The Knicks and Magic Are Going to Vegas. Plus, Do the Pelicans Hold All the Cards for the Trade Deadline? | Group Chat

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Knicks and Magic Are Going to Vegas. Plus, Do the Pelicans Hold All the Cards for the Trade Deadline? | The Ringer NBA Show: Group Chat

Date: December 10, 2025
Hosts: Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, J. Kyle Mann

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Overview

In this lively episode of "Group Chat," the Ringer NBA panel dives into analysis of the NBA Cup's quarterfinals, spotlighting the ascendant Knicks and Magic squads as they head to Las Vegas. The conversation rapidly pivots to the intrigue of the upcoming trade deadline, honing in on the New Orleans Pelicans' future-defining choices—and how their unique assets might shape the next NBA blockbuster. The trio’s signature blend of sharp analysis, quippy humor, and deep roster knowledge delivers a rich snapshot of the NBA’s evolving landscape.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. NBA Cup Quarterfinals Recap: Energy, Stakes, and Pageantry

• Energy and Atmosphere

  • The hosts discuss the competitive edge and shifting attitudes toward the NBA Cup, noting both the genuine intensity and the somewhat misguided, anxious execution at times.
    • "You could see plays where, like, five dudes were hitting the floor for a loose ball. It’s not playoff basketball…but it’s something." — J. Kyle Mann (00:39)
  • The games offered an upgrade in stakes and spectacle, including ideas for amping up the Cup’s theatrical appeal (celebrity guards for the trophy, cash piles on the table, etc.).

• Comparisons to Other Sporting Events

  • Fun references to the World Series of Poker and college football celebratory tactics (01:58).

2. Knicks vs. Raptors: Separation, Star Power, and Raptors’ Challenges

• Game Breakdown (Knicks win over Raptors)

  • The Knicks are lauded for their physical dominance and "bullying" the Raptors, displaying the characteristics of a finals contender.
  • The Raptors’ roster was depleted (no Barrett, Quickley ill, Poeltl hobbled), exposing depth and star-power deficiencies.
    • "They just kind of lost their energy. And from that point on, the Knicks just had complete control of the game." — J. Kyle Mann (05:17)
    • "Sometimes even having four quarters isn’t as good as having a dollar…if you have a superstar, that’s the thing." — Rob Mahoney (06:31)

• Raptors’ Developmental Gaps

  • Analysis of Toronto’s reliance on patchwork rotations and the limits of their young talent, e.g., Grady Dick’s shooting struggles and Scotty Barnes’ overextended role.
    • "The bottom really fell out on their offense over this last stretch…Scotty Barnes having to do all this heavy lifting with a bunch of bench guys." — Kyle Mann (07:51)

3. Magic vs. Heat: Defense Defines the Day

• Game Flow

  • The Magic overcame a frantic start versus the Heat, gradually asserting their defensive identity and positional size to suffocate Miami’s drives.
    • "Once they settled down, Orlando showed…one of the most stout positional defensive teams in the league." — Kyle Mann (22:34)
    • "Orlando just has the personnel. If you were just creating a bizarro antagonist for Tyler Herro, it would look like Anthony Black." — Rob Mahoney (23:18)
  • Paolo Banchero’s return from injury was noted—he appeared less explosive, possibly tentative.
    • "Even when he was hitting shots…I don’t think I saw him do one genuinely explosive thing all game." — J. Kyle Mann (24:55)

• Magic’s Development Arc

  • Anthony Black’s emergence as a dynamic presence; the team now boasts both defensive grit and evolving offensive weapons.
    • "He just looks like one of the most athletic players on the floor every single game he plays." — Kyle Mann (26:05)

• Heat’s Limitations

  • Miami’s movement offense hit a wall against Orlando’s size and athleticism.
    • "They are uniquely suited to blowing all this shit up just by the size they have and the mobility of that size." — Kyle Mann (27:39)

4. Trade Deadline Rumors and Pelicans at the Crossroads (begins ~37:39)

A. Derek Queen: The New Centerpiece

• Queen’s Ascendance

  • Derek Queen’s triple-double sparks a glowing discussion. His unique skill set—nimbleness, touch, passing—draws comparisons to DeMarcus Cousins (“the path of most resistance”) and Zach Randolph, but with greater finesse.
    • "There is a part of him that's like the ballet hippos in Fantasia just kind of twirling around people…that kind of size and that kind of dexterity." — Kyle Mann (42:22)
    • "The ceiling with Derek Queen is mesmerizing and is the kind of thing that deserves being bandied about and figured out." — Kyle Mann (52:00)

• Building Around Queen

  • The crew debates what archetype best complements him: another big who can cover his defensive gaps and collaborate offensively (Miles Turner or the AD-Cousins model).
    • "I think the way the game is being played right now, it's much more viable to put him alongside another cooperative big." — Kyle Mann (48:20)
    • "What are the optimal players around him? ... Markkanen is the guy that you think of for every team because he just unlocks so many different things." — Rob Mahoney (64:09)

B. Pelicans’ Trade Pivot: Who Stays, Who Goes?

• Surplus of Valuable Wings

  • Trey Murphy III and Herb Jones: Their utility for contenders, their affordable contracts, and how much value (picks/youth) they could return are weighed.
    • "If you’re a contending team, a competitive team, a playoff team and you need wings, the Pelicans should be your first call." — Kyle Mann (57:46)

• Fake Trades Galore

  • Several trade scenarios are tossed around:
    • Detroit for Murphy + Jones (with Asar Thompson as a sticking point for Detroit, 59:41)
    • Lakers for Murphy/Herb (Austin Reaves mentioned as a nonstarter for LAL, 65:38)
    • Nets, Warriors, and other teams posited for potential swaps for Herb or Murphy

• Zion Williamson on the Trade Block?

  • The group ponders if Zion, dogged by injuries and inconsistent availability, has any tangible trade value left.
    • "Look, you’re not getting much back in return…at this point, the return is quite modest.” — Justin Verrier (76:13)
    • "Miami is confident enough to want to do it, but will they ever be desperate enough to actually do it?" — Kyle Mann (77:34)

• Pelicans as the Deadline’s Ultimate Seller

  • The East’s wide-open playoff picture and the abundance of buyers create a prime opportunity for New Orleans to “hold all the cards.”
    • "There's a clear opening for a seller. Will the Pelicans be that? I think they should to a certain degree..." — Justin Verrier (79:10)

5. Moments of Levity & Pop Culture

• NBA Cup Pageantry Ideas (01:58–03:06)
  • The hosts riff on celebrity guards, giant piles of cash, and NBA Cup theatrics.
    • "We need like, a very stoic guard standing next to the cup trophy at all times." — Kyle Mann (01:48)
    • "Kevin Hart will do it." — Rob Mahoney (02:58)
• Minions, Olipop, and Unlikely Endorsements (18:09–19:19)
  • Banter about banana cream Olipop, the Minions movies, and the horror of limited edition sodas.
    • "A banana cream Olipop. That sounds...sounds horrible." — Kyle Mann (18:48)
• Pop Culture Crossovers
  • “Fantasia," "Breaking Bad," Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and more are invoked to color basketball analogies throughout.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• "Separating the wheat from the chaff stuff." — J. Kyle Mann (04:56)
• "Sometimes even having four quarters isn’t as good as having a dollar…if you have a superstar, that’s the thing." — Rob Mahoney (06:31)
• "He [Scotty Barnes] is popping in part because he hasn’t had to do as much and thus some of his versatility, particularly on the defensive end…" — Justin Verrier (08:50)
• "All that said, Tyler Herro went 0 for 6. Couldn’t get that thousand three that they mentioned a hundred times on the broadcast." — Rob Mahoney (28:29)
• "If you can get Anthony Davis into the Raptors, I don’t see anything here other than Scotty Barnes, it’s like, this is absolutely nailed down and has to stay." — Kyle Mann (14:23)
• "Derek Queen, a beautiful angel who could do no wrong, had a triple double…" — Justin Verrier (40:09)
• "The best version of Derek Queen is a franchise-changing player." — Kyle Mann (52:00)
• "There’s a clear opening for a seller. Will the Pelicans be that? I think they should to a certain degree..." — Justin Verrier (79:10)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• NBA Cup Energy, Presentation, and Stakes: (00:36–03:30)
• Knicks vs. Raptors In-Depth Recap: (04:56–13:13)
• Knicks' Physicality and Raptors’ Trade Asset Analysis: (13:13–18:18)
• Minions/Olipop Tangent: (18:09–19:32)
• OG Anunoby Defensive Masterclass: (19:37–21:39)
• Magic–Heat Breakdown & Defensive Identity: (21:51–28:29)
• Pelicans, Derek Queen as Franchise Hub: (37:39–52:37)
• Trade Machine Mania: Pelicans’ Wings, Zion Value: (57:27–79:46)

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Final Thoughts

The Magic and Knicks have proven “cup tough,” emerging as teams to watch as they head for Las Vegas. Toronto faces tough questions as injuries and depth are stretched; Orlando’s identity is defined by relentless defense and emerging youth. With the trade deadline looming, all eyes turn to New Orleans—whose incumbent stars, rising rookies, and coveted wings could become the league’s most sought-after puzzle pieces.

Memorable Episode Tone: Fast-paced, sardonic, and deeply informed—full of offbeat references and playful jabs at each other, but always grounded in sharp basketball insight.

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Hosts will return next episode reunited in LA—sleepover, popcorn, and more Group Chat scheming to come!

Transcript

[Kyle Mann]

Foreign.

[Rob Mahoney]

Chat.

[Justin Barrier]

I am Justin Barrier. And joining me on this Tuesday night, Rob Mahoney, J. Kyle Mann. We have assembled for some hot Las Vegas cup action. Not quite Las Vegas. They're gonna get there now, but we just watched two games. The first two games of the quarterfinals. That's where we're at.

[Kyle Mann]

That's the one.

[Justin Barrier]

Rob, are you titillated right now?

[Kyle Mann]

I'm a little titillated. You know. You know what? I could feel the tension of the NBA Cup. You know, I thought everyone came out, like, a little antsy in terms of the execution in these games. You could see plays where, like, five dudes were hitting the floor for a loose ball. It's not playoff basketball, Justin, but it's something.

[Justin Barrier]

Yeah, I thought they were okay games, Kyle. First one definitely brought it. Second one, at the very least had a cool court. So that was different.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, I mean, the. The energy was a little misguided. I think that's one way to put it. And it didn't live up to, you know, we were joking before the season that in our NBA meetings that. About the cup and. And at summer league there, you know, Rob, you weren't there. You briefly were there. Maybe you saw this, maybe you didn't, but they. They had the NBA, you know, the cup trophy out in. On the concourse.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

They had someone very seriously, stoically standing there with their arms crossed, making sure no one messed with the cup. And let me assure you, no one had any interest in the cup at all. But this didn't reflect that at all. I thought teams were at least trying. Even if the. Even if the games themselves were a little bit sloppy and maybe didn't quite live up to. They didn't ascend to that next level. Right.

[Kyle Mann]

But that's the kind of pageantry we need. We need, like, a very stoic guard standing next to the cup trophy at all times who can't make any reaction whatsoever.

[Justin Barrier]

Like, we.

[Kyle Mann]

We need some of that for this.

