Vernon and Youngmisuk

And now, The Low Post. Welcome to The Low Post Podcast, where it's time, 25 games into the NBA season, it's time for me to do a mea culpa about my very slight, very cautious, not a big deal, just short-term injury-related, but still, slight anxiety, trepidation about the Memphis Grizzlies, because boy, oh boy, the Grizzlies, despite Jaron Jackson Jr. and Desmond Bain playing zero seconds together this season, are 16-9, half a game out of first in the Western Conference, and do not look, do not look like a team at risk of falling into the play-in tournament as I worried they might before the season, and the person who yelled at me about that, the person who's going to yell at me about that today, from The Ringer, from Grind City Media, my friend over many years now, used to just be a voice on the phone a long time ago, as a radio host in Memphis, and me as a blogger for Sports Illustrated, Chris Vernon, how are you? Oh, I'm so glad to be here, Zach, I can't wait to hear what you have to say now, after only 25 games into the season, but that's not what's most important, what's most important is, as you said, I've been friends for a long time, I'm a loyal listener to the podcast, and I was rooting for Croatia just for you, I wanted Zach Lowe to be happy, I found myself watching that game, and I was like, you know what, I do have a minor connection to this game, I know someone, personally, that would be absolutely thrilled if Croatia won, therefore, I am rooting for Croatia, and sure enough, look at you, you've got to be Mr.

World Cup now, hey, look, man, pound for pound, pound for pound, little country of four million people, four million, that's it, how many cities in Brazil are bigger than Croatia? Several, several, third place in 98, second place in 18, minimum quarterfinals this season, the amount of screaming and running around that was happening in my house during penalty kicks the other day was inappropriate, like, we had a babysitter coming because it was early dismissal at school, we had to have some childcare, and the game was going so long that my wife was like, we can't be behaving like this, it was the first time we're using this babysitter, like, we can't let her into this atmosphere and think that we're these insane people, pound for pound, look, man, Brazil, our win probability is probably like 5%, I know the deal, Brazil is scary, but I'll tell you this, they never give up, they're tough as hell, and a lot of teams are scared of Brazil, this is my, I have no soccer knowledge, by the way, I'm just going to be the guy who's watched, like, 30 minutes of soccer, a lot of teams are intimidated by Brazil, Chris, they see the mustard yellow jerseys, and they begin quaking in their cleats, Croatia ain't going to be scared of anybody, and the last thing I will say is I've already alerted my producers, if Croatia wins tomorrow, NBA today at 3 p.m. Eastern, it's going to be, it's going to be a little wobbly for me, if Croatia wins tomorrow morning, you should tune into NBA today, because I don't know, I don't know what's going on in my house, what kind of shape I'm going to be in, but never give up, man, you never know, you're going to get the first goal, and you never know, that's all I'm saying. I need to know, I need to know the setup, is it just you and your wife at these Croatia World Cup parties, or do you invite people over, and does your, does your daughter get into this, does she know what's going on, does she have an awareness of it?

Daughter has a Modric jersey, and has a dance, has a dance she does, just, it's a celebratory dance, but she just does it at random times during the games, we had friends over for the game against Canada, which was on a Sunday, I think, and one of them brought a, one of them has at least one daughter, one of their daughters is born in Canada, and is like five, and announced that she was cheering for Canada, and I said, you can't leave, you can't get to get out of here, you don't get any food, you don't get any snacks, and she was, and she just looked at me like, no, I don't, and I was like, you know what, you look at me like that again, you may actually have to get out of here, because I don't need this energy in this house, so there's a Croatian restaurant near us that we were thinking about going to tomorrow, but it's just, I don't know, oh, a watch party, well, I'm still, I'm still on the cautious side, on the pandemic stuff, I don't know, it's also at 10 in the morning, so we'll see, so it was just the two of us the other day, screaming, screaming, you into this at all? Yeah, I was, I certainly was in the United States, and my daughter was playing soccer, like on the club soccer, and, and so she, you know, their coaches were like, hey, why don't you guys watch the World Cup, and everything, and so she had gotten, she had gotten into it, which if I get her into it, my son is sports crazy, so he'll watch anything, and so we certainly watched all the United States games, and then like, if I have it on, they're not like uninterested, or don't want to watch it, but the United, we're pretty well tied to the United States, and what they were going to do in the World Cup, and of course, yes, we all became incredible experts. Oh yeah, I know, there's a space over there, like, what the hell am I talking about, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, yeah, it's, by the way, I would like to apologize formally to a friend that I have not talked to in 25 years, Brad Strobel, shout out to Brad Strobel, he was a massive, massive U.S. soccer fan in 1994 when the World Cup came here, and I was the dope in high school being like, soccer, that's a stupid sport, it's 0-0 penalty kicks, what kind of sport is that, Brad, it's so freaking boring, it's like watching grass grow, Brad was right, I was wrong, a 0-0 soccer game is exciting, I don't know, I say this all the time, I don't know how people watch these games, they're too intense, there's, like, every World Cup soccer game is like the last four minutes of Warriors-Cavs Game 7 in 2016, when you're like ripping the arms of your seat, that's the whole game, it's unbearable, anyway, go Croatia, before we get to the Grizzlies, will you indulge me on a couple of teams?

Let me hear it. Did you hear the Bill Simmons, Ryan Russillo listing of all the guards on the Bill Simmons podcast, of all the guards, they would take over Trae Young for the next five years, and it kind of went semi-viral within Hawks Twitter, as they listed guard after guard after guard after guard, and questioned Trae Young's leadership, questioned his defense, which is obviously abysmal, questioned the Hawks future, did you hear that, did you listen to that? Yes, yes, when he got to Alvarado, I was drove off the road. I mean, they got to Bain after Halliburton, and Russillo just goes, I'm in, Desmond Bain, I'm taking Desmond Bain, and I was like, they are, they're going all in.

And I will say, I don't think that there are two teams that met in a landmark playoff series two seasons ago, it feels like ages ago, and a lot of stuff has happened to them, that I want to just sort of gently, not raise alarm bells, but I want to talk about it for a few seconds, and one of them is the Hawks. And look, I don't really care to rank where Trae Young is or isn't, I will say, this latest thing with Nick McMillan, and skipping the shoot-around, and blah, blah, blah, it's always something there, there's just always, it's becoming one of those places where there's always something, there's always coach player attention, player player attention, trade room, or something, blah, blah, blah, do people like playing with Trae, he's a great passer, do people not like playing with Trae, he only passes to get assists, he needs to get off of it early, oh, he was doing that when they made the conference finals two years ago, he's not doing that, blah, blah, blah, blah, I don't like, I don't like what's going on there on the floor, it doesn't, it doesn't look good to me, they got wallowed by the Knicks last night, the Jonathan Murray got hurt four minutes in the game, so discard that if you want. Something I'm going to write about tomorrow, first 10 games of the season, Trae Young was running off, like 12 off-ball screens for 100 possessions, like the J. Diabetic off-ball screens, right?

