← The Zach Lowe Show
The Zach Lowe Show
Harden’s Last Chance for a Title? Plus, Who’s on Notice After the Trade Deadline.
01:20:36
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- [00:01]
A
This episode is brought to you by Lincoln. Whether you're watching highlights while parked or heading out for a Drive, the 2026 Lincoln Nautilus Hybrid keeps you connected with smart tech that helps tie your on screen and off screen worlds together. So help turn every drive into an opportunity for discovery with a 2026 Lincoln Nautilus Hybrid. Learn more at lincoln.com available connectivity, features and functionality vary by model. Package pricing, trials and term lengths vary by model. Video streaming and games are only available while parked. Coming up after this on the Zach Lowe Show, Mo Takeil is here. We're going to talk X's and O's how new players are fitting in in new places after the trade deadline. And we're going to play my favorite post trade deadline game, who's on Notice? This goes back to my column writing days at Grantland way back when. Who's on notice after the trade deadline? It could be a player elevated into a new position within his team. It could be a team that stood pat and now everyone's under more pressure. Could be the league with tanking rules and other such things. We talk about a whole bunch of teams and players in this context. The Rockets, the Wolves, James Harden. Is this it for James Harden? Is this the last best chance to rewrite his postseason legacy? Darius Garland with the Clippers? Clippers are still sneakily kind of rolling along. Kawhi Leonard talk a lot about Kawhi. Has he been the best player in the NBA from like the last three months? Jokic has been hurt a lot, so there's a little caveat there. We talk about the Bulls. What are the Bulls doing? Where do they go from here? The Knicks tank of Palooza 2026? What in the hell are we supposed to do about that? It's already happening. It's February and teams are pulling their players in the fourth quarter. We get into all of that and more with the one and only Mo Takeil. The best of the business. That's all coming up on the Zach Lowe Show. This episode of the Zach Lowe show is brought to you by State Farm. Life's better when you've got the right help. Think of that perfect pass that sets everything up. Smooth, effortless. Just what your team needed. That's the kind of assist State Farm offers, whether it's online or in person. State Farm's your teammate when you need help making your next play. State Farm with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show. It's Monday. The trade deadline is over. We're going to talk about the fallout, how new players look in new places. But first, a reminder. The Zach Low show is coming live with special guests you may have heard of to the Brooklyn Paramount on March 16th. Tickets go on sale today. Go to the ringer.com events for details for tickets for everything. Again, the Zach Low show live in person. Human beings watching other human beings do a podcast. The Brooklyn Paramount theater Special guest March 16th theringer.com Events Mo De Kill is here. Mo, how are you?
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I'm doing great, Zach. I'm. I'm fired up, man. It's always fun to talk with you. And this one, this is going to be fun.
- [03:06]
A
Post Deadline Mondays with Mo. I like the sound of that. So I used to do a column way back in the day after the trade deadline. It was my kind of alternative to winners and losers, which everybody does. And it was who's on notice? That was the gimmick. And it was basically like, let's spotlight some teams, some coaches, some players, some whatever you want that are in the spotlight under more pressure, whatever the case may be in the aftermath of the trade deadline. So it could be a player who is suddenly more important to their team because of players who were traded away. It could be a coach who's under pressure because his general manager did nothing. It was like, this is on you to fix. It could be a player who's traded from a bad team to a good team and all of a sudden whether he plays well or poorly matters. It could be rules, NBA rules. We'll get to that. It could be anything. So we're going to know who's on notice. And I'm going to let you lead off. Mo Deel, number one pick who is on notice.
- [04:05]
B
This is going to be an upset for a number one pick who's on notice. Darius Garland is on notice of the Los Angeles Clippers. Zach, the Cavs gave up on him. He's 26 years old. They said, look, injury history. We're, we're trying to win a championship now. We were the number one team in the east last year. We flamed out. He missed a lot of the playoffs last year. He's been in and out of the lineup. This year, we're out. And they traded him for James Harden, got 10 years older in the process. Like Darius Garland, you're on notice because everybody's going to be seeing, how do you respond to this? How do you come back? He's coming back after the All Star break. I want to see what he does now for this Clipper team, because the Cavs just straight up gave up. Gave up. We're out. We're not in this business. It's not like they gave up and sent him and got, you know, multiple draft, like, built all this stuff up. It was James Harden, which is still a haul, and I'm sure we'll talk about that in a little bit. But in itself, it's not something where when you don't often go 10 years older, in that instance, if you're the Cavs, and I think that's something for me, if you're Darius Garland, you have to look at this as almost like a motivating factor. I know injuries have hurt you a bit, but you got to really kind of show out when you get on the floor for the Clippers, because that's it to me. You're on notice right off the bat.
- [05:27]
A
He's got toe stuff in both feet. And yeah, not only is it not the kind of trade you would expect, it's certainly not the kind of trade you would have expected necessarily in season, at the beginning of a season for a team that won 60, whatever games last year and blitzed all the way to the second round of the playoffs where they suffered injuries as they seem to do every playoff run, and Indiana just went on this incredible run and ran them out of the playoffs. And we all knew the Core 4 were on the clock this year. I don't think a lot of us expected that the core four, minus some sort of like, crazy Giannis deal or something, would expire so soon. And I've said it many times, it's an astonishing vote of no confidence in Darius Garland, because James Harden is a great player. He's a better player right now than Darius Garland. He's more durable, he's healthier, he fits in well with the Cavs. I think we saw that even in their first game against the Kings over the weekend. And, and, and yet it's still like, you know, we know the big game track record of James Harden, like, if you have a, if you're a team that has struggled in big games before, not necessarily the first place that I would look, but he's going to get yet another chance to rewrite his postseason legacy. And he was actually my number one pick for on Notice. So it's good that we're starting with this trade, which really, when you look at the trade deadline, bizarrely, almost all of the other aggressive win now trades were made by teams who are tanking and losing, and at the bottom of the Standings. Indiana getting Zubots, Washington getting AD, the Jazz getting Jaren Jackson Jr. This was really the only big move at the top of the standings. So let's start with the Clippers then because like the Clippers are sort of the forgotten team here. You know, people looked at this trade and the Zubots trade in conjunction and said, well, obviously they're, they don't care about this season anymore. Yeah, they don't own their pick. The pick goes to Oklahoma City. Wow, what a win for Oklahoma City. If this team slips into the lottery or out of the play in or whatever and then they go out and they win their first game. New look. Clippers in Minnesota by a million points. Chris Dunn and Julius Randle get into a fight. Kawhi Leonard has another 40 point masterpiece. They're 25 and 27. They're four games up on the 10th seed. No one outside of the play in tournament is currently trying to get into the play in tournament. So the Clippers, despite their subtractions, are probably going to almost certainly going to get in the play in tournament. They're only two games out of the warriors who are injury ravaged and just sort of a mismatch of like who's starting tonight. G. Santos is heavily involved now. They could get up into the eighth spot, which is a big deal in how the play in works. And they're still kind of a good team. And now they have this wild card coming in, Darius Garland. And a couple questions I would have for you before we get to the sexier part of this, which is the Cavs is like who does Darius Garland replace in the starting five? They've now been starting with Derrick Jones Jr back Chris Dunn, Kawhi Derrick Jones Jr John Collins, Brook Lopez. Who do you take out to put Darius Garland in?
- [08:23]
B
Yeah, that's a tough one there. I think one he's definitely starting. There's no questions about that. But I think it comes down to Chris Dunn OR Derrick Jones Jr. And I, I think I lean a little bit towards Derrick Jones Jr. Part of it is getting, you want to get him back up to speed after he's missed a lot of time and you want to get him back in the flow of things. But for the most part, like I think you put him in and I, I'm excited for Garland in this sense. He's going to have a defense behind him and not just in Jared Allen. He had that with Allen and Mobley. But now he has guards behind him.
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A
Right.
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Kawhi Derrick Jones Jr. In this case or done if it Goes the other way. It's not the situation where the defensive backcourt's going to be just a liability, which, which is what it was in Cleveland to a degree. I feel like this is one of those areas where they start with, I think for the most part I put him in. In instead of Chris Dunn and then bring Dunn in a little bit later.
