NBA One Guy (the East!), a Man City Punishment Primer, and Tom Cruise’s Bomb With J. Kyle Mann, Chris Ryan, and Van Lathan

The Bill Simmons Podcast

Bill Simmons and J. Kyle Mann analyze key players for every NBA Eastern Conference team in a 'One Guy' format, discussing potential ceiling-raisers and

Key takeaways

• Bill Simmons views Paul George as an 'overqualified connector' who could be highly additive to the Boston Celtics without needing to be a primary option.
• The hosts discuss Michael Porter Jr.'s high talent ceiling contrasted with his erratic public persona and controversial interview history.

Main topics

• NBA Eastern Conference player analysis
• Cable Star Hall of Fame criteria

Notable quotes

I fully drank in the Kool-Aid. I poured it all over myself.

Conclusion

The episode blends sports scouting with pop culture critique, ultimate

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) you Speaker 3 (0:06) The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by the ringer podcast network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did Texas chainsaw massacre. We do some horror movies this month. Uh, Friday the 13th is going to be next week, by the way. So, uh, I don't know if we're gonna do all horror movies, but at least we're doing two and maybe, maybe some more, who knows? So that's happening. Don't forget the what chaos podcast that we added. Um, if you love NHL, please go check that out and check out, uh, Jessalyn book club. Those were the. The two latest pods, we have a bunch of basketball podcast stuff as well. We also have some written stuff that we've added with our relationship with Substack. Tom Palacero, we talked about this week. Brian Curtis launched his Substack finally this week. It's called Now They Tell Us. I thought the first installment was fantastic. He's going to be covering all types of sports media topics. So if you love the Press Box, please go check out Brian Curtis. His new endeavor. Coming up on this podcast, Jay Kyle Mann and I are going to go through the East and talk about one guy from every team that we're particularly fascinated by. And then Chris Ryan and Van Lathan were here because we did the Friday the 13th rewatchables together. And Chris wanted to give us a book report on what's happening with this Man City situation, which is the single most fascinating suspension situation probably in the history of professional sports leagues. So we talked about that. We talked about Tom Cruise and we talked about the Cable Star Hall of Fame were the three topics for that. So that's all coming up next. We're going to take a break, Pearl Jam, and then Kyle Mann talking some hoops. This is the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Make every NFL week more rewarding with FanDuel Rewards Club. You heard me. Just bet like you normally would. Earn points in eligible settled bets, win or lose. Keep collecting points, level up, and unlock bigger rewards. So keep an eye on your rewards club progress and see what you can unlock. This is your most rewarding season ever. And it's with FanDuel. Speaker 2 (2:07) 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800 Speaker 3 (2:12) -GAMBLER. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Speaker 3 (2:44) All right, J. Kyle Maness here. He pops on this podcast a bunch during the NBA season. You can also hear him on the Ringer NBA show. And he does some video stuff for us, too. And he loves rookies. He loves college guys. Which rookie, if I gave you A.J., Caleb, Boozer, and Peterson, now that we're within, like, less than three weeks to the season, which one are you the most excited to see? combining where you felt before the draft, what happened in the draft, where they went to, and then all the buzz and all the stuff you're reading as we head into October 21st here. Speaker 4 (3:19) Gosh, it's just, there's a flavor. It's a real Baskin-Robbins situation where if you catch me in the right mood, I could just give you any of these guys. I'm excited for kind of different reasons. I mean, Caleb Wilson is going to have, like we've talked, you and I have a lot about this. I mean, he's going to probably win Twitter the most often, I think. There's going to be many of those like Blake Griffin-y rookie year type moments where we're just like, did you see what he just did? Yeah. Peterson will get hot. you know, DeBond's will have his moments. I think I probably still just go boozer. Just, I know that's the boring answer and he may be perceived as boring, but I think if you even watched him in the preseason game last night against the Hawks, he's trimmed his body down. He's immediately was just doing winning cam boozer type of things. And so I'll, I'll, I'll stick with that one. Cause I had him number one at the end of the college season. Speaker 3 (4:11) So you came to the LA office and you did a whole bunch of group chats with Mahoney and Verrier. And I actually was in the office and I just crashed your Memphis and New Orleans section. So the pot, I don't think it's gone up with. All of us love Memphis for being better than, you know, I think on Fandle, they're 29 and a half. And I think the biggest