Pelton and Mares

And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post podcast on a Thursday, stormy night all across the country. I wish everybody a happy holidays. I hope not too many of you are having travel nightmares, but if you are, maybe this podcast can help you ignore your family and the general madness of the airport.

It's time to talk about two of my basketball siren songs, two teams that no matter what, no matter how much they hurt their fans, no matter how many times they disappoint, no matter how many times they get injured at key moments, whatever it is, I can't quit them. I'll never quit them. One team, I think I feel like I have a healthy relationship. This first team, it's not healthy.

It's not healthy. It's a problem. But here they come. As the song says, here come the Sixers.

Here they come. Philadelphia. Winners of six straight. Not even healthy yet.

Tyrese Maxey is still out. 18 and 12. The Philadelphia 76ers to help us digest them and where they rank in the East. The one and only Kevin Pelton.

How are you, sir? I'm doing well. I believe they're winners of one, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five.

Sixers. Ten, nine, eight, seven, sixers. It's the dumbest song, but it's the best song. It's the best song.

And if people don't know what I'm talking about, it's the song they play at the end of every Sixers win in Philadelphia. And it's called Here Come the Sixers. It's basically a Sesame Street song about basketball, and it's amazing. And here they come.

Here they come. I'd like to have you on to talk about Sixers, because normally I have Spike Eskin and Mike Levin from the Rice of Ricky Sanchez, and they're so emotionally invested that they can, in the best possible way, go completely bonkers talking about the Sixers. And I need your cool, calming perspective on this team. They were in my inner circle of contenders before the season started.

There were six teams in that inner circle. They were one. I asked everybody before the season, why not the Sixers? I mean, why not other than James Harden's record of basically running for the exits and elimination games?

But why not the Sixers? Then they came out and looked slow and disinterested, frankly arrogant, the way they started the season. Then Harden and Maxey got hurt, and this sort of scrappy, melted, melted, and backed up Skeleton crew came in, kept them afloat, now Harden's back, looking good. Not looking Houston good, not even Brooklyn good, but looking good.

The supporting cast has stayed pretty damn productive. Tyrese Maxey's going to come back. Celtics? Celtics falling back to Earth a little bit.

I think they've lost four of six. Their offense is down big time. They've actually fallen out of the top spot in offensive efficiency. Hawks, just nobody talks about the bus.

They were my pick to win the title. They're doing fine. How do we feel about the Sixers? You know, it's funny you say that, because one of the things I did in preparation for this podcast, there was something I was maybe going to bring up, and I wanted to see if it had been out there in the Sixers discussion.

And so I was looking at Rich Hoffman's mailbag on The Athletic, and it was like, wow, this is so much angst in this mailbag, like backup center angst, coaching angst, starting lineup angst, all sorts of angst. And my takeaway from this, and hopefully I'm going to say more reviewing things over the course of this conversation, I feel like the Sixers are who we thought they were at the end of all of this. Yeah, the angst, I don't, I feel like, believe me, I pay special attention to Sixers' angst. It's the best basketball angst there is.

I feel like it's died now in the last two weeks, in part because of how dominant Embiid has been, and how fun that's been to watch. And Anthony Melton has been big. Tobias Harris is doing exactly what they want Tobias Harris to do. And Harden has come back and looked pretty good, and they've strong off some wins.

I feel like the angst is, the Doc angst has declined, the B-ball Paul, Montrezl Harrell angst, there's some angst that's just not worth it. It's just not worth, if you're angry about Paul Reed versus Montrezl Harrell versus P.J. Tucker at the 5, it's worth getting a little angry about. It's not, if you're typing a mailbag question to somebody, subject line, Doc Rivers is an idiot, Paul Reed rocks, you need to reevaluate some parts of your life.

You're just subtweeting, yes, John Hollinger, right here. Or, I guess, you can't just make Twitter jokes about the Sixers, it's triggering. Twitter, Twitter, Sixers, you can't do it. I don't even know where I was going.

I think the angst has declined a little bit, and there's now, I feel, a building confidence of exactly what you just said of, hey, wait a second, we still have Harden and B, two-man game, it's not the most artful thing in the world, but Joel is clearly the guy, James knows Joel's the guy, if they get a switch, more often than not, the ball's going to go to MB at the nail, and it's not going to be Harden dribbling 17 times and taking a step back three while Joel stands, they're like, hey, it's just me, the dude scores 50 every other game, seemingly over here, me. And it's fine, by the way, it's fine for James Harden to do that a decent amount of time. The Sixers I looked at today, they're averaging 1.22 points per possession on Harden isolations. That's like beyond the lead, that's amazing.

It may not look great, it may frustrate MB, but in the right doses, I've given up on the Sixers offense ever looking good and flowing properly and involving Maxie at the appropriate level when he's on the floor with the two stars, it's just not going to happen. And maybe that's okay, maybe Embiid and Harden are just so good that they can play, if not completely your turn, my turn, then something like it, and that's fine, and you know when it would really be fine if they could cut down the turnovers and make that into a very, very, at least we're going to get a shot up every single time, draw a ton of fouls, maybe that's okay, it doesn't have to look good, right? No, I mean, especially when, you know, the strength of this pairing, and particularly, even though you talked about the pick and roll chemistry that they've developed, like the synergy between these two guys is their ability, shared ability to draw fouls, and what that does to defenses, and for Embiid in particular, you know, he had a couple of rough games early in the season when he started slowly, but it's kind of hard for him, even when he shoots like 6 of 17, like some of these games, he's still going to put up points because he's getting 10 free throws a night, he's shooting 12 free throws a game, and that just, it gives a really high floor to what kind of performance you have. It's not very fun from a viewing perspective, but if you're trying to generate points efficiently, it's a pretty great setup.

Indeed, it is. Oh, and by the way, the other thing free throws allow you to do is set your defense, and maybe we should headline with that. This is the number two defense in the NBA right now, started off as just fast break, fast break, fast break, does anyone care that they're fast break, no, another fast break, and all of us yelling about how embarrassing it was that the Sixers had zero transition defense teams were just running them off the floor, and their transition defense is still bad, if you look at the numbers, it's still pretty bad, it's just regular bad, it's not horrendous bad, it's bad, but they're number two in defense, and I know what you're going to say, I know you got it loaded up, you got it locked and loaded, you got it locked and loaded, so just say it, just say it, because I know what it's going to be, just say it, just burst my bubble. Your opponents are shooting what, 33% from free play break?

Opponents are shooting a league low, 32%, does anything, do you, when you see a team that's playing well defensively, and you look up a point of three point shooting, and it's like 28% for this 10 games, or 32% for the season, do you just sit back at your computer like, oh, got him again, I can't wait to tell everyone, it's just a fluke. You're really happy about it. Yes, you are, you're happy about it. With the Knicks, you've been happy about it for two seconds, you couldn't wait when the Knicks won on an eight game winning streak to look up a point of three point shooting, you dropped everything, you pulled over your card to decide, you know what, I bet the opponents are shooting 27% from free, sure enough.

You know, it's funny, we did this on the Hoop Collective. I know, that's why I'm saying it. And I was looking that up on the fly, I didn't know, it just is my sixth sense when a team goes on a run like this, probably some opponent three point shooting involved in that, because I've seen it so many times, it's, you know, it's like Jeff Goldblum talking about chaos in Jurassic Park or something. Wow, 1994 Jurassic Park.

I don't know where that reference is. The reason that Toronto Raptors are named the Raptors is because of Jurassic Park. Think about that. Boy, they're not very good, by the way, that's a different, okay, so Sixers defense, let's look at the fundamentals, because they are number two in the league.