- [09:22]
A
That Derrick Jones Jr. Was also my answer. There's no great answer. I mean, you could argue there are three candidates in Dunn, Derek Jones Jr. And John Collins. I would say Collins has basically played himself out of this discussion. He's made a million corner threes. He adds a little size, a little juice. Yeah, you know, he's operating, I think more as a floor spacer and less as a pick and roll dive guy, even with Brook Lopez at center than, than they had imagined. But it's working fine. Chris Dunn has been good enough as a starter. Again, 36% on threes. He's had. He's. He's sort of tapped into this Davion Mitchell style bully ball, one on one isolation game where he just kind of crosses over, crosses over, hits you with the shoulder and makes a floater like he's doing enough. And Derek Jones Jr. Has been out for so much of the season that this, this group kind of has a rhythm. I, I can't wait to see how it works. Like the Kawhi Garland pick and roll partnership could be really dynamic. Kawhi is just hunting small guards over and over again in these games. And Garland is a much more dangerous screener, flare out for threes, whatever, than anyone else on the team. And look, they're probably going to hang around Neiderhauser off the bench. I really like backing up Brook Lopez, Miller, Sanders. These young guys are giving them good minutes. You know, Goldsberry and I talked about the conspiracy theories of why the Clippers did these trades and you know why. Kawhi is inevitably going to be the last man standing. Why Kawhi just may be a Clipper for life. Lawrence Frank got a contract extension. I'm not sure about the other members of the front office. I suspect they did or will soon. On the, on the basketball merits. These are both good trades for the Clippers. So until and unless proven otherwise, I'm going to say that they made them for basketball. All merit reasons. Getting Garland for James Harden, who wants to get paid and wasn't going to get paid in la is to me a home run for the Clippers and then the Zoo pick. The picks they got for Zoo are, are super valuable on the garland. Kawhi fit. I'll just ask you this, like, I'm watching Kawhi against Minnesota last night and like, just completely unstoppable, making every mid range shot look easy. Um, you know, he had this one where he kind of lost the ball on the way up, hung in the air, regathered the ball and flicked in a line drive on the way down. Shooting tons of threes. Making tons of threes. Defense is not quite peak. Leonard, where it was, you know, four or five years ago and he was the best defense player in the league, was very good. I'll just put it to you this way. And this is a little unfair since Jokic has been out so much. Has Kawhi just been flat out the best player in the NBA since Thanksgiving, basically when he came back? I mean, has anyone been better than Kawhi in that Spanish?
- [12:05]
B
I don't think so. I think it's, it's along the lines of just watching him kind of sort of get back in the flow of things. And this is his longest streak of scoring 20 or more. I think it's 31 games now at this point. That's nine games longer than he's ever had in his, his run. I think he's playing at a level in which this is, this is the Kawhi we saw last season that led to guys like Bill, myself and others kind of going like this Clipper team might be a problem come playoff time. Like this was the stuff we were seeing from Kawhi, that sense. And yes, he is playing at that level. And then you mentioned the defense kind of not even being, you know, Kawhi Leonard type. But he still had two back to back plays in that game against Minnesota. One helping off the pick and roll, picking off a pass to Rudy on a, a roll. And then the other one, which is like vintage Kawhi to me, he just ripped the ball out of McDaniel's hands when he was trying to hit a pass to the corner. And I'm just watching this stuff going like, yeah, this is Kawhi's. You can tell he's feeling good at this point and you got to knock on wood massively for him in that sense. But like this is where he's beginning to flow and finding his rhythm and everything. And he's just perfectly in tuned right now with his body and the game. And I think that's the thing that's really beautiful when you're watching him play. And I don't think there's really A discussion about, you know, this debate. Since Thanksgiving, he has been the best basketball player. He's fifth in scoring. I think right now he's shoot true shooting percentage at around 62%. Like when you're watching him poop, you're just like, damn, man. Like he's, he's back to being Kawhi.
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Yeah. Since November 23rd, he's played 33 games, 29 points a game, 49% shooting, 39% on tons of threes, six rebounds, four assists, two steals a game. And yeah, like when I say he's not quite Kawhi from five or six years ago, like I'm saying he's not quite the greatest perimeter defender maybe in the history of basketball, but he's like 90% of that and just taking the ball away from guys and reading passing lanes and just like you can't score on them. And I'm just sitting there watching him. And they ran the same play over and over against Minnesota and you see it a lot now and you're going to see it more with Harden gone. Kawhi starts in the left corner, comes off a pin down, kind of elbow extended, then takes a handoff from a second screener and it's kind of like a high speed pick and roll and they ran it over and over. His usage is going to skyrocket. The minutes where he sits now are going to have to be Garland's minutes. Right now they're sort of like, all right, no Harden, no Garland, no Kawaii. We just got to figure this out. And I'm like, I'm watching this and maybe I'm just scarred by everything that's happened. I'm like, man, how, how, like how long can he hold up under this level of usage? Because they're counting on him to be MVP level. Super high usage, Kawhi every possession. But he's been up to it so far. And I think, look, Jokic is the best player in the NBA. Had he played as many games as Kawhi in this span or nearly as many, he would be number one in this discussion. But Kawhi has been that good. He's been the best player of the NBA for two and a half months. I think.
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Yeah, I don't think it's really that debatable. I think some people kind of written off the Clippers. Look, they started the season 6 and 21. Since then, I think it's 19 and 6 in the run that they're, they're on right now. We'll see what it looks like With Garland and I think it's going to be really important. You know we're, we're putting guys on notice and just off the top of my head, all the others for the Clippers are also on notice. Brooke Lopez has got to step up a little bit with Zubotz gone. Needed Howard Hauser, excuse me as you, you kind of talked about. And then it's guys like Chris Dunn when Kawhi goes to the bench and it's Garland's minutes. Dunn's probably going to be on the floor. You got to be not just be able to not continue to knock down threes to spread the floor but you're going to be the main primary defender on whoever's on other backcourt is the main guy. I think these are all guys that are going to be on notice to a smaller degree than Garland. But I think it's going to be really fascinating. Like I cannot wait to see this. Just to see what it looks like on the floor and how it kind of comes together. Like this is going to be the fun stuff.
- [16:07]
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Now you mentioned 19 and 6, which I think is as of after last night's win in Minnesota, best record in the NBA and that spin and that's what leads to some of the conspiracy Bill conspiracy, Kirk conspiracy, everybody theories like how could this team break itself up voluntarily during such an astonishing run back into looking like a contender. And I get that. And it's very easy to construct a public story about well James Harden is doing the thing James Harden does all the time. Right. That's why we're trading him. He wants to get paid. We don't want to cannibalize our cap space. So we found a very good trade in which no other circumstance could we acquire. A 26 year old two time all star. This is the only one Evita Zubots. You know you could explain it away real easily. Like he's having you know, probably a little bit 10% worse than he was during his all NBA season. Not quite the same guy. 29 years old we get offered two premium first round picks including this like super premium one, one to four protected, 10 to 30 protected from Indiana this year. Indiana's in the basement almost. We haggled a lot, tried to get 1 to 3 protection, got 1 to 4. Makes sense on the merits. You could explain all of these things away but I think you went back to the reality of it in 6 and 21. It's just too deep a hole. If they play at this pace the rest of the season in the Western Conference they're still struggling to even sniff the top six. I mean, six right now in the west is Minnesota at 32 and 22. The Clippers are six games behind Minnesota. It's just with 30 games to go or whatever it is, it's just such an uphill battle that to me, it doesn't defy common sense that the Clippers would say, you know what, we're not going to be contenders this season. These deals are too good to pass up. We have these reasons for making them, and we're making them. Let's talk about Harden.
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Yeah.
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First game with the Cavs, they beat the Kings, like, not as comfortably as you'd like a team to beat the Kings. And the first thing I thought of when I flipped on the game, I turned it on first possession. Hardens in the game for the Cavs. He's dribbling up the court against Sacramento, in Sacramento, Western Conference team. He spent a lot of his career in the Western Conference, including the last couple years with the Clippers. And there's a thought that went in my head. It was like, does he for a second think he's still on the Clippers? Like, does he, like, wait a second, I'm on the Cavs. That's Donovan Mitchell over there. Like, what's going on? Did you see that game? And if so early thought, very early thoughts on how Harden fit with Donovan Mitchell. Mobley didn't play that game, so they played small. A ton of the Cavs have exited the trade deadline. Now, again, part of this is that Mobley's out, Streuss is still out, Wade is out, just overflowing with small guards. Craig Porter Jr. Keon Ellis, Dennis Schroeder, on and on and on. They're playing three guard lineups all the time. But even so, early thoughts on the fit?
- [18:56]
B
Yeah, I mean, I. I'm excited for it in the way it can kind of evolve. This is hard. This is a harder fit than Garland of the Clippers in the sense of Harden is, you know, in himself, in his own system. Right. The Harden ball and all that stuff. And we're not going to see that much Harden ball one. Mitchell's on the floor, but when he's off the floor, we'll see. We'll see some of that. And Jared Allen's going to be the guy that's probably going to gain the most out of that. You know, I thought he had a. He. He was a monster game insect with that. And I think you're going to see a lot more of that stuff. And, and it does take a little time to develop that pick and roll chemistry. We saw it when Harden first came to the Clippers. It took him a while for him and Zoo to kind of find that sort of flow together in the pick and roll. Allen might find it a little quicker, but I think it's along those lines. Like, that's the thing right off the bat. I think it's going to be interesting seeing the dynamic between him and Mitchell. We've seen Harden do this with Kawhi. We saw him do this in Brooklyn with the super team for about 20 minutes. And I think, you know, you're going to get all of that stuff and I think you're, I think he's going to understand, hey, man, like, when Mitchell's on the floor, it's his offense. We got to and work through it and how do we help Mitchell out. And then when he's off the floor, it's my turn. Time to really kind of go off. There's going to be an adjustment period more so than I think any other big trade that happened. Just in the sense of like they got to figure each other out and how this all works.
