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A
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. The best passers see every angle of the floor to make the perfect assist. And State Farm is no different. They know the game inside and out and look at every angle to help set you up with a plan that fits your life and budget. Get the coverage that's right for you. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. Foreign up on the Zach Lowe show it happened. It really happened. The New York Knicks demolished the Cleveland Cavaliers again for their 11th consecutive playoff win. Another double digit win, another blowout. And for the first time in 27 years, since 1999, since before Y2K, the New York Knicks are in the NBA Finals and they are rolling. Can they actually pull this off? What is the city like? It's crazy. Who are they going to play? Who should they want to play? Doesn't even matter. Howard Beck is here to reflect on the Knicks quarter century journey back to this moment. Jalen Brunson, all the highs and lows, everything. We'll talk a little bit of Western Conference finals. We'll talk Jalen Brown's all NBA stuff, Scotty Barnes getting snubbed and a little bit of Western conference finals. Game 5 is maybe the game of the year tonight. I guess every game these two teams play, Spurs, Thunder will be the game of the year until that series is over and the finals begins on June 3. A lot of rest for the Knicks. They're healthy, they're deep. The other teams are beating the hell out of each other. Boy oh boy, is it all lining up for the Knicks. And then John Hollinger is here, the perfect guy to talk about lottery reform. Yeah, it's on the ballot this week. Is this a good idea? Is this a bad idea? Let's take a deeper dive than we've taken with a guy who's actually qualified to do it. Some of the pitfalls, some of the benefits, all of that is coming up on the Zach Lowe Show. The Zach Lowe show is brought to you by FanDuel. The conference finals are here. Think you know how it'll go down? Take your shot with FanDuel and get closer to the action. FanDuel is the best place to bet the teams, the players and plays during the NBA postseason. Build the same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout or try live betting and jump into the action after tip off. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app now and play your game 21 or over in President Select States 18 or over in D.C. kentucky, Wyoming gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chatinc Foreign. Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show. Howard Beck is here. Howard it happened. It really happened. The New York Knicks, the beleaguered hometown team of the greatest city in the world, for the first time in 27 years, have made the NBA Finals since 1999, since before Y2K, the Knicks are in the NBA Finals. The streets of New York. You can disperse the crowds outside Madison Square Garden nypd but you can't stop Knicks fans from congregating wherever they want to congregate and raising hell. Because this is a moment for a beloved team in a city that loves basketball. They destroyed the hapless, incompetent and yet analytically sound Cleveland Cavaliers again. Their 11th consecutive postseason win. Almost all blowouts, even the overtime win. Somehow a blowout. Overtime, of course, in game one of the conference finals, AKA the game that ended the Eastern Conference finals effectively. And Howard Beck. I said it after the Sixers series with Fred Katz. It was clear at that point the Knicks can win the title. This is not the Junior Varsity Conference golf clap. Whatever. The real finals is happening in the Western Conference finals. Both those teams at full health are better than the Knicks. That's true. It just is what it is. Sometimes the playoffs are not about just better in a vacuum or better over a hundred game sample. The Knicks had proven against Philly, proven against Atlanta, and tripled down on proving against Cleveland. They can win the title and that's only increased as the spurs and the Thunder have beaten the hell out of each other. Game five is tonight. It is the game of the year so far in the NBA. Every game these two teams play will be the game of the year in the NBA. Until the Finals, I guess. Jalen Williams is hurt, A.J. mitchell is hurt. Dylan Harper looked pretty good in game four but is dealing with abductor. And Darren Fox has the ankle thing. The Knicks, I mean I said it after Philly. This is a championship caliber team. Spurs, coin toss. At that point I think I said Oklahoma City. I'd give them a puncher's chance like 25, 30%. I think it's even higher than that now. Even if they'll be underdogs, this team is just that good. And Howard Beck, you chronicled the New York Knicks for the illustrious New York Times from 2004 to 2013. I just want to put in perspective how incredible and almost out of nowhere this run that started really properly with Jalen Brunson and on and on. And I outlined all the incredible team building moves this front office has made on Saturday night with Michael Pena. I want to outline how improbable it is. You can pick your like Knicks incompetence stat. It's really stunning. They were under.500 every single season from 2002 to 2010. Nine straight seasons under.500 in a row. And we don't need like all the shit that happened during that time is well chronicled on court, off court, everything. Then they have this like brief mellow slash, Linsanity slash Amare slash. The Mello Omari, Tyson Chandler thing that never really worked. There's a 54 win season in there that Amare mostly doesn't play. A little blip of good fortune. And then from 2015 to 2026 seasons, here are their win totals in those six seasons. 17, 32, 31, 29, 17 21. And there's the Porzingis thing in there. There's they draft Nilakina and Kevin Knox over Bam and SGA waiting maybe on the other side of the bracket, who knows. There's Derek Fisher fights Matt Barnes at one point. Jeff Hornacek kind of fights Joe Kim Noah at another point. It almost is like the Knicks during those six years. It was almost worse in some. I don't. Maybe it wasn't worse. They existed like outside the NBA. Like the. The real NBA was over here with the Cavs and the warriors and like all the east, the Raptors and the Celtics were cute in Eastern Conference and the Rockets are loading up. The Knicks were like a sideshow outside of the real NBA. As irrelevant as a basketball team as a franchise could get. And here they are in the Finals. It's an incredible turnaround. And they are playing gorgeous basketball, just gorgeous. High iq. Everything is humming. Howard Beck. I just, I. They're here. I can't believe it.
[07:49]
B
I can't either. You use the word beleaguered earlier and it got me thinking. Like how many different adjectives and synonyms and awful descriptors I must have used over the course of nine years at the New York Times and several years after that, frankly, when I was still, you know, obviously in New York, but writing about the Knicks periodically for Bleacher Reporter and wherever else I was at a given time. But beleaguered, bedraggled, dysfunctional, inept dysfunction above all else. And I think when people are elsewhere in the country either either puzzled over or, you know, taken aback by these scenes of Knicks fans reveling in the streets, even sometimes after game one of a series, even sometimes after game one of a season, as they did a couple, I think Bing Bong came about after a Knicks, oh, victory over the Celtics. And literally a game one of the season.
[08:43]
A
A little over exuberant at times. A little over exuberant like, Leave J.R. smith alone. Leave Brian when horse alone. Exuberant.
[08:50]
B
I, I, I just need people outside of New York to understand. I've been here for 22 years now, 21 years. I need people outside of this city to understand the context that Zach just gave. And it goes deeper and, and uglier and, and just the messier than all of that. So if maybe this is just a New York thing anyway, but it's also, this is earned. This is earned through a quarter century, essentially, of suffering. And not just bad teams, not just losing teams, but, like, you know, at one point in time, Larry Brown is the coach, Stefan Marbury is the point guard, and Isaiah Thomas is the team president. And all three of them are in fights with each other. Isaiah has turned on Stefan. Stefan Marbury has turned on Isaiah. Marbury's turned on Larry Brown. Larry Brown has turned on both Isaiah and stuff like. And we would just on a daily basis have one version or another of this fight that we were chronicling, and they were all talking about it all the time. We don't need to go into chapter and verse of all that, but there were just versions of that. There was, of course, a sexual harassment lawsuit, which they lost, which David caused David Stern to give one of my favorite David Stern quotes of all time, which, because the Garden had decided not to settle that case in advance, David Stern said they were, quote, not a model of intelligent management, a phrase that I thought applied to just about everything they did on and off the court for a very, very long time. That is not now. That is not this Knicks team or the way this Knicks team is being run, even though it's still the same owner who does not preside over a model of intelligent management once upon a time. He has largely stepped out of the way since putting Leon Rose in charge, a move that I was skeptical of at the time, and I think reasonably so. But Leon and that crew have done an incredible job. And I think, Zach, the thing you mentioned about the Knicks, like, we're sitting here in awe of the results, the scoring margin, the winning streak in the postseason, the brand of basketball that they play, all of it, and the thing that you didn't say and that we would normally Say about a team. And I was looking at, you know, kind of past teams that went through the playoffs with only like two losses and won the championship. Those, you know, those kinds of historic runs. You know, obviously I was there for Shaq and Kobe going 11 and oh in 01 before losing to Iverson in game one and then rolling the Sixers. We've seen versions of this. Do you know what they all have in common? Like multiple freaking hall of Famers. It's Shaq and Kobe. It's Steph and KD and Clay and Draymond. It's Michael and Scotty. It's Isaiah and Dumars and Lambir and Rodman. Like, when you look over the list of the teams that have had runs like this, they're fucking stacked. And this Knicks team, Jalen Brunson's an all timer, make no mistake. And people just. Conversations have been going on for a while now about whether he might already be or where he ranks among the greatest Knicks or whether he's in contention for greatest. Nick, he's certainly greatest Knick of this century. But this is not a stacked hall of Fame team, right? Carl Anthony Towns, really good player. Jalen Brunson, awesome. They're just perfectly calibrated. They remind me in some respects of what we saw with when the Nuggets won the championship. Jokic, an all time great. Jamal Murray, very, very good. And then, you know, Aaron Gordon, Michael Porter Jr. Just like good players that complemented each other well, played for each other, played selflessly. That's what I see in this Knicks team right now is just this kind of. Everybody's in sync, everybody knows their role there. There's no, very few moments where, where you see like anything glaring, something looks a little bit selfish or a little self indulgent or, or just a, just a dumb play. Like they're just. They play very smart, efficient, consistent basketball and it's, it's a joy to watch. And they're. And like I say, they are doing it in a much different way. This is not. They may go down as an all time team, record wise, especially if they win the championship, but they don't project as that. When you look at the names on the sheet.
[12:36]
A
Well, look, I mean they're going to have. Two of these guys are making the hall of Fame. Like Brunson and Townes are on track. McDolphin, but towns will be like a tier, whatever hall of Famer.
[12:47]
B
And it's a reverence thing, right? Like some of the names I mentioned, these are, these are Names in inspire absolute reverence. And Carl Anthony Towns has always been like the stats are there, the success is there. But he, he puzzles people. He, he, he's, you know, he's not embraced or revered in that, in that same, that vein.
[13:03]
A
But they have stacked the team. It, it's, it's hallmark is depth and size on the wing around Brunson and around Towns and everybody they play is good. They have this Mitchell Robinson look that they really didn't even have to use that much. I mean the Cavs kind of hacked him out of the series. And the Cavs also fell for the bait, the hack of Mitch like oh, we're one foul away from the bonus. Let's put Mitchell Robinson on the floor. He'll get hacked and we'll take him right off the floor. I couldn't believe they fell for that multiple times. All shamet has changed their team and given them a legit reliable five out kind of lineup they can go to. And I what was he 12 of 13 on threes in the conference finals? Just absolutely. I mean at some point this level of shooting is going to fall off a little bit and they're going to have to win in other ways. And by the way they are fully capable of that because you don't win games by 30 points just because you're shooting well. You do everything well, but you just know it when you see it. And this team had glitches in January and March where the rhythm that they have found now escaped them. And they would talk about it and they have talked about it even in the wake of winning this cav series of building habits and those habits would fall away. And Mike Brown used the word sacrifice multiple times after the game last night. Maybe guys weren't sacrificing as much as they should and they got to the playoffs and they, they faced adversity and they had two options. Number one was meltdown in fight. Everyone tried to win it by themselves. And option two is what they've taken which is hey, we felt this rhythm before we know how to get there. We have a lot of selfless guys who can move the ball, move themselves, cut and move and they have been putting teams in the blender ever since then. And to your point about if you see a nick player take what looks like a self indulgence shot, it's now like a unicorn occurrence in these games. Like Anunoby had a couple of jumpers in recent games or he just early in the shot clock he had a sides advantage. He's gigantic. And he's on fire. And he rose up and launched like a 20 foot earlier in the shot clock. Made most of them because again, he's on a heater. And they stood out as like, ooh, the Knicks aren't taking a lot of shots like that. It's the perfect ecosystem right now. There's an understanding that everything starts and often ends with Brunson and everyone around that fills in the gaps in the appropriate way. Everyone is shooting when they should shoot, everyone is passing when they should pass. The hierarchy is clear and everyone is just buying all the like Josh Hart, your job, push the pace, get it. And like every time, every fast break they had in the first half as Cleveland's transition defense, just laughably bad for. I don't know, they've been that way in half the games in this postseason. Especially so against the Knicks, it was Josh Hart being like, this is my job to do this. Everyone is just filling the gaps. It's beautiful, beautiful basketball. They're deep, they're talented. Katt has never played this well defensively. They can win. They can win the whole thing. It was clear to me after the Philly series that this is not just a sort of cute Eastern Conference story. This is a team that can win the championship. And it's just been. And they, they exploit and the hallmark of why this team is in rhythm and well coached too. And Mike Brown deserves a lot of credit. Mike Brown, by the way, fired by the Sacramento Kings. The Kings fired Mike Brown.
[16:25]
B
There was a time, Zach, where I had. I was doing periodically the math on most coaches and GMs or President. However a team is structured over a course of time. And the Kings and Knicks were basically neck and neck for a long time during the, you know, whatever the 2004 through 2015 or whatever it was. And at some point, of course, the Knicks have settled into extreme competency, while the Kings, while flirting with competency for about five minutes, then veered straight into more incompetency, including the incredibly stupid decision to fire Mike Brown. But yes, props to Mike Brown and very a great guy. We both know him well, like happy to see him get, get his due and as he will be for the next couple of weeks over the course of the Finals.
[17:08]
A
Well, and what I was going to say a bit is a credit to the players and the team. Every weakness that emerges for them to exploit is exploited immediately on offense. Every time there's a substitution that prevents either a weak defender, presents a weak defender or a new wrinkle in how the Cavs are Going to match up or whatever. There's no wasted possession. It's immediately like, okay, now the understanding is they're going to guard this play like this, which opens up this for us. They're just on it and from, from the jump. No wasted time, no wasted possessions. And here they are. And awaiting them is either the Thunder or the spurs, who they beat in the NBA Cup Finals. Remember the NBA Cup. We still, Howard, we still haven't had a team win the NBA cup and the NBA title in the same year. The Knicks might as well make that history too. The Thunder failed at it last year. We might as well get that historic double. And like the Knicks feel internally like, you know, look, Wemby is an alien. No one really has an answer for him consistently. But you know, Sam Amick wrote this story about Wemby. I think it was after game, I don't remember game one or game four, one of the games in the, in the conference finals about how everyone is watching this series and particularly watching a game like game one and thinking, boy, do we have to find someone who can slow this dude down? And then like, what's the archetype of that defender? Does it even exist? And an anonymous person in that story by Sam sort of outlined like, what you really need is a 6, 8, 6, 9 wing who's both very quick and incredibly strong. And I mean, I haven't talked to the Knicks people since that story. I haven't been to a Knicks game since that story. I can guarantee you if people in the front office and the coaching staff saw that story, they would have looked at each other and said it sounds a lot like OG Anunoby and not that he's going to guard Wemby the entire series. They'll do lots of different things, but they have, they feel like they walk into both of these series with a real chance and some real advantages. And that's what the playoffs is about. Like, yeah, in a 200 game sample size, the spurs and the Thunder are going to win more games than the Knicks. They're going to put up a better point differential notwithstanding what the fuck just happened at the Eastern Conference playoffs. But a matchup is a matchup. The Pacers almost beat the Thunder last year. The spurs, the Knicks rather are a very kind of unusual team. Brunson is an unusual superstar. Cat at the five is an unusual look, they're difficult to guard, they're difficult to play against, and I think they have a real shot. And this is just an awesome story of all these players coming together in trades of all different ilks, right? You have the McHale bridges like that's the mega trade. The Anunoby trade is like a talent trade. The Josh Hart is a we believe in this guy, let's go get him trade. And it all the cat trade is a ceiling raising risk that has paid off. It's just a masterclass of building a roster that has clicked at the right moment and there was no guarantee it was going to click at the right moment and it has. And boy did they just destroy the Cavs. But what a what a half decade run for the Knicks.
[20:14]
B