They force a ton of turnovers, that's pretty much the strongest part of their defense. They allow a decent shot, they don't allow a lot of threes or a lot of shots at the rim. Some of their good luck they're getting on threes is compensated to some degree by the fact that teams are killing them at the rim when they get there, even with Embiid there. This is the first season in Embiid's career where he is not having a negative effect on a point of shooting percentage at the rim, which to me doesn't pass the eye test, and it might just be a case of Embiid as one of those guys, when he decides to dial it up, it's very, very noticeable, and when he dials it up, I still think he's the same force defensively that he's always been, but in the aggregate data, it's not showing up.

I think this is, if it's not the number two defense, I think it's a good defense, they could certainly rebound better and foul less and all that, but I think they're kind of a fundamentally pretty solid defense. The test comes, obviously, when Harden and Maxey are on the floor together, because those are just, they're two minuses on defense, and there's just no way around it. Well, this is the thing I wanted to ask about, which is, do we have to consider, at this point, keeping D'Anthony Melton in the starting lineup when Tyrese Maxey comes back? I mean, at least, you know, at the start, is there easing him in?

Because D'Anthony Melton has been so good. He has been everything I think the Sixers could have hoped that he would be when they traded for him at the draft. You know, hitting 37% of his threes, a quality perimeter defender to throw an opponent's best score on the perimeter to take those assignments off the plate of James Harden and off the plate of Tobias Harris, who was having to take those last year after the trade. And, you know, I think it's less about the whole, we need to get the ball in Maxey's hands thing, because you can make sure that there are minutes that he plays when Harden is not on the court either way.

It's more about, we've got to find easier ways to hide Maxey if we're playing him and to Harden together against second units than if we're playing him against starting lineups. So my assumption has been Maxey as sixth man is too dramatic a change to realistically be made, that he's become too good, too prolific, that he, his agents, his people would not stand for it, and the team probably doesn't want to do it. I do think it's an idea that should be explored, because Melton has been one of the great and it's not just the defense, and it's not just the rebounding, which the Sixers badly need anyone but Embiid who can grab a rebound. And it's not just that they badly also needed someone, and this is what I call the Anthony Melton, he's the f***ed up guy.

He comes in and he f***ed stuff up, and they need somebody like that. And not only that, my favorite thing about him with the Sixers is he's been a really sneaky connector for them in the half court. And what I mean by that is he's a good screener for Harden in pick and rolls, for Embiid in pick and rolls, and he'll screen and he'll roll and he'll catch it in open space, and he'll make the right kick out pass over here, kick out pass over there, he'll cut when his guy doubles Embiid in the post, catch and kick, like he's just sort of keeping the machine moving. So I would assume that whether that lineup ever starts, so you're talking about Melton, Harden, Harris, Tucker, Embiid, whether it starts or not, that lineup has to become a big part of their team.

Similarly, I would flip the question around to you, is it worth considering starting Melton over Tucker or closing with Melton over Tucker? You lose size, and in some matchups that's going to be a non-starter for them, but P.J. Tucker, man, he's just a statue. They're not using him like he did when he would screen and hand off, he's just a statue he never shoots.

He's giving him some offensive rebounding, Melton can do that. Melton just gives you so much more like, pound, pound you in the face. And whether they start that lineup or not, because both Harris and Tucker are fours, right? And you alluded to it before, Harris having to defend wings is out of position for him a little bit.

This would correct that, playing the three guards with him and Joel. Whether it starts or not, I think that lineup has to become a big part of their team, too. That lineup played four possessions together the whole season. That would be Maxi, Melton, Harden, Harris, Embiid.

Your lineup, the one you mentioned, is plus 52 in 117 minutes, and I believe it's their most played lineup. Yeah, I mean, that was definitely something I thought about in terms of a closing lineup. I didn't think about it as a possibility to start, just because it seems, you know, a little on the small side on the perimeter. But, you know, Harden has always been more effective defending bigger players anyway, so that's kind of a benefit of it.

I think definitely to close situationally, if it's a case where the opponents are small on the perimeter, you know, there's not that LeBron Giannis type guy that you're going to need P.J. Tucker to match up against. I do want to defend P.J. Tucker a little bit at his 8% usage rate.

Is it 8%? I think it was 7% or 8%. Look, you sign me for a day, I'm retiring with a usage rate of higher than 8%. I'm just saying.

Because the Milwaukee Bucks did win a championship with P.J. Tucker at that usage rate. And one thing that, you know, stood out watching the first half of last night's Philly Detroit game was, you know, he snuck in on the offensive glass a couple of times. And that's something that he was doing very much now.

And that was something he did in Miami that has carried over. And especially if he's not going to be pulling the trigger on those corner threes, then you need him to be kind of a threat, you know, in the dunker spot, sneaking in on the offensive glass, doing things like that, doing something. Because if the alternative is Anthony Melton, I mean, it's not your nickname, but the Grizzlies broadcast is more traditional nickname, is Mr. Do Something.

They're going to come out with nicknames. Maybe they sold, I never know what nicknames guys have in college. But Brevin Knight calling David Roddy Big Body Roddy. It's just, was that a college thing too?

I don't know about that. I wasn't, I wasn't catching the kind of Colorado State games. I did watch it in a lot of USC. I don't remember hearing it there.

Big Body Roddy. I like David Roddy. I actually, I like David Roddy probably a little bit too much for considering he's a rookie. Um, I don't know.

Only this podcast would go on a 30-second David Roddy. Big Body Roddy. Tangent. Baseball fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place.

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It's all of the ESPN ball in one place. Sign up for activate now. Sixers Pistons you mentioned. I watched that game too.

You know what I liked about that game? I liked that the Sixers, and this is part of the, when it's go time, it can be your turn, my turn sometimes, particularly if 65% of the turns are Embiid and it's not a 50-50 split with Embiid and Harder, maybe 58% of the turns, I don't know, are Embiid. It can be that sometimes, but against the Bucks or the Celtics or whoever you want to put out there as an elite defense, it can't be like that every time. You just need a little more variety than that.

And one of the things I liked in that Pistons game was they've clearly made a concerted effort They had one possession, people can look it up, it was the third quarter, it was like five and a half minutes left. It was off a made Detroit Pistons free throw. Off a free throw. Made.

James Harden inbounded the ball to Shaq Milton. Probably two-thirds of the way at a half court. Shaq Milton took one dribble and threw the ball ahead to Joel Embiid in the high post. Joel Embiid got the ball with his back to the basket and 21 seconds left on the shot clock after a made free throw.

So in three seconds, Joel Embiid was posting up. No one was behind him. That's the benefit. There was no back line of defense because the back line wasn't there.

Shaq Milton threw the ball, sprinted, dead sprint down the half court as like a cutter. Joel found him, lay up. Just like five more of those every game makes a gigantic difference. And I think it was clear they made a concerted effort to like, can we just get out of the mud a little bit?

I think that's even stuff like, this is an old Houston trick. When you're bringing the ball up after a make, instead of walking James Harden, jog. And someone will be there for you at half court to set a pick. That gets you going downhill.

So we're getting off on a fast note. Just like a little more of that stuff I think makes a big difference for them. And the steals that they're forcing I think are helpful in that regard too. I mean, they had in the first half of that game alone, three backcourt steals.

Two from Matisse Seibel, who was kind of written off before the season because of the lack of shooting and wasn't a big factor in the playoffs last year. But they're actually playing great with 5-0 on the court. And one of the interesting questions that they are going to have when Maxie comes back is how do you find minutes for all these perimeter guys? Because Milton needs to play.

Daniel House Jr. has kind of been a disappointment, I think. But so he may be the guy who phases out of the rotation. I forgot, by the way, that they got dinged for tampering on Daniel House Jr.

too. Because I was like, wait a second. So the Knicks got dinged for the Brunson tampering, which is the most obvious tampering maybe in the history of the league. They got one second round pick.

It's like, oh my God, I hope the Knicks can recover from this blow. They lost a 20-25 second round pick. I hope Leon was sleeping. I don't really care either way.