- [20:24]
A
I was, I mean, I think the first game offensively went as well as you could have hoped. Hard stagger between the two guys. I don't know how many minutes they played. Maybe 15, 18, something like that, maybe less. And, and pretty dramatic stagger similar to how the Rockets did it with Harden and Chris Paul back in the day. And you just. When you see Harden transplanted into a new environment, you are immediately appreciative of what a genius pocket passer he is. And for all the stuff about harden, ball dribble 45 times and take a step back. 3. He has modulated that in the last three or four years of his career where that, that's in his game still, particularly when the other star guard or whatever is out of the game. But it's not the central part of his game anymore. And he has a really great sense for when to throw the pocket pass super early and when to hold it a little bit and prod for a little bit longer. And I think that he sprung Jared Allen on early pocket passes, bounce long distance bounce passes, precise timing, precise accuracy. And Jared Allen's just catapulted into open space at the foul line. One dribble dunk. Or when Evan Mobley comes back, one dribble lob to Evan Mobley. Like, I think that he's willing to get off the ball early more so than he was when it was the Capella Rockets and it was Lob, lob, lob, which works fine, too and will work fine for Cleveland. And, you know, I just think he's more willing to take catch and shoot threes than he was five years ago. That's going to be a key ingredient. And Donovan Mitchell is going to get more clean catch and shoot threes by playing with James Harden than he did before. There's a lot of interesting dynamics they can go to. They can go to the Spain stack, pick and roll more with like Sam Merrill being the back screener or another guy who to me is on notice in a good way is Jalen Tyson. This is your starting spot now like it's set in stone. You're kind of a jack of all trades, shooting 45% or whatever from three. He's pretty good making plays out of the short roll like it's an underrated little thing that he does, which is very useful with Harden. Offensively, to me, I don't see any reason why this won't fit. And I was optimistic after one game against the Kings. Defensively, we'll see. You know, James is obviously bigger than Darius and can guard more positions and hold up in the post and, you know, he has some pretty obvious weaknesses, too. But I mean, look, we all. We all. There was no disagreement on whether this trade was going to make the 2026 Cavaliers better. It will. And I thought their early returns were. Were really strong. He'll get more free throws for them. This is a free throw poor team and a drive poor team. That'll change. But look, we all know, we all know when this is going to be judged and they all know when it's going to be judged. But I'm officially going, I think we're lowering CavsCon. I think we might go all the way down to CavsCon 4. I think we were at CavsCon 1 for a bit, then CavsCon 2 for a lot. They are, they're like 9 and 2 in their last 11. I think they are fourth in the east two games out of second, which is a tie between the Knicks and the Celtics, a game ahead of the Raptors. Like they should have home court in the first round if they just don't mess it up now. They've messed some things up. But I'm going, we're officially lowering CavsCon four lowest and spent all season one.
- [23:38]
B
Does CavCon like, disappear, though? Like, when do you go like, ah, we don't need this anymore?
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A
Or is this conference finals conference Finals. Get to the conference finals. Good luck. Like Cleveland, Detroit, second round. That's where we're shaping up for right now. But who knows? I would one thing about the Cats as maybe Harden will draw more eyeballs to their local broadcasts. And I'm just going to. So as a league pass connoisseur, I do the league pass rankings. I got to do say some unpleasant stuff every once in a while. This broadcast is an absolute catastrophe at missing action. Like they'll. They'll go on like a full 45 second replay of some fucking mundane thing the Cavs just did. Well, and you'll hear the game going on while there's a full screen replay happening. And you'll be like, can I see the game? And then you'll cut to back to the game and someone will have already scored and the other team will be running back on defense. Like, can we just see what happened? I don't need to see the James Harden layup 17 times. Their commercials run long. Their replays run. I'm not talking about the commentators or whatever. I'm just talking about like, can you stop doing the thing where they also do the thing. I think one of only two or three broadcasts that does this and it drives me nuts. Where they'll run ads during the game, but they're like visual ads that take up 2/3 of the screen. Ken Gandley Kia. Let me tell you something. Anyone who lives in Cleveland and watches this broadcast knows about Ken Gandley Kia. I don't know who Ken Gandley is. He apparently owns a prestigious fleet of Kia dealerships. He has the same blonde spokeswoman doing these ads that take up 2/3 of the screen. And she says, every time I want to see you in a Ken Ganley Kia. Let me tell you something. If I ever move to Cleveland, I'm boycotting Ken Ganley Kia. All right. Okay, Mo. Who else is on notice? I'll give you the next pick.
- [25:28]
B
I'm actually going to go Houston Rockets.
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A
I love it. They're way down on my list, so I'm glad you brought there up, but they are on my list. Sing it. Go ahead. They're nine and four in their last 13 games. Well, how in the world are you putting them on notice? Nine and four in their last 13 games?
- [25:42]
B
Yeah, no, I just think when you look at them, even in their, their wins, they've been kind of mid. You know, when you look at the last 15 games, they're basically zero net rating. So even in that part, their offensive rating has dropped drastically. And I Get it? Your offense is predicated on getting a ton of offensive rebounds. No Stephen Adams out for the year. You're kind of in that instance. Amen. Thompson has been playing better. I like the way he's been playing as a playmaker. Same with Reed Shepherd. But when I think I look at them, I go like they're just not even on the level. We know okc, Denver, we know they're the top tier. Assuming Denver's fully both teams fully healthy. Same. I think San Antonio's past them a little bit in the for me and kind of a contender tier. I feel like they've kind of slipped a little bit. I was excited with the idea of them possibly getting Kobe White. I was. I don't know how real all of that stuff was. I know I wouldn't have given up Tari Easton. So I understand where they're going, but I felt like they still needed to find some guard help and now the story is they're going to go look in the buyout market. Buyout market's been vastly overrated for years at this point. I don't know if when I look at them like I just don't believe in them at this point and I need them to make me believe and I we need to kind of see them sort of amp up a little bit, especially on the offensive end. The past 15 games, even being nine and four, all that is not doing anything for me offensively. Like that's where I worry when we get to the playoffs it's going to get more difficult for them.
- [27:13]
A
I'm so glad you made this pick because they're on my list too. I think their fans, hardcore fans, would not be surprised to find them on notice because the angst is there. But they are 9 and 4 in the last 13 games. They're fifth in offense for the season and six in defense. Say what's the problem? A lot of those nine and four wins are against bad teams. Couple of good wins in there. Detroit, Minnesota. I think Minnesota was on a pretty tough back to back and missing Go Bear maybe if not ant one of those two. But you know, look, you can't sneeze at any, at any wins against good teams. But Even so, they're 25th in offense in those 13 in that 13 game span. And it's just, it's just dead. It's just every possession takes 15 seconds to get into any option. So like you're at 10 on the shot clock and almost nothing has happened and then sometimes still nothing happens. Whoever has the ball is like, all right, I guess, I guess I just got to dribble around and do something. And like if that. The paradox of an offense like Houston is it can look like shit for 20 seconds and still produce a good shot because Sengun draws extra attention, Durant draws extra attention and there are kick out threes available. Or Durant is just such an elite shot maker himself that it still creates a good shot. But the process leading up to anything that Houston is getting right now gives you zero faith that this team can actually compete over two and three playoff series in the Western Conference with this offense. It just isn't. And you mentioned Adams and he's such a ferocious offensive rebounder. There's still a very good offensive rebounding team without him. But the difference is like this is a pillar, a reliable pillar of your offense every single game to so still really good. But one out of every three games we're just going to have an average offensive rebounding game. And what are we tapping into during those games? And the answer has not been found yet. And just more than that, like Finney Smith's given them nothing so far. I'm hoping that comes around with time. He missed like what, 40 games, 35 games. Whatever it is, I'm not loving some of the body language I'm seeing on the floor. Some of the Durant sulkiness is seeping back into his body language. Like against the Thunder the other day, there were two or three possessions in like maybe a six possession span where the Rockets threw bad entry passes to him and you could see him visibly just throw his arms up and you know, roll his eyes and all that stuff. And we've seen that movie before and Durant's been great. He's an all star, he's an all NBA player. I've always been on the Kevin Durant, his historically underrated train. So like don't take offense at this. But I will say I've heard from agents, players, whatever over the years, like when he gets like that, young players revere him and are somewhat intimidated by him and that kind of stuff can seep into the ether of a team and they need to just snap out of it because they're really good, they could win two playoff rounds. But the way they're playing offense right now, I just. The bar is so high in the west that it just isn't good enough. And obviously hovering over all of this is this is a team that you mentioned Kobe, White, how about Giannis? This is a team that was out on pretty much any difference making move at the trade deadline and maybe that's okay because Fred Van Vliet is sitting over on the bench as someone who, you want to get a possession organized before there's 10 on the shot clock. That's what that guy does. Can he come back this year? We'll see. He can definitely come back next year and change everything and revert. Reed shepherd, who's kind of been in a little bit of a funk for the last month, he had some good games, some, some shaky ones and amen into their spots. But I, I, I think this is a great call by you putting them, putting them kind of on notice because they don't feel like a, like a contender anymore.