Incredible. And there's just a lot of really important key decisions made along the way there. Several of which in real time had either pundits like us maybe going, huh, not sure. Or Knicks fans themselves wincing a bit, right? Like the play for Karl Anthony Towns was not guaranteed to work out. And Julius Randle certainly was a roller coaster ride for Knicks fans too and for every fans of every team he's been on. But there was some risk, especially in giving up him and DiVincenzo in that deal and taking on Towns who had his own kind of up and down history. Josh Hart had been discarded by like three teams by the time they got him. And he is the absolute perfect by the way.
[20:50]
A
Stupid teams, stupid teams. Stupid. I mean the Lakers discarded. So like let's, let's go.
[20:56]
B
Yeah, we could, we could forgive that one. But the Pelicans giving up on him. The, the Blazers giving up on him. And look, another one where Knicks fans as recently as a week ago, I have a good, a good friend who texts me sometimes in the middle of games and I was, it was when you and I were at game one, I think, I think it was during game one where he was texting me going like Mike Brown's got to get Josh Hart out of there because the way he had started and they weren't guarding him and everything else. And then of course Josh Hart caught fire. I text him back like I, I think you owe Josh an apology. Just the consummate glue guy. Consummate like just spiritual leader type like everything if you like. You could say that Brunson in exemplifies everything that there is to know about the Knicks. But I think Josh Hart on a, on a less talented level, sheer talent level is just as important to the ethos of who the Knicks are.
[21:44]
A
Look, I, I love Josh Hart. He was on my Marcus soul All Stars this year. After that Game one I said on this podcast with Jason Timm, less minutes for Josh Hart is almost never the answer. He always responds to these like, oh, they got to cut his minutes. He can't shoot games with, like, massive games. And he's been massive since then. Every team that wins a title or chases a title needs a Josh Hart. And that's like you, it's, it's, it's a generic thing to say that about any role player. But Josh Hart in particular is the kind of role player that is fun to play with. And I think you need that ingredient on a great team. And everybody likes playing with a guy who is selfless, pushes the pace, does all the dirty work, gang rebounding, defends whoever you ask him to defend, and is just constantly operating from a perspective of how can I make the game faster, more fun and easier for my teammates. Everybody loves to play with a guy like that. And that's what Josh Hart is. And one first round pick in Cam Reddish, boom. This guy's going to be a Knick for life, maybe.
[22:57]
B
And a Knick legend. The way things are going, especially if they win a championship, they all become legends instantaneously. But, you know, when's the last time we heard anybody complaining about all the picks given up for Mikhail Bridges? Probably a few weeks ago, or probably when he was looking like he was about to get yanked out of the starting lineup during the Atlanta series, which feels like three years ago.
[23:14]
A
Mike Brown was never going to do that. And I, I said at the time, you shouldn't do that. You can't disrupt this starting five at this time. This starting five has kind of a checkered history. Remember in the playoffs last year with by the Numbers kind of meh. I've always liked it and they've been rewarded for sticking by it. But like, there was he, Mike Brown, whatever he did, what he did was right and whatever he said behind the scenes was right. And they stuck by Mikhail Bridges and he's playing the best he's played since he was in Brooklyn.
[23:41]
B
Yeah, and again, that was a controversial deal for the Knicks in part because Mikhail Bridges as a third or fourth wheel in Phoenix, really good young player. Mikhail Bridges as miscast, you know, number one option in Brooklyn, not so great. And then by the time the Knicks get him, it's like, well, you know what, what player do we have? And we just give up a shit ton of draft capital to get him at the peak of draft capital trades which we may never see again. And so the investment was really big and the, the outcome and the fit were unclear. And then of course, he clashed with Tibbs. Last year, he was outspoken about it, about minutes, about roll, about all kinds of stuff. So he starts to come off as maybe a little bit of a malcontent. And yet here we are. Everything seems to fit perfectly. And that's how things go, right? Like, it's, you know, you know, what is it about the whole, you know, winning covers up everything, but it's, It's. It's a chicken and egg thing. Like, maybe they all just got on the same page and then the winning was produced, or maybe the winning started and then everybody else calmed down or whatever. But everybody seems perfectly fitting, perfectly happy with their roles. These guys, I mean, they. You never get any sense there's any tension out there. Like, yeah, the teams make mistakes, everything. Guys got to bark at each other occasionally, all that stuff. But, like, this looks like a really fun group. And I think that's been the other hallmark the last few years. Even when they've fallen short in the playoffs, this is a really easy team to embrace, even if you weren't a Knicks fan, because of how hard they play, their relentlessness. They have bodies just dropping like flies a couple years ago, and they just keep winning and winning anyway and extending that series against Indiana two years ago, like, they've earned this. They've. They've earned this. It's. It's a really incredible evolution and, and kind of rebirth for this franchise after everything they've gone through. 27 years just seems insane between NBA Finals and even that, right? Like, that was the 99 finals. That was the lockout season. So, you know, Phil Jackson putting the big fat asterisk on that one. They were an eight seed. An eight seed that made the Finals. So it was also the improbability of it all.
[25:50]
A
I don't think that is. Even though. And in between, he's a champion legend for the Knicks. I don't know that Phil Jackson is a name that any Knicks fans want to hear on today's. On today's episode of probably not.
[26:00]
B
Probably not. Strike it from the record.
[26:01]
A
But you mentioned. You mentioned tension. And the reality is there has been tension this season. There were multiple. Like, Cat talks about having to sacrifice the most because of the new offense. At the end of last season, Fred Katz and James Edwards and the Athletic wrote the sort of now they tell us story story about, you know, players wondering kind of if Cat takes defense seriously enough, if he sticks to the scheme enough and owns it hard enough when he doesn't. And all of that has vanished. Cat has stuck to the scheme defensively. To a tee. I thought one of the fun little subtleties of this Cleveland romp was the way the Knicks toggled the big man matchups with Cat mostly guarding Mobley, but sometimes guarding Allen when the Cavs had both the bigs on the floor and Anunoby guarding Allen for the most part, but sometimes guarding Mobley. And they would switch within possessions like their big to big rotations were just on point in a way that was like, have they been doing this all season? It was really tremendous to watch. So there have been moments intentionally. It all starts with Brunson and signing Brunson away from the Mavericks on a deal that a lot of people panned. I did not. I said, I think, I described it as I think it's fine. I think it's like a BB plus. Obviously even that was like wildly pessimistic on what it's become. Since then he has signed another below market extension with the Knicks, but everything starts with him. And he got so great so fast and the team got so good so fast that it changed everything about the way they built the team. And that coalesced in the Bridges trade. I was rereading what I wrote about the Bridges trade at the time and it was after that Indiana series that you mentioned two seasons ago that they stretched out despite half the team going down with injuries. You know, we don't even need to go through the list. And then they overpay for Bridges. It's still an overpay. It doesn't even matter if it's an overpay. And I wrote at the time like, look, the bottom line is I thought that year The Knicks in 2024, with Randall Pre, Cat pre Bridges Pre all this were the second best team in the east, the biggest threat to Boston in the east. And then the injuries just decimated them. And when you get that good that fast, you make decisions like you don't. There's no point in waiting anymore. There's no point in waiting for this Giannis pipe dream that's wasn't coming then. There's no point in trying to get Joel Embiid, who's already a big injury risk and not available. He made them so good so fast that it had to change everything about how they accelerated. And here they are. And look, we have plenty of time to talk about the Knicks. I have a question for you. Are you aware of have you become aware of a WWE wrestler slash personality named Danhausen?
[28:38]
B
No, I have not.
[28:40]
A
So you did not see that Danhausen has cursed the Cavaliers on National TV and uncursed the Knicks.
[28:48]
B
I did not realize this person existed, nor that he had this immense power that's. You need to do it.
[28:53]
A
I went down a rabbit hole of Danhausen. He did this on espn. He's a big star. I don't. And I went down a rabbit hole because I was so fascinated. He's. He looks like a little man compared to, like, regular wrestlers. He looks like a normal dude, skinny, whatever. The best way I can describe him, Howard, to you is, again, he looks like a regular person, except he's sort of like an avant garde ghoul Dracula with face paint on. Okay. And a funny voice. And I was like, I don't even understand how this guy's a wrestler. Let me go on YouTube and figure this out. And, like, 90 minutes passed, and I was fascinated because he's like an avant garde comedy act. He's presented as, like, inept and weird and has this belief in himself that he can curse people, and it's objectively insane, but the people he curses, eventually bad things start happening to almost randomly. And so he's become a star. He must weigh 180 pounds, and he's become a star. And I googled him. And since he uncursed the Knicks, they have not lost a game. And so he's being credited with this now. I will also say this, Howard. Becky. I'm just. I'm just going to put it out into the air. Since the episode of your Friends and Neighbors aired with Ogn and Obi and I cameoing, the Knicks are undefeated. So I don't know if I belong in the conversation with Danhausen, but these things are happening. The supernatural things are occurring.
[30:21]
B
This keeps up, they're going to have to bump you up to a Westchester eight, maybe a seven and a half. We'll see. We'll see. You said he looked inept and weird as a wrestler. I mean, that would have described the Knicks for a long time and now describes the Cleveland Cavaliers perfectly. They're inept and weird.
[30:36]
A
I can't recommend a 90 minute Danhausen. I almost want to watch wrestling again because he's so. I can't believe this thing exists. All right, let's take a break and talk quickly about the other end of the Eastern Conference finals. The Zach Low show is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA playoffs are here, and everything's on the line. Every possession matters. Every bucket swings the game. And tonight is your shot to boost your bet. That's right. All customers get a profit boost tonight. So when the moment hits, your win hits bigger and FanDuel is giving you better payouts on same game parlays all NBA playoffs long. Lock in your bets, boost your odds and make the playoffs pay off with FanDuel, official sports betting partner of the NBA. Head to FanDuel.com low to get started. FanDuel play your game 21 are over in select states are 18 and over in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming opt in required bonus issued is non withdrawable profit boost tokens gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLER call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chatincut this episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. The Playoffs are Almost Here My favorite thing about the NBA playoffs the intensity and the strategy. Every game is treated like a must win game and even when A team is up 30 every quarter, every half has a new adjustment that you gotta really be dialed in to track. Oh that guy's guarding that guy now. Why are they doing that? How is the other team going to counter that? It's the chess match that we don't really see quite as much of in the regular season. It's dialed up from the opening tip of game one in the playoffs. Playoffs are just awesome in the NBA. You know what else is just as great? Opening up a new bottle of Michelob Ultra. It's refreshing, light with only 95 calories. Plus as the official beer partner of the NBA, they're giving fans a chance to win courtside tickets, unique prizes and more. Michelob Ultra Superior is worth playing for. Enter now@michelob ultra.com Courtside Michelob Ultra Courtside 25 to 26 no purchase necessary. Open US residents 21/plus begins on October 1, 2025 and ends on June 30, 2026. Multiple entry periods. See official rules@michelobultra.com Courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. Okay, the Cleveland Cavaliers are are out. There's just so much material here, Howard, that I don't even know where to start. Would you like to start with James Harden going 2 of 8 in an elimination game and a combined 39 points on 7 of 27 shooting in three elimination games? Two wins, albeit for the Cavs this year? Would you like to start there? Would you like to start with Kenny Atkinson uttering a quote that will follow him to the grave and deservedly so for the rest of his life, about how the Cavaliers were actually analytically up 2 to 1 in the series against the Knicks when they were down 3, 0 and losing every game by the way by double digit points. And I would like to congratulate the Cavaliers because I looked up the shot quality data on second Spectrum Genius IQ today. The Cavaliers expected effective field goal percentage based on who was shooting, specific identity of the shooters and from where they were shooting and how close the defenders are. And all the fancy nerd stuff was 55.41% for this series. The Knicks same stat was 54.8 for the series. So the Cavs by 0.7 percentage points won the shot quality banner. They also won zero games in the series. So I would advise against raising a banner for the 2026 Shot Quality Championship. That's just me and I just. You can't say that. Look, I understand he was probably trying to imbue his team with confidence, right? Like we've actually done things well, let's keep doing what we're doing and maybe the shots will fall. Just say that then. Don't say we've analytically. Analytically we're actually up 2:1. That's how it came off. It's going to follow him around forever. And here's the other thing. You can't hang your hat on process when you blow a 20 point lead halfway through the fourth quarter of game one. The series ended. That was it. That was the whole series. And I don't care what happens after that. You can't hang your hat on any process when your process involved blowing that lead. It also elided the fact that there are so many other things besides shot quality that determine who wins and loses a basketball game. For instance, The Cavaliers were 15th out of 16 playoff teams in turnover rate in the playoffs and their turnover rate was even worse in the Eastern Conference finals. And there the number of just straight up dumbass turnovers was astounding for a team that wanted us to take them seriously. How many inbounds and outlet passes did they throw directly to the other team in this series alone? How many times did players catch the ball out of bounds? How many times did players just drop the ball out of bounds? How about your transition defense? If you want to hang your hat on shot quality and well, you know, whatever. There are so many other ways to to shrink the other margins of the game so that shot quality really could be the deciding factor. How about your transition defense last night? I understand three. Oh, you probably have a little bit of lack of self belief that you can do it. Their transition defense last night was absolutely embarrassing for a team that again wanted us to take them seriously and it was embarrassing for parts of the entire playoffs. Clean that up before you talk to me about shot quality. But bigger picture, Howard. This is the ultimate glass half full. Glass half empty. Argument glass half full, which is what Kenny Atkinson tried to pour last night. Hey, we finally made the conference finals. We got over the hump. Let's just stand pat, keep it going. Keep me, please keep me. Keep me. Keep Donovan. Donovan says he wants to stay. He's extension eligible. Keep Mobley, keep Harden. He has a player option. I would suspect that they have worked out some sort of agreement where he opts out of that for a lesser amount and resigns. A two year, $60 million deal, something like that. Keep everyone together. We're headed the right direction. We got over the hump. It's the Eastern Conference. Like, it's not like there's some Spurs Thunder powerhouse standing in our way. Keep Jared Allen, like, keep the whole infrastructure glass half empty. Yeah, they made the conference finals. Their collective record for the playoffs is 8 and 10.
[37:19]
B
I'm not.
[37:19]
A
I'm just not that impressed with. With what they like to go seven against Toronto, who was missing quickly the entire series. And the Cavs will sit here and tell you, well, that made them actually harder to play against. We didn't have a defensive liability to pick on. Well, you have to have both ends of the floor singing to win. And quickly was a big loss. And Ingram was out half the series. Detroit barely beat Orlando and Cleveland barely beat Detroit 8 and 10. I'm just not that impressed. And. But I also don't know what else to. I don't know what the right answer is, but I'm just. I'm not buying, like. Well, because we made it to the conference finals, we are clearly progressing as a team and we have another year presumably to learn about how to play with James Harden. And I'm not like, their assist rate collapsed, they were last in the playoffs, and assist rate, their offense just didn't look smooth. Mitchell and Mobley for the playoffs, that twosome together was -68 for the entire playoffs. So they're doing this thing where it's like, Mitchell, Mobley, Harden, Allen, those are the pairings. And it just seems like two fundamental things are true about the Cavs as they make decisions about how to go forward. Like, leave aside the half full glass, half empty glass, these things are true. Number one, in a lot of ways, there's still the same roster that they felt uncertain about when they had Darius Garland, which is we have two undersized guards and two big guys Whose fit is unclear. Well, the guards aren't undersized anymore, but let's just say two defensively challenged guards and two bigs. Who's fit to us is unclear. And in the middle is this giant vacant hole where the Knicks have three giant wings that are really good two way players and we have none. No giant wings that are really good two way players. Strus is the closest one. They finally started Strus. It was too little, too late. And fundamental truth number two is related to that. It feels like they have to pick a lane sometimes. Like, do you believe in Allen and Mobley together or do you not believe in Allen and Mobley together? And should you just pick one and have Mobley be your starting center? And yet when they play that way, they're so small around him that when he has to defend the pick and roll up high on the floor and they get the ball behind him, there's just absolutely no resistance because they're tiny when they play with one big. And so for as much as they've changed and as far as they've gotten, it still feels like they're stuck in the same problem, same fundamental problem, and not really like that much better. I'm just not that impressed with their playoff run. And yet I don't know, I'm not sure that the answer still isn't let's just stand pat and not do anything crazy because I don't know what their alternatives are.
