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But you guys will see what I'm talking about at the end of the show. Real ones who hang in there all the way till the end. But Keith, I guess let's just start here. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Let's do some actual unscheduled nonsense here. Oh, oh. Who are we getting into the hoops? Did you watch the Thunderbolts trailer? No, okay, so I have not won. There's a reason for that because we are actually, as soon as we finish this, over on the heroic Haven, which is the superhero channel that I've got. Love it. We're going to be doing a live reaction to that. And I don't want to spoil it and I've seen it first. I want it, I'm going to be a genuine reaction. Love it. So that's, that's the plan here. All right, I'm not going to say anything else. We will, we will talk, put this on the notes for tomorrow. We'll talk about the trailer tomorrow in front of a ship. Perfect. All right. All right. That sounds good. Let's do it. Hello, Robinson, out till December or January, Keith. I am sad for, I, I met the point where I should just start calling them my nicks. I just, I've enjoyed the way the Knicks play basketball. And now I am worried, Keith, because their super power last year was destroying teams on the glass. And Isaiah Hartenstein, he's gone. He's in okay. See Mitchell Robinson out until December or January, this is back to back stress injuries in his foot. I would have kept him out Jericho Sims. Come on down. I mean, even Julius Randall may not be 100% to start the season. What, what are the next going to do if they no longer are capable of just bullying teams on the glass? Yeah, let's touch on that Randall piece. It talked inside a injury update from ESPN that they did a basically all their writers to the teams they covered, they did injury updates on like where all these guys who were dealing with something at the end of last season or over the summer, where they're all at starting this season. And Julius Randall, the update from Chris Herring was, but what Chris Herring was, or herring, right? Was herring. Herring. Yeah. I don't know. It's because there's the other Herrington that covers the grizzlies that throws me off every time. And I want to make them both herring or herrington and I always invariably get it wrong. So I apologize. Chris Herring is a great guy. Anyway, he put in there about Jewish Randall. He is expected to be ready by the start of training camp or I'm sorry, by the start of the season or near the start of the season, which is that is concerning. Because to me, that says, wait a minute, what, like, he's not already definitely like done and ready to go. Like, where are we at? I'll read the exact what he wrote is Randall said is recovering. He is going well and he's expected to be ready to play by or near the start of the season. So I didn't expect that. I just thought Jewish Randall was full go right from the start of training camp and that's apparently not going to be a thing. Now we find out Mitchell Robinson is out for my guests is I'm going to kind of call it the poisonous timeline, right? Call it right around the holidays, first of the years. Maybe one will. We'll see him there it is. You found it. And so yeah, that is really worrisome. We talked about last week, Tom Thibodeau saying, hey, I'll play Jewish Randall at center some this year. I think that's something we're going to look at. Well, probably not if he's like the only healthy big on the roster. You're probably not going to do that. So yeah, up front, the next depth is going to be severely tested. I think what you said, Jericho Sims, come on down. I actually think that's exactly right, who will get the first starting crack for the next because that's what Thibode says done in the past when he didn't have somebody else available. He even went to Sims initially to keep Hartenstein in the reserve role because that's where he was super comfortable with. Once Robinson was out long term, then they rolled in the Hartenstein as a starter and kind of went forward. So now my guess is, I don't think precious to chew his style lends itself to being a starting five in the league. So I think they'll probably start Sims, he'll play short minutes, like maybe 10 minutes each half. And then the rest will be them cobbling it together. A lot of questions, I'm sure you you got some of them too. Well, they have an open roster spot. Who can they sign? Do they go out and you'll make a trade now? What does this look like? They'd probably not super likely, I wouldn't think. I don't think this increases the chances for Landry Shameter, Trumo, KK of making a roster or Marcus Morris, maybe because they openly said when he was signed, they see him much more as a four or five than anything else. So maybe that increases the opportunity. He makes the roster and they go with him, but that's you're still going to be pretty smart with him there, if you're playing him, not many minutes at the five. So I don't know, there's a couple of centers available. Guys like Pismack Beyond Bo, Javille McGee, are still out there and you can maybe look at there's, you know, guys in the G League that you could probably look to bring in and bring forward. If you really wanted somebody there, we just saw Harry Giles came off the market over the weekend. He's headed to the Hornets now, so to fight for a roster spot, maybe somebody unexpected gets caught loose in the preseason process, but to board and remember, the next are dealing with first apron issues, so they have to be very cautious there. So I don't know. I think this is going to be figured out and call it together as best you can time. Yeah. I mean, Marcus Morris, again, they did call him a four or five, but I mean, what a, what a drastic 180 in terms of how you play. If you go from Isaiah Hartenstein and or Mitchell Robinson at the five to Julius Randall and Marcus Morris. I mean, Jericho Sims, of course, is going to get in there and going to log some minutes for them. I also wouldn't shock me if we do see, I mean, we saw OG and an OB defending Joel Embiid at times last season in the playoffs. OG can play up. Is