[Justin Barrier]

Oh, perhaps, like, roped off on the side of the court, and we keep cutting to the cup, like, after every quarter. Like, this is what they're like. They do that for the college football championship. They just, like, have it on the field, and there's usually, like, a mascot like the Georgia Bulldog will just be, like, hanging around, like, sniffing at it.

[Kyle Mann]

Actually. Why aren't we doing the World Series of Poker type thing where once you get to the finals, you know, like the final table for the World Series of Poker, they just have another table off to the side with all the money. Piled on it. Like, I think when we get to Vegas, dump that money on the scores table. I mean, it could be fake Monopoly money, but like let's have some presentation.

[Rob Mahoney]

The money in cash. I really like that idea.

[Kyle Mann]

Absolutely.

[Rob Mahoney]

We got. We could have. We could have Huell and whoever it is from Breaking Bad lay on it or I was thinking a celebrity would be nice. A celebrity guard for the. You know, we could. It could be a different person for each. Each team. Or is George Wallace still. He's still alive, right? Vegas guy.

[Justin Barrier]

Sure. I mean Kevin Hart is definitely available.

[Kyle Mann]

This is available, but he's perpetually true, right?

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah. Kevin Hart will do it.

[Kyle Mann]

As soon as you say a celebrity guard, Kevin Hart will be one of the guards. So let's be very careful what we wish for.

[Justin Barrier]

He showed up over the summer where Wemby was doing some sort of activation. There's clearly a sponsor at play. But he was like doing a one on one interview with Kevin Hart and they were both in hot tubs. And that is where Wemby was giving his first quotes about like being a monk and talking about his all summer and the blood clots and all that stuff. The cult. Funny because the photo at the top was just Wemby and Kevin Hart shirtless, just sitting side by side in separate hot tubs. So I don't know what was going on there.

[Kyle Mann]

If that's not normal to you, I don't know what you've been doing for the last eight to 10 years. We've just been devolving into that slowly until the frog has been fully boiled.

[Rob Mahoney]

Where did they get the tub for Wimby? Did they get what, like the trough that they feed African elephants with? Like what, what tub can wimy fit in?

[Justin Barrier]

Some bow drop action?

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Justin Barrier]

Yeah. The Ringer NBA show is presented by FanDuel. FanDuel's got it all. Same game parlays, quick bets for jumping in live in your way so you could build the bet that fits your play. Plus don't miss out on holiday offers and surprises all month long. Download the FanDuel app or head to FanDuel.com RingerMBA to get started. 21 plus and present in select or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut. We respect the cup. I would say we like the cup. I think this is where the games start to have stakes to Them. And even in the second game where the Knicks kind of ran away with it, I thought there was actually kind of a nice little petri dish because these are two teams I think that are looking for this sort of setting to show who they really are. And I think Rob with the Knicks, that felt like they figured that out. Where not only Jalen Brunson play incredibly well, but like they bullied the Raptors in a way that you would hope for like a true blue, like NBA finals competitor.

[Kyle Mann]

I mean it's just real separating the wheat from the chaff stuff. And you could see it in that second quarter in particular where it sounds like I don't mean to be hit senses.

[Rob Mahoney]

These are my rafters that you're talking about.

[Justin Barrier]

Oh, that's right. We, we picked for the audience that wasn't around for last pod. We picked teams. Kyle unfortunately picked the Raptors. Rob did pick the Magic though.

[Kyle Mann]

Kyle's team just wasn't cup tough enough ultimately. Like I, I say it jokingly, but that's kind of what happened in the second quarter. First quarter almost shot for shot between Jalen Brunson and Brandon Ingram. Just phenomenal shot shot making overall from those two. Really, really fun to watch. And then you get to the second quarter and the Raptors just kind of let go of the rope. They lost their edge, the shot stopped falling. Of a sudden they were losing all those kind of like fringe battles, 50, 50 balls, all of that stuff. I don't know that they ever fully got it back. Like they just kind of lost their energy. And from that point on the Knicks just had complete control of the game.

[Justin Barrier]

Kyle, I think if you're the Raptors and you're a Raptors fan, you were hoping that just the collection of talent assembled would be enough to kind of paper over some of the things that we had concerns about and through the first like what month plus of the season that bore him out. Even if you look at the rankings overall, they're still pretty high offense, pretty. Still pretty high in defense. But tonight was a prime example where you just don't have the full complement of guys like Barrett did not play quickly, was out with an illness. Even Jakob Poeltle seemed lurching because I guess he's dealing with his back back injury over the past few games and they kind of played like a team that needed in a pretty much like a pissing contest with another east giant. Like they needed the star power to keep up with a team like the Knicks.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, I mean you don't want it Simplify oversimplified at times. Like, you hate to do that, but it does come down to, you know, sometimes even having four quarters isn't as good enough, as good as having a dollar. In a lot of situations, if you. If you have a superstar, that's the thing that. That separates you. And the Knicks have more of those types of players than the Raptors do. You know, Ingram can ascend to that level at times. And I think what we've seen with them is. I may have mentioned this on this show. It kind of reminds me it's a little reminiscent of the. What the Knicks did with Randall a few years ago, where they had odd pieces, didn't have great shooting, didn't make a ton of sense, but they had one guy that could consistently create advantage, and it was a pretty good passer in Julius Randall. And so you have this template. You suddenly have this one. I always call it a silo. You just have this one avenue of production and the Raptors had that. We were going through. We've gone through the process of. The surprise is not as big of a thing anymore. And especially it's exacerbated by the fact, like you were saying, if. If quickly is not going to be there, if. If Barrett's not going to be there to get downhill, you just. You lose all the shot making and it just. You're straining guys. That just looks sped up, like Grady Dick looked really sped up all night. Poor Jakob literally lurching his poor back trying to keep up with Mitchell Robinson, which we get into more of that. But, yeah, they just. They just look like they were just a little overexerted for what they had.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah, they just got stuck playing too many weird, compromised lineups. And this is a team where, like, their depth is one of their strengths. Right. Even during this kind of swoon. I think they've now lost six of their last seven games, including this one. But, like, the depth is ultimately one of their stronger points. The defense, as you alluded to, Justin, has been like, more or less okay. The bottom really fell out on their offense over this last stretch. And that's where the real, like, the reality check has been in terms of not having RJ for this stretch, in terms of Brandon Ingram not being able to deliver at just a superstar clip of efficiency every single night. And you see the cost of that when you go to trickle down and you look out on the court and it's like Scotty Barnes having to do all this heavy lifting with a bunch of bench guys, some of who aren't Even in the regular rotation. And he just looks a little overtaxed doing that stuff. And then on the other side of the ball you have this Knicks team that's been in the trenches, fought through these kinds of games, like they know how to work through the friction of really intense competitive games. And to whatever extent this cup matchup was that they were just much more successful getting into their stuff and playing through it.

[Justin Barrier]

I love the season that Scotty Barnes has had thus far, but he is popping in part because he hasn't had to do as much and thus some of his versatility, particularly on the defensive end. He's probably like, I don't know if we really need to go through the defensive player of the year candidates after 20 plus games or so after a quarter of basketball, but like he'd be high on that list. He just seems like a dog and like an impact perimeter guy in the way that like we all projected him to be for so long. And part of that is he just hasn't had to do as much offensively. He's just getting these in between buckets. He's making things move and his passing has just looked really great this season as a result of that. And shot's been on for most of the season, wasn't on tonight. And so those sorts of things seem to be trickling down across the roster where it's like Jamal Shed at a very good game and he does fly around and wreck shit. But like when Jamal is. Jamal Shed is like one of your go to guys for a cup game. Like then you're in trouble. It feels like that honestly was one.

[Kyle Mann]

Of my takeaways though is Jamal Shed is a guy like he's undersized and he's going to get picked on now and again. But I love the fight. I love what he was able to give them offensively. Like he's someone I trust in games like this. Weirdly enough, given his, you know, relative.

[Rob Mahoney]

Inexperience, it's tough when Jordan Clarkson is just going to the well and going over top of you repeatedly. Not ideal, like that's that stuff. Yeah.

[Justin Barrier]

But I mean this is the whole thing with the Raptors though. I mean they imported a lot of their talent and a lot of their draft picks over recent years have kind of fallen pretty flat. Barnes obviously in a class of his own. I think we all really like Colin Murray Bowles. We talked at length about him, probably more than probably anyone else. And in part because of the nickname war that we have has ensued. For whatever reason, we don't need that wasn't a war.

[Kyle Mann]

There was no war. There was no conflict. It was just quickly dismissed.

[Justin Barrier]

Might still be waging just like in the darkness right now. But like Jacoby Walter, I don't know what he is right now. Grady Dick has just been completely lost the past two seasons. I thought he would be an easy plug and play guys considering his size and shot making. Kyle, like did you think he would be just like a guy with a floor of a 3&D guy or where were you on him going into the league?

[Rob Mahoney]

I have been trying to figure out what it exactly. It definitely warrants more of a deep dive to see what hasn't translated because it may be a case of his shooting sample was just not very indicative because of the types of shots. I mean that's a really frequent thing that happens. I always try to look and we like your guy Jordan Hawkins that we were talking about earlier for the Pels who we'll get to later. These guys who hit a lot who just take an abundance of really wide open movement threes. I just. My working kind of hypothesis is that Grady does not shoot it super well in a phone booth. He frequently just. If he's crowded. He's so narrow, his shoulders are so narrow. I just don't. I wonder maybe if it's not having a wide enough base or not good balance because he is a great shooter. I've seen him shoot the heck out of the ball. I mean he shot something like 55% from 3 in transition at Kansas on a huge sample. But it's the shots and the speed. In the NBA, speed is a really cruel filter and it can. It can filter out really good shooters. It does all the time.

[Kyle Mann]

Especially he's had moments in his career, I would say especially last season where the jumper was looking really good from two. Right. Like he was curling into different kinds of shots and it was working. But maybe there is something Kyle about that combination of speed and the load to get to an NBA 3 that's just like a little tougher for him to access in this. In the like the very narrow window that you have to kind of a.

[Rob Mahoney]

High center of gravity too. Right? Like that could be a part of it. I mean we're. I'm definitely just spitballing, guessing.

[Justin Barrier]

Well, this is interesting because I think the backdrop to this whole game was like we're now starting to get all of the trade deadlines scuttlebutt happening and Shamsrani had this big thing on ESPN which she. He nominated basically three teams. One of whom was the Raptors for Anthony Davis. And I have to say, of all the options on the board, he makes the most sense there than anywhere else. If only because the Raptors probably need at some point this sort of consolidation trade, something that I always thought that they would end up at. But it seems like we got there quicker than we expected considering to start. It's tough though, Rob, because like the contracts, like when your top four guys are all making 20 plus million, even yaka pearls on this five year deal, it's like, how do you start unspooling all of this to even import AD and so I guess the question is, do you like AD there? And on top of that, do you think, like, how do we even prioritize who stays, who goes outside of like the obvious ones like Barnes and I don't even know who would it be after that?

