TrillBroDude Interview: NBA Draft, Playoffs, and More - 05/10/25

TrillBroDude of the You Know Ball Podcast joins Mark Henry Jr. and Sean Barnard on the Tough Cover Show from the jump to talk all things #NBADraft, #Sixers, and the #NBAPlayoffs.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Number one on your car radio preset hand a new
and improved Iheard Radio app w D A S and
w D two seven three D Philadelphia is Fox Sports
Radio The Gambler. We have len you.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Want to talk right down to that in the language
that everybody here can easily understand.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Loved the smality.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Hello and welcome to the Tough Cover Radio Show. It
is May tenth, Saturday, and we've got a great show
ahead for you. Guys in studio for the first time
in a long time. Feels good. Don't have a dog,
you know, trying to trying to hop on my lap
and interrupt the radio show. It's nice, it's nice, feels

(01:14):
a little more professional. But Sean Bernard on the other side,
it's nice to be here with them on the ones
and twoes. You can follow him on Twitter or xally
Everything app. It's all happening on XO as we all know.
You can follow him on Twitter at Sean Underscore Bernard
one and right off the top of the show, usually,
you know, we wait to get into the guest I

(01:35):
do some you know, dumb fifteen minute monologue about you know,
the Phillies bullpen or something. But we're starting with the
heat right off the top, starting with the slop, and
we've got my guy, trillbro Dude from the Uno Ballpod.
Go and check it out on Patreon, Go and check
it out on every YouTube, all the all the podcast platforms. Trill,

(01:56):
thanks so much for coming.

Speaker 4 (01:57):
On, man, what's going on?

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Happy to be It's always good to have you. We
have some traditions. Usually we have you right on after
the draft, and I'm sure hopefully we're gonna do that again.
But I think this could be a new tradition. You know,
who knows, Phil The Sixers might have some lottery years
ahead here potentially, so we might have to have a

(02:19):
new pre lottery tradition. And here we are two days
before one of the bigger lotteries in recent memory, right,
I think Wemby obviously, But besides Wemby, this is the
biggest lottery since who in terms of flat ion.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
So I would say twenty nineteen. Yeah, this probably.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
I feel like if you're ranking the last fifteen years
of prospects going back to late twenty ten, the ones
that I remember people being really hyped up for were
like Zion, Wemby, and then to a lesser extent, you
had the Anthony Davis draft. Obviously, we were very excited
about Ben Simmons, can't forget about that. But this feels

(03:01):
like one of the drafts where it feels very obvious
who the top guy is. It feels like there's a
very big gap, and it feels weird because we really
haven't had an American prospect hyped up quite like.

Speaker 4 (03:13):
Flag since Zion.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Yeah, so hopefully his career goes a little bit better
in terms of, you know, the injury luck and stuff
like that.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah, And hindsight's twenty twenty, obviously, and it's easy to
look back and be like, well, actually, Flag's better because
look at what happened to Zion. Is there any argument
that Flag just has less risk? And obviously, looking at
how what happened is Zion, it's easy to say that.
But even people at the time, and I was super
in on Zion, so was I've actually been pretty disappointed

(03:45):
by his defense and the pros as opposed to what
it was in college. And part of that's weight, obviously,
but there were people bringing up the weight and the
size and him being a little bit of a tweener
without a shot at that size. I think Flag at
least is a more complete prospect. Zion was more exciting.
You know, we saw him dunk his way through high

(04:06):
school for years, and he was just a household name
for long. I mean not that Flag wasn't, but in
a different way. Zion was all over our all time highlights. Yeah,
all timer. But I think Flag's actually a better pro prospect.
Is that is that fair kind of hindsight?

Speaker 4 (04:22):
I think he's safer.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
I think I think the the idea of what you're
getting with Cooper Flag is that even if he doesn't
hit his high end outcomes, he's probably still like what
the eighteenth best player in the NBA, like, he has
this crazy upside if the skills continue to develop.

Speaker 4 (04:41):
Because one of the things.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
With Flag is it feels like he is kind of
this perfect, uh, you know, Jack of all trade style prospect.
But I wouldn't really say right now, at least offensively,
that he has an elite skill. And I think the
difference is that with Zion when he was coming, and
I think that Flag, like I said, Flag certainly as

(05:03):
the safer floor, doesn't feel like he's going to be
quite the injury ris Zion was. Obviously we know now
we all thought that Zion was going to translate defensively,
he has not in a way that has been you know, surprising,
as you pointed out. But the fact that Flag feels
like he can play on literally any team and you
don't even have to build around him is the interesting

(05:26):
part of this where you could see him coming in
and in his first few years being a number two
on a contender, and then becoming a number one in
a few years. And I think that he's the kind
of guy that every team is looking for right now,
like a four who's super athletic, that can handle the ball,
that can shoot, that can connective pass, that can create

(05:46):
for others, that also defensively is just an absolute monster.
Like I mean, he's gonna be someone he's basically the
archetype of guy that everyone is looking for in the
modern MBA. And defensively he's probably even better than he
is on offense. And by the way, he was doing
this at seventeen and then turned eighteen in college. So
it's one of those things where it just feels like

(06:07):
he's the most can't miss prospect.

Speaker 4 (06:10):
In terms of floor that we've had in quite some time.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
But I would say if I was projecting for higher
end outcomes, I probably would have felt a little bit
better about Zion just because I knew that he had
like more elite traits that could potentially reach Like I
really thought Zion could have been like one of the
thirty or forty best players of all time at the
draft flag. I'm not quite as certain, but there's certainly
a pathway for him to get there.

Speaker 5 (06:34):
Yeah, And it's almost like that's how things played out
this season at Duke. Like the first half of the season,
I don't want to say that he underwhelmed, but he
didn't kind of take those steps as like a self
creator and being that offensive level guy. And then he
really kicked it into gearcum conference play and it looked
like his confidence just continued to grow and grow. So
I know Mark wants to get into the conversation the
best landing spots here. I kind of in principle agree
with the sentiment that it is best for him to

(06:56):
not be looked at as the guy from day one
that you can have a little bit of, you know,
that like complimentary piece that is doing the little things.
And I think like my biggest takeaway from getting to
actually watch like full games of him at Duke in
a way that we were I didn't really before this,
Like he's a winning player. He's going to do like
all the things, the rotations, rebound, defend, the things that

(07:16):
you want in a in like the top prospects that
sometimes you get underwhelmed by. Flag brings it all. So
he's gonna be awesome where every lance and but I
hope it's Philadelphia.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
I think, honestly, I think that Anthony Davis is probably
it's not a one for one comp by any means.
Obviously they're not the same position. Ad was on a
Kentucky team that you know, ended up winning the national title.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
Obviously flagging them came a little bit short.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
But in terms of what we're talking about, where like
you feel so safe taking this guy because the worst
case scenario is that he's like the one of the
best defenders in the NBA who also can be a
number two on offense, which is exactly what Anthony Davis became.