it ideal? No, but it's also not ideal to have Randall do it. Tib said he wanted 10 to 15 minutes a night for Randall at the center position, which I initially I thought, wow, oh, well, there you go then. It's going to be Mitchell Robinson and then it's going to be Julius Randall. And that's most of your center minutes are taken up right there and you're good. But 10 to 15 minutes a night without Mitchell Robinson yikes. That's, you know, Randall can eat up a chunk of the center minutes, but you still have a lot of time left to fill there with other guys at the five and that's going to be a challenge for the next to overcome this. And I just think it'll be interesting to see how they adjust their play style. Do we see them crash the offensive glass less or do we see them say, no, this is just still who we are and we're going to keep going after it with guys like Josh Hart, who's a fantastic rebounder for the guard position. Are we going to see them do that or are we going to see them adjust their play style for a little bit? I don't know. This is still a very talented team, but unfortunate here and like you said, I wouldn't expect the trade because if a trade was going to get done, frankly, it probably already would have would have happened at this point. Yeah. I'm going to throw one more name at you all the way near the bottom of the screen there. Real hook porty. He was drafted this year. The Mavs drafted him, traded him to the Knicks as part of the flurry of draft a moves the Knicks. I guess draft days moves. I don't know. However, we want to draft moves. I guess that's just the way to call it since it's not all one day anymore. But they, he is a six foot 11 player. He is super duper raw, like he is basically a catch dunk guy. That is it offensively. But he is a rebounding machine at summer league. It's summer league. I get it. Take it with a grain of salt. But in five games about 17, 18 minutes per game, average about not almost 19 minutes a game. 7.2 rebounds per game. That's actually rebounding is one of the things that is translatable from your European basketball, college basketball, even summer league and things like that. His last several years playing roughly similar minutes, somewhere in the 17 to 20 minute range. He's always right around seven rebounds per game. He's also a pretty decent shop locker, even if he's a little bit of a foul machine right now, I would keep an eye on him early on in the season, especially if they don't want to do a couple of different things. They don't want to burn a roster spot and some potential tax issues there in the like on chasing another veteran guy to fill out the roster. Even if they don't want to put a lot of minutes on Morris and Ananobi and even Randall playing minutes at the five and potentially beating themselves up early in the season, we may see Ariel Huck 40 play a relatively large role. I'm talking 10, 15 minutes a night, much which is large for a two-way player. Exactly. Yeah. This is this is a way you can get through some of this. This is kind of what we talked about with the Lakers with Christian colloco. You make the most of those two way games for now, and then you figure it out later. And if it, you burn through a bunch of the two way games, you have a decision you need to make, but you're sitting on an open roster spot. Maybe that's where you go with that. Maybe by then it'll evolve resolved itself. But just keep an eye on him because if he can rebound and protect the rim, that'll be enough for tips to give him a handful of minutes, you know, every game because it's not like this team needs another on-ball creator, another guy that's going to need a lot of offensive touches or anything like that. They've got that covered. They need somebody who can give you a little bit of what Mitchell Robinson does, right? Get on the glass, block some shots in dunk when you're around the rim. All right. We'll see what the Knicks can do to whether the Storm Keith, I made a joke over on the basketball bulletin. I'm sure you will appreciate it. I said it's only appropriate that the Celtics who cruised through the playoffs had a buy essentially the finals now get to start their season against another insanely injured team. It does take, you know, I'm still obviously beyond excited for the start of the NBA season, but it does feel like it takes a little something away from that opening night matchup to not have maybe no, maybe no Julius Randall either, but no Mitchell Robinson. You know, we're not getting a full strength next side that night. You know, Chris, that's four zingus on the other side either. So you're not, we're not going to get any sense of what these two, it really is going to be like the wings against the wings, right? So that's at least opening night for the Knicks. You're not like, well, now we get to deal with poor zingus around the basket all game long. Like now you still got to deal with, if you can't contain on the perimeter against the Celtics guys who's going to clean up for you around the rim. But yeah, it's, yeah, it definitely takes a little bit of the loster out of that, that opening night matchup, but you know what, opening night, Celtics fans are like, who cares? It's a party. We're hanging a banner and getting some rings and, you know, from with the Lakers, there's sometimes opening nights when you, you hang the banner and get the rings. They don't always go your way because you're a little distracted. You're so emotional early on that it's like, it's very hard to flip the switch to like, all right. Now let's go play a basketball game and all that stuff. So, yeah, now people like, oh, he's already making excuses if the Celtics lose, I mean, whatever. No, it's a thing. I mean, the Lakers played, the Lakers have been terrible opening nights. They haven't won an opening night since like 2016, I think, but yeah, right, but, but, but and they did play some champs. They played, I think Denver. They played, I think Golden State coming off in championships. They lost those games, but it's so maybe the, the cure all is getting the Lakers on opening night. But otherwise the whole championship hangover