For him, that's a lot, his career norm is like six, which is, you know, the whole thing with Trae is, will he do anything away from the ball, will he just be off your television screen at half-court, or will he be active, will he set screens, no, he's never going to do that, will he run around, 12, that was encouraging, a month later, it's back down to six or seven, which means in the intervening month, it's been like four or three, and you watch the Hawks, and yeah, their numbers are fine when Murray and Young are on the floor, but stylistically, they're not amplifying each other, they're not playing off of each other, they're not leveraging each other, and the role players, it's just all hit or miss all over the place, there's a deficit of playmaking, other than Bogdanovich guys are hurt, I just don't like, I don't like what I'm seeing, and I don't like the vibes, they're one game over 500, and I'll just say, they're a team I'd watch over the next month, because it feels like another three losses in four games stretch, and it could get a little tense there, do you agree, disagree? Yes, yes, here's one of the things that I would say regarding this particular story that came out by Sam Amick, one of the major problems to me, which is something that Trae Young said in that disastrous interview he did in the aftermath, was about it being public, and while Trae had the disastrous interview, in my opinion, he is right in that sense, look, there are all kinds of things that go on within the context of a team, and happen behind closed doors, the fact that the Hawks have leaks on virtually every bit of drama that takes place with that team is what is mega concerning to me, you have that situation with the whole John Collins being upset last year, and the Trae Young stuff, and next thing you know, there's literally an exact recording of what Clint Capella said in the meeting, and what the meeting was like with Trae, and I'm talking word for word, and it's like, yo, who is reciting all of this for it to be out in the media, then this comes again with Trae this year, one of my great concerns about a franchise would be, you have a franchise player, this is the face of your franchise, he's the one on all the billboards, he's the one everywhere, he's the one that sells all the jerseys, and you have this issue with him and the head coach, again, you have the opportunity to stamp that out, so number one, you let it get to a point where they're both angry, and next thing you know, your star player's not showing up, and he's not on the bench, okay, that's bad enough, at that point, you say, alright, people are going to ask about him not being here, alright, so what's our answer to that, and then, Trae, when we're going to put you in front of a microphone, I mean, it's a billion dollar industry, and everybody's got full on PR teams, when we put you in front of a microphone, what are you going to say, and basically, Trae Young's explanation was, this shouldn't be public, I'm just here to win championships, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but then, you know, hey, fine, Trae, and that reporter that was asking him the questions, he's sitting there saying, okay, Trae, well, it became public, because you're the face of the franchise, and you're not on the bench supporting your team, at that point, regardless of the story, that's public, and he says, well, so why weren't you there, I was hurt, John Collins in a boot, he was there, and then it's like, I don't want to answer any more questions, let me get out of here, and it's like, hold on now, where is the protection for this situation, where is the damage control for this, somebody from the Hawks wanted that out, and Sam Amick was on with Rajah Bell and Logan Murdoch, and said that if you, this is the most concerning, if you pulled the Hawks, he said, he thought the players would, if you split them up, they would side with McMillan, that's the problem, if that's so, if that's true, and the players would side with McMillan in this situation, then you've got a real problem on your hands. Look, this is a, where there's smoke, there's fire situation, from what I've heard and learned, this is not a random, like, one-off, oh, there was major miscommunication, like, the chain of communication there is not great, but there's something going on there, and look, there was not a lot of complaining about Trae Young when they were in the conference finals two seasons ago, when they beat the Sixers in seven games, and it took two games from the Bucs, now Giannis was hurt for part of that, Trae was hurt for part of that, I didn't hear a lot of, like, oh, I would take Desmond Bain over Trae Young, I would take so-and-so over Trae Young, but, but, A, Trae Young is not shooting the ball well, when he's not shooting the ball well, that'll change, like, everything is better when people make shots, look at Dallas, the sky was falling in Dallas a week ago, Tim Hardaway started making shots, and now they're two games from the Bucs, everything's fine again, we'll see, but the point is he'll make shots, I just don't, I think that that bracket broke pretty perfectly for them, starting with the Knicks, who had no way to hunt Trae Young on defense, nor did the Sixers, really, and then the Sixers obviously went through an internal meltdown, the ripple effects of which they are still feeling today, in that series, so the bracket broke right for them, but you know what, you still have to beat the teams in front of you, and they did, and credit to them for that, I just don't think they can get any farther than that, or even reach that again, if he's the worst defensive player in the league, which, well, and Jack, it's also, look, we're all going to be colored by recency bias in this thing, and Miami took him out, I took him out, I mean, that's, most recently, we saw him in the playoffs, and they, you know, when you are an all-NBA superstar caliber player, you know, with, you know, with great blessings comes great responsibility, and he got just completely taken out of a series, completely, by Miami, and that's, that's the other thing I was going to bring up, because when they did make that conference finals run, and I wrote about it, and I talked about it at the time, one of the changes he made to his game was, he would get off of it early, even when it was not necessarily going to lead to assists, I see that second defender coming at me on the pick and roll here, like Kevin Herter, you take it on the wing, I'll get off it early, you make a play, maybe the ball comes all the way back to me, around the horn, when I do that, by the way, the Kevin Herter trade, which was partly to save money, I think, they could really use Kevin Herter right now, all the way to save money, yeah, they could really use Kevin Herter right now, and I'm not sure that he's getting, getting off of it early enough, again, in that, in that style, I do really like that trade for the Hawks, I thought it was too big of a price to pay, even though I think those two guys are so talented, that they'll find a way to make it work, they'll iron out, it'll never be, Trae Young is never going to run off 20 screens a game, he's never going to go around setting screens, he's never going to be the off-ball threat that you need around John DeMurray, who needs to have the ball a lot, it's never going to be perfect, but they're so talented, that they'll make it work to some degree, it's just not, 25 games in, it's almost regressed in their level of, like, cooperation from the first week of the season, and I just don't like what I'm seeing, I don't like what I'm hearing, I don't, I don't like it, and it's just a team that I would, I would keep, like, I had them as a play-in team, like I said, I had them 7th or 8th, I think, in the East, um, before the season, uh, the six teams that if you had forced me, here are the six teams you're picking for, like, the six locked-in playoff spots, Boston, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, team benefit of the doubt, that's Miami, um, Brooklyn, and who am I forgetting in the East, top of the East, um, not Cleveland, who am I forgetting, you like Toronto, Toronto, Toronto, another team that I would, there's a lot of Toronto buzz out there, and we'll see how they look, and I think they're curious to see how they look over the next month, they're 13-12, those are my six, I think I'm gonna be wrong, having Cleveland in the 7-8 spot, hold on, you can't just get away with that, because I listen to your podcast all the time, and you do this, and thank God Chris Vernon's on here today, you like that, I just read you Jackson to you, or my favorite was Bobby Jackson, back in the day, when he was playing for the Grizzlies, we asked him about what the Grizzlies need to do to get back on track, and he's like, look, Bobby Jackson just needs to start playing Bobby Jackson basketball, so here's where I come in on this, you just kind of sniped out there, a lot of buzz out there about Toronto, what are you talking about? No, I just, I think rival teams, other teams, are curious about, are we gonna be able to 13-12, I think they're disappointed in their record, then again, Siakam's missed 10 games, Achua has done nothing this season, other guys have missed games, they barely had their starting lineup together at all, Gary Trent's coming up, blah blah blah, Van Vliet's had a bad season, Van Vliet's awesome, deserved all-star last year, when are we gonna just talk about the fact that he's never hit above 44% on twos, his entire career, and he's at like 38% or something this year, I think it's just more, is Masai Ujiri and Bobby Webstar, are they gonna be okay if in three weeks to a month, this team is still two games over, two games under, in the middle, where no one is really psyched to be, and you have Van Vliet, who's eligible for an extension, and has a player option.

