guys. Obviously, he's been cooking from their to clowning fools with step-backs in one-handed floaters. Like, that's their game.
So the thing that really intrigues me about what they're going to do defensively, obviously, look, you take this. I got some numbers where you Zachlo. Ready for numbers? Last year, the pelicans, they were obviously bringing CJ at the trade deadline.
They played 26 games with CJ McCollum. They were 13 and 13 in those games. You throw in the two play-in games. That's 15 and 13.
That is a 44 win pace. Oh, look, hey, that's what Vegas has. But then you look at the games with CJ and Brandon Ingram, which is not a very big sample size because Brandon missed some time with some hamstrings. They were 11 and 6 in those 17 games.
They started 1 and 4. They won 10 of their last 12 in the regular season plus the play-in with CJ and Brandon Ingram. You want to include the playoff series against the sons of 6 extra games in the total 23 games. That's a 46 win.
And CJ did not shoot a well in that series. Brandon had a monster. The monster shot. Brandon's incredible.
P.I. arrived to the playoffs, puffed out his chest and was like, oh, yeah, Zion's not here. I'll be the number one option and I'm ready to do it. The one guy going back and looking back at that playoff series, the one guy who I actually really liked, well, I think Brandon was their MVP, was what Larry Nancy had.
Talked to Larry Nancy yesterday and he kind of told us, he told us the, you know, tells I on that his body is a Lamborghini and he needs to treat his body as such. You don't put cheap gas in a Lambo. Very, very good insight there for Mr. Nance.
But he also talked about, there's a lot of lineup versatility on this team where they can do some different things. You know, he mentioned, or Willie Green mentioned, you know, hey, he thought about some lineups with Z at the bottom. I think that's going to depend on, you know, where Z is defensively when he gets bad. And that's going to be hard to get to.
I understand with what JV Nance Hayes and your old basket MVP. Your old basket MVP. Willie Renee Gomez. I mean, but but it's got to be a tool in the toolbox, especially if this kid they drafted Daniels can play and people are really high on him.
So we're gonna get to Daniel in a second. But Nance mentioned, hey, that might be some lineups where Z is out there at the five and or it's just me and Z out there and we're running and going or it's a benchmark unit where CJ is out there running the show and on the five with Jackson at the four and we're running or trades at the four and we're running or he goes who knows, we might throw an eye about there with me, Jackson and Zion or me, JV and Zion. We're just going to kill you on the boards for two or three minutes. Like they can do a lot of different things.
And I think Larry mentioned he got his meniscus cleaned up last year was still kind of dealing with that the end of the season. He said kind of over the summer, I know it's over the summer. Everybody gets better and can jump higher and run faster over the summer. But he's like, I didn't realize how much it was hurting me over the last three years.
As much as we talk about their starting five, I think their closing five is going to change kind of game to game. I think Larry Nance is basically going to be their five to close games, especially when you're in some switchy situations. One of the big adjustments they made in that Phoenix series was kind of switching the JV Nance minutes when eight was killing them. Okay, let's put him.
Let's let's tie Nance to the eight minutes and let JV cook on the key. Once they started to change some things, things got a little bit better. And that's my question is, so if the Zion valentune is too slow and ground bound defensively and offers no ring protection, you can start it and just minimize the amount of minutes it's placed together. Because even Hayes last year, I mean the Hayes valentune is front court was like this weirdo revelation for them and Hayes can switch.
My question for you is regardless of alignment at the front court positions, what do they think of Zion? Is he going to be a switch guy? Is he going to be a drop on the pick and roll guy? Is he like, how can Zion not just be a complete single defensively?
I think it's a lot of that's going to depend on again, we've talked about the shape that he's in, but I think they're still, they still have to figure out where is his conditioning level, where is his defensive? How much is he working on that? He seems to feel like he is again in the best shape, which means he again, everybody's faster, everybody can jump higher, you always feel your best at this point. I think they feel he can switch.
He showed some of that off in the end of the 2021 season. He started to get better in that regard. I think Nance is kind of there as the protector just in case. And when you go to a lineup with, okay, let's just take out JV for Nance.
It's a very switchy line with her. And Nance, that's Taylor made with those. You can't switch with CJ. You have to scramble out of the poster, find ways around it, but if Zion can hang, and if he can just hang, and we saw him get some on, like there was some on-ball switches where they didn't paint against the stay-bank on these defenses.
It wasn't really green back in 2021. They let him go there a little bit. I think if he can just, if he can hang and he can show off how he's a switchable player, things can get really weird and scary at the end of games or how they can defend it again. If they're top 20 top, you know, they're in that 15 to 20 range.
I mean, I really like what they can do. I'm gonna take the L, I hope David Griffin and Trage and Langdon are listening. I'm gonna take the L on the CJ McCollum trade. I was lukewarm to luke cold.
Whatever, whatever, not freezing cold is like luke cold. I'm gonna just make it. I like luke cold. That's fine.
I thought I tell people we get one word a year that we get to make up in our ESPN contract. So yeah, luke cold. I was luke cold. I thought I don't know that they're in a good position to give up what looks to be a lottery pick and a very good player in Josh Hart for a guy who's not gonna help me on defense who's 30 who's gonna sign a big money extension, which he just did.
And kind of for what? And then it came out. Remember the dance part came out like 20 minutes later and I immediately was like, okay, that's helpful. Then he was hurt, but he came back and like, that's helpful.
And I was dead wrong. They first of all, they bet on themselves to make the playoffs and turn that lottery pick into the Bucks pick, which ended up going to Portland instead of their own pick. And they won that bet. They bet on CJ's veteran presence.
They bet on his game, aging well. And this extension, two years, 64 with what's gonna happen with the cap is completely fine. It's not too long. So the length isn't gonna get you.
And yeah, they missed Josh Hart, but I think with Nance and what happened to that pick is the same thing in the Adams, Valentunas, three team mega trade with Memphis and Charlotte. I trade that I liked at the time and defended when defended for both teams, frankly. And that were doubting better because of the Lakers pick that they ended up keeping and drafting Dyson Daniels. They won all these bets.