Speaker 5 (07:54):
Yeah, I'm surprised there's not more Jason Tatum comps for him.
I see a lot of Titum that sometimes like Tatum's
little bit more perimeter centric and like a self creator
in a way. That Flag is it, but like the
rebounding ability, and I mean Tatum at this point is
essentially like a pure power forward the way that he
rebounds and does all that. So that's probably my favorite
comp for him, even though they're slightly different too.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, I think that Tatum as a prospect was definitely
a better like shock creator ball handler. Like I remember
at the time thinking that he was like almost like
mellowish as opposed to what he has become in the NBA.
I think that he has become a different player than
I ever expected. I didn't expect him to be good
at those role player things, right that Flag is already

(08:35):
good at So it's kind of the inverse as a prospect,
But I think in the NBA they could have very
similar style rules. I know the two comps that I
hear the most for Flag are Tatum and more recently
Kawhi Leonard. But I mean Kawhi is like a one
of one prospect to be so I really don't even
want to compare him to anyone else, but I think

(08:57):
that that just gives you a general idea of what
you're looking at with Flag.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Well, Jalen Rose famously compared Rui Hachimura to young Kawhi Leonard,
not necessarily Kawhi Leonard, but young Kawhi Leonard. Jonathan chiming in,
he said, Cooper Flag seems like he knows what he's
doing all the time, and at that age, I find
that very impressive. Yeah, I totally agree, and Trill knows.
I love to do this, but take short stretches. At
the end of the year. This isn't a short stretch.

(09:20):
But to Sean's point about Flag kind of getting better
throughout the end of the year. The last twenty five games,
he shot forty five percent from three. He averaged twenty
and a half and seven with five assists per game.
And that's not a huge jump, you know, he averaged
a nineteen seven and four, but on thirty eight percent shooting.

(09:41):
I believe in the jumper to be like a legit
forty percent from three. Like I know, he shot thirty
eight percent, but he really struggled in a couple of
those games early on that I think is kind of
weighing that down.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
But let's do seventeen. Yeah, he was seven in college.
Like that absolutely wild. I mean, that's that's part I know.
I don't want to get ahead of myself. But that's
part of the reason why I'm a little bit higher
on Jurmiyah Fears in this draft too. It's just I
think that people don't realize how hard it is to
be seventeen or eighteen years old, like just turned eighteen
and be a like a passable college player, like and

(10:15):
they were like in Flag especially, was like elite by
the end of the year.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, well, surely then you love Jace Richardson.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
Of course.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
I mean obviously, you know, I like Jason. I'm Jack
And we'll get to the Jace Richardson agenda later on here.
And you know, there is some like allegedly there is
basketball being played at night, and they're allegedly keep track
of the wins, and you know, if one team gets
to four, they move on to the next round. I'm
not really you know that in tune aware of all

(10:45):
all that. You know, I'm fully focused on the draft.
It's a shame that important Like, yeah, exactly, I saw
your tweet. You know, this basketball is really getting in
the way of the important stuff.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
I felt like an old man last night.

Speaker 5 (10:56):
The game went to overtime, that final game, and I
was like, come on, like, yeah, I've never had that
reaction watching it to.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Say, I feel you Yeah, No, I actually feel like
this has been the best second round that we've had since.
I mean, look, as Philly fans, twenty nineteen wasn't great,
but just as a basketball fan, the way that all
those series ended, the multiple seven game series we got
the that was also the famous Celtics Bucks series where
the Celtics won the first game and then they got
reverse sweep from there. Yeah, so there's there is a

(11:27):
there is something in the air in the second round
that is really weird where it feels like everything that
we learned in the regular season can almost be completely
thrown out the window because all of these games have
not played out in the way that we thought that
they would.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah, and it's interesting because the NBA has been the
sport that that's kind of never been the case. It's
it's always been MLB, you know now that especially with
six MIILD cards instead of four. You see, the Colorado
Rockies made it in like two thousand and eight when
they won like eighty five games. Arizona made it a
couple of years ago when an eighty four games negative

(12:03):
run differential, like.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
They that happens all the time.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Hockey, you know, eight seeds go go to the finals
because they have a hot goalie. And football even you know,
we've had the Giants, Sea Line Manning won a title
like and obviously had their moment. Yeah, the Steelers, the
basketball's had their moments. But it does mostly feel like
the best team wins. And you know, the best teams

(12:27):
usually make it pretty far. They don't lose the lower
seeded teams all that often in a different way than
the other sports. Why is it that that's kind of
shifting and changing and it feels and maybe it's it's
a one year anomaly, but why does it feel like
that's shifting?

Speaker 1 (12:42):
This is the third straight year, Like, I mean, we
had Miami two years ago, we had Dallas last year,
and i mean, look, Dallas was the four to the
five seed. But like, if you look at the teams
that traditionally make the finals, they're almost always in the
top three seeds. The last time we had a team
that wasn't a top three seed that won the championship
was the ninety five Rockets who traded for Clyde Drexler
halfway through the year.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
It's something that almost never happens.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
And even if you want to stretch it to beyond that,
the only two non top two seeds that we had
win the championship were the Golden State Warriors a few
years ago their last title, and then the Milwaukee Bucks
in twenty twenty one. So this is something that is
somewhat of a new phenomenon in terms of teams making
the finals, in terms of teams making these deep runs,
and I think it's like.

Speaker 4 (13:26):
Three things really.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
The first one is I think that the injury luck
and the pace of the game has made it so
that basically the thing that I've taken from these playoffs
and it hurts me to say it, but I feel
like you cannot build around players who are generally not
that available. Like I think that we love the idea
of you know, obviously we've been dealing with this with

(13:47):
Joel Embian for the last few years. We love the
idea of Kawhi or Zion or Lamela or whoever. But nowadays,
in order to have the opportunity to win a championship,
I think you need to just have as many cracks
at it as possible. So five, six seven year window
where maybe one year you get the right health luck

(14:08):
and you have the right team and you break through.
Because we're seeing this right now, Like the Cavs went
down oh two because they had bad health luck. We
see pretty much every year these teams that have like
we might see the Pacers go to back to back
Eastern Conference Finals because the fact that they've just had
the healthier team. And I think the pace of play

(14:28):
in the modern game is like, I mean, look at
all these stars in this playoffs, like they're exhausted, they're
playing terribly, and they just don't really have the same
level of like dominance that we expect from c you know,
obviously they still have individual occasions, but like Jokic has
been bad the last two games, Sga has been bad

(14:50):
two of these three games, Tatum.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
Has been horrible.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Now, part of this also might be the fact that,
like we're past the Steph Lebron era where we expect
consistent dominance from the best players all the time, and
your lower players that are in you know, maybe four
to eight in your rotation are more important than they've
ever been because we're in this era of where teams
are they have depth and versatility and all that stuff.

(15:12):
But I think that it's a combination of all of
these things combined with just shooting luck and shooting variants.
As we've built into this new era of basketball where
teams can get hot on any given night, it can
literally carry a team like it did the Miami Heat
a few years ago to the NBA Finals, and I
think that we're gonna see that.

