Kirk Goldsberry

And now, the Low Post. Welcome to the Low Post podcast on a Friday morning. Croatia are through to the round of 16, and the NBA is at its quarter mark, and it's time to take stock, to look around, to zoom out, and no one better to do that with than the king of charts, the god of graphs, former San Antonio Spurs genius, Harvard professor, everything, Kirk Goldsberry, how are you? I'm great, Zach.

Congrats to you and your family on the Croatian triumph getting through to the knockout round. The World Cup is in full swing, too, and I'm thrilled about that, but let's talk about some surprises, right, my guy? Let's talk about some surprises. I got to get a couple of soccer things out of the way first.

Number one, did you notice that Croatia are through to the round of 16? I'm getting the lingo down a little bit, like Croatia are through. I give it away with bad lingo all the time when I'm trying to have a soccer. The jargon is so specific and so different, so English, let's be honest.

I get exposed very quickly when I try to talk about soccer, just because of the vocab. I threw out a nil-nil the other day, nil-nil, but I was really proud of myself. And let me just say this, Canada, Canada, all this time I heard, well, Canada, young up-and-coming team, I thought there could be surprising. Thanks for showing up, Canada.

Thanks for showing up. I needed you to win yesterday against Morocco. I turned on the TV, it was 1-0 Morocco. I looked down, I typed a couple lines in my 10 things off, 2-0 Morocco.

Thanks for showing up, Canada. We have bragging rights on the North American continent. We're the only member of the North American continent to advance to the round of 16. Mexico ended a long streak of success with their failure in the group stage, and Canada, as you alluded to, a disappointing performance as well.

So I have a rule that I try to abide by in the NBA, which is try very hard not to crow when you're right about something, because the next thing you're going to be wrong about is right around the corner. It's coming right around the corner. So if you say, oh, I told you so about this team, it's going to be, I told you so the other way about another team or another player. So that's why I wanted to hit the quarter poll with you and talk about what did we get wrong in the preseason?

What teams have been better, worse, or different than you and I expected going into the season in our sort of preseason predictions. So what did we get wrong? I will see the floor to you. Pick a player, pick a team, pick whatever you want.

Kurt Goldberg, Kurt Goldberg, what did you get wrong? I got a bunch of stuff wrong, and as you said, that's not unusual for me or for any of us who try to do this for a living. But when you look at the standings, I think the answers kind of jump off the page for me and what I thought was going to happen, Zach, when we were sitting here in preseason. The two big ones I'm going to lead with are the Indiana Pacers, who are a pleasant surprise of all pleasant surprises.

We'll talk about them later. But the negative surprise I think we should lead with was on full display last night, in part because the NBA is doing this thing where there's just one game on Thursdays now sometimes. And last night, that wasn't a great game. It was Dallas at Detroit.

And the Mavericks, Zach, are my biggest negative surprise. I expected them to go forward this season to build on that Western Conference final trip last season. And instead, they have come out and just been disappointing. And I thought a lot of that was on full display last night as they gave up 131 points and let Killian Hayes have the game of his life and a bad loss in Detroit.

So my negative surprise is the Dallas Mavericks, Zach. So I didn't have them going forward because I was concerned about how they botched the Dillon Brunson situation completely and lost their second most important player and did not replace him with a ball handler. They replaced him with a very good offensive player in Christian Wood, but not really a ball handler. He jerky his way into some isosports here and there.

But I did have them in a tier. In my top tier in the West, here's how wrong I was. My inner circle of contenders had six teams in it. The three in the West were Clippers.

Okay, I guess the Clippers exist and will at some point have a team that they have on paper. Warriors, who I think are coming around. I'm still pretty confident in the Warriors. And Denver, who just very quietly is rolling at 14 and 7.

Two guys having really sneaky under the radar great seasons are Aaron Gordon and Bruce Brown. Aaron Gordon is shooting like 70% on twos and playing great defense. In the next tier is where I had Dallas. And I think their over-under was something like 48 and a half or 47 and a half.

And my opinion was, that's about right. And I just thought, look, I know the Brunson situation, it's a sunk cost he's gone. I just thought Luka plus shooting plus defense was just a formula for hold the fort until we figure out how to build this next team around Luka. And what's happened is that formula hasn't kind of played out because they really missed the second ball handler.

You know, Dinwiddie's now their second baller. He's been fine, but they really missed Brunson. They have no two-point offense at all. They have no transition offense at all.

I think they, the Mads must think there's a rule that you just can't, the fast racers are like illegal. You have to walk the ball up every single session. And the shooting has not been there. Bullock's in a slump.

Finney Smith broke out a bit last night. And what strikes me watching them and what struck me last night is they had a very fine balance of shooting and defense that really depended on Bullock and Finney Smith being two-way wings. And as soon as you remove one of those guys, and Bullock has been sort of the odd man out in the last couple of games, it feels like they just get a little out of balance and become just that one small change, become one of those teams that's like, well, we have to go offense and sacrifice defense or go defense and sacrifice offense. And they can't kind of thread the needle.

And I agree with you. They're not as good as I thought they would be. And I was wrong on them. What else have you seen?

A lot of what you alluded to. I think if we had done this podcast about a year ago, maybe a little bit later towards all-star break last season, Zach, I think my biggest surprise would have been Dallas' defense specifically. And I thought when Jason Kidd and Sean Sweeney and that staff came in, I didn't have high hopes for the defense. And like the Pelicans this year recently are showing this incredible defense relatively out of nowhere.

It's a remarkable story. And I think you're right about the formula. And it's Luka plus shooting plus defense. The defense has taken a step back and the shooters aren't making shots.

Luka, you know, I had a very pleasant time this summer, Zach, in Cologne, Germany with our own Tim McMahon, drinking some cold spears, watching Luka Doncic at Eurobasket. And I came back and I was the guy saying this guy's going to win MVP and the scoring title. And he hasn't done much to dissuade either of those things. That's what I'm saying.

So the formula, I still think you've framed it perfectly. The formula, the Luka part's great. The non-Luka minutes are not. Every role player outside of Luka and maybe Dinwiddie and maybe Christian Wood have been a disappointment.

