- Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. - Mint Mobile unlimited, premium wireless. ♪ Have it to get 30, 30, 30, but to get 20, 20, 20 ♪ ♪ Have it to get 20, 20, 20, but to get 15, 15, 15 ♪ ♪ Just 15 bucks a month, so ♪ - Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. - $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speed slower above 40 gigabyte CD tail. - Hello everybody. Welcome back to the NBA front office show. Happy to have you here as we're getting closer for the NBA season to start. Apparently, you stood the studio cat. So the show started, that's it. I'm out of here. I'm taking off. I want no part of this. We do have some things we're gonna get into today. Specifically, we're gonna do a double edition of one big question. We're gonna be taking a look at the remainder of the Eastern Conference. We'll knock out the remaining 10 teams and talk about one big question for each of them. Teams like the Orlando Magic, the Heat, the Hawks, Keith's Celtics. We'll talk about them, the 76ers, the Knicks and more. So lots of questions we're gonna dive into for each of these teams. Keith, kind of excited. I know we've got kind of a slow, this is the calm before the storm. You know once we get the media day and all of that, like everything's gonna go crazy. It's gonna be like drinking from the fire hose in terms of NBA news. So we've got the calm before the storm right now and I'm kind of excited that we get a chance to devote a whole show to one big question. - Yeah, for sure, it's good. There's just, you know, there's not a lot going on right now. A lot of camp signing, shuffling in and out guys, mostly designed around getting their affiliate player rights for the G League and the like. We're not gonna break all those down 'cause we'd be doing hundreds of those. So, and I'll say this, shout out too. If you're a fan of a certain team and you're interested, guaranteed somebody who covers that team has done a video on that team's like exhibit 10 guys and the like, including, I know you guys have done that over on Lakers Nation 'cause especially with Christian Cloco, you get a really interesting one there. But yeah, when we figured let's get into it and really focus and devote our time to the one big question there, I'm also gonna say this, when you say drinking from the fire hose, it always makes me think of the movie UHF with Weird Al. - Yeah. - Yeah, did you ever see that one? - I don't know if you ever see that one. - It has been so long. I mean, that came out of what, the early 80s? Something like that, the mid 80s? - Probably late 80s, I think, if I had to guess. But yeah, I remember Michael Richards, is that his name a guy who played Kramer? - Yeah, yeah. - He's like the main star and he's like, "That means you get to drink from the fire hose." And he puts the kid on the little like rocking horse and then blast him in the face with the fire hose at full power and shoots him off. Yeah, man, that's a good time with that. So yeah, that's what I always think of when somebody says, "We're drinking from the fire hose." Let's see, UHF film, 1989. - 89, you're right, late 80s, okay. All right. I need to find that clip then, because comedy involving kids and slapstick humor is always fair. That's how I always think of, was it Billy Madison with a dodgeball scene? - Yes, yes, yes. - Yeah, you're all in big, big trouble. - That's right, yep. There's been some stuff that's come out about that after the fact that like he was really chucking the ball at those kids. Oh, those kids were good sports, I guess. - Hello, he goes, "I'm out." And the teacher's like, "That just means to the next game." Recess is Miss Lippie's time. - Oh, no. We're gonna go down and pass the whole booby's eyes. - Billy Madison, great, great film. - That's a good one. - And may God have mercy on your soul. - That's a, that is an all-timer. - That's an all-time. - I like using that one, when somebody sends a really long like Twitter message, that is just nonsense, like I love saying, like get no time in your incoherent rant. - Did you come anywhere close to what can be considered a something thought. - Rational thought. - And towards you, no points. And may God have mercy on your soul. - This has been Trevor Keith talk 80s, 90s movies. - Right, yeah, yeah. Midway through this, we do, I do have some scheduled nonsense any days. So let's, but let's get it before we lose all the people that are saying, just talk NBA already. Let's, let's get into this. Let's start here. We'll start with your hometown here. Let me put the title on. There we go, Southeast Division. Let's start with the Orlando Magic. Well, I guess the way we've done all the other divisions, is this how you imagine it's going to finish up? Orlando, Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington in that order. - Yes, only because I don't think the heat are going to push over really hard in the regular season. So I think Orlando will probably finish the top, the division again. And then it's, I do think Charlotte will be closer to Atlanta. This year, I'm high on Charlotte, let's not get crazy with your, with the Hornets. But I do think they'll challenge for the play-in tournament this year. And then yeah, I think Washington may be, if not the worst team in the league, they're certainly going to be in the running for that. - All right, so I'm in agreement. I think it's going to finish in this same order, which maybe isn't as exciting as some of the other divisions. But some really good teams here. Let's kick things off of the Magic. Keith, you go first. What's your big question for Orlando? - Yeah, it's the same as it's been for a couple of years now. Do they have enough shooting? They added Contavious Caldwell Pope. The idea of him and Jalen Suggs as a back court together is tremendous that defensively, at least, that that is, for my money, that's one of the best defensive back courts in the entire NBA. Caldwell Pope is also a very good shooter. So that should help quite a bit there. He's in effect, replacing Mark L. Foltz, who started for a lot of last season, as far as Foltz was a starter early, then the Magic went back to Gary Harris as the starter, and Foltz came off the bench after his injury. But Caldwell Pope, that's the guy he's replacing on the roster. So pretty big upgrade there. Not as good of an on-ball creator, but the Magic had plenty of that. LaPaul Mankaro, Franz Wagner, Cole Anthony, Jalen Suggs has grown into his role as an on-ball guy. They even run some stuff to Wendell Carter as a distributor out at the top of the key. So you've got plenty of guys that should be able to create offense. Just gonna be the shooting. If Caldwell Pope can shoot, and if Franz Wagner can refind as jumper, then the Magic are gonna be pretty good. They're gonna be a really tough out. If those things happen, Orlando's gonna compete for a top four seed in the Eastern Conference and home court advantage. If those things don't happen, the Magic are probably gonna be, again, they'll be a playoff team, but it'll be in the back half of the conference. And they'll face the tough road having to play on the road in the first round, second round, and beyond. - Okay, I do think, I think you're right. I think the shooting is the number one question for this team. So I'm gonna jump over to a guy that is, maybe he's under the radar right now, a little bit, more than he should be, 23, seven and five and a half for Paulo Bankaro last season. Like I think people don't realize the season he had. - That's phenomenal. That's incredible numbers. You mentioned the shooting. Can he get his three point shooting up? Just a 34% three point shooter. He gets that 36, 37%. This guy's gonna be really, really difficult to stop. I'm wondering, he was an all-star last season. Do we get a year three leap from Paulo Bankaro? Does he take even that next step forward? Because if he does, we could be talking about a bona fide NBA superstar here with the numbers that he's putting up. And Keith, I think this is bigger than just Orlando. This is bigger than the Magic. When we look into the next iteration of Team USA, I think Paulo Bankaro is gonna have to be a big, big part of it. You're losing guys like LeBron, Mike Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, these guys are starting to age out. And I think Paulo Bankaro is one of the young players that they're looking to be a backbone for Team USA moving forward. So I'm expecting big things from him this season. I think this is the year he finally ascends. So my big question though is, does he truly break through and become a top tier, maybe not top top tier, but say a top 15-esque superstar in the NBA next season? Because I think that is within the realm of possibility for Paulo Bankaro. - Yeah, it's, I feel like it's coming, whether it's this year or the year after, I do think him. I think would correct me if I'm wrong, I think the bar you're setting is like, is he in the mix for all NBA? - Right, guys. - Yes. - Great way to put it, yes, I should have said that. - Yeah, he's in the mix for all NBA, then sure, then the magic are in a little bit of a different place moving forward here. So I'm really excited for that. One