Speaker 4 (15:32):
More commonly moving forward.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
Like as teams rely more on the three point shot,
you're gonna have games like the Celtics just had in
the first two games where they can't hit a shot
and the other team takes advantage of the fact that
they're just living and dying by the three and last
year they rode that hot hand all the way to
the championship. So it's literally just kind of luck of
the draw. It feels like based on your injury luck,

(15:55):
based on your shooting luck, and you know, in order
to stay in that conversation, you just need to have
guys who were always available any given year.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
There's three series right now, I'll take Minnesota Golden State
out of it with no Steph where the leader is
actually the underdog on the series markets on DraftKings right now, Wow,
the Pacers leading to to one their plus one twenty five,
the Calves are minus one fifty, the Knicks their plus
one oh five up to h the Celtics or minus

(16:23):
one twenty five. We'll get into that. And then the
Nuggets after winning last night plus one seventy five Thunder
and minus two ten. If I were to tell you
which team that is leading their series right now, could
you which is the most likely to get to the
conference finals, the Pacers, the Knicks, or the Nuggets?

Speaker 3 (16:43):
What would what would you say?

Speaker 4 (16:44):
Denver's cheating?

Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, like it feels because they have a one game
advantage over everyone.

Speaker 5 (16:49):
Now said the next You mean, no, I said Denver.
I think Denver is the clay. You're saying the team
currently ahead to advance, like the Nuggets to beat the
Thunder in the series.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
The question, well, wait, the Pacers are up to one also, right?

Speaker 4 (17:00):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (17:00):
True, that is true, and you could argue that's you
can argue.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
I guess I'm just having a little recency bias because
the game literally just happened last night, and it was this,
you know, game that came to to the wire.

Speaker 4 (17:14):
I said this after Game one.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
I thought that the odds were insane for the Nuggets
to win the championship, they were plus twelve hundred, and
I was like, if they win this round, they're winning
the title.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Like, I think there's still less loss one thousand.

Speaker 4 (17:27):
Yes, that's insane.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
To me because if you look at the fact that, like, look,
I picked the Thunder and the Warriors to get to
the conference finals. I still think that the Thunder have
a good chance to win this series. But I also
think like once you advance past this round, Minnesota had
a really lucky draw with the Lakers, and I don't
think the Lakers were quite as good as people thought
that they were. And then you combine that with the

(17:49):
fact that they just got great injury luck with Steph
on the other side, and they've they're They're a team
that is deep, they have a lot of versatility, they
have a lot of things you can throw it guys.
But I think the Nuggets could define take them in
a series, and then it just comes down to whether
you think that they're better than potentially you know, the Knicks,
the Calves, the Pacers, And if you have nicoll A
Jokic in the final series, I feel pretty good about

(18:10):
your chances, even with him not playing up to his
normal level. That we're used to. So I just kind
of look at those odds and I say, that's crazy.
I guess of the teams, I'm I'm a little bit
higher on the Knicks chances than I think that most
people are. Oh and once again, maybe it's a little
bit of cheating because they're the only one up to
games in their series right now.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
But I think the thing that people are losing the.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
Force for the Trees a little bit right now is
that everyone's like, well, the Celtics will shoot better. The
Knicks have not been good offensively for like three of
the four halves in this series. It was really just
the second half of Game one where they were legitimately
good offensively, and that's kind of been their bread and butter.
It's weird that they had to have this rep as like.

Speaker 4 (18:54):
A tough team.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
I guess it's based on the fact that Tibbs is
their coach and the Villanova guys and.

Speaker 4 (18:59):
The past permant stuff.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
But like, this is a team that was built on
their offense this year and they have not been built
on their defense for a few years now. So the
fact that their defense is playing at this level against
Boston frustrating their ball handlers, making it so that they
kind of, you know, their team defense has been fantastic, rotating,
closing out on shooters and kind of mucking up Boston's offense.
We're one really good offensive performance away from the Knicks

(19:24):
pulling away in that series. So I think that the
Knicks are being undersold because everyone just assumes, well, Boston's Boston,
they'll figure it out. Like you go down two Zho
and you lose both of those games at home. There's
only five or six series in the history of the NBA,
and you have to go back to the sixties to
find the six one in order to realize that that

(19:45):
doesn't really ever happen. And the Calves the Caves feel
a little bit different than me because the Caves literally
had massive injuries in the first two games. Like the Celtics,
injuries are like things that right now, like I don't
really think that like a Howser seems to be probably
out for the rest of this series. Portscots are yeah,

(20:06):
Porgiicots and Wharfford just.

Speaker 4 (20:07):
Have not been the same. Jalen Brown has not been
the same in these playoffs.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Like I would literally say that like the Cavs looked
great last night, they all came back refresh, Like I
actually think that the Celtics are in real trouble and
I feel like no one's really talking about that.

Speaker 5 (20:23):
Yeah, to jump in on my clear counter here, I
think this defensive stuff from the Knicks is like an
anomaly here that I don't think this is for the series,
and I think it's had far more to do with
the Celtics just missing shots than anything that New York
is doing. And I also think, even if he's not
one hundred percent with talking about Jalen Brown specifically here,
Michale Bridges and Ogana Nuby are not going to outplay
Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown for the rest of the series.

(20:43):
Like I just don't see any world where that happens here,
And like you're right about the offense from the next perspective,
that's sort of been like the confusing thing about them
all all season is they've been way better offensively than
I expected and way worse defensively than I thought could
be the case here.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
So I don't know.

Speaker 5 (20:57):
I mean that it's definitely not ideal to blow leads
at home, like a twenty point lead, the way that
the Celtics have feels like the twenty point lead is
the most dangerous lead in sports right now. But I
do think that there is gonna be something to like,
they're not gonna shoot twenty five percent from three, and
I do think Jason Tatum does wake up a little bit,
even though it has been a nightmare start. So I
still think this next team is frauds. I still think
that the first two games they got a lot of

(21:19):
breaks that went their way. Everything down the stretch went right,
and I am talking some of it, at least up
to the shooting variant.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
Jason Tatum the biggest back against the wall merchant in
the NBA. It's like he literally we joke about this
on the podcast because Sam's a Celtics fan. He raises
his own rent like all of his best games are
games that they shouldn't have even been in. Yeah, Like like,
oh he had a great Game six or a Game seven.

Speaker 4 (21:41):
It's like, yeah, this series should have been over in five.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Like it feels like the Celtics always love to do
this where they kind of get down in a series
and they have to come back, and the only time
they haven't been able to overcome it was the Miami
Heat and the Who and obviously the Warriors a few
years ago, but they were up in that series. But
the thing that I want to point out here is,

(22:03):
like I said, this last playoffs, when we played against
the Knicks, they have been the devil Heat team. Like
they've stolen the Miamisic a little bit. Remember the end
of that game too. The way that they just consistently
come back in games. They never feel like they're out
of it. This is a team that is that is

(22:24):
like absolutely playing above their head. But I don't think
it's I think it's unsustainable for a full playoff run
like it was with the Heat, like where eventually you
just reach a point where you play one of the
greatest players of all time or a great team and
you fall short. But I think for they have to
win two of what the next six games or whatever
it is, five games, I think it's absolutely.