reason is just Boozer's seems like he's going to come in right away and be a 19 and 10 guy. I'm the most excited. for Caleb just because of, uh, I think for the first month of league pass, I kind of know what boozer is as much as I'm going to enjoy watching that Memphis team and their identity. Peterson, I think will be hit or miss. There's going to be games. You catch them on the right night and you're like, Oh my God, we haven't had a two guard like this since forever. AJ is probably in the worst spot because I don't know how much he's going to have the offense running through him and he's playing with Trey, but then Caleb, it just feels like it's it's the ceiling has been removed for where it could go. I have no idea where it's going to go. And he's one of the guys we're going to do an NBA one guy gimmick in a second, but he's clearly the guy for the bulls where I'm like, I literally can't wait to watch this. Speaker 4 (5:22) Yeah. I mean, and there's a lot of runway for him to, to experiment and be messy because they're not in a hurry to be good, obviously. And, you know, he, he and Booz Ellis. With Splitter, I'm just interested to see how he uses them. They imported some shooting when they went and got the Buddy Heald thing done. They just needed another spacer to go with Norm Powell. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he's going to... I think you're right. I mean, Boozer's kind of the guy, you just kind of set it and it's going to just run. I don't even know what the appliance comparison would be, but you just know that that thing is safe. Wilson is going to, he's going to have, on both ends of the floor, I think he's going to have electric moments where he just erased, you know, chased down blocks, things like that. So I think night to night, I mean, the texting, I don't think there's going to be as much of that with Boozer, right? They're like, can you believe what he just did? But it's just going to kind of. hover at the same speed. Whereas Caleb's going to spike really high at moments. Speaker 3 (6:19) And he's also going to a fan base that desperately needed somebody like this since forever. Like this is, there's real energy around this team. Now we're going to play, I'm calling this NBA one guy. So we're doing the East today, you and I, uh, and I'm going to do the West on Thursday. Um, but this is one guy from each team. that jumps out to me from a kind of swinging the ceiling or the floor of the team itself. But also I'm really interested by the position they're in. So I told you I could have mailed all these to you or you could have just played off and you were like, ad lib, baby, let's go. I don't want to know any of these guys. Speaker 4 (6:57) You like, I, you like to surprise me. So I figured I'd just say that. So, yeah. Well, Speaker 3 (7:01) I was going to go in alphabetical order in the conference, but we'll go out of order because Caleb was my Chicago guy. Because he's checked every single buzz box so far, but I'm going to tweak it. It's him and Bezelis together. And if you read, do the training camp, like just reading the coverage of the team, those guys have already bonded and seem like Bezelis is smartly aligned with him. But I also kind of like the matchup of the two of them together. That makes sense to me as a combo. And I think there's going to be something there. Like all the early indications are like. You know, somebody wrote a huge, I think it was ESPN wrote a huge Caleb piece. And there was some anonymous quote from a team source. And they were like, we think we have a guy. And when you start seeing stuff like that, that was like when the Patriots got Drake May, like you see this with quarterbacks, sometimes you see with the NBA. But when, when the organization is like, oh shit, we have a guy. And it feels like that's happened already. But Buzellas, I think both of us have liked, never felt like he clicked with Donovan. but them as the three and the four together kind of makes sense to me. I don't like Nick Claxton necessarily as the center for that, but those guys as the three and four, let's see what this is going forward long-term makes sense to me. Speaker 4 (8:18) Yeah, we saw a little flash. I wasn't sure what to make of Buzellas when he was coming out of G League Ignite, but he's kind of slowly won me. He's very chaotic good, which I think is what this tandem is going to be. It's going to be, I said messy before with both of them. It's like Buzellas showed little flashes of playing in ball screen a little bit. I was revisiting a lot of that stuff in our prep for our preview thing, and I was like... He's going to have to, he still dribbles really high when he's in traffic. He's going to have to work on a lot of those things and not to step on, you know, a point I made about him with the, with an on, on our pod, we elaborate on it in a lot of detail, but I, the way Tiago splitter rolled out Denny, you know, last year and the way that he empowered him to get downhill, I could see him taking a similar mindset with, with Booz Ellis. So that, that in that sense, and defensively, I think that they're going to be pretty electric too. These are like two