I was like, just do nothing, man, if that's going to be the penalty. And I was like, wait, didn't the Sixers get two for P.J. Tucker, two second round picks? And I was like, oh, it wasn't just P.J.

Tucker, it was Daniel House. They tampered on Daniel House Jr. jr no offense to daniel house jr he's got to be the worst nba player to ever have been tampered on behalf of it just has to be remember the daniel house jr bubble transgression google that i like daniel house jr he's a good player so one way to get minutes from matisse ibel is to trade him to another team that will play him and if they're trying to upgrade their team now i think that's the obvious vehicle to do it i just don't know how much juice he has and i know what the numbers say kp i know what they say i really just don't like it when he and mb are on the floor at the same time i just hate watching him be post-ups where they're playing four on they're playing three on he's playing one on five you know because matisse ibel is on the floor in the dunker spot nobody's guarding i just i don't like it um we'll get back to the six in a minute but i did want to ask you uh what do you see with the celtics are you concerned at all they've lost twice to orlando uh a tough end to their road trip um at clippers at warriors and then you know you think they're gonna get okay chalk up your orlando stuff is a little weird whatever tato missed the game blah blah here comes indiana like they'll get well and then indiana comes in and puts up 70 in the first half on them um anything going on there that concerns you when you look at the shot quality data i i'm significantly reassured because if you look at the three games in a row that they've lost at home they are getting once you account for the players taking these shots in addition to where they're from type of shot location nearby defenders the best shots in the league in that span and underperforming them by a massive amount two of those three games their last three losses have been among the eight worst shot making performances relative to player ability by any team in any game this season and it's not that dramatic when you go back over the entire six game stretch where they've lost five out of six but it's pretty substantial underperformance they weren't necessarily due for this given the fact that they were massively overperforming from three-point range you know as they got off to this best offense in nba history start but they were due to start making fewer threes than they had and it's just kind of evened out more quickly than i think we would have anticipated yeah i'm not i'm not overly concerned because a some regression was coming b you've had tato miss a game here smart miss the game last night they've had weird guys in the lineup and i do think i talked about this with brian a few weeks ago i was interested in incorporating robert williams the third again as much as they need him he looks fantastic by the way um they've been playing almost the entire season with five three-point shooters on the floor at the same time and now that's no longer gonna be the case and i think that was gonna be an inevitable adjustment period that said the shot data is as you're describing is correct i've looked it up to their turnovers are creeping up a little bit not not super alarming but you know just just watch it and their shots at the rim are coming down and as wonderfully as they were shooting threes and as well as that works i just i'm a big believer in the threes are gonna go hot and cold they'll be fine either way i just like giving a little more juice at the rim and at the foul line that's all yeah i mean those are like we talked about with free throws for mb earlier those mitigate some of the streakiness in the outside yeah philly um just 17th in offense so far even with him beat on the floor they're kind of an average slightly above average offense as usual they are plus a lot with him beat on the floor and minus a little bit with him beat off the floor um they should be better offensively uh than this um anything stand out to you there like where we can see improvement from the sixers because 17th on offense or average where everyone call it is disappointing i think when they're at full strength yeah especially because you mentioned tobias harris in the intro like he's delivering i think exactly the kind of season you want from tobias harris in this role and it may be hard to tell because he's averaging the same number of points per game from last season but you know making threes at the best rate of his shooting threes at highest rate of his career making them a high percentage uh you know terrific efficiency like everything is there from harris i mean lots of maxi is probably a factor there this is a team that really has you know four plus offensive players who have to take one of those guys out of the mix uh you know that's a that's a pretty significant drop off and maxi you know i talk about pace and kind of injecting some random you know life into the offense he's the guy to do he's the guy to be like hey come around with me just just outlook the ball to me i'll create baskets by myself he's that ingredient for them yeah and you put him back in the mix i think they're probably a little weaker than they have been defensively but better than they have been offensively i think they probably get closer to if not that top 10 on both sides of the ball that you know i think i think we kind of expected coming in uh interesting other thing there are a couple of hard things that are interesting to monitor number one since he came back from injury on december 5th he's back to getting to the rim in terms of percentage of shot attempts that are coming at the rim at the rate he was getting there in houston basically and at the beginning of the season he had taken a lot of long twos compared to his career average and all of that had come out of his restricted area shots those things are back to normal now which is interesting that's encouraging we'll see if it stands up um no one is talking about the james harden player option for next season it seems like kind of a big deal to me that james harden could be a free agent after the season i mean the part that they weren't busted on was well it was convenient that james harden ended up agreeing to take precisely the amount of salary that allowed you to sign pj talker and daniel house jr using those exceptions that would that hard capped you uh i think that element the fact that there has been you know he showed a willingness to work with the organization to do what's best for the team probably makes people a little less concerned about that one seems like a big deal to me seems like a big deal to me uh what did you make of the report in the athletic about zach levine and the bulls not seeing eye to eye yeah i mean it was interesting to have that reporting i i think it's not surprising to the extent that it's been a rough go for chicago and people get frustrated it's it's easy for people for players to coexist and you know to sacrifice a little bit when things are going well as they were much of last season when things are going as poorly as they have been up until that game winning shot from iyo de summa on wednesday night like that's when i think fingers start to be pointed and people start to be wondering about what's going on with my role and that sort of thing i do think it's interesting that when you think about as we've all been thinking about since they built this team basically okay well if it doesn't work how do you pivot and the natural inclination is to say well levine's the youngest of these three sort of all-stars they'll by the way they've all made the all-star team you've heard that they've all made the all-star team i don't know if you know the bulls have three all-stars three all-stars three all-stars three all-stars three all-stars three all-stars all three of them not the three alphas there's only one three alphas in chicago bulls history only one um so you know levine's 27 derosen's 33 vuce's 32 naturally you sort of trade the older guys and see what you can get and rebuild around the youngest guy and then like sometimes i'm guilty that my brain kind of stops there because there are 29 other teams to track and they'll have big questions blah blah i do think the idea of well he might be the youngest he also has the biggest and longest contract that may be viewed by some percentage of the league as an okay to not desirable contract what if we actually go the other way and trade that player for other veterans who may be fit better around a rosen or other young players or young players and picks you can trade that kind of player for lots of different things and clean up our cap sheet and just sort of okay we tried it didn't work out you get a new home somewhere else there that is an interesting alternative pivot if they choose to pivot and so far i don't i don't think they're there yet but it is it is interesting to think about and i don't know what kind of trade value exactly makes 40 million next year 43 in 2024 25 46 in 25 26 and has a 49 million dollar player option in 26 27 and it would be cute to say well he's definitely gonna opt into that he might not he may very well not opt into that actually they'd be more likely that he opts out of it if he's still playing well and signs a new deal when the salary cap is 200 million or maybe there's an upper spending limit how did that upper spending limit well someone they had a whole set of meetings at the nba headquarters all right guys we can't call it a hard cap we've brought in don draper from sterling cooper seven other pr firms they we've all told them pitch us other words it's like naming the newest pharmaceutical drug like ribozol it's like the chrisley's broadcast crew yeah anyway um and did anything did you find are there any destinations that you would find interesting i don't like most of the ideas that i i ran through so i mean obviously the lakers are going to come up because i think it's a star and plays college basketball in la uh miami is a team that makes sense in terms of loves to chase stars better defensively than offensively have kind of the infrastructure to hide him but at the same time isn't tyler hero kind of more or less the same player and hasn't tyler hero probably been better this season i was about to say you still you could have your 21 points a game six rebounds four assists 46 41 from three i mean what is it that exciting for me to trade tyler hero for that do anything for me no for older and on a longer and more expensive contract yeah i mean he's similar usage rates heroes been more efficient toronto also falls in that category of just a team that needs offensive juice and i mean maybe if you were hoping to you know you wanted to trade van vliet because you thought you might leave and you didn't want to necessarily take a big step backwards you know maybe it's a van vliet trent package those guys go somewhere else potentially or some of them stay in chicago but i don't know if i know what the point of that is for the raptors i think if you're gonna move those guys you probably gotta focus on younger yourself uh the clippers i think maybe the most interesting fit on the board yeah didn't see that one coming because i mean you could again plenty of hiding places to hide him defensively could use a little more offensive juice uh fits the timetable with their stars even you know even a little bit younger but i don't think they have enough to get him unless chicago is really convinced like you know it's kind of like the norm palo trade last year where the value of the trade is mostly the salary aspect of it rather than what you're getting in return i mean the two that i think are the most realistic outside of the lakers the knicks i mean a team that you know has a lot of minus defenders for a team that's better defensively than offensively so maybe levine tilts you too far in that direction but certainly an interesting possibility and he could play very well with with joan brunson the two that could share the ball and then i think the most interesting one is what about the mavericks if you're looking for i mean he's not the ideal 1a to luca donchish in terms of so much of his value again is offensive and with the ball in his hands but one of the reasons levine struggled this year he's less efficient than the average on self-created shots with more than two seconds of touch time according to the nba advanced data he's still 10 better than average on you know the catching shoots and plays with less than two seconds of touch time so maybe you put him in dallas it becomes a much more efficient fit for him they're on my list the knicks are also on my list the problem with the maps is the same problem you outlined with the clippers which is well what players am i getting back that i'm excited about um if on chicago the knicks certainly have picks and young players i mean we just saw the movie with donovan mitchell i don't know man they're kind of well that's an interesting one you don't want to get too convinced by a 10 game stretch that you've figured out something about yourself or turn a corner or have all the pieces that you need i've just never been a big levine guy and i know two years ago i thought he deserved to make all-star um his shooting was just outrageous um well it was a deserving all-star it's just the defense the defense hasn't come along off ball it's a train wreck his decision making with the ball hasn't come along every post entry is a complete adventure he's good i just i'm not i don't know if i'm upending my my franchise for him um i thought that was interesting though and i do think it's a big couple of months months for the bulls it's also a big month for the hawks our old colleague chris haynes reported today a little bit of trey young um rival executive saying that trey young could um be the next starter request of trey rival executives say a lot of things um i don't necessarily care too much about that but bobby martin i did kind of spend a little time last week just playing with fake trey on trades because and this was before travis schlenk um was shifted to an advisory role this week uh we talked about this there's a lot of noise about the hawks and none of it has really been good and to play on the floor has only been so so and i know they've been injured don collins been injured but donovic's been injured murray's been injured they've had injuries capella's injured now uh i just know let's put this way the travis schlenk news did not surprise me it did not surprise a lot of people in the nba there's a lot of there's just a lot of stuff there and you can chalk up that chris haynes report is like that's just more stuff that doesn't come out of thin air and i do really like my trey young for carl town's challenge trading because what about trey young for zach levine challenge trade the hawks probably think trey young's in a different strategy than zach levine and frankly in terms of playoff achievements he has been and you can certainly make a case for like the question of trey young if he goes on the market is well wait is trey young a superstar at this point because you know i don't think that he's necessarily been failed by the team around him in the way a lot of these superstars who ask trades often are like he has to take some of the blame if the hawks are a playoff disappointment which is many months down the road but you know what he was talking about is precipitating this at the same time you look at you know his extension is going to be really reasonable as the cap rises he's going into the prime of his career all those reasons i think would make him you know still a player that would get pursued at that level you know if there are some questions about again his role in atlanta underwhelming okay two more quick ones and then we'll stop um i wanted to just sort of take your temperature as we're not that far from the halfway point we're talking all east right now we talked about the sixers let's zoom out i want to i want to play who does kevin pelton believe can reasonably win the eastern conference this year i assume boston and milwaukee are yeses yes does kevin pelton believe the philadelphia seven sixers can win the eastern conference this year yes i think there's a path to it i don't think it's super likely it's interesting the projection systems are much higher on the sixers than i would have guessed that they have them as i think bpi has them have milwaukee which is uh truly shocking but like even 538 has them as having a reasonable chance of winning the title this year and that seems a little aggressive to me i think there's a path to it but to go back to you know something you talked about the start of the season with the sixers it's it's really it really is depends on james hard being able to play at an elite level in the playoffs and he's played well this season but i don't know if he's convinced me that that's in the cost i had them in my inner circle i guess my litmus test for this question is like if we get to the finals and they're in it are you gonna be like well lots of crazy things must have happened for that to occur i think they can win these so i picked milwaukee won the championship i think boston's better than philly but i don't think it's unreasonable to really win these and you talk about hard and i agree with you like if hard and craps the bed in elimination games or big games or two two games or whatever the biggest highest stakes games in if there's another two for eleven with eight turnovers or the ball didn't come back to me i took no shots in the second half they're not gonna win it's not gonna happen but as much as we talk about him i i just think the more cracks he gets at it we have not yet seen a monster and bead playoff run we have not seen an bead playoffs in any season from start to finish that has matched what he's done in a regular season and just in terms of relative production to other players he hasn't been the same guy if he gets enough cracks at it and he's healthy and he doesn't get elbowed in the face and break an orbital bone or fall on his wrist and by the way in that detroit game he tried to chase down block when they were up 20 in the fourth quarter dude dude joel and bead no chase down blocks when you're up 20 in the fourth quarter if he can if those kind of things don't happen he's going to have a he breaks through the sort of postseason wall run in him and that alone is enough for me to have them here okay next one can the cleveland cavaliers win these no doubt they have the best point differential in the nba right now should they hang up for that point differential look but they haven't played an extremely easy schedule like last night there's no reason to rule them out right now i mean obviously to use this the fact of the fact that they haven't been in the playoffs uh with this group donovan Mitchell has plenty of experience but i again i think you have to put them i still have a tier below boston and milwaukee just because again we've seen that in the playoffs how that works but i i think they're number three and i think they have a very legitimate chance of winning these i just must be underrating them it must be that my brain they're so young and inexperienced that i'm like is jared allen is he actually ready for this is evan mobley as much i love evan mobley is he really ready for this do i trust their bench do i trust that rubio's gonna come back healthy enough and rubio-ish enough to get them real time but donovan mitchell's played like an mvp candidate i mean this year he's not an mvp candidate because the top five guys are just insane but he's been that good and those two guards man they're just a handful And those two big guys are monsters defensively. It feels to me like they fall right on the border to below my wait did something crazy here happen line.