thing I'm looking for with him, I wanna see him individually rebound a little bit better, that he should probably be around 10 rebounds per game in my opinion. Now, the magic are a very good defensive rebounding, they're a very good rebounding team period, but really good defensive rebounding that were a brief third in defensive rebound rate a season ago. That's part of why they're such a good defensive team, they rarely ever foul and they rebound the ball. If you can do those two things, you're probably gonna be a pretty good defensive team unless you're getting scored on all the time, which they were not. So I think that that is gonna be a key thing for him, just bump that up a little bit. And it might not be the worst thing in the world for the magic if his assist went down a little bit, 'cause that would mean somebody else is stepping up and taking on a little bit of that playmaking burden. But I think it's fine. They did not pursue the traditional point guards that a lot of people mentioned last year via trade or via free agent signing because they believe in following France. And as well as those who guys, Jalen Suggs, in the kind of the bump he took as a playmaker. So yeah, things are very bright here in Orlando. This is as excited people have been locally about the team since the Dwight Howard years, which we're talking basically a decade ago at this point. So we're really into a spot where people are excited about this team. They like that these guys are young and the most important thing. All of these guys really wanna be here in Orlando. They talk about it regularly. A lot of them have made this their year round home base and even the ones who didn't, they were in town quite a bit playing pickup and all that. So this is a team that's really excited to get back to it. And yeah, I'm with you on pile for Team USA too. He's gonna be somebody we're gonna need in the future, be in a big part of whatever we're building on the international stage. - All right, let's jump over to the Miami Heat. You kick things off with Orlando. So I'll kick things off for Miami. And my big question for them, it's what happens with Jimmy Butler? What happens with this contract? We know that he made some noise over the off season about maybe I'll go to Philly, maybe I'll now we're hearing, well, Jimmy really likes Brooklyn, maybe Golden State gets into the mix. There's gonna be teams that are interested in trading for Jimmy Butler, but you look at his contract, player option next year, that means he can be a free agent, potentially this summer. The Miami Heat had some interesting comments about him. Pat Riley had some interesting comments about the number of games he played this past season and in general. And at 35 years old, do you really wanna commit a max salary to Jimmy Butler? It's a fair question. So I know we're gonna focus a lot on what the Miami Heat do on the court, but given how important Jimmy Butler is to this team, what happens with him this season and beyond is going to be a huge, huge plot line for the team until this is resolved one way or another. - Feels like this is a, I don't wanna say make or break season for the Heat, but it feels like this is the last run for this core group. Because if, let's say it's a similar type season, they went in the mid-40s, they're getting lower half seed, they have to go through the play in tournament and they're out in the first round, they're gonna make major changes. I think you're gonna see Jimmy Butler, Duncan Robinson, maybe even Tyler Hero, maybe even Terry Rogier in his partially guaranteed contract. All those guys, I think you're gonna get moved and we're gonna see this Miami team look very, very different after this comes through. - You know, it'll be, all right, we're rebuilding around Bama to bio and the younger guys, how many Hawkes, Jr., and Nicole Jovitch, those will be some of the guys below where we'll build around those guys. And if we trade off some of these other guys, it's fine. We're doing it to fully reset. So I just think we've kind of gotten to that point a little bit with Miami, right? Where it's like, what are we doing? It's kind of time, right? We've got to, one way or the other here. So that means my big question is, do the, can these guys save that off? Meaning, can they play well enough to kind of keep that from being a thing that just ends up happening? You know, well, what happens with these guys? And do they play enough? I mean, clearly Pat Riley was frustrated 'cause the famous call out was Jimmy Butler that he called out like, hey, you can't be talking about the playoffs and how, when it didn't go, you're not out there playing in the games, but he also called out Tyler Hero. Last off, we're right at the end of the season, beginning of the off season two for being kind of consistently hurts. And like, hey, we need this guy on the court. You know, you need to be out there. So I think he's kind of tired of, hey, I'm over the guys playing 50 games a year and then being hurt, come play off time. So I feel like we've reached the end of, I was reading some stuff about like the Voyager probe and all that and all of you still out there. They're like, it's still going, you know, years later, like Voyager one is still out there. Yeah, but the original Voyager one, still going out there that they're still, like it's still sending back data. It's like way, way out there in space. But like the term that they keep using is it's way past the end of it's a predicted life. Like I think we're kind of there with the heat, they're way past the end of their predicted life here. See, I brought it around. You were like, oh, it's boy. - So the Miami heat are gonna float off into the endless void of space is what you're saying. - Okay. - Yep. - Okay. - We come up the road a piece to Orlando and get launched off in the space. - There you go. - That's what you're following. - I won't go into this now 'cause we have enough nonsense to get into already. But if you guys, what Keith is mentioning, what he's referencing, it's actually really cool. When you look at the Voyager program and you look at what it's done and kind of what the goal was of the mission and everything, something cool to go check out. Like just the information that we decided to include, like should alien life forms come across these things? Like in order to represent what humanity is all about and these were sent decades and decades ago where there's 70s, I think that they were actually sent. - Yeah, I think 77 it went up or something like that. - Very, very cool stuff. So anyway, but Google is your friend. Go check them out if you have not. All right, let's go to the Atlanta Hawks. I went first on the heat. So Keith, you're up here on Atlanta with one big question. - Yeah, this one's gonna be really general for me. It's just kind of like, where are we going with the Hawks? It feels like this is a team that's very much in transition. We saw the Dejante Murray trade happen, Trey Young still here. When I look at the Hawks, I just kind of start going through the guys on the roster. It's a lot of, oh, I like him. I like him too. I like that guy. And by the end, I'm like, why don't I like the Hawks more? I just kind of don't like all the guys together that they have. So this is gonna be a big, I think find out here. Is Jalen Johnson, is the leap he took last year? Is that sustainable and going to continue forward into being a big-time player? Is, you know, where does DeAndre Hunter fit long-term with Zachary Sache in the fold? Is it finally time for a Kong Woo to take over for Capella? I apologize if I'm stealing some of your thoughts here, but it's just, you know, with these guys, where are we going with this team overall? And I think this year is, let's find out. I think they'll probably be in the mix to make the playing tournament. But yeah, I think there's just as much chance we hit mid-season trade deadline. It's a bunch of these guys are in play to be moved 'cause the Hawks are like, all right, we're gonna get off some of this long-term salary, move off of some more money here and see what this team looks like as they build it forward with Risa Sache and Johnson being the guys they're building with around Trey Young. It feels like to me, the Hawks are a mediocre kind of math season away from really needing to pick a direction here and making a tough choice. And we saw, you know, the Brooklyn Nets be in that position over the summer and they ultimately decided, okay, we're gonna move on from bridges and we're gonna build for the future. I do wonder if that's a decision that we see the Hawks make. But for me, my, for this season, my big question is, what happens with Clint Capella? You know, he's been a big part of this team. You brought him up a moment ago. He's been a big part of this team in the past. The air apparent is right there. Kong who's, you know, he's 24 years old. They've got him on a good contract. They're probably gonna wanna hand the reins over to him. And I do think that there is a market for Biggs, maybe a market that didn't exist in prior seasons. And you look at the teams out there right now that can really use a center. Now, I'm not saying all of them would