crazy, crazy athletes. Speaker 3 (9:17) Yeah. That was my thought too, was splitter the Denny point. I didn't think of that, but if I, if I'm coaching this team, I just want both those guys to be going downhill and running and just being athletic, being in space. And, um, both those guys can do it. I, I thought Bozellas really had moments last year. And then there would be moments where he just didn't play. And you never really knew what the objective of the team was. But I thought athletically, he's top of the line. And then Wilson is a level above him athletically. So you put those two together. And I just think there's going to be some really fun nights. There's going to be some ugly nights. But there's going to be nights when the crowd, especially if they haven't had a home crowd in so long, that's really been pumped about the team. They're going to have nights at home. I think when they're going to be flying up and down, especially Giddy. So if you're looking at Giddy too, like this is like the perfect kind of toy chest for him. These two athletes who just want to run and want to go, you know, to the rim. So I'm excited for those two together. All right. We'll go in alphabetical order from, from here on one guy, Atlanta. My guy is Lou Dort for this team. And it's not a sexy pic. Speaker 3 (10:29) 27 years old, contract year. Speaker 3 (10:33) Playoff threes last three years, 39 % in 24, 34%, then 31 % last year. And it got to the point where it felt like the other team was dying for him to shoot. Right? It was like, we'll take our chances with Lou Dort. Presti dumped him. Never a great sign. Speaker 3 (10:52) I trust Sam Presti. And you could say it's salary cap. I get it. But if they really wanted to keep him like they wanted to keep Hartenstein, they would have kept Lou Speaker 2 (11:02) Dort. They felt like they'd be okay without him. Speaker 3 (11:05) But I look at him with Atlanta and I think about like, if they're going crunch time and it's McCollum and Dort, Alexander Walker, Jalen Johnson, and a Kongroo, right? Speaker 3 (11:17) I kind of like it. And then you could go super small if you wanted, like super small and just put Daniels in for a Kongu and just play Jalen as the smallest small ball five and maybe have Dort guard big guys. But he gives them a physicality and something that they didn't have. And I also think he's going to have a huge chip on his shoulder. So to me, he's the swing guy for them. If he can be 2024 Lou Dort, I think that's a massive thing for them. Speaker 4 (11:44) Yeah, it's interesting to think about why Presti would offload him because I've been kind of going through and looking at Wiggins ends up with them as well. Isaiah Jones ends up with the Pistons. It kind of made me have flashbacks to Presti with his connection to the Spurs. Kind of makes your mind go here where you're like, there was a funny thing that happened with the Spurs where... they would have role players sort of leave their little community at some point. And we would value those guys super, super high. And I caught myself having a moment where I was like, is that going to happen again? Are we going to have that thing where their value is affected by being within the Thunder ecosystem? Like Speaker 3 (12:24) Danny Green syndrome almost. Speaker 4 (12:26) Yeah. Or like... Or what was it? Was it Gary? I'm blanking on his name. The guy who hit all the ton of threes in the finals. Gary, whatever. Or Speedy Claxton, I remember. Didn't he get a big deal after, I think it was 2003. I just kind of wonder if we might see that again. I don't know that that's the case. So Speaker 3 (12:44) you're saying Speaker 4 (12:44) like Speaker 3 (12:44) the system role players when they leave the nest, it's not the same? What was that Gary guy? Are we that old? We can't remember the guy. Gary Neal. Gary Neal, Speaker 4 (12:54) that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'd wondered about that. Yeah, you hit it there with the lineup thing. I mean, Daniels can guard up and guard bigs. This team still has a lot of overlap between their guys. Even like you don't read a lot into preseason. You know, you try not to. But watching them, I'm like, I do expect Kingston to have a positive impact on them. Like, I think he'll play early. Yeah. But it still feels like there's. the roadmap is just not totally there yet. Like I, it kind of made me wonder, it got my wheels spinning about like, are they a team that's going to have a potential to make, to push in because there is some overlap. Like Speaker 3 (13:32) a two for one or something. Speaker 4 (13:34) Yeah. Like some, I was trying to figure out, I was like, who, who could they put on? Cause I was looking at it. I was like, Kyrie. It doesn't really make sense for Dallas and Atlanta to do business together because they both have kind of similar needs, right? It's like Dallas isn't like, well, we don't need more non-creators or whatever it is. And then I was like, maybe Garland? I don't know. I was kind of trying to look across the league about what kind of a guard or creator could give them more options because I kind of wonder at the end of the day if Jalen Johnson is