And we can talk about specific things, but it manifests mostly in that second thing and that third thing. The shooting hasn't been good. Bullock is a notoriously slow starter from the three-point line. That could turn around.

Maxey could turn around. Tim Hardaway Jr. But if they're all off to slow starts in concert, we're starting to see that efficiency that they harvest a lot of their offensive efficiency from those three-point shots that Luka creates. And they're not going in.

Their offensive efficiency drops. And then, as you mentioned, they haven't quite been able to repeat that great success story of last year's But it's the two second things in your formula, Zach, the shooting from the role player specifically and the defense that I think are driving this negative surprise. Josh Green is playing great. Great.

And has made the case for more minutes and maybe even a starting role. And their lineup data is all over the place. Like everyone, the Wood thing, the Wood minutes have become kind of an obsession among Mavs fans. Jason Kidd's already said, look, we've got Cantankerous, Jason Kidd.

The over-under is like on 15 and a half games. And I think that was like that line was set right correctly, the line I just made up. Because he's Cantankerous and I don't want to answer his question. Their lineup data is really interesting.

So Luka, Wood, Cleva, that trio, so a second big man alongside Wood to kind of protect him defensively, has been really good, destroying opponents. Wood is the only big man on the floor with Luka. So you've got to have Luka or else the whole team falls apart. Wood and Luka with Wood at center, no other big man, has a slight plus scoring margin, really good on offense, running water on defense, about what you'd expect.

Weirdly, given that reality, Wood, Dinwiddie, Donchich, which is really the way they can ease the burden on Luka if they even want to do that by having both Dinwiddie and Wood on the floor with him, is getting destroyed in like less than 100 minutes with a tiny sample size. So I still think they need to try that a little bit more, but it hasn't worked so far. And Hardaway can't make a shot. Jabail's not even playing.

It's just, it feels, it feels so joyless. Like their games just feel like, it just feels like work. It just looks like work. It feels like work.

And it's just not fun to watch. It's fun to watch because Luka's a genius and he's brilliant and he's no looking and doing all these fakes and all this stuff. But the whole thing just feels like a slog, man. It's funny to say that.

I had in my notes that there's a bad vibe and nobody wants to hear me talk about vibes, but you set me up. I do think it's joyless. And I'll go a step further. It's starting to remind me of those very mechanical rocket teams with the hyper usage Harden.

And a lot of us thought it was cool at first and then got bored with it. And it was slow and it was heliocentric and all that stuff. I also want to come back. He did a great job of nailing this out of the gate.

I think the Jalen Brunson departure is big. This team, as Tim McMahon loves to say, has two dudes. I can't do his accent. Has two dudes that can dribble the ball.

I mean, and when Spencer did what he gets ejected in the Golden State game, you have Josh Green trying to play point guard. That's a Peter Principle situation as good as he's been. When Luka's on the bench, there's no Jalen Brunson out there. And I think the people around the match would say, hey, Spencer's done a good job filling that role a little bit for Brunson.

But the old Spencer role, the old Spencer didn't let him roll from last year. Now we have a hole there. And to McMahon's point, there's only two guys that can really initiate offense on this team. The hope now is that Kemba Walker comes in and can service that role.

And that's a big hope. And you can find people who are very optimistic about that in a very limited role. Kemba can do it. And then you'll find people around the league who say, dude, it's Kemba Walker.

I'm sorry to say this, but he's over the hill as a playmaker in this league. But I think the Brunson thing that you brought up earlier is a big part of why the non-Luka playmaking situations have taken a big drop. And Van McMahon and I have done the Brunson thing to death. We don't need to address it anymore.

The Kemba thing, look, everybody loves Kemba Walker. I love Kemba Walker. He is a four-time All-Star. He's had an amazing career.

He says he's healthy. He came on this podcast last year before the season in New York and said he was healthy, feeling better than ever. And I have no doubt that he's going to go there, just like he did in New York, and had a couple of monster games. I've got like two 40-point games in New York almost in a row last year.

And it's just a matter of getting his knees hold up. And the track record suggests the answer is no. The fact that he was unsigned until after Thanksgiving suggests the league at large thinks the answer is no. I hope everyone's wrong.

I really do. But it feels like a Hail Mary to me. And look, Tim and I have joked that the Mavs are team-holding pattern, that they know this can't be the end vision around Luka, that they know the clock is ticking until he needs to see something closer to the end vision. They have actually two first-round picks to trade this season, even though they all went to the Knicks and the Porzingis deal.

I just don't know. I don't know what the deal is. I don't know that there is a short-term deal. I don't know that they have the players that really anyone's dying to have.

And maybe this season just becomes actually a real holding pattern season. I don't know. But I know if they make the top six, no one's psyched to play that team and that dude in playoffs. No, and a couple other things.

I think, you know, one thing is, if you look at how they started last year, and I don't know if this team is sort of established enough to go back into the previous year and take away stuff. But they started, I have it here. They were 10-9 at the end of November last year. That's essentially where they are this year.

They were 17-18 at the end of December, okay? Like the Celtics. Started out poorly. Mediocre.

And then the Dallas Mavericks went 35-12 after January 1st and before the playoffs last year. And all allowed for some optimism in Dallas because of that that happened last year. And especially because of that thing, the shooting luck, some cold starts. But dude, they're 1-8 on the road.

I mean, I can argue both cases here. It's so early. The signals are messy. But one thing I do want to point out is that, yeah, they did this last year, and then they became the best team in the Western Conference, not named the Warriors, in the second half of the season, and got all the way to the Western Conference Finals.

So I think there is a glass half-full version here. I do want to extend that Rockets analogy, though. The closest that that Harden team ever got was when they added Chris Paul, a second person who could drive the car. And I know Chris has been in the news in the last 24 hours, but I'm alluding to a time where Chris Paul was an incredible second option in the Houston team that had the high usage Harden, heliocentric, shooters, five-out thing going on that the Mavs are kind of doing now.

Where's that coming from? Because as much as I like him, he's been okay this year. They're missing that piece. Yeah, they are.

And they also, they've played more close games than anybody in the NBA. The Mavs are in crunch time seemingly every night, including last night at Detroit, which went to overtime. They only have two blowout wins this season. And as you know, blowouts are more predictive of like, okay, this is a real championship team, championship contending team, than eking out crunch time win after crunch time win.