be willing to give up the kind of players and assets and, you know, salaries in order to match Clint Capella at 22 million and change. But the Knicks need another center. We know that. The Pelicans, my goodness, do they need a center? And they've got Brandon Ingram to trade. Maybe, you know, we heard the Hawks were resistant to do something like that. But maybe there's something with a 13 or something there. The Lakers could use another center. There's a bunch of clubs right now that could use a big. And in years past, we haven't really seen this market. So I do look at between now and the trade deadline, do the Hawks maybe not trigger a full rebuild and say we're just committing to young players. But is there a way to rebalance this roster a bit and could a Capella trade be a big part of doing that? I don't think that would be the only move you would need to make. Maybe you move off on DeAndre Hunter as well. But I do look at Capella as a guy who is probably going to be in higher demand this season than we've seen in seasons past just based on the market deficiency, where you've got so many teams that need a big man. And I'm hoping for Atlanta's sake that they can take advantage of that and make a move here with an expiring contract in Capella, I think Akagwoo is their guy moving forward. So why not strike where the iron is hot? Get something good for Capella and hopefully something that will at least give you clarity in terms of your future direction. Either send you another young talent or maybe a piece that just will fit a bit better for them for the long term future. Yeah, I think those are the decisions you need to make. Even a guy like Larry Nance Jr. What's his long term future in Atlanta? Probably not much of one, but still a helpful guy. Somebody I think teams would, they're not going to give up a ton for them, but you could just return a little bit better of an asset for you in your long term build out with this team. I could see that being a thing that happens. And then I think what's going to be really interesting, and I'll spoil a little bit of piece I'm working on for spot brackets. It's roster and rotation battles with teams. I'm very curious to see who else starts on this team, because I think Coppella still starts, Young still starts. I think Hunter and Johnson start. So the Napa comms does someone out of Daniel's or Risache eventually beat up Bogdanovitch. I think Bogdanovitch will still be the better player all year long, but I think at age 32, they've got them for a couple more seasons. I think Atlanta would like to maybe transition him back into the six man role, where it is, hey, we could just keep a little bit of wear and tear off. I mean, play 20 to 25 minutes a night instead of 30 minutes a night. But that means either Daniels or Risache needs to be ready to step in to take on that two guard spot, the other wing spot, however you want to call it out there in Atlanta. And I think that's going to be something worth kind of keeping an eye on there with that piece will come out. Maybe tomorrow, but probably some point next week is we're getting ready for camps to open so people can look for more thoughts. But those are the kind of fun little roster battles we're looking at right now. - Well, I'll tell you what, Bogdanovitch will have some trade value if they decide to really pivot here. He'll be an interesting guy to keep an eye on, but all right, let's jump over to the next team. I'm just going to start calling them your Charlotte Hornets. Keith, I know you're high on this team. The Hornets, it's my turn to go first here. So I guess I'm just going to start with the head of the snake here. And that's, that's Lamella Ball. What is, is he the guy? Is he the piece that you want to build around moving forward? Is he the guy that's going to become a star? Because that is going to dictate everything else on this Hornets roster. There's a lot of other players that are interesting, other players to talk about. And I'm sure you've got plenty to say on some of those guys, but for me, this team needs to figure out what is Lamella Ball. I know he's dealt with a lot of injuries, but is this guy a one A star? Or do you think he can be that or not? Because that's going to determine a lot of their decision-making here moving forward. So what happens with Lamella Ball this season? What does it look like with him at the helm and do the Hornets finally say, "Yes, this is just our guy and we are locked in here on Lamella Ball or not." And then what are the, what's the decision-making process once you get to that point? That's my big question for the Hornets. - And I think that all starts with him being healthy, right? He's got to play 60, 70 games this coming season for them to really get that answer. I bet if you poured truth serum into the Hornets, they would love if they at the end of this season knew, Brenda Miller is our best player. 'Cause I think that's where we're headed. I think Brenda Miller is going to be their best player. I hand up. I thought the Hornets should have taken Scoot Henderson with the number two pick last year. I'm, I still think Scoot Henderson's going to be very good, but I was a little too low on Brandon Miller. He showed me so much last year, especially after Ball went down because he was able to create a lot of his own shots and get a lot of good looks himself. He really does remind me of like Paul George quite a bit with his ability to create off the dribble for himself and also find some passes and the like. So, this episode is brought to you by Honda. When you test drive the all new prologue EV, there's a lot that can impress you about it. There's the class leading passenger space, the clean, thoughtful design and the intuitive technology. But out of everything, what you'll really love most is that it's a Honda. Visit Honda.com/EV to see offers. This episode is brought to you by Microsoft Azure. Turn your ideas into reality with an Azure free account. Get everything you need to develop apps across cloud and hybrid environments, scale workloads, create cloud connected mobile experiences and so much more. Discover what you can create with popular services free for 12 months. Learn more at azure.com. That's azure.com and sign up for a free account to start building in the cloud today. - My big thing with the Hornets, my big question is, can they get the right guys to play enough together and at the end of the year, they can really start to say, all right, this is what we've got. These are the guys we know are our guys going forward that we're gonna build around. These other guys, they're just, they're here for now. They're just placeholders. Big guy for that, Mark Williams. Again, gotta be healthy. I love Mark Williams potential, but we gotta have him on the floor. What does it look like with Miles Burgess, Paul Miller, Green, Alta Josh Green coming in altogether? If you look at the Hornets roster and you just go up and down, you're probably gonna be like, man, they've got a lot of guys that can kind of play in their top eight man rotation here. And that's before you get into some of their more prospect guys like Tijon Salon and Nick Smith Jr. So there's a lot of guys we can play here. So my big thing is, let's get them all helping off that we can start to sort some of this out around these. Is Mark Williams a guy who can anchor a defense enough that it offsets what LaMello ball is lacking defensively? Does that, you know, is that that okay? You know, what does it look like when you're playing just more kind of normal basketball throughout the course of the year? I've already said it. I think the Hornets are gonna challenge for a play in tournament spot this year 'cause I think they will get healthy and I like talent on this team. And I think Charles Lee, Jeff Peterson, the new coach, new, for an authentic executive brought a new energy to the team. I'm excited about what Char has built in there. - I think it can be massively improved from last season. I am still, I'm gonna hold back to have a little bit of reservation on whether or not they can actually make the play in tournament, but I will say it's not out of the question. They do have talent. They do have talent. We'll see if they can put it all together. - Let me also see this real quick. Sorry to interrupt you before you go to the Wizards. It's not like a major accomplishment to make the East play in tournament. Like let's, I'll just be completely honest. Like somebody has to be Team 10. Right, like someone has to get in there. So like, yeah, it's, when I say they may be there, fine if they are, I mean, for a little while that was a play in tournament. I feel like it was gonna be the Hornets and Hawks like invitational every year in the East because it just felt like that's where they're gonna live. But still, I'd still think that would be a kind of a fun accomplishment. Even if I'm sure there are Hornets fans right now, like, man, we wanna be bad one more year and get one more guy out of this loaded draft that's coming in and then we can push forward. And if that happens, fine. That's, no, come let's just play more normal basketball and not have the whole season ruined by Andrews. Let's just get a real