next season you have an anobi who has been outstanding all season has a player option for 24 25 that he's going to for sure decline because he's going to make a gigantic amount of money you have this endless rumors that both i think anobi and the team have um disputed and yet still keep popping up that he wants a bigger role that he's not thrilled there blah blah blah you have an anobi barn siakam are all kind of power forwards of one ilk or another i mean they're really just power everything but they have a lot of overlap there i just think there's curiosity i said last week i think toronto's gonna surge i think they're too good to do a step back trade and in fact have the ammo to do the step up trade if they want to they have all their picks but i just think there's curiosity how do we start talking about the hawks yeah um oh yes i had them in the in the seventh eighth spots in the east seven or eight with cleveland i'm gonna be wrong about cleveland they're better than i thought so i guess in one sense the hawks are meeting my expectations and if you just told me what the record was i would say okay but the eye test and ear test i guess is i just just need to keep an eye on that's all i'm saying other team to keep an eye on is the other team in that series the sixers uh who lost that series uh the the pass happened in that series the pass sounds like a football play like the drive the fumble it sounds like something bad that happened to the cleveland browns the pass um happened in that series the sixers are 500 they're two and five with harden and mbd harden just came back and laid a gigantic egg in houston in a double overtime loss um it's early chris it's early two and five to seven games that they play together max he's been hurt for a while he's gonna be hurt for a while longer i just i don't like the way it's looked this season with james and joel it's it's harden ball and mbd ball and the thing that's supposed to connect them is the pick and roll between them and oftentimes it does and then other times they don't use it i don't think they use it enough frankly and or even proceed it with any action that would bend the defense a little bit before you go into the meat and potatoes and then if a defense switches it as teams are going to try to do it's just okay i'm james has the ball i'm gonna i'm just gonna dribble around for a while joel like you'll wave joel out of the way sometimes like you can't just wave joel and beat out of the way he's better than you or we just dump it to joel joel catches it at the elbow jab step jab step he's an awesome elbow mid-range shooter awesome off the dribble it just looks too slow and dispirited not cooperative enough max he's gonna need to eat on the fringes of that action when he comes back like quick kick to him attack blah blah blah um i'm not gonna sound the alarm yet because i need to see more games with them together but the worst thing that's happened this season is that boston has made a leap milwaukee is awesome as expected they were supposed to be the third big dog in the east and they do not look that way they do not look like a like a happy spirited team they frankly played the first 10 games of the season um when and beat and harden were healthy as if they were the 2001 lakers as if they could just like yeah we'll flip the switch when we get to the playoffs you've done nothing play hard run back on defense like i i just i'm and sixer fans i know are i listened to the rice ricky sanchez last week i saw kyle newbeck's column at philly voice they're already like fed up with this team i think that's a little premature but i understand why man i just those two teams at the top are so good you got to win right now harden's a free agent after this season joel and beat is going to look around and be like if they fail again i i don't know what have you seen from them i actually saw them in person uh within the last week and rather uninspiring as you mentioned it was it was very odd because it's one of those situations where i think a beat was maybe two assists off of a triple double and at one point my producer looked at me in the fourth quarter he's like and beat's got 32 and i'm like what like he still had all this production and everything else and in the absence of maxi in the absence of harden you know shake milton had been on a little tear when they when they came to town and the crazy thing was uh like no one even like in the absence of those guys you would think harris would be a bigger deal and he was lighting it up he's like five a seven from three he's dunking on people and i'm like oh now his job he's done his job zach when i tell you i don't think the guy touched the ball in the fourth quarter like they never even passed it to him it was bizarre and i'm like you would think it would kind of be the tobias and beat show in the absence of these other guys it's kind of been the shake milton and beat show and then you've got this weird tobias thing who's an extremely talented player um but i don't know and you know they've added some different guys i think they are we're rotation wise getting used to each other but i'm going to give them the pass in the sense of there needs to be a better sample size of maxi harden and bead and those guys playing together it's still very early they're still not i mean with the way that trade went down last year there's still not a huge amount of games that those guys and minutes that those guys have actually played together harden and bead was the most efficient pick and roll combination once they made that trade now harden still doesn't look like harden still doesn't have the burst everyone's like oh look at his mid-range game it's great he's shooting shots he's doing it because he can't get to the rim as much anymore which is his bread and butter i guess what i'm saying bringing up these two teams is like this is sort of the natural effect of so much bunching in the middle like brooklyn is up to fourth and we're i'll get to brooklyn another day i can't i'm not ready to dive back into brooklyn yet uh and they are two games up in the lost column on the bulls who are 12th like that's so when it's that bunched up you do get to this point trade that line's looming december 15th is a week from today when more players can get traded where it feels like we're entering a what is this team stretch for like a lot of teams so we mentioned atlanta philly i'm gonna be watching the clippers closely and i'm gonna talk to all about the clippers after you um there's just a lot of teams like what what are what are toronto we talked about even denver who i think i'm gonna talk about next week 14 and 10 down to fourth in the in the west like what what are these teams what do they think of themselves and i just need to see a little more juice from from the fully healthy sixers and like you said they deserve another 20 games but i want to see some juice in those 20 games you know who doesn't lack for juice who's that the fight in memphis grizzlies 16 and 9 yeah tied for second in the west with phoenix who lost to boston by a million points last night how about that 69 spot in the first half you know i got this text from simmons and it's like how about that something's first half or whatever i was driving home from grizzlies uh okc and so i like pull up the box score and i'm like and i'm like did phoenix really go one for 16 from three in the first half that's impossible they get good shots one for 16 grizzlies are ninth in offense 10th in defense despite as i mentioned they're starting five has played zero seconds together the whole season bane before his injury and he's gonna be back i think they announced last night in probably three or four weeks that's hopeful looks incredible has looked incredible has like doubled his pick and roll volume which is gonna be huge for them in the playoffs when morant sits they have to have another secondary sorts of offense jaron jackson jr it never looks pretty on offense it looks it pretty is not the right word for how it looks on defense it looks freaking scary he is blocking everything it's like his we talk about second jump on offense a lot his second jump on defense is incredible like he goes for a block or he jumps and rebound goes to somebody else he jumps up again like obliterated he's averaging four blocks for 36 minutes teams are shooting 44 percent at the rim when he's the nearest defender that's like beyond gobert levels of rim protection he's finally starting to shoot the three all right 56 on twos he looks better it's early but he looks like he's done better bane looks like he's made another leap that's a legit big three with morant and they were winning with offense just playing these all-star game type games they're now as of last night 42 and one when they score 120 points and they were getting teams in those games and so if you want to play an all-star game you're in big big trouble um but their defense was like at the very bottom of the league they were like 28th in the first you know 10 15 games of the season and then jaron jackson came back and you saw that you said now they're in the top 10 in defense i mean and this happened a year ago where they were pathetic defensively to start out the season and the next thing you knew they were right at the very top of the league and no small part of that is jackson i mean last night he has five blocks that's become commonplace but it's not it's not even just the five that he gets a hand on it's the 35 shots that don't get taken because somebody looks up and they see this condor that's standing there he's got a real knack for it and he now this year has a bulk he's really grown into his body he's got he's bigger he's stronger he's rebounding better and play a bully ball uh on offense where he'll just take that extra dribble to try to get all the way to the basket um he has been he has been great since he has come back and defensively has been spectacular i believe last night's only the second game since he returned that he has not had over 20 points zyre williams came back last night yep yep and there were segments of the game where he jackson and clark were all on the floor and the jackson clark 4-5 combo has been a big winner for memphis for years now they win big when those two guys are on the floor when those three guys were on the floor last night there was so much speed and so many arms and so much jumping jack guys everywhere that it just felt like they had six guys on the floor and that's really the vision for this team around morant and bane is length and versatility you can see it in the guys they drafted from zaire to roddy who i already love roddy just running around out there hitting he's like almost 40 on corner threes they're a corner team on both ends of the floor they don't shoot a lot of threes but they shoot a lot of corner threes they give up a ton of threes but they don't give up a lot of corner threes that's that's obviously on purpose taylor jackins has them doing what he wants them to do um and look the reason we're talking about it is not just they're 16 and 9 the clippers are tbd the warriors are 500 i i thought the grizzlies were going to be somewhere between fourth and seventh in the west because of jackson's injury not only have they weathered that they've weathered other injuries including bane now in morant i think he's missed four games they're right at the top of the west and i think for both them and the pelicans i think it's starting to be clear like the time could be now the time doesn't have to be three years from now the time could be now jackson and bane have been so good and morant is so good that we need to start talking about them it's like they're they can win the title they could win the west at least for walking boston maybe a stretch but they are this team is really really good and they are ready now there is always a well there's always a chip on a shoulder in memphis in terms of and now they're on national tv much more they can talk about more but it's kind of like they were a flash and then even coming into this year there were a lot of people that were like oh yeah they're kind of in the mix and they just got to bypass it or with last year