probably like on the highest type of a team, like a second or third type guy. Yeah. I've been wondering about that. Speaker 3 (14:10) Well, they also have the ability to trade toward if they wanted. Speaker 4 (14:14) I was wondering that. At Speaker 3 (14:15) $17 million, that guy is definitely a February piece. Atlanta is a team to me that seems unfinished. And a lot of it is tied around how he fits in and then if Fleming's is going to be good or not this year. 20-year-old guards, I'm just not going to make a prediction. You might end up with Jeremiah Fierce. You might end up with James Booknight. You just don't know. Boston. Who do you think my guy is for Boston to discuss? If you had to guess. Speaker 4 (14:43) Ron Harper Jr. Speaker 3 (14:45) Oh, I do like Ron Harper Jr. No, I'm going chalk here with Paul George. Speaker 4 (14:53) Always down to talk Paul George. 36 Speaker 3 (14:55) years old. 17th NBA season. He's played 945 regular season games, 125 playoff games. And since 2019, a seven-year run, he's missed 213 games, including 41 and 45 the last two years. But then you flip it around the other way in the 2020s, it's 22, six and four, 39 % from three. Statistically sexy. good, sexy statistical profile. For Speaker 4 (15:27) his career, yeah, for sure. Speaker 3 (15:29) And I guess... I was trying to figure out if he's ever been in a better NBA situation, which is weird because he's not the same guy he was four years ago. But just from a, hey, Paul George, anything you do for us is a bonus. If you're good, that's fucking great. If you don't have it or you're a little banged up or whatever, we don't really need you. We have all these other young guys we can throw into your spot. I'm thinking, so Jalen played 2,443 minutes last year. Speaker 3 (16:03) Which Tatum basically is just going to take because Tatum's back. Tatum is usually around 26, 2700 minutes. Hugo and Shireman were around 2200 combined. I think if, if I think they need 55 Paul George games during the regular season and 1500 to 1600 good minutes. So he doesn't play all the time, but when he plays, he's around 28 minutes. Um, you can switch with him. I think him and Tatum together are going to be really fun to watch. These two tall guys who can guard every position on the floor. And Dave sold me on the, this guy will actually play off Jay, uh, Jason better than Jalen did, which is just going to be true. As you know, I love Jalen Brown. Um, but I think he could be a really additive piece to them and I've talked myself into it. So tell me either I'm crazy or I'm right. Speaker 4 (16:52) The idea of Paul George is one of the all-time, like, the idea of a player. He's one of the, he's like first ballot on that because you're right. The statistics are like, you know, 15, 20 years from now when people look back and talk about him, it's going to be pretty interesting because he at times has been an elite pick and at 6'9 has been like an elite, you know. pick and roll player in the league. He's been an elite movement, not just catch and shoot, but he can move left to right when he's shooting the ball. He can really pass the ball too. I think he's one of the all time, like for guys, his size that are smooth, fluid handlers. Like he's, he's great. But I think the thing that is, those things change as you get older, obviously. And I think you're going to see it in smaller doses. I think where he's going to jump on and improve some of what, you know, Brad Stevens was trying to improve on and crunch time for them is, um, He's a better passer than Jalen is, and I think he's a more dependable decision maker than Jalen is. He's bigger. He's definitely at that stage of his career, like that 2022-ish kind of like Iguodala phase where, and this is part of basketball, is once you hit. a certain age, you become incredible at stripping people. I found this in my own life. I just think, because I was re-watching the matchups between, it's so funny that these guys ended up getting traded for each other, Jalen and Paul. He was irritating Jalen because he just anticipates and I think he's going to become more of that type of a player. Not necessarily shuttling and mirroring guys. I think the other thing for the Celtics too is People keep looking at this as like a one-to-one Jalen versus PG thing. I think, and I'll, you know, I laughed a lot over the years whenever you would talk about Peyton Pritchard, about him taking responsibility, but he's just gotten better every single year. So I think it's going to be just an aggregate, like guys taking a bite out of what's left there in Jalen's absence. And I think Pritchard is one of them. Speaker 3 (18:47) Yeah. If you just think about it holistically, the offense is going to run through Tatum and then Pritchard. And if Tatum's not in the game, the offense will probably run through Pitchard, but maybe a little Paul George too. Speaker 1 (19:00) Experts? Yeah. I Speaker 3 (19:01) wonder like how much they're going to stagger these guys and not have them out there. But I've talked myself into it because I thought he was really good in the playoffs last year. And I was coming off a 25 game break for whatever he tested