I mean, Phoenix has eked out a million crunch time wins. They also have a lot of blowouts. Like, they've been graded both in the last couple of years. We're going to get to them in a second.

Their only blowouts, the Mavs, are the second game of the season against Memphis. Memphis was on a back-to-back on the road. The Mavs were rested. Good win.

Memphis is really good. And against Denver with Jokic and Murray both resting, or out. I think they were both sick at the same time. So other than that, they played more close games than anybody in the NBA.

And it just feels like a slog. Hey, sports fans. The ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network in service.

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Sign up for Activate now. Can I pick the next team slash set of teams? Wrong is not the right word, but because I had two of these three teams. I'm going to name three right now.

Two of the three were in my inner circle of contenders. So the fact that they're good or trending toward good is not a surprise. The third was on the next tier down and their fans, boy, they let me have it for not putting them in the inner circle of contenders where they think they belong and they are proving right now. Maybe they do.

Those three teams have this in common. All of them, all of them were embroiled in such crazy preseason drama that it made you think, or not even just preseason drama, that it made you wonder, assume that something in their ecosystem must be off. That these events, you cannot experience these events and not have some negative effect on your chemistry, your culture, something. And to some degree, all three of these teams are actually making that a really interesting discussion.

Like, does it actually matter? So here are the three teams. Boston. Whose coach is suspended right before the season in a workplace sexual scandal that we've talked about on many other podcasts before.

Robert Williams is injured. Gallo is injured. Boy, how can they? They've got to play.

That's got to. I remember saying, it can't help. It can't help. And they're just destroying the entirely.

Golden State. Draymond Green punches Jordan Poole in the face. Knocks him down. It gets leaked to the media.

That seems bad. Must have some effect on your chemistry. They send Draymond Green away. Flash forward.

Yeah, the Warriors are only 11-11. But they're trending right. Steve Kerr's made some adjustments in the rotation, putting Draymond, and sometimes Wiggins, and sometimes Klay, and sometimes Steph with Ben Shunitz. Particularly, there's one with Draymond that is really playing well.

And they seem to have stabilized. And Draymond himself is playing outstanding on both ends of the floor. And Phoenix, who has the best record in the West, the second-best point differential in the league, and their drama was at the very top with Robert Sarver, and then the Game 7 humiliation against Dallas, where I remember saying, you just never know when a game like that wakes you. The Aiton situation, the comments about Aiton and Monty Williams about, oh, yeah, we haven't talked this whole summer.