sense for the guys we have. - All right, let's jump over to the Washington Wizards. And I believe it's to you here, Keith. - Yeah, I mean, this one for me comes down to how quickly do they pivot to, you're not a part of whatever we're building and you're either out of here or you're on the bench. And that is, man, I went full Boston with that one. That was a, it came out there. So, but that's the question, right? How long before Cal Couzma, Malcolm Brogdon, Jonas Fallon, Chewness, Jordan Poole, Richard Holmes, whose contract was fully designed to be tradable, how long before those guys are either traded or they're on the bench and we're just going full kids. Is that Christmas? Is that trade deadline? It's gonna be at some point this season. It's gonna be very quick that they pivot into playing the kids, not a criticism, not the wrong thing to do. It's just, that's where this team is headed. - Yeah, that's it exactly. This team is, it's a mess. There's a few interesting players, but obviously everybody knows this is about the future and there's a few players on the team right now that are clearly not part of that future. Jonas Fallon, Chewness, it's a very poorly kept secret that they signed him to trade him. At some point, he's gonna be moved. I don't know if it'll be this season. It could be next season. Same thing again with Rashad Holmes. You look at his contract at some point. Do they move off of Jordan Pool? I don't know if they'll find a lot of takers, but I don't know that they're looking at him and saying this guy is part of our future. What's that? - Yeah, they'd like to. - They'd like to. Oh, I mean, that's, but I'm sure they're not looking at him and thinking this guy is a guy we're building around. Kyle Kuzma is somehow already 29. You know, like for as many guys as we look at, we're like, Gary Trent Jr. has been in the NBA for 15 years and is still only 26. Kyle Kuzma is 20, Kyle Kuzma is gonna be 30 before we know it. That feels crazy. I know he was an older rookie coming in, but still there's some players on this team, Malcolm Brogdon, of course, sticks out like a sore thumb, 32 years old. There's some moves here to make. I'll tell you what this wizard's team is Keith. So last night, my daughter, we were working on this little craft that she was doing. And I said, well, oh, well, where are your markers? Why don't you just go into your craft cabinet and get 'em? And she said, oh, we can't. I said, why? Why can't you go in there? She said, well, because everything started to fall and I just closed the doors. Well, how long ago was that like a week ago? So now, because as soon as we open the doors, everything, all of these craft supplies are gonna fall out. I said, so your plan was just to never open the craft cabinet ever again. And she said, yeah. I said, well, you can't do that. At some point, you have to open the cabinet and just clean it up and address the problem. That's the wizard's right now. At some point, they've gotta just let all of the, everything spill out. They've gotta truly address the problem, clean it up, and then start fresh. And that's where I think this team is. And that's gonna require Malcolm Brogdon being moved, Kyle Kuzma probably being moved. And then you truly start over. But I know it's been a while for Washington since they've seen a good basketball team. But I do think that this team needs to refresh things, just deal with the craft cabinet, open it. You can't keep those doors just held shut any longer. - I love it because I think the wizards, when they tried to Bradley Beale a year ago, they really set down a path of we're starting over, right? Where we're gonna do this. But that doesn't mean we're just gonna shed every talented guy and let them all walk away. Meaning the guy like Kyle Kuzma, we got him on a value contract. Why wouldn't we resign him, right? We're not just gonna let him walk. And then I think Valentunus, I agree with you. I do think they'll trade him. But I think their initial thing was, we don't want to have to start Alex Tsar day one as like basically this big skinny rookie is just gonna get beat up. I think they want to give him time to adjust and figure out the NBA a little bit. I also think with a guy like Valentunus, we know in the NBA one thing still holds true, rookies get beat on, but their teams are gonna drop Tsar. And I think they like the idea of when you come in and you drop our guy, guess what? Valentunus is gonna pay it right back to you on the other end of the floor. He will take your guy down if you do it to our guys. So it's all be a little more sensible here. But yeah, I mean, I think they're building a really nice core group with Tsar and Kula Bali and Bob Carrington. I think that's gonna be a really fun kind of trio to watch. I think they can all play together. I think a big success will be how long before Bob Carrington can play primary minutes as the main on ball point guard. Yeah, if that can happen really early in the season, fantastic. That either frees up trade, Malcolm Brogdon or do something different. But yeah, man, they're gonna be awful. Don't get me wrong, but I'm excited for this wizard's team because it felt like they spent a decade, two decades, three decades, just content to kind of sit in the middle. And as long as we're kind of around the playoffs, that's fine. We're never really gonna go all into content, but we're never gonna be bottom it out bad unless it just kind of happens. So now we're gonna be bad and then we're probably gonna be bad for a little bit, but they're starting to come away with some players. - All right, let's jump over to the Atlantic division. Before we do keep, I did say I had a little bit of scheduled nonsense here. And this may end up being nothing, depending on your answer to this question. Did you watch Agatha all along yet? - I watched the first episode. I did not watch the second episode yet. - Okay, so I watched them both late last night. How are you feeling so far? - It was fun. Like, we'll see with the second episode. Like, I kind of get where it looks like this story's kind of going. So we'll see. Maybe there's gonna be some wild twists and turns, but it was kind of fun. Like, I didn't, like Catherine Hahn's just hilarious. And I think Aubrey Plaza is really funny too. So I, you know, I think that part has been fun so far. So, you know, it's, I don't know how much this story's gonna do to advance the MCU or anything like that. But, you know, for the most part, it's been kind of fun to watch it. - So I've seen both episodes. I can tell you the second episode got me even more excited for it. - And just tonally, I was like, God, when I look at the release dates, I'm like, this is gonna be the perfect lead-in to Halloween. We're gonna be building up, you know, each week get a new installment. And so the second episode was something I really liked. And so far, I liked the series enough to where I went. When the second episode ended, I went, man, I wish the third one was out already so I could just watch it, you know? So I'm in on it. I think it was pretty good. I'm curious to see what other people think. You guys can let us know in the comments section. But I'm excited for it. And I think I do wonder if this is by the end of this, we get like a final decision on what happened to Scarlet Witch at the end of Multiverse Amanda's. Is she still around? Is she not? 'Cause they kind of went back and forth. Like maybe she's the body. It's kind of strongly hinted that she was that body in episode one and everything. But then also the like, oh, is she, is she dead thing? You know, there was some interesting stuff going back and forth there. So maybe that will be what changes things for the MCU in general. But I just wanted to talk to you, but we'll have to talk about episode two when that comes out. 'Cause I don't want to spoil anything for you. - Well, and also, Elizabeth Olsen did come out very recently and say like, I love the character. I would play her again if there's a story that makes sense. Yeah, which that also to me is that, that also is like, if you pay me a lot of money, sure, I'll do it again. Why not? - Hey, if RJJ can get. - Yeah, that's exactly it. - Look for us. - Right? Why not? - Yeah, and not just spoiled Deadpool and Wolverine, but I mean, it's been out for a while, what almost two months now. - And that's been out on streaming in a few weeks. - Yeah, so like it was so fun when Chris Evans showed up and like everybody instantly went to, oh my God, Captain Kirk is back. Like me and my daughter were so excited. And then he's like, whatever, Brian Reynolds is like, he's gonna say it. And he's like, flame on. And it's a fantastic four character. It was just a riot. I mean, that movie, a bunch of people are like, but it didn't do anything for the MCU as a whole. I don't care. I had fun for two hours just watching that movie. Like at some point, that's, like I said before, I'm a pretty simple guy. Do it. Show me superheroes beating up bad guys and blow some stuff up and have some fun. Like I'm in. I would just want to turn my brain off for a couple hours. - Yep, that's it, exactly. That's it, exactly. All right, let's get into the Atlantic division. Keith, we've