one of the things that has frustrated me is look last year during the playoffs they played the warriors better than everybody including the boston celtics all right they played better against the warriors john morant misses a game winner in game one they win game two they go to game three and they get smoke first home game four all right and jaw gets hurt they turn around game four they're up by double digits in the fourth quarter they let them off the hook they lose that game come back they beat them by a thousand beat the warriors by a thousand in game five and then go to game six highly competitive until the end so by the way john morant is averaging 40 or 38 8 and 7 when he gets hurt like no one ever talks about the fact that they are right there with the warriors would have had a game seven on their home floor would have had a game seven on their home floor and lost their best player all nba player it's kind of like oh yeah well they would have ran anyway it's like he's averaging almost 40 points a game in the very short amount of time that we saw him in that series and i get it proper respect to the warriors they're a rightful champion but they weren't that far off last year it's not crazy to think that if john morant played last year that could have been different because the march in was very very small without him they only had him for two games against the warriors and so then coming into this season it's like what because they lost the anthony melton kyle anderson now all of a sudden they're not a championship contender you nailed it those guys were innings eaters for them they were really good for them they just kind of bet like our second third best players can get better and we like we think that these young guys santi al-dama we haven't talked about santi al-dama is kind of like people kind of chuckle about him i don't know like oh santi al-dama that's cute they think santi al-dama is good and he looks like he's a good player he's 34 percent from three he can pass they rightfully bet we'll bring these guys into our culture the holdovers we have are good enough jackson bain moran clark adams conchars shooting 39 percent from three we'll bring these young guys into our culture we think they fit we'll be fine we'll be fine and they were absolutely right and you mentioned morant in the playoffs well he's shooting 38 percent on threes this year and you've already seen teams not as many teams are ducking under picks for him like they used to just giving him threes and that just opens up the whole world for him if you're letting him into the paint and once you let that dude into the paint it's like good freaking luck he's gonna dunk on somebody's face five times out of ten we're like crazy layoffs where he's like he does a layoff where he's like elevating twisting still going up almost hits his face on the rim the defender like falls backwards like what is this thing coming i don't even know what to do with this and sometimes he gets fouls sometimes he makes them man they bet right and the job stuff you know the interesting discussion about the grizzlies last year was this team relies on offensive rebounding defensive rebounding the latter of which fuels their transition attack forcing a crap ton of turnovers fueling their transition attack it's all that stuff gonna hold up in the playoffs can you can you win the slow down grimy half-court game in the playoffs if you depend on offensive rebounds who's giving you those transition that stuff goes away in the playoffs and even now the grizzlies are 22nd in half-court scoring efficiency according to cleaning blast 22nd right now today that's not good i think they proved in the playoffs if 100 of that transition chaos game doesn't translate into the postseason 80 of it does 85 of it does and if you have john on the floor i think they can create enough half-court offense if you have john bain i think i think this team is they would have to have bain when they get healthy i think they've got enough um i think they've got enough i think they showed their style works so you saw it last year during the playoffs and morant really struggled in the minnesota series credit to chris finch he decided and teams do a couple different things one of which is he made barant c2 every time he guarded him with a bigger guy in many occasions that being anthony edwards and he made him c2 so when steven adams and or in that particular series adams wasn't playing whoever was setting the screen now then there's some of these teams that play it this way they make him see a second guy at the free throw line extended or certainly you're not getting to get into the paint without seeing a second guy okay we'll go look doesn't bain averaged over 25 points a game against minnesota jaren or brandon clark was crazy against minnesota because he's the other big that's running around bain is the the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the other big that's running around bain is the outlet so and then you get to the golden state series golden state they're like we're gonna guard this guy straight up okay now you're getting 40 put on your head because if you're gonna guard him with one guy now that screen comes and he as soon as he turns that corner it's over it's over now if you're bringing the other guy that's where they have to have bane and that will be in the half court and that's why you saw in that minnesota series bane go crazy and then what golden state did is they said all right we're gonna play all these guys we're staying at home we're staying at home on bane doesn't bane's not doing what he wants to do and brandon clark's not doing what he wants to do those guys aren't gonna beat us and i do think that because of bane getting so much better and shooting 45 from three at the time that he went out i mean now you've got some very series choices to make defensively of which there are no good answers for and look when they get whole and they can turn aldama and roddy i mean arabia's not even playing anymore into from like really decent minutes rotation players to fringe rotation players all of a sudden they get really really good and really really scary and they'll have the depth to do that by the way i think the wolves did this a lot you saw the thunder do it last night teams are gonna go around on defense they're gonna attack him on when the reasons are on defense they're gonna drag him into pick and rolls i think he's been better on defense this year i don't think he's as much of a liability as he was last year i think he's fighting harder and that's the kind of courage trajectory that he's gonna have to be on um as they get deeper into the playoffs um he's not unwilling no some of these guys they do you know they got the ball on offense all the time and then you go and you watch them they're kind of standing around on defense it's just kind of what you have to do when you're not playing offense he's just an unwilling defender which is what's important and he doesn't i mean he's got to share pretty spectacular chase down blocks and some steals he's the best show in the nba he's the best show in the nba full stop so here's my question having said all that having said that they're probably deep enough to like when it really really matters is david roddy ready is it really when it really really matters is sound the aldama ready i don't know the answer that i doubt it but maybe they are i don't know if they're ready ready but fill in sure here's my question there's been this durant fixation since he requested a trade from brooklyn which has since been rescinded and as i said the nets are fourth in the east rolling right along separate from the durant discussion there's always been this what are they saving their stuff for about memphis who's the whale to bring in with all the picks and the prospects jalen brown was once mentioned right when back when the celtics were scuffling around 500 but he's the perfect 3d guy he's like you know the player prototype you want next to jaw um what if there is no whale and what if this season what if they just decided to trade like one pick plus danny green plus maybe another small salary for just someone who can take those roddy aldama minutes and turn them into a weapon like i tried i really tried to get boyam mcdonavich to memphis he makes 19 million dollars a year danny green makes 10 getting the intervening salary is really really hard without taking a player memphis doesn't want to trade is there would they ever cannibalize a small portion of their asset base to do that is there a guy you like for that because i do think if you just upgraded that spot to a shooter 3.5 kind of player kuzma came to mind for me although the wizard said he's a cornerstone okay um is there a player you like does this make any sense to you or you just say like we got enough let's hold our stuff i think uh they will not move john moran they will not move desmond bain no that's what those three guys are those three yeah they're on the table oh i think anything else that could possibly improve the team and that's why i got interested all right now i get to confess so when you were doing the whole you know there's some buzz around toronto whatever and adobe i covet him it's not gonna happen but that would be great i mean the thing about adobe is if i'm toronto why am i why am i even entertaining it he might be the defensive player of the year he's exactly the player every good team needs he's young do i really care that he's gonna be up for a huge contract in two years or am i just happy to pay that contract like i don't i just don't see them doing that um but yes that is a name i thought that's a bit that's almost if that's not a whale that's like a like a shark or something like i'm talking about a smaller deal that doesn't call out completely this is gonna stun you are you out completely on reddish now let me hear first of all i was never in so can i be out if i was never in yes you can um he's on my list by the way solo my beloved solo solomon hill the other night i don't know if you saw him tweet this he said free cam get that boy to memphis and then he responded to somebody by saying look sometimes with these players it's where they go and cam and ja have had this like back and forth where they love each other love each other's games and all this stuff solo who had been a part of the memphis thing at one point says like hey this kid is mega talented and he needs an environment like they have there in order to harness what he could be and i'm thinking to myself like you know that's one of those like again i don't know if it's needle moving in any kind of way but i found fascinating nonetheless nothing nothing yeah i mean like nothing they like dan green by the way i don't know oh they do like they're like we love dan green we love his presence we're not looking to trade dan green so maybe there's just nothing to do they love roddy they obviously traded for roddy in the draft they like they like all these guys i just if you could plop bogdanovich is the perfect guy to me if you could just plop him into 25 minutes again for them holy cow would he open up so much for them i just don't i don't see a way for them my only point was there's just been this fixation of who are the really gonna trade like four picks and three swaps for it's like well why can't you just isn't this team good enough to do the sort of like well the marcus soul trade for toronto or just like the sort of like marginal small trade to get us just a little bit better haven't they proven up because i'll tell you man the west is all topsy-turvy but the grizzlies i was wrong i was wrong to be worried they're tough as hell they play super hard they know who they are they have star power they're second and third best guys are getting better and that's the reddish thing i don't know the way he plays doesn't scream at this grizzly to me no and he might be i mean look they love zeyer williams and he just came back last night for the first time and let me tell you something about him to keep an eye on next time you watch you mentioned how long and athletic they look last night so i have a theory on this and the only reason i have a theory on this