thing, it's real like we see teams oftentimes drop their opening night game on ring night because they're so distracted by other stuff. You know, obviously for a much worse situation, a much more negative situation. But after Kobe passed in 2020, I'll never forget the Lakers, their first game back, they canceled their initial game and their first game back was against the Blazers. And they did this, this remembrance thing before the game and the Lakers players are all crying as they do the opening tip. And so, and they dropped the game to, to the Blazers. They were, I mean, they were also focused on other stuff. Just anytime you have something overwhelmingly emotional like that, it could be again, not equating Kobe's passing with winning a championship, obviously two very different things. Just when you have an emotional event, and then you have to go and play and compete, that can sometimes be a, a very real challenge. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, I mean, that is very tough to kind of, yeah, just flip that switch to like, let's go, you know, so that's, that's not, not great, right? It's, you know, that's, it's hard. So we'll see, you know, but it's more or less than a month out for a opening night now, where we're, now I would like to see today, we're a month out from like opening night in bulk, right? Like everybody, you know, it's only the couple games the first night, then we play. Do you remember for years, when they were trying to do the whole let's cut down on back to backs and everything before they added the extra days to the schedule, they would play the two big opening night games and there was always like one or two other games. It was like a guarantee, one of those two other games was going to be the magic because they would just slide me in there at seven o'clock and like we here in Orlando would be like, whoa, opening night wasn't at eight o'clock when the TNT game tipped. It was at seven p.m. Eastern when the magic and wizards game set open for first bucket of the year was Nick Butchamich pick and pop, like, what are we doing? You know, so it's just always kind of funny. Oh, well, yeah. Now they just go to all right, two games opening night and then you get, and then the damn burst the next day and you get everybody else playing and there's some situation. I don't know if it happened this year or not, where a team doesn't, a few teams don't play until like the third night. Yeah. I think there is that again this year. I think there's a couple teams because they don't want anybody on a back-to-back in the first few days either. I'd really go. All right. Let's go jump over to the Chicago Bulls. We get a bit of an update on Zach Levine, Zach Levine, he's been fully participating with the Bulls. He's been doing everything that they've been asking him to do. And it sounds like he is back and ready to go. One thing that was interesting though, Levine, this is via a piece from Darnell Mayberry on the athletic, Levine has vowed not to overstep or stunt the development of younger players according to a team source. So I think both sides in this situation, they understand what's going on. Zach Levine knows he's probably better off somewhere else. The Bulls would like to send him somewhere else. They haven't been able to find a trade yet that they want to do. And as the athletic piece noted that anybody taking on Zach Levine has asked for assets alongside him, the Bulls have said, no, we're not going to do that. And we'll see. Zach Levine gets back on the floor this season and he proves that he's still that guy. And then teams are willing to trade for him in his big contract and all of that. But as of right now, teams are saying, well, if we're going to take Zach Levine's contract, you have to give us stuff in order to do that and the Bulls aren't willing to do that right now. So in the meantime, Zach Levine has said, look, I'm not going to be a problem. I understand what the issue is. I understand what you guys are trying to do here. And I'm going to fall in line. Now we'll see how long that lasts once the ball is live and shots are going up and everything. But this is exactly what you should be wanting to hear. If you're a Bulls fan that, hey, we can still focus on developing the future, Zach's going to come back. He's going to prove that he's healthy. It's not going to be a problem. We're not going to be fighting over the basketball or anything like that. And then down the road when the right deal comes along, we'll go ahead and pull the trigger. Yeah. And this is one where everyone's like, correct in the way they're going about. What's up everybody? It's Heisman Trophy winner, Matt liner. I've got a podcast called Throwbacks with actor Jerry Ferrar, where we'll be talking all things sports, but also so much more. We'll give you the behind the scenes stories for my days as the quarterback on an iconic college football team to Jerry's days as a star on an iconic TV series. So subscribe to Throwbacks wherever you download your podcast and follow us on all social media at Throwback Show. What's next at Moss Adams? That question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting consulting and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry focus insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity, and move upward at Moss Adams dot com. Because for the bulls, 100% should not be giving up assets to get off Zach Levine. You're already out of pick in the future, because you're still all one of San Antonio. We'll see if it ever conveys its one to 10 protected this year. It is one a protected each of the next two seasons. So we'll see what comes of that pick, but you don't need to be giving up picks when you're going to say starting a rebuild, because it's just not what they do in Chicago. But I'll say starting a reset, like you don't need to be out draft capital as you start that process. So I would not be giving up picks to get off Zach Levine either. Now, if somebody wants to play, hey, let's trade our bad money around a little bit. Okay, sure. Like maybe, maybe there's something that makes a little more sense for us roster