- [30:58]
B
I mean, the start of the season, they, they had that feel to it of like there's a, and there was also a level of just like toughness, grittiness with them and, and everything. And it's just sort of like they're almost kind of petering out in a weird way as the season has gone on, like not being able to sustain that type of energy and fight. And it's hard. Like it's an 82 game season, man. It's so hard to keep your, your intensity level up. You're going to have dips, you're going to have ups and downs, you're going to have runs where everybody's playing out of their minds. You're going to have runs where everybody's playing below their level in the way this, this whole season goes. But it just feels like with them, it's like a slow decline and it's a little bit tough to watch. And yeah, like when you don't have kind of an offensive identity in terms of like, how do we run stuff? How do we get into stuff? Like, it gets very difficult come playoff time when teams get to say, yo, we're going to lock in, we're going to break everything down about this team and where do we want them to go offensively. And it's easier to push them that way if they're not running anything and setting themselves up into that stuff and getting organized. And that's where I think it becomes a real problem for them. And that's why it's, they're on, you got to put them on notice at that point. You got to watch for them and see how they kind of figure this out as we get towards the last half of the season.
- [32:23]
A
Well, what you're really having is an email Doka conversation, right. Because he's done a great job in Houston. There's like, zero debate about that. He came in and he said, look, the bedrocks of a good team are toughness, defense and rebounding. And we're going all in on those things. And at maybe at the expense of everything else, because everything else doesn't matter if we don't set those things up. And they've set those things up, they've set them in stone. And they've won a shit ton of games over the last two years. Went toe to toe with the warriors in the playoffs last year, weren't good enough offensively, and you could see that one coming. And it's not like they run nothing. Like they run a lot of Durant, Reed, shepherd, pick and rolls. Reed, Shepherd, Durant, pick and rolls, Durant, Sengun. Two man game is sort of in the exploratory phases of do we run it with handoffs with Durant coming from the corner? Do we just run high screener rules? What happens when teams blitz Durant and just take the ball out of his hands, which has frustrated them in a couple of their last, last games. So it's not like they're just running nothing, but very often they run one thing and then there isn't a sort of flow, a continuity or anything after that. And that's. That's like, hard to establish. I'm not a coach. I don't know how you go from that point to the next point of a true offensive identity and flow and continuity. Maybe it's not possible without Fred Van Vliet. I don't know. Orlando in the east is facing a lot of these sort of same offensive identity questions, and I'm not in any way suggesting that Emea Doka has done a bad job. I'm just saying, like, this is the next step for them. And I'm not. I don't know how they take it, but it's a big. It's a big challenge because without Steven Adams, we're just going to beat the shit out of you. Is not a good enough identity?
- [34:04]
B
No. And just a quick note, and I just looked this up because I meant to do it earlier. They're 21st in offensive rating in clutch moments, and I think that's a big thing there. Right? Like, you want to be in these games late, but offensively, are you going to have enough, you know, in those games down the stretch? And I think that's, that's the thing that's most concerning at the end of the day, 29th.
- [34:27]
A
I'm looking at up now.
- [34:28]
B
Yeah, they are no 21st. Excuse me, did I 21st.
- [34:31]
A
Yeah, 21st. My bad.
- [34:32]
B
Sorry.
- [34:33]
A
Another team on my list is going to be, is going to be there. Any other thoughts on Houston?
- [34:38]
B
No, I think we're, I, I, I just honestly, I wish they found a way to get a guy like Kobe White or something along those lines or, or IO Dumu. The, the asking price Atari Eason is too high. I get that. But I just, I wish they found a way to kind of pull something off because that would have been a nice. I'd have gotten really juiced up for that one.
- [34:59]
A
This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. A superior beer worth playing for. It's always a fun way to spice up a little friendly competition. Like, hey, poker night, suburban dad, loser poker night. If you don't want to throw a lot of money into the pot, maybe you throw some beer into the pot. Who knows? All Star Game. Is alcohol a way to motivate the players to play a little harder in the All Star Game? Maybe, I don't know. It can't hurt. Have a little beer on the bench, maybe spice things up. Who knows, you might as well at this point. And if you really want to up the ante, Michelob Ultra has a new challenge for you. And it isn't just beer on the line. You could also win tickets to some of the biggest sporting events in 2026. Enter now at michelopultra.com ultra instructor Michelob Ultra Ultra Instructor no purchase necessary. Open US residents 21 or over. Begins on January 30, 2026 and ends on February 22, 2026. See official rules@michelobaltra.com rules for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. All right, my turn to pick. Ready on notice post trade deadline. The NBA is tanking rules. And what the hell are we supposed to do about this? Because this is not going to get ugly. It is ugly. And part of the reason it's ugly is because of protected picks that are protected beyond top four. And beyond just lottery protected. And of course the league has toyed with at least discussed in competition committee meetings. Should we erase these complex. Not complex, just sort of mid level. Derek Lively, Mavericks, whatever, you know, and just say you can top four protect picks or you can lottery protect them and that's it. That's all you can do because this is going to be such a bad end to the season in so many places. So let's go through the list. The two cases du jour are Utah and Washington, both of whom did the Toronto Brandon Ingram thing of we're trading for injured players in part because they're injured and can't hurt our lottery odds this year by playing basketball in the basketball games. Utah owes a top eight protected pick to Oklahoma City. And after a season that began with Austin Ange, their president of basketball operations, saying we're not going to do this thing again that we did last year, they're doing a worse version of the thing they did again last year. We're in the middle of a game against Orlando, a game I thankfully did not watch. It was not on my docket that night to watch. You suffered through it. A game they were winning. What a feel good win that would be at, you know, on the road. I think it was on the road, right?
- [37:20]
B
Yeah.
- [37:20]
A
Jaren Jackson junior's debut. He and Markkanen look good together. Imagine how this is going to look with Kessler and Nurkic's spot, blah blah blah. Fourth quarter comes around, good players are nowhere to be found. Here comes the bench. They blow the lead and lose the game. Just like sucks. Washington Oz, a top eight protected pick to the net to the Knicks. I mentioned the Nets by accident because they played the Nets over the weekend and what happened? Bilal Koulibaly, not exactly an offensive dynamo, but still one of the six best players on the Wizards. Actually he needs to become a much better offensive player, but that's a story for a different day. He's out with an injury. Keyshawn George, having a wonderful second year in the league. Good all around player. A little turnover prone, a little foul prone as happens when you're doing too much heavy lifting for a bad team. He's out with something. Alex Sar can't play that game. Can play the next game. They lose to the Nets. Those are the top eight protected teams. Right. Then you have Indiana, gap year. They trade for Zubots. We'll see like how long Zubots takes to recover from whatever injuries he's recovering from then they've been playing more or less honest basketball. They have a lot of injuries. Brooklyn, they keep Michael Porter Jr. I don't think there was a ton of interest in Michael Porter Jr. Detroit really never got into it. That was the one team that was mentioned along with Golden State. Most of all, I don't think the warriors ever really got into it. They have a gap year because of the trades that they made, including the hardened trade. This is like the year that they've got a tank because next year the Rockets own their pick. CC My conspiracy theory about Houston, Philadelphia and Brooklyn could look that up in the analysis Love that Dallas gap year because of all the win now trades they made around Luca. This is the last year they control their draft pick for several years. Then you have Sacramento. Just bad by accident. Just organically, abysmally, depressingly bad. The most unwatchable basketball team other than Dylan Cardwell. God bless Dylan Cardwell. Every fucking thing that guy does, every dunk, every rebound, every block shot. He is pumping up the crowd, getting them engaged in the game. They love him already. He got his contract converted. I'm a huge Dylan Cardwell fan. I would wear a Dylan Cardwell jersey right now if they made them. The Pelicans don't control their pick, are trying to win. Can't just not great.
- [39:39]
B
Bad, just about team.