is because my son is he's playing now and he had over the course of the last you know month or so this extreme agony in his knees after he would play would run and jump so we go and we get checked out it's this thing that a lot of kids have a lot a lot of your audience will know oscar slaughter is what it's called and it's the stress on the patella tendon that takes place when you are growing right this happens to a lot of kids as they're growing he's 12 years old he's hitting a growth spurt his knees are killing him right so i'm going through that at home all the while every time i start asking about zeyer williams it's not an injury he never had an injury if you ever go back and look at the injury reports it always says patella tendonitis that's what it says which means i have a sore knee now i'm at home with this kid i'm like i'll be damned i bet this dude is growing i bet that's what's happening and that's why his knee's hurting like it is because i'm limited and i'll be damned about two weeks ago i started getting all these tweets because as you know as you watch the games after the game when they're doing the walk-off interview the whole damn team mobs everybody and jaren jackson's doing the post-game interview and zeyer williams walks up next to him and i start getting these tweets holy hell you were right he's like head in head with jaren jackson just wait till you see him again well i gotta go i gotta go investigate this i think this guy may be near like seven foot tall now i'm not kidding and then he's been out because he's been on this growth spurt it happens look he's the one they traded up from 17 to 10 or whatever to get um he looked ready for the playoffs last year he made threes enough threes for them didn't look didn't look scared at all by the environment and it's funny he played more than brandon clark and more than d'anthony melton in some of those games for a lot of playoffs it's funny you mentioned i think i was watching the grizzlies broadcast last night of grizzly thunder and pete pranissa by the play-by-play guy who's fantastic um says to brevan knight when zeyer williams gets into the game says to brevan knight and you know these team announcers they always know stuff they always they both know stuff and they have to be careful how they frame and reveal what they know so pete says hey brevan is it me or did zeyer williams grow a couple inches there's this pause and i'm just projecting now but in that pause i was like is brevan thinking about what he wants to say here and brevan says you know partner he's always been pretty long and so that i and he like deflected it out of the way but pete brought it up and i was like it rang a bell it rang a bell in my head look man this team it's a really fun team it's just really fun great story oh but you mentioned um zeyer and and this is the coaching piece of this and how they have things that they do and they do them every game and they do them well zeyer williams john conchar and santi aldama are all doing the no dip three oh i know and don't bring it down it's all of them zeyer did it right away first game last night he did it conchar's doing it every game aldama's doing it this is clearly something that it's like the luke cornett closeout in boston like the little jumping jack closeout that looks ridiculous it's obviously something that this coaching staff has decided we have to teach this and we have to try it in games it's going to be a marginal game for us and they're all doing it and like bane doesn't need those three guys are all it's it's clearly a point of emphasis like it's not a secret you know who's not doing it brandon clark if you saw last night we get towards the end of the game moranth is one assist away from a triple double and he goes and he drives it he kicks it out to brandon clark break out wide open he can shoot it he puts the thing on the ground he starts driving into moranth like what are you doing like at least i had a chance a 30 chance maybe that you make that now he ended up getting it by throwing him an alley-oop but hey they've gotten these guys like you know the ones that are the ones that are supposed to shoot they do shoot and in fact if you ever notice moranth will yell at them when they don't shoot he'll yell at them if they don't shoot the ball i mentioned the corners roddy doesn't seem like a shooter 39 from the corners dylan brooks your favorite memphis chrisley doesn't seem like a shooter every every box score you check is like 7 of 22 that's a lot of shots 40 40 42 percent on corner threes made three of them last night let me say let me say something good about him all right by the way could that be a big on this deal you know that's the name i thought about and that's i can't tell how much of a core identity piece he actually is for them and obviously he's extension eligible didn't get an extension because he's gonna make more than that i i can't tell i can't tell kind of how legit it is that like no he's part of our fabric does his toughness his defense is in your face mentality like we take our cues from him yeah but if he's really the piece that gets you something else is that gonna stand in the way i don't know you know well i mean in fairness he was out last year and they won 56 games that's true so uh but i'll say something about him he's been twice over the last 10 games the shagos alexander has not scored 30 points both of which were when dylan brooks saddled up for the game with the expressed written consent to shut down fellow canadian everyone's favorite canadian shagos alexander and and earlier just a couple weeks ago i think it's his worst game of the season he did it to zion and so i gotta give this guy credit he is one of these guys in the league that has decided i'm gonna do the game film thing right and i'm going to get the clips of everything that my assignment that player i'm gonna get the clips of everything they want to do every time they've had the ball over the last five games and i'm gonna know exactly where they want to go and what they want to do before they do and they're gonna have to play in a manner in which they are uncomfortable because they're not gonna get to do so zion you don't get to get to your left hand not against me you don't i'll sit on it all night gil's alexander i'm staying in front of all this herky jerky stuff and if you look last night gil's alexander made four shots he made 17 free throws but he made four shots and brooks on regular case now if we could just figure out the other end which i've got this you know on regular case i say look man i love you brother but there's two things you gotta shoot less or make more that's it that's it either shoot less or make more i'm fine either way do i like those corner threes last night and did you notice who put on shay when dylan was resting david roddy they are throwing david roddy into diamonds and he's doing well um chris vernon just a pleasure to listen to uh i listened to you and now you're kevin o'connor i don't want to give kevin o'connor kevin o'connor whatever kevin o'connor are you listening kevin i listen to you guys twice a week on my peloton you're my peloton entertainment one of many pods you do fantastic work and uh i was in memphis in march last year maybe i'll make a return trip this year and uh we'll grab a beverage or two it'd be great great to see you here thanks buddy soccer fans your chance to witness history is here you can win tickets to the fifa world cup 2026 final thanks to visa all it takes is a bmo visa credit card to enter sign up at nr at bmo.com slash contest contest rules apply all right it's time i guess to talk about the la clippers who you may be surprised to know exist as a basketball team and not just a conceptual basketball team they are 13 and 11 kawaii leonard is back for the second the third time this he's back for the third time if you got the beginning of the season uh hit a game-winning jumper in charlotte not exactly a rousing win to beat the tank-tastic charlotte hornets by two and then uh played 30 minutes in an overtime loss the orlando magic had the worst record in the nba until beating the clippers uh oh my sook how are you what's up zach i'm loving the jersey for sure you got the world cup fever so so clippers magic i tune into the game i haven't seen the clippers in a few games let's watch the clippers okay let's see then we get to play america's favorite game show who's playing for the clippers john wall street clothes okay he played the previous game because two games in a row just too many luke canard street clothes norm powell street clothes am i forgetting somebody uh marcus morse marcus morse street clothes norm powell out norm powell's out the groin injury he's been out a couple games a few games now hawaii and pg on a minute's restriction uh game goes to overtime uh kawaii and pg and reggie jackson uh all off the floor for overtime okay sure uh then the overtime goes on and in the last minute of overtime kawaii's back in the game paul george is back in the game and i'm digesting all this and they're playing tonight we're taping this at 3 p.m eastern about four and a half hours before they tip in miami against the heat some of those aforementioned players who didn't play last night will play tonight presumably kawaii i believe is out tonight after playing last night paul george do we know him is he playing tonight paul george is set to play he said he told our friend andrew bray for the time he's going to play all of this the minutes restrictions they're out for overtime they come back in for possession isn't that these guys are out tonight these guys play tomorrow i know i know that i shouldn't be growing impatient okay with the team that i picked to make the finals in the year they came together in 2019 for some goddamn reason i picked them to make the finals again this year they are plus 39 in 122 minutes together with kawaii paul george on the floor hooray that's good that's a good that's a sign that's a good sign that's the two best players on the floor they're plus 15 per 100 possessions i just i just all these absences and rules and who's allowed to play when and i ask myself as we enter game 25 um at what point do the clippers become a basketball team that exists to win basketball games and not like a science experiment in load management and um longevity and playing for for me and june when if you're not careful you're gonna mess around and finish eighth in the west and not get to may and i know i know i gotta take the long view they're playing for me in june they have kawaii they have pg they have depth they're plus whatever in those kawaii pg minutes is precious and rare they are i know i know i shouldn't be a prisoner to short-term thinking and impatience but at some point you got to be a team and we've been having this conversation for four years at some point you got to be a team at some point you can't get to april and may and have all the commentary about you be well boy we took the regular season for granted we didn't build chemistry how did that happen oh my god why do we have no identity can you please say something good on because i'm starting to get a little worried and impatient uh for those at home who can't see zach he as talking had his hands over his eyes ready to rip out his hair in frustration and i would say that's what ty lou has looked like for the last two weeks or three weeks um ty lou has been pretty frustrated i'm not gonna say he's frustrated the medical staff or anything like that or at kawaii lennard paul george specifically uh because he doesn't think that they're they don't want to play but the frustration has just been that they have not been available or anytime they get somebody back somebody else is out i would say last weekend the frustration was helpful throughout the organization when we all thought that paul george and kawaii lennard were going to play in a one o'clock game because the sacramental kings they had practice on friday all indications were that they were going to be cleared if they made it out of that practice okay and then saturday morning we get ty lou ty lou it's just like they're out and the one question someone asked him it was jamie