wise. And I certainly would not be doing it right now, let him get back on the floor, show that he's healthy. Let's see. He comes out. He has a good attitude. He's playing really well. Maybe the team stinks, but he looks good. That does open up trade options where teams might be like, all right, Zach Levine, 25 point per game score guy. Maybe that's the guy we really want. We need help scoring. We need whatever go get him for Zach Levine, too. It doesn't do him. Do him no good to show up self, how yeah, play, you know, Andrew Biden ball and fire up shots from three quarter horde and nonsense like that. One of our shared favorite stories, Dave would do him no good, right? Cause everybody goes. So he's a jerk now too on top of being injury prone and overpaid. We don't want that. So everybody's going to, I think let's start the year making the best of it. Again, easy things to say in September, going in October, but it is good news that he's taking part in these mini camps, one in Miami now. He's already reportedly in Chicago, working out with the team. We've said this before, but I think it bears repeating basically almost every player is in their home market now, cause we are Boston and Denver open training camp in a couple days. Everybody else is a week out. So everybody's already in their, their home market, unless they have like a reason not to me, like if they're sometimes overseas players filter in a little later, a guy, maybe, you know, every once in a while, I find out, oh, this guy's, you know, they're having a baby. So they're not coming in until a little bit later, but for the most part, everybody's there. But Zach Levine reporting has been there for a couple of weeks already, and he was with the team in Miami. So that's good to see, you know, that he's there. I don't know how this solves any of their issues of here's the seven guys we need to play that all need to ball in their hands it's on, but that's where Billy Donovan to figure out over the next course of the next month or so. Yeah. And that's, that's going to be a challenge for this Bulls team, especially, and we're going to get to Kobe White in a minute, because that's going to be an interesting situation now that Josh Giddy is in town as well. But, you know, let's talk about another guy that is making a comeback from an injury obviously a much longer time away, but Lonzo ball, Lonzo ball coming back from the athletic piece. The Bulls are just being very cautious with him because nobody's really sure what's going to happen. Nobody's really sure what, how his body is going to respond, like playing in pickup games is different than actually going through training camp and playing in an NBA game. So they're not really sure what's going to happen with Lonzo. I don't think anybody in Chicago is counting on him being there or assuming, hey, this is our point guard moving forward or anything like that. I don't think anybody's projecting that. It's just kind of a wait and see situation like that's, we're going to have, we're going to practice. Let's see how Lonzo feels afterwards. And then we'll go from there and we're going to have to be flexible and adjust and adapt on the fly. Lonzo ball heading into the final year of his contract, which pays him about $21.5 million. We'll see. I wish him the best, I hope he's able to come back here, but it seems like the Bulls are doing the right thing and just saying, hey, let's, let's take it slow and let's see what happens. We'll play it by year and then go from there. It's been, what has it been now? It's been, it's more than two years since he's been, uh, yeah, two and a half years, right? Two and a half. Yeah, I think that makes sense. So my math is correct on that. Yeah. Let's see. Last played any game on him pulling it right now. His last game was January 14th, 2022. So yeah, we're, we're going on, I mean, we're well into two and a half years. Yeah. Wow. So again, that, I don't want to say it's totally unprecedented. We've seen guys come back from bad injuries in the past, but Lonzo, they're going to be cautious with them and rightfully so. I don't even know Keith, like if he, like, is there, aside from just coming out and being a hundred percent his old self, which I don't think is going to be a thing. I, I look at Lonzo in terms of, well, obviously we talk transactions and everything here. He's pretty much just an expiring contract. I don't think there's teams again, unless he looks a hundred percent, he's his old self, then maybe that draws some interest or something, but I think most teams are going to be so concerned about the injury situation and him coming back from it that if the bulls are trying to consider Lonzo in any kind of a trade package or anything like that, which I know is what bulls fans are going to look at. He's probably just going to be an expiring salary for somebody. Yeah, I could see we get to like trade deadline time and let's, let's assume he's been playing enough to show he can be a positive contributor. Again, maybe not what he was, but just he's fine, right? He's a solid backup level. Then I think what you could maybe see a team do is, you know, we got this guy who makes about 20 million each of the next two years that we don't really want, has no real role for us. But if we give you an asset, either a draft pick or a young player and we get, we take Lonzo ball back that way, we clear the salary and we get a nice backup for our playoff run or whatever it is. I could see that being the case, but I think at least until we get to the new year, it's going to be, can he play it all? Then if, let's say he can't play, then it is strictly a, this is an expiring contract. It's a, the expiring contract that is roughly half the size of Ben Simmons, the expiring contract. And we hope the same for Ben Simmons that he gets on the court and can really play and is, you know, putting together a productive season. But right now that's how you almost have to approach both of those players is, hey, this is a way, and for both of those teams, they should both the bulls on the net should very much be in the world of, hey, we'll take on some bad money. And that