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah, I mean, I love AD there. He. When we first started talking, getting into this stuff of the fact that AD could be on the move, Toronto was one of the first teams that jumped to mind for me for exactly this reason. Like they, they've needed something a little different because Pearl has been so hurt and because otherwise they were playing so small and you could see the glaring, like pressing need for someone like Anthony Davis in the middle. And if they could just get that, they could be a totally different class of team. I think that a trade is feasible because Purdue could be involved. Probably would have to go to a third team because I wouldn't think Dallas would have use for another big. If they're going to keep gaffer and lively, which I would presume they would, and then it would have to include someone like Emmanuel Quickley probably who would be useful to the Mavs, but clearly come at a cost for the Raptors in the process. So it would change the shape of their team a little bit, but whether it's shed, whether it's bringing another guard to kind of fill that spot, whatever they would want to do. Jacoby Walters kind of started in spots for them and been successful in. If you want to go full like point forward with this thing. Ultimately though, if you can get Anthony Davis into the Raptors, I don't see anything here other than Scotty Barnes. It's like this is absolutely nailed down and has to stay. Anthony Davis is worth taking a swing at. I think he'd be a great fit with this group.

[Rob Mahoney]

You're ruling Ingram out of that too, right? I mean, you're, you're working with the assumption that you can, you can achieve a Triumvirate of Barnes, Ingram and NAD potentially. Is that or you're thinking Ingram's available?

[Kyle Mann]

I'm. I'm not saying he's available. If you ask me what I would do, that's a different question than what I think the Raptors.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm just.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah, I don't. Based on where the Raptors are, I would be shocked if they trade Brandon Ingram given how vital his shot making has been to their.

[Rob Mahoney]

They kind of moved heaven and earth to get him.

[Kyle Mann]

That too.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Justin Barrier]

Yes. And this is the problem with the Raptors. It's just like, what are the value of these guys to other teams? I think Portal's the prime example of that, where it's like solid center clearly has an impact on defense. But you do worry about health, age and also the contract that they signed him to because they extended on top of an extension. Like, I believe he's under contract for five years now, which would be ironic that they double extended him and then got rid of him for Toronto, who traded so much to get him back just to send him out yet again. But like, I agree that's the upgrade spot from there. I like quickly. I do think, like, his in between game fills a lot of the gaps that they're hoping for and he's been playing really well up until this illness knocked him out tonight. And so like, I would hope to keep him, but if I'm the Mavs, like, I would rather quickly and someone else rather than RJ and Pearl, which is probably what the Raptors are trying to foist on to people. Especially if, like you hope, Cooper, for instance, Kyle, if Cooper is going to be a guy who's going to have the ball in his hands a lot, you want more of that in between quickly sort of stuff.

[Kyle Mann]

Well, I mean, before we go to the Cooper element, I wouldn't be so sure about RJ like this. This stretch has been illuminating for the Raptors in terms of how much they rely on him.

[Justin Barrier]

That's true, but two years on the deal, it just seems like contractually he's actually one of the better deals in part because all these guys are extended out a couple years.

[Rob Mahoney]

So I don't know spatially that feels like that could get a little dicey. Like I'm like, do I want to continue to stack these things on top of each other? That could give me problems down. I mean, RJ likes to have the ball. I mean, this year spot ups 33.3%. Do we feel like that's who he is? Probably. I mean, if it's brass tax, if we're in a serious game, that's probably who he is. And then you, you look at Pearl, I mean Pearl tonight, it's hard to. I'm just having a hard time wiping that out of my mind watching him go against athletic bigs. Granted, I know he's not in tip top shape in, in, in great form, but. Yeah, that one, that one's. Do you want to, you want to add that if you're the Mavs, I would imagine. No, I don't know.

[Kyle Mann]

But I don't know how much of that is a permanent state versus a post injury state like Yaka Pertle is better than the Yaka Pertle who played in this game. Who we should say how much better. I mean, I, I think, I think notably, notably more agile than or nimble than this on a regular basis. But you put a guy with a bad back against Mitchell Robinson and it's a fucking disaster.

[Rob Mahoney]

And it's not where you want to be.

[Kyle Mann]

To be honest. Like as much as like Jalen Brunson helped swing this game and ultimately like the Knicks medal helps swing this game. I thought it was like the special teams stuff that kind of broke it open for them. It was Josh Hart in transition and it was Mitchell Robinson backbreaking.

You know, I know it's a sensitive issue for Jakob Bertl, but with the offensive rebounds, especially the miss, his own missed free throw getting the rebound into a Jalen Brunson three like that.

[Rob Mahoney]

That is a couple of those tonight, didn't he? A couple. That was, that was the thing that happened in both games, I think. Offensive rebounds that led to broken plays and, and threes. I think in both games that after. Sheesh.

[Justin Barrier]

That's where you want Pearl to help you because his, his like specialties are so narrow. If he's not going to help you on the boards, then you're left wanting a little bit with him. And I thought Towns in particular looked pretty feisty on the boards. I think he had like 12 around like halfway through the game. And he himself looks hurt in part because he himself also lurches around like I've never seen someone just with the body of like Gru. Like Bo be an NBA athlete in the way that he has.

[Rob Mahoney]

But like minions grew.

[Kyle Mann]

I think that was the illusion. Yeah.

[Justin Barrier]

You know how it's like a triangle and he doesn't really. He has a very top heavy but like the legs are thin. I always think of crew when I'm watching Cats.

[Rob Mahoney]

I haven't seen those movies and we've kept them away from Julian. We've tried to. We tried to hide it from him because we didn't want to see him. And he found out. Megan and I looked at. We were like, fuck. Anyway, sorry.

[Justin Barrier]

Now he's a gentleman.

[Kyle Mann]

I think Uncle Justin is here to take him to see all the Minions movies from here on out. Apparently.

[Rob Mahoney]

Stay away from my son.

[Justin Barrier]

I did like the. The Minions had like a special Olipop and what I guess is the free ad and I did really enjoy it was like a banana cream one. I was a big fan.

[Kyle Mann]

Justin, what the fuck? A banana cream Olipop. That sounds. Sounds horrible.

[Justin Barrier]

We'll get one.

[Rob Mahoney]

That reaction that you got out of was special. I just want to say, Isaiah, we need some kind of a button. I want a physical button in my office that I can push. It's the. This fucking guy. But never Justin says there's a Minions flavored Olipop that intrigued him. I'm like, this fucking guy.

[Kyle Mann]

What the only reaction, frankly, we're going.

[Justin Barrier]

To air one when we're in LA and we're going to get ourselves some banana fucking cream lollipops.

[Kyle Mann]

I don't think they're making this thing anymore. I think it's been discontinued. I think it's been recalled. Like that is rat poison, what you drank.

[Justin Barrier]

I get emails from Olipop all the time and I can tell you in circulation, probably not the Minions version of.

[Rob Mahoney]

It, but just spiral down. Yeah.

[Justin Barrier]

Anyway, Cat was good tonight.

[Rob Mahoney]

He was good.

[Kyle Mann]

Discussed also quite good. OG Anunoby. I thought this whole game was like a 4 year consideration. If you want to do like the sparkling gold text across the screen for your consideration. OG and an Obi for all defense everywhere blowing up plays a blitz like obliterated. A Sandra Mamukelish Villi layup attempt like before it could even leave his hand. I mean, doing stuff we've seen OG do.

[Rob Mahoney]

But.

[Kyle Mann]

But he's one of the few wings who's like genuinely transformative in this way.

[Rob Mahoney]

He closes up the help side in a way that was pretty jarring. And for a team that kind of has, you know, staked its reputation on building rosters that are long and springy and rangy like the Raptors had it jumped. I mean, what granted OG was a Raptor, but. So that stands to reason. But he had a couple of plays in this game where he just came out of nowhere. And I think the Mamu play maybe is the one that you're talking about. There was another one. I don't Know, it just kind of reminds me of. Have you seen the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie? You ever seen that? I have not. There's the scene where they're walking across. I forget the plant. It's the Vogon planet, I think. And there's, like, this.

[Kyle Mann]

Of course, the Vogon planet. Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

There's this wide open. They're like the bureaucratic big, like. Yeah. And there's this wide open expanse. And as they're walking across, they, like, keep getting smacked in the face out of nowhere because they had. And what they realize is there's this creature on this planet that smacks you in the face if you have an idea. So they're trying not. And that's what that reminded me of. Every time the. Every time the Raptors had an idea of trying to drive to the basket, OG was like, like, I'm gonna have to send you all that clip.

[Kyle Mann]

Please do.

[Rob Mahoney]

He fits that description, actually, pretty well.

[Kyle Mann]

I think it works. Somehow that worked.

[Justin Barrier]

I have a theory about podcasting, especially at the ringer, where, like, sports podcasting and just comparing sports to, like, movies and TV and TV movie podcasting. Just comparing those things to sports. And, like, this podcast is just a prime example. I guess we had a little bit of a wrinkle there with the Olipop, but. Yeah.

[Kyle Mann]

What would you like us to do.

[Rob Mahoney]

You know, what do you want us to compare to?

[Justin Barrier]

This is all we got.

[Rob Mahoney]

To me, assuming you guys knew the Vogons, I really did say that flippantly, like you guys were just with me, but. Oh, you know, I just assumed. Anyway, not to be unfair to you guys.

[Justin Barrier]

All right, why don't we flip to the. The first game now, because there's a little bit more to diagnose there. The magic. Rob's magic.

[Kyle Mann]

Thank you.

[Justin Barrier]

Moving on.

[Kyle Mann]

Undefeated in cup play. Perfect. Will never be beaten in the cup ever, as far as I'm concerned. But certainly this year, going all the way.

[Justin Barrier]

They are cup top. Desmond Bain, coming off a game where he threw a basketball at another human and then pretended like it was a mistake where he was falling out of bounds. That was cool, but played really well. I thought the defense showed up in this one especially to turn things around after the start that they have. To me, it was just, like, a nice representation of. In the midst of all the fretting over Franz and Paulo, and, like, the start that they had that the defense quietly has become dominant yet again.

[Kyle Mann]

Yes. I thought it was, like, a little frantic at the beginning. You know, Miami's going On this run, they're hitting every single shot. Jalen Suggs is just, like, jumping and swinging wildly at every pass and ball in his. In his path. But once they settle down, Orlando showed you what they can be, which is just one of the most stout positional defensive teams in the league. Like, they will just stay down. They will stay in front of you. They're bigger than you at almost every position across the. And they'll just muck up everything you do. And so. And, like, I can't even tell you how many Heat possessions were just, like, a hard drive that went absolutely nowhere. Stop, pivot, kick out, pass, and just, like, hope that if you do that enough times, you'll eventually break the magic down. And over the course of. Especially the back half of the game, they just couldn't successfully create anything out of those sequences.

[Rob Mahoney]

I think you nailed it. The hard drives that went nowhere. I felt like Orlando just has the personnel. If you watch, if you were just like, we were creating a bizarro antagonist for Tyler Hero, it would look like Anthony Black, who is just as long and springier. And then you saw. I mean, Davion just had a really hard time in this game. He was having a hard time.

[Kyle Mann]

Still played well, though.

[Rob Mahoney]

Isaac came in. I mean, but the drives just weren't. They weren't getting the, you know, their entry points for the way that they want to play. Orlando just has antidotes at so many different positions. You even saw Jonathan Isaac, you know, was given. Was given some trouble. I wondered at the. At the start of the game if it was a case of Franz isn't there. Paulo's being a little bit, you know, he's deferring a little bit. He's trying not to, like, step on the toes of the. Of what's working. And it just kind of looked like they were over deferring at the beginning of the game, and it was a little bit aimless, but once their defense started to trigger, it's. That's when they caught some. Some momentum. And, you know, you just. You weren't seeing as many crazy. Norm Powell made some crazy shots, too.