[40:03]
B
I mean, throughout this era, and I mean, you know, the era of once they acquire Donovan Mitchell, pair him with Darius Garland, tear down and Evan Mobley, that, that quartet, before they broke it up with the Garland Harden deal, there had always been some doubts around the league. I'm sure you and I both heard a lot of this along the way. Just, yes, your, your backcourt is undersized and defensively challenged. That's going to potentially put a ceiling on, on how far you can go with that and how's the fit going to be overall? And you know, over the course of a couple of years, I think it got better in terms of just their offensive distribution and responsibilities and then, and then the two bigs. And then on top of that, that was the playing layer. Then there was the salary cap layer, which was can you afford to keep all these guys in perpetuity because of what it was going to do to your cap, your tax, second apron, all that. And they've come up against that too. And I guess to their credit, you know, they stuck with it because they, they truly believed this is we'll pay the tax. We'll go into the second apron. We believe in, in this, this grouping, and we're going to write it as far as we can. And as far as we can meant ending three months ago, whenever it was when they out of the blue flipped Garland for Harden, a deal that I don't think anybody saw coming until, you know, the day it actually happened. As recently as right before this series, when I was talking to some Cavs people, they were very, very happy with the swap of Garland for Harden. They felt very confident in the wisdom of that move and what Harden had brought them. They felt it was everything they needed. And yet here we are talking once again at the end of another Harden team collapse and how bad he was at key moments and in key games and elimination games. Dude ain't beating the allegations. I don't want to hear any more of the hardened apologists out there saying we've all just been mean to him and we've misread.
[41:48]
A
Let's just read just, let's just read his numbers in while we do the hardened autopsy. First of all, he's 36 years old. And so to expect him to score 25 a game on efficient shooting and defend Jalen Brunson over and over down the stretch of games is not realistic anymore.
[42:08]
B
And I want to qualify my own criticism by just saying this, and I said this to some Cash people not long ago. This is the one time when I think while Harden is certainly as responsible as anybody for what we just saw, this is not his responsibility, this team, at this stage of his career. This is more about Donovan Mitchell and everybody else.
[42:25]
A
So this is a collective, this is a collective structural failure in this series. Not for the season.
[42:33]
B
Yes.
[42:33]
A
All right, Harden for the series, for the playoffs, rather. 19 a game, five rebounds, five and a half assists. That assist number combined with Donovan Mitchell averaging three assists for the playoffs is a red alert number that something was not working with the offense. But 19, 5 and 5, 41% shooting, 30% on threes, 52% on twos. And I mentioned in the three elimination games, 39 combined points on 7 of 27 shooting and was just sort of quietly carried across the finish line in Game 7 against the Pistons that they won by a lot and so no one really talked about like another hardened dud. Now game three and game five against the Pistons, monster clutch moments across the board and you have to give him credit for that. Evan Mobley in the playoffs, again, a lightning Rod player, right? 17 points a game, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 53% shooting, pretty good. 34% on threes, 63% on twos, pretty good. I thought we'd be getting more than 17 a game out of Evan Mobley. And I thought like we, we had probably progressed by the point where Deuce McBride is stripping him one on one in the post in an elimination game. But we spilled pretty good. Still leave me a little cold. And I want to give the credit to the Knicks for one thing. 34% on threes for Evan Mobley. They never made the mistake that a lot of teams make, which is they just were not going to overreact to Evan Mobley shooting. Semi open threes. They're not going to compromise their defense anywhere else for the most part. And I thought that was smart. And Donovan Mitchell, I'll read you his playoff stats. 26 a game. Okay. 5 rebounds, 3 assists. I mentioned 3 assists to 2.6. Turnover is not great. 45% shooting, 33% on threes, 54% on twos. That sounds good. It didn't feel that good. And there was just something synergistically off with the Cavs in this series in particular. And now they. So like, again, I don't even know what the answer is. Right. They clearly need a wing. They've been searching for this wing since they cycle through. Caris Lavert, DeAndre Hunter, Keone Ellis, Max Struz, Dean Wade. And you saw the difference between Strus and Wade in the series is like when Dean Wade was in the game. Find defensive player doesn't make enough shots. Like find like he's always been an analytics darling. The Knicks could put Brunson on him and just not worry about it at all. Like when you hunt Brunson with Dean Wade as the screener. Brunson's going to double and recover and Dean Wade's going to roll around wherever he rolls around. And the Knicks just aren't going to care when Struz is in that position. The Knicks all of a sudden care. The Knicks have to recover quickly. They have to rotate a third guy to Max Strust. They have to switch sometimes because they're scared of his shooting. Dean Wade was not the answer. I don't know what the answer is. But here's the thing, Mobley. Well, I mean, like here are the decisions, right? Donovan Mitchell's eligible for a max max 35% max extension that would kick in the year after this year and says
[45:37]
B
he wants to stay.
[45:39]
A
I talked about picking a lane. You sign him to that extension. That's the lane. That's your lane now your other lane is. And Bill pitched this like, should you just get out of this business altogether and start over and trade Donovan Mitchell for future assets? Based on Dan Gilbert's tweet after the game last night, I don't see that happening. The other decision is Mobley. I don't really see a reason to trade Mobley or a good Mobley trade, but the Mobley for Giannis thing is certainly an interesting trade. The other thing, people have to understand about these fake Mobley trades, and the same thing applies to the Thunder. We'll talk about that. The Cavs are going to be over the second apron or right around the second apron. If they're over the second apron, they can't aggregate salaries. And if they can't aggregate salaries, trading Mobley for Giannis requires, like, a third team, a fourth team, lots of different stuff happening. I don't know. Would you.
[46:28]
B
Would you contemplate that for Giannis specifically, or a mobile trade in general?
[46:34]
A
I don't know what the other Mobili trade is. So for Yanis specifically?
[46:37]
B
Yeah, I don't. I don't know. I don't know if there's another version of it where you're getting Jaylen Brown instead or, like, you know, I'm starting to cycle through like, all the other.
[46:43]
A
Again. Second April, he makes $20 million more than Evan Mobley does.
[46:47]
B
It's really hard. It's just really hard. I. I think I would be very hesitant at this stage to give up on the possibility of Evan Mobley, because we see those flashes, like, you know, at the time he was drafted, people couldn't wait to compare him to Tim Duncan or Kevin Garnett or a combination thereof or whatever he was going to be, you know, this, this do everything big, who was perfect for the modern game and could guard every position and shoot from everywhere and all that. And we haven't quite seen that come together. But, you know, that's one of the hardest decisions, I think, for teams to make, especially when it's your own guy and they're. They're still early in their career. At what point do you conclude that this is as. As. As evolved as they're going to get as a player? He's still 24. He'll be 25 in a few weeks. Not even in his prime yet. I would be very hesitant. On the other hand, if, if you were getting Giannis. The problem with all the Giannis discussions is this. How confident is any team that's acquiring him that they're going to somehow unlock something health wise that the Bucks did not. Right? That's a question I think every franchise
[48:00]
A
is asking themselves because atop the, we have to know that he's going to resign here and then we have to pay him the giant contract that's inextricably tied to his aging and health issues.
[48:12]
B
But if you thought, listen, we have the greatest medical staff that's ever been assembled in the history of humankind. We are going to keep him healthy through a full season. I think you would bank on one full season at minimum, of a healthy Giannis combined with Donovan Mitchell and Jared Allen and James Harden, presuming they're all there, and LeBron on a minimum, let's say, and say, you know what, we're just all in and whatever it costs us to keep him if he wants to stay Giannis, cool, great, fine. But we're, we're, we're going to be all in because Donovan Mitchell's far enough into, into his prime and we've got a window here and we're not giving up on him. And you know, we'll, we'll take our chances. We'll take our chances and extend. And if it means that we're, we're getting killed on the back end of a Giannis contract when it's no longer possible for our greatest medical team in the history of humankind to keep him on the court, fine, we'll pay the price then. But in the meantime, if it gives us a chance to get through the Knicks or the, the still rising Pistons or the reconstituted Celtics or whoever it
[49:13]
A
may be, how about the Pacers who are, exist, still looming? So, so the Knicks are really, in a lot of ways the, and there are other teams like the Knicks. The, the best argument for not blowing it up is that, you know, if you're patient and you keep plugging away and you make some moves here and there, like, you can break through eventually. And I don't see them doing anything dramatic like trading Donovan Mitchell for future assets. They just don't seem like a team that has the appetite for that. Now. His contract and Bobby Marks has the numbers today, it's going to be gigantic. Like all these ones is you just have to look in the mirror and ask yourself like, okay, when he's 33, we're going to be paying him this percentage of the salary cap. Is he good enough to justify that? The answer for almost every player in the NBA other than like the top five guys is like some kind of noise like that. But you kind of just do it but you know, I like how you just threw LeBron at a minimum was just throwing in at the end there.
[50:12]
B
Why not?
[50:13]
A
But you do have to think about like, this Mobley for Giannis fantasy land trade, which, you know, would be a lot more palatable to me if I were the Cavs had I not already traded up in age 10 years by flipping Garland for Harden. Like, if I flip Mobley for Giannis, I've just gone from like a young, funky, interesting team to like, holy shit, we got old fast. Not only that, like Harden plus Giannis plus Jared Allen is just a funky group. Like, the talent is there, but the fit on offense is just. Yeah, so Harden's going to dribble all the time. What's Giannis doing? Jared Allen has no range to his game. How does he fit with Giannis? There's like a lot of questions to answer there. I'm glad you mentioned Jaylen Brown because there's something interesting, a little interesting about Mobley for Jalen Brown as a trade construction. Now, who throws in what to make that happen and the apron issues and all that. But I, you know, I find myself looking at the standings and thinking, like, what really good wings could the Cavs get? And it's hard because, like, Trey Murphy III, Michael Porter Jr. Like, you're not trading Evan Mobley for those guys. And I'm not sure their teams are going to be like, hungry enough to take Jared Allen for those guys. Even if you throw in the one pick that the Cavs can trade. The one first round pick. I tried to get Kawhi, like, is there a Jared Allen for Kawhi kind of construction plus one first round pick going to the Clippers. But again, the second apron looms because Jared Allen makes so much less than Kawhi. I, I, It's a, it's a tough nut to crack. And they obviously have to figure out the finances. Like, Dean Wade's a free agent. Is he just a, a cap casualty? Maybe. But I don't know the right answer and the right answer just may be there isn't a better choice other than kind of mostly standing pat.
[52:10]
B
That may well be the case. And I also think this is one of those cases where given a choice between staying the course and trying to augment as you go and bank on some internal improvement and whatever, better chemistry and who knows if it's that versus like whether it's a tear down or just a semi tear down, a blow it up trade Donovan Mitchell for assets and all that stuff. I just don't See that as being necessary right now. Right. This is not a case where like I wrote about this, it'll be up on the ringer today. But like, if you're in the west, it would be understandable if you have a certain amount of despair. If you're not the spurs and Thunder, like how are we breaking through this gauntlet anytime in the next five years and maybe longer then the east is not that way. Right. All due respect to the Knicks who are on a historic tear right now, but this is not Wembanyama and Castle and Harper or Shay, Chet, Jalen and a gazillion other players. With all this depth, you're not trying to get through the LeBron Wade heels or the warriors of Steph, Clay, Draymond and kd. If you're the Cavaliers, you have at least a little reason to believe that with a tweak, tweaks here and there, or maybe some one big swing but not a tear down swing, trying to improve, we'll still be there with the Knicks and the Celtics and the Pistons and the Magic maybe and the Hawks and whatever. Yeah, the east is. Is a mishmash, right? We are. It's funny because if you go back to October, we all thought this was a two team race, or maybe, you know, most of us did. I thought it was going to be between the Knicks and the Cavs in October.
[53:48]
A
And it was in the end.
[53:50]
B
And it was in the end.
[53:51]
C
Yay.
[53:51]
B
I was right. Except I was wrong for like five months in between when we all got, you know, caught up in the wave of oh my God, look at the Pistons. Oh my God, look at the, the Celtics overachieving without Jason Tatum. Ooh, now Tatum is back. I think they're the finals favorites. I thought they were, but I think it just goes to show that like, there was just a lot of volatility and these teams, as I wrote after the first round, the, the parody, the era of parody we're in is not just applying to the Finals and the champion each year and having a different champion and different finals entrance every year. It's that there just isn't a massive gap between these teams. We are not in a super team era for the most part. All due respect again to the Thunder and Spurs, but like, especially in the East, I just. The Knicks, what they're doing right now makes it look like the gap is massive. If you had asked about what the gap was between all these teams in March or April or February, I don't think we would have thought it was that Huge. And so if you're the Cavs, I think you just try to stay in
[54:49]
A
that race, much like last year's conference finals, although more embarrassingly so for the Cavs than it was for the Knicks. I would love to just see the alternate reality of how the series unfolds if the Cavs win Game one, because I just think you can't absorb a loss like that, particularly when you're the underdog. There was just no coming back from that game. I don't know. We'll see what they do. These are very tough decisions. Like, the Mitchell extension is as easy and clean as it looks. Is like, oh, we're Cleveland. We traded a ton to get Donovan Mitchell, like Lowry market and has become a top 25 player in the NBA and he was just sort of not even the headliner in that trade. The picks were. So there's not a sunk, Sunk cost is too pessimistic a term. But like, they're, they're going to be very motivated to bring Donovan Mitchell back. All these decisions are hard. I just don't know. I haven't been. I have not found a great alternative, like, mega decision for the Cavs. Like, I haven't even found like a great Jared Allen trade for them, let alone a Mobley trade. Okay, let's leave the Cavs behind as they, as they prepared the shot quality banner for. For the Rocket Mortgage Arena. Rocket arena, whatever the hell it's called now.
[56:02]
B
I think it's just Rocket arena now. Which that was like. That's a good edit. That's a good edit. It sounds cooler. No, one more. The, the word mortgage does not sound cool or interesting.
[56:12]
A
You know what doesn't sound cool? The diff still doesn't sound cool. No, it does not. And Humongatron does not sound cool. Retire both of those.
[56:21]
B
Oh, Cavs game ops, man.
[56:24]
A
Quick, quick, run through some NBA news stories, including game five of the West Finals. Jaylen Brown. Did you see Jaylen Brown's reaction to not making first team all NBA on his Twitch stream? Which again, I, I want to come on the Twitch. Like, I'm just throwing myself out there as a guest. I'm, I'm available.
[56:40]
B
I just want to be one of the people who stands in the background seamlessly.
[56:43]
A
Me and GRD hashtag Green runs deep. Like, I'll go on. And did you see his reaction to this?
[56:51]
B
I did. I did not see it. The, the actual tape. Yeah, I, I, yeah, I know that he in real time reacted first, acting very aggrieved and then when the second team came out. I guess this was happening in real time and he was like, oh. And then suddenly he was very, you know, semi magnanimous.
[57:08]
A
Yeah, I'm not the most liked fan or media. Sometimes I use my platform a little controversial. So I'm surprised I'm on any team, let alone first or second. I'm grateful, blah, blah, blah. You know, look, no, there was no conspiracy. The five guys who made the first team just had better seasons than Jalen Brown. Sorry. Like the moment that Kate and Luca were ruled eligible. And maybe that's the conspiracy he's hinting at. Jaylen Brown became a second team all NBA player. And by the way, he received the most votes by far of everyone on the second team and almost made first team. There's just no. I. I mean, like, you can make the case based on wins. And he played. I have all the stats up here right now. He played 71 games, which I think is the most of. It is the most of the sort of general group of guys who would have been, including Luca and cade, who played 64 each. I mean, there's just no argument for him over Luka or Kate, I don't think. I mean, I'm so sorry. I don't really have a hot take on that one second. Ty Wall, NBA is an awesome honor. Like, there's no. There was no. The content of Jaylen Brown's media interviews and Twitch stream did not infect the all NBA voting.
[58:20]
B
Well, couple things there. One is that, yes, Jaylen Brown has taken some hits over the last couple of weeks and a lot of criticism from the media because of all the things on the Twitch stream. But that has nothing to do with the vote for all NBA because that happened weeks and weeks ago, before the Celtics had lost, before Jalen Brown had talked about this being his most enjoyable season, all that stuff. So if he's saying that it's past things that he said that somehow has the media, you know, has it in for, I. I don't even know. I think this was his highest ever finish all NBA wise. Right. He had a third team before, if I'm remembering correctly.
[58:54]
A
So I think this is up right now. Howard. I'm too focused on other things.
[59:00]
B