runs out a year or two longer. If you pay us to do so. You've got to give us draft picks, young players, whatever it is because the nets are full on in a rebuild and the bulls, like if even if they're not calling it, they're, they're headed in that direction. So yeah, but again, another guy because Chicago is going to give him a chance to play. You almost have to, you can't have him go through everything he's gone through for two and a half years and not give him minutes. But again, another guy who needs the ball in his hands on this bull's team, like it is absurd, the number of ball handlers that they have. And that's before we even get to the guys who need shots, but are like creation dependent on those shots because they don't get them themselves. So that means guy needs the ball, but he's really going to be setting up other guys. Like this is just, this has the potential to really be a disaster just because of the personnel here and a lot of competing priorities because you've got young guys who are trying to show, hey, I'm the guy here. You've got older players who are trying to show like, hey, I'm healthy and I can go. Yeah, I want to be traded and it's just, it is a chance to get real real message. It definitely does. It definitely does. From it's always with what we do here on the front off of show Keith, there's always that sort of cold side of it, right where we're looking at the numbers and we're looking at, well, what's this guy's trade value? What does this mean for the team moving forward and all that sort of stuff? I suppose really before we even worry about what he can be traded for, it's good for Lonzo. Just get it back on the core. I mean, an exciting young player, I hope that he's able to find success and all of that. And then, you know, whatever's going to happen is going to happen in terms of how the bulls use him. If they keep him on the floor, do they wind up moving him to another team? What does that look like? But this is a big step for a guy who, again, it's been almost three years that he's been away from the game. Obviously, wish the best for him, hope he can indeed resume his career. Keith, there was a point, I remember you and I talking about this, where we were worried about day-to-day life for him, more than like, is he going to play basketball type of things. So in that, from that perspective, this is a big win for Lonzo, just getting back out onto the court and then everything else will take care of itself from there. Yeah, I completely agree. We say it all the time, but it's worth repeating. We want every NBA player to be fully healthy and to reach the peak of their abilities, because it only makes the game better. If everybody is awesome, the game is even better, right? And then that pushes other players to continue to get even better, too. And it's just that's when everything is at its best. We also try to be very realistic, and that's why, you know, when we say a guy's kind of just turned into an expiring contract, that's because where we're at, where his value is around the league. It's just, you know, sometimes that's the way these things go. It's age-injuries, lack of skill. One of those three is going to get everybody at some point. Very few players walk away from the game at the absolute pinnacle of their ability, and it's like, well, this guy is awesome and great, he had a great career, you know, congrats on that, and he's still great and could still be great. It's eventually, you know, something comes for everybody, and it's, you know, it's whether it's father time or, you know, injuries or, or like I said, it's just, you know, age-injury, lack of skill. Something's going to catch you eventually, but until it does, yeah. I mean, in Lonzo balls, 27, right? So, like, let's see where you can go from here, right? Like, this should still hopefully be a spot where maybe he can now find a way to be the next Sean Livingston and carve out this second phase where he goes on to play five, six more years as a key rotation player that can really help a team, you'll win a bunch of games. That'd be awesome to see. And maybe, maybe there's a chance we're sitting here a couple of months from now, like, boy, Lonzo did it. Like, I don't know how many surgeries it's been, but let's just say multiple, because it's been multiple surgeries, but he's back and he's Lonzo again, because one thing that's not going to change, he's not not going to have the passing gene, right? That's just, that's who he is. That's been always him. Now it's going to be, can he get to where he needs to be on the court? And I'm a little bit worried about, can he still defend? Because he was a really special defender before he got injured. And if he can't stay in front of guys team, just you can't play him because he's going to have to defend opposing ball handlers and wings. And if he can't defend those guys and keep them from getting in the paint, he can't play. All right. We mentioned how many ball handlers are on this team. How do you guys who need the basketball? You mentioned how this has the potential as this is turning into our Bulls centric show here. But this has the potential to be disastrous in Chicago. Kobe White does not want to be off ball, but it seems like the Bulls may not agree with that. And he may be pushed into an off ball role. To me, when I look at this Bulls team and we can talk about Bozzellas and what, and we've heard good things about him and all of that. But the true bright spot on this team is Kobe White. I understand that, yeah, you want to find out what Lonzo's got. You want to, you know, Zach Levine's going to need the ball a little bit here and there. And you just picked up Josh Guinea and maybe his best roles with the ball in his hands. But if I'm the Bulls, I'm priority Kobe White should be the top of the of the totem pole here. He should be the top of the packing order. So why are we hearing Kobe White might be pushed off ball by all these other ball handlers? To me, that doesn't make sense. And that's not prioritizing correctly if I'm Chicago. Yeah. And the reality is Levine back, Josh, getting down the fold. Those look to be the Bulls, two