maggio asked him um hey you know your second quarters haven't been that great and ty frustratingly just goes well we need players and so we need guys out there and so that to me was you know he's really starting to show his frustration finally the next game against charlotte these guys are back i said this in the preseason i think when we talked about the clippers that you could see a scenario in which it was going to be very up and down all season long kawaii lennard starting on a restriction not playing back-to-back same thing for john wall the case is still the same except the fact that we didn't see kawaii lennard missing you know 15 straight games or whatever um when he got hurt again and then spraining his ankle and being out another six games paul george with his hamstring injury these things are going to pop up into the class and make sure everything's right but you can see a scenario again where we're talking about this zach they don't have the chemistry they don't have the time together they're still learning one another oh all these great deep pieces they have well they just don't have the time together and guess what zach the schedule as it was the schedule makers and i don't know why they do this they packed in 61 games for the all-star break they got 21 after the all-star break which means it's a good and bad thing zach a lot of practice time for them but not a lot of on-court time for them in games and you know what's going to happen probably that last week of the season clearly we're going to rest a bunch of guys you know make sure that they're okay for the playoffs and we're going to be looking at like kawaii lennard's only played what i don't know 15 games with the team going into the playoffs after all-star break who knows well i mean look when you it's like i need a vacation for my vacation like when i take a nap i need another nap i'm so tired like if we've rested so much by april we gotta rest again again i get i get all of it we want to be fresh for the playoffs you mess around you might be fresh for the lottery when you don't even have your pick by the way but so that great you're fresh for the summer like it's awesome to be physically fit and fresh you're trying to win the title and um speaking of the schedule well they're 13 and 11 which is i don't know where they are in the west the standings are still a bunch of like six or something like that i've lost track of the record 14 and 12 okay they're minus 45 for the season that's their point raw point differential that's the seventh worst point differential in the nba so again that's but they're fresh great they're fresh and minus 45 um hawaii he's played six games i think or seven games um uh that sounds about seven games sounds about right i think seven games and by the way you mentioned like kawaii might end up playing what did you say 40 something games i mean who knows well no i i said from the all-star break until the end of the season but they have 21 games remaining does kawaii play like let's say 15 of them because you know they're not gonna have a lot of back-to-backs so he's not gonna skip a lot of them he will probably sit out the back-to-backs but i'm just saying like you know they decide to rest guys at the end for the final week or whatever but to your point we don't know what where what place they'll be playing for in the standings because that the organization is fully aware that they've had to let a lot of games go here prior to them coming back just because they haven't been available and guys have been hurt and saturday was a classic case that they got waxed by the second round of kings and there's definitely feeling an organization that was just like we are just kind of like throwing games away right now because you know these guys are just not healthy and not coming back and you know they're taking the time or whatever and they're gonna have to make up a lot of these games down the stretch did you say kawaii might play 15 of their last 21 games i'm not saying like i know you're not recording that just that's what everybody threw out right off the top of my head let's say i don't know i think there might be two or three back-to-backs in the last 21 i'd have to go back over the schedule but you know if that's the case well he's not playing in the second game of those back-to-backs right so you can take those away if they rest down the stretch in the last week to make sure guys are healthy which they have done almost always that's been the case of course their standings in the end of the place is a little more secure um well then i don't know how many games does he play after all-star break because if you look at the clipper schedule it's like barren they don't they had to play so many games in the first half down the second half they are loaded with practice time but not a lot of game time do they think the nba is just a computer simulation like we can just put our roster into the computer and that's how you win the championship whatever computer whatever computer says which team wins the most game if kawaii plays 15 out of 21 games in the season that's like a cal ripken streak for him at this point that's my point and asking you 15 to 21 it that seems like climbing mount everest now for kawaii and i realize he's coming off a torn acl what a weird career by the way uh that he's gonna end up with top 75 all-time two-time finals mvp he has 11 000 career points he's gonna have the weirdest like cumulative stats versus like um apex achievement ratio or whatever in the history of the nba let's talk about kawaii in those seven games he's averaging 11 points a game on 40 shooting 17 on threes and i don't know if this is a good or a bad thing but he looks more deferential than i've ever seen him look in his career he has the lowest usage rate he's had in a long long time even last night in orlando he played 29 minutes he spent a lot of time off the ball spotting up around paul george pick and rolls um his pick and rolls for 100 possessions are his lowest since 2016 when he was emerging as an mvp level player uh he's at about 20 per 100 possessions according to second spectrum that was up around 30 35 in his best clipper years um and i can't his free throws are down at their lowest rate in a long time and i can't tell if i could read that two ways number and by the way it doesn't look he doesn't look this is the first time going back from injury where he does not right away look like kawaii he's getting to the same spots the shots just look harder like he's not creating as much separation he's it's harder for him to shoot over guys it's just not as easy and again that's to be expected but this is the first time i've watched him in a long long time i thought oh this doesn't look like the same guy yet and you condition yourself into thinking he's a terminator he'll just come back and look like the same guy and he's not he's not grabbing the game by the throat like he usually does like get the ball here in my spot do this me and zoo are gonna run 30 pick and rolls who's been fantastic the entire year um i can read that one of two lists number one uh-oh number two he's self-aware that it's going to be a long process he's not going to force it and he also understands that this team has developed an identity in his absence all these years and he doesn't want to sort of just come in and stomp away on top of that how should i read that because i really from the outside i really don't know i think we need to give him the benefit of the doubt i don't think we can say uh-oh yet until maybe next season he says by his own record that this is a two-year process people think that coming off acl is a one-year deal he called it a two-year deal he definitely looks like he's feeling his way through he before i forget zach uh they do have three back-to-backs in the last 21 games that would mean that if he doesn't play one of them he's now down to 18 games my only point was if he plays 15 out of 21 i will buy you dinner at a restaurant of your choice and if he plays less than 15 out of 21 you don't have to do anything because that's to be expected he plays 15 or more free dinner i mean in la okay uh so i would say this the three-pointer has not looked good for him at all he doesn't have any rhythm from behind three point um he definitely looks like he's more in more of a playmaking role what i thought was so good the charlotte game was good for him and the clippers is because they were in this tight situation where they got to see kawai bailed him out and in that situation like kawai got to his spot he scored in the mid-range looked like oh kawai they needed that actually they needed to be in a situation like that because they just haven't had that kind of time together and what you saw was paul had a chance he grabs a loose rebound almost near half court and now he's sprinting out and he's got one guy in front of pocket took it to the rim with like 15 seconds ago he backs it back out passes the john wall in the right corner because he sees terry rogier on kawai leonard on the right wing charlotte switches in time gets mcdaniel's on to kawai but now kawai has the ball iso kawai then scores at the end the game winner clippers feel good because they're like this is what we needed we needed to be in a situation like this we need to see kawai do this i think it was really good for kawai you know when you hear kawai talk after the game and he's talking about i would have rather pulled it out we're up eight to nine rather than having to grind it out but it was good for him to pull out a game like that's the wind like that to see himself hit a shot like that i think that was good for him but you're right just to just to clarify this is against the charlotte hornets yes it's not against this isn't like oh we went to milwaukee no while we survived adversity this is like whoo mason plumbly man we got out of mason plumbly's house no no la mella ball charlotte hornets okay no gordon hayward charlotte hornets um the next night a couple nights later in orlando they're up by like 18 to start the game against the magic they look great i mean paul george look great and what i think you're seeing is kawai knows the impact of him just being on the floor even though he's not trying to find out yet okay he's getting that respect so a lot of guys are more open than nick matoon's in the world are benefiting because they're wide open and he's finding them he's more of a playmaker they jump out to this big leap but then all of a sudden bench comes in and then when the starters come back in the third quarter it doesn't look good and so all of a sudden orlando's now in the game at the end of the fourth quarter and you can tell like the execution is not good for the clippers they just i don't know what happened but they're executing like they're the orlando magic and the orlando magic are executing like the clippers and so you see like these aaron passes these turnovers nick matoon five seconds on the inbound uh yeah i mean it was painful to watch and now they go to overtime and guess what kawaii leonard has one minute left in his minutes restriction uh he's at about 29 minutes and paul george is at 32 or 33 he can't play so now they're like we're gonna save kawaii to the final minute they bring in kawaii the final minute but by then they just couldn't execute and win that game they brought paul george in for the final five seconds and this is all things that this is not what tylu's doing zach tylu doesn't want to do this on purpose he's not trying to act like phil jackson and try to be like oh i'm trying to prove something or anything like that no this is what he's been told that he has to do and so you feel like you know i think after the game andrew greg was in the locker room from the la times the beat writer and kawaii said i want to be out there i want to play i understand the medical staff is trying to keep us healthy but i want to be there i want to try to help lead this team same thing for paul george i would say this zach i was surprised that they were already up in the 30 minute range uh for their what second game back i get it they had a long time off but i thought the clippers would be you know a little more