got your Celtics, the Knicks, the Sixers, the Nets and the Raptors. Is this how you think it's going to finish? It was that order last season. - Flip flop the Raptors and the Nets. And I think the Nets will be the worst team in the NBA this season. I think they will have the worst record in the entire NBA this season. And I think it's completely by design. And I don't think it's going to bother them in the slightest. If they are the worst team in the league. So flip flop the Raptors and the Nets. Chop off five, 10, 12 wins off the Nets. Give a couple of those to the Raptors. - What do you win for the Nets on the season? - Yeah, probably right around there. And that might even be a little high. It might only be, yeah, they might be down on like the 15-18 range. So yeah, you've a couple of those wins to the Raptors. Did they challenge a little bit for that 10th spot in the East playing tournament? And there we go. But yeah, I do think this will be the order. I think it'll be a lot closer. I don't like the Celtics are going to push quite as hard. You know, like the Knicks and the Sixers will be a lot better this season. And so the standings will be closer. But ultimately, yeah, I think that is how it finishes. - Lowest win total last season was the Detroit Pistons with 14. Next was the Washington Wizards with 15. So that, I mean, if the Nets really are the low win total and they're at 20, that would actually be a big step up compared to last season. But they may win even less than that. I mean, this is a team that's not put together to win. But that's okay. If I'm a Nets fan, I'm more excited now than I was a couple of months ago. Even when I would have said, well, maybe they're going to win 30-ish games this next season or something like that. This team is a much brighter future now than they did a few months ago. But all right, let's start at the top here. Let's start with your Boston Celtics. I guess for me, because I'll start off on this one since I'm sure you've got plenty to say here, but I guess for me, the big question is, is there a championship hangover? And that's kind of a, I know we can get into, the ins and outs of this roster and everything, but this roster is awesome. You know, you've got guys who are two-way players on all over the court. You've got guys that can shoot, you've got guys who can dribble, they can pass, they can do a little bit of everything, they can play a lot of different styles. Sure, we can talk about Alhorford's age and all of that. But for me, the big question is, last season they were pushing that championship, pushing to prove themselves, and they got the job done. Is there a sense this season to push down on the gas pedal? Or is it more, okay, been there, done that, get us to the playoffs, let's fast forward, and maybe we see a Celtics team that isn't as engaged during the regular season, and does that lower their win total? In my mind, would not decrease their championship odds at all, but do they put less emphasis on winning games in the regular season, and instead, you kind of get to the midpoint of the season, they're like, all right, we're bored, can we fast forward to, you know, to March, April, May, yet, let us know. So that's my big question for them. Do they fall victim to the championship hangover, and does that lower actually their performance during the regular season? - Yeah, I end up with you on that. I think once you've climbed the mountain, it's hard to say, let's go back and climb that mountain all over again a year later. So maybe you do still do it, but you're not gonna push up there. It's quite as hard as you did. I think one of the things with the Celtics has been, early slash year was, they avoided, like they really bad losses. Like for the most part, they stayed pretty focused throughout the course of last season. They had a couple of games where they threw games away because they basically said, yeah, we're just not gonna play guys, in toss games away, which every good team does at some point. But for the most part, they stayed pretty focused and locked in. My big question for them is, what happens with the big man rotation while pausing just is out? They're saying December? Well, December is, you know, there's a 31 days in December. I don't know that, you know, I would not be banking on December 1st. I'd bank a lot closer to December 31st for him to be back than I would the 1st just 'cause they're not gonna push him back. Not with his injury history in the team's goals. And as we all saw in the finals, his importance to the team and what they look like when they have him and they're kind of a fully functional team there with him in the fold. Al Horford will be fine. I'm not really worried about him, but I also don't wanna Al Horford play in 30 minutes a night from October forward. I would like to see that be, you know what? If it costs you one or two, but you keep miles off of him and you play Xavier Tillman and Luke Cornette and Demius Cada, fine, who cares? Like it's, that's more important that Al Horford is ready to go when we get to the end of the season that it is winning one or two extra regular season games 'cause you pushed really through. Other than that, I know people are gonna say this guy's so cocky, but there's not have a lot of questions 'cause the team's exactly the same team. As we saw you last year, minus a couple guys at the end of the bench. So run it back for the most part. Yeah, let's just, let's go, let's see what it looks like. I'm not, I don't think there's any thought to right now we gotta think about breaking this team up 'cause they're so expensive and all that. That's more of a year or two, probably more like two or three, I'm away from being a real question. So I think it's just, yo, let's do it, but to your point, how much do is there a, we just gotta get through the regular season attitude. What does that look like? I will say, I think they're good enough that they had a 14 game lead in the division. So you chop, I don't know, seven games off. I don't know that that's fine. Like you still win the division by a healthy margin. So I'm not sure, you know, but yeah, I think mid to high fifties and wins. And, you know, then it's just from there, it's how much better do the other teams get? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay, let's jump over to the New York Knicks and Keith, you're up on a busy Knicks team from this past summer. Maybe the biggest trade of the summer too of landing, Mikhail Bridges. Yeah, the easy question here would be, what are they gonna do at backup center? I'm gonna flip it. Tom Thibodeau, we haven't talked about this on the show. Yeah, he said recently, Juice Randall helped play him more at the five. Mm-hmm. So if he's gonna, my big question is, is he going to follow through on that? Or is it one of those things where he does it, it doesn't look good for like five minutes one night and then we never see it again? 'Cause he's like, nope, I'm going back to a traditional rim protecting big man and that's it. Because if he can get five to 10 minutes a game out of Julius Randall at the five. Oh boy, that changes things in such a good positive way for the Knicks. And I've heard Zach Lowe made a really good point about this, that people in the league have been saying, oh, Jan and Obie can play up and can even defend some of the smaller fives. So if you could keep Randall out of having to do that and keep him on his more traditional matchup, but you're kind of nominally, he's the five. Oh man, now you opened up a bunch of stuff and there are all kinds of offensive options you can go there. You could go super duper switchable with like bridges and Ann and Obie and Hart all out there together. Yo, what does this look like that? That for me is Will Tibbs do it and we stay committed to it. That becomes the biggest question to me with the Knicks 'cause they've got everything else you could need to be a really good team that's in contention in the East. - No, that's a fantastic point. Tom Thibino did say, because I talked about this on the basketball bulletin a little bit, he did say like, he said, you know, I wouldn't want to put too much of that burden on Randall, I'm paraphrasing, but because it starts to wear on him. And then he said, you know, like 10 to 15 minutes a night. I went 10 to 15 minutes a night at the five for Julius Randall. That's like, I know to Tom Thibino, that's light lifting, but that's a significant amount of time. That's full backup center minutes 10 to 15 minutes a night at the five. And so if you'd go ahead and do that, I do think it opens up a lot of possibilities for the Knicks. If you dig into their advanced metrics, they actually, it's a tiny, I'm talking about minuscule sample size. But when you pull Julius Randall at center, the Knicks have actually been really, really good. Again, smallest of sample sizes. So who knows whether there's truth in that or not, but still, I think Julius Randall at the five is something that they're going to absolutely need to experiment with here on this, this Knicks side. I guess for me, I will kind of lean into the backup center thing here. And it kind of ties into the Randall bit because if Randall is