all the all the fireworks and drama there jay crowder jay crowder out like i'm out trade me cam johnson's injured chris paul's injured not not talking to chris paul's injured we're gonna leave it there um and and all of these teams it's got it's got to affect them they've got to have some effect and it's like maybe maybe that stuff matters way less i mean obviously every team is different every roster is different maybe that stuff just doesn't matter as much as we'd like to think of us because two of those teams are cruising along and the third one seems to be finding its footing and again it's not that i was wrong about any of them i think i had them properly rated i still think phoenix in a playoff series against full throttle clippers if they ever exist full throttle warriors full throttle nuggets phoenix is i might pick all three of those things over phoenix and i haven't seen full throttle clippers they may not ever happen but but they're really damn good like you can pick either of these three teams it's not that i was wrong about them but like you worked for a team does this stuff just maybe not matter it's interesting oh it matters and i think one of the things these three teams have in common too zach is pretty good leadership in the front offices i think that they are able to absorb chaos in phoenix because they have james jones i want to talk about that monty williams is also just the coolest coach around and can deal with like a jay crowder situation which was like you said one of many and he's just he just is such a level-headed presence you know brad and boston able to navigate the chaos and the underrated thing is my friend will hardy also leaving i i was very concerned about boston too in the preseason because of the respect i had uh for specifically will and his ability to coach and if all the stuff that went down with email happened a few weeks earlier a month or two earlier with hardy's probably the coach of the selfish uh and they didn't have will to go to and missoula obviously has done a fantastic job but the organizational culture and credits the players as well in these situations for having resiliency in the face of chaos um but let's start with the sons because like my beloved spurs of old uh they'll never be in the a block of nba today they'll never be on the a block of first take but despite my vociferous if people could hear me on the pre-show nba today calls where i'm like do we have to talk about the lakers again they made a whole bit out of me saying on tv can we talk about the bucks can we talk about that's like a whole bit now so yeah look someone has to fight the good fight and sometimes it's me and they'll never be an a block but they're starting they might have the best record in the west for three straight years like those old spurs teams hey we're not and people like almost disdain talking about them even in podcast media uh it's like they're boring and and to me it's a sign of organizational strength when you can have that resilience in the face of chaos but davian leads play more minutes than chris paul this year and the biggest thing i'd be wrong about if you had told me that with the eight in chaos with the cam injury is that this team is still the best offense in the western conference right now with all the talk that the sacramento kings have gotten in rightfully so for that high-powered fast-paced offense and the numbers still say phoenix has a better offensive efficiency at the quarter way mark zach and they've done it with an mvp candidate level performance from devin booker who deserves credit for for taking a leadership role but the offensive number is the thing i would have been wrong about here specifically in phoenix uh and that is driving them again to one of the best records in the nba credit to booker monty and everybody's playing minutes for that team yeah monty williams is you know i think i voted him coach for the year the last two years i know i voted him year the typical one as stable a force as there is atop any organization uh as a coach um but but still for them to be their second in offense and sixth in defense second in net rating behind only boston despite all of the stuff that we've talked about you said they're they're kind of boring i mean we don't think they're boring to watch in the quote-unquote discourse they're not salacious even in these scandals you're alluding to the starboard thing was salacious but when i said boring i mean to like this generic national media conglomerate the quote-unquote apparatus of nba uh discourse that the a-block point was they're boring to the people who determine the a-blocks and no offense to my beloved producer you know look i mean the eight thing is what it is right they made him go out and get a deal and matched it clearly something went on there they were they were not they soured on him last season after going out of their way the year they made the finals talk about how proud they were of him adapting to a kind of secondary screen and roll defense rebound um role on the team you know he plays only 14-15 minutes whatever it is in game seven gets pulled there's drama there the last two weeks of deandre ayton has been maybe the best deandre ayton we've ever seen in the nba he is allergic to free throws and in four of his last five games he's attempted at least seven free throws um he is rolling hard to the rim they're running these side pick and rolls with him and booker with no other player on that side of the floor he's just diving to the rim dunking yeah he still spins away from contact sometimes he has a soft touch so it doesn't matter that much defensively he's super engaged he's just i said in the offseason like i wish the troi had gone after deandre ayton before they got jalen duran in the draft i thought he was a great fit there i would bet i just think deandre ayton look he's not a sexy player he may never be an a plus on either end of the floor but he's like a solid a minus b plus at almost every part of the game he's playing really well and book you know he told my buddy i'm not really in the mvp discussion hey man 51 points following up a 44 or whatever he's now a 29 a game six assists five boards 49 shooting 38 on threes 54 on twos the suns for the season are plus 156 with devin booker on the floor and minus one with devin booker on the bench if he's not in the mvp discussion a you need to change the discussion and b it's a sign of how crowded and amazing this mvp race is going to be knock on wood if everybody stays healthy but this team they just know who they are they know how to play they do not make mistakes they run their stuff they defend like all hell they make precise rotations they are just a machine of precision i love the point i would say spacing starts at the rim and when you have a rim running big and he has good hands soft touch around the basket you can you can open up the three-point line for everybody and to borrow a term from jaylen rose the suns have really beautiful basketball geometry like they threaten the defense at all three levels of the scoring area um but i think ayton's emergence as the team's sort of second leading shooter and rim threat opens up space uh for their for their shooters and especially devin booker and again i don't sound like a broken record but if you had told me they would have been putting up these numbers without chris paul one of the great quarterbacks of modern basketball um i would have been totally wrong about that i would say no way um and that's why i do think devin booker very least has got to be the western conference right now um and this team is right back to where they were the last two years despite all of the chaos that we've already covered in this segment look i don't i haven't sat down and done all the all-star candidates i know it's an absolute bloodbath to get in in both conferences you could probably make a list of 25 guys in every conference in both conferences for 12 spots i just know that if phoenix has the best record in the west and it might not i think it'll probably be close but if they have the best record in the west they need to have ayton and bridges get a look as a second all-star i mean obviously devin is a lock uh chris paul's not gonna make it because he's off talking about all the great great players every 30 game it's gonna be hard for them to get in i just think they're gonna have to be on your long list if this team is this good with this many guys missing including their second best player presumably ayton and bridges for what they are doing deserve to be on your long list of all-star candidates at the very least they are playing that well and bridges is just bridges is a mid-range machine he's a transition finisher the defense is what it is like those two guys you can talk about booker and monty williams in the ecosystem those two guys at numbers two and three on the team right now are playing outstanding yeah i'm glad you brought up bridges 50 40 90 candidate by the way i mean yeah and you know he's getting 16 points a game he is one of the if not the prototype three and d guy in pro basketball right now uh he blocks shots he gets steals he's a smart willing defender he's he's just such a great weapon to have on that side and we haven't even talked about the defense hasn't dropped off and and that's incredible and then eight making over 60 of his shots so you're exactly right whether they're stars or not all other people fight it out for