positive for. And then he came back for 10 games. Then the playoffs. But he was really good in the playoffs. And we've seen. These NBA guys, as they hit their mid thirties, they do have, they only need one good year from them. Next year, he's an expiring and they have Hugo and they have Shireman who they're going nuts about. And it's a, to me, it reminds me a little of the Philly situation where you have these other options. If somebody doesn't play, right. It's like Paul George isn't playing tonight. Well, we're fine. We have Shireman Walsh played 1200 minutes last year, Harper, and then Hugo, and they'll patch it together. But I think the. The ultimate goal would be, what does this look like in the playoffs in a series? Can you count on him every other night? Things like that. That I have no idea, but I do think they can get 55 games, 1600, 1500, somewhere in their minutes. And I think that fans are going to like him. I can't believe I'm saying that, but I just think he's an additive player. You like him less if he's one of your two guys that are going to decide whether you win the title or not. But he's like not one of their five guys. So we're going to decide whether they're a title team. He's in a much better situation. So I fully drank in the Kool-Aid. I poured it all over myself. And I think he's going to be additive for them. Speaker 4 (20:31) I think he's regressing a little bit into like overqualified role player status. 100%. Totally. But I think that's okay. You're thinking about the best basketball situations he's been in. This will probably be the best. I just keep thinking about cumulative passing when I think about the Celtics. You think about Derek Wye. You think about Jason has always been a little bit better at that. Not that everything's about Jalen, but he's always been the better of the two about getting off the ball. I just think they're going to have a lot of good passers on the floor where it's not going to bottleneck. And if you think about the teams that Paul's been on, last year, with Embiid, with Maxey, it's just the ball didn't move quite as well. No, you're standing in the corner. Speaker 3 (21:10) Yeah. Speaker 4 (21:11) I think this will be, he's going to be an overqualified connector too, I think. Speaker 3 (21:16) I still don't understand the trade. but I at least understand the trade. I wouldn't have done it, but I get why they did it. And I think it was a basketball decision for them with the minutes and all the players. And I just don't think it was sustainable with those two guys. I think they thought we've hit the ceiling with this. We won the title. We need to get out of this. Brooklyn. I have Michael Porter Jr. for this one because I thought about Demond because Demond, there's some interesting stats with him. Like he had this crazy month where he shot like 44 % and he has size and I'm intrigued by him. But I went with Porter because he's the total internet podcast package. He is first team all NBA trade machine. He'll be in the trade machine until the deadline in mid February. Well, he'll just be just throw him in. He's got the good stats, bad team stuff. He's a really good, and I think Randall's like this too. We don't want to finish in the bottom three. Can you win a couple games for us and get some stats and maybe push us into the bottom five or six so we're not in the bottom three? And then just as maybe the craziest interview of anyone in the league. I wrote down just some of the things he, he said he once texted Jokic how to approach and date a Slavic woman and Jokic left them unread. This was a tidbit. He once said a McDonald's all American high school team would absolutely beat the woman's Olympic team. He said he wouldn't date anyone who has dated another NBA player. It's just an automatic cross off. He said the Porter's family has vices. His brother loved gambling and he loves women. He shared that. He accidentally put Adam Silver's number on Snapchat. Do you remember this? This was a few years ago. That happened. No. He said in a podcast that he tests potential girlfriends by throwing on Andrew Tate to see how they react. And then back in 2020, he said he thought COVID was used for population control. So I'm excited for him in a free agent year. I don't know what he's capable of. We have more podcasts to go on. I don't think he's really, I think he's going to be letting it fly. And he's a trade machine guy. Michael Porter Jr., I'm in. Speaker 4 (23:30) Yeah, it's interesting. Some of the risk for somebody who gets shots up, some of the riskiest and most harmful shots that Porter takes are when he's in front of a microphone. And I Speaker 1 (23:41) was just thinking that whenever Speaker 4 (23:42) you... relaunch the hottest take you were giving me the touring show and where that where that would be taking place bring up just bring Speaker 3 (23:50) him in bring Speaker 4 (23:51) him in cold Speaker 3 (23:52) just bring Speaker 4 (23:53) bring porter in cold and just like turn the mic on and just let him start speaking and you'll be able to just kind of trim it into episodes right we'll get like Speaker 3 (24:00) a half hour of straight content um yeah