successful at the five, is that enough to where you say, okay, we don't need to go get a big now? But I just given the history of Mitchell Robinson, I still think that the Knicks need to go find another center. They're super powerful. We've talked about this. It's their ability to absolutely bludgeon teams on the glass. That's not to say Julius Randall can't be a big rebounding presence, but the way you really have an advantage there is when you've got Julius Randall plus, like an Isaiah Hartenstein on the floors, or a Mitchell Robinson or someone like that. So if you can get another bag in, even if maybe they're the team that goes and lands the onus balance units or something like that, or Nick Richards or whoever, you can continue to build upon that strength that you have on the glass. I also think it's interesting when you look at the Knicks, one of the things they were able to do was not just be a great offensive rebounding team. In fact, the best in the NBA and offensive rebound percentage, but they were also able to be a middle of the pack team in terms of transition defense, taking away transition opportunities. We've seen coaches over the last day or so, which is difficult to do. And we've seen coaches oftentimes pick one or the other. Garvin Hamm influently did it with the Lakers last year, just punt it on offensive rebounds. So we're not gonna bother going after them much. Everybody get back. Unfortunately, they still suck at transition defense or the one of worst in the NBA. But we've seen coaches have more of that kind of mentality. The Knicks, I think, represent a new wave of no offensive rebounding still can be a weapon, and we can prevent our transit. We can find ways, if we do it right, to be able to be a force on the glass without necessarily just hemorrhaging points in transition. So I'm gonna be curious to see how can they perpetuate that, particularly now that they don't have Isaiah Hartenstein in there to help them do that. I think he was a big piece to that too. So again, I know it's the easy answer is looking at what they do at backup center, but I do think it ties into so much of what this team is. - It's a great call out. I love the offense of rebounding call out. The big part of that was when Robinson was healthy, and then when the Hartenstein was in there, when Robinson wasn't, those guys are almost one man offense of rebounding machines. So you don't have to commit two or three going to the glass. You can just get it done with one, and then the others can track back. I think, so that's huge. I don't know how many people fully realized. The Knicks were a better offensive team than defensive team a year ago, because you combined an out of this world offensive rebounding rate as a team. Like you called out best in the league, and you put that against pretty good three point shooting at a pretty good clip. I think they were about 10th or 11th and three point rate. I remember right in the league. Yeah, they were 11th in three point rate. That's good stuff. And for a team that was dead last in the league in pace. Dead last. That's how they put up points, and that's how they put together a pretty good offense, 'cause they played fairly slow, but you got up a lot of three pointers, and you went and chased them down when you missed them. And that's how you make up for a team that is at times, it's a lot of Jalen Brunson, it's not a whole heck of a lot else. Now what's nice is Randall did a really good job before he got hurt saying, yeah, I've been the all-star, I've been the all NBA guy, but this is Jalen Brunson's team. I'm gonna play off him. He'll make the game easier for me. And Julius Randall is a phenomenal secondary creator, 'cause he's really good at putting the ball on the floor, finding a mismatch, attacking it, finding a shooter, really does a nice job with that. Now you've added Michael Bridges, who has seeded being the primary offensive weapon on a team when he's healthy. He's gonna be the third guy. Maybe even at times, if you're like trying to get to even Chenza going or trying to get in and Obie going, he may be like the fourth guy. Now all of a sudden you've really built out your offensive versatility without sacrificing any of your defense 'cause you added a guy who's still one of the better wing defenders in the lead. So all around, man, I love this team. They're gonna be really, really tough. I think they are as much as anybody built to bother the Celtics in a lot of ways just 'cause of their size across the board. That's one of the things Boston kills teams with is they don't really play anybody who's really small for their position outside of Peyton Pritcher. Other than that, it's everybody else's pretty good size and/or wingspan for their position. So that's gonna be something that the Knicks are clearly, they know Boston's the team to go through. So they've built the team that's designed to try to give them as much trouble as you can get. Have you heard about the 2018 study that showed half of prenatal vitamins tested had unacceptable levels of heavy metals? No, well now you have. I'm Kat, mother of three and founder of Ritual, the company making traceability the new standard in the supplement industry. I remember staring at my prenatal vitamins and finding all these things I was trying to avoid. High amounts of heavy metals, synthetic colorants, and unnecessary ingredients. So at four months pregnant, I quit my job and started ritual because I believe that all women deserve to know what they're putting in their bodies and why. I'm so proud of our prenatal vitamin. The ingredients are 100% traceable, it's third party tested for microbes and heavy metals, and recently received the purity award from the Clean Label Project. You see, we trace like a mother because, let's be honest, no one cares quite like a mother. But don't just take my word for it. Trace for yourself with 25% off at virtual.com/podcast. - All right, let's jump over to the Philadelphia 76ers, extra emphasis on Philadelphia. Apparently they are indeed staying despite the, I don't know how much, if there was any real teeth to that threat about going to New Jersey or whatnot, but sounds like they are gonna be staying in Philly. They'll get a new building there, they'll get a new arena. The 76ers for me, obviously, maybe they, I think they were, did get the biggest free agent edition of the off season by landing Paul George. I mean, that was a big, big deal to get him away from the Clippers. I think my question, and I think this is all going to fit just fine, but until we see it, until we see it, how do Paul George, Tyrese Maxie, Joellen Bead, all coexist, given that for all of them, for all three of them, the offensive side of the ball is really where they make their impact. I think it can fit very well. I'm not too concerned about it, but that synergy between the three of them is going to determine how far the 76ers team goes. And that, I think, is the big question for them. How do we, is that a lot of kind of your turn? My turn is Joellen Bead, is Paul George used to cutting off of a big? Is he able to make some cuts off of them Bead? How do those two combine Tyrese Maxie? How do you make sure that while yes, Paul George is here, Tyrese Maxie is an exciting young star in his own right? How do we make sure that his impact doesn't get minimized, that it's not all Tyrese Maxie standing off ball and Paul George is doing his thing on ball or vice versa? That dynamic, I think, is going to be a big question for the 76ers. I think they will work through it, but it's something I'm keeping an eye on in the early days of the season. - Yeah, I'm not going to dance around mine. It's our Joellen Bead and Paul George are going to be healthy when the playoffs start and then be healthy throughout. 'Cause if they're not, none of the other questions we can have matter. 'Cause if they don't have both of those guys healthy, they're not going to go where they want to go. As a team, I like what they did this offseason. I think they had a really solid group. I think they did really great work putting together this roster. I do think Paul George will fit in nicely. I have a couple of questions about what happens to Entirees Maxi, who's an ascendant star in this league, is now back to being the third banana. What does that look like? Because indeed, and George are going to be the first and second options. What does that look like? But I think you know, Entirees Maxi is, it'll be fine. I think what we'll see is he'll take a relief as a playmaker this year, because we know what he can do as a score. That might, so health is the clear obvious one. - Sure. - But if I'm going to go with something else, other than that, it becomes, do they have enough size outside of unbeaten drummen? Because what happens when you play teams with wings that can punish you? Again, I'll go to Boston. Big part of their success is Datum and Brown this past season just started bullying guys repeatedly. Would get to where they wanted to go, because you need to put wings with real size or actual size on the floor. They took all the way late into the summertime to sign Gershani Abu Sali, he was like the only real power forward on the roster. - Yeah, he is. - But what does it look like, right? You could get away with some combination of George and Martin and Ubre and Caleb Martin, that is not KJ Martin, even though I still kind of like KJ Martin. But then even the back court is kind of small for them with Lowry and Maxi and Gordon and Jackson. So it's just, do they have enough size? What is that gonna look like as this plays out over the course of a long season? And is that something that's gonna lead to maybe some health issues? We've seen some of these guys miss considerable time in previous seasons beyond Embiid and George. And part of that becomes it's wear and tear of, all right Embiid got pulled out to the perimeter. Now who's gonna step up and challenge a shot at the rim out of that other group? Or is it gonna be just kind of let them go? 