His tone changed very quickly from aggrieved and there's a conspiracy against me to, oh, I made second team and the universe is wonderful and everything is great. And at that point, he's not saying, gee, thank you, media for actually recognizing what a great season I had. It's still the aggrieved Aspect of not being first. And it was just. It was strange.
[59:21]
A
He made second team all NBA in 2023. Okay, so twice in general, with very few exceptions. I think Fox Mulder would be one. If you think there's a conspiracy against you, you're wrong. There's not a conspiracy against you. Just in general. Just as a general rule of thumb.
[59:41]
B
I'm glad you mentioned this. Can I just a quick tangent in this exact zone though, of conspiracies, fake conspiracies, things that do not happen, have not happened, are not happening a couple of weeks ago.
[59:53]
A
And I'm going to be about aliens.
[59:56]
B
It is not going to be about Victor Wembanyama. It is about Luka Doncic and the fact that when he did not finish higher in the MVP race, I think he finished fourth. There were a lot of people. The. The.
[60:08]
C
The.
[60:08]
B
The Luca stands. The.
[60:09]
A
The Lucas does not even deserve our time, Howard. It doesn't deserve our time.
[60:13]
B
It doesn't. I just want to note. He was on all 100 ballots for all NBA. 91 first place votes and 9 second place votes. All 100 ballots and only played 64 games and had to get a pass, a waiver from the NBA to even be eligible. If there were a conspiracy against Luka Doncic, he would not be on all 100 ballots with 91 firsts and finishing first team. So the next time somebody on social media or elsewhere tells you that there is some mass media conspiracy, they hate Luca. Ooh, they hate. We don't know why they hate Luca, but we know they hate him for some reason. There's something. Maybe they don't like his hair. These people are rage baiting. They're grifting, they're misleading. You don't listen to them anymore.
[60:53]
A
You've already given it too much oxygen
[60:54]
B
then it is, by the way. I just need to get that off my chest.
[60:56]
A
Speaking of aliens. Speaking of aliens, I'm a little nervous because my level of excitement for the Steven Spielberg movie disclosure day, which is coming out soon, is when I get this excited about a movie, I'm almost always disappointed. And it's my fault. My hype level is too high. I haven't been this hyped for a blockbuster movie in a long, long time. And I'm not like, I don't know the MCU I'd like. That's not my thing. So there's probably other movies that have had this level of blockbuster intrigue. This one, I'm just very excited. I feel like it's a Steven Spielberg Passion project that he's been waiting to make for a long, long time and has now made to his liking. So anyway, real quickly, Jalen Duran making all NBA over Scotty Barnes now looks like immensely regrettable given how amazing Scotty Barnes was in the playoffs and how not amazing Jalen Duran was. I'm here to defend that decision. I don't think it really even needs to be defended. Just, just again, it's a regular season award. I'm just going to say right now. And there's this idea that Jalen Duran is just mooching off of Cade Cunningham and that Scotty Barnes is the number one option on a team that needs him to do everything. And there's truth to to both of those polls. Jalen Duran averaged almost 20 points a game in the regular season. He on isolations, averaged 1.225 points per isolation. I'm looking on the second spectrum stuff that was fifth among all ball handlers in the NBA with at least 50 isolations. You combine that with an offensive rebounding rate of 15% and his ability to push and transition in his passing, he was creating a little bit more offense than the oh, all he did was dunk off Cade Cunningham, critics would have you believe. Now a lot of the offensive rebounds are created by Kate Cunningham. Cade Cunningham's Kate Cunningham, Cade Cunningham's penetration. But I just think and defensively he was good. Not great, but good. I as a regular season award, I think he was completely deserving. And Scotty Barnes was a tough casualty and in the end, whatever. And I also saw like some criticism of, well, he fattened up against tanking teams toward the end of the season when Cade was out with the collapsed lung and the Pistons remained awesome. I just like for the whole entire season. The Pistons in something like 700 minutes with Jalen Duran on the floor and Cade Cunningham off the floor were plus 11 per 100 possessions for the entire season. So it's like there was a pretty airtight statistical case that Jalen Duran deserved to be all NBA. And it's not like he's the only guy who made it at the expense of Scotty Barnes. So I just like want to put that to bed. Let's talk. Let's end on a glorious note, which is game of the year is happening tonight. Spurs, Thunder. Give me one thing you're looking forward to in this game, Howard Beck.
[63:57]
B
I mean, I don't know how many times I've shrieked in the last week just at Wemby things often when he's pulling up from somewhere between the logo and the arc. What am I looking? I don't know. These two teams are incredible. It sucks that Jalen Williams and AJ Mitchell are both out, I assume still tonight. And hopefully on the spurs side of it, you know, Fox and Harper are still good. Good to go. I would love to see both these teams at full strength for this entire series. That's not the reality of the NBA in 2026, unfortunately. I'm just looking forward to seeing whatever the next stage of Wemby's real time growth is right before our eyes. Right. And this is not to ignore anything about the Thunder or any disrespect to them. Like they're, they're a fun team, but you know, it's. This is how it goes, right? Their breakout was last year and we got to like discover what they were all about and just how far they stretch themselves and the things that Shea could do. And this, this is new. Like Wimy's been around for a couple years, but this is new. Every single stage, every game of his first NBA Postseason at age 22, to see the, the how serious he's become, even how ferocious. One of the things I've loved about him personality wise, is how giving he's been of himself in interviews. Right. He's very open. He's very elaborate in his, in his answers. Do you notice how curt he's gotten and not in a rude way, not off putting. He's not being. Being mean to the media or anything. He's just got like, he, he. The dude's gotten deathly serious and the answers are very. He's always very literal anyway in the sense that he always tries to answer the exact question. He won't just take off on his own whatever. He usually tries to answer it directly and he's doing that, but he's. That dude's locked in and it. I think it's one of the things I loved about him most the last couple of years and seeing how he's. He's come into this, this, this place in the, in the league is that the greats aren't just talented on day one. Like, oh, look at his, his wingspan. Look at his, look at how well he can shoot the three for a seven footer. Whatever. All this, all the stuff that, that charts out as an all time great. It's ultimately ends up being a lot about how they conduct themselves, their work ethic, their seriousness, how much they actually care about how much they actually want to win. There are plenty of guys with a lot of talent who don't really want to win as much as you would hope they do or think they do. They do. This guy is about it. And the joy of watching him is not just the incredible feats of athleticism and shot making and ball handling that we see. It's seeing he actually fucking cares. He wants this badly and I don't know that I think for just permeates everything in watching a game with him
[66:47]
A
and he since the second half of game three. Obviously that was a Thunder win Game three, but has after a brief blip of okay, they're defending me with big guys after game one and I'm not sure how I can get to the rim as easily as I did in that game when 70 something percent of his shots came at the basket. He has just played with more force in the last six quarters, just rolling harder to the rim. And Castle's got him baskets at the rim. Fox has gotten him baskets at the rim, just directing as much of his energy toward the basket as possible. In game four, 54% of his shots came at the rim. In games two and three it was about 30%. And the spurs got 46% of their shots at the basket in game four, which is their highest amount of the series. The thing I will be looking for is it's a little unfair, particularly if J Dub and AJ Mitchell, the second and third best ball handlers on the team, are out and chet is averaging 11 points a game in the series and just hasn't been able to get into the series offensively. So it's all of that said, a little unfair. I think this is the biggest this game tonight is the biggest challenge of Shea Gilders Alexander's career. And I say that because I said this with Bill on Sunday. Game four, it's two two, so no one has figured anybody out. But game four had the feel of the spurs figured out the best way to defend the Thunder. They stopped trapping high on the floor and they only really sent dramatic help to Shay. Whether it was on the let's just stick to the ISOs when Hartenstein's off the floor and Victor's playing his own, Shay can get into the paint at will like no one is keeping him out of the paint. The difference was the help was only coming when he got in the paint and I think it was just an understanding of they're just killing us when we trap with open threes and if we have Victor back there, we don't have to do all this crazy stuff, let him get into the paint and then we'll swarm him and he'll have to figure it out from there. And it's just a very hard thing to navigate. And even like those Hartenstein floaters at the beginning of the game when he is in the game, they just made a decision like Victor's coming up to the level of the screen on Shea and he's going to track Shea and just not let him get clean twos and force the pass to Hartenstein and he can get back and make him take those floaters 17ft in the air because he's so goddamn tall. But when Shay is playing the one on one game and the traps aren't there, it's just a really hard puzzle to solve because he gets in the lane with a guy on his back and Victor in front of him and two guys showing a little bit of like, on our toes help, but not totally committed help from the wing. There's just no room to do anything. And I don't even know what the solve for that is other than they still were able to generate some good threes and they just have to make more of them. Like those Kenrich Williams threes were, I think, instructive shots. Even though the game was out of hand at that point. I don't know what the like part of the part of it is he's just gonna have to make more of the clean ish shots that emerge. And he had one where he like was like, you know what, if you're gonna crowd me in the middle, I'm just gonna dribble all the way to my, my pet spot on the baseline sideline area and make shots from there. It's the biggest challenge he's faced. And it had the air of that game. Had the first moment of like, okay, one of the teams has figured out a fundamental thing that works in this series and is sustainable. And I just, without a second and third ball handler to kick it to, because that's the way you really beat that defense is kick another guy drives, you relocate. And we pile the advantage on top of advantage on top of advantage until it gets wider. We make Victor defend multiple drives and kicks. Without those two guys, it's really hard. And I'm just curious to see what the answer is. Game of the year tonight. Howard Beck, you're the man. Thanks for waking up early with us today. And. And boy, the Knicks. I'll see you somewhere. World's most famous arena is going to be hosting the NBA finals. New York is going to have the finals and the World cup at the same time. And it's going to be summer and I'm a little. I'm a little afraid for what the city is going to be like.
[71:01]
B
I just know that.
[71:03]
A
Sorry.
[71:03]
B
I just know that I have never seen so many NYPD in a four block radius around the Garden as I've, as I've seen after the first couple of games of the conference finals and I can't even imagine what it's going to be for the finals. It's going bonkers. We need to reach the.
[71:15]
A
Never mind. I'll save the commentary for later. Howard Beck Real ones this week and you're going to have something up on theringer.com about the Cavs, it sounds like. Thank you for your time, buddy. Let's bring in John Hollinger and talk about the other big issue in the NBA this week.
[71:29]
D
Lottery for adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms. Every choice matters. Tremphya offers self injection or intravenous venous infusion. From the start. Tremphya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self inject Tremphya, proper training is required. Tremphya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur before treatment. Get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu like symptoms or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about tremphya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit
[72:26]
A
tremphyaradio.com this episode is brought to you by ebay. I've been hearing people talking about selling on ebay a lot lately and honestly, I get it. We all have stuff that no longer fits our lives and from what I hear, selling on ebay is actually really easy. Just snap a few photos, write a description, set your price. Suddenly the stuff that's just been sitting around is in front of millions of buyers already searching for what's next. Find what you love, sell what you don't on ebay. Reform. Okay? The other big story in the NBA that affects the sad sack teams and some of the non sad sack teams is happening. In two days, the board of governors will vote on the 3 2, 1 boom. Lottery proposal. John Hollinger you're the perfect guy to talk about this with because a you are brilliant and B you worked in a front office. You worked in a front office that is has some particular things at stake with this vote that we'll talk about. But I just wanted to like there's been you've written about it and there's just been a lot of debate about I think everyone understands broadly what this proposal does with its relegation zone and its ever flattening of the odds. It just makes it less profitable, be terrible, more random in terms of who picks at the top in the middle and everything just inc with still the general withered away but still their principle of, you know, the best teams won't pick at the top and the worst teams will disproportionately pick in the top 12 at least more randomization, more flattening. And this general debate that you've written about this general discomfort that I think exists even though I expect this proposal to pass of okay, we get that this is addressing egregious tanking, which was particularly egregious this season and really removes the incentive to do that. But does it have a downside of the draft is supposed to be hopeful for bad teams. It's supposed to redistribute talent to the teams that need it the most. And are we risking trapping bad teams in an endless cycle of badness by not rewarding them with or a better chance at least of a high pick in the draft? It's a hard debate to wrap your head around because I think all of our basketball souls are sick of tanking, but also well versed in the reality that the draft is supposed to be a mechanism to redistribute talent to the teams who need it the most. And I've always kind of believed in my gut like I every time someone would propose, well let's get rid of the draft or let's have all 30 teams have an equal chance at the number one pick and just disconnect records from pick order. That has always felt icky to me and I've said many times it all sounds great until the Thunder get the number one pick in the draft. You're like, oh, the Thunder just got AJ DeBancer. That seems bad. But where do you net out on this proposal? Has it struck the right balance? Are you, as we approach the vote, are you more enthusiastic than you were two weeks ago? Less enthusiastic? What are your actual thoughts on it?
[75:31]
C
I am probably more enthusiastic. There are a couple of micro elements that I think could be better but let's not have the perfect be the enemy of the good. I think the number one objective, I mean, the end of this season was awful when half of the schedule is unwatchable on any given night. Because if you have eight tanking teams, they all have an opponent. That means 16 out of 30, that's half the league, right? So, like, you can't do that. You have to protect the product first. So this definitely accomplishes that. Teams will be trying to win basically through the end of the season. There will be some teams who are locked into the three ball area that will take their foot off the gas probably the last couple weeks. But other than, other than that, everyone's going to be trying basically through, through the course of the entire season. And it even disincentivizes some of the things like shutting guys down, even if. Because when you're out of it, yes, you can tank for the lottery pick, but the other thing you do is shut down veteran players because you just, you don't want them to play anymore, basically. Not just from a tanking perspective, but from an injury prevention perspective. And so those teams just descend into awfulness either way. And, and so I think they've done a lot to address those things. And, you know, we've, we've definitely settled on tagging as the best way to improve a bad team. Every bad team has relied on that for years now. So is that the only way to improve a bad team? I mean, I think, I think that remains an open question. I mean, you look at Brooklyn, they had no picks. They had probably the worst rebuilding situation in history, and they still built themselves up to a playoff team before Katie and Kyrie arrived. You look at Indiana last year, they did, they, they were able to do a middle build with no tanking, and we're one game from the championship. Several of the best players of the last several years were not high draft picks. When you look at Giannis, Joker, even, you know, Curry, Thompson, Draymond, not a top five pick among them.
[77:41]
B
So,
[77:44]
C
yes, it was like, given the option, if I was running a team, yes, I would, I would tank given the incentives that were in place. But there are other ways to do this without tanking. And would they be as likely to be successful? It's just a straight tank. Probably not. But we know that there are other ways to bake this pie.
[78:05]
A