that but as a club the phoenix suns basketball team has two incredible players right below devon booker right now and right below chris paul uh and when cam comes back like again that jaylen rose thing the geometry here is so beautiful you have the three and d you have the point guard the superstar score and you have the rim running big it's just there's a lot of positionless basketball but they still have positions in phoenix and all the guys those positions are really good at their jobs uh and it's fun to watch and i didn't mean to say they're boring in that sense i love watching them um and they're gonna be a problem because they're not whole right now zach and arguably the best team in the west and i do think crowder will get moved it may be a situation where they're just waiting for december 15th obviously there were reports that they were close to a deal a couple weeks ago it didn't happen uh allegedly it was a three-team deal i've heard all sorts of different intel one team i would keep an eye on and any crowder trader really any trade like that butting in is the rockets with eric gordon um just keep an eye on it uh i'm not saying he would be going to any specific place i'm just saying keep an eye on it um and and so they'll get something for crowder and cam johnson coming back is big because i do think they have recognized internally we can't just be this team that is completely completely dependent on mid-range shots in the playoffs we need to have more tools in the toolbox and cam johnson's tool is we're going to shoot a crap ton of threes and more by our standards they'll shoot more there's six in offensive rebounding after being a bottom 10 team for years and years part of that is aiden part of that is they're kind of random scrap guys like tory craig bismac biombo jock lando who's kind of on the fringe of the rotation now i like the fact and with aiden's free throws we'll see if that persists but they've found more sources of offense and i think they need to do there also by the way you watch the play and i looked at the numbers i was watching the other night they are the best transition defense team in the nba they never ever mess it up there are never minnesota recently we should talk about them because i was wrong about them they have five possessions a game where somebody shoots a three and both the shooter and whoever else is at the top of the arc around the arc just stand there like oh look a shot oh i wonder if it's gonna go in oh it missed oh two guys just ran behind me because we didn't move our first step in transition is so oh a gunk hey compare to those guys there's nothing more seductive in the sport of basketball than that one or two seconds where the ball is in hanging in the air the ball is tipped we're either getting three points or there's going to be some weird clang and as a fan of the sport i love that moment i love that suspense and we get it 100 or 200 times a game sometimes and it's just great to watch these jump shots will they go in or not so to the minnesota guys i feel you it's a very it's a very distracting part of basketball probably should be doing something else as a player anthony edwards i love you you're gonna you're gonna be a future superstar when d'angelo russell shoots a three on one side of the court a assume it's going to miss and b get your ass back on defense because the other team is leaking out and the guy in that anthony edwards position on phoenix is getting back every single time if you look at cleaning the glass they allow the fewest transition opportunities in the entire league and they have a low points per possession on those opportunities they just nail all the little things and look my inner circle of contenders at the start of the season was six teams boston milwaukee phoenix denver clippers i think philly i should probably remember that no mass no no and phoenix was one tier below i was wrong about that phoenix again i have my playoff suspicions a little bit but they're better than i thought they were gonna be wait that's the last question i'm gonna ask you had to say the 2021 suns playoff run versus the 2022 suns playoff run which one do you think is a better sort of uh example of what we might see in 2023 playoffs well there are people who would discount the 2021 suns playoff run right oh anthony davis was injured kawaii was injured um you know the nuggets were out of gas and banged up and on and on i just all that is true you just gotta win you gotta win the games in front of you they roasted the nuggets um the clipper series was probably more competitive than i expected to be but the clippers just they're good man like everyone's sort of down on the clippers right now and i get why like the kawaii thing is weird he never plays they have missed kawaii almost the entire season paul george's missed some games canard miss a million games guys are injured all the time they're 13 and 10 like they've had an easy schedule but they find in whereas other teams we don't have to say their names suffer one injury and it's like well how can you possibly expect them to win any games you know blah blah blah um so so i think that run to the finals is a legit run and they won two games um in the finals it took one of the greatest final performances of my lifetime to end that series and yannis all credit to him what a monster masterpiece he put up in game six that year we still don't talk enough about let's go back and watch it that game five in phoenix the lob that drew holiday through yannis with like 10 seconds left in the game when the bucks were i believe leading by one and could have just slowed down gotten fouled and played the free throw game and drew holly was like how about instead of that i run the ball off the sideline and throw like a 30-foot lob to a guy who's a bad free throw shooter in general not in that series but in general and just kind of see what happens like maybe it's a backward and they get a bucket the other way maybe like that is one of the all-time crazy slash ballsy plays and if it goes wrong phoenix might be up three two in that series that was an insane moment it was yeah it's world cup season and we're seeing how soccer can have these moments with these goals to change the whole team's ability to come out of the group stage for instance but that was the closest like i could think of that moment you just described it was just an inflection point because it was either going to be a dumb play that could cost you a final series or as you alluded to the highlight that we got all pictured in our heads that one and janice janice's retreating block on eight oh my god i forgot wait he recovered like a defensive back from the elbow to the rim and then one other one was the eight mom play that series which was just a phenomenal out of bounds play that was against the clippers that was that was game two against the clippers and they're still mad about demarcus cousins in defense on the inbounds passer on that play um yeah but anyway i think the suns i'm with you going back to that point the 2021 suns run you can argue that's who this team is and last year there are people who can give you a good excuse why that happened last year and i'm not going to say which side i'm on to that one but i do think the bones of this team are so good and so diverse uh their position on both ends of the court to win games uh i think the suns are a real threat to come out of the west again um that play was amazing by the way how does anybody watch soccer i'm watching that croatia belgium game yesterday i couldn't even watch it was it was unbearable what's that guy's name lukaku oh yeah yeah of course when he hit the post oh it's so scary i i just don't know how i guess i guess i don't follow like the leagues i guess the leagues are just like there's a lot of games so every game doesn't feel like this life or death situation these world cup games are just absolutely agonizing just the win probability can switch in two seconds from a very big number one way to a bit and that doesn't happen in our sport very often uh the drew all a lot was was a big inflection point but not like you know the foul it's the u.s fan the foul on gareth bale in the 75th or 80th minute whatever that was against wales i was like oh my god that's a goal like that's and then when we're ahead against iran just hanging on just knowing that one it's all let's take this one shot to end the whole usa world cup run uh it's pretty it's pretty gut-wrenching back by the way by the way i mentioned um we're not going to talk about this yet because it's just it's not it's not quite time i mentioned um than bookers insane plus minus stats nobody wants to hear this i don't think because i i guess there's something like voter fatigue um the nuggets with nicole jokic on the floor are plus 173 that's a big number it's bigger than bookers plus 156 the nuggets with nicole jokic off the floor are minus 124 what the hell is going on he's averaging 23 10 and 9 on 62 percent shooting 69 on twos you may not want him in the mvp conversation you may be tired of talking to him talking about him you may think he's a ground-bound plotting whatever on defense he's going to be in the mvp conversation whether you like it or not and he's doing a different way he's not shooting as much and he has two of his best friends back out there uh not to mention the emergence of bones island but they just spread the floor with incredible scoring and who better zach