'Cause we don't want you doing that. 'Cause we need you on the floor on the other end for other stuff. So I like what they have, but I do have a couple of question marks. That's why I've got them. I get tick behind the Knicks. I think I trust the Knicks to be there a little bit more than the Sixers. But man, the Sixers team, if they get to the postseason in Embiid and George are ready to go, they're gonna be a really tough. Oh, simply 'cause talent wins out more often than not. - Yeah, they're gonna be difficult to deal with. That's a good call by you two on the power forward thing. You look down the roster, it's all threes. It's all guys who are more three than four and a bunch of those guys with the excitement, unless Yabicelli is able to continue to be Olympic Yabicelli. These guys are gonna get the bulk of the minutes there. They'll be playing a little bit undersized with that four position. So that'll be something certainly to watch. All right, jumping over to the Brooklyn Nets. And I believe you're up here, Keith. - Yeah, go ahead and pull up there. roster, cap sheet there from the spot track. It's just my question is going to demonstrate. - Oh, it's just a skull and crossbones. Does that mean? - Yeah, yeah. That's actually not that bad after this. - Oh, it's not. - So here's my question. While you're pulling that, there it is, on the screen and for those not watching, is the, I'm gonna say the next time the Nets are good, the best player on that team is not on this roster. - Yes. Like I just, that's probably not even a, you know, hot take or anything. So my question becomes, how do they navigate this season kind of with that in mind? There is not, don't get me wrong. I like Cam Thomas, but I think we kind of know at this point, Cam Thomas is like the next Jordan Clarkson, Jamal Crawford, Lou Williams, which is fine. I know I say this all the time, and I sound like a broken record. Very time I say that people are like, he's better than that. Is he, and it doesn't need to be? Like those guys are all going great for, - I deal like on a championship team. That's really the question. On a team that's gonna win 20, 20-ish games or something, even a team that's gonna win 30 games. Could he start? Sure, but on a team that's gonna really go somewhere, is he a starter? Probably not, he's probably a six man. And again, nothing wrong with that. There's, guys have made a lot of money in this league, had super long careers and been incredibly impactful in that role. So there's no shame with that being your best goal set. And unless Cam Thomas shows us something this season that we weren't expecting, that's probably what he's ultimately going to be. And again, that's more than fine. Yep, sneaky bet to win the scoring title this year. - Yeah, for sure. - If you're so inclined, he'd be a guy, I'd think about maybe winning the scoring title. But do they have guys that they're really like, this is our guy that we're building around? No, they don't have any players like that. I like they run sharp, funny. I have already talked about it quite a bit. I like Noah Clowney a lot. Nick Klaxon is not, by any means, like an older player or anything like that. But if you look at the roster, it's a whole lot of guys who are 28, 30 plus, handful of guys who are in there, like mid 20s now, Exire, Williams, and guys like that. So it's just kind of like, this team is very much a team in transition. We know guys like, I mean, start at the top, eight trade Simmons if they could, without screwing up the cap sheet too much. Klaxon, we'll see what they do. I think he's young enough and on a good enough contract. He can stick, but maybe he gets moved. Cam Johnson's been in trade talks for months. Boy on Bogdanovich, Dorian Finney Smith, Dennis Schroeder. Those guys, there's a good chance, none of them are on the nets next year. They could all very easily be, by the middle of by the trade deadline, I should say, they could all very easily be traded. So it's just going to lead to a little bit of a messy situation where I don't know that they're all going to be aligned on, trying to win and all that. So it's just kind of who becomes like, the guy that we're kind of building this around, or do we just going to get through this really messy season and then start over next year with one of the highest picks in the draft. And whoever that guy is, where that's Cooper Flag, Grace Bailey or Dylan Harper, or Nolan Traore or Vijay Edgecom or Liam McNeely or whoever it is. It was one of those guys going to be somebody that they're coming out saying, this is our guy, 'cause that's who it's going to be. That guy's just not on the roster. Just unfortunate, they're going to have to wait till the end of next June to get that guy. - So I agree with that. My big question for them, it's about Ben Simmons. Does he wind up, do they wind up getting something out of him? And I'm not even talking about on the court. Can they you take that $40 plus million expiring contract and turn them into something? Remember, he was the piece they got back in the James Harden trade. Can you get something out of him on the trade market? I'm okay with the nets absorbing a long-term salary that's maybe not so great if they get some future assets because that's what they should be looking to do to add future capital. So can you take, that's one of, I don't know if that is the largest expiring in the league. Well, no, 'cause there's something. But Butler could be an expiring. He's got a bigger contract. But in terms of a guy that would really solely be used as an expiring contract, nobody's trading for Ben Simmons to get Ben Simmons, what can you do with that big expiring contract? And can you make it so that you get something positive out of him rather than that $40 million bucks just coming off your books? And well, hey, we get more cap flexibility next year. Can you turn them into something? That's the big question. 'Cause again, it's not about what's happening so much on the court for the nets this season. It's about the future. It's about the moves they make to plan and build for that future. And I'd like to see Ben Simmons, that big expiring contract help become part of that future by adding other players to the roster. - Yeah, that's a great call and I love that one because we've spent kind of the life of this show talking about teams like the Spurs and the Pacers as far as, hey, these are gonna be everybody's favorite 13 men to every trade thing 'cause there's an on a ton of cap space. Well, teams can't do that anymore. Now, it's a little more complicated because of the rules around not everybody can take back more money than they send out 'cause of various hard caps and all that with the various aprons. But there's definitely workable trades where it is Simmons is the primary piece to, hey, you're gonna take on this player's salary and we're gonna get out of it. And I love that you called out, that's what they have to be okay with 'cause you can't be looking at this saying, we're gonna get one of those kids that I just rattled off, I think five, six names. You can't say that guy's gonna turn us into a playoff team in year one. That guy's gonna be like our Wembanyama and lift us to here 'cause I'm just not that sold on those guys partially in some respect 'cause some of very much complimentary players at least early on. But what a, so if I'm the Nets, I'm thinking I'm trying to be good two, three years from now. So if I was to, and I'm not saying this isn't even match or something, anything would happen. But like, oh, we gotta be the ones who take on Zach Levine's contract in this trade. Okay, we'll do it because if you're paid properly, why not? Let's go, let's, why not do it? So yeah, I think we're in a spa where we could definitely get there with Simmons being a part of a big trade for the Nets that instantly people, 'cause you know the casual fan is gonna be like, why do the Nets want this player? Like, why do the Nets want Zach Levine? Like, what's he gonna do for them? Why does Zach Levine wanna be there? It's not about that. This is about moving money around, taking care of a team, letting them get off some bad money long term. Well, they pick up an additional asset or two in the form of draft picks, young players, whatever it may be. - Exactly, exactly. All right, let's finish things off with the Toronto Raptors who may have won the competition for the