I've always said tanking is the most effective of a bunch of long shot ways to build a championship team. It's still a long shot. It might be the shortest long shot the easiest long shot, whatever, but it's still, you need to get the right draft, the right pick, the right time. And you know, like, let's just first be clear about what we're talking about in terms of the change currently. Just a couple of statistical examples to really boil it down. Currently if you're one of the three worst teams in the league, you have a 40% chance ish at a top three pick. That will shrink from 40 to 16% in the new system when you are, if you're one of the three worst teams, you're in the relegation zone. If you are a mid tier team, like one of the three ball teams right now, you have, depending on where you are, a 10 to 15% chance at like a top three pick that's going to go up to 24%. And similarly for a top five pick you have, again, it varies a lot depending on where you are in that range from like the fourth worst to the 10th worst, like a 25% chance at a top five pick and that's going to go up to almost a 40% chance. There are some teams like, like if you just isolate like the sixth worst team, their odds at a top three pick actually go down a tiny bit in the new system. So it really depends where you are. But those are the changes we're talking about. And honestly, like, if I had to, I like the proposal. I think it's got some flaws that we can talk about. I just, I'm with you in that. Tanking has become a worse problem than being trapped in badness. And I'm ready to live in a world where we prioritize eliminating the worst problem. And that's tanking in part because we've seen teams trapped in badness under the current system already. The Wizards, the Kings, New Orleans for like a lot of their history have not been helped by tanking. Tanking is not a fail safe. And so I'm okay with sort of changing the incentives that way. And this is just where I really come down. I was talking to a GM over the weekend about this, wrestling with this and he said to me something that I feel too is like we've never really lived in a reality where we know what the NBA looks like when everyone is actually trying to win. And I'm, and I'm ready, but I'm like, I'm ready to live in that reality because, you know, it's probably not that hard to build a 500 team if you're trying to win. And we've seen teams build to that and then get to that level and then make some smart moves to climb up even further. And I'm ready to just live in a reality where everyone is trying to win all the time with the remnants of a draft that still is going to reward the worst teams or the bottom teams more than the good teams. And it could be that like when everyone is trying to win, it actually gets harder to build a 500 team than it is now because you don't get to. You don't get to fatten up against these teams aren't trying to win. But I'm ready to live there.
[81:17]
C
Yeah, the NBA is Lake Wobegon right now where everyone who's trying is above average. There were 19 teams with winning records this year. That should be impossible. And it was possible because the 11 teams that were under were so bad. Like winning between 30 and 40 games is basically a suckers bet. And you've seen very few teams end up in that Golden State accidentally ended up there this year. But you see very few teams end up between 30 and 40 wins because they reach a point where they realize they're going to end up there and then they pull the ripcord and knock themselves down in the standings like Memphis did this year. And so that's going to end and that will be a really welcome thing.
[81:55]
A
There's also these sub rules that you can't have the number one pick in the draft two years in a row. So Wizards, you cannot get the number one pick again next year. You shouldn't be trying to get the number one pick because you have Anthony Davis and Trae Young, long time illustrious Wizards careers for the two of them. And the controversial one, Kevin o' Connor broke this news over the weekend. You can't have a top five pick three straight years. And why that matters is they're backdating it to the 2025 draft where Utah had the fifth pick and selected Ace Bailey. Utah has the second pick this year, so they will be banned from having a top five pick next year. Problem. They don't own their pick next year. The Grizzlies do. And so the Grizzlies, by the transitive property of NBA lottery math, are now banned, as the current proposal stands, from having a top five pick next year in the event that Utah's pick falls there seems unlikely Utah has telegraphed through its moves that it's trying to win next year. You never know. Guys get injured. Teams don't work lottery balls. Lottery balls get more random. You can jump in there, right?
[82:59]
C
Utah could easily end up in the play in be a two ball team and then have a decent chance of ending up in the top five.
[83:05]
A
Yeah. And Memphis I'm assuming is furious at this. I actually think this is one of the rare cases where a team is blindly self interested and also correct. I think that's, I think that's an unfair wrinkle. They made this trade based on a different set of rules and now a new set of rules is being inflicted upon them. Now I think they are supportive of it from what I've heard. I think they're one of the teams that's very supportive of the relegation zone and all that. But it doesn't feel fair to me that that's being, that rug is being pulled out from under them. Am I missing something? I am always suspicious when a team is self interested, but they actually seem correct.
[83:41]
C
I don't understand why you couldn't grandfather in the picks that were already traded.
[83:45]
A
Right.
[83:47]
C
That seems like the easiest thing to do because I mean like if Brooklyn had won the lottery this year, that would have affected Houston next year, not Brooklyn. And there are chances that those Phoenix picks Houston because to be clear, because
[84:02]
A
to be clear down the line, because to be clear, just to simplify it for people, Houston has the right to swap picks with Brooklyn next year. And if they had gotten the number one pick this year, Houston would have been like, wait a second, we're not allowed to get the number one pick because, because Brooklyn got the number one pick last year and we happened to own their pick. And like you said, they're looking at these Suns picks or the Nets are looking at these Knicks picks or Denver picks that are distant future picks and thinking, well, it doesn't seem likely that any of those teams, even the Suns are going to be picking in the top five year after year after year. But you never know.
[84:35]
C
The real design of the rule is to stop the spurs from getting Castle, Wembanyama and Harper in three straight drafts. Right. And the number one rule is designed to stop, you know, what happened in Cleveland a decade ago and that's fine. But when it's, when it's a different team that, that already has control of the pick, I think you can use some common sense and grandfather that one in.
[84:58]
A
Yeah, I agree. I don't, I don't really get why that would apply the way that, that it does. And by the way, you nailed it. The, the top five three years in a row thing is I think a direct response to what the spurs have done and credit to the spurs. Like nobody Made the other teams not pick Steph Castle second and third and first.
[85:16]
C
As an Atlanta resident, that hurts.
[85:18]
A
But yeah, yeah, it's not looking great for my other, my fellow Zach down there. But. And, and if that's really your target, well, Utah picking twice in the top five and then Memphis picking once in the top five. It doesn't really fall under the auspices of what you're trying to target. I think this is going to pass. It seems like a fade accompli that it's going to pass, but you never know until the votes are cast. I'll bet some team votes against it out of principle. I'm overall, I get the small market concern. I get that you're taking a tool out of the toolbox concern. I'm ready to live in this world and it is not meant to be a permanent solution. It is a temporary solution potentially, unless everybody loves it with a sunset provision built in and the ability to look at it again in a couple of years, a few years, whatever. So I think it's good. Do you have any reason to believe it's not going to pass?
[86:15]
C
Oh, I think. I think it'll pass. Yeah. And even like the Memphis situation, so there are like 14 other teams that are okay with that because it increases their odds of being in the top five. So. So I think that the, the vote is actually a little unfair for them that way. I'm actually curious if the Knicks will vote against it just because they vote
[86:37]
A
against everything, then maybe the Knicks are in such a good mood that they'll actually end their. End their streak of sending James Dolan's representative in there and just. No, no, no. I don't like the food at this meeting. I want a different kind. I want a different kind of sparkling water. I just we Everything different. I do want to go through something that I've hinted at before, which is a type of proposal that is gaining momentum around the league, not for now, but for five, eight, ten years from now if the league decides that this thing isn't working. Is a credits proposal where you just. The lottery's gone. Not the lottery. The lottery's not gone. The. The ordering of the draft is completely kind of scrapped in the way that we tie it to record now and every team gets a credits proposal. Now I've hinted at this and I have the proposal. Do you want me to just read. I have one proposal. One. The one proposal which has come from the Celtics. I have it. It's been sent to me not by the Celtics, but by other teams have seen it and I just think this is a useful example for people to like understand what this is or I'm going to just sort of outline it to you. Okay. Every team starts every season with 100 credits and you bid the credits on draft slots. So if you really want the number one pick and you own a first, you can still trade draft slots. So like I can trade you my draft, my first round draft slot unattached to a particular pick in 2032. And now if I'm a team, I have two first round drive slots, but I can take all my credits and bid them on the number one pick and credits can roll over so I can keep all my credits. If I see a draft two or three years down the line, I can bid 300 credits on the number one pick. We can trade credits back and forth, we can trade players for credits and I'll just read how it works. In late April, each team secretly submits a credit bid for each pick they have. In early May, the league publishes all the bids on lottery night for the first pick. The top four highest bidders for that pick are put into a lottery amongst themselves with probability proportional to the number of credits each team bid toward that slot. So there could be a team with a huge edge based on if they put a gazillion credits. The winner of this mini lottery gets the first pick, gets charged halfway between their own bid and the bid of the lowest bidder and is removed out of the pool. For the second pick, the number five bidder is added to the three non winners and another lottery is held. And we do that all the way down until the end. You are subtracted 20 credits for every playoff series that you win so that the worst teams in any given year still should have the most credits. Teams can have more than one pick slot in either round of the draft. Each slot is associated with a separate bid. Teams may bid zero and just pick at the end of the first round and the second round operates the same way. And what else? The league can find teams by docking them credits if they believe that they're tanking. And that's basically it. And the idea is a market based system. And I think the main criticism of it is it's confusing for fans. But you know, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But what do you think of that general notion?
[90:09]
C
The biggest, the biggest thing that I wonder in my head is that there are going to be years where 15 teams bid 0 credits and how you resolve the back end of the draft that way. But that's A relatively minor problem in the grand scheme of things. It's a, it's an inch. It's an interesting proposal. It would probably be less redistributive than, than the current system. I, I guess I'm trying to understand what happens with a pick that I've already traded.
[90:41]
A
That's all covered. I'm too bored to redo that now. But yes, that's all traded picks and protections obviously go away. There's no protections because you're just bidding on pick slots, basically. And I can own more than one pick slot in a draft, but I can allocate my bids so that everything is so like, I could say if I'm an, if I'm a bad team, I can trade you my veteran player for 40 of your draft credits. I can roll over 100 of my draft credits if I want them all for the next draft and then I can bid 250 credits on the number one pick in the AJ debance a draft and think, okay, I've given myself a chance and if I don't win that, I'll probably win the second pick or something like that. It's interesting. And the point of it obviously is it completely separates. Not completely because of the playoff teams losing draft credits as they win series, but it more or less separates record from draft position. You can still, but still leaves room for like organic rebuilding. Like, okay, we are. This team has hit its apex. Let's start trading people for credits. And maybe, maybe it's just interesting you
[91:47]
C
wouldn't even bother trading for picks. It seems like you would just trade for credits.
[91:51]
A
Trade for credits instead of pick slots. Yeah. And what it does to the trade market is, is interesting. I mean, even this current proposal, the one that's being voted on on Thursday, I'd actually want to get your thoughts on this. One of the concerns is because every pick is going to have a higher chance of being. Because mid middling first round picks are going to have a higher chance of moving wildly up in the draft. It's going to freeze the trade market a little bit. Do you buy that? No, no.
[92:18]
C
I think for secondary players, we'll just see top five protections on picks and it'll be just like it was, except you have a better chance of getting the pick if you're the receiving team because the team can't tank their way to keeping it. So I don't really see a change in that. And then the best players are still going to command unprotected picks. I mean, that's, that's Just how it is. Like, like a guy like Giannis.
[92:43]
B
Yeah, those are.
[92:44]
C
It's still going to be unprotected picks. It's not, that's not going to change anything because the receiving team, and really the trading team too is expecting that the team to get Giannis is probably going to be pretty good. Right. So I don't think that's going to change much of the logic there.
[92:56]
A
And I only outline this credits thing because it deserves a fuller hearing than it's gotten so far. I've just mentioned it here, there, and I, and I have it and I'm looking at it and I think it still deserves a fuller hearing than this. But it's, it's a kind that it's like being tabled for now while we look at whatever emerges from this board of Governors vote. But I'm actually surprised how many teams kind of like it. I expected it to be a little too wonky, a little too like, not, not complicated for teams. But there is a concern of like, at what point is this all too confusing for casual fans to follow? But like, I think the proponents of this system would be like, a, it's not that complicated and B, can casual fans follow, like the five team pick, swap that Memphis, Phoenix, Orlando, whatever the hell it is, or like, do they know what the second apron. I mean, it's already wildly complicated. I think this, I expect this kind of idea and this is just one of several proposals like this. We'll get a deeper look as this goes along. But we both expect the rules to pass this week. I guess bottom line is we both expect the rules to pass this week and we both, although there is no perfect solution to any of this and everything has downsides and unintended consequences, we both seem to think, like, I'm ready to live in this world.
[94:09]
C
Oh, I'm excited to see like real games in March between teams that are out of the playoffs where, like, you can actually, like, one of the things fans love to see when it's a losing team is give us hope by letting me watch like our draft picks and our young good players. But even those guys get shut down now. Now you're watching. You're not even watching that. You're watching Bezem Bang. And you know, I feel bad that
[94:32]
A
he's become the just the go to reference for that guy. Just played hard. He's just like, give me 48 minutes. I went to Yale. Like, I'm in. This is great. Like, and now he's like the go to reference for this
[94:45]
C
I had Lucas Williamson on the tip of my tongue too. So that was. But that. That Jazz Grizzlies game at the end of the year was a cry for help.
[94:53]
A
Did you watch it, John?
[94:55]
C
Oh, hell no.
[94:56]
A
I was gonna say, because that would be the ultimate cry for help. If on a menu of all the games, you were like, you know what, I gotta dig in on this one. I would have been like, actually, the person who needs the help is you. No, but you're right. I mean, the relegation zone games, the relegation zone against each other games, and the relegation zone against the teams just outside of it would be like really fun games and the teams would try hard. And that's the point of that proposal. And I just, I get the concern, I get the idea that these. It's going to be harder for some teams to dig out. I just think the league has correctly identified what the more serious problem is. And let's, let's, let's at least give it a shot. And by the way, I've said this before, you have to give it a shot. And whether you like it or not, whether you're pro it or anti it, if in the same. I can't repeat it enough. The same thing happened with these lottery odds that exist now. The current ones are relatively new. They're like 8 years old. And they were designed to kind of randomize the lottery a little bit more to flatten the odds. And everyone voted for it except the Thunder. I think, if I'm remembering correctly, after an initial vote where it was a little less popular. And then what happened? The exact thing that the rules were intended to do happened. And everyone after the first year was like, oh, my God, it's a bad idea.
[96:16]
B
Idea.
[96:17]
A
We've erred on the side of randomness. And it's like, no, you just give it 15 years to play out and it'll find the right balance of randomness. In some years, mostly bad teams winning the lottery like we saw this year. But people just get so impatient, like, you need to give these systems time to act before you judge them. And that's my worry, is that the league will do this. There'll be an outcome everyone hates, and then there'll be an immediate rebellion, like, oh, my God, what have we done?
[96:45]
C
Yeah, you know, it's going to be another impact too, that I think people aren't really talking about is in the trade market. Like, teams that are bad now still have an incentive to put together a real roster, and so they're going to be in the market for good players in a way that they were not for the last several years. And so I think that's going to change some things when we look at the markets for like second line guys. Like if Trey Market was, Trey Young was still with the Hawks, he'd be a perfect example where like a team like Washington would be like, yeah, sure, you know, like, that's, we'll do that. I mean, they were, I don't know if they knew this was coming, but they were, you know, ended up kind
[97:27]
B
of ahead of the curve.
[97:27]
A
They might play him to your point, they might actually play Trey Young and Anthony and Anthony Davis after acquiring them.
[97:34]
C
That would be the other thing.
[97:35]
A
Yes. Anyway. All right. Well, this is just a very interesting big picture conversation and you're the best person to scratch the surface of it with John Hollinger, the best to ever do it. Read him at the Athletic. Everything you read is must, must read. Everything you write is must read. You wrote about this maybe what, two weeks ago before the combine, I feel like. And that was the impetus for me having you on. Go read that column if you want John's deeper thoughts on this Hollinger and Duncan podcast every Fridays. Where are we now?
[98:04]
C
We usually record on Wednesdays, but we move it around a little during the playoffs. Cause I'm traveling and he's doing stuff,
[98:10]
A
you know, I will see you soon at the NBA Finals. John Hollinger, thanks, bud.
[98:15]
C
Thank you.
[98:18]
A
All right, that's it for today's edition of the Zach Lowe Show. Thank you to Howard Beck, thank you to John Hollinger. Thank you, as always, to Mike, Billy and Jonathan on production. And thanks to you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe Show. We'll be back on Thursday. In the meantime, enjoy the game tonight. Whoo. It's a biggie. Thanks again, everybody. 21 or over and 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 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chatincut or is it mdg.org in Maryland? Hope is is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema. Org or call 800-327-5505, oh for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text Hope NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 1-877-770-7867.