But that may be just like my brain is slow to accept a young new team at this level. Are you ready? Can the Brooklyn Nets reasonably win the Eastern Conference? I still have them outside that line.

I mean, they passed the any chance rule, but I would want to know what had happened. Not necessarily, you know, obviously Grant could carry them through three rounds of the Eastern Conference playoffs. But to me, the question is still, can we see it from Ben Simmons in a postseason setting? And it's been awesome.

I want the best for Ben Simmons. It's been awesome to see him doing some of the things that we thought he could do. And Brooklyn is a connector, is a versatile player. But also in the month of December, in 120 minutes, he has not made a free throw in four attempts.

And I feel like something like that is going to be an issue in a postseason setting. I'm not ready to answer my own question yet. I'm just not. Should we do the, um, was Toronto, did Toronto make a mistake not going all in for Durant thing?

Like, that's becoming a thing now because Durant is playing like the best player in the world. The Nets are winning. And Scottie Barnes is going like one for 11 and not playing well on defense. And there's this, even Doug Smith, who's a very affable guy, wrote this column today about how Scottie Barnes has been a disappointment in his rookie season.

He doesn't work as hard as he should. I'm paraphrasing, but that was in the column, basically. Paul George over and over again, clinging tenaciously to Jalen Brown. It's starting to spill over to Masai Ujiri now.