conservative so i think that's a good sign to see that they're already in the 30s and maybe they'll ramp it up but zach their schedule three times when december started three times there are three weeks in the month of december when they play four games in six nights so they are packing it in in december there's a lot of games even a lot of there's back-to-backs you can see why not playing those back-to-backs john wall as well it's definitely a work in progress the science experiment as you call it is the perfect description back let's let's be positive for a second um they are fifth in defense that's good that's a good sign they've been grinding um on that end of the floor they have a good track record as a good defensive team uh norm powell found his groove as we're all waiting for i called him the most important bench player in the league at the start of the season slow start uneven start seemed like he was kind of uncertain about what his place and role and when to attack and when to defer and all that got a rhythm um terrence man i feel like is an ingredient that they're going to need and has used this time of being one of the only players who's available every game to kind of remind tyloo i think this is the kind of oomph and bounce and verve i bring to this team that no one else really does uh wall has looked fine off the bench he's generating a lot of corner threes for them he's camping up the pace um and that's a good stuff that's a good stuff the bad stuff is their 28th in offense and the other two teams that are below them are not trying to win basketball games very hard um and the offense is an ugly and sloggy and all the stuff that we've talked about and and that's what that's what's kind of so interesting about them to think back to their playoff run in 2021 where they broke the clippers curse and finally got to the conference finals and i think that was i don't know i don't want to say the only time but that was one of the rare times in four seasons now i understand four seasons with pg and kawai is really like closer to two two and a half seasons with injuries who they are now they all know who they are they all have this they've embraced this identity of or just a drive and kick jump shooting five out a lot of the time or zoo's gonna be running drive and kick jump shooting machine they were the best jump shooting team maybe in the history of the league at least on catch and shoot jumpers the warriors will always be number one for just overall shooting ridiculousness um they shot 42 on threes and you know they spread utah out drive kick drive kick corner three parents man has a million points utah bye-bye it was the first time really where they look like this is what we stand for as a team um and i think they still have the tools to get back to that once kawai gets reacclimated and pg gets reacclimated um because if you look at what's different now between their 28th ranked offense and their offense that season which was like top three in the league the whole year they're not getting as many catch and shoot threes they're not shooting as well from three because they're not getting as many catch and shoot threes and they're turning the ball over all the time yeah as you mentioned they've got to lead the league in dribbling off their own feet and the ball ends up with the other team they clean that up they reintegrate a little bit they find that identity again there's a good offensive team in here they also have to figure out what lineups they want to play when zubats is out of the game and i don't know where you're leaning in terms of what the answer that question is because those lineups were massively effective for them two seasons ago they're no center lineups this year it's like sometimes i haven't played covington i thought that was the whole point of getting covington now he had covid at the beginning of the year and without his rim protecting those lineups work the numbers they actually work pretty well so far i think they're getting a little lucky uh in terms of opponent jump shooting in in those lineups although again we haven't seen kawaii pg together much at all moses brown has been getting a shot recently which suggests to me that they think maybe we actually kind of need a little bit more size on our team where do you think they're gonna end up there i think they're gonna end up with a backup center with like you know a combination of patum or covington um i think the problem here is that you you kind of hit the nail on the head is that when one guy feels starting to feel good nor pal is really starting his role is rhythm he's out groin injury terrence man realizing that i'm the only guy that relentlessly attacks the rim and brings energy i think this season more than any other season that i can remember in a long time the energy player is important and vital and and we're seeing it in guys like you know what an avi for example the energy that he brought in brooklyn exceptional now he's hurt okay terrence man this team a veteran team needs that young energy and he started to get it and guess what zach he's out against miami concussion protocol he took a he did take a big blow the other day so you know it's just like these guys are trying to figure out the roles when kawaii and paul went out i think what we saw was the role players that were remaining it felt like last year again they started to settle their roles they knew that the big guys were out we had to do this and so guys started playing a little better they started getting a little bit of rhythm and then the big guys the big guns came back in and here we go we're starting all over again the offense does not look good uh i asked ty when the big guys were out do you think about simplifying the offense that you did last year it really worked and ty said no no i don't want to do that just yet because the big guys are coming back they're coming back we're getting close and he doesn't he wants to be able to play the offense that he envisions but and he also wants to play the defensive lineup that he wants which is the all-wing defensive lineup which is you know the amazing thing to me is as good as zoo has been zoo's coming off a 29 and 30 game or whatever right first ever in clipper history uh you know he's done something that if he had gone to 30 and 30 we hadn't seen since like kareem and bilgemar okay i mean like i called him shaq zoo that night uh zoo told me he was on a podcast and they referred to him as white wilt which is amazing okay um which yeah it's hilarious but even after those two games zoo could barely get in in the fourth quarter i think it was at portland and at utah because ty decided to go small it was working or i think he's musa tiabate who was giving them energy was looking good um and then he went small and i think ideally this is still gonna be the case down the road he you know tylu wants to go small uh covington was out of the rotation when they were 100 healthy because they liked that luke canard when he's on the floor there's a gravity to luke canard when he runs around the court he does draw the attention of the defense and open things up for them and so i do think you see covington now he's in this week his hands are exceptional i mean dude is always getting his hand on the balls deflections whatever it may be but i do think just like you said just as they start to get a rhythm somebody's out somebody's hurt the rules aren't defined everything was clicking magically that year when they went to the western conference finals they need to find that and it's going to be a little disjointed after the all-star break you only have 21 games to play to find that those non-zoo lineups are obviously going to look different and more fearsome with kawaii and pg both as part of if you put kawaii pg batum one of the point guards and then pick a wing so no covington no morris those are small but i am interested to see how they look i don't like the ones with morris as the biggest guy because i think teams are going at him and he has trouble now keeping fast guys in front of him on switches um so i mean and i think kawaii i think he looks better on defense than offense i think his defense looks ahead of his offense he's been pretty active and and and looks good like he's moving well on defense which i guess is encouraging so those lineups to me i want to see him more obviously i think there's been a lineups that they use where paul was the point guard that's how many wings that were out there i think i tried that you know what ty's doing he's playing paul and kawaii together the majority of their minutes he's not staggering them out he basically in his mind is like we gotta get this going we gotta get these two as many minutes as possible together to get them kind of re-acclimated to each other and i do like that he's doing that yeah that that was interesting that's interesting because you know conventional wisdom is when the chips are down you go the opposite way and obviously when the chips are down in theory they're both playing so many minutes that you know i'm talking playoff games big playoff games that you make sure one is on the floor at all times right now he's doing the opposite and again i think that's part of playing the long game i mean this is team long game they're playing the longest game they're playing like as if it's a 400 game season um but but that's the way they have to play um wall's been good reggie has been wildly up and down and has the wildest split on catch-and-shoot threes versus pull-up threes that i think i've ever seen he's 34 of 79 on catch-and-shoot threes that's 43 he's six of 37 on pull-up threes which is like 16 or something but i don't know my math is maybe wrong on that but it's something like that they've been okay have we answered the age-old question of do the clippers need another ball handler is that still a thing no i think we can answer that uh it's just it's just coming in a different manner of maybe what people want it to be so reggie jackson when the season started when we were in seattle uh in the preseason i told reggie i said are you gonna become a catch-and-shoot three point shooter this year because john wall and kawhi letter and paul george are drawing so much attention that the guy in the corner is wide open and that's you or nick patum and i said so are you gonna come like steve kerr this year as opposed to having to create your own offense he's like yeah he's like a bunch of us talked about it and you know i have to really work on that part of the game he's been great at it the problem is that he's been so banged up he took this fall in portland that i'm telling you i thought he'd be out for a week i thought his hit was messed up or his back i even got his head hit the back of the floor he was dazed um but he stayed in the game and kept playing but he also has not been able to really create any separation one-on-one and i still don't think that like when those big guys were out reggie jackson it was it was now becoming coming on him to kind of create a lot of offense and then we saw a little go straight at the rim it doesn't matter if anybody's running alongside with him doesn't matter two or three guys in front of him he's going to attack the rim push the pace and i think this is good he's like sucking the defense in a little bit and either the trailers open or their guys open for threes and he's finding those open shooters and the clippers are exceptional at catch and shoot three-pointers they were great at it last year they're going to be good at it again this year even better with john wall finding them um so i do i just think we don't have that point guard i wonder if we have that point guard when with five minutes to go in a playoff game zach defenses are locking down on paul and kawai let's say eight minutes ago paul and kawai are not able to get their own shots off or scores efficiently they go a little bit through an offensive drought and that's where you need a point guard to create for them to get them easier shots in a half court setting that's what i wonder if they kind of have that point guard or not you know they're hoping maybe john can be that guy but sometimes it's going to depend on what