than nicole jokic to have those kinds of tools in the toolbox on offense and he's demonstrated that he can win games without scoring a bunch of points and that offense is simply put one of the best in the league and that's not a surprise we all knew if these guys were coming healthy with this offense now those on off numbers are kind of disappointing because this team should be deeper than that the negative one i'm alluded to specifically like steph had a similar thing going on earlier this season like he still does steph was in the game they had a rating of eight or whatever that's that's elite uh and when he was off they had a negative 15 that rating or something i haven't checked that recently but to me that's one of the mvp criteria is i go to that like okay when this guy's in and we all do the same thing this would be the third best night rating in the week when he's out this would be the worst night because that's what curry was at yokich is at bookers doing something similar um and i do think that's a big part of the mvp discussion they may have to run the non yokich offense through vlato chanchar at this point because they're just they're just running out of ideas and vlato is flying around getting things done vlato sorry vlato you mentioned indiana as a team you were wrong about i think that's like we were all kind of wrong about indiana they're clearly a decent team um tyree saliburton just never turns the ball over i don't really know how that's possible um let's talk about a team kind of on the flip side of that equation in in their division a team that i appear to have been right about and again i don't want to crow about it because we're wrong about everything this whole podcast we're wrong about uh and that's the chicago bulls who are 9 and 12 and bill simmons on his podcast this week floated a trade idea that i had alluded to and talked about directly actually i think even before the season i mentioned maybe the bulls maybe the lakers rather hold their ammo and see what happens with the team like the bulls see what happens with the team like the wizards i mentioned to rosen specifically and according to twitter i haven't gotten a chance to listen yet bill your podcast is going to be my peloton podcast today um the trade us on twitter was russ in both picks one with light protection i don't i think for rosen and vlato chavish i can tell you 100% for sure the possibility if it would ever come up not that they would do it let me be clear just like you look around the league like any responsible team would and say okay we know the pacers options there the utah option was there the spurs option doesn't excite us very much in terms of where can we dump russ and one pick two picks no picks whatever uh and and jovan buha at the athletic reported yesterday that you know they're more leaning towards a more conservative pick the trade the lakers are with none and beverly maybe one pick and his reporting is on the ball generally so maybe this whole thing is nonsense anyway but the both picks for the bulls guys is certainly something that their brain trust is thought about otherwise they'd be irresponsible and the reaction i saw on twitter was boy why would the bulls why would the bulls do this this is a horrible trade for the bulls and it seems horrible because they just went half in not all in but somewhat in to build this team the team was in first place 40 games into the season last year whatever 15 whatever the hell it was they're minus six per 100 possessions with levine derosan and vucevic on the floor after being after being outscored by a tiny margin last year outscored by a tiny margin doesn't seem bad but when you build your team around three all-stars and you talk about how you build your team around three all-stars all-stars all-stars you just say all-star a million times so it seeps into the range of your fans oh my god we have three all-stars you know um and and you're playing dead even let alone getting outscored by six points per session with those three all-stars on the floor that's not good levine is coming up in history he's got a giant contract he hasn't looked quite the same vucevic is on an expiring deal is anyone that excited to get nicole vucevic on an expiring they were that's not on the expiring but we know he's a limited defender and like this idea that he's a great three-point shooter it's just not true he had one great season and after that it's like 34 31 32 you can see teams just don't care they don't care if he's open on some nights he'll make them pay on some nights he'll pass up a lot of open threes or some open threes anyway does he have a lot of trade value derosan has real trade value rosen's also eligible for an extension after this season vucevic is eligible for an extension i believe already many many people in the league have floated the bulls as a well they owe this top four protected pick to orlando in the disastrous trade there's some interesting guys at the top of the draft this year should they should they blow it up should they just get out of this business of vucevic derosan and tank those lakers picks are valuable like i don't think that's a crazy awful trade for the bulls those extensions decisions with those two guys are will be telling um for chicago they would have to make a blow it up decision as an organization before they can offer derosan an extension so maybe that's not so telling in the offseason it will be though i don't know man i never really saw it with this team i know lonzo's the connector lonzo's the guy who makes it go without him they're shooting in defense i know i know also though you keep hearing when i talk to executives around the league well the bulls need to pick a lane the bulls can't sit here in the middle they need to pick a lane it's like they just picked a lane they made these moves in 2020 the summer of 2021 that's like yesterday they just picked a lane are they going to veer to the other side of the highway already like that is that hurts as a front office if you wave the white flag on this team 18 months or whatever after building it 14 15 16 whatever it is that is that's an omelet on your face man that's not an egg that's an omelet to extend the road metaphor they did pick a lane but they got a flat tire and you don't just keep driving with a flat tire you got to do something here um and and the roadmap i think we touched on indiana and i'll add cleveland to this oh i want to hit cleveland because i was wrong about cleveland oh i'll give you a setup i think one of the things with cleveland last year they turned the corner right they won 31 percent against two years ago 54 percent last year 64 percent this year but but the key things that i think when the pick a lane discussion comes up the thing that cleveland got as they went from a 31 percent winning team to a 54 percent is they got an identity then mobley jared allen oh my god this is a defense we have a defense we don't know what we're going to do arms we have arms everywhere and we're putting up when we're healthy top five defensive numbers let's build around that i think the pacers are going to go from 31 percent last year to about 50 percent this year let's say but they got an identity they have this incredible backcourt of young guys and now they have a clear team building endeavor in front of them how do we build around these things cleveland has a clear team building endeavor we know who we are we picked a lane but we also have a brand identity to work with you know and cleveland we have these defenders in indiana these other eastern conference teams that are on the road map to success they have a brand they have an identity i still don't know what chicago's trying to be good at as an analyst i don't know what they what they think they can get to i have always been a butchovic critic although when i mapped this shot chart he had a beautiful grantland era shot chart because this guy when you're still shooting 20 quitters he was great at that to be clear like he's a good player and prime vucevich was a really good player the defensive limitations are what they are he's just not as special on offense and as a shooter as i think people make him out to be he's just fine he's a good post player he never gets fouled he's three-point shot image he's just okay he's not like amazing no and if you pay a center in 2022 a lot of money that player better be good at defense period that's that's what i think okay it's it's it's the number one job requirement for a high-paid center in pro basketball right now and he is a great shooter he's good rebounder but he's not a rim protector so i think their defensive identity is always lack because of that and i'll put that on any center in any that's their that's their job and then on offense i still don't know can you can you build a great offense around tomorrow there's people like our friend bob garis and some of my friends at the spurs that say yeah just iso demar have you seen the numbers just iso iso iso just run he should have the highest usage in the league he should do this well they haven't really done that uh and they're not good at offense and not good at defense when you take the 10 000 foot view their off ball defense is just a train wreck and i don't know where they're going they i think i'm leaning forward this time to at least consider a quote-unquote blowing it up zach in chicago well again like people stopped at the trade bill mentioned i don't think