Just held his hand up.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah, well, Justin, I'm. I'm not sure what you saw from Paolo, but I. I didn't read it as deferring so much as this is a guy who is clearly coming back from a groin injury. And just like, I don't know that even when he was hitting shots, even when he was making plays, I don't think I saw him do one genuinely explosive thing. Basically, all game. And that's just going to be like part of his. His process in working his way back. Because we know what he can do. We know how physically imposing he can be, certainly. But he's already quite a deliberate player and he was just kind of like really easing into things.

[Rob Mahoney]

I thought, is that tenderness or is that fear? Was he feeling it? Like, was he sore or was that him being like, you know, Because I think once you, you get. You pull something like that, you're kind of like, it gets in your head a little bit. I don't know if you've had that kind of injury before.

[Kyle Mann]

Isn't tenderness at the heart of all fear?

[Rob Mahoney]

Kyle, I knew you were gonna fucking say something. I don't know why you threw me the lob.

[Kyle Mann]

What am I to do?

[Justin Barrier]

It is pretty hard to read though, because I think if you're an optimist, I think you are reading into this like, oh, maybe Paulo finally learned something when he was on the bench and saw the offense flowing in a that it hadn't previously. That could be true. It does feel like he is more conscious of that at times. It seems like he's being a little bit more past first or a little bit more just like, just more mindful of how other people are working. And I do think it's encouraging that Anthony Black didn't have like a huge offensive game, but it just feels like he's a presence offensively in a way that he wasn't previously under like the Paulo centric sort of idea. And so Black just seems like the type of guy that you just have to play 34 minutes before. When we saw last year, like, we talked about him at length. Rob, like, is a guy that could be a guy probably four to five podcasts and never really fully clicked. Seems like this is the year that he's actually clicking it all together.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah, it was always like stretches and flashes in the pan last season and really for the bulk of his NBA career to date. And then this season, he just looks like one of the most athletic players on the floor every single game he plays. He's just a full court transition weapon all the time, going after things, trying to dunk at every possibility. And yeah, like, he's going to have moments where the in between game isn't quite there, where he kind of has those like record scratches on the catch at 3. 3. That's all going to be part of the Anthony Black experience. But if he's this explosive and, and therefore like creating a different kind of threat than almost any Other Magic player is. That's immensely valuable for them. It's a totally different way to like attack and expose whatever gaps you're able to create in the defense.

[Rob Mahoney]

When he passed up that three, he caught a spot up three early in the game that was open and he passed it up. I was like, oh. Because when you. There's just that if you pat, you know, if you pass it up, that's just, just. It's kind of a thing. It's. It's just a matzo ball sticking out. And he. It luckily didn't end up being an issue for him. He attacked enough, I thought, to even.

[Justin Barrier]

It out on the flip side of this. The Heat started great, but I am in the back of my mind wondering at what point if it does come, are we going to hit the limitations of this beautiful no screen offense that they've assembled here? Do you get the sense, Rob, that the success the Magic had defensively was like, if we're doing the pie chart of it, was it almost fully Magic or tough and this is their forte, or do you think that they were able to prey on some of the disadvantages presented by Miami style?

[Kyle Mann]

They are uniquely suited to blowing all this shit up just by. By the size that they have and the mobility of that size. And frankly like what the Magic do well when they're really, really working defensively is they take out so much of the connectivity of your offense. Like they make it so hard to get from one action to the other because they're that physical and because they just like occupy so much space on the floor. And if you take Miami out of its. All its cute free flowing stuff, then it's just like Norm Powell, can you score 50 points? Tyler Hero, can you hit every jumper that is available to you? Like they just aren't able to actually get any momentum to what they do. Not every team can replicate that against the Heat as we've seen. Like, there's just some teams that don't have the personnel, don't have the commitment, don't have the philosophy. I think there's some teams that are just going to be at a disadvantage against that kind of movement, but clearly Orlando is not one of them.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, they even had a sequence where Miami got it off the rim and Orlando was just denying the first pass. Like in the backcourt. It was just sort of like a pseudo improvised press and you could just see Miami had no. There was. It just deflated them. I think, I think you're right, Rob. It's just. Yeah, they just have the Personnel to sort of cut it off at the legs in a way that's really tough. And all that said Tyler Hero went 0 for 6. Couldn't get that thousand three that they mentioned a hundred times. But on the broadcast. But it could have been a little bit more interesting. I was just really blown away by if you want to talk about things that teams didn't have an answer for. Another thing that that really stuck out to me was Miami just had nobody that could. Could absorb Desmond Bain going downhill at all. He was just going through everybody. He presented them in a challenge that was more glaring than I expected even.

[Kyle Mann]

He's been kind of putting it together over the last couple of weeks too, Justin, where it's like the shot we've been kind of waiting for him to hit at Desmond Brain frequency and percentage. But as an all around scorer, whether that's getting to the line, whether that's on those drives, like he's. He's been kind of putting it together recently in a way where this just added that other dimension of hitting more threes than he's ever hit as a member of the Orlando Magic, in addition to all that stuff he's been doing.

[Justin Barrier]

But that was the thing that jumped out to me, especially late in the game where they packed the paint and then there's the kick out and you're like up. This is probably going to Tristan Da Silva or like a Gogo Bataze and he's not going to know what to do with the basketball. But it's Desmond Bain and he just drills it pretty effortlessly. Like that is the added dimension. And that was happening like in their first game of the season. It happened at times we were like, oh, this is the picture of what they could be. Seems like as things kind of click into place around him, he's really slotted into the role that they basically traded all those draft picks and went out of their way in order to kind of carve out for him. So it was encouraging to see.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah, I think we got some pushback.

[Justin Barrier]

Too by the way of like not really respecting them in our. Our title pie. Because the title pie is indeed sacred. You know, starting to reconsider things because like a couple weeks later, was it like two weeks later all of a sudden, like the Raptors and the Magics feel like they're going in opposite directions. They almost flip places.

[Kyle Mann]

Oh, completely. I mean, the title pie is a fluid exercise. We make this pie, we consume it as a team, and then we make another pie in a couple months and we chop it up all over again.

[Rob Mahoney]

The living document.

[Justin Barrier]

Anything else from this one you guys want to hit on? You worried about the Heat at all?

[Kyle Mann]

I mean, in what capacity?

[Justin Barrier]

Well, that's the question with them. You know, I think we all assume that this raised their floor, but they are sinking into eighth now into the play in mix. Basically, like resetting. We almost needed like a time in the NBA calendar where the fast starts start to recalibrate themselves. It's almost like where the boys become the men. It's like this is where the rubber meets the road part of the season, because it does feel like that's happening. And in the east, where a lot of teams floated to the top because there wasn't any sort of like, dominant upper crust, it feels like a lot of these teams are going through this real weird, like, flux period right now.

[Rob Mahoney]

Now?

[Justin Barrier]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mann]

I mean, if you just woke up and hadn't seen any basketball in the season to date, you'd be like, yeah, the Heat and the Bulls are kind of like more or less where I expected them to be. And we're just kind of shaped by the starts that they had. But ultimately, maybe we'll think the same thing in six weeks about where the Celtics are right now or six, you know, in six weeks about where the Sixers are right now or the Raptors. Like some of this stuff is going to come back to earth for sure. I think we're still in the process of figuring out what is real, and I think the way that Miami is trying to play is real. The returns on that were always going to diminish a little bit as the scout got out, as teams got used to the way they're playing. And I would say specifically the pace element of that, which did not seem to bother the Magic much at all after the first quarter. Like they're going to be taken out of that stuff. And with the personnel they have right now, unless Tyler Hero and Norm Powell are really hitting, they just don't have a lot of capacity to work around it.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, I mean, I think what we're seeing, I think it's. It's what we were talking about with Toronto too. I mean, they're good coaches who are seeing what they have. Seeing that, you know, maybe there's issues with the group of personnel that they have and they're. They're doing something new, inventing. We've seen Spode win every which way with a lot of different types of rosters. We saw him win with an ISO heavy roster and, you know, post up back, you know, pre three point Revolution. We saw him win when he had Duncan Robinson and Hero when they were doing a lot of the off ball sort of, you know, center, you know, bam is the fulcrum kind of stuff. And we saw him do another thing with this. It's just this one. I feel like what's the. What are the. What's the pliability in your personnel and your identity past that? And I think that's kind of where it's stopping. And, you know, barring a move, I don't know if these are two teams. I actually had written down Miami as a team. I know we're going to talk about moves. I had written them down as a team that could potentially make a move for sure and become more interesting.

We could more specifically why their culture makes them more equipped to do that, but that's kind of what I think we're seeing.

[Justin Barrier]

Yeah, there was some scuttle about them sniffing around John Morant. That would be interesting because I do want to think one of the advantages they have as an institution, as an organization is being able to perhaps breathe life back into these guys by just giving them rigid structure. They're obviously always mentioned with Zion. We might talk about that a little later there. I. I think like we're seeing a lot of teams need the. Or encounter the cold hard fact about the NBA, which is just you need superstar talent and like, you could gin up ways to work around it and they've done so adequately. But if you want to compete at the high level, like, you need those sorts of guys. But speaking of those high levels, both of these teams, the Magic and the Knicks, going to Vegas, baby.

[Kyle Mann]

Oh, yeah. I gotta say, the Knicks unfortunately don't stand a chance. They're about to get bodied by Gogo Batadze And Wendell Carter Jr. Like, all that stuff, you know, Big boy and the Raptors. I just don't think it's going to work against my Magic.

[Rob Mahoney]

I hate to say the Knicks don't stand a chance. There's a parody. I haven't done a parody in a while. Right, I know. We got to get.

[Kyle Mann]

We got to get you back in the booth.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Justin Barrier]

So how are we doing this? Like, the team that goes the farthest is the winner, I think.

[Kyle Mann]

Presumably. But we didn't say that we actually win anything. So, you know, it's just.

[Rob Mahoney]

We might have to recede because mine was so pathetic. My Raptors didn't. I even. I even. I briefly got on Fanatics and I was like, should I get something? I'm glad I didn't do it. But.

[Justin Barrier]

Well, I picked the Suns tomorrow who are facing the Oklahoma City Thunder. Yeah, but the Suns do have some goddamn juice and I did see that Devin Booker is questionable for that game.

[Kyle Mann]

Okay, that's exciting.

[Justin Barrier]

We'll see.

[Kyle Mann]

Does that mean Dylan.

[Justin Barrier]

Because they have Colin Gillespie.

[Kyle Mann]

They do. If Devin Booker plays, will Dylan brooks still take 25 shots, do you think? Not even a criticism, just. Just commentary.

[Justin Barrier]

He's probably one of the best pull up mid range shooters in the league right now.

[Kyle Mann]

It's crazy.

[Justin Barrier]

Janky as all he's been awesome, wild. The fact that he's doing the floor raising defensive stuff but all of a sudden has just become an additive plus offensive player for the first time in his career. Probably pull this up. I just. It's unbelievable.

[Kyle Mann]

The Suns are.

[Justin Barrier]

I don't care what the stats say. It's. It goes in every time he shoots it and his elbow is just all the way out.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay. From two, you're not wrong.