Summary7 min read

The Zach Lowe Show — Episode Summary

Episode Title: The Knicks Are Heading to the Finals! Series Breakdown and Lottery Reform
Date: May 26, 2026
Host: Zach Lowe
Guests: Howard Beck, John Hollinger

Overview

This supersized episode celebrates the New York Knicks’ improbable, dominant run to the NBA Finals, their first trip since 1999. Zach and Howard Beck break down what’s fueled this quarter-century turnaround, analyze the crumbling Cleveland Cavaliers, and touch on the Celtics, Western Conference Finals, and awards debates. Later, John Hollinger joins to explain and dissect the major NBA draft lottery reform up for vote, examining motives, pitfalls, and alternatives for fixing tanking.

The Knicks’ Remarkable Rise to the NBA Finals

(00:32–28:38)

Historical Context & Emotional Impact

The Knicks have swept aside decades of dysfunction with a historic 11-game playoff win streak, all by double-digits.
Howard Beck underscores New York’s long-suffering sports soul:

“This is earned through a quarter century of suffering…not just bad teams, not just losing teams, but full organizational dysfunction.” (08:50)
The city’s euphoria is palpable. Fans throng the streets around Madison Square Garden, defying police dispersal efforts.

How Did This Happen?

Zach lays out “how improbable it is” considering the 2002–2010 nine-straight losing years, management chaos, doomed star pairings, and embarrassing front-office infighting.
Beck:

“Beleaguered, bedraggled, dysfunctional, inept...You never get any sense there’s any tension out there. Like, yeah, the teams make mistakes, but this looks like a really fun group. It’s a joy to watch.” (07:49–09:30)

The “Unstacked” Superteam and Seamless Fit

Unlike most dominant title teams, these Knicks aren’t loaded with Hall of Famers. Their greatest strength? Cohesion, depth, and high-IQ, selfless play.
Zach:

“They have stacked the team. Its hallmark is depth and size on the wing around Brunson and Towns and everybody they play is good.” (13:03)
Beck:

“Brunson’s an all-timer…But this is not a stacked Hall of Fame team…they remind me in some respects of the Nuggets when they won.” (08:49–09:30)

Roster Construction Masterclass

The Knicks succeeded through a blend of big-swing trades (McHale Bridges as the new “mega trade”), talent adds (Anunoby), and glue-guy bets (Josh Hart).
Each move carried risk, many met with skepticism or fan anxiety at the time.
Zach:

“It’s just a masterclass of building a roster that has clicked at the right moment and there was no guarantee it was going to click at the right moment—and it has.” (19:07)

Notable Knicks Moments & Quotes

“Josh Hart…is the consummate glue guy. Consummate spiritual leader type…He’s just as important to the ethos of who the Knicks are.” (21:24; Beck)
“Every team that wins a title or chases a title needs a Josh Hart.” (22:37; Zach)
The locker room has handled adversity and “tension” by sacrificing egos for game flow, a transformation credited to Jalen Brunson’s leadership and the coaching/locker room culture.

Tactical Strengths

Offensive adaptability—exploiting mismatches, perfect hierarchy.
Defensive growth, especially from “KAT” (Karl-Anthony Towns).
Anunoby as a possible “Wemby defender” if they meet Spurs—“They would have looked at each other and said, that sounds a lot like OG Anunoby.” (18:03; Zach)

The Cleveland Cavaliers: Process or Plateau?

(30:35–56:02)

Series Postmortem

The Cavs’ run ends amid a wave of willful self-delusion and media lampooning.
Zach eviscerates the team’s attempts at analytic optimism:

“I would advise against raising a banner for the 2026 Shot Quality Championship. That’s just me.” (34:12)
Mistakes—turnovers, transition defense lapses, and a blown 20-point Game 1 lead—haunt the Cavs’ run.

Roster Fit & Unsolved Problems

Despite a blockbuster Garland-Harden swap, Cleveland faces recurring fit questions: two bigs (Mobley/Allen), two star guards (Mitchell/Harden), and a chronic lack of “giant wings.”
Beck on Harden:

“Yet here we are, talking once again at the end of another Harden team collapse and how bad he was at key moments…he’s not beating the allegations.” (41:36)
Fundamental conundrum: do the Cavs stay the course or look to reset?

Big Decisions Loom:

Donovan Mitchell’s looming max extension—should they lock it in, or explore blockbuster trades?
Mobley’s future—is it too soon to give up “Garnett” potential, or should they chase win-now pieces (e.g., wild Giannis or Jaylen Brown scenarios)?
The challenge of staying relevant in an Eastern Conference with no superteams—“Just try to stay in that race.” (54:48; Beck)

Notable Quotes

“It still feels like they’re stuck in the same problem…not really like that much better. I’m just not that impressed with their playoff run.” (38:16; Zach)
“Dude ain’t beating the allegations…I don’t want to hear any more of the Harden apologists…” (41:36; Beck)

NBA News & Awards Chatter

(56:23–63:56)

Briefs and Hot Takes

Jaylen Brown’s “aggrieved then grateful” live reaction to not making First Team All-NBA:

“If you think there’s a conspiracy against you, you’re wrong. There’s not a conspiracy against you.” (59:20; Zach)
The “Lucas conspiracy” myth, debunked: Doncic made every All-NBA ballot.
Zach defends Jalen Duren’s All-NBA selection over Scottie Barnes, reiterates award is for regular season.
Preview and excitement for Spurs–Thunder Game 5 set up as “game of the year.”

On Wembanyama’s Growth & Pressure on OKC

Howard Beck:

“The joy of watching [Wemby] is not just the incredible feats…It’s seeing he actually fucking cares. He wants this badly.” (64:21)

NBA Lottery Reform: New Rules, New World

(72:26–98:14)
Guest: John Hollinger

What Is the 3-2-1 “Boom” Lottery Proposal?

Drastically flattens lottery odds; biggest tanking incentives gutted, increasing randomness for top picks.
Introduces “relegation zone” (worst teams with limited odds); other mechanisms to block repeat top picks.

Merits and Limitations

Hollinger: “You have to protect the product first. Teams will be trying to win basically through the end of the season.” (75:50)
Zach: “Tanking has become a worse problem than being trapped in badness…I’m ready to live in a world where we prioritize eliminating the worst problem.” (80:45)

Is There a Downside?

Possible: harder for bad teams to climb out of the cellar if stripped of top pick probabilities.
Tanking remains only the likeliest (but still a “long shot”) method to build a contender.

Notable Mechanisms

Teams can’t get No. 1 pick two years in a row.
No team can have a top-five pick three straight years (potential implications for Memphis because of a Utah pick swap—seen as possibly unfair “pulling the rug out” from teams).
General sense: reform will pass, with a “sunset” clause for future tweaks.

Alternative Proposal: Draft Credits Market

Zach reveals a “credits bid” system circulating among NBA teams, where each drafts slot is won by bidding accumulated “credits.”
Opens creative avenues for trading and rebuilding (e.g., teams trading players for draft credits).

Big Picture

Reform seeks to force all teams—even those eliminated—to keep fielding competitive rosters.
Anticipated trade market shake-up, as rebuilding teams (previously incentivized to race to the bottom) may now want solid players instead.

Notable Quotes

Hollinger:

“There were 19 teams with winning records this year. That should be impossible…It was possible because the 11 teams under were so bad.” (81:17)
Zach:

“Let’s, let’s at least give it a shot. And by the way, I’ve said this before, you have to give it a shot…” (96:16)

Memorable/Light Moments

Danhausen the wrestler “uncursed the Knicks” — and they haven’t lost since, leading to Zach’s joke about supernatural forces changing the team’s luck. (28:38)
Howard Beck and Zach marvel over the potential for New York to host the NBA Finals and the World Cup simultaneously, imagining “what the city is going to be like.” (71:01)

Key Timestamps

Knicks historic run & playoff breakdown: 00:32–28:38
Cavs autopsy & roster future: 30:35–56:02
NBA news, awards debates: 56:23–63:56
Western Conference Finals preview (Spurs-Thunder): 63:56–71:15
NBA lottery reform breakdown (John Hollinger): 72:26–98:14

Tone/Language

The episode pairs Zach’s signature analytic rigor and “basketball soul” with Howard Beck’s lived-in, New York-centric cynicism/hopeful awe. Banter is sharp, self-aware, and sprinkled with sarcastic zingers.

For Listeners Who Missed It

You’ll leave fully caught up on the Knicks' remarkable Finals run and why it’s so meaningful.
Get a sense of the NBA’s coming upheaval as it fights tanking with aggressive draft reform.
Understand the stakes, debates, and personalities reshaping the league—from roster micro-decisions to policy overhauls.
Plus: you’ll laugh at the supernatural “curse” myth and shake your head at the Cavs’ “shot quality” banner.