Like, dude, Scottie Barnes? You wouldn't trade Scottie Barnes for Kevin Durant, really? Let's posit that that's the case, right? Let's posit that that was a stance that Toronto decided that they were going to take.

And we all talked, the first day Durant demanded a trade, I was on NBA today and I said, the first phone call I make upon Sean Marks is the Toronto Raptors. That's the very first phone call I make because they had a great young player in a reasonable nucleus where they could have traded out of it, brought Durant in, and had enough to win, which is a very tough needle to thread. So how does that, where are you on that now? So I think the biggest difference from those Jamie Ainge situations is those guys all got traded.

Kevin Durant didn't get traded. And part of the question here, and maybe this is hindsight bias in my case, was it ever actually all that serious about trading him over the summer? Or was this always the outcome that they wanted? Well, so this is when the debate gets boring because the people want to make the debate with the Raptors wouldn't put Scottie Barnes in.

The Raptors would have had to put Scottie Barnes, probably Ananobi, maybe another core player. Like, there was not going to be, it wasn't just Barnes and Flotsam for Kevin Durant. That's not what it was going to be. The other thing I'll say is, similar to the Jalen Brown-Kawhi Leonard thing, when you snapshot these debates at a moment when the Raptors are hoisting the Larry O'Brien trophy and the Celtics are in the we-didn't-get-Anthony-Davis shambles, it looks really, really bad.

Two years later, when the Celtics are in the finals up 2-1 and everyone's ready to crown their ass, it doesn't look really bad. When you spot it, spot like this one, Durant is lighting the world on fire, Scottie Barnes is struggling, the Raptors are struggling, the Nets are winning, it looks really bad. Flashback four months ago, it's like Kevin Durant hasn't played more than 55 games in four years, he's 30-something, he seems to kind of grow unhappy wherever he goes. Like, there were these real questions.

Some of those questions could pop up again tomorrow. Scottie Barnes, I don't know why, I just don't know how many times we're going to have to live this where a guy who just turned 21 is not making the giant year two mega leap everyone assumes he's going to make and it's now, well, he might just be a one-time all-star, he's a bust, like, I don't know, my projection of Scottie Barnes long-term hasn't really changed because of 30 games, it's yours? I think he was a little lower in the first place because I wasn't as convinced about the mid-range shooting that we saw last season. Like, you know, he was such a poor outside shooter in college, which is part of the reason that I wasn't as high on him as I should have been going into the draft.

So I think this is actually more like what I would have expected from Scottie Barnes two years into his career if you take away the rookie season and the expectations that that set. So it maybe hasn't affected it as much from that standpoint as it has people who got really high. And I think that's, like, Tatum was the ultimate example of this. He had that playoff run his rookie season when they got to the conference finals and then year two, it was, what's wrong?

Why hasn't he made the leap? Why isn't he all-star already? In year three, he was great. In year four, they took a step back.

In year three, they made the conference finals. In year four, they took a step back. In year five, like, you can't ride the roller coaster so much with some of these young players. Anthony Edwards is the other guy that's happening to this season.

Had that great playoff series against Memphis and people thought, well, that's who he is. That's the floor that he's going to start with. Start from next season and improve from at age 21 or whatever he is. And it's like, no, actually, he wasn't quite at that level the whole regular season and development is not linear.

And every time he has nine assists in a game, all the Wolves people are like, yeah, the leap, the leap is happening. That's three good. And it's like, you know, just beware the three of 16 with seven turnovers game is coming around the corner and then that'll be followed up at the five of 15. Asked by my loved ones, what do you want?

Number one, I want a nap, but that's not the only material good that I could think of is that I want a salad spinner. That's the only thing I ask for, a salad spinner. I don't know if it's me or lettuce or hydration. If you ask me to make a salad, I could wash the lettuce at eight in the morning, spend 10 minutes of every hour for the next 12 hours drying the lettuce and it would never dry.

I don't know how anyone dries. I don't know how lettuce gets dry after you watch it. I don't understand. I can't do it.

So I'm getting a salad spinner. There you go. Everyone complains my salads are too soggy and I won't have it anymore. Kevin Pelton has a great column up on ESPN today going through the muck of the West that I'm going to talk about Adam Morris of the NBR Sports within a second.

Great column. Everything Kevin does is great. I will see you soon, my friend. Thanks for popping on.

Yeah, happy holidays. Happy Festivus to everyone listening to this when it comes out. Happy Festivus. Festivus is the 23rd?

The 23rd, yes. All right, we're going to air some grievances and have some pizza strength. Kevin Pelton, thank you, sir. Thanks for having me.

All right, let's transition to my other NBA siren song. A team, a franchise, and a player I will never be able to kick no matter what. Sort of the opposite of Philly, which is my previous siren song that I have really little faith in and this team I have more faith in. They actually have made the conference finals.

The Denver Nuggets, 19-11, first in the Western Conference, about to get Michael Porter Jr. back after a weirdly kind of prolonged absence from a heel injury. Jamal Murray slowly but surely making his way back from a long time out. My favorite person to talk Denver Nuggets basketball with would be Nicole Jokic.

My second favorite person to talk Nuggets basketball with would be Adam Morris of DNBR Sports. How are you, sir? I'm good. Always coming in second to Jokic, though, I feel.

Well, look, if you're going to send a whole crew of people to Serbia to do a documentary on the guy in the history of basketball this season, are you opting out of the Jokic MVP debate? Are people in Denver just like, he's one, two, we don't care anymore, we're out on the whole thing? I was out last year, to be honest with you. I just did too toxic, too annoying, just let it play out, see what happens.

I will say, I was talking to somebody today and they made a strong point, which is to make it hard on Jokic to win a third one is actually a sign of respect. You know, Michael could have been MVP seven times, LeBron could have been MVP seven times, and there's this understanding that you have to go above and beyond. Maybe it's fair, maybe it's not, but I kind of like the idea of, hey, there's players greater than Nicola who had to do extra credit to earn a third one in a row. So I kind of, I guess I can stick with tradition and say, you know what, if he has to do extra credit, so be it.

It's Bird, Russell, and Wilt. That's the list. That's the MVP three P list. That's what we're talking about.

And look, my Friday column probably will come out by the time people listen to this. I have a line in there on Jokic that says, hey, look, 25, 11, and nine. He's shooting 62%, 68% on two. That's a joke.

The Nuggets are plus 12 per 100 possessions with him on the floor, minus 14 with him off the floor. Leads almost literally every advanced statistic. He's number one. The plus 12.8, I think, is number one in the NBA.

Like, just raw, when you're on the court, do you win your minutes? I think that is also number one. Yeah, as I've said this before with regards to Jokic, there's two kinds of like the on-off monsters. There's the on-off monster where the team is just okay when that person's on the floor and they fall to complete pieces of nothingness when he's off the floor.

And then there's the one that really does merit MVP consideration. It's not a fake split. It's not a split that's just about the weakness of your bench. It's the one where elite on the floor, like the point differential would be better than any team in the NBA on the floor and bad off the floor.

And that's Jokic. Here's what I write in the column. Like, if you don't want to vote for Jokic for the third straight MVP, all I'm saying is start right now 30 games of the season preparing a better argument than I didn't want to vote for him for a third MVP. The argument could be Kevin Durant's amazing, Joel Embiid's amazing, Giannis is amazing, but like that argument is not good enough.

I didn't feel like it. I didn't feel right. Like, that's not a real argument. That's a feeling and you shouldn't vote with your feelings.

Okay, the Denver Nuggets. Not a lot of talk about the Denver Nuggets this year. Just kind of quietly motoring along. 19-11, beat Memphis by 15 or so the other night to move into first in the West.

Middling point differential. A lot of close wins. That's fine. Nothing wrong with that.