best of the bad city edition jerseys. And I can't even put that there's, there's not even a bad category. It's an awesome jersey, but the Toronto Raptors, I'm not expecting this team to be good this year. I almost hesitated to go with this, Keith, because I feel like I've been so trade focused on a lot of my answers. But for me, when I look at this at this Raptors side, I just think when are they moving Bruce Brown? We all know they picked up the option on Bruce Brown's deal specifically to trade this contract. $23 million expiring contract. He's not gonna be part of the team long term. 28 years old, there's gonna be teams that are interested in him. What do they find on the Bruce Brown trade market? I think that's gonna be important for this Raptors team as they start to build from here. Now, he can help them in the meantime. And RJ Barrett has been pretty good as a Raptors. He's looked better as a Raptor than we saw as a Nick. And Manuel quickly can have his games. There's some interesting players on this team. Of course, we can't leave out Scotty Barnes. He's truly their guy who could ascend and become that star. I think this Raptors team will be better than they were last season, health willing. That's the key part here. But it does seem like Bruce Brown is the guy that they could use to really make a push and balance out this roster and maybe become like a play in team or something like that this year. I don't know if I would say they're fully gonna get there, but Bruce Brown, I think is their clear trade ship. And I'm just curious to see what they ultimately turn him into. - Yeah, this is another version for me of somebody has to make the 10 seed in the East, right? And it's really kind of more like the nine in 10 seed in the East because you're top eight. I think 99.9% of people are gonna say or some version of Boston, New York, Philly, Milwaukee, Orlando, Cleveland, Indiana, and Miami. That's some order of those eight teams. I think 99.9% of people are gonna say. So then it becomes as you kind of dip down, you get into, all right, well, the other teams have to make it. So Atlanta, Charlotte, Toronto, Washington, probably not, Detroit, probably not. You know, so it starts to become, all right, we talked about, I think the Nets are gonna be the worst team in the league. So take them out of the mix. So now all of a sudden it's like, oh, maybe Toronto just kind of stumbles into the play and tournament. I don't know that's the worst thing in the world for them. My question is, can they be a little more frisky than that? Because if we're all kind of in agreement that that's the top eight, guess what that means? One of those top eight teams has fallen out. One of them's gonna have the Memphis Grizzlies year where just everybody gets hurt. The wheels come off and they're like, forget it. You know what we can do? We're actually a good team, but what we can do right now, our best thing is lose a whole bunch of games and get into the capture of the flag derby, right? Let's try to get there to get after that. So I think Toronto is one of those teams that could be positioned to then, hey, you know what, we can be the eighth seed. Let's push, let's go. There's an awful lot of talent on this team. And then that's where does Bruce Brown become a trade tip too? Or we've got a lot on the wing. Let's go get ourselves another big. Let's get at somebody who can be kind of someone who can play with Barnes and Barry and quickly and maybe even Pertle. Like is there somebody else who can really space and stretch the floor for us? You know, what about Olinik? You know, does Olinik make sense? Maybe we look to move him as well. He's on a pretty tradable contract on the extension he signed. So a lot of flexibility, a lot of different ways this can go for Toronto. So I'm excited to watch what they kind of develop into and grow into. 'Cause there it's like you said before, you're in an awful lot of really fun pieces on this Raptor's team. - Okay, I like, was that, did you say capture the flag? Is that what we're going with? - I think so, that's not mine by any means. Like I've seen that other place. That seems where people are going with is capture the flag. I like it. I'm on board with that. That's a good one. I was thinking like, you know, do you try to come up with some kind of a rhyme, you know, lag, lag, you know, lag behind lag for a flag or something like that? But capture the flag is better. I like that. I like that. - Yeah, I'll say this too, whether he's the number two pick or he can pass a Cooper flag, race for ace. That's the other guy, ace Bailey, right? It's a race for ace. Like that's where it's at. All right, maybe it's me. I don't know, we are race for ace. I don't know, we are race wins for ace. - I don't know, we'll keep work chopping it. But yeah, I think it's capture the flag in the race for ace for right now. - Good job. I like it. Good job to whoever came up with those ones. Those are, those are quality. I think I'm probably going to wind up, have no use those. But that, that does it. - Yeah, we did it. - I get this through one big question for all 30 NBA teams. We went through them all tomorrow. We'll have "Front Off" is Friday. So join us live for that show. That'll be a lot of fun. We'll be taking all your questions and comments. And of course, you know, right around the court, it's about here. We're going to have training camps starting up, media days, all that kind of stuff. So get ready, because it's coming. Make sure you hit the subscribe button on the YouTube channel. Follow us over on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, where I've you listed a podcast as well. And Keith, we're going to have a "Front Off" is Friday tomorrow. - Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's always fun. So I'm looking forward to that. You know, ask us, you know, your big questions about teams. You know, we'll give you our thoughts on where we're at, with some of these teams and the like. With that, you have to, there's anything else you guys want to get into. That's what Fridays are for, it's your show. We always have a lot of fun with those. But yeah, a little bit longer of a show today, but I'm glad we were able to knock out the big questions. 'Cause once camp starts, we're going to have a whole lot of stuff to react to, you know, all this guy. I came back and looks pretty good. You know, this guy's used to working around with me here, whatever it may be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, 10 to 15 pounds of muscle watch comments. So that's there. It's a media day bingo card's ready. 'Cause there's going to be a, oh, so it's also a shop 500 jump shots a day. You know, and now he's, you're going to be a three point shooter. It's funny. Did you see somebody posted the Isaiah Hartenstein, like playing a pickup run, he's doing a bunch of ball handling. And the way they tagged it was, can you imagine if we saw like, and you don't know, we can't remember who it was, but like an NFL offensive tackle, like running, you know, touchdown routes. And it's like, I don't know, it might be a problem this year. It's kind of like this is what happens in, you know, but that's part of what we love about the silliness of the NBA. Absolutely. Yeah, it's a silly, silly league. And I wouldn't have it any other way. It optimism rules during this time of year. Nobody has lost any games right now. Everybody's in great shape. Everybody's coming off of their summer vacations. They got their new haircuts. By the way, maybe the biggest question, now that I mentioned haircuts, what does Jimmy Butler look like on media day? Oh, yeah, we'll have something. He's going to do something. Yeah, something crazy, 'cause he always does that. I had the other really fun one was somebody posted the annual, you know, Ben Simmons is looking pretty good. There's Jay Skeet said we are here in the off season and it's like Ben Simmons looks pretty good. And then it's like media day training camp. So, but so is like, we're like right there, like we're right on the cost, so. It is a yearly passage. It's a signal of the passage of time. It's just like the weather starting to change. Let's, you know, the Halloween is around the corner. You know, you start seeing Christmas lights up. Let's, you know, you get closer to Christmas. Hearing Ben Simmons looks good. Let's, you know, the media day is almost there. But thank you, everybody, for joining the show. We appreciate all of you for being here. Again, make sure you subscribe and then don't forget to give us your thoughts in the comments section. Till next time, everybody, see ya and stay safe. - At King Super's pharmacy, care is making it easy to get vaccinated. Care is helping you stay protected from flu, COVID and RSV. Seasonal vaccines are available seven days a week with evening hours. Care is giving you a shot at staying healthy this season. Walk in whenever is best and get multiple vaccines in one visit. At your local King Super's pharmacy. So come and get the protection you need while protecting those around you. King Super's, a world of care is in store. Visit kingsuper's.com/vaccines for more. Restrictions and exclusions apply. See site for details.