[Kyle Mann]

I mean. Yeah, that's the one we're talking about.

[Rob Mahoney]

Shot chart. Yeah. Yeah. 50.6 dribble pull up twos pretty good. 31% on dribble pull up threes. But he knows where his bread's buttered, so that's good.

[Justin Barrier]

He does call me. They call me synergy on the courts, you know.

[Kyle Mann]

No one does. No, absolutely not.

[Justin Barrier]

But yeah, I'll go with Knicks just to be different. Kyle, do you have an inkling one way or another, Knicks or Magic.

In I would harsh environs of Vegas.

[Rob Mahoney]

Who do we. Do we think there are any outside factors are going to come into play? Do we see anybody? Is anybody going to be potentially distracted? Orlando's a wily group. I don't know, man. I mean you think they're getting. They could get out there and maybe have a good time?

[Kyle Mann]

No, Jonathan, Isaac's not letting those guys leave the hotel.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's very true. That's very true.

[Justin Barrier]

Well, perhaps he gets like he goes to one of the mega churches out there, just loses track of time.

[Kyle Mann]

It's entirely possible. But we support him and all. Well, not all his endeavors, but at least some of his endeavors.

[Justin Barrier]

Some.

[Rob Mahoney]

On that one I would lean Nick's, but man, it's gonna be. The Knicks better be ready to come. Come play because it's gonna be. It is gonna be a fight.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah.

[Justin Barrier]

Tomorrow's a fun slate though.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Justin Barrier]

You could listen to another podcast about that unfortunately, because we'll get you back on Sunday. Why don't we take a quick break and we come back. We're Gonna talk about the pelicans.

[Rob Mahoney]

This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. The holidays move fast and Amazon prime keeps you in control with fast and free delivery. We've all been there. Family plans are fluid. Somebody's not coming. Suddenly they are coming and you're excited about it. You want to get them a gift. So you hop on Amazon prime, line.

[Justin Barrier]

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[Rob Mahoney]

And it's easy to do because Amazon has everything. Prime's fast shipping is always there for you during the holidays, especially when it's.

[Justin Barrier]

Last minute and it just can't wait.

[Rob Mahoney]

Need that last minute gift or holiday essential? It's on Prime. Head to Amazon.comprime to shop now.

[Justin Barrier]

So this has been a tough season for Joey D. Do you guys know Joey D?

[Rob Mahoney]

No.

[Kyle Mann]

Who's Joey D?

[Justin Barrier]

Well, he's Joe Dumars.

[Kyle Mann]

No one calls him that. Not a single person calls him that.

[Justin Barrier]

Well, maybe because he's also a horse and he's specifically a horse owned by the Benson's, because I don't know if you guys know this, but the Benson family owns a lot of horses and horse races in addition to some of their sports franchises. And as you might imagine, the jokes write themselves about where the horses stand in the hierarchy of the Benson sort of repertoire as opposed to perhaps the Pelicans.

[Kyle Mann]

So this is a literal fact. You are reporting that the Bensons have a horse named Joey D. They have.

[Justin Barrier]

A horse named Joey D. When I was covering the team almost a decade ago now, there were two like that had Tom in their name because Tom Benson was then the owner. It was like, sure, Tom's ready. And then I forgot the other one. Like Tom's foolery. But there were two Toms. I remember those horses doing quite well, unfortunately. Joey D, named after Joe Dumars, as you might imagine. Already a little weird naming your horse after your general manager.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Did he break his leg?

[Kyle Mann]

In this case, you're your employee. I, you know, it's just, I feel like we're getting into very weird territory.

[Justin Barrier]

Didn't break his leg, but apparently in his first race, he launched the jockey. And then in this most recent race, he finished 58 lengths behind the winner.

[Kyle Mann]

That doesn't seem good. I'm not, I'm not familiar with the proportionality of that kind of loss, but it doesn't seem ideal.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, he lost the race. He launched in the jockey. I'm pro horse, you know, I don't think.

[Kyle Mann]

Honestly, you're right. We should, we shouldn't be doing it.

[Rob Mahoney]

Get him out of there. You know, we'll get some emails about this, but yeah, well, the good thing is human.

[Justin Barrier]

Joey D. Yeah, things are looking a little bit better for him these days because one, Derek Queen all of a sudden is the new apple of the eye of every like hip NBA watcher out there, including all of us. We've already taken a lap in this regard, but I feel like the, the lather is just building up ever since. Especially after he has the 33 point triple double he had against the Spurs. And it was funny, Rob, because the, the news story written about that on ESPN.com was like, because the spurs won the game and Dylan Harper was awesome in order to win that game. But the start of the story was like Derek Queen, a beautiful angel who could do no wrong, had a triple double. But also Dylan Harper won the game for the Spurs.

[Kyle Mann]

He is a beautiful angel who can do no wrong. Except there's like some points every third or fourth game where he gets taken out of it completely because teams are putting him in action and he can't guard a damn thing. I'm not so concerned about that at this point, but it's, it's a factor. You know, I ultimately I'm very excited about the 33 point domination in a loss against the spurs. Or I thought he acclimated himself really well in that overtime loss against the Wolves too. Like he's just had games on, games like this lately where every time he puts together these like really like big time performances, you just start to feel the Pelicans shifting as an organization under their feet. You start to feel something really coalescing here in terms of if you are not putting your time and energy and attention behind Derek Queen, given what he is showing you in real time, what are you doing? Like, what else does this organization have to show for itself?

[Rob Mahoney]

My guy's a full blown hub, man. I mean and I think the thing that we worried the most about when he was coming into the league, the thing that pushed me more towards thinking he might be more of a Boris Diao type, the Boris type, because he was a little bit here or there, his interest in the game, whatever game it was or whatever environment was, would go up and down. But the scoring was the main thing where I was like, if he's not going to be able to consistently score, he's going to have to be. I don't know how much of a focal point he can be. But dude, I mean his big thing, you know, we were talking at our ringer end of year thing about, you know, this the one of the ones in on the list. I'll bury the lead, spoil it. But was the. Derek Queen shot the game winner. And the thing that he did on that game winner that was so crazy was he took the ball from the top of the arc and took these giant steps and then changed direction and shot this feathery, soft shot off the top of the glass. And he did that over a big. And I think that's. That is the kind of. That's the crux. That's the genesis. That's the place where he becomes a really unique player. In transition. Against the spurs, there was a really painful moment where I just rewound it. I know everybody did, but poor Luke Cornett was trying to flip his hips against Derrick Queen in transition, and he tripped over his own feet. And I was like, oh, my Jesus. But that's the thing, man. He can just attack Biggs in a way that few guys like him can. Like, there's just. It's a short list.

[Kyle Mann]

Yes. There's a part of him that is basketball savant. There is a part of him that's like the ballet hippos in Fantasia just kind of twirling around people, you know, it's like the very unusual combination of that kind of size and that kind of, like, dexterity in every sense of that. That word possible. It's.

[Justin Barrier]

It's remarkable. I'm glad you mentioned that because that's the hippos popping. Yeah.

[Kyle Mann]

Okay.

[Justin Barrier]

Thank you, Dancing Bears as well, because I was the guy I keep thinking about, and we've tossed around a couple comps for him is DeMarcus Cousins, because cousins was more violent in his physicality. But the thing that always jumped out to me with Cousins was his nimbleness. And he's the type of guy who's like pushing 300 pounds, but you could think he could do a back handspring just because of what a freak physical athlete he is. But the thing that always really jumped out to me with Cousins, who I was there when he got traded to New Orleans, was like, the. His touch on everything. And I always thought it was notable that when all the bigs in the league started to put up threes, when that became kind of a necessity for those guys, Cousins was the one who, like, adapted to that immediately. His three point numbers and his attempts were just, like, pretty in line with a good shooter, like, immediately, whereas, like, 80 and some of these other guys struggled. He's just like. There's something about him where the big old physicality is belied by just this like, unique touch. And when I watch Queen, like, he's just making these sorts of like balletic, just like really easy movements that you wouldn't expect for someone of that size. Yeah.

[Kyle Mann]

I think the difference between Cousins and him, to me is there is a. To your point about the physicality of demarcus Cousins, Justin, there was always something with Boogie where it's like he almost wants the path of most resistance. Like he wants to go through the guy to score.

[Justin Barrier]

He's a psychopath. Yeah.

[Kyle Mann]

I mean, like, in a good way, in a competitive way, in a clearly productive way.

[Justin Barrier]

I mean, also in bad ways.

[Kyle Mann]

Yes, well, sure. I mean, it's a little of all of the above. And Derek Queen has like, he has some of that. He has some bully ball instincts for sure, but he has also has like a. A glancing blow sort of thing where on his drives he's bumping, like by you, but not through you in a way that I think facilitates kind of getting through these crowds in. In a modern NBA sense, he kind.

[Rob Mahoney]

Of makes you wonder what he even is, because he doesn't. Like you were saying, he. He is sort of a hybrid between that really great ability to decelerate and slow his steps down and then he can kind of.

[Kyle Mann]

But.

[Rob Mahoney]

But I was. I was comparing him to. Arizona has a kid named Koa Pete who does a similar thing where he can body you and back you down, but he honestly kind of tenderizes you a little bit and get. And. And then. And then, you know, he doesn't want to just like, bury you and shovel dirt on you. Although he can. But Queen is doing that a whole lot too. A lot of the just angular little flips. His hands are just really great. You were talking about the defense. I feel like that's a whole, you know, just frontier of the questions about him.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

And who he's going to be for them and how they're going to build around him and get the most out of him on offense without having this just glaring, you know, weakness on defense or whatever it's going to be. Yeah. I just think his nimbleness is. Cousins is a good guy to bring up. There's some Z Bo, there's some Shingun, there's some. He's. He's definitely in that phylum of player. Yeah.

[Justin Barrier]

Cousins was such a tour de force that I remember when he got traded there that the entire organization had like a meeting where. Where everyone had to come to terms where, like, this is a different type of guy. Like, you just have to watch yourself and I remember talking to beat writers for the Kings at that time, where they're like, he reads everything and he will hold you accountable to every word that you said. And I was like, oh, so he's like, he was the type of person where you, like, everyone had to watch out for him. It doesn't seem like that with, with Queen. If anything, he seems, like, almost very gentle off the court and like, almost has, like, this more Zebo style of spirit to him, which I kind of appreciate.

[Kyle Mann]

I mean, these days, the idea of anyone reading anything seems awfully quaint. So I, I, he was ahead of his, well, ahead of his time, behind his time. I'm not even sure which one it is.

[Rob Mahoney]

You don't think any. Oh, well, you, any person, literally any person read anything.

[Kyle Mann]

I mean, any person.

[Rob Mahoney]

Absolutely.

[Kyle Mann]

NBA players do not read everything. They read the quote excerpt that goes around on Twitter that their friend sent them and then do not read the thing, because why would they read that? The thing?

[Justin Barrier]

Yes. This was a little bit of a time when, like, people actually saw blogs and you actually went to Twitter to find things and you could find things.

[Rob Mahoney]

This is before I was covering the NBA, but obviously, huge DeMarcus Cousins fan. I named my dog Boogie, one of my favorite players ever. But before I was covering the NBA, I bought one of those dry fit jerseys because, you know, I'm not, I'm just not going to be wearing jerseys. I will wear, you know, a sweater vest and look like the Mean Street Posse, like we were joking about. Another story for another time.