Kind of still waiting on the Jamal Murray thing. Kind of still waiting on the Porter thing. And I think the biggest reason why there hasn't been a lot of Nuggets talk is all the Nuggets talk. There's no Nuggets talk.

It's all Jokic talk. They're third in offense. Great. 24th in defense.

And they are 24th in defense despite, I think, what most people consider an average to below average defender in Michael Porter Jr. being out of their starting lineup and being replaced by a very strong defender in Bruce Brown. And that lineup which you and I talked about in the offseason previewing this team, the sort of all defense lineup around Murray and Jokic. We were excited about that lineup to close games.

That lineup has been absolutely as advertised. It's plus 57 in 269 minutes. And so here we are in like year five of the existential question. How do you build a championship level defense around Jamal Murray, Nicole Jokic, and Michael Porter Jr.?

They've tried everything. And as I want to talk with you about, in that Memphis game the other night, it was one of my sneaky favorite Nuggets games of the last five years because they actually did try everything including some strategies they rarely tried that I've been calling on them to try. So what's the answer, Adam? Is that the answer?

Just try lots of different stuff? What's the answer? So I think there's some interesting things that are going on here. You mentioned just to kind of set the table.

Number one, and you can take these and say they're meaningful or completely meaningless. I don't know the answer to that. Denver is currently number one in clutch defense. And this has been a stat that has been true of them pretty much for most of the Jokic era.

You mentioned the point differential is not great. They seem to be a team that is just two points better than whoever they play. If it's the worst team in the NBA, they're two points better. If it's the best team in the NBA, but anyway, it is an interesting thought experiment.

But before we even get there, just thinking about Denver defensively, I'm not convinced. I think they were 28th a week ago in defense, like even worse. Yes, they were. I'm not sure that they actually are the 28th best defense.

They might be. They seem to be able to turn it on exactly at the moment they need to and get it done. And I think even this year, Michael Malone has had a couple freakouts in wins. And even in winning streaks four games in a row and Malone's in the presser losing his mind.

I think even he has sort of, I don't want to say resigned to, but at least understanding that this team picks the spots of where and when they play defense and when they do, it looks really good as it did against Memphis the other night. So that's the first part. But I will say the most interesting thing. When I came on your show over the summer and we were talking about Denver's defensive upside, championship defensive upside, we talked about Bruce Brown replacing Michael Porter.

And we just got a three or four week sample of that with Michael Porter out with a heel injury, which he'll return tomorrow night. But the thing that I noticed, and that lineup actually was good overall but bad defensively in large part in my opinion, because you were going to a small lineup with Bruce Brown as small forward that just got out muscled and team shooting over. And when you play Jokic up at the level of the screen and pick and roll, you need a lot of ground to cover on the backside, you know, closing out on unshooters and this or that. And I think what we're learning is length is as important as anything with Denver.

And that is the most interesting thing that they tried and succeeded with against Memphis two nights ago. Explain that, the length. What succeeded against Memphis two nights ago? So two nights ago, you lose Jamal Murray.

He's out, I think he'll be back on Friday, but he takes a game off, maintenance. And you put Bruce Brown, who was playing small forward, six foot five or so, playing small forward. You put him at point guard and now he's guarding point guards. John Moran, he gets to do the on.

Then you get Christian Brown, who's 6'7 and big, Jokic that far away from the rim and that far out. You get into the paint and everybody has to scramble and rotate and close out on the corner and rotate over. When you're doing that with guys who are 6'4, 6'5, 6'6 versus 6'8, 6'9, 6'9, it's just a meaningful difference. And I think that's something Denver hadn't gone to all year.

And today, actually, at practice, Michael Malone made reference to it. We need to find length. We have length on the roster. We need to find ways to go to it more defensively.

It's a great point because the defenses that have played, let's call it, it's not blitzing, but up to the level of the screen, which is how Jokic himself wants to play. Whether that's the correct answer for Jokic, the defender, is, I think, a subject of much debate within the Denver Nuggets. But that's how Jokic wants to play. When you're the MVP and you've got to be comfortable, you've got a lot of leeway.

The teams that have done that well dating to the heat of prime LeBron and Wade, even Minnesota last year kind of smoke and mirrors their way to a successful, we've got to blitz with Carl Anthony Towns because God knows he can't protect the rim. They had Anthony Edwards, they had Jaden McDaniels, they had a bunch of big, huge, long wings covering tons of ground. And LeBron and Wade, it was like having four guys on the court, flying in, flying out. The Nuggets in that smaller group don't quite have that, which is why what I liked about that game is they played about six different kinds of defenses in that game.

When John Moran started splitting traps at the top, they said, you know what, why do we sign Bruce Brown? Why do we get KCP? One reason is they're really good at getting over screens. Well, if they're really good at getting over screens and Nikola is not the fastest dude at the point of attack, let's drop him back like he's Brook Lopez, bet on these guys getting over screens so that those guys don't just have a free runway right at a ground-bound plotting seven-footer and it worked pretty well.

And then they tried to think about three times in that game that I've been waiting, waiting for them to try more often, which is just get Jokic the hell out of the pick and roll completely. Like, you'll see a lot of teams do with their centers. Okay, is there a bad wing on the floor? Not bad, but is there just a spot up standstill wing on the floor?

Nikola, you go guard him. We'll put Aaron Gordon on Steven Adams and switch some pick and rolls. And we saw that a few times in that game and I sat there saying, here we go. This is the kind of variety I'm looking for.

None of this is saying Nikola Jokic is a bad defender because I actually don't think he is. We've litigated this issue to death on this podcast. I don't think he's as good as the advanced stat numbers paying him out to be. I don't think he's as bad as the caricature of him paying him out to be.

But the Nuggets defense is better with him on the floor. It's always better with him on the floor because if you look at the numbers, they get every rebound when he plays. They get many fewer rebounds when he doesn't. They force a ton of turnovers when he plays.

They force a laughably low number of turnovers when he doesn't. And even so, the best guards in the league are tough matchup for him. So I think that variety is important. That schematic variety, whether the zone they tried will be a thing, is, you know, we'll see.

The schematic variety is important. And to your point about Christian Brown, I'm never going to get it. It's just never going to get it. My brain is never, my brain is going to say Brown, Brown, Brown, Brown, Brown, Brown.

It's just never going to happen. He's good. But Michael Porter Jr., 6'10", or 6'11", and he's coming back. And as you and I have talked about, for all his limitations as a defender, upright stance, flat-footed, unclear interest level, at least at the beginning of his career, he's gotten pretty good.

at flying in and flying out, partly because he's huge. And so, and obviously they need his shooting. This team does not take nearly enough threes. I think that will kick up when he comes back.

I'm excited to, I just, I'm excited to see them try to sort of, it feels like they're starting the season again now and I'm excited to see them do it. Yeah. I want to go back to your defensive point first before moving to Michael Porter. And that is that I think with Denver, when you talk about Jokic being a good defender, he's really a great defender at 90% of it.

It's the 10%. And I think when you talk about mixing up scenes, this is what you're talking about. Can we go to defensive, they're almost gimmicks. You have enough things in your pocket that work.

I mean, they went to a box in one last night, really a diamond in one last night against Jokic for large periods. Again, a gimmick defense, but one that maybe you just have in your pocket that you're experienced enough at that in a playoff series, other teams are forced to go to their fourth, fifth, and sixth adjustments that they're less familiar with. So to me, this is Michael Malone and the coaching staff trying to come up with back pocket type defensive schemes that they're familiar enough with to get over the hump defensively in a playoff series. We'll see if it works.

We'll see if it works. Look, there are only, like their two core lineups are awesome. Yeah. Okay.

I have faith in Bruce Brown off the bench. I think Christian Brown's good. I think Jeff Green is good. They should get four points for every Jeff Green Statue of Liberty dunk.

Like, it should just be worth four points because it's becoming the most exciting nerd moment. You see it coming five steps away and he's still going up and up and up. He's got the arm extended and no one gets out of his way. It's always on somebody's face.