Speaker 4 (22:46):
Winnable that they that they can they can win this series.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
And it's basically even that Celtics are very very slight
favorites there in terms of that. My take on this
is actually, if the Celtics win this game three, I
think they're gonna win the series, and that sounds reductive. Obviously,
if the next win, you're up three, oh, they're gonna
win the series. But I think this is the game
for the next to win at home. Out of these two,

(23:09):
you have two days off in between. I think there's
a chance that this Tibbs you know, they've played a
gazillion minutes. I feel like we've seen a couple of
years in a row. They've played really well in round one,
and last year was early in round two they played
well before they got hurt. Is there a chance we
kind of get a little bit of that Tibbs wear
down here? Because after this game, it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Like,

(23:33):
it's only one day off in between each game. Game
four to six kind of come really really quickly. Now
you could argue maybe that hurts Boston more because Chris
STAPs has a mysterious illness and whatever's going on with
their whole team. But I still think that that hurts
the Knicks more. And I still believe in that Tom

(23:53):
Thoodeau wear down because we've seen it for decades.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
At this point, they could he cut their minutes this
year though they the last two months of the season
and they were not playing big minutes they have prepared
for this. I feel like that was kind of lost
in the shuffle. But there was a quote from Michail
Bridges in February where he basically said, like, we need
to go deeper into our bench, And from that point on,
they went deeper into their bench, and they struggled down
the stretch a little bit because of it, but they

(24:16):
were already in playoff shape. They saved themselves a little
bit for the playoffs, and while maybe on a total
minutes played basis, they were still closer to the higher
ends of the league. I think they were only playing
like thirty minutes a game to finish the year, which
is unlike Tibbs, but maybe he's learned from his past mistakes.

Speaker 4 (24:33):
I don't know. I think that this team is I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
I think this team will always be a little bit
better in the playoffs than they are in the regular season,
just because of their physicality, because of the fact that
like they will always have like one of the two
best rebounders in the game on the court pretty much
at all times. They'll create extra possessions and then if
you keep a game close. Jalen Brunson is like nails
and clutch time. It's unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
And you mentioned that the Cavs face is obviously a
total different situation. But I was on your stream before
the series and I kind of asked you guys, because
I said, Sean Bernard thought I was crazy. I was
saying for weeks that I thought the Pacers would be
competitive in this series. Obviously, that was thinking the Caves
would be healthy. And I still think even if the

(25:17):
Cavs were fully healthy, that this would still be a
competitive series the Pacers. Here, they are up to one.
They obviously got smoked in Game three. I think they're
going to respond in Game four at home and go
up three to one. Am I crazy for thinking that
the Pacers are still going to win this They're bigger
underdog than the Knicks.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
I mean, I.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
Agreed with you when you said that on egin like,
I felt like this Pacers team was being once again.
The thing is is that while they're very different stylistically
from a team like the Knicks, it feels like these
teams that have their own unique style that is like
completely different from anyone else are really hard to guard
in the playoffs, Like.

Speaker 5 (25:55):
They hang around like both these teams they just hang
around all game once again.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
And if you want to talk about like the pace stuff,
like I know they play at a really high pace,
but like the fact that they can divvy up their
offensive responsibilities instead of running the offense like the Luka
doncic helio centric, the Joel embiid helio centric, the James
Harden helio centric.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
Of the past.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
I think that's like a thing of the past, Like
I don't think that you can do that anymore. And
I actually don't think it has anything to do with
the play. I literally think it has to do with
the fact that you just wear down on a guy
over the course of a season, over the course of
a playoffs. The Pacers play a really collective style of basketball.
They kind of have the random roulette wheel where you
can have a different star on every night, Like if

(26:36):
Siakam's feeling himself, you can run some offense through Siakam.
If Halliburton's feeling himself, you can run them hard. Like
they they are kind of this this roulette of random
players that can go off at any given night. And
the thing about Haliburton is that, like while he isn't
the greatest one on one player in the league. He
is kind of a superstar in his own right when

(26:57):
it comes to just being like a superstar glue guy almost,
where like you can have him cook and have him
take over the offense, but you also can run actions
for him off the ball, and the defense has to
take into account that he can shoot off movement, but
also he can make those connective passes on the move,
and it is really he's really like his own unique

(27:17):
kind of player. And it's really hard to sum something
really hard to prepare for because we're used to preparing
for these one on one scorers, these playmakers, guys like
Shae Gilders Alexander who's struggling in his series right now,
where in like you have the defense can get set,
there's a lack of movement and it basically just becomes
one on one basketball, whereas the Pacers you never know
which direction they're going to attack you from. And I

(27:39):
think that that's been really successful for them in the playoffs.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
I believe your take is that Haliburton's the best pacer
of all time right over Reggie at this point.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
So so my thing was I said that he was
on pace to be definitely. I had a friend freak
out on me because she's an NBA history person and
she was like, Reggie's underrated, and I was like, look,
I'm not taking anything away from Reggie Miller, but like
when you look back at what the accolades that Halliburton's
gonna put up, and like he's on the verge of
going back to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second time,

(28:09):
he's mad he's gonna make I think this will be
his third All NBA team. He's made two All Star teams.
When you look at the accolades at the end of
their career, Now, maybe he doesn't mean quite as much
to the franchise as Reggie did, just because you have
certain guys that mean a ton, But like, look, Alan
Iverson means a ton to the Sixers. I think Joel
Embiid undeniably peaked higher than al Allen Iverson, but it

(28:29):
doesn't mean that people would call him the greatest Sixer
because you know, there are guys that just mean more
to the franchise sometimes. So I think that people will
look at it emotionally in that regard, but I think
that when it comes down to like actual peak play,
and like the one thing about Reggie that you can't
take away from is that he arguably revolutionized basketball. Like

(28:51):
I think that the fact that he is one of
the most important characters in the history of the NBA
can and can't be taken away from him because he
was basically Steph before staph you know, before we figured
out that you can shoot threes. Like if Reggie came
into the NBA twelve years later, oh my god, he
would be you know, like even even better than he
ended up being in his career. So see, I think

(29:14):
Powerburton's on pace to be. But I think that right now,
obviously Reggie's you know, one of the forty fifty best
players of all time.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
So and speaking of greatest sixers of all time, future
greatest sixers of all time, Cooper Flag and.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
Real quick, let me throw in.