[Kyle Mann]

Wait, you won't wear a jersey, but you will wear a dry fit jersey?

[Rob Mahoney]

I did one. No, wait. I won't wear a jersey, but I will wear a T shirt that's dry fit material. That's different. That's. I feel a, A jersey with no shirt under it is kind of what I'm saying. Like, I'll wear a jersey, but not.

[Justin Barrier]

A, I'm not doing any of these.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah, I feel like neither is a great fit.

[Rob Mahoney]

You know, I don't wear a ton of them anymore. Yeah, the point, the point here is this is just a little anecdote. I bought a, a DeMarcus Cousins jersey when he went to NOLA and he tore his Achilles, like, the next day after I bought it. And I never wore it again because I felt like that was cursed. And I was like, I'm gonna tear my Achilles. I felt spiritually, I felt like I couldn't wear it, and I never did. There you go.

[Kyle Mann]

You gotta bury that thing. You can never even look at it again. Frankly, it's just all kinds of bad energy coming off of that jersey.

[Justin Barrier]

I mean, speaking ahead of their time, the AD Cousins pairing was pretty much ahead of his. True, like, I did want to really see that team in the playoffs. I wasn't there at that point, but like, they did pretty well. That's the series. They blitzed the Blazers in the first round and they probably would have give the Warriors a strong go of it in the second round as well. But it's a question for like, Queen too. Like, like, in terms of his pairing, do you guys have, in the, like two weeks since we've talked about him, have any additional insight into like, how you fill things out around him?

[Kyle Mann]

Well, I think this is one of the areas in which some of our conversations are lagging a little bit behind the actual state of the game right now. Because right now teams are going big. They're really hitting the offensive glass. Like, the paradigm of the NBA is changing rapidly. And so much of the conversation around Derek Queen is kind of conceptualizing him as the one big in a space out offense. And I think the way that the game is being played right now, it's much more viable to put him alongside another, like another cooperative big who would be able to cover up for him defensively and protect the rim in ways that are never going to be super comfortable for him. And you can have a little bit of balance between them in that way, in a way that I think could be like ultimately very solvent, very exciting. I think that that is, that is the direction I would be looking in is who is the big we can put next to him, where even if neither of them is a pure spacer, they have enough ball skills between them and the other. The other big is like a just a knockout rim protector. That would be my ideal kind of pairing for Queen.

[Rob Mahoney]

I mean, it'd be somebody, I mean, Miles. Miles signed that deal with. Because the idea of Miles doing that for Giannis is sort of similar. I guess Nas wouldn't really fit that description. No, you wouldn't want to go get Busovich because you'd score a lot of points, but you wouldn't guard anybody. I'm just trying to think of like, I mean, Jaren Jackson would be fun.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah, that could be fun.

[Rob Mahoney]

How would you. Why would you. How would you get that done?

[Kyle Mann]

It's, it's like, not literally, but The Anthony Davis DeMarcus Cousins pairing is telling. Like, it's saying the idea of an Anthony Davis type is patently ridiculous. But if such a thing did exist and could be replicated. That would be a good place to start.

[Justin Barrier]

Isaiah Blakely, our producer, suggests poor Zingis. That makes some sense. But you're right because the real beauty of Davis Cousins was the passing between them. They're both just so brilliant as big passers that like the synergy there. Just like the ball really pinged when things were going right. Yeah, it's interesting. It seems like not only did the Rockets stumble onto something like other teams took note of their success of being really big in the playoffs because teams have followed suit. Fred Katz has a really good article about that in the Athletic Day. I recommend that to anybody who's interested in this stuff, but it seems like teams are going bigger and they're also crashing the boards not just with two guys but like really selling out to do so.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah, that. That balance of like transition defense versus offensive rebounding. We are in a whole new frontier, unfortunately for Doc.

[Justin Barrier]

Quick question before we get into like bigger picture Pelican stuff. So we're not going to do Defensive Player of the Year after a quarter, but we are going to do Rookie of the Year because that's the obvious conversation with Queen. I would say it's more Queen Knipple because Flag has come on, but I would still probably put him third. If we're just going by what we have seen over the first quarter, where do you guys land?

[Kyle Mann]

I think that's probably the two right now, but I wouldn't be shocked if in two months Cooper has really shot up into that conversation in a different way just by the nature of how the Mavs lineup is changing. And he just seems ultimately a lot more confident settling into that sort of role.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's where I am too. I mean, Con was really terrific to start the season and we've seen just sort of. It's. It's definitely a scoreboard at a minor league baseball game kind of thing where they surged ahead and then Queen is surging ahead now and there's. I do think that there's wiggle room for. For Cooper to, to put it together. But Eidling Khan still.

[Kyle Mann]

I think so too.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's close. It's close. I mean this, this class has just been really, really terrific. I'm excited to see there there the arcs that there are more arcs that are peaking higher than I even expected that have the chance to have a high. A higher trajectory at their high points than even I expected. So excited to see that those unfold.

[Kyle Mann]

It's a funky thing, Justin, because Con Canyeple is Like on our ringer top 100 right now. Like, he's been, he's been that good consistently to warrant that kind of appreciation. And yet we have the breakout conversation about Derek Queen. I think in part because the best version of Derek Queen is a franchise changing player. The best version of Con Canyble is really, really good. I think the jury's still out on how high that ceiling goes. Exactly. And is that a low level star? Is that a consistent all star? Whatever. The best version of Con turns out to be, like, the floor is great, but the ceiling with Derek Queen is mesmerizing and is the kind of thing that deserves being kind of bandied about and figured out. Yeah.

[Justin Barrier]

Queen is just a spectacle in the way that Khan is not. It's kind of like watching him with Fears, who in his own right will have these plays where it's like, whoa, like, how did you just do that? Like, he just jumps like, almost like a. Like a jumping bug. I don't even know like a thing.

[Kyle Mann]

That jumps, you know.

[Justin Barrier]

But it's almost like, what if Z Bo played with a Java Minion? Yeah, exactly. What if Zebo played with like a Ja Morant type as opposed to a Mike Conley type who was like the, the. The picture of steadiness and just like that just caretaker. But like Fears has those like moments of electricity where you're like, oh my God. But Cannonball is like, he's 46, 40, 91 right now. He scored big moments with guys around him, without guys around him. I think he's like the clear of the quarter rookie. But you're right, I think this is a wide open race. There's a lot of guys who've been playing well recently.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Justin Barrier]

Including Dylan Harper, by the way, who looked incredible.

[Rob Mahoney]

Holy smokes.

[Justin Barrier]

Took the T shirt off and all of a sudden looks like a big boy.

[Rob Mahoney]

Some people can have the option to take the T shirt off. I was, I was a BPT under jersey kid even when I was playing in high school. So I can't really. I was really glad Tyler shouted out Mike Gansey, by the way. I was just gonna say though, in his article. And people aren't gonna know what I'm talking about. In his league pass article, there's a T shirt.

[Kyle Mann]

I do know what you're talking about. Everyone should know about Mike Gansey.

[Rob Mahoney]

He's in the NBA now, so there we go. It's not as obscure as we would think, but. No, I mean, the baseline of what Khan does has translated so well and I wanted to Also shout out just how stable, like clearly stable mentally he is out there if you ever just see him. I think that's a really underrated thing about shooters. And I mean that's not an original thought I've had shooting people say that to me that that's one of the most like underrated traits that a guy who trades on shooting can have is just to have a really stable personality. Not too high, not too low. He just, he knows, he knows where the value, you know, ads are in his game and he sticks to them. But I also think, I really do think that there are areas where he can expand and create for himself with some of the like dribble, pull up stuff and just being aggressive. I don't know he's ever going to be like a getting to the rim kind of monster, but he has a lot of upside, man. I was going to ask you all, what do you think Fears has done to the Jordan pool conversation? Do you think that they have looked at this and be like we suddenly have two of these things? Because I've said over and over again I was wrong about it. Looks like I'm going to be very wrong about Fears. What, what do you, what do you, do you think he's affected how they feel about pool at all?

[Kyle Mann]

I don't really know what brought them to acquire Jordan Poole in the first place is the problem.

[Justin Barrier]

Yeah, I don't know how to put myself in the mindset of the Pelicans front office because they do things that are really weird.

[Kyle Mann]

So.

[Justin Barrier]

But if you're saying like a normal front office, like probably wouldn't have acquired pool to begin with, but like I have been encouraged by the fact that they haven't been precious about playing veterans over the young guys. As soon as the young guys popped, seemed like they were willing to lean into it. And it's probably a good segue to talk about the more bigger picture because it sounds like in the background of all this they're more open. According to reports which are just rumors, which are just people talking to take offers, listen to offers about some of the veterans that they, the front office didn't bring in. The Trey Murphy's the old guard in air quotes because they're still like 25 or whatever. But Herb Jones, Trey Murphy, Zion Williamson, this regime did not draft them. And so naturally I think they're more open to exploring them or at least according to what people are saying. I don't get that because Murphy and Herb in particular seem to be like the perfect structure you would want around some of these young budding rookies. I assume you guys kind of feel the same way. Where are you on Trey and Herb right now, Rob?

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah, I mean, you're right that there's no reason you urgently need to trade a 25 year old who's under contract for a long time and improving basically by the day. Like, that's not a thing you have to do. The reason you do it, if they do, is just to straight up lengthen the Runway. It's that you have just consciously decided we are such a Derek Queen team. We want to lengthen this thing out. We want to get as much draft capital potentially as you can or, you know, young prospects who are already established in the league, whatever that looks like. The Trey Murphy part of it, I just don't really see. I think the combination of he's so useful to the Pelicans in whatever form their team takes and also so potentially useful to every other team that they could really drive an incredibly hard bargain in terms of what they want back for him that other teams I think would maybe even blanch at because he's quite valuable. But is he multiple first round picks valuable? Is he picks and young players valuable? Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. But I just don't see a world in which Trey Murphy gets moved in relatively short order necessarily.

[Rob Mahoney]

He's going to get the McHale Bridges treatment and get somebody like way over swing for him.

[Justin Barrier]

That means the question because I also think the market has moved to where you're hearing that like people aren't going to be as willing to fork over the four picks for just like a normal, like potential all Star, not just like a true blue.

[Kyle Mann]

Yes.

[Justin Barrier]

Superstar.

[Kyle Mann]

But this is why I think people will, they'll look at the Pelicans. Look, if you're, if you're a contending team, a competitive team, a playoff team and you need wings, the Pelicans should be your first call like they really should because of where they are in the marketplace, because they're at this transition point and I think very importantly because they have both of these guys and I guess three, if you want to throw Sadiq Bay in there as kind of a combo forward who's not as good as Herb Jones and Trey Murphy, but pretty decent this season, it could be useful to a bunch of different teams.

Yeah, that dude could chew up some minutes, no problem.

[Justin Barrier]

But if you.

[Kyle Mann]

Why are you doing this to me? If you see the market for Trey Murphy and you're like, that's a little rich for my blood Just get in the other aisle, like, get in the other line and come in for Herb Jones with a more moderate offer because I don't think he's quite as appealing like an all around offensive player. And maybe you can tap into that market in a way that feels a little more reasonable for where your team is.

[Justin Barrier]

Or what if you traded for both of them? Oh, that just blow your mind.