It should be worth four points. You never see it coming. You know the craziest stat Jeff Green had. He's 35 years old.

He had career high in dunks last year. He's on pace to match it this year. Somehow he has singles for Aaron Gordon. Like, the paint's opened up for Denver.

I don't think Aaron Gordon's missed a shot the entire year. It just seems like he has a miss and he must lead the league in get the ball right under the rim, pump fake, get blocked and then rise up again and just angrily dunk and scream on the surrounding defenders like a superhero and just pop out of the fray. He's been amazing. No Jeremy Grant regret in Denver, by the way.

They respect Jeremy Grant. They respect the player he's become. No Jeremy Grant regret. Here are the only questions that matter.

Number one, can they build a top 15 to 12 defense? TBD. Number two, can Michael Porter Jr. stay healthy?

Like, who cares? That's a question any of us can answer. There's no analysis there. Jamal Murray has to be, let's say, a top 20 to 25 NBA player.

He's never been an all-star. He's never really been in the all-NBA conversation, but at his best, he's sniffed that territory. Jamal Murray, since coming back from the ACL, which is a big injury, a long return, you know, he's at like 17 and 5 on so-so shooting, 44%, 34% on threes. Has he been a top 50 player this year?

Top 60 player? Like, he's got to be, he's not in the all-star conversation at all. Like, there's no case for him to make the all-star game. He's got to get back to true co-star level with Jokic.

So, tell me as someone who watches this team every day and he's around them all the time. What have you seen that's encouraging, not encouraging? Like, where are we going to be with Jamal Murray in three months? Well, we'll start here.

If you look at, now we're starting to do the nerd thing, but if you look at the per-minute basis, the per-36, he's actually right on line with what he's been for the previous four years. Almost within one point of every single season, 20 points, 4.3 rebounds, 6.3 assists. Well, he's not playing as many minutes and the efficiency is below. I mean, he's a couple percentage points from the field and really, in particular, at the rim from where he was.

But here's the thing. Jamal Murray has always been an inconsistent player. When you talk about everything, so it was the bubble where he made that leap. He actually had some pockets of leap in him throughout his career, you know, the previous two seasons where he built a 10-game heater where he's scoring 30 a game in non-efficiency.

And we've actually seen that already, Zach, this year. In the two-man game between him, there have been three-game stretches, four-game stretches, fourth period of five games in a row where those two guys just close the door on everybody because they score every single time. And not just score, but they score in ways that make you think, yeah, they can do that every single time. So the peaks, I think, we're starting to see little hints of those peaks again.

But it's been interrupted once by COVID and then once again now by an injury. So it's kind of had this little ramp-up, stop, ramp-up, stop. But I think already we're starting to see the hints of that. Now you just need to get him on the court for 20, 30 games in a row to get him back into that peak shape that all-star players play in that I don't think he has reached at any point this season.

Yeah, I believe in Jamal Murray. I think when it's go time, he's going to be the player they need him to be in part because what he and Yoko Chab is so unique and so special and how they play off of each other. And I agree with you. For stretches of the season, I even said this a month or so ago.

You could see him beginning to realize, oh, I'm Jamal Murray again. You know, I remember a game a month or two ago where a month or so ago rather where every team they were playing switched a big guy onto him and a big guy that shouldn't hang with Jamal Murray. And the first couple times he was like, oh, this guy's kind of big and big and scary. I'm going to pass it off.

And then like the third or fourth time you could see him be like, wait a second, this dude is slow. I'm just going to get by him. I'm going to kill him with a step back. And he's like, all right, now Jamal Murray's coming again.

And so I have faith in that one. The defense one is TBD. How can we solve the just complete collapse of this team when Jokic is on the bench? Because you can just sit there and be like, well, it's only going to be eight minutes in the playoffs, seven minutes in a big playoff game.

You can't lose those by a point a minute in playoff games. You just can't. And it seems like they've tried everything short of putting all the other starters on the floor when Jokic is on the bench, which is not something you're ever going to do really in the regular season. I'm on team Freezeek Nagy.

That's in my column tomorrow too. Freezeek. And I want to, you know, I want to talk about this with LeBron in Cleveland. And the Cavs in the Love Kyrie, LeBron era, even when they had Love and Kyrie on the floor, were always bad when LeBron rested.

And I remember someone with the Cavs told me, it's just because, we think it's because when he's on the floor, the whole system is him. And no matter what, when you take him off the floor, we kind of just don't have a system to fall back on. I was like, yeah, but you have Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love to fall back on. And you look at the Warriors, right?

The same thing with Curry. Even when they had Durant, their offense was good when Curry was on the bench. And it makes me think that, it makes me wonder about the theory that when your offense is built around the greatest passing game of all time, and you take him off the floor, nobody really knows what to do, which is actually why Bones Highland, who doesn't care who's on the floor, Bones Highland thinks he's the best player on the floor at all times. He's actually perfect for those minutes, but it made me think back, didn't they get Mason Plumlee?

They traded Yusuf Nurkic and a first round pick, not a G League first round pick, an actual first round pick with Yusuf Nurkic for Mason Plumlee. I remember them telling me, well, Mason's a really good passer. We think that that will help us play the Jokic style when Jokic is on the bench. I just kind of had forgotten about that.

It didn't work, by the way, and last year they had DeMarcus Cousins, who they picked up late in the season, and he's another guy that you can play in the post, play on the elbow, play at the top of the key, and their second unit, which was atrocious all year, turned into a strength. Even in the playoffs, it was a strength. And then one other guy, by the way, that never really got a chance in Denver, but I wish would have was Isaiah Hartenstein. He's a guy who's kind of floated around the NBA.

It is, I don't think, a great player, but he was in Denver for a while. He showed a little bit of that, where if you're talking about 12 minutes a game, he might have been a good guy for that. But nonetheless, your point, you look at a team like Dallas, Luka Doncic is the system, but they've actually been good without him on the court. They've had some, you know, their plus-minuses have actually survived, and they've had some other things.

So I think there's something to this theory, but I don't think it's unsolvable. I do think that you need an identity, and this is the biggest thing to me with Denver's second unit. There's been, the second unit has consisted of any number of eight, nine guys. You know, staggered Jamal, staggered Michael Porter, tried to play Zeke, tried to play DeAndre, tried to play Christian Brown, Davon Reed, Blacko Chanchard.

I think Denver needs to commit to an identity there. Bones Highland is a great offensive player individually. It has not clicked for him as a floor runner for that group. The ball kind of sticks in his hands, which I think is fine, but when he's not making shots and when he's off his game, nothing else is happening.

I think you need to find a lineup that works for him, and I actually think that that second unit needs to have a lot of hustle, defense around Bones, and spread the court. They experimented in Memphis with playing KCP off the bench, a defensive player who can stand in the corner and open up space for Bones, and it worked, at least for one game. You get Michael Porter back, I think he's another guy that gives you a little bit more scoring punch, but you keep your defensive players, you said, Zeke Nagy, I agree with you. You keep some length out there and you keep some defensive players and you count on Bones to try to score for you, but commit to an identity and commit to a group, I think is going to be a big part of seeing if they can get over the hump with the roster they have.

I like it. Identity is a key word. They just need something to hang their hat on, right? It's like you think back to some of the great bench units.

Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell. That was the bench unit. That was what they stumbled upon it. Didn't work as well in the playoffs because neither of those two guys' games stood up as well in the playoffs, but certainly did enough to at the very least keep the Clippers afloat, you know, on bench units.

In Denver's experiment, Bones is shooting 40% on 11 and a half threes per 36 minutes. I think that's the fifth most of anybody in the NBA and he's shooting 40% on them. I think you can, and a lot of those are deep, by the way. He likes the deep three as much as he likes the regular three.