Speaker 5 (29:28):
Okay, what a commitment to the bit by Tyrese Haliburton
to throw four points right after he goes public with
the story of taking advice from Joel Embiid right there.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
Just that Jason Tatum, by the way, yes, which is great.
Both of those guys are like, we can't get a
break right now.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
Playoff risers, yeah, Joel and Jason Tatum.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
But I put this.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Little tier together for Cooper Flag in terms of I
don't know if this was just purely like fun or
competing pretty quickly, but I put this together pretty quickly.
This warning in terms of what I'm rooting for for
Cooper Flag.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
Actually no, and this is not the rooting for.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
This is just straight up the best competitive best places
to land. Yeah, I have a separate one that's actually
a rooting interest because it's just Toronto and Brooklyn in
the F tier, but in the S here I put
the best possible landings for Flag in terms of him
landing somewhere and competing pretty quickly, being San Antonio, Houston,

(30:26):
and Philadelphia, and he'd be the lead guy in Houston
in a way I think, pretty quickly, but in a
way that they were just a two seed this year,
I think that would be a pretty incredible landing spot. Obviously,
Wenby's the league Wendy Wemby is the league guy in
San Antonio, so that helps out with Flag not necessarily
needing to be kind of the number one guy right away.

(30:48):
And then obviously I think Jerry McCain and MAXI would
be pretty good running mates with him. There anyone I'm
missing from like the elite tier you think or am
I overrating any of these spots for Flag?

Speaker 4 (31:01):
No, I don't disagree. I think that there's.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
An argument that a, if those franchises didn't seem to
be cursed, you could probably move them up into the
s tire, but especially the Pelicans, like, like I mean,
Flag would make them amazing. But also what are we getting?
What are we getting out of Zion? Like is Zion
ever healthy? Are they keeping Zion? What is the question there? Like,

(31:25):
I think that that I think I agree with you
in terms of if you want to plug Flag into
a playoff team and they're immediately you know, one of
the five or six best teams in their conference, you
got it exactly right. Like, I don't think that there's
really an argument for anyone else because we have all
those question marks about even with the Joel Embiid stuff
with the Sixers, I feel confident in saying that Maxie McCain,

(31:46):
Paul George Grimes Flag would be good enough to be
one of the six or seven best teams in the East.
And then it's obvious with the Spurs and the Rockets
that is the case. The one team that I feel like,
all right, so two things I don't I actually think
the Raptors are, like not should not be that high. Okay,

(32:09):
I don't think the Raptors. I don't think the Raptors are.
The Raptors have built a team that makes literally zero sense.
A flag would probably take them.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
The Scotty Barnes make a lot of sense next to
flag though, and Brandon's that well, I guess kind of
with ing, But like Scotty Barnes, I don't think really
makes sense next to a lot of players in the NBA.
I think it kind of makes sense next to Flag.

Speaker 3 (32:31):
I think it could.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
I think because I believe in flags shot enough to
kind of balance that out a little bit. I guess
you could argue you need the ball in Barnes hands
too much, and you want that ball in Flag's hands.
But I think he kind of hides some of the
I'm not a Scotty Barnes guy by anyway, I think
it kind of hides some of the problems. Is that
is that kind of flawed thinking.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
So I guess my thing is that I think that
they would probably make trades if they got flagged, like
they would trade RJ. Barrett, just because then there's one
more guy that you wouldn't want to have the ball,
taking it away from Flag and Barnes and Ingram and whatever.
My thing with the Raptors is like, what are they
even doing? Like I don't really know what the vision

(33:12):
is there, Like I hate to go Bill Simmons mode,
but they literally have just crafted a team of me, Mimi,
me guys. Like it feels like everyone has their own
personal agendas there.

Speaker 4 (33:22):
They're all which look fair like.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
I mean, like I think that if you're building a team,
you should probably have in mind, like more connective pieces,
more connective guys, and I guess in theory Scottie Barnes
and then of course Cooper Flag could be that. But
like I don't know, like RJ. Barrett and Brandon Ingram,
I think that fit is horrible. I think it's a
terrible defensive fit. I think that those guys are they

(33:45):
overlap in skill sets way too much. And then also
if you're having all of these guys and like, look,
I think Flag will be a good shooter in time.
I don't know if he's going to be a good
shooter right away, but like Scotty Barnes is a non shooter.
RJ Barrett is a shaky shooter, Brandon Ingram is an
unwilling shoot. Yeah, and Yaka Purtle is a non shooting five. So, like,
what are we doing? Like they're building a team for

(34:06):
like two thousand and two, it feels like like it
doesn't feel like a modern team at all to me.
But Flag, look, Flag is the is the magic.

Speaker 4 (34:14):
Pill for anything.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
Yeah, top him on any team and he's gonna solve
all the problems. But like I think if we're going
pure fit, like I know that once again, same thing
with LaMelo and the Hornets, but like I think LaMelo
and Brandon Miller and I guess you could make the
same marketment about their like me first guys or whatever.
But like that trio is infinitely more intriguing to me

(34:36):
than anything that the Raptors would That's fair. I think
that's fair.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
And Bernard said that to me, he said he thought
Charlotte should be higher. I'm just at a point where,
like I just think Charlotte's gonna win twenty games forever,
could probably And I'm just scared to send anyone good
there because I think they might just be you know,
unsavable as a as an organization and I think Mellow

(35:00):
is a total loser, even if I think, you know,
a lot of the guys on the Raptors are too.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
But well, if I think with the Raptors is like,
I feel like they're coasting on reputation. I think they've
been the worst front office in the NBA since twenty
twenty one. No, I like, so it's like, if we're
giving the benefit of the doubt to the Raptors because
they won a championship six years ago, it feels like
we should we should also be considering that, Like, I
think that there are multiple front offices that are listed

(35:26):
below them that have been better than definitely than the
Raptors in the last few years.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
You know, I'm a quickly guy, so I'm I know
he's paid a lot. I'm still holding on to my
quickly stock. And I think injured all the time, I
think he makes sense next to flag though he's there.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
He has hurt all the time.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, but you know, I mean, look, I like I
liked when they got like, I like the fact that
they took a flyer on him. I did not love
that they immediately turned around and they were like, here's
thirty three million dollars a year like that was insane.
But I think the thing about the Raptors, all of
their moves, they're just like consistently doubling down on bad ideas.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Yeah, Ingram did the exact same thing. They made no
sense that they were the Ingram team.

Speaker 4 (36:06):
But they're a bad team that's going to be in
the tax.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
Yeah, it's it's really weird.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
But what I will say is quickly flag Scottie Peertle.
I think is like a pretty good four. And if
you somehow got it two for RJ or Ingram or
I guess you can't trade Ingram. I guess because they
just paid him, right, So.

Speaker 4 (36:27):
Yeah, they would trade RJ.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Yeah. I do think that RJ might have some suitors
just because he only makes like twenty five million dollars
a year and he has two years left on his deal. Like,
I don't think that's an unmovable contract. I think that
there are teams that would be like, look, he's not
I think a little bit of it is empty calories.
But I also think there's a chance that he goes
somewhere and he can actually like be a starter level wing.