[Kyle Mann]

It did blow my mind. Who is trading for both Trey Murphy and Herb Jones? Justin?

[Justin Barrier]

All right, we're going to go to the extreme route real quick because. So Troy Weaver comes from Detroit.

[Kyle Mann]

Sure.

[Justin Barrier]

Hearing a lot of like, Troy Weaver was really the. The guy who drafted all these guys, by the way. Like, I've had two people in the league be like, Frey. Weaver knew what he was doing there. He just didn't add shooters quickly enough in order to save his own bacon, which I think there's actually some truth to. But Trajan Langdon from the Pelicans, former GM of the Pelicans, went to Detroit, added those shooters, and they've been successful as a result. What if they just basically are like, I want my guys back and you get your guys back? And so the deal I have down here, which I'll be honest, I don't love, but I think there's something in the mix here that maybe helps you guys can help me unspool. Tobias Harris expiring contract Asar and Ivy for Murphy, Herb and Bay.

[Kyle Mann]

I don't know that I'm trading a Sar Thompson in a deal like, in a deal like this. Well, I have two sticking points from Detroit's perspective, I guess three, if you want to include the Pistons, are really good. And I think moving past the inertia of that is like, you have to be convinced of something. Right. Trading a star Thompson is a real turn off for me. Like, I'm very invested in his future. And especially if you're talking about flipping him for someone like Herb Jones. It's like, who's to say Sr. Thompson can't be Herb Jones in two years? Like, who's to say he can't be along that kind of track?

[Rob Mahoney]

He could be a more dominant defender. I think he.

[Kyle Mann]

Oh, for sure.

[Rob Mahoney]

In the conversation.

[Kyle Mann]

But I mean, offensively, like, who's to say he couldn't have the Herb Jones offensive skill set in a couple of years? I believe he has that in him. The other part of this too, that gets really tricky is it's very, it's very tempting, Justin, to include Tobias Harris in these deals because of his salary, kind of really important to the Pistons in very specific ways in this one. I love any construction that gets Trey Murphy to the Pistons like that. That's a. That's a match that I would love to see happen. But if you swap him in for Tobias Harris and other players and picks and stuff, who is guarding power forwards on that team? Because Trey Murphy is much more of like a natural wing defender to me than a four defender. And so then Isaiah Stewart is playing bigger minutes or like a spot matchup, which is fine, but maybe ultimately you're putting too many balls in the air with that kind of thing. I just get a little nervous about what you're giving up in. In girth, you know, in. In some. In kind of. Some of that physicality and size. That is not necessarily Troy Murphy's for forte. Trey Murphy not. It is. It was kind of Troy Murph. Troy Murphy's forte. Too many trays and Troys going on right now.

[Rob Mahoney]

Murphy, Notre Dame legend. Yeah. Asar would be the only thing from that. Yeah, I mean the, the. The expiring is attractive. Obviously. I want to get picks up. I. I don't know, like for the. For what I'm trying to do. I don't really know that that's an attractive deal for me if I'm the Pelicans, to be honest. Because you. You don't want to stack anymore.

It would be a sar. That'd be the only one. But I, I don't. I just think that would. That's a. That deal would blow up before it could even get started. I just don't. I don't think it can happen.

[Justin Barrier]

I think the Pistons give up too much. I was trying to do it without Ivy in it because I don't even know what Ivy's value is at this point because he's due a new contract and he's been hurt and he really hasn't played significant minutes at this point. But if he all of a sudden turns this around, he could be electric. But then like the Pelicans still have like Dejounte Murray in the. In the coffers just like hanging around. Probably gonna play next year, I would assume. And so.

[Kyle Mann]

And that's like next calendar year, like not even next season. He will. He will probably play in January, February, something like that.

[Justin Barrier]

Right. And another wrinkle to all this is herbal. I'm never sure where he is as a shooter. Like he started the season hot and then all of a sudden it craters and he just hasn't really had that like back to back season where of knockdown shooting where like I know I could have it. And so if you're dealing for Murphy, who's just a lights out volume shooter, but like Herb a little bit iffier Bay also somewhere in the 35 range, it's dicey. But the one thing you would count on is Herb is a badass and Murphy kind of follows suit in there. And so Herb really kind of of like embraces the identity. He could play bigger. Talking about like guarding fours. Like they were calling him a center at a certain point with the Pelicans, but not really, but like he guards bigger guys.

[Kyle Mann]

Yes. And so I think they could get into that conversation for sure for like one of the two. Right. It just depends on if you can get Trey Murphy without giving up too much size, if you can trade for Herb in a way where you're not selling out just too much in terms of pure talent. Like is a. Is a Ron Holland, Karis Lavert and one to two picks kind of thing. Enough to get some stuff going depending on who you're targeting between those two wings.

[Justin Barrier]

Ron Holland, Charis Laverton. Picks.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah, like it like one to two firsts for. For one of. Let's say, you know, if you're obviously, if you're trading for Murphy, maybe it's more in the two picks kind of range if you're trading for. For Herb Jones and a little less.

[Justin Barrier]

I don't move Murphy for anything less than a SAR and other stuff.

I don't know where you guys are on Holland, but that's practically what this comes down to. Are you guys still high on him? Is like a sar 2.0.

[Kyle Mann]

I guess.

I'm not for the Pistons, but as far as like what are the kinds of players I would want around? Derek Queen, an intuitive cutter and physical defender on the wing is like, that's a, that's a pretty appealing option.

[Rob Mahoney]

Cutters for sure, but cutters who are, you know, dubious shooters is tough.

[Justin Barrier]

You.

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't know what are the, what are the optimal players around him? If we're thinking of him, we, we know we have to protect him on defense. We know we want to have shooting around him. I think I need to have somebody.

[Kyle Mann]

I don't know.

[Rob Mahoney]

I keep thinking marking it as the guy that you think of for every team because he just unlocks so many different things. I don't know. I just. I don't know that they have the pieces. I just keep coming back to. I just don't know. Like I said, Ivy, I just don't think so Holland, granted. I don't know. Good. Could. Could Holland and Queen play together? Is that going to be. You're still going to get bullied by really big sinners, so.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mann]

I don't know. It's funny that you mentioned marketing though, Kyle, because I feel like Trey Murphy and Markkanen are from a similar word cloud. You know, like there's, you know, Murphy is much more of a defender than market is a much more explosive score. But they both shoot on the move really well. They both have the size, they both have the handle and can facilitate. Like there's something about the market market of all the teams you would consider in that pool where it's like, you know what if you think you're out of it, if you think Utah just isn't going to move Laurie Markkanen, then you should put in a call about Trey Murphy and see if that kind of, you know, slight step down and off to the side fit could also suit your needs.

[Justin Barrier]

Can I throw another wild one at you, please, as we record this at 9:35pm this is just a wild Tuesday night here.

[Rob Mahoney]

12:35Am.

[Kyle Mann]

Check your pronouns, Justin.

[Justin Barrier]

Austin Reeves lost expirings for Murphy and Herb.

[Kyle Mann]

Wow.

[Rob Mahoney]

I had Lakers too. I didn't dare go to Austin. I. I probably made more of a poo poo platter.

[Kyle Mann]

You were.

[Rob Mahoney]

You were really giving Trey a lot of credit. I don't. I don't think they're going to move. Optionality is way too good. Can't do it.

[Justin Barrier]

It's a good way to recalibrate where we are with Reeves. I ultimately end up there as well. But I think the advantage would be similar to how the. The. The Nuggets opened up space to sign other guys by trading Michael Porter Jr. By not having to pay Reeves and Max getting two guys that fit around Luca. Can you then use the rest of your assets to go fill out the front court and then just build a complete team next year? That would be one of the advantages. I also think Murphy would be very good next year.

[Kyle Mann]

He would, but so would Herb Jones. Like, I think maybe. Maybe the option I would take if I were the Lakers is just. Is there a platter approach between picks and contracts to get Herb on your team without giving up someone like Austin Reeves?

[Justin Barrier]

It gets weak.

[Kyle Mann]

It does get bleak, but stranger things have happened and certainly stranger things have fallen into the Lakers lap.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, I'm just saying I could. I could probably get a pick. You think I could get a pick? And then, you know, I don't know Maxi's expiring. I'm just trying to think I'd want a player back though too, if I'm New Orleans, so. But I had New Orleans down for Trey Murphy too. Just because you get. You get intoxicated with the idea of that, I mean, it would just be awesome.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah.

[Justin Barrier]

On the lower end. So we're just looking at Herb Jones here, which I think is where a lot of contenders will probably end up. Like, I have the warriors down here. I have the Nets even, like if I just bring someone who's like a steady, feisty veteran into my young team, I also think he could have that effect on them in the same way he did on the young Pelicans as a rookie where he was just a badass in a first round series against the Suns. Speaking of the Suns, how do you like Malawatch for a front court companion to Queen? Kind of the opposite of what we were saying before. He's like, he's the big old road grader. I'm curious where he is. Kyle as a shooter, but young, talented center to perhaps like pair in the front court.

[Rob Mahoney]

There are those out there who think he's going to shoot the ball.

[Kyle Mann]

We've heard tell from some that he might shoot the ball someday.

[Rob Mahoney]

And they are not dummies. There are smart people out there that think he eventually will shoot the ball. I'm a little dubious of that.

They're not going to give up on Mile. Watch this quickly. Right. I mean, I feel like they, they're.

[Justin Barrier]

Built to win now.

[Kyle Mann]

They're built to win something now.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, they're. They're built to maybe challenge the OKC in the first round. If you're just looking at the basketball fit, I mean, Molach is just an obstacle. I think once, once he hits his, his peak, which he's, you know, because he's still 19 years old.

Spacing wise. Is that going to work? You know, Queen played in a two big system in college and the other shooter was. Or the other player was a non shooter. It was actually what's her name's brother Isaiah probably knows who I'm talking about from Maryland. Anyway, I'm sidetracked on that.

[Kyle Mann]

But just some woman from Maryland's brother.

[Rob Mahoney]

In an Angel Reese's brother, Isaiah.

[Justin Barrier]

Julian Reese. He says.

[Rob Mahoney]

Is that wrong? Maybe it is.

[Justin Barrier]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mann]

No, he said Julian Reese. Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mann]

Well, anyway, Angel Reese is the woman from Maryland.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's. It's Angel Reese's brother. Yeah. Derek. Derek played college ball with her brother. I knew that was right.

[Kyle Mann]

I just Never heard Angel Reese described as the woman from Maryland before.

[Rob Mahoney]

No, I was the. The rebounder is what I was trying. I was trying to access her name. Sorry, Parent brain.

Offensively, Yeah, I think spatially it would be a little bit of an issue just because, you know, Reese could at least roam a little bit in a way that I just don't, I don't know defenses are going to respect Malawatch. I mean, Rob, have you seen enough of Molly watch to have an opinion on him like that?

[Kyle Mann]

Absolutely not. I mean, my question with someone like Malawatches, are you differentiating enough from the jumpy pogo stick Eve me stuff to be a meaningful addition to your team?

[Rob Mahoney]

He's more glacial than me. See, I mean he's misi. At least flies up and down the floor. Mileage is a little bit of a slower movie, but mover, but he's just, he has roll gravity. He has crazy roll gravity. He dunks everything within five feet of the basket. Granted, in the NBA, I don't know how true that's been so far, but his hands need a little bit of work. Sure, it'd be a little tough. That'd be a longer term thing if you maybe bring him in and say like this could be a longer term bet. Maybe possibly.