which has a ton of trade value de rosen has some but those two first round picks are really really valuable picks like that that's not a crazy trade the bulls the bulls play things pretty close to the best so i don't know right now what their mindset is i don't think the league at large and i'm asked other teams knows what their mindset is my assumption has been it's too painful and too embarrassing to bail on this team so soon after trading you know the franz wagner pick another pick out the door wendell carter jr who's just fly better than vucevic right now uh after trading all of that for de rosen and vucevic and they didn't really end up trading that much for de rosen but but still um that it would be too painful too quick too embarrassing i guess that's still my assumption but i'm starting to rethink it and part of the reason i'm starting to rethink it is you know look the the orlando detroit san antonio houston and probably charlotte quintet is going to be hard to beat in the tankathon sweep six but you can get to six right you talk to get to six you talk to get to six if they wanted to and i don't i don't think the reverse of that scenario but that's a different discussion for a different day um and you know i mentioned this one when minnesota traded everything for gobert and atlanta traded a little less than everything for your buddy john de murray i think part of what's going on with these trades is teams think we can go all in or mostly in and if it fails we can quickly pivot and make the reverse trade with another team who's desperate to go all in and maybe chicago can look at the landscape and find a deal like that that kind of resets for them and i don't know i don't know what they're going to do but i know that things are dispiriting enough now that they at least have to start having internal discussions about okay where are we here what's the big picture yeah i don't think there's a bright future on that picture and you know they can trade for rousseau it can even look at trades aquavine um if they really want to start a rebuild they can't i like that concept of that reverse trade and they can sort of get back some of that stuff with some of these trade pieces and whether it's the lakers or another team like i do think minnesota might start thinking like that too it's like oh we can hit the edit undo button sort of i don't know they can't they can't trade cat now this season because he's on the supermax i didn't say trade cat what are you talking about but i'm just saying like i do like that concept you brought up zach of justifying some of these trades it's like oh yeah there's an edit undo concept here where we can maybe do the thing in reverse and we could some of our own draft assets control z command c whatever control windows guy or an apple guy i just sometimes you don't even remember your hands just remember it subconsciously and you don't really you don't really remember like what the thing is um just just control whatever command command controller i can't even identify which is which um minnesota is a team that's worse than i thought i don't really want to talk about them that much except i will say i'm interested to see how they look without cat because it's not great to lose a player so good in one of the greatest shooting big men if not the greatest of all time it's obviously not great injury analysis is this came up last year and i had to tweet out a reminder of dirk novitski's existence to the planet uh and dirk novitski shot harder shots than carl anthony towns has ever shot in his life and he he got to the same efficiency level so just a short tangent there zach i'm here to defend dirk novitski's honor i am a a dirk acolyte of many many many decades um at this point but injury analysis is boring in the sense that it's usually like this is bad for the team like what does it mean that so and so is out it's bad like it's not great they'd rather have him i am interested to see how they do because part of the bonus of that kind of trade is you can pivot into this very ready-made identity of okay we'll just like the jazz play except we don't have as much shooting as the jazz we may actually have somehow less playmaking than the jazz like when anthony edwards found gobert for a lob it's kind of awkward bob at the end of their winning against memphis i was like oh my god it's a miracle anthony edwards and they dunked it he actually dunked it it was amazing um if they can get tory and prince healthy and get jimmy daniel healthy and get honor roll shooting wise i think they'll be fine but they need time for this team to gel and now they have six weeks or four weeks or five weeks or whatever it ends up being less of less of that time i thought they would just come out of the gate as a regular season wins machine i didn't like the trade i said on tv the day it happened i am literally in disbelief that's the word i disbelief at how much they give up for gobert but i thought at the very least they'll win a ton of regular season games and that hasn't been the case so far no i i was not a happy person with that trade from minnesota and i didn't expect them to be very good to be honest i think they gave up the underestimated part of the assets deserve the headline in my opinion uh but some of the human beings that left minnesota uh are they're missing too and the offense just isn't good enough right now uh they're losing the minutes with gobert i mean you pay that much for a guy and he comes in your negative team he's on the floor right now i just don't i don't know what happens there i'm not i don't like watching them um but i am with you it'll be interesting to see if they have like a more sort of modern traditional one big lineup can they find something uh with space because space has been the problem and anthony edwards well documented frustrations in that department um i just don't get why that's more space why that's really the case because they have carl towns who's the second greatest we'll say second greatest shooting and gobert starting a gobert spot last year was jared vanderbilt who has limited i mean he's shooting these little corner frees every now and then for utah but it's not like he was facing idlers anyway um i thought they would be a little better than this the gobert trade is like almost every trade that is divisive and or unpopular you can find some people around the league who will be like i kind of see what they're going for like i might have made that deal like the sabonis haliburton one is a good example like i thought people were way too i didn't like that trade for sacramento i thought it was a win for indiana i also thought people were like unfair in how much they railed against the kings you can find people around the league like no i just want this is really good it'll work there this one no i don't think i found anyone who's like that's actually a good trade here's a hot take for you that's actually a good trade for minnesota i don't think i found anyone around the league who liked that trade for them no i think that's that's that's correct i think if you would have said two less first round draft picks it would have still darned a lot of skepticism uh and they gave stuff so many but let's end let's end with the calves yes um who i i had the calves i had the calves if you asked me before the season to rank the east list the six locked playoff teams and the play-in teams i had cleveland atlanta at seven and eight in the play-in um that's gonna be wrong cleveland is better than that cleveland is is currently 14 and eight they are seventh in offense and second in defense they have the third best scoring margin in the league um interestingly their big four is actually a slight negative together so far on the court they're destroying people when it's just garland and destroying people when it's just mitchell um they they and they haven't had kevin love recently they haven't had rubio at all uh they missed dean wade for a while he's back and starting laver coming off the bench i think it's the right move for them short term and long term uh they just look like a legit really good team that's that's a tier above where i thought they were gonna be my question for you because i think you were higher on them than me you were right about them i was wrong to a degree are they are they a title contender because that's the kind of hot debate i see a lot of analytics centric people being like well look at the story market this is a true blue like i heard i was listening to the ringer nba show last week and i can't remember if it was rob mahoney or dustin barrier i'm sorry guys your voices sound similar one of them was like no the calves are here like they're a title contender and i hadn't gotten there yet despite the numbers where are you i love boston and i love milwaukee and i think they deserve a little more respect right now for roadblocks to this team that i think will get there next year um i just don't think they're quite as good as those teams a whole milwaukee which we still haven't seen i mean chris is just coming back coming back tonight and if you're looking at the numbers i don't know how you get to a world where the celtics aren't the favorite um to come out of the east unless you think the bucks are the favorites come out of the east because that takes a little blind faith analytically right now because we haven't seen them whole so i love cleveland the only way you're gonna get me to say something