(36:49):
Maybe I'm a little bit lower on RJ just because
of the defense. But I think that he is an
archetype that people are always kind of looking for, just
like an athletic wing with some scoring ability and some
playmaking ability.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
I've hated r J since, Like, I've never been an
RJ guy. Yeah, I never will say. I do think
he's maybe gotten better as a shooter, yea bronto, like
he's been a.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
Better shooter and he's like a really good rim pressure
guy now, which once again, I think it requires a
very specific context and fit, and I don't know what
team that is. I've always struggled to find a team
for him now. I before Michael Porter Junior had his
game last night, my idea was, what if they traded
Michael Porter Junior for RJ, Barrett and Oshaia Baji to

(37:35):
the Nuggets Because I feel like playing off Jokic is
kind of the cheat code for these rim pressure guys
that struggle to find a role on other teams.

Speaker 4 (37:43):
We've seen it with Aaron Gordon. Christian Brown's came into
the NBA had been really good in that role. But
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
I think that I think that RJ's a guy that
just kind of is going to find a difficult landing
spot for him on a good competitive team. It feels
like he's probably gonna have to continue to go to
these teams like the Raptor that are kind of in
flux in order to figure out what he is as
an NBA player. He's only like twenty four to twenty five. Like,
I wouldn't fully give up on him, but it's starting

(38:09):
to get to a point where it's like he's coming
up on his third contract and we still don't really
even know if he's good at all.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
Here's I think you guys talked about this a couple
of weeks ago in the UNO Ball Pod, which everyone
should check out. Who is the if Adam Silver is
rigging this? Who is getting Cooper Flag Utahs?

Speaker 5 (38:29):
I think, oh, okay, I mean is fair like if
the the best case scenario from peer basketball and really
everything like Wemby and Cooper Flag is like, oh, you.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Got Tim dun You got Tim Duncan and David Robinson again,
like like I think I think.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
That they're gonna play together forever.

Speaker 4 (38:47):
Like the Jazz definitely need to.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
Be bailed out the most of all these teams because
like I think that Danny Aingel has been low key
terrible as their GM and doesn't really get any heat
because it's Utah, No one cares.

Speaker 2 (38:59):
Uh just got a ten year extension.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
I like Will Hardy, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
I mean, look, I think Will Hardy might be a
fine coach. It's a talent, ultimately is what wins in
the NBA. And we saw that when he had talent,
he was decent. And then they got rid of the
talent and they stink, Like I mean, that's just kind
of how it works. So I don't disagree with you
that I think that that would be a bailout situation.
You Tuss never gotten the number one overall pick in
the draft, which is kind of wild when.

Speaker 4 (39:26):
You think about it.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
And also, like you said, like they they need they
need flag more.

Speaker 4 (39:33):
Than anyone else in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Like I think that of all these teams, you at
least can point to one thing to be optimistic about,
whether it's a young player or like the Nets have cap.

Speaker 4 (39:42):
Space and picks.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
Most of these like most of these teams have some
a little bit of something to cling on to.

Speaker 4 (39:50):
The Jazz, Like, I think they've drafted terribly.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
I think they they I really think if you broke
down their best prospects. You would be like Walker Kessler,
who's like a fine starting center and Kyle Philipowski, who's
also a big that they got in the second round
last year.

Speaker 5 (40:06):
Else, Yeah, I'll tell you, I'll take your Isaiah Collier
stock if you're selling it. By the way, I'm still
all out of college, absolutely out on Isaiah.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
Point Guards who can't shoot do not have NBA careers anymore.
It's just not a thing. That's the thing is like,
call youre the idea of Collier. I understand it, and
I got it in the draft a little bit like
I think I had him like nineteen on my board.
But like, namely, a point guard who can't shoot, that
is a starting level point guard view, Kay.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
I've been saying this for years, trill.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
This has been my my angry thing about guards not
being able to shoot. And you know me, I'm forgiving
on wings and harsh on guards. But let me run
through just a couple of these. Is there any chance
Adam Silver saving Nika?

Speaker 5 (40:47):
And there have to be some real hardcore back the
backroom deals for that to be the case.

Speaker 4 (40:53):
I think it's the funniest possible. I think if we're
just talking about.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Funny, like like shock reaction, hilarious, we're like laughing on stream.

Speaker 4 (41:03):
I would say number one.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
For me is Dallas getting him to be up there
to sending our like American export to Canada.

Speaker 4 (41:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
If if we're if we're talking on the rig the
rigging the lottery scale, I would say we probably have
to be top three only for this reason, the Joel
Embiid thing. We're a massive market. We know that they
love to push their massive markets. We have the Joel
Embiid injury with his uh thing where we need we

(41:32):
need a little bit of a bailout where we don't
know if he's gonna play or not. And then three
the we just learned about the fact that the NBA
worked with the ownership on the new stadium deal. So yeah, Oh,
They're like, if you want to go conspiracy mode, there
there's a pathway for us being one of the teams. Now,
historically when we've gone conspiracy mode with this stuff, it's

(41:55):
like the Knicks with the frozen envelope, Lebron and the
Cabs Cago getting Cargo, getting d Rose jumping up in
the lottery. There isn't really anyone that has like a
direct connection to Flag at this like Boston would be
the closest thing.

Speaker 4 (42:10):
They have no chance to get him Charlotte.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
So I guess Charlotte because of you want to save
professional basketball in North Carolina where they seemingly don't care
at all, and if you get guy dump I think
I think part of the reason they were interested in
Zion in twenty twenty three was because that was the
exact thought process was he went to Duke and if
we and Brandon Ingram they were also interested. He's from

(42:34):
North Carolina, Like, I think that there is that idea
there that if they get someone who's local, because they
only care about college basketball there.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
So I went to a hornet game. Everybody was wearing
UNC and Duke here like everybody that was there, nobody
had hornets Carot.

Speaker 5 (42:49):
The We got the question from Luke Arcaney here, what
amount of money would you guys pay? So Josh Harris's
pockets were speaking out to get the first pick.

Speaker 4 (42:56):
Okay, I was gonna say my money. I'm broken. Yeah,
I'm broke too.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
I don't got Flag money.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
I would put it on a payment plan for myself,
like a couple hundred bucks.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
But uh, I'll but I'll throw a twist on this.

Speaker 5 (43:07):
Josh Harris should be willing to trade Jaden Daniels for
Cooper Flag.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Oh dude, we're did you see him up there with
Trump and the Office? We're a forgotten son at this point?

Speaker 3 (43:18):
Are you kidding me? I would argue.

Speaker 5 (43:20):
I think I would make the legitimate case Cooper Flag
brings more to a franchise than jd Ultimate Commander.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
I don't know what by the way I mean.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
I mean, football is football, like basketball is still my
number one sport. But I can't lie and say that
I think that, uh, you know, football in America is
a religion, So I don't know if there's there's much
of an argument there unless Cooper fig literally becomes the
best American player since Larry Bird.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
And even in five years where NFL guys like stay
forever kind of like, yeah, exactly, But Sam real quick
talking about the un ball pod. Sam has a rented
at Tucks that he that he can't return until the
thought under or out of the playoffs.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
We're raising money on playback. I have people donating so
that they can help pay for Sam's talks because I
feel bad at this point.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
But did he realize that he was.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
It was almost a bit of a Thanas situation where
it's like what did it cost? And it's everything, you know,
the Celtics's if he takes Thunder out, the Celtics might
have to go too.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
To be clear, he did say that a star wing
was going to drop in the second round of the playoffs.
Now he said it was gonna be Jaalen Williams and
it turned out to be Jason Tatum. So I don't
think that he anticipated his own team flaming out in
the second round potentially as well.