primary ball handlers on the starting group. The report from Darnell Mayberry, I know you shouted him out as writing the article before, but great stuff in here just, you know, unloaded the notebook on the Bulls and just a bunch of really good tidbits all over this piece over at the athletic. So go check it out if you can, but yeah, Josh, Giddy, Zach Levine, talked about Lonzo's going to get his chance. So we got IO Desumu in the mix, heck, Javon Carter, who's the player I'd like. I love you. I don't know when he's ever going to play, but you know, we'll see. So with him, and then you've got, yeah, and then I mentioned it before, we have Vuchim Williams. And we're going to talk about Patrick Williams in a second here too. Those are guys who need shots, right? So they're not necessarily going to be guys who are going to be out there creating plays, but they need shots created for them too. So you're just in a spot where that's an awful lot of amounts to feed. And my guess is they're looking at and saying, hey, we got to keep Levine going because we got to get his trade value back. Josh Giddy may very well be a massive part of what we're building here moving forward. So we got to see, we got to find out, we just traded for them, then it becomes our Kobe White. You're going back into that kind of off ball role. Kobe White's had like a weird start to his career. He was a, came in as a rookie, didn't play a whole lot and was sitting there as their kind of, you know, coming off the bench, played kind of a combo guard role. And then, you know, he had like a weird role. Last year, they put him in, started most of these games. They put the ball in his hands. He kind of played point guard. The last two, the next two seasons came off the bench primarily. It played more of a scoring guard role. Then they move him into the starting group last year, 79 games played by far as most minutes per game. And he was terrific, Chuck, 45% from three 37 per chart, 45% overall, 37% from three 84% from the free throw line, four and a half rebounds per game, 5.1 assists per game. It really showed. I'm a point guard. And that's what he says is, I'm a point guard. Now we're saying, yeah, sure, but you're going to play this two feet off ball role on offense, probably going to guard opposing point guards because neither Levine or Giddy are going to do that. So yeah, we'll, we'll figure it out, but you know, I don't know, it's something we said for having a lot of guys who can attack with the ball in their hands. Yeah, I, it's, this is where it can all get sideways and get wrong. Yeah, one or two guys are unhappy, then the whole thing starts to crumble and fall apart. You're right. Except Keith, I think there's a big distinction here though. There's a difference. And I think your Celtics are a great example of this. There's a difference between guys who are able to attack with the ball in their hands and guys who have to have the ball in their hands. That's where they get most of their effectiveness from. And unfortunately, I think these bulls guys mostly fall in the ladder category where when you look at like your Celtics, you've got guys like Drew Holliday, like Dirk White, where like they can be effective, they can be good with the ball in their hand attacking, but they don't have to be, they can be effective without the ball as well. And that's what I don't see. And that's again, when we talk about the, the potential chaos on this bull's roster, that's it. If, if Zach Levine is off ball, is he doing anything that's going to help you win basketball games? Kobe White, what about Josh Giddy? What about all these guys? I would do soon move their main contribution that they're going to provide is when they've got the basketball and there's only one ball. So plus Lonzo ball, but yeah, you've got to figure out, you got to figure out how this is all going to work. And then I guess let's get to our last bit of bull's news here, Patrick Williams, he, I don't know if I want to call it a setback, but he had a fractured bone in his foot last season, ended his season early, got a big new contract with the Bulls, $90 million deal over the summer. And now in Bulls mini camp, he experienced soreness and had to take a step back. So now his, the start of the season, I would think has got to be in question for Patrick Williams. And he was just the big signing for the Bulls over the summer. So this is not only do you have all these guys who need the ball, not only do you have Lonzo trying to come back from a serious injuries act Levine coming back from injury and trying to trade him. Vousavitch is is 47 years old at this point and trying to figure out if there's a trade for him, you now you also have your big, I don't want to say free agent, but your big expenditure over the summer of Patrick Williams, we're going to commit to you for the future. And now he may not be a go to start the season because his injury is, is bothering him again. Oh, Keith, I don't know about the Chicago team. And this is not good for Patrick Williams, especially when we're talking about a foot injury. Yeah. And what we're hopeful to find out with Patrick Williams this year now with all the other issues we talked about, who knows if we would find an output is Kenny scale, does he stay as efficient as he is because he's an extremely efficient player. If he gets 15 to 20 shots per game. What does that look like for Patrick Williams? Can he do more with the ball in his hands? Well, good luck with that. And if he starts the season by the eight ball, cause he misses time. Now all of a sudden it's like, man, just really forget it. Right? Like, I don't know where we're going to be with this. So it really becomes a very kind of messy situation for the bowls. If you don't have them on the floor, because yeah, I guess you throw maybe Montes Boozellis goes early, maybe you go just super small and you play Josh Giddy, kind of like the thunder did at times is like more of a power forward on the dad end of the floor. Cause Giddy is a very good rebounder. Um, didn't you just play that way and that chew horns, another guard or weighing into the starting