Speaker 3 (24:04) Look, he's an expired contract, I think, at 37 million. Speaker 3 (24:09) A good team is going to trade for him. Speaker 4 (24:11) Yeah, for sure. Well, Detroit would have made a whole lot of sense. Isn't it interesting that you hear people, I think Bernthal was talking about this because Bernthal's dad was a basketball coach, I think, or something. He was saying your play style reflects your personality. And it is so... fucking funny how Porter Jr.'s personality absolutely is reflected in the way he plays basketball, which is no conscience, just absolutely doesn't second-guess anything. But he's still, for all the joking around, it's like he's 6'10", and he is just an incredible, you know, he can get a shot up in any situation, even if it's a closeout, even if he's driving. I mean, he hits shots over Anthony Davis. Like, he's just... He's one of the most talented shooters in the world, and he happens to be 6'10". You're right. Some team is going to look around and just go, let's add that. And I've also been encouraged by him coming to this team. His quote, something sensible that he said, was that he wanted to be an even better off-ball player. It's like, in a way, he kind of knows who he is. I was glad he wasn't coming in there and just being like, all eyes on me. It's not a harmful way that he plays. He's 28 years old. Speaker 3 (25:21) This will be probably his last big contract. If you catch him on the right night coming off screens and just firing, he seems unstoppable. I think he, from all the guys from this decade, I think he's going to be the number one blank was a problem video that we have in 2039. I think there's Speaker 4 (25:39) going Speaker 3 (25:39) to be a three minute Michael Porter Jr. thing where it was like, was this guy the best part of all time? Speaker 4 (25:43) Do you see the prompt I put out last night? I said we should just start challenging ourselves to see how hard we can make it. Like just to pick. Oh, what player? Yeah, somebody suggested we make a Costa Cufas. He was a problem video and I'm working on that in my spare time right now. Interesting. Speaker 3 (26:00) Like a Greg Steamsbaugh? Speaker 4 (26:03) Yeah, you'd have to really pour up some tape for that one. But Speaker 3 (26:07) yeah. All right, next team is Charlotte. Speaker 3 (26:11) Nas Reed is the easy pick for this. 27 years old. Last three years, 14 and six, 38 % from three, 25 minutes a game. Speaker 3 (26:22) Beloved teammate. I think he's the guy who could be on the floor in the last five minutes of a good game. Speaker 4 (26:27) Oh, we know that. Yeah. Speaker 3 (26:29) Which they needed. Here's what's interesting to me because they traded lamello and you would think the Charlotte threes would go backwards. They made 16.4 threes a game last year, which led the league. That's a lot of threes. Miller, Khan, Kobe White, Grayson Allen, who they have now, Nas Reed, and O'Neal. Those guys combined, just those six made 16.4 made threes a game last year. And I wonder, is this team, could this team potentially make like. Speaker 3 (27:03) 19 threes a game, 18 and a half. Like what, what's the ceiling for that? And then how much of an advantage is that going to be? Cause we're, we're seeing this in baseball where they look at all these different inefficiencies for regular season. And lately it was like defense or, you know, like Tampa Bay just always zags against where everybody's going. And with Charlotte, I wonder like, if you're making 18, 19 threes a game, is that worth like 10 wins? And then could Nas Reed play at 30 minutes a game instead of. Speaker 3 (27:32) Can he play with both with Diabate and without him? Or are they going to play him at power forward with Steinbeck? But I think how they use him is going to be the key to this team because I like all the other pieces. Speaker 4 (27:44) Yeah, it's it seems like that's been the recurring thing you hear from people. It's just, you know, they want to get these threes up. But how are they going to create them? And you assume that, you know, Lomelo not being there. I kind of think it might just be a little bit of a stylistic shift because you don't have like the elite. you know, pass or playmaker pick and roll guy. Speaker 4 (28:06) But I've kind of wondered if they might go a little more Warriors-y where they're depending on their movement shooting and just kind of playing and then getting cutting from that. I think that's what they want to Speaker 3 (28:16) do. I think they want to have, I think they want to run a lot of the stuff through Miller and Kahn and then Kobe White, obviously, too. But a lot of where it's just way less predictable than just LaMelo dribbling the ball up. Speaker 4 (28:28) Yeah. And something interesting and underrated about Nas is he can handle the ball really well for his size. So he'll be able to like space the floor effectively in a way that miles didn't. And then he can drive his position really well so that he just, he's a really versatile piece. We'll see if the Wolves fans, how heartbroken they are over the course of this season just missing him. Not just because he was a great vibes guy, but he is really, really