Speaker 4 (44:38):
But it was really funny last night.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
Actually, I don't know if anyone who listens to the
podcast knows that Sam has been a big Jalen Williams skeptic,
which look, he struggled in big games.

Speaker 4 (44:46):
His playoff resume has not been great so far.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
I understand that Jalen Williams was the best player on
the court last night, and everyone on the Thunder was
kind of letting him down.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
Outplayed jokicin SGA.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
They lost that game, and I texted Sam that and
he just texted me back and said, well, he should
have scored more points in overtime, so that.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
Should they should have let him let him cook.

Speaker 5 (45:08):
Like dying on the sword with SGA in that overtime
period was kind of insane to me.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Last two possessions of that game, like regulation Jalen Williams
not getting one of those shots as wild. Yeah, I
mean this is where this is where some of the
ego stuff, some of the locker room stuff, some of
the stuff that's beyond us is on display here and
I'm sawing. I'm a big believer in the hot hand theory.

(45:33):
I don't think that that is a fake thing. I
think that's a real thing. And I think that if
you're if JDub can't miss on these midies, give him
one shot, give him a chance to seal the game,
and that could potentially end your season because you didn't
trust him in the right spot and you gave the
ball to your m VP and came up short.

Speaker 5 (45:50):
And Nuggets kind of did it too, by the way,
drawing up a fade away three for Nicola Jokic when
he's zero for ten on for three on the in
the night to close out. Obviously they went to overtime
so it didn't cost him to out. But another like
Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter junr All could
not miss at that moment. And I get it. He's
three time MVPs Nicole Jokic. But Mike, he's criticizing Joki.

(46:11):
You're not allowed to do that.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
You're not allowed to do I heard people talking about
how great of a coach he is after they they
won that game last I was like, this guy literally
never get you want to be like, oh, he's a
better offensive player than step and Lebron. And then the
second that he gets any criticism, everyone cries.

Speaker 5 (46:27):
Mark Jones last night on the broadcast as this is
in the first half, as Jokic has three field goals,
five turnovers and is three for ten from the field,
and his exact quote is when you dressed like him
coming to the arena, you can't do anything wrong on
the floor or something like that.

Speaker 3 (46:41):
But like, like, come on, man, like I hear you.
I get it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
I actually came away more impressed with yok.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
No.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
But let's real quick.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
If the Sixers do land, let's say the fifth or
sixth pick. Let's say they land, not in that you
know that top four, there's so many interesting kind of
the prospects feel like they don't line up for what
the sixers need necessarily in this draft outside of Flag, Really,
you could argue Kennipple. Yeah, there's definitely some other guys

(47:14):
who fit it. But let's say the top three picks
go off the board, the top four picks go off
the board. Let's say it's Flag, Harper, Con and Ace
in some capacity. Those are the four that are gone.
And let's say that the three guys. You can throw
another name at me if I'm forgetting one, But let's
say the three names that they're looking at are Malawak, VJ,
and Shrey. Who should they pick out of those three?

(47:37):
And who or who am I missing? That should be
in the conversation.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
So I think that you pretty much nailed the guys
that they probably would be considering at that pick. I
think Trey would probably be a no go, just because
of the overlapping skill sets with Maxine and McCain and
the fact that Darryl Moorey's job is on the line
and that if he drafts a guy who's you know,
the worth guard next year.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
The thing the difference between VJ and Trey is that
I think that VJ and Grimes can play in three
guard lineups because of their defense, their size, their strength,
their athleticism. I feel like Trey is just just a guard.
And if you're drafting, and that's the question for me
with Cak Nipple if he ends up being on the
board as well, is do you think he can actually

(48:23):
play the three or is he just a two? Because
if that's the case, then you know, like he might
be best player available. But but long story short, if
this were the way that it broke, I'd probably go
with Malawatch just because I think that the NBA is
moving towards this, Like if Joell EENBII does get healthy,
I think that they're moving towards a world where you

(48:43):
can play multiple bigs. Like I think that the way
that teams have played this this playoffs, the last two
playoffs is pretty much all the best teams, the Celtics,
the Thunder, the Cabs, all these teams, even if you
could make their comit the Pacers, like I think at
this point I would consider Passaca like a big, Like
he's not as good defensively as he used to be

(49:04):
on the wing. Like I think at this point that
you could argue they have two biggs as well. The
Knicks play Karl Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson together, Like,
I think that if you were to take Mallawatch, he's
a guy who can help preserve the games when Embiat
doesn't play, and then he also might be able to
potentially play with embiad in double big lineup. So I

(49:25):
think that that would be probably the most interesting best
of both worlds fit. I'm not quite as high on
him as some people. I know some people that have
him like top two or three on their board. I
have him at six right now. I think defensively he's
gonna translate instantly. I have some questions about the rebounding.
I thought it was a little bit overblown in that
game where he had zero rebounds. He had a lot

(49:46):
of tapouts in that game. And Houston's like a super
physical team. It was his really his first time going
up against that style. He's gonna put on strength, He's
gonna he's gonna get into a strengthy conditioning program in
the NBA. The only thing I'm worried about with Malawatches,
Like me and Mark talked about this a little bit,
like what does the high end outcome look like for him?
Is he just a run in dunk big quote unquote like,

(50:09):
is he just like a Clint Capella, which is a
fine player to get even with like the fifth or
sixth pick in the draft, or is he someone that
can develop his offensive skill set to the point where
he's more like a like a surge of Baka or
someone like that, where like he can handle the ball
a little bit, he can shoot, he can you can
run offense through him, and I I I'm not sure

(50:29):
that he can he can reach those heights. I'm not
sure that I buy the shot fully. But he's still
so new to basketball that if you look at the
archetypes of guys that become like stars or superstar level players,
they're generally these guys that are like a little bit
raw coming into the league but only have been playing
basket Like Donovan Mitchell is probably the most recent example

(50:50):
of a guy who came to basketball late. Joelle obviously
was also a guy who came to basketball late. You know,
I know Mark doesn't like him that much, but this
was my argument for Zachi ed going higher and draft
last year, was that he only been playing basketball for
five years. When these guys only played for five six years,
they're still kind of learning the game a little bit.