[Kyle Mann]

Could I throw another set of Herb Jones destinations at you guys, please? I, first of all, I would love him for Denver. I don't see how they get it done given how like complicated their pick situation is. I just don't think they have enough to trade. The spurs, though, I think do have enough to trade and they could be a team that if they want to include multiple first for Herb Jones, they could do that. Kelly Olynux contract, I think works nicely as just like a filler swap.

I mean, that's cruel in its own way, but really the enticement would be something like if Atlanta's 2027 pick really gets your blood going, you know, like that maybe that's something you want to bet on. Maybe a future spurs pick with light protection or no protection if the spurs are willing to swing on it. I don't know that San Antonio does that when they're also potentially in like the Yanis sweepstakes and all this stuff. Like they could take big swings at almost any star who comes available who even vaguely fits their team. And if you are in that position, do you really give up potentially a first or multiple first for Herb Jones? I'm curious to hear what you guys think about that.

[Justin Barrier]

The problem with the spurs is that they already have guys in line to ultimately fill those roles. And so Carter Bryant, a guy that drafted in the lottery, is like, he barely gets on the court at this point. True. Could you just wait? And it seems like their MO has always been to stack these guys up, up and bet on the talent rather than go out and get someone. Even the price they paid for Fox was pretty modest and so I don't fault them for that even if it doesn't work out. And I think you're right. Ultimately, it's like if you're gonna make a swing, like you go for Giannis or.

[Kyle Mann]

Yes.

[Justin Barrier]

Real game changer. Not one of these like short term moves.

[Rob Mahoney]

But that need. I'm not antsy enough, I don't think. Yeah. Based on what Justin's saying, it's stockpiled so much. I mean, you know, Carter's super, super young and I haven't lost any faith in him. I'm still a big believer in him.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah, it's. I mean it's really not a need at all. It would be stacking strength on strength, but the, the concept of a defense that has Steph Castle and Herb Jones and Victor Webanyama is like a one size fits all vice grip that I would be very excited to see in action. That just had to say those three names in unison.

[Justin Barrier]

I have a couple other teams down here, but like they're not great. Honestly. It's more me thinking from the current regime of the Pelicans pov. Like they seem enamored with Kaminga and he seems not long for the Warriors. Although we said that for two years running. Like is Kaminga and picks enough to get Herb Jones for instance?

[Kyle Mann]

I mean a Kaminga for Herb Jones trade is. Is such like a ball knowers hell, you know, it's like it's so clear which one of these guys actually does something that helps you. And yet. And yet it might. I could see it happening.

[Justin Barrier]

The Nets, if they just want a plug and play center Nick Claxton and Nick's picks. But here's the thing, like if I was the Pelicans and I feel like my strength is talent identification, I would just be stacking picks.

[Rob Mahoney]

And the.

[Justin Barrier]

The cruel irony is they gave away next year's and that seemed like if they got these two right, they could have just kept this thing rolling and actually have been onto something as soon as like two years down the road unfortunately just doesn't seem where they're going.

[Kyle Mann]

All they had to do is protect the pick. We've said it a million times. All they had to do is protect the pick.

[Justin Barrier]

It's tough.

[Kyle Mann]

Very tough.

[Justin Barrier]

Have you guys thought about Zion trades.

[Kyle Mann]

Before we go to Zion? I have one more Herb Jones option to throw at you, Justin. This one might be painful to you personally because it involves your doppelganger, Max Streuss.

What do the Cavs need?

[Justin Barrier]

He's going to New Orleans just like I blazed the trail for him.

[Kyle Mann]

Exactly. He's going to follow in your footsteps. He's going to go to all your old haunts. Maybe you can just give him some advice if you like, if this happens. But the idea of Max Stru and like a distant, unprotected Cleveland first, that. I mean, who knows what could happen with that franchise. Maybe that's something to kind of get the wheels moving on a Herb Jones deal. It's. It's weird because Cleveland kind of needs offense in a way more than they need defense. But if they could become a, like an even more rock solid defense first team starring Donovan Mitchell, maybe that kind of identity shift could move them in a meaningful way.

[Justin Barrier]

I believe Cleveland's in the second apron, and this would have to get out of the second apron in order to execute that. But if they did, and there are ways to do that in the middle of the season, I think that that would work. They're a prime example of a team that's so committed to the now that just adding more is. Is the right move for them. I think.

[Kyle Mann]

I think I want to say that the salaries actually work even with the second apron considerations.

[Justin Barrier]

Okay, let me tell you. I'll be honest. If you tell me anything right now, I'll believe it. Because even the trade machines are confusing at this point.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Kyle Mann]

So I believe this is true. Max Drew makes slightly more money than Herb Jones. And because it's a one for one trade, which the Cavaliers can do and they're taking back less money in the process, I believe that would be legal so long as it's executed as such without needing to include any other players to entice the Pelicans. So it would have to be picks involved.

[Justin Barrier]

Okay, well, then I don't like it because I don't think Max Truce helps the Pelicans, but maybe not.

[Kyle Mann]

Also has not played a game this season. But. But he's a theoretically useful player.

[Justin Barrier]

Yeah. I look forward to handing over my Tinder account to him. Just like on one of those pillows. This is now yours, my son.

[Rob Mahoney]

Jesus Christ, Justin.

[Justin Barrier]

So if you thought that trade was. Was bottom of the barrel at this point.

[Rob Mahoney]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Kyle Mann]

That was. That was a sterling idea that you guys for no reason.

[Justin Barrier]

An injured caf guy for her.

[Rob Mahoney]

No.

[Kyle Mann]

I'm trading a future Cavs first round pick for Herb Jones. That's what's happening. Also that happens to include Max Drew.

[Justin Barrier]

That's the spin, baby. Zion deals at this point, like if they just got a productive player back, that seems like fair value. He's out yet again. I think if any team that's actually going to accept him on the current deal that he's on, as opposed to wait for them to waive him or whatever can happen with his non guaranteed contract. Look, you're not getting much back in return. And so I have teams listed here, but the return is quite modest. I had the Bulls first and foremost, but only for Kevin Herder's Bird rights ultimately.

[Kyle Mann]

Oh my God. Is it that. Is it that bleak?

[Justin Barrier]

I mean, I have the Heat down where it's just contracts and Jovic who didn't play tonight, the Nets, Claxton and the Warriors. It's Kamingo at least.

[Kyle Mann]

At least Claxton's pretty good.

[Rob Mahoney]

Good.

[Justin Barrier]

Cox is good. If you want to stop gap center.

[Rob Mahoney]

I guess I could get Clarkson back for Zion. That'd be amazing.

[Kyle Mann]

I think that would be. I think that'd be great for the Pelicans. But Jovic might be kind of the caliber of player that we're talking about. Someone who, like, in the eye of the beholder, you can talk yourself into that eye is not mine personally, but clearly even people within the Heat thought he was going to be. Something going into the season has just like, has not panned out within the system that they're trying to play.

[Justin Barrier]

You guys have any ideas?

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, I can see that.

[Kyle Mann]

I just.

[Rob Mahoney]

I didn't have a deal, but the Heat were. Were a team that I was eyeballing just in terms of just going 35,000ft, you know, their culture, them absorbing him that I, I think it'd have to be a. A team that was confident going back to Boogie the way that the warriors were. Like. We know we can absorb demarcus Cousins because what we have here is so stable.

That's. That would have to be. But it also would have. There's some teams that I just don't think would. Would break their.

Their code. You know, I just. There's. And I feel like Miami is one of the teams that's competent enough that they might try to do it.

[Kyle Mann]

But this is the catch 22 is Miami is confident enough to want to do it, but will they ever be desperate Enough to actually do it. You know, it's like there's a very fine line between believing you can bail yourself out of a situation, but also, if you could, wouldn't you have done it already?

[Rob Mahoney]

How desperate do you really need to be, though? You just said Jovic and so, you know, it doesn't seem.

[Kyle Mann]

I mean, the Heat have turned their noses up at all kinds of talented players over the years because they did not feel like they psychologically fit what they do there and thought they would be like a poor. A poor fit within the workplace. I cannot imagine, given what we know about Zion, that they would see him as a good fit. Would they see him as a worthy gamble nonetheless? Maybe, but they. They would have to bend some rules or bend Zion's sheer will in order to make that thing work.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's so weird because at Duke he played like Krzyzewski's a yeller man and like that. That was a pretty accountable environment. And it's just really strange.

[Kyle Mann]

It's not the on court stuff that I think anybody in Miami would be worried about. Zion on the court, you live with what he can't do or won't do. It's everything getting him on the court that's usually the problem, Right.

[Justin Barrier]

Yes. He would be available for 20 games and it would just be the same since cycle. Oh, yeah. Again, I think that the point we're ultimately circling here is it seems like there's an opportunity to be a seller in this market, especially if the east is going to be this deep. Like if all 10 teams think they have a shot, there's a clear opening for a seller. Will the Pelicans be that? I think they should to a certain degree because they're definitely not playing for anything. They're not going to reap anything from their draft pick. But. But we'll see because there's definitely a lot of scuttlebutt out there.

[Kyle Mann]

Yeah. Even if it just means, you know, trading Sadiq Bay and a couple of these other supporting players and not even touching the Trey Murphy class, I think it could be worth their time. I think even in the west, if you're a team that's a little worried about your size, matchup against the Rockets or the Nuggets. Kavon Looney is just like sitting there getting DNP CDS for the Pelicans, and I think he like that. That burl alone could be useful to you and he has a team option for next season that gives you an easy out if you need to trade him or move on. I think that's something that team should look into. I want. I want a designated body to throw in front of Steven Adams, frankly.

[Justin Barrier]

It's true. All right, why don't we wrap it there? The next time I see you boys, we'll all be in one room together. Kyle and I are flying out to LA to join Rob sleeping on his couch. We're going to tell horror stories at night and. And make some popcorn. Are you ready for that, Rob?

[Kyle Mann]

I'm thrilled about it. I mean, should we coordinate matching outfits or are we just doing the matching pajamas when you guys sleep over?

[Justin Barrier]

You hate matching outfits. We tried to do this in Indiana with the jerseys and you went along with it, but you're like, never again.

[Kyle Mann]

That wasn't a matching outfit. You love a bit outfit. That's a very different thing.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, I still have my sign. Damon Bailey and I had a Pacers jersey too, by the way.

[Kyle Mann]

Hell, yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Every. Every day I kind of pick it up and look at it and I'm like, not today, Damon.

[Kyle Mann]

My Pacers jersey, my Brad Miller Pacers jersey got rehomed to the great Trey Kirby, who I hope is treating it quite well. And I would. I would expect nothing less given he's the foremost Brad Miller fan.

[Justin Barrier]

That's beautiful. But yeah, we'll be out there doing two separate pods. One on Sunday, one in the middle of the week. Something special for you in the middle of the week. We're pretty excited about it, but we'll catch you next time on Sunday as usual. Thank you to Victoria Valencia. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely, both for staying up late for us to get into this hot cup action. We'll be back next time. We'll talk to you then. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 + and present in D.C. kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-Gambler or visit rg-help.com, call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chatincenectic it or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema. Org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text HOPE NY in New York.