group? I don't know really where you go with this, but just not how you want to be starting. You want to come out of this season. And if you're the bowls with, all right, we know Kobe white, Patrick Williams and Montes Boozellis, we've got something here with those three, we'll figure out everything else around them. And ideally Josh, Giddy too, right? Like, like we're going to have a, maybe I even said Giddy add, but no, I said Kobe white. So Giddy should be in that mix too. So Giddy Williams white and Boozellis, we've got our building blocks here. Everything else we're going to figure out around those four. Anytime you miss with that, that's time you're, you're robbed of figuring that out. Yeah. Exactly. All right. Well, let's finally move on from Chicago. And let's do the 1990s NBA. Nick, right. Olds up table. Yeah. Yeah. But that's just the news that was out today. And here's the thing, Keith, like there's going to be in a few days, um, oh, okay, sorry, the New York, uh, Ian Bagley just reposted something from Mitchell Robinson. So I was just seeing if it was anything. He just said he's got a lot he wants to say. He said, God, I got a lot I want to say, but I'll just leave it in your hands. Not everything needs a reaction. All right. Well, that's great. Interesting. That's very vague from Mitchell Robinson. But anyway, I saw something very famous. I just want to mention that. Um, now, so what we wanted to finish today's show with though was kind of, we're kind of in scheduled nonsense territory here, Vlade, uh, the great Vlade Devont, explain why he did not draft Luca instead picking Marvin Bagley with the Sacramento Kings because he didn't feel like Luca and deer and Fox could play together. Keith, this is, I mean, I know the, the Kings are, are regretting life choices forever. Right. Because of, of this situation with Luca already, but this, I mean, everybody knows it, or should know anyway, you don't draft for fit in the NBA draft. Like the only way to me, the only way fit should matter is if you are truly really look at two guys and you say these guys are exact dead even. I can't separate the two of them in order to rank them. I don't know. I've got them exactly head to head the same. That's the only time you should turn to fit and say, well, this guy fits a little better than that guy. So we're going to go that direction. Otherwise, you take the better player and you figure out fit later and this, this should now be a cautionary tale. If this is really what stopped the Kings from drafting Luca that deer and Fox was on the team and he wasn't sure whether or not they would actually fit together. By the way, I think deer and Fox and Luca would actually fit pretty well together. But Kyrie and Luca are fitting well right now, the three ball has come around for deer and Fox. They talked about that too. I said that Kyrie is a classic basketball player. I don't really understand what he meant. So he fits with Luca. I think he just means Kyrie can just play and he basically said, but you know, Lucan, like in his mind, they still wouldn't fit together. Lucan, deer and Fox because they both need to be the primary. I think deer and Fox's improvement as a shooter, he can't play off ball and he does play off ball some with the Kings because they run an awful lot of stuff through subonus. He's outside a yokech. He's one of the more high usage big men as far as running offense through them as play initiators. So it really is, yeah, my thing is sure if Luca was another, I don't know how tall deer and Fox's would say like six, three, like six, three guard that needs a ball all the time. All right. Then I could maybe say, fine, like I kind of get it. And then if it was like, and we felt like the player we drafted instead was a can't miss prospect that we had to have in no offense to Marvin Bagley, but like, come on, like that, that was even the right pick. You should have drafted. Jared Jackson, Jr. Is the guy and a lot of people said that at the time, we're like, all right, if you're going to pass a loop, you need you to draft, you know, Marvin Bagley, like, yeah, well, why not go there? And I'm not going to go, you know, 10, 12, 15 picks later because that gets a little silly because then it's like, yeah, but that guy wasn't even again, you have unexpected players that hit later on in the draft, you know, every draft is going to, well, why didn't this team draft Jimmy Butler or that team because nobody thought he was going to be Jimmy Butler, right? I mean, that's the way it goes. Exactly. Yeah. And so if it was, like, Jackson went two weeks later, plays the same positions as Bagley. And there were people like, you needed to go with him there. If you were going with, with, with the big instead. Yep. And then he's like, and he was like, look, hey, I didn't then what really got me was he's like, look, I, you know, it may be that Luca Doncic ends up the better player. And maybe I was wrong, but he then had a double. He's like, I'm still not sold. But this is a recent interview. Yes. This was just done. How are you still not sold? He's the number one candidate to win MVP this season based on the odds right now, he's the many favorite. I will read you. Hold on. Let me find it. I'm going to read you the translated quote. Time will tell if I was wrong, his things stand now. It looks like I am, but I have faith in Fox and he'll have a better career. Like, I just, I love Darren Fox. Darren Fox is awesome, but Luca is an MVP candidate every year, barring injury for at least the next five to 10 years. Darren Fox is not going to get into that territory and Darren Fox may be an all NBA guy top end. And that's fine. That's great. That's an awesome player, but like, you're not an MVP candidate. Like that's where it's like, come on, man, just admit you got it wrong. Just admit you got it wrong and move on. I mean, and that's then people I've already seen it's like, well, there's a reason you're not still running the Kings or running any team, like, like people like, you know, there's a read, but man, he's like, like, all right, like you don't need to do the whole time. We'll tell you blew the pic. It