- [39:41]
A
Then you have three teams. Memphis, Chicago and maybe Milwaukee. We'll see with Giannis's injury because the Bucks are only one game out of the play in, in the loss column, I think maybe two who are doing the. Well, hey, if Dallas can jump nine spots or whatever in the lottery and we've seen some other big jumps, maybe it's not too late for us to tank our way into the 8th spot or the 9th spot and the 10th spot and hope against hope that we get lucky in the lottery, which by the way is like not irrational. This is the way the system is set up. These are the incentives that exist in the league. And so here we are with this potentially, I don't even know how many teams. I just think I may name nine.
- [40:25]
B
Teams, like pretty much a third of.
- [40:27]
A
The league with Utah and Washington sort of being the ones with the protected picks. And normally we talk about like, well, basketball. Once you get to mid March and April, the NBA can have smuggle games. It's February 9th, it's already happening and it's just, it's going to happen the rest of the season.
- [40:44]
B
It's brutal. And it's not. The NBA has to find a way to address this. You can't have like, yes. Part of it was I was pissed off because I was watching the Orlando, Utah game.
- [40:55]
A
Because I got more text from mo during a 45 minute span of that game than I had in like my whole life.
- [41:02]
B
I was just like, what's going on?
- [41:03]
A
And screenshots. You sent me screenshots of lineups that were on the floor for Utah was great.
- [41:08]
B
I was just like, what's going on? And then it's like, yeah, I get you're trying to protect your pick, but also at a certain point you have to actually play basketball. Like you have to try to build a winning culture. You know, the one thing about the process, the Sixers process, and it. And it worked. There's no debate about it. Right. You got impede. You got all, like, it worked. But it did create a really difficult culture of, like, we're accepting losing. And I think there's an element of that stuff. Understand what these teams are doing. I understand they have to do it to protect their picks. All of that stuff. We need to not incentivize this. And it's really kind of wild. Washington did this. They did this in their game against Detroit, Zach. And it backfired. They actually won. They beat Detroit with. With this on. I think it was Thursday night. But, like, I watched that game.
- [42:01]
A
That game was on my docket, and that was. I just. It was a bizarre experience because I'm watching the game and I'm like, well, the rug's gonna come out soon. Like, Detroit is obvious. And Detroit did rally and got within, like, two or something in the first half. And you're like, all right, the order has been restored. And then order was not restored in the Washington Wizards. Like, just Will Riley went insane and they won the game. Yeah.
- [42:21]
B
And it's gonna. And there's gonna be times where it's gonna backfire on teams, but we can't do this. Like, this is just. This is just awful basketball in general. But I think it's really, in the long run, something that does kind of hurt franchises. And people are gonna say, tanking's been around forever. And what. It's not at this level. You literally said February 9th. Like, we're right at this point where teams are saying. And it's the other thing about that Orlando, Utah game. Will Hardy never called the timeout to stop a run. Will's a good coach, Right? Like, Will's a good coach.
- [42:56]
A
He's too good of a coach for this. Yeah.
- [42:58]
B
And that's where I think you're looking at, where I'm like, come on, man. Like, we're really just doing it that way. Like, what's, you know, the. The point at this in. In the way you're playing. And it's. It's got to be frustrating for fans. Forget about me at the media. I have to watch these games regardless. Right? Like, and I'm going to. I'm going to get up the next morning early and miss and try to re. Watch the games I've missed.
- [43:20]
A
And when you're. When you're in it, like, we're in it, or like, the, like, top 01% die. Hard Utah fans are in it. There's like stuff for us. They're like, all right, Cody Williams, couple of really nice closeouts in that game, looking a little more confident on offense. Like maybe there's something here. Like there's stuff for us. The people going to the game or the casual fan flipping it on are not watching for those reasons.
- [43:45]
B
Yeah, and that's awful. And that's the thing that we can't have. And you got to be part of the league. You know, it's, it's, you got to understand that you have a responsibility within the league. I know you're doing it by the rules. I understand everything you've, you're, you're, you're working through. But the league has to find a way to fix it. I don't know if it's changed the incentive to, you know, there's always the talk of like, hey, at a certain point, wins matter more for lottery luck than, than than not. And I don't know what the answer is, but I just know this ain't it. And for people who want to think that it's not a problem or like it's a made up problem, the league has addressed this by flattening the odds like they are aware this is an issue. We have to find a way to.
- [44:27]
A
Fix this and the play in tournament as well. Those two things together were supposed to incentivize teams to try to win more or to try not to abysmally lose. And I think that you can point to cases where that has worked and teams have indeed behaved more rationally in that sense. But I spotlit Chicago. I don't know what the fuck they did to the trade deadline, but they're obviously worse than they were before. Memphis, who has no healthy big men, none, zero on their entire roster. And John Morant, like, I don't know what his injury timetable is going to be, but put bet the over on days missed. And Milwaukee TBD is like the juiciest situation because of what Giannis wants versus what's best for the team. I spotlit those teams saying we can look at the lottery odds and rationally decide, well, we like 10th, 9th, like there's value in us getting what used to be next to no value lottery spots. Look at Cooper flag going to Dallas. We're not seeing as much of the other thing where a team like Washington or Indiana or, well, Utah leave Washington, Utah out because of the protections. But teams like Brooklyn, I guess we saw it last year with Brooklyn. I was about to say we're not seeing as much of the other side of that coin of, well, who cares if we win a little bit more than expected. Winning is fun and there's value in being eighth, seventh, whatever. We're not seeing as much of that this year maybe as we did last year because of what happened to Brooklyn, because of Utah falling out of the lottery to five or wherever they picked last year. And then you have the protections thing and that's what Utah and Washington are living now. And I'm glad that you presented a solution because I don't think it's good enough to just like whine about it. I'm not sure what the solution is. I have said many times people have pitched like there should be no, everyone should have an equal chance of getting the number one pick, including the NBA champion. There's a 30, whatever lottery, 30 team lottery. I've seen even more radical proposals like we should reward competence and so we should have a draft that's ordered from the champion picks first to the worst team picks last. I think all those things sound great in theory. I, I, maybe they would work a little better in reality than I think. I just they would. So they would make it so hard to go from bad to good. And maybe that's the point. It should be hard to go from bad to good. I've never really loved them. The top four protection only or lottery protection only. It's definitely time to explore that. And I could see the counter argument being like, well look at the Indiana Clippers trade, which is a really interesting trade. Everybody loves trades. The NBA sends out these tweets now being like, oh, 72 trades happened.
- [47:13]
B
Wow.
- [47:14]
A
Would that trade have happened if the Clippers could not have put the 10 to 30 protection on the pick from Indiana this year? So they did. They do not get it if it falls below nine because they only want a high value pick. Maybe it wouldn't have happened. Maybe the top four protection alone would have been good enough. I don't know and I don't really care. Like I, I think, I think in the end maybe they make that trade anyway. I don't know. I don't know. I like the one you mentioned of, I'm increasingly in favor of like let's just try some crazy stuff. And so the one you mentioned of, we stopped the lottery. We stopped the standings at like whatever March 1st and after that you get credit for wins in the, you get a lottery. Odds get better the more you win that's floating around. I think that might be worth a try. I kind of like, the odds where they are now. I like the flattened odds a little bit now. I think that's worth a few more years of investigating. But that one I like. I don't love the. You can't pick in the top three two years in a row. I think that has some unintended consequences that are a little ugly. I don't. I mean, I would go back and revisit Mike Zarin's wheel solution, which is maybe too complicated for some people to understand, and has some unintended consequences because it's truly. It's truly separating. If people go back and look at it, you sort of just cycle around the draft order in, like, buckets of. In this five years, you pick in this spot, in this spot, in this spot, in this spot. It's. It completely unattaches your record from where you pick, but still seeks to have some jumping around the draft order. So no team picks too low or too high too many years in a row could have some unintended consequences of like, oh, look, the Thunder draw the number one pick this year because that's what the wheel says. Do we want that? I don't know. But I'm increasingly, without having studied it, probably enough gravitating toward this credit for wins at the end of the season thing. Cause this is just going to be. This is just going to be ugly. Will Dawkins, the whiz gm, has to go out and do a press conference on Saturday or Friday. It was like, you know, we expect Anthony Davis to play at some point this season, which is clearly a press conference that they called hastily to counter reports from Chris Haynes and from the Athletic that they had already decided to sit in for the season. And it's the most tepid pushback you can imagine. It's like, well, we expect him to play this season, but, you know, he's got this doctor's appointment coming up. And like, that doctor's appointment is really going to tell us what the future is for Anthony Davis this year. Look, maybe. Maybe I'm surprised. I'm going to expect that doctor to be like, I don't know, man. Like, he could use a few more months off. Like, we'll. We'll see. We'll see.
- [49:56]
B
Yeah, it's. It's tough. And that kind of press conference is usually how I try to address plans when somebody invites me to something I don't really want to go to. Like, that's kind of the. The attitude in that.
- [50:06]
A
Got to check my schedule.
- [50:07]
B
Yeah. Let me look at my calendar real Quick. Or something along those lines.