versatile. Like really, really skilled for his size. Shot heavy, heavy volumes, bought up threes last year and hit 40 % of them. So Charlotte really leaning into their shooting thing, even if the means to the end is going to be a little bit different this year. Speaker 3 (29:08) He's always been a good per 36 guy. He's always been a good eye test guy. And I like the fact that... You know, in your head, it feels like he's been around forever. which Lou Dort's like this too. It's like, you're only 27. I Speaker 4 (29:22) was getting 2019. Yeah. Or you could have Speaker 3 (29:25) told me he was 32. I would have believed that, but yeah, he's only 27. So I think Charlotte, um, the, the other key for them will be how much, how much can con, how much can stuff run through him? Right. Cause we forget con really flamed out the last three weeks of the season and I, and in the playoffs and I don't know how healthy it was, but it cost them the rookie of the year. But these year two guys, and we're going to see with flag two and a couple others like year two, you make a huge jump. You're now you're used to the schedule. You've worked on conditioning different things to get, you know what you kind of need to do. And I think for him, he'll be, I think he'll be in good shape, but I also think he's going to be ready to run plays and offense for them, which I don't know. I always felt like when they did pick and pop with him. and he had the ball and it's either he, he was throwing it back to whoever set him the pick, or he was just playing off the pick and shooting. I always felt that was unstoppable. And I want to see like, can you do that with Nas Reed? Can you do this? And then the other one is Steinbeck. What is he going to look like for them as like a rebounder? Cause it feels like they're a little lighter and rebounders anyway. Okay. For Cleveland, it's clearly Peyton Watson. Speaker 3 (30:38) 24 years old. Speaker 3 (30:41) signs a four-year $88 million deal. Kyle, his first three years, he was seven points a game, 19 minutes a game, 33 % from three. In the 25 playoffs, which is less than a year and a half ago, he played 14 minutes a game for them. And then in 26, it all jumped up. mainly because of this 19 game stretch he had where there wasn't a lot of Jokic and he was like 22 a game. He was hitting threes. He looked like just an awesome two way player potentially, but he also had the ball a lot. Now he's going to Cleveland. Guess where he's not going to have the ball a lot. Cleveland. Cause they still have Mitchell and they still have Harden. Um, we've never seen him succeed with a lot of minutes in the playoffs. We haven't seen it at all. They paid him like a playoff guy. He's in the salary group right now. He's Io, Brooks, Giddy, Jabari, Hartenstein, McDaniels, Nembhard on the Pacers, Vassell, Kobe White, Zubats. These are like proven really good. I'm not one of the two best players in your team, but I'm right underneath. And they're paying him like that. And as talented as he is, I'm... I don't know if he has it or not. Like, I just don't, I don't know yet. And I think anyone who says, oh, we definitely know from that 19 game stretch. I don't think you can say it. I don't know how it's going to play out. So where do you stand? Speaker 4 (32:05) I mean, he's definitely going to take a hit in terms of the organic, just cutting style of just flying around Jokic that comes with playing with him. It's a little bit different playing in such a heavy, heavy ball screen situation. And you're playing with two guys who are rough spacing bigs, I think you could argue at this point, Jared Allen and Mobley. So that'll be different too. But I mean, the catch and shoot stuff with him. His shooting has really, really improved. He was almost 40, 45 percent last year from on his catch and shoot. So I think he'll be able to serve that role. It's just kind of he's going to have to be hyper efficient, I think, to justify the payment that he got for, you know, based on he has. He has a lot of kind of upside ambition. I don't know if this is like a Jeremy Grant thing where he's going to pursue that and pursue that. And then we're just kind of and then we're like, I think you're probably better over in this box. We might be on that path. But it'll be interesting to see how he responds to being a little bit in tighter kind of parameters, I think, as opposed to. Who spacing wise was he working around in Denver? That was really somebody to move around. I mean, Aaron Gordon, Aaron Gordon's become a pretty good shooter over time. So this will definitely be a much different space spacing challenge for him in Cleveland. I Speaker 3 (33:26) feel like it's either going to go awesome or it's going to be really rocky and awkward for the first month. And I, and you could give me either. Look, I thought Denver should have kept them. And if I have Jokic, I'm just paying the apron and the tax. And obviously the Crockies have a ton of money because they just bought the Angels and they keep buying sports teams. Speaker 3 (33:47) With that said, I was more surprised from the Cleveland side of this. And I know they were able to shed some contracts and