is what it is. We move on. Like, you know, but we're past the point of uncertainty here. Yeah. We know what happened. We know it was a miss. Everyone knows a mistake. You can't, you can't go back and say, well, I don't know, maybe, maybe it'll be. He also said something about like the, you know, the, what did he say? Hold on. I'll find it. The grizzlies made a mistake too and so did the Hawks. What was it, the, the sun's passed on him and the Hawks did as well by trading him. Only Dallas would wanted him, you know, that badly. Whoa. Like that's, and I know because it's been well reported on Dallas made the same offer to Sacramento. I was like, Hey, we'll trade up with you to get them too. So you could have done that as well. Yeah. I mean, then it was like, no, we're, we're sticking where we are. And there were maps, people who were terrified that like they're sticking where they are because they're taking Luca, like that you're just smokescreen in this. And then when they didn't, they already had the deal done with the Hawks was already, like, because that deal was done contingent upon Luca being there. Right. Like they, they were ecstatic when they announced Marvin Bagley because it was like, man, maybe they are like they pulled one over on us this whole time. And yeah, I mean, he's not wrong. Phoenix should have taken him too. Sure. Right. But it doesn't make your mistake any less worse because that's like, that's like when the kids like, yeah, I know I broke the window, but so did the other kid broke a window too. So yeah, two wrongs don't make it right. You know, they're, they're my dad is for the day, but like it's just, yeah, man, I don't know. This one, like, yeah, this, this was just like, dude. And then with the doubling down of, I still think Fox will have a better career. Like what are we doing? Like, like Luca could stop today and dear and Fox could play another 10 years and you could argue that Luca would have had the better career. Yeah. That's closer. It's closer. But there's been, that's what I'm saying. There's a gap right between Luca and Luca is made into the finals. There's a gap between what Luca's done and what dear and Fox has done. There's no question. It's a big gap and I just, I don't like, blah, I did like, Shaq hit him too hard too many times or something like that. I don't, I don't know. I'd like, this is crazy. You can't, you can't go say, Oh, well, maybe time will tell no time. Time has already told. We know exactly what the situation is. And look, people get it wrong all the time in the draft all the time that happens in the draft. I bet it's a hey, we blew it. We blew it. We messed up. We, we made the wrong pick. It's okay. It's not like Marvin Bagley is still on the team and playing well or something like that and so you don't want to hurt his feelings or something like that. No, you, you blew the pick. You know it. Just when it's not even an insult to Marvin Bagley, no, I'm saying Luca should have been the pick, nor is it an insult to dear and Fox saying it shouldn't have mattered that you were on the team. Like Bagley's still in the NBA. Yo, he's made his career. Marvin Fox is a great player like, but yeah, they, and they absolutely could have played together. Because again, Luke is like six, seven and you could have said, all right, fine, like you're going to both have to share the rest, but you don't want those people to figure it out. And maybe you accelerate to him Fox becoming a better off ball player and shooter earlier because he has to figure it out earlier while playing with Luca. Maybe Luca becomes a better off ball guy because Fox is there and he didn't, you know, maybe he doesn't develop into Luca Donchich MVP candidate quite as quickly. I still think he would. I think guys who are going to do that, do that almost regardless of where they're at. But yeah, it was just weird. Like I just, like, I don't know, but yeah, yeah, you have to really call it right. This is nonsense of the highest order. But it was basketball nonsense. So basketball nonsense. All right, well, I think that about wraps things up for it today, Keith. We are as we're getting closer and closer here. We are now 11 days. As we're recording this away from preseason games, training camps are going to be starting media days coming. We're going to have more and more intel like this like we did today to dive into. And so that's, that's certainly exciting for us. Exciting for all you and also means that you should definitely subscribe to the front office show on YouTube. Don't forget to follow us over on Apple podcast Spotify, wherever you listen to podcast as well. I think unless you've got something that quick shout out, thanks to everybody, like a bunch of like we are now up in over 300 reviews over on iTunes, let's go shout out to a bunch of people went over there and reviewed it. If you didn't, please still continue to put, put those our reviews in there. We had a couple, not nice ones and they were not nice ones for stupid reasons, but that's fine. We'll move on. The vast majority were very positive and, you know, you know, they're very, very, they felt good to read like a lot of, you know, versions of it's weird that a Celtics guy in the Lakers make a show together and they're like, that's part of what makes it so much fun. Like, you know, and that's, that's part of what we enjoy about it too. So it's, but yeah, thank you for everybody who pushed those in there. I think we were sitting when I checked this morning, we're like three hundred and five, which is great. And then, you know, make sure you guys like this video, liking the video really helps people find us. And if you're new, please subscribe. And if you're not new, go tell a friend to subscribe or sign in on their account and subscribe for them because they'll appreciate it anyway and put their notifications on too. Just for them. Yeah. I don't know. All right. Criminalism. I don't know. Who knows? Yeah. I mean, you're doing in their best interest though. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's for a good reason. Yeah. Exactly. All right, everybody. On that. We'll be back tomorrow.