Speaker 4 (51:07):
They can hit really.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
High end outcomes in the league, and I'd be interested
to see what he becomes offensively in the NBA, because
I definitely believe in the defense.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yeah, I think that I think both sides were probably
wrong in some ways in the Eaty thing. The draft
was terrible, so I was too negative. But I do
think that there's like I think we saw the concerns
play out in terms of him being played off at times.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
But still, but if you got Unis Valentudas with the
ninth pick and a bad draft, you're fine with that.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
Yeah, it's fine. I don't think he's I think he's
more more of a kind of a detriment than Valen
Tunas is on defense. Maybe that's not the case long
term though. But one last guy I gotta ask about him.
I teased it earlier. He's my guy, Jase Richardson. I
have one guy every year. I've been pretty good like
with my like with my top guys over the last

(51:59):
couple of Obviously, Jared McCain is my number four player
last year, Jase my number four player this year. I
think that there's he's basically Jared McCain. Like, it's just
you look at the comp and you kind of put
it in my brain when I started talking about the
last fifteen games for Jase and you said it was
the same way with McCain.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
You match it up.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
It's really similar in terms of how they finished the season.
I just think this is a guy who could fit
with you know, almost any team that needs any type
of shooting or any type of guard. I think he's
going to I also think there's an untapped potential. He's
like the sixth guy from Michigan State and in the
top Izzo era to get drafted as a freshman. They

(52:38):
didn't play him at all for the first couple of weeks. Like,
I think this guy is going to be a legit
starter in the NBA.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
First first true freshman that he really played big minutes
since like Jared Jackson junior and Miles Bridges right, Like,
I feel like he has not done that in recent years,
which is why they haven't had a top one and done.
He's generally a guy who try his older players more.

Speaker 4 (53:02):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
And obviously you look son of Jason Richardson, you already
have that working in your favor. I think it is
really funny that he is I don't know if I
talked with you about this, that him and Shoulder Sanders
coming out at the same time is very funny because
it's like you would think the son of Jason Richardson
and the son of Dion Sanders would be like crazy
freak athletes.

Speaker 5 (53:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
No, they're actually just like really good, like smart processing
field players. Yeah, which is really funny for the sons
of these freak athlete types. But Jase is someone who
I think when you I'm very impressed considering the age
and the level of comfortability that he played with as
a freshman in a major conference as a guard, Like,

(53:42):
I think some of the shock creation stuff might have
some untapped potential that he didn't really get to show.
Like you said, very similar to McCain. My com for him,
and it's not a one for one. I don't really
think he has a one for one comp but like,
if you want to go on the more optimistic side
with him, I think that he could have a similar
role to like what we're see with Andrew Nemhard in
the NBA right now, where he is a guy that

(54:04):
like you trust defensively to throw on the other team's
like best guards and then also on offense, just has
these random games where he can't miss and he can
handle the ball. You can run some offense through him.
But he's also just like a release valve for your
star guard. And I think that that's something that I
really want to see. There are a few guys that
really want to see measurements with at the combine, And

(54:24):
I think that the few guys that I'm really interested
with are Ace, Jase, and then also VJ. Edgecomb's another
guy that I'm really interested in. And then there are
a few guys that, like I think they might be
like is Fears really six', four BECAUSE i think If
fears the six y, four that, Changes LIKE i think

(54:45):
that his ceiling it gets a little bit. Unlocked if
he's six, two it's like that that's and that's the
same thing With, jace where Like jase is listed at sixty,
three If jase's sixty, three it's a difference between if
he's six to. One i'm not SURE i feel as
great about, it but BUT i think that that that
those are the kind of guys that we're going to
be looking at at this combine for looking at what

(55:07):
their you, know potential can be based on their their.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Measurements it sucks for me because you, KNOW i hate
guards who can't. Shoot but for the first half of
this college, SEASON i Loved jaokashunis From. Illinois he shot
thirty four percent for the first twenty three games and
then he shot like twenty five percent from three for
the last whatever ten to fifteen.

Speaker 4 (55:26):
Games fears can't shoot.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
Though that's where we. DISAGREE i think that he was
bad on pull. Ups he shot twenty percent on pull up.
Threes he shot really well from the mid, range his
floater was really. Good he was a good free throw,
shooter juice off, dribble and he's got juice off the,
dribble and he shot thirty seven percent on catch and.
Shoots so, LIKE i don't think he's a complete non.
Shooter now he's.

Speaker 2 (55:48):
Gotta be plub limited pretty limited attempts because it's only
four attempts per game with him shooting the.

Speaker 4 (55:55):
Volume of three point shots is not something that is.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Like but, also he was a lead guard who you
know that usually if you're not a great, shooter you're
not encouraged to take that minuets by your.

Speaker 4 (56:06):
Coach like his shot.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
Profile i'm Not i'm not saying he's gonna reach this
level BECAUSE i think That maxi is a prospect in.
Himself he has an almost identical shot profile To maxie
in terms OF uh three point volume in, college in
terms of three, point in terms of floater, numbers in
terms of free, throws in terms of all of. That,
now the difference Between maxy and And fears is That,

(56:29):
fears if you want him to, be probably on the
ball a little bit, more and Then maxy was when
he was, younger And maxi became a weapon off the
ball and that's what made him playable right. Away there's
a path Where fears could go down where he ends
up in that call Year Scoot, ivy where it's like
An ivy's actually become a pretty good shooter in THE.
NBA i think that's something that's a little bit under,

(56:50):
discussed but there there's a fear With. Fears there is
like there's the shooting questions are. REAL i just think
that the the shot profile projects to be better than
people give it credit. For because he was playing on
a team where he was asked to do some things
that he wasn't particularly great, at and the things that
he was good, at like the float rang, stuff the

(57:10):
free throw, stuff that is stuff that Usually lamello had
that shot.

Speaker 4 (57:13):
Profile.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
Max he had that shot profile a lot of guys
if you're trying to project their, shot like his shot
actually projects to be better Than.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
Harper's like if you look at the if you look
at THE i have Some harper. Concerns we'll get into all.
That i'm gonna let you. Go we've held you for
way too long. Already you're far too kind a whole
first hour. Child we'll be tweeting this out after the
show individually as, well but everybody go check Out trill's
playback stream On monday on the main stage right on, playback.

Speaker 4 (57:43):
Right six thirty. Pm we're going. Up we're gonna be
streaming all through the draft. Lottery HOPEFULLY i.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
Survive hopefully We're i'm talking to you in a few
weeks and we're happy with what happened with The sixers.

Speaker 4 (57:56):
DRAFT i WOULD i would really love.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
THAT i am hoping so Hopefully sam doesn't doesn't get
you kicked off. Playback you know he, can he can
get a little crazy. Sometimes. OBVIOUSLY i had the tweet
where he sent out The oppenheimer meme after the After game,
two AND i, said you thought you created the tux
bomb to take out The, thunder but you, know it

(58:19):
seems like seems like just like just Like oppenheimer thought
he was going To.

Speaker 4 (58:24):
Germany what about what about a bigger?

Speaker 3 (58:27):
Loss thanks so much for coming on.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
Trail everybody go check him out at Till Road dude On,
twitter check out The Uno ballpod On patreon and all
the podcast. Platforms we're gonna take a, break and on
the other, side take take a whirl around the sports.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
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