negative about cleveland is what you just did to me i don't think they're quite a title but i love them and if i was wrong about something within the cleveland ecosystem zach it was the donna mitchell piece he's been outstanding that thing i was skeptical about that because as i mentioned earlier in the podcast the vibe they built there was sort of this grit and grind over respect another uh this defense yeah be careful be careful now i'm the guy who owns the tony allen shirt okay be careful now but they built this like we're the most physical gum defense in the league right and i was skeptical of donovan mitchell who if you watch the playoffs would come in and fit especially with that identity uh and as you've already mentioned the defense hasn't really fallen off at all and in fact now they have what they didn't have last year when they won 54 percent of their games is a guy who can go get you a bucket in crunch time uh and i think that is a huge piece i think that makes them one of the top six or seven teams in the nba like the phoenix suns i love the way they have that geometry they have all their bases covered on the court if there's a weakness it's probably at the three and four positions um they still don't have rubio come back and i think they may have a move in there but regardless if you're a cows fan i think you're set up for the 2020 so that's my point with this team who cares almost what this is same with the pacers hey congratulations you guys won 31 percent of your games two years ago now you're 64 percent and people are talking about you as a contender that's fantastic news and the best news about it is in the next five years i still think they're gonna they have a lot of room to get better and actually win and be a championship you mentioned crunch time the dog initial has been sensational for cleveland he's he's on the fringes i think of the mvp discussion this isn't a scorcher but a lukewarm to you know don't touch the stove take i kind of trust darius garland with the ball late in games more than i trust michael i love darius garland i think he's a better passer he's a better pull up three-point shooter he's obviously not as physical as a straight line driver north south athlete finisher at the rim i just trust him to make the right decision almost every time he's having 23 points and eight assists shooting 42 percent on threes just 47 percent if you'd like that to be better i've loved he's getting the line five times again that's a career by far i've loved what i've seen from garland this year and i just feel like he's gonna be if he's not already one of those guys who's just comfortable late in close games because of everything you can do offensively he just has a good cadence and rhythm and calm to his game i really really trust him not as much as i trust luca moderich who i would trust with my life at this point but i trust i just love darius garland um that's not a sport i guess i remember i was writing about them and of course you've had this happen a million times too you get an assignment okay i gotta write about the calf so of course they go on this west coast road trip and just lay eggs over and over again and come home i'm watching the game it's the day before my piece that anoints them as the next best young team in the eastern conference comes out and they lose to minnesota at home but in that game darius garland i think donald mitchell wrestling darius garland i think had 50 points uh and hit to your point he was like one of these guys like reggie miller uh not quite i'm not giving him reggie miller stats but remember when reggie was at the end of the game it's not even an eight points nine seconds whatever it is just the guy's like oh my god like this guy's a problem like the game's not over it's that guy's out there yeah and he did that to minnesota he still ended up losing but some of the shots and plays he was making at the end of that game i was like i had that same reaction i was like and this guy's not your go-to guy in the clutch so maybe let's figure it out it's just a luxury to have two of those guys come out no that's not a slight on mitchell mitchell's been amazing and it's more just like i think darius garland's even better than people might realize um but aside from that western conference road trip this has been one of the best teams in the nba period that's how good they are i'm not going to go and be a ringer show with the contender over the celtics and plus i just have too much respect for them and the high level play we saw from those two teams in the playoffs last year without chris middleton on the court i'm not sure they can go into those gyms and win those kinds of games yet but i love this team i love it and i love its future more than i sometimes i am guilty as as others are too of being slow to accept a reality that is unfolding before your eyes because it's happening faster than you expected sometimes there's a team that's just ready before you might realize they're even ready maybe that's the case with cleveland but i'm with you i do not buy them yet as a title contender i don't think they're on the same level as the healthy celtics or the healthy bucks those teams are incredible and to your point you just made i know donovan mitchell's been through some wars in the playoffs most of those wars have gone badly for his team but he's had some great moments in the playoffs obviously against denver oklahoma city when he was a rookie um i just like what the experience that jason tatum and yannis just just as two of the five best players in the league the experience of the supporting cast on those teams the the environments they've had to play and win in the stress they've had to play and win under you just can't replicate that and i do think that matters and the the gap in that kind of experience from those guys to like moldy garland allen is enormous and if the chips are ever down in the playoffs i just think it matters i just don't again it could be one of these cases where no the numbers are right the numbers are right they're here now and i'm slow to realize it i just i don't think that's the case shouldn't they be in boston twice this year those signature wins but yeah for those of us who are especially the boston games in that series that environment in boston in the postseason and it looks like the road to the eastern conference title is gonna have to go through massachusetts again uh that gym is a very very difficult place uh to win games in the playoffs and we've seen great players go in there and not get the results they expected uh for years decades now uh and i'm with you i love the cleveland cavaliers not gonna say anything bad but yeah i think they have a year of learning some lessons in the postseason ahead of them i think that's generally the blueprint we see from emerging teams i'm not gonna put them ahead of schedule but that's not a slight um and one other thing is the celtics sort of were that team last year right the celtics 17 and 19 or whatever it was and then they turn it on and the numbers start screaming a little chart i put on instagram and twitter it's like they start shooting towards the upper right every week and i guess this real are they that good and sure enough they did that's a great that is a great point because the celtics at the trade deadline last year were exactly the team i'm striving the team that they realized internally what they had before i did for sure i was slow to realize i was slow to accept oh they're actually this good i needed to see it longer they didn't they were right that's a great that's a great call um i guess they had that experience though too we know jason tatum and jaylen brown had two trips to the conference finals before that uh so yes they were winning the championship on paper all the nerds including i think 538 expected to win the finals uh which a lot of all of us did when we made our picks for a similar concept here i'm not quite sure you're ready to beat steph curry boston um and they weren't um and all credit to that team they're still on the path and probably the championship contenders right now but it's a process to borrow the term uh from philadelphia and cleveland deserves accolades for building that a team that's even having this conversation right now and maybe we'll be wrong let's check in again around the all-star game and as you said even if we're right and they're not ready you didn't make that trade thinking you're winning the title this year you made that trade because you have four under whatever mitchell is 26 and under players who are all legit all-star types you can build it for a few years kirk holdsbury uh you can see it in his background youtube watchers you can see it in his background sprawl ball i had you on the podcast years ago to talk about that it's a fantastic book um you can see on my wall right here above my ironing board which they've asked me to kindly remove and i said no i like it uh you can see the kirk goldsbury map the naysmith international park that hangs in my office it's a beautiful holiday gift um i have gotten it i have gotten it for people for the holidays um and every week you write at least once a week for us you're on the collective here and there on the low post here and there it's always good to see your face mr goldsbury thank you for your time enjoy the world cup good luck to that croatian side that's a good soccer way for you to side yes there you go kirk with everyone