Denver has started to over the last two games. Start setting those screens well over at the logo the way you do for Damian Lillard. He's so fast that if you're going to go under, he's comfortable taking a little bit of a long run. I know this can be unpalatable when he goes over three, over four and a quarter, but commit to that and then teams will start chasing you over.

They already saw that Memphis where teams will go over the screen 30 feet from the basket and he's getting downhill. He didn't finish against Memphis and he needs to become a better finisher. But again, I think that's part of an identity that you can win with. If you commit to it, we know these are the types of shots we're looking for.

It's the right, identity is the right word. And yeah, Bones is shooting 40% on threes. Is he shooting 40% on twos or is he still in the thirties? It might be somewhere right around there.

He's been really bad at the rim this year. By the way, I wrote about this a couple weeks ago. He's awful defensively, just awful. And he can't be awful.

He's never going to be good. He can't just be a tire fire on every single thing that happens on the court. And I like Bones. And I like Bones.

I've warned people before the season, everyone who's predicting he wins six men of the year is getting a little over their skis. He's the second year on a contending team. Settle down, but he's good. Okay, so let's zoom out.

How are you feeling? Did they play the 30th schedule in the league? Although more road than home. Best record in the West.

Talked about the point differential. Talked about the guys who've been in and out of the lineup. And you go through the West. Warriors are 11th.

Lakers sink. Clippers are fifth. Scrapping along. Pelicans on a losing streak.

Grizzlies are just beat. Dallas is a mess. We can go on and on. I mean, are they...

Do you feel like they're maybe the favorite? Like, how do Denver people feel right now? It's been a... I think it's been hard to be too encouraged by the team because of that 28th defense.

It's felt a little bit like waiting for the season to start for them. And it's funny that you reference, you know, it starts now. You get Murray and Porter back. It feels like a reset.

In Denver, we kind of joke, although we're also being serious. You recall back in 2016, the December 15th holiday that we invented... I know. Does it have a name yet?

Yokimus. We call it Yokimus. The team found their identity and you started to say, okay, we're building something. Well, now we make a joke that every year Yokimus comes into the season a little slow, just a little...

It doesn't seem quite as happy and motivated or whatever. Well, you've been to Serbia. Now you see why. I see.

It's so true. You have to leave the horses. It takes about two months before you kind of get over it. But every year, around this time, the Nuggets seem to get going and you can track it back.

The Nuggets just got two wins after December 15th. Yokimus is putting up 40 points, 27 rebounds and 10 assists and doing these things. And it feels like the Nuggets season really has hit this phase two, they had one game homestand, four on the road, one game three on the road, one game two on the road. Basically, their home stops were just a part of the extended road trip that they had been on for the entire season.

To this date, they have played the fewest home games of anyone in the NBA. So now I did the math a couple days ago that they had something like 51 days in Denver and five nights on the road between a couple days ago and January 23rd. So this home heavy stretch to me is the part where they're either going to become galvanized, they're already number one in the West. But I think that this is the moment where they make the move.

The defense starts to look cohesive. Jamal Murray starts to get better rest and starts to get in better shape and comes back. This is the moment in time where I think it will or won't happen for the Nuggets to kind of start to show who they are. And by the way, they're in first place already and haven't quite hit that stride yet.

So you asked me how I feel. I feel cautiously optimistic noting that I haven't seen championship level defense for them outside of maybe two or three games all year. Yeah, it's funny. I had six teams in my inner circle of championship contenders before the season.

Six, like, if they're healthy, they don't need anything else. They're in the upper room like Vince Carter would say. Three in the East and three in the West. And the three in the West were Golden State, the Clippers, and Denver.

And so just by that logic, you would assume that I would consider Denver the favorite now because they're by far ahead of those three teams among those three teams in the West. As I told Kevin Pelton before, he wrote a piece today where he would just kind of shrug his shoulders if you ask him who's going to win the West right now and probably pick the Grizzlies for today. Maybe next week that changes. I don't even know who I would pick, but I understand why he's picking the Grizzlies and I think the Grizzlies are absolutely fearsome.

I don't know why it's not Denver though. And like, I know the defense, we just talked about the defense, it's been limited and all that stuff. I know what this team is on offense. I think they can get to a good enough defense.

I had them in my championship inner circle before the season and to me, they're still there despite the defense being up and down, the health questions and all that. I think they have enough and they better have enough because they don't really have the means to make a trade. I mean, if you trade good young players like Christian Brown, you can get anyone you want. You can get a little upgrade.

You can get a better upgrade or something. I don't think they should do that. I think they've got enough, man. I don't see why not.

I think over the next four weeks, I'm not saying it's a certainty to happen, but I would not be surprised if over the next four weeks the sentiment nationally on the Nuggets changes. I think this is a big stretch for them. It's tough games. They have good teams coming into town, including Phoenix, Portland, Friday, Boston's coming to town before too long.

But they're home games. And like I said, it's underappreciated. Denver went to San Diego for training camp because they don't have a facility for it. Then they went on the road to California for three preseason games and then they've been on the road for two months.

And I know this because here I'm in Denver and I never see them in practice. I never see them at home games because they're never here. They have an opportunity now to be home for a consistent stretch. They're getting guys back and I just think it's going to make a big difference.

If it doesn't, like I said, I think people continue to count them out regardless of what the record is. But I suspect that they're going to have some marquee wins under the belt here between now and the end of January. Well, the Phoenix game is, and this is a good place to stop. The Phoenix game is interesting because I don't know, I can't remember if Booker's playing or not.

Booker's been out the last few games. But, you know, Phoenix in the 2021 playoffs just sliced the Nuggets apart. This absolutely beautiful pick and roll attack with two alpha ball handlers who can shoot pull up threes if you drop back, who can torture you if you come out too far. And just the Nuggets had no shot.

No shot. Just the Phoenix, just all the, Chris Paul kicks the bridges, bridges, drives, kicks the camp, Austin Rivers and I can't remember who it is. Also Compazzo. Compazzo, that's right.

And Jokic has just dragged them here the entire regular season is absolutely out of gas. They don't have good defensive guards who can get over screens. Like there's an ecosystem there that is larger than Jokic that needed to be repaired that they could not repair then. Well, it's been repaired now, mostly.

Like it's not quite all the way repaired, but they've pivoted, they've got new guys, they have new ideas. And Phoenix was, I don't know if it was, that series was a low point for the Nuggets because I think they went into that series, yeah, we're exhausted, we're fatigued, we're injured real little. We just beat a Portland team who frankly probably thinks they should have beat us. And we came into that series and we had a shot and we got rolled and it was ugly and it was embarrassing and it had us asking fundamental questions about our identity and they've largely kept the same core group, same coaches, same everything.

It's only one game. I don't know if Devin Booker's going to play, but that's the kind of offense, much like the Warriors offense, So it's an interesting test for them. I agree. I mean, I think everybody in Denver that watches the Nuggets closely views Phoenix as this sort of test, let's let this test for them.

It's the one team that made them look like they weren't close. Even the Warriors last year, Denver was in those games in games three, four, and five. You lose in five games, read them do that what you will, but you were in the games. The Phoenix games were four blowouts.

And so I think you're right that that one, to me, and I think for a lot of people that watch the Nuggets closely is one everybody's been waiting for to say, hey, let's see how they stack up this time with all their pieces back. It's going to be a fun second half of the season. I think they've got enough. I do think this is a big year for them.

And I think it's a big year for them. And I think, let's put this away, I pay a lot of attention to the back end of their rotation on a night-to-night basis. Who plays, who doesn't play is very, very interesting to me. Adam Mars, second to uncovering the Nuggets.

I hope to see you soon. Thank you for your time. Enjoy some home games. Enjoy some home games with Denver Nuggets.

Some sustained home games. Thank you, sir. You know what? I will do that.

Have a good holiday season. You too.