unit ty wants to finish with he might just finish with reggie might finish with paul yeah you know paul george had an incredible playoffs two years ago that streak of like 27 points or more in games or whatever it was pandemic p was buried forever way off p was buried forever sometimes i just don't trust his handle man he gets so loose with it he's so scattershot when teams blitz him and trap him and he's been like by this whole career i am interested to see like start to reintegrate the kawai small pick and rolls kawai john wall pick and rolls if you blitz kawai just hit john wall on the short roll hit it hit canard canard is good at it in the short roll let them make plays we haven't seen a lot of that because kawai i think he's using his way back in i agree with you totally on wall he's been a little bit he's been up and down but i think they need they just need that injection of pace and life and just someone run with me come on run with me if you run with me i'm getting you with three so get your ass in gear and run with me it's not the efficiency isn't what it was in washington when he was at a speak the long two isn't what it was in washington when he was at a speak but i think they need that element and honestly man like we've been talking for years now who's the point guard we started the year you and i talking about you know they can trade a future first round pick now for the first time in a few years is there a consolidation trade to be made here is there a deal to be made here maybe there is i'm sure they'll look around that pick is real currency for them if you if you trade an unprotected pick if it's top three protected whatever yeah you may not have the sexiest salary to attach but you can get another guy i mean the pistons got boganovich for a linic and second round picks like you can get another guy easily if you put that first round pick in play even though i think marcus morris's contract is taking a little hit and he's been okay i don't know if anyone is like psyched to have marcus morris for 17 million dollars next year i don't know if anyone's psyched to have covington for 11 million dollars next year don't know if everyone's psyched to have canard for 30 combined with the next two seasons but too many need he's essential to their team and then you're just kind of i don't think anyone's psyched to have norm powell for 60 million over the next three years after this one and the clippers need in too so you're kind of running out of if you even have any salary that's both expendable and appealing to other teams with that pick it's interesting they could get something for it but if not this this is the team and oh it's uh it's they're silly it's like 25 games in the season i have all these numbers look at all these numbers on the sheet of paper they don't matter like we haven't seen the team they don't matter at all you have a piece coming out on saturday about wall tell us about that piece because it sounds like it's gonna be a good one thanks man uh wall's returning to dc i call it the return the return to the sequel because he returned back in like 2021 but he used to rock for the first time from the trade after russell westbrook but you know during covid restrictions there's nobody in the building the stands are covered by tarp uh there wasn't even the court side seats where his mom used to sit um he had lost his mom uh just a little over a year prior and then his grandmother passed away weeks before he returned back to dc so he was very much like a grief-stricken they played a video tribute for him um he didn't really get to see it nor you know he wasn't the fans weren't there to really show appreciation to him i think he it's important for him to feel that and for him to thank the fans he's beloved to dc so the wizards will give him a video tribute um and you know i thought he was interesting a couple things i asked him is your warp speed fully back and he was like he's close he's not 100 yet and i think he's right i think we've seen him at fast maybe if it's like if he's a five five you know he may not be in fifth year i think he's in fourth year um and he said like i gotta lose maybe like another five ten pounds at my age you know i need to get a little bit thinner and so he was basically like when i do that it'll be back but otherwise you're seeing like the patented behind the back dribble in traffic you see the no-look passes you see him running and attacking the rim i think he's missing a lot more at the rim than he probably would like to or he's used to uh but that probably will come with more time because he's never had to play in six minute stretches and play under a minute limit and not play on back-to-back nights and also come off the bench um i did ask him i said well you know do you have any regrets about your time in dc about maybe how things you between you and brad worked out because you guys weren't able to get past the second round he said no he said look if anything a lot of people tried to divide us all the time and say you know that um we all we didn't we couldn't work together we didn't like each other because that was never the case he's like he called in my brother he said we always had each other back he goes yes did you have two young guys who thought they should be the man of the franchise yes and sometimes you don't see eye to eye yes that's true he said but he goes the fun thing i think about if i could have done differently he said brad expanded his game every year that he was there and then when i was out he became a 30 point scorer he goes i wish i could have been there to be his role dog when he was averaging 30 and when he was younger i wish i gave him the ball more and let him work pick and rules and let him handle the ball more so that he could become more of the playmaker that he is today but earlier and then who knows what would happen so i thought that was a little interesting because you know that was a problem dc there was only one ball to go around with two guys that were terrific that needed the ball and a lot of people thought that bill would just be this you know a guy would just be you know a spot up and shoot guy but no bill was a lot more than that so um it's gonna be important for him to get the love and i think he's gonna get that on saturday hopefully i will say this is that ty blue better play john wall a good amount of minutes at houston when he returned for the first time he wanted to show and prove houston what he could do remember houston sat him out the whole year ty played in 15 minutes and i don't think he played the fourth and john was so furious and upset he left the locker room very quickly after that game so this is a very big game for him that is the one game he looked at when the schedule came out i would expect ty blue to play him uh you know a good amount in this game well i'll be i'll be watching that game this is a tv piece right it airs over the weekend uh that's it it'll be on dot com dot com okay over the weekend um om om your coverage of the clippers is fantastic i hope you get to cover the real clippers for a month it'd be great if we just had a month of everyone is semi-available um because the west is still there for the taking no one has run away with it and you know but to me it's i don't know that there's a player that i'll be watching more closely for the next two months or whatever than kawaii because he just hasn't and again it's to be expected but he just hasn't looked like the same guy and he's not playing the same style not quite and obviously just as the lakers team building model is null and void if lebron and anthony davis aren't incredible gods of basketball the clippers team building model is null and void if kawaii leonard is not kawaii leonard that's it it's over and it's over for this season it's over for the future so i i it's obviously way too early to say that i'm just saying that if he's not kawaii we're not talking about this team anymore and and i'm just i want to see it i want to watch it and you will chronicle it my man thank you sir yeah man i would say one last thing about kawaii the key with kawaii is not only what you see in the games and of course i think you know i just thought about this with a three-point shot we don't see that soft touch yet the little arc that he has everything's been like like straight ahead and very low and like hard but i would say the most important thing with kawaii is how he feels the next day that's that's been the issue here every time he's had a little tweak here or there and he says i'll be fine but you gotta be like how's he feeling the next day because he's not feeling the next day and all of a sudden we find out the next day he's out for like a couple games and something's flared up or there's swelling or anything like that the most important thing with kawaii leonard is how he's think about the deal uh the deal is plural and one one executive said to me it is simultaneously a deal that clippers absolutely had to make and a deal that could end up being one of the worst in the history of the nba or most damaging in the history of the nba and i thought that was really a perfect summation of it because if you get this opportunity to get these two guys together you do it and they fit together really well and the dangers of it was obvious the pick bounty that oklahoma city got was was bananas and she is averaging 30 a game um and yet even amid all the injuries and all the all the collapse in the bubble all of it i don't think the clippers look back with regret at all now if they get to the end of this season and they still haven't had the real team at any point in time they might start thinking that way but i always thought that was an artful summary of that trade a deal you absolutely have to make it one that has the potential to be one of the most damaging in the history of the league and it's still tbd i guess but they look i mean they broke the clippers curse they made the conference finals and they damn well might have won the title that year it had kawaii not torn his acl if you don't if the clippers don't make it to the finals once pg and kawaii are done let's say the western conference is the furthest they made it to are you happy with that being the highest achievement emphatically no no you gave up five picks three so whatever it is no b i think the one way that they will regret this trade is if she turns into a top five player for the rest of his career or something like that down the road if he becomes a top five player and pg kawaii did not deliver uh a championship and then yeah i would say you know that would probably be the one way you would really regret this right right let's be let's end on a happier note than that go croatia shock the world let's do it oh my goodness i'll see you in los angeles 15 or 21 remember 15 or 21 at the end of the season you get a dinner on me i remember by the way can we start we didn't see your bias for your countryman zoo can we start most improved campaign is that possible does he have a shot i have not thought for one second about most actually that's not true i went on a podcast last week we talked about most improved you know who's got to be off the top of my head is it bowl bowls awards lose oh a bowl of very good against clippers he's been a little up and down recently a little up and down i think both has to stay healthy the rest of the year and i you know every time i watch him i'm like oh my god please don't get her please don't get her please don't get her you know but yeah there's a lot of guys out there listen shaq zoo shaq zoo you give him the ball inside he looks great i just need to see him finish one more game how about that big thing whoever gave him white will you gotta love white will and he put up that 30 30 or 30 29 game whatever it was against the pacers i believe right in miles turner yes purported laker straight target miles turner and i got probably no less than eight text messages from executives around the league telling me whoa the irony of the lakers gave up for mike muscala yes blowing up miles turner the guy who's gonna help save the lakers season all these years later anyway i'll see you around buddy all right thanks man