- [50:11]
A
Let me see, my calendar has watching a spy movie on my couch by myself. Can't get out of that.
- [50:18]
B
That's tough. That's tough. I already promised that to myself. It's really, really difficult in that area. I think the, just the fact of the matter is at a certain point these teams are caretakers of the game. And you know, maybe this is me being idealistic and whatnot, but you have to play your part in this, right? And I think that's. We get mad at players. I get really mad at players with how they don't care about the All Star Game. And I'm. This is part of your job. This is your role. At the same time for these teams, part of it is you have to understand the importance for the league of like, we need to have games that ha. That just kind of matter. Like, we can't do a thing where we're going to play 3/4, we're going to play our starters for 3/4, we're going to give them all that stuff, and then right at the fourth quarter, we're going to bench them. And to us, the game's over and we don't care. Win or we care, actually we want to lose in Utah's case. And what we saw with Washington, like, you can't have that. That is just so bad for the league. I don't know. I don't think I've ever seen that in another sport, in an actual game that mattered. That regular season, that mattered. And I think that's just something we got to find a way to fix. It's brutal.
- [51:38]
A
And part of this is unique to basketball in the sense that this is the sport where one player can actually make this much of a difference to your franchise and to the next 10 years of your franchise. And so there are only five players on the court. One dominant player can control entire games. And if you get those players in the draft, great. The Jazz thing, sitting all their guys in the fourth quarter, there's a knee jerk part of me that's like the league should just find them for that. But if I'm the Jazz, I say, A, we didn't violate the player participation policy. The Wizards can't violate the player participant policy. I guess they could with Anthony Davis because he qualifies as an All Star. But Sar, George, whatever, they don't fall under that. And B, like, it's not our fault. These are the rules. Like, these are the rules. We made this trade with Oklahoma City under a rules regime that's existed for a while. The lottery yards are what they are. How can you punish us for behaving rationally? So it's a tricky, tricky one. While we're on the Bucks, Cam Johnson signed with the Bucks. Any thoughts? Mo?
- [52:36]
B
Yeah, I like it. Just adding a little bit more scoring punch for them, I think still doesn't fix their major problem, which is defense. And that's something from the beginning of the year I was worried about and I don't think it addresses it. But when you're in the situation, you're with the Bucks right now and you know if you're going to go for the playing spot if when Giannis comes back, you're going to need some more offensive firepower. And I think I like taking the flyer on Cam Thomas. I thought it was a smart move.
- [53:02]
A
I did too. I don't see any harm to it as long as Giannis is out. Putting the ball in the basket is going to be difficult for them getting into the paint, although he doesn't do that as much as I would like. It's going to be difficult for them when yacht when they're at full strength, if they come to be at full strength and I guess we can go to the is it call c. Call she the prediction market that we can look at Giannis, we can look at the production market to see if Yanis is going to come back and when he's going to come back and maybe I can bet I have no idea how any of this stuff I'm so.
- [53:29]
B
Gleefully ignorant of new shareholder Giannis.
- [53:32]
A
Yeah, that's what like we can look at right after he right after his little Koi trade deadline stuff. Good timing. Whitney comes back. Cam Thomas is maybe a little redundant with like Kevin Porter Jr. Ryan Rollins score first. Whatever. Ryan Rollins a good passer, obviously, but this episode of the Zach Lowe show is brought to you by State Farm. Life's better when you've got the right help. Think of that perfect pass that sets everything up. Smooth, effortless, just what your team needed. That's the kind of assist State Farm offers, whether it's online or in person. State Farm's your teammate when you need help making your next play. State Farm with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. This episode is brought to you by Michelo Boltra. On or off the court, nothing beats a good friendly competition, especially when Michelo Boltra is on the line. So go see who can make more three pointers or who can land the sickest jumps on the Slope winner gets a superior beer worth playing for or with the Winter Games and end of football season. Coming up, play for bigger keeps with Michelob Ultra's latest challenge with a chance to win tickets to the biggest sporting events of the year. Enter now@michelob ultra.com Ultrainstructor Michelob Ultra Ultra Instructor. No purchase necessary. Open to US residents. Swinging over begins on January 30, 2026, and ends on February 22, 2026. The official rules@michelobaltra.com rules for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details.
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B
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A
No harm, no foul. Okay, let's go. Lightning round. Exchange some lightning round. Who's on notices? You go first in the lightning round.
- [55:33]
B
The Miami Heat front office. I can't do it anymore. I can't do it anymore, Zach. I can't.
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A
This is.
- [55:39]
B
This is too much. This is too much. We've. We've done the. The Miami Heat are interested in X and are going to make a major move. And I get it. They were in it for Giannis up until Milwaukee said we're not going to trade him and all that stuff, but, like, how long we kill the Bulls for being on the treadmill of mediocrity? How long are we going to allow Miami to kind of just sort of get away with this as well? And I get, I understand the Butler injuries and things like that. You trade Jimmy last year. I like what they did and everything. They've been a playing team for three years. They're in the playing range now, so it's going to be four straight years. this point. I don't see them dropping out of the plan. I don't see them dropping, jumping up to the top six. I'm tired of this stuff with just all the things of, like, we're whale hunters, we're going to go after. We're going to go get, you know, a guy, and then they never do. They never do. And, and, and part of it is they might not have the. The means to it, they got Jimmy, but that was, but that was several years ago. Since then, nothing. They weren't interested in Beal. I actually supported it because I always thought the no trade clause part of Bill. Yeah, was, was, was, was good. They've always been rumored about like, we're ready to make the move when Giannis is ready and this was, this was their chance at the deadline. Obviously don't have the assets to, to make anything happen. They wanted Dame Portland wasn't playing ball with them, wasn't interested in Hero. I feel like, you know, they, they, they kind of cooled, it seemed like on John Morant, on the idea of trading for Jaw. Kind of understand that considering their offense is basically the offense JA hated last year. I understand that stuff, but don't come out with these things of like, we're whale hunters, we're going to go after these guys like we're were in it all the way because it just doesn't happen anymore. Like they don't make the moves anymore and not even like a lot of smart moves around the edges. Like maybe make a few moves to get some assets back and all of that and then be ready for when the Giannis trade comes and you could do it or the next big name or whatnot. But they're not even like preparing for that. They just assume everybody's going to want Tyler Hero. I just don't. Like I'm, I'm, I'm out. I'm tired.
- [57:47]
A
I don't, I don't. I mean, according to my reporting, which could be, I mean, this is lying season to a higher degree than it's always lying bluffing season. I don't think the Bucks are ever stoked about getting Tyler Hero. Tyler Heroes barely played this year. Yeah, not to, not to, not to make, not to go back into heat tease mode for you Mo. But they do. They will have four first round picks to trade in the summertime and once the draft, once the draft pivots, the calendar pivots. And I do think they're a very interesting team for that reason. Not just even for Giannis, but for that reason. And Hero did not get an extension. I haven't heard crickets about a Hero extension. And I wonder if they look at Hero and Norm Powell as like an either or. Like we just, we can't pay both of these guys $60 million combined because we just, it's just too much of our cap devoted to two players who are not, not stylistically similar, but they net out as kind of similar offense first offense only kind of players and then they were on the heat. Were on my list, too, but much on a much lower sort of level. Bam and Ware played significant minutes for the first time in a long time together yesterday against the Wizards, and they were plus a lot playing the skeleton crew Wizards. So I'm not reading anything into it. SPO had kind of given up on that for. For a month and had some pretty harsh words for Khalil Ware's development. And that pairing just hasn't worked very well. It's like minus seven per hundred possessions. I think it was. It was about neutral last year.
- [59:22]
B
It.
- [59:22]
A
To me, it is worth exploring and if it just flat out doesn't work, that presents some interesting questions for your team. So they were on. They were on my list as well. And yeah, I mean, look there. If Giannis becomes available in the summer and it's an if. Maybe it's a when. I'm just going to go if. Until. Until like he actually lays the hammer down publicly, I'm going to go if they'll be in it. They were on my list. All right. Can I go?
- [59:47]
B
Yes, please.