Loading summary

Transcript124 lines

[00:00]
A
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. The best passers see every angle of the floor to make the perfect assist. And State Farm is no different. They know the game inside and out and look at every angle to help set you up with a plan that fits your life and budget. Get the coverage that's right for you. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. Foreign up on the Zach Lowe show it happened. It really happened. The New York Knicks demolished the Cleveland Cavaliers again for their 11th consecutive playoff win. Another double digit win, another blowout. And for the first time in 27 years, since 1999, since before Y2K, the New York Knicks are in the NBA Finals and they are rolling. Can they actually pull this off? What is the city like? It's crazy. Who are they going to play? Who should they want to play? Doesn't even matter. Howard Beck is here to reflect on the Knicks quarter century journey back to this moment. Jalen Brunson, all the highs and lows, everything. We'll talk a little bit of Western Conference finals. We'll talk Jalen Brown's all NBA stuff, Scotty Barnes getting snubbed and a little bit of Western conference finals. Game 5 is maybe the game of the year tonight. I guess every game these two teams play, Spurs, Thunder will be the game of the year until that series is over and the finals begins on June 3. A lot of rest for the Knicks. They're healthy, they're deep. The other teams are beating the hell out of each other. Boy oh boy, is it all lining up for the Knicks. And then John Hollinger is here, the perfect guy to talk about lottery reform. Yeah, it's on the ballot this week. Is this a good idea? Is this a bad idea? Let's take a deeper dive than we've taken with a guy who's actually qualified to do it. Some of the pitfalls, some of the benefits, all of that is coming up on the Zach Lowe Show. The Zach Lowe show is brought to you by FanDuel. The conference finals are here. Think you know how it'll go down? Take your shot with FanDuel and get closer to the action. FanDuel is the best place to bet the teams, the players and plays during the NBA postseason. Build the same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout or try live betting and jump into the action after tip off. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app now and play your game 21 or over in President Select States 18 or over in D.C. kentucky, Wyoming gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chatinc Foreign. Welcome to the Zach Lowe Show. Howard Beck is here. Howard it happened. It really happened. The New York Knicks, the beleaguered hometown team of the greatest city in the world, for the first time in 27 years, have made the NBA Finals since 1999, since before Y2K, the Knicks are in the NBA Finals. The streets of New York. You can disperse the crowds outside Madison Square Garden nypd but you can't stop Knicks fans from congregating wherever they want to congregate and raising hell. Because this is a moment for a beloved team in a city that loves basketball. They destroyed the hapless, incompetent and yet analytically sound Cleveland Cavaliers again. Their 11th consecutive postseason win. Almost all blowouts, even the overtime win. Somehow a blowout. Overtime, of course, in game one of the conference finals, AKA the game that ended the Eastern Conference finals effectively. And Howard Beck. I said it after the Sixers series with Fred Katz. It was clear at that point the Knicks can win the title. This is not the Junior Varsity Conference golf clap. Whatever. The real finals is happening in the Western Conference finals. Both those teams at full health are better than the Knicks. That's true. It just is what it is. Sometimes the playoffs are not about just better in a vacuum or better over a hundred game sample. The Knicks had proven against Philly, proven against Atlanta, and tripled down on proving against Cleveland. They can win the title and that's only increased as the spurs and the Thunder have beaten the hell out of each other. Game five is tonight. It is the game of the year so far in the NBA. Every game these two teams play will be the game of the year in the NBA. Until the Finals, I guess. Jalen Williams is hurt, A.J. mitchell is hurt. Dylan Harper looked pretty good in game four but is dealing with abductor. And Darren Fox has the ankle thing. The Knicks, I mean I said it after Philly. This is a championship caliber team. Spurs, coin toss. At that point I think I said Oklahoma City. I'd give them a puncher's chance like 25, 30%. I think it's even higher than that now. Even if they'll be underdogs, this team is just that good. And Howard Beck, you chronicled the New York Knicks for the illustrious New York Times from 2004 to 2013. I just want to put in perspective how incredible and almost out of nowhere this run that started really properly with Jalen Brunson and on and on. And I outlined all the incredible team building moves this front office has made on Saturday night with Michael Pena. I want to outline how improbable it is. You can pick your like Knicks incompetence stat. It's really stunning. They were under.500 every single season from 2002 to 2010. Nine straight seasons under.500 in a row. And we don't need like all the shit that happened during that time is well chronicled on court, off court, everything. Then they have this like brief mellow slash, Linsanity slash Amare slash. The Mello Omari, Tyson Chandler thing that never really worked. There's a 54 win season in there that Amare mostly doesn't play. A little blip of good fortune. And then from 2015 to 2026 seasons, here are their win totals in those six seasons. 17, 32, 31, 29, 17 21. And there's the Porzingis thing in there. There's they draft Nilakina and Kevin Knox over Bam and SGA waiting maybe on the other side of the bracket, who knows. There's Derek Fisher fights Matt Barnes at one point. Jeff Hornacek kind of fights Joe Kim Noah at another point. It almost is like the Knicks during those six years. It was almost worse in some. I don't. Maybe it wasn't worse. They existed like outside the NBA. Like the. The real NBA was over here with the Cavs and the warriors and like all the east, the Raptors and the Celtics were cute in Eastern Conference and the Rockets are loading up. The Knicks were like a sideshow outside of the real NBA. As irrelevant as a basketball team as a franchise could get. And here they are in the Finals. It's an incredible turnaround. And they are playing gorgeous basketball, just gorgeous. High iq. Everything is humming. Howard Beck. I just, I. They're here. I can't believe it.
[07:49]
B
I can't either. You use the word beleaguered earlier and it got me thinking. Like how many different adjectives and synonyms and awful descriptors I must have used over the course of nine years at the New York Times and several years after that, frankly, when I was still, you know, obviously in New York, but writing about the Knicks periodically for Bleacher Reporter and wherever else I was at a given time. But beleaguered, bedraggled, dysfunctional, inept dysfunction above all else. And I think when people are elsewhere in the country either either puzzled over or, you know, taken aback by these scenes of Knicks fans reveling in the streets, even sometimes after game one of a series, even sometimes after game one of a season, as they did a couple, I think Bing Bong came about after a Knicks, oh, victory over the Celtics. And literally a game one of the season.
[08:43]
A
A little over exuberant at times. A little over exuberant like, Leave J.R. smith alone. Leave Brian when horse alone. Exuberant.
[08:50]
B
I, I, I just need people outside of New York to understand. I've been here for 22 years now, 21 years. I need people outside of this city to understand the context that Zach just gave. And it goes deeper and, and uglier and, and just the messier than all of that. So if maybe this is just a New York thing anyway, but it's also, this is earned. This is earned through a quarter century, essentially, of suffering. And not just bad teams, not just losing teams, but, like, you know, at one point in time, Larry Brown is the coach, Stefan Marbury is the point guard, and Isaiah Thomas is the team president. And all three of them are in fights with each other. Isaiah has turned on Stefan. Stefan Marbury has turned on Isaiah. Marbury's turned on Larry Brown. Larry Brown has turned on both Isaiah and stuff like. And we would just on a daily basis have one version or another of this fight that we were chronicling, and they were all talking about it all the time. We don't need to go into chapter and verse of all that, but there were just versions of that. There was, of course, a sexual harassment lawsuit, which they lost, which David caused David Stern to give one of my favorite David Stern quotes of all time, which, because the Garden had decided not to settle that case in advance, David Stern said they were, quote, not a model of intelligent management, a phrase that I thought applied to just about everything they did on and off the court for a very, very long time. That is not now. That is not this Knicks team or the way this Knicks team is being run, even though it's still the same owner who does not preside over a model of intelligent management once upon a time. He has largely stepped out of the way since putting Leon Rose in charge, a move that I was skeptical of at the time, and I think reasonably so. But Leon and that crew have done an incredible job. And I think, Zach, the thing you mentioned about the Knicks, like, we're sitting here in awe of the results, the scoring margin, the winning streak in the postseason, the brand of basketball that they play, all of it, and the thing that you didn't say and that we would normally Say about a team. And I was looking at, you know, kind of past teams that went through the playoffs with only like two losses and won the championship. Those, you know, those kinds of historic runs. You know, obviously I was there for Shaq and Kobe going 11 and oh in 01 before losing to Iverson in game one and then rolling the Sixers. We've seen versions of this. Do you know what they all have in common? Like multiple freaking hall of Famers. It's Shaq and Kobe. It's Steph and KD and Clay and Draymond. It's Michael and Scotty. It's Isaiah and Dumars and Lambir and Rodman. Like, when you look over the list of the teams that have had runs like this, they're fucking stacked. And this Knicks team, Jalen Brunson's an all timer, make no mistake. And people just. Conversations have been going on for a while now about whether he might already be or where he ranks among the greatest Knicks or whether he's in contention for greatest. Nick, he's certainly greatest Knick of this century. But this is not a stacked hall of Fame team, right? Carl Anthony Towns, really good player. Jalen Brunson, awesome. They're just perfectly calibrated. They remind me in some respects of what we saw with when the Nuggets won the championship. Jokic, an all time great. Jamal Murray, very, very good. And then, you know, Aaron Gordon, Michael Porter Jr. Just like good players that complemented each other well, played for each other, played selflessly. That's what I see in this Knicks team right now is just this kind of. Everybody's in sync, everybody knows their role there. There's no, very few moments where, where you see like anything glaring, something looks a little bit selfish or a little self indulgent or, or just a, just a dumb play. Like they're just. They play very smart, efficient, consistent basketball and it's, it's a joy to watch. And they're. And like I say, they are doing it in a much different way. This is not. They may go down as an all time team, record wise, especially if they win the championship, but they don't project as that. When you look at the names on the sheet.
[12:36]
A
Well, look, I mean they're going to have. Two of these guys are making the hall of Fame. Like Brunson and Townes are on track. McDolphin, but towns will be like a tier, whatever hall of Famer.
[12:47]
B
And it's a reverence thing, right? Like some of the names I mentioned, these are, these are Names in inspire absolute reverence. And Carl Anthony Towns has always been like the stats are there, the success is there. But he, he puzzles people. He, he, he's, you know, he's not embraced or revered in that, in that same, that vein.
[13:03]
A
But they have stacked the team. It, it's, it's hallmark is depth and size on the wing around Brunson and around Towns and everybody they play is good. They have this Mitchell Robinson look that they really didn't even have to use that much. I mean the Cavs kind of hacked him out of the series. And the Cavs also fell for the bait, the hack of Mitch like oh, we're one foul away from the bonus. Let's put Mitchell Robinson on the floor. He'll get hacked and we'll take him right off the floor. I couldn't believe they fell for that multiple times. All shamet has changed their team and given them a legit reliable five out kind of lineup they can go to. And I what was he 12 of 13 on threes in the conference finals? Just absolutely. I mean at some point this level of shooting is going to fall off a little bit and they're going to have to win in other ways. And by the way they are fully capable of that because you don't win games by 30 points just because you're shooting well. You do everything well, but you just know it when you see it. And this team had glitches in January and March where the rhythm that they have found now escaped them. And they would talk about it and they have talked about it even in the wake of winning this cav series of building habits and those habits would fall away. And Mike Brown used the word sacrifice multiple times after the game last night. Maybe guys weren't sacrificing as much as they should and they got to the playoffs and they, they faced adversity and they had two options. Number one was meltdown in fight. Everyone tried to win it by themselves. And option two is what they've taken which is hey, we felt this rhythm before we know how to get there. We have a lot of selfless guys who can move the ball, move themselves, cut and move and they have been putting teams in the blender ever since then. And to your point about if you see a nick player take what looks like a self indulgence shot, it's now like a unicorn occurrence in these games. Like Anunoby had a couple of jumpers in recent games or he just early in the shot clock he had a sides advantage. He's gigantic. And he's on fire. And he rose up and launched like a 20 foot earlier in the shot clock. Made most of them because again, he's on a heater. And they stood out as like, ooh, the Knicks aren't taking a lot of shots like that. It's the perfect ecosystem right now. There's an understanding that everything starts and often ends with Brunson and everyone around that fills in the gaps in the appropriate way. Everyone is shooting when they should shoot, everyone is passing when they should pass. The hierarchy is clear and everyone is just buying all the like Josh Hart, your job, push the pace, get it. And like every time, every fast break they had in the first half as Cleveland's transition defense, just laughably bad for. I don't know, they've been that way in half the games in this postseason. Especially so against the Knicks, it was Josh Hart being like, this is my job to do this. Everyone is just filling the gaps. It's beautiful, beautiful basketball. They're deep, they're talented. Katt has never played this well defensively. They can win. They can win the whole thing. It was clear to me after the Philly series that this is not just a sort of cute Eastern Conference story. This is a team that can win the championship. And it's just been. And they, they exploit and the hallmark of why this team is in rhythm and well coached too. And Mike Brown deserves a lot of credit. Mike Brown, by the way, fired by the Sacramento Kings. The Kings fired Mike Brown.
[16:25]
B
There was a time, Zach, where I had. I was doing periodically the math on most coaches and GMs or President. However a team is structured over a course of time. And the Kings and Knicks were basically neck and neck for a long time during the, you know, whatever the 2004 through 2015 or whatever it was. And at some point, of course, the Knicks have settled into extreme competency, while the Kings, while flirting with competency for about five minutes, then veered straight into more incompetency, including the incredibly stupid decision to fire Mike Brown. But yes, props to Mike Brown and very a great guy. We both know him well, like happy to see him get, get his due and as he will be for the next couple of weeks over the course of the Finals.
[17:08]
A
Well, and what I was going to say a bit is a credit to the players and the team. Every weakness that emerges for them to exploit is exploited immediately on offense. Every time there's a substitution that prevents either a weak defender, presents a weak defender or a new wrinkle in how the Cavs are Going to match up or whatever. There's no wasted possession. It's immediately like, okay, now the understanding is they're going to guard this play like this, which opens up this for us. They're just on it and from, from the jump. No wasted time, no wasted possessions. And here they are. And awaiting them is either the Thunder or the spurs, who they beat in the NBA Cup Finals. Remember the NBA Cup. We still, Howard, we still haven't had a team win the NBA cup and the NBA title in the same year. The Knicks might as well make that history too. The Thunder failed at it last year. We might as well get that historic double. And like the Knicks feel internally like, you know, look, Wemby is an alien. No one really has an answer for him consistently. But you know, Sam Amick wrote this story about Wemby. I think it was after game, I don't remember game one or game four, one of the games in the, in the conference finals about how everyone is watching this series and particularly watching a game like game one and thinking, boy, do we have to find someone who can slow this dude down? And then like, what's the archetype of that defender? Does it even exist? And an anonymous person in that story by Sam sort of outlined like, what you really need is a 6, 8, 6, 9 wing who's both very quick and incredibly strong. And I mean, I haven't talked to the Knicks people since that story. I haven't been to a Knicks game since that story. I can guarantee you if people in the front office and the coaching staff saw that story, they would have looked at each other and said it sounds a lot like OG Anunoby and not that he's going to guard Wemby the entire series. They'll do lots of different things, but they have, they feel like they walk into both of these series with a real chance and some real advantages. And that's what the playoffs is about. Like, yeah, in a 200 game sample size, the spurs and the Thunder are going to win more games than the Knicks. They're going to put up a better point differential notwithstanding what the fuck just happened at the Eastern Conference playoffs. But a matchup is a matchup. The Pacers almost beat the Thunder last year. The spurs, the Knicks rather are a very kind of unusual team. Brunson is an unusual superstar. Cat at the five is an unusual look, they're difficult to guard, they're difficult to play against, and I think they have a real shot. And this is just an awesome story of all these players coming together in trades of all different ilks, right? You have the McHale bridges like that's the mega trade. The Anunoby trade is like a talent trade. The Josh Hart is a we believe in this guy, let's go get him trade. And it all the cat trade is a ceiling raising risk that has paid off. It's just a masterclass of building a roster that has clicked at the right moment and there was no guarantee it was going to click at the right moment and it has. And boy did they just destroy the Cavs. But what a what a half decade run for the Knicks.