- [59:49]
A
The Wolves, a team that was in the Honest Derby. I know agents of players who are on the Wolves, were slightly worried that they might get moved as part of the Honest Derby. Didn't get Giannis got IO disumnu a move that I loved for them. You know, look, we can nitpick the Nikhil Alexander Walker decision and all the gymnastics they had to do to get from point A to point B. I think IO is a perfect fit for them. Looked okay in his debut against the Clippers. I'll give it a little time. They have been, as you know, Mo my sneaky championship contender all season. They are sixth in the west, three games out of the logjam at 3, 4, 5. So perhaps not playing like a sneaky title contender. And they've been wildly up and down. There is no cavalry coming. This is the team. There's no point guard, organizer, whatever, coming. Mike Conley came back. I love the Mike Conley reunion. That's fun. And they just have too many duds, a lot of them against bad teams, which is almost bizarrely encouraging. But yesterday against the Clippers, like their margin of error on offense, they're a very good offensive team, but their margin for stagnancy on offense is zero. And yesterday they had one of those games where there just was no juice to them offensively. When there's juice, I mean, there's a high volume of ant pick and rolls that they use to Just get the ball moving. And when they put teams in the blender, like you're going to blitz ant, he's been very willing and very good this year at just first available pass. I'm making it. That guy attacks the closeout. The ball goes all the way around. Somebody gets a good shot. When they play like that, they're really hard to guard despite the lack of a traditional point guard, despite the spacing issues that pop up now and then yesterday they just decided, you know, we're just going to like, dribble around and take a lot of ISO shots. And the other result of that was just one of those games where they commit a hellacious number of inexcusably bad live ball turnovers. Yeah, they're only 15th in turnover rate, their 29th in turnover rate in clutch games, which is inexcusable. And at some point, this team is either going to become the serious team that they should be, that they are when they play the Thunder, that they are when they play the Lakers, that they are when they play the Nuggets, although the Nuggets have handled them a little bit better this year, or they're just going to become a so so team that gets to the off season and is the team that didn't trade for Giannis and lost in the first round of the playoffs. And just. That's all I'm watching. I'm optimistic. I remain optimistic. There's a toughness and a DNA to this team that is just there. I like the IO fit, but they just, they just can't have games where they get in their own way.
- [62:28]
B
That's the thing.
- [62:28]
A
It's.
- [62:29]
B
It's. The problem is the. Is their own. It's them. It's the. Their own making in the way that they kind of set themselves up with the way they play. The, the. It's. I love the way you kind of just described it, where it's like some games, balls moving, flying, everything. And then some games, it's too ISO heavy in the way that they focus. I. I'm with you. I like the IO pickup. I think it's. It's. It's another guard that they can get, can at least start the offense a little bit and then also attack a closeout when the ball gets swung around. When they're in the Blender. I. We just need to see the consistency of. Of them constantly understanding this is how we have to play all the time and how we have to attack regularly. I. The waffling back and forth or playing down to the level of Their competition is the thing that scares me a little bit and I think that's where it's a bit concerning and I understand why they're on.
- [63:22]
A
Notice your lightning round pick. Go ahead.
- [63:26]
B
Yeah, I'm going to go with the referees. Can we stop calling the foul or the offensive player just throws his body into the defender and then falls back?
- [63:35]
A
No, it's now mandatory. Mo.
- [63:37]
B
It's. I can't, I've. I've. And, and, and for everybody who, like I tweeted it out is it was a Kevin Durant versus Chet Holmgren. First off, for everybody who's like, you know, laughing at the fact that it's like, you should be doing this about shit, I've done this about everybody in the league. If you go through my, my, my X account, you'll see posts of like, that can't be a foul. We can't call this foul anymore. Offensive player initiates all the contact, all this. For the love of God, can we just stop calling that foul? Like, what do we have to do, Zach? Like, honestly, like, what do we have to do? Because at least just give the defender a chance to defend. It's not an offensive foul, but it shouldn't have been a defensive foul either. Like in that way, it's just he run right into him and then fall back and then get rewarded going to the free throw line. This is ridiculous.
- [64:30]
A
On the same note, I would like now it's been called a couple of times in the last couple of months. I would just like, let's go in on calling flops again. Like, how about we just call flop like the flop rule. You made a big deal six, seven years ago. We're compenalized flops. It's a fine. That's technical. You get this great symbol that everyone can do. Like, this is my favorite, my favorite hand gesture in the league. Let's make use of it, okay? Lightning round. Knicks. I'm tired of talking about the Knicks. We all know this is a lot of pressure on the Knicks, right? And Katie maybe in particular, maybe somewhat unfairly, Atlanta point guard situation. I'm just watching. It's a big summertime subplot to me. I don't think the Nikhil Alexander Walker Dyson Daniels combo, as good as Nikhil Alexander Walker has been as a spot as a combo guard starting as a point guard and as good as Dyson Daniels plus minuses for the Hawks this year. I don't think that's the answer. I think Garland would have been a natural fit there, but obviously that Ship has likely sailed and then my other lightning round pick. So a little unfair. It's. It's Asar Thompson and it's less about A Sar Thompson than it is about Detroit having to make pretty hard choices at times late in games between can we play a Sar Thompson and Jalen Duran together? Can we play them together with another either non shooter or a guy who's treated like a non shooter? Ron Holland, Javante Green, Caris Lavert is even traded that treated that way or does it or Isaiah Stewart as well as he's been shooting. No one is going to really sprint hard at him in the double big lineups. Sometimes the answer is yes, it's fine because Asar Thompson just blows shit up on defense over and over again with steals and he cuts and he gets offensive rebounds. And if teams put their centers on A Sar Thompson and put big wings on Jalen Duran to try to switch to Cade during pick and roll, Jalen Dern's good enough where he just mashes that scheme into oblivion with post ups and face ups and offensive rebounds. On other nights the answer is like oh boy can we play Duncan Robinson more in crunch time. What about Herder? We just got him. He doesn't really play much. Danis Jenkins like him and Cade together, that works. Congrats on a well deserved contract. So it's a Sar Thompson is to be given the time he missed last year on a wonderful track to be the player I think he's going to be. But this team's the number one seed by a lot and I'm just interested to see how they navigate that game by game. So you can either respond to that or make another lightning round pick.
- [66:56]
B
Well I'm out of lightning round picks so the the that stuff but I think the Sarah Thompson like you have to be ready now like this is the unfair part of it is the development now you have to speed it up a little bit in, in, in one way shape or form and you have to find a way to be able to stay on the floor and crunch time like go back to that game again the series against the Knicks, you know the they had to take him. They took him out of the game. Game 6 towards the end they took him out and then Brunson got a couple of big buckets off of them. I think it's when you go back to that stuff is you can't have that happen again going in this year. It is unfair. But you are the number one seed in the east and this is a chance you you don't know if this is going to play out again next season or you're going to be the number one east is going to be way better next season than I think people realize with just how some of these teams are coming together. You might not. You can't take this for granted. So you kind of have to find a way if you're a sore Thompson to be able to stay on the floor in crunch time.
- [67:56]
A
And they made a move, they made one move. They traded Jaden Ivey in a roundabout way. They traded Ivey in a pick swap and got Kevin Herder. I get the Kevin Herder idea. He's a good shooter. He's not having a good shooting year this year. He's a better defender than Duncan Robinson. He's a sneaky good rebounder. He's been a good like pick and roll screener this year. Like screen cut, dive, make plays. He's profiles is more of a two way off ball option than almost anyone they have on their team. He's still Kevin Herder. Like it's not a game changer. I thought they would make a trade. They did. I thought it would be a little bit bigger than this because of the opportunity in the east that you're talking about and a star Thompson, look again, he's on track. He's an amazing defensive player and I guess really what we're talking about is he hasn't quite gotten to the level where you can give him the ball. I think they envision this season we're going to lean into giving him the ball more in pick and roll and if you go under the screen he beats you to the spot like his brother does it makes it, gets a layup, gets the line, makes a 12 foot jump shot. He gets post ups against little guys and does damage that way and we haven't quite seen as much of that. It's really just Cade, Cade, Cade and Duran and all that and that's fine. That's gotten him to a million wins. I do think it's just going to be harder in the playoffs for them. So my last one that I want to get to is the Bulls front office. Just you know they made a lot of trades. They traded old guys in Vuch too late, didn't get much back. Well, Simon's is helpful. We'll see if he turns into anything other than an expiring contract. They traded to sumnu for 7,000 second round picks. They traded Kobe White for Colin Sexton and second round picks. They also got Rob Dillingham. I shouldn't Poo poo that I love giving guys that that were picked in the top 10 on good teams, short leashes, didn't get a chance give them a real chance. But they have ended up with this roster. That just makes no sense. It's not a basketball team anymore. It's a post trade deadline basketball team. Mishmash. And they sold low and late on everybody. We all know that. And now they just have to. And Arturis Carnisovis is giving press conferences afterwards about how we're not in this to be mediocre. By the way, you compared the Heat to the Bulls to play in tournament teams.
- [70:11]
B
Yeah.
- [70:12]
A
The difference is the Heat were in the finals three seasons ago. Okay, that's fair. The Bulls have been nowhere near. The Bulls haven't won a playoff series in a gazillion years. And Arturo is getting press conferences about we don't want to be mediocre. We have big goals here. That's fine. So what exactly are you saying? Are you saying you're bottoming out for the sake of moving forward? Like innumerable bad teams have done? Well, if you did. If you are, you did it way too late this season because you're banking on crazy lottery luck. Are you talking about doing that next season? It's. It's possible Josh Giddey will be healthy, etc. It's possible. Team doesn't look very good on paper. I don't know how crowded the tank race is going to be next year. I also don't know how good the draft is next year. People say not so good. Same with the year after that. But you're also trumpeting this cap space that you have set up for every summer going forward. So are you saying you're going to like, splurge on? Try to be like the Rockets with like Van Vliet and other, you know, centers or whoever they you got and. Or the Wizards, like using your cap space to trade for players. Are you going to beef up that way and try to hit the gas next year, the year after? And what kind of players do you want? Because you decided you didn't want Vuch anymore. Fine. He's 36. You decided you didn't want these two combo guards because of their impending free agencies. Fine. Look.
- [71:35]
B
What?
- [71:35]
A
What? But they're 25, 26 years old. Like what. What do you want to do? Like, it's the easy and I'm not. They didn't even win these trades. But the easiest trades to win are the we're giving up and trading Our pieces for draft picks. Anyone can win those trades. They look great. We got four picks for this guy, three picks for that guy, four picks for Desmond Bain. Whatever it is, on any scale, the hard thing to do is actually build the team. So now you got to build the team. You built one team. It failed. Then you were sort of hovering in this, like, post Lonzo, then post lavine Netherworld of teams. Post derozan netherworld. Now you've scraped all that away, and you basically have, like, giddy and some stuff, but Buzelis and some stuff. Buzzelis is awesome. I'm big on him. What's the team now? You got to build the team. So let's see it. You're on notice.
- [72:23]
B
I mean, is just so frustrating. One, because Chicago is such a fun market when the team's good, right? And it's. It's. It's fun for the NBA when the Bulls, with just their history of, you know, the Jordan and even Derrick Rose and everything, duty fire up the Allen.
- [72:41]
A
Parsons project right now. I'll run through the. My hotel front door like the Kool Aid, man. It's.
- [72:46]
B
It's. I mean, it's still the best intro, but, like, it's. It's. They don't even know what they want. Like, it's not even. Do they not. It's not that they don't know what they want. They don't even know what they're supposed to want. It feels like they went and traded for, like, 50 guards. It was a running joke, you know, of like, oh, they have eight guards. Oh, they traded. So now they have. Now they have nine. Oh, they traded somebody else. Now they're back down to eight. You know, they make the move, they get yabu selly, like, but after that, there's nothing. Like, for the past few years. And you're right, it was probably. I owe Miami an apology.
- [73:20]
A
It was a bad. No, don't double down. Mo. Never apologize. Always double down. Okay, fine.
- [73:27]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. You're right. I'm not going to apologize. I take it back. But I think the. The thing is, ultimately is just we complain a lot about, like, rudderless teams. Like, I want to just know what team, like, at least going. Like, I just want to see what path you're going. I may not agree with it, I may not understand it, but I at least can see what the path is with the Bulls. They have no idea what road. They don't even know what. Where they're going in any concept or which way they want to go. This is a failure from ownership. This is a failure from the front office.
- [73:58]
A
Oh yeah, we don't mention the Ryan. The word Reinsdorf doesn't appear often enough. Like just do they care? Are they aware of the Bulls? Is it all White Sox all the time? Right.
- [74:07]
B
And this is just like all this. And the thing that frustrates me more than anything else about this, this team. Billy Donovan's a good coach. He deserves to have a good team to actually so he could show everybody how good of a coach he is. Because I just wanted he. He's doing a great job with the collection that he has had over the past few years to keep this team even in the playing.
- [74:33]
A
The rudder fell off the boat two years ago. The sale doesn't work. It's basically the raft from Castaway that that Tom Hanks is trying to get off the island with. Here's their roster for next season. And again, factor in. I'm not going to like max level cap space. Plus Josh Giddey, $25 million. It's a good contract. Like it's a flat 25. 25. Give him credit. It's a very good contract. Patrick Williams, disaster. Isaac Kokoro, sure. Like fine. They traded Lonzo for him. Lonzo's been a non factor this year. Okoro's fine. Last year of his contract. Jalen Smith now their starting center. It's fine. Like he's had a very good year as a starter. Probably not ideal. Tre Jones has had a fantastic season. Again, credit them. They sold him in one of the many DeRozan transactions. Dillingham, another small guard. And they'll have decisions to make with Sexton and Simons. But fine. Bouzelis and Noah Senge, who in fairness to them was their lottery pick. That hasn't played this year. I don't know what that is. I don't know what that's trying to be. I don't know what the next step from that is. Whether it's tanking, whether it's loading up on veterans in free agency. The free agency class isn't great. I don't know what that is. But to start with The Alonzo, LaVine, DeRozan, Vucevic, or even going back further than that, the trade for Vucevic is sort of the original sin of all of this. It was an overpay right in the moment. And to end up here after what feels like a decade of wandering in the wilderness, it's really closer to a half decade, but it's a significant period of time is just undeniably undeniably depressing.
- [76:08]
B
Yeah, I don't.
- [76:09]
A
I.
- [76:09]
B
It's. It's frustrating where you. We just don't know where you're going or what's. I don't. I just don't think they have any vision. I don't know what their goal when they went into the trade deadline. I think their thing was we can't lose Kobe White for nothing. We can't lose IO Dasunu for nothing.
- [76:25]
A
Right.
- [76:25]
B
And just saying we was basically them knowing they're not going to resign them in, in the off season. So they went and tried to get whatever they could for them. Okay, fine. And Dillingham, we'll see what happens and how that plays out.
- [76:38]
A
Worth a shot for sure, right?
- [76:39]
B
Yeah, like, I get that. I'm fine with that. But like, I just don't understand, like, okay, they have cap space. Who wants to sign there? Who. Like, first off, we haven't had a lot of free agency. A lot of the stuff happens in trades, by trades and, and maybe with having the cap space allows them to get involved and get something back out of. Get some assets to jump in this. Do you trust these guys to do that?
- [77:03]
A
That's a tank move. Right. Then just say like, if that's what they're doing and maybe that's what they were hinting at in their post deadline media availability. That's. That's one way to do it. We haven't seen a lot of premium assets change hands in those kind of salary dumps for a bit now.
- [77:20]
B
Right. And I just, I, I almost feel like they missed the boat in terms of. Or they're not understanding the way the league's going. They're seeing how the league used to operate way back and assuming it's going to stay that way and not seeing how the league's evolving. And I think that's kind of the ultimate problem when it comes down to it. And I'm going to say it again. It starts with ownership. It starts with Reinsdorf. We have to really, like you said, we have to really put his name on all of this because this is where it begins.
- [77:50]
A
Well, and I'm a little concerned. Are they running out of like, like Bulls old timers to retire their jerseys and distract everyone from how crappy the team is? Like they did Derrick Rose this year. They probably still have Joaquim Noah. Have they done Noah yet? I can't remember.
- [78:06]
B
I think they did know.
- [78:07]
A
I'll.
- [78:07]
B
I'll.
- [78:08]
A
Dang. I mean, like, we go like Ron Harper, like just like whatever you can use to distract the fans. Like, oh, Derrick Rose nights in a couple of weeks. It's gonna be great.
- [78:19]
B
They still have Noah. They still have. No, we can. We got one night.
- [78:22]
A
Put that on. Okay. Mo Takeil, follow him everywhere and he's going to tell you some other places other than X if you want to know what happened in the game. This guy worked for the spurs, the Clippers. He's an ace with X's and O's. Follow Mo. Mo, tell him where to follow you.
- [78:42]
B
All right, follow me on X. Modak I l underscore NBA I this weekend for All Star Games. For basically all the events. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we're doing a show 4X, produced by the NBA Zach Harper, Alexis Morgan and myself. So we're going to be all over the All Star game festivities for the next, you know, starting Friday. Then go check out my videos on offside. Not just my videos. Go check out my colleagues. Jason Concepcion, Zach Harper, Michelle Beetle. We got a bunch of creators on offside. We're doing a lot of fun stuff, so make sure you're checking out our videos there. And the Double Dribble podcast with Jared Dubin and I, we have a lot of fun there as well.
- [79:22]
A
Mode d', Keel, you're the best. Thank you, sir.
- [79:24]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [79:26]
A
All right, that's it for today's episode of the Zach Lowe show. We'll be back on Thursday per usual as the league lopes into the All Star break. Who knows what the hell we'll talk about? We'll see some more games with new players in new places. That's always fun to sort of wrap your head around. Oh, this is how they envision using this guy. These are the lineups they're using. This is how this guy looks at this place. It's one of my favorite parts of the season. Thanks to Mo Daquil, as always, thanks to Mike, Jonathan and Billy on production. As always, thanks to you all for listening to or watching the Zach Lowe show. We'll be back later this week. 21 or over in President. Select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and over in President, 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 Chattinconenetic or is it MD gamblinghelp.org in Maryland? Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 247 Sport of Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text HOPE NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 1-877-770-7867.