[20:14]
B
Incredible. And there's just a lot of really important key decisions made along the way there. Several of which in real time had either pundits like us maybe going, huh, not sure. Or Knicks fans themselves wincing a bit, right? Like the play for Karl Anthony Towns was not guaranteed to work out. And Julius Randle certainly was a roller coaster ride for Knicks fans too and for every fans of every team he's been on. But there was some risk, especially in giving up him and DiVincenzo in that deal and taking on Towns who had his own kind of up and down history. Josh Hart had been discarded by like three teams by the time they got him. And he is the absolute perfect by the way.
[20:50]
A
Stupid teams, stupid teams. Stupid. I mean the Lakers discarded. So like let's, let's go.
[20:56]
B
Yeah, we could, we could forgive that one. But the Pelicans giving up on him. The, the Blazers giving up on him. And look, another one where Knicks fans as recently as a week ago, I have a good, a good friend who texts me sometimes in the middle of games and I was, it was when you and I were at game one, I think, I think it was during game one where he was texting me going like Mike Brown's got to get Josh Hart out of there because the way he had started and they weren't guarding him and everything else. And then of course Josh Hart caught fire. I text him back like I, I think you owe Josh an apology. Just the consummate glue guy. Consummate like just spiritual leader type like everything if you like. You could say that Brunson in exemplifies everything that there is to know about the Knicks. But I think Josh Hart on a, on a less talented level, sheer talent level is just as important to the ethos of who the Knicks are.
[21:44]
A
Look, I, I love Josh Hart. He was on my Marcus soul All Stars this year. After that Game one I said on this podcast with Jason Timm, less minutes for Josh Hart is almost never the answer. He always responds to these like, oh, they got to cut his minutes. He can't shoot games with, like, massive games. And he's been massive since then. Every team that wins a title or chases a title needs a Josh Hart. And that's like you, it's, it's, it's a generic thing to say that about any role player. But Josh Hart in particular is the kind of role player that is fun to play with. And I think you need that ingredient on a great team. And everybody likes playing with a guy who is selfless, pushes the pace, does all the dirty work, gang rebounding, defends whoever you ask him to defend, and is just constantly operating from a perspective of how can I make the game faster, more fun and easier for my teammates. Everybody loves to play with a guy like that. And that's what Josh Hart is. And one first round pick in Cam Reddish, boom. This guy's going to be a Knick for life, maybe.
[22:57]
B
And a Knick legend. The way things are going, especially if they win a championship, they all become legends instantaneously. But, you know, when's the last time we heard anybody complaining about all the picks given up for Mikhail Bridges? Probably a few weeks ago, or probably when he was looking like he was about to get yanked out of the starting lineup during the Atlanta series, which feels like three years ago.
[23:14]
A
Mike Brown was never going to do that. And I, I said at the time, you shouldn't do that. You can't disrupt this starting five at this time. This starting five has kind of a checkered history. Remember in the playoffs last year with by the Numbers kind of meh. I've always liked it and they've been rewarded for sticking by it. But like, there was he, Mike Brown, whatever he did, what he did was right and whatever he said behind the scenes was right. And they stuck by Mikhail Bridges and he's playing the best he's played since he was in Brooklyn.
[23:41]
B
Yeah, and again, that was a controversial deal for the Knicks in part because Mikhail Bridges as a third or fourth wheel in Phoenix, really good young player. Mikhail Bridges as miscast, you know, number one option in Brooklyn, not so great. And then by the time the Knicks get him, it's like, well, you know what, what player do we have? And we just give up a shit ton of draft capital to get him at the peak of draft capital trades which we may never see again. And so the investment was really big and the, the outcome and the fit were unclear. And then of course, he clashed with Tibbs. Last year, he was outspoken about it, about minutes, about roll, about all kinds of stuff. So he starts to come off as maybe a little bit of a malcontent. And yet here we are. Everything seems to fit perfectly. And that's how things go, right? Like, it's, you know, you know, what is it about the whole, you know, winning covers up everything, but it's, It's. It's a chicken and egg thing. Like, maybe they all just got on the same page and then the winning was produced, or maybe the winning started and then everybody else calmed down or whatever. But everybody seems perfectly fitting, perfectly happy with their roles. These guys, I mean, they. You never get any sense there's any tension out there. Like, yeah, the teams make mistakes, everything. Guys got to bark at each other occasionally, all that stuff. But, like, this looks like a really fun group. And I think that's been the other hallmark the last few years. Even when they've fallen short in the playoffs, this is a really easy team to embrace, even if you weren't a Knicks fan, because of how hard they play, their relentlessness. They have bodies just dropping like flies a couple years ago, and they just keep winning and winning anyway and extending that series against Indiana two years ago, like, they've earned this. They've. They've earned this. It's. It's a really incredible evolution and, and kind of rebirth for this franchise after everything they've gone through. 27 years just seems insane between NBA Finals and even that, right? Like, that was the 99 finals. That was the lockout season. So, you know, Phil Jackson putting the big fat asterisk on that one. They were an eight seed. An eight seed that made the Finals. So it was also the improbability of it all.
[25:50]
A
I don't think that is. Even though. And in between, he's a champion legend for the Knicks. I don't know that Phil Jackson is a name that any Knicks fans want to hear on today's. On today's episode of probably not.
[26:00]
B
Probably not. Strike it from the record.
[26:01]
A
But you mentioned. You mentioned tension. And the reality is there has been tension this season. There were multiple. Like, Cat talks about having to sacrifice the most because of the new offense. At the end of last season, Fred Katz and James Edwards and the Athletic wrote the sort of now they tell us story story about, you know, players wondering kind of if Cat takes defense seriously enough, if he sticks to the scheme enough and owns it hard enough when he doesn't. And all of that has vanished. Cat has stuck to the scheme defensively. To a tee. I thought one of the fun little subtleties of this Cleveland romp was the way the Knicks toggled the big man matchups with Cat mostly guarding Mobley, but sometimes guarding Allen when the Cavs had both the bigs on the floor and Anunoby guarding Allen for the most part, but sometimes guarding Mobley. And they would switch within possessions like their big to big rotations were just on point in a way that was like, have they been doing this all season? It was really tremendous to watch. So there have been moments intentionally. It all starts with Brunson and signing Brunson away from the Mavericks on a deal that a lot of people panned. I did not. I said, I think, I described it as I think it's fine. I think it's like a BB plus. Obviously even that was like wildly pessimistic on what it's become. Since then he has signed another below market extension with the Knicks, but everything starts with him. And he got so great so fast and the team got so good so fast that it changed everything about the way they built the team. And that coalesced in the Bridges trade. I was rereading what I wrote about the Bridges trade at the time and it was after that Indiana series that you mentioned two seasons ago that they stretched out despite half the team going down with injuries. You know, we don't even need to go through the list. And then they overpay for Bridges. It's still an overpay. It doesn't even matter if it's an overpay. And I wrote at the time like, look, the bottom line is I thought that year The Knicks in 2024, with Randall Pre, Cat pre Bridges Pre all this were the second best team in the east, the biggest threat to Boston in the east. And then the injuries just decimated them. And when you get that good that fast, you make decisions like you don't. There's no point in waiting anymore. There's no point in waiting for this Giannis pipe dream that's wasn't coming then. There's no point in trying to get Joel Embiid, who's already a big injury risk and not available. He made them so good so fast that it had to change everything about how they accelerated. And here they are. And look, we have plenty of time to talk about the Knicks. I have a question for you. Are you aware of have you become aware of a WWE wrestler slash personality named Danhausen?
[28:38]
B
No, I have not.
[28:40]
A
So you did not see that Danhausen has cursed the Cavaliers on National TV and uncursed the Knicks.
[28:48]
B
I did not realize this person existed, nor that he had this immense power that's. You need to do it.
[28:53]
A
I went down a rabbit hole of Danhausen. He did this on espn. He's a big star. I don't. And I went down a rabbit hole because I was so fascinated. He's. He looks like a little man compared to, like, regular wrestlers. He looks like a normal dude, skinny, whatever. The best way I can describe him, Howard, to you is, again, he looks like a regular person, except he's sort of like an avant garde ghoul Dracula with face paint on. Okay. And a funny voice. And I was like, I don't even understand how this guy's a wrestler. Let me go on YouTube and figure this out. And, like, 90 minutes passed, and I was fascinated because he's like an avant garde comedy act. He's presented as, like, inept and weird and has this belief in himself that he can curse people, and it's objectively insane, but the people he curses, eventually bad things start happening to almost randomly. And so he's become a star. He must weigh 180 pounds, and he's become a star. And I googled him. And since he uncursed the Knicks, they have not lost a game. And so he's being credited with this now. I will also say this, Howard. Becky. I'm just. I'm just going to put it out into the air. Since the episode of your Friends and Neighbors aired with Ogn and Obi and I cameoing, the Knicks are undefeated. So I don't know if I belong in the conversation with Danhausen, but these things are happening. The supernatural things are occurring.
[30:21]
B
This keeps up, they're going to have to bump you up to a Westchester eight, maybe a seven and a half. We'll see. We'll see. You said he looked inept and weird as a wrestler. I mean, that would have described the Knicks for a long time and now describes the Cleveland Cavaliers perfectly. They're inept and weird.
[30:36]
A
I can't recommend a 90 minute Danhausen. I almost want to watch wrestling again because he's so. I can't believe this thing exists. All right, let's take a break and talk quickly about the other end of the Eastern Conference finals. The Zach Low show is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA playoffs are here, and everything's on the line. Every possession matters. Every bucket swings the game. And tonight is your shot to boost your bet. That's right. All customers get a profit boost tonight. So when the moment hits, your win hits bigger and FanDuel is giving you better payouts on same game parlays all NBA playoffs long. Lock in your bets, boost your odds and make the playoffs pay off with FanDuel, official sports betting partner of the NBA. Head to FanDuel.com low to get started. FanDuel play your game 21 are over in select states are 18 and over in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming opt in required bonus issued is non withdrawable profit boost tokens gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLER call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chatincut this episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. The Playoffs are Almost Here My favorite thing about the NBA playoffs the intensity and the strategy. Every game is treated like a must win game and even when A team is up 30 every quarter, every half has a new adjustment that you gotta really be dialed in to track. Oh that guy's guarding that guy now. Why are they doing that? How is the other team going to counter that? It's the chess match that we don't really see quite as much of in the regular season. It's dialed up from the opening tip of game one in the playoffs. Playoffs are just awesome in the NBA. You know what else is just as great? Opening up a new bottle of Michelob Ultra. It's refreshing, light with only 95 calories. Plus as the official beer partner of the NBA, they're giving fans a chance to win courtside tickets, unique prizes and more. Michelob Ultra Superior is worth playing for. Enter now@michelob ultra.com Courtside Michelob Ultra Courtside 25 to 26 no purchase necessary. Open US residents 21/plus begins on October 1, 2025 and ends on June 30, 2026. Multiple entry periods. See official rules@michelobultra.com Courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. Okay, the Cleveland Cavaliers are are out. There's just so much material here, Howard, that I don't even know where to start. Would you like to start with James Harden going 2 of 8 in an elimination game and a combined 39 points on 7 of 27 shooting in three elimination games? Two wins, albeit for the Cavs this year? Would you like to start there? Would you like to start with Kenny Atkinson uttering a quote that will follow him to the grave and deservedly so for the rest of his life, about how the Cavaliers were actually analytically up 2 to 1 in the series against the Knicks when they were down 3, 0 and losing every game by the way by double digit points. And I would like to congratulate the Cavaliers because I looked up the shot quality data on second Spectrum Genius IQ today. The Cavaliers expected effective field goal percentage based on who was shooting, specific identity of the shooters and from where they were shooting and how close the defenders are. And all the fancy nerd stuff was 55.41% for this series. The Knicks same stat was 54.8 for the series. So the Cavs by 0.7 percentage points won the shot quality banner. They also won zero games in the series. So I would advise against raising a banner for the 2026 Shot Quality Championship. That's just me and I just. You can't say that. Look, I understand he was probably trying to imbue his team with confidence, right? Like we've actually done things well, let's keep doing what we're doing and maybe the shots will fall. Just say that then. Don't say we've analytically. Analytically we're actually up 2:1. That's how it came off. It's going to follow him around forever. And here's the other thing. You can't hang your hat on process when you blow a 20 point lead halfway through the fourth quarter of game one. The series ended. That was it. That was the whole series. And I don't care what happens after that. You can't hang your hat on any process when your process involved blowing that lead. It also elided the fact that there are so many other things besides shot quality that determine who wins and loses a basketball game. For instance, The Cavaliers were 15th out of 16 playoff teams in turnover rate in the playoffs and their turnover rate was even worse in the Eastern Conference finals. And there the number of just straight up dumbass turnovers was astounding for a team that wanted us to take them seriously. How many inbounds and outlet passes did they throw directly to the other team in this series alone? How many times did players catch the ball out of bounds? How many times did players just drop the ball out of bounds? How about your transition defense? If you want to hang your hat on shot quality and well, you know, whatever. There are so many other ways to to shrink the other margins of the game so that shot quality really could be the deciding factor. How about your transition defense last night? I understand three. Oh, you probably have a little bit of lack of self belief that you can do it. Their transition defense last night was absolutely embarrassing for a team that again wanted us to take them seriously and it was embarrassing for parts of the entire playoffs. Clean that up before you talk to me about shot quality. But bigger picture, Howard. This is the ultimate glass half full. Glass half empty. Argument glass half full, which is what Kenny Atkinson tried to pour last night. Hey, we finally made the conference finals. We got over the hump. Let's just stand pat, keep it going. Keep me, please keep me. Keep me. Keep Donovan. Donovan says he wants to stay. He's extension eligible. Keep Mobley, keep Harden. He has a player option. I would suspect that they have worked out some sort of agreement where he opts out of that for a lesser amount and resigns. A two year, $60 million deal, something like that. Keep everyone together. We're headed the right direction. We got over the hump. It's the Eastern Conference. Like, it's not like there's some Spurs Thunder powerhouse standing in our way. Keep Jared Allen, like, keep the whole infrastructure glass half empty. Yeah, they made the conference finals. Their collective record for the playoffs is 8 and 10.
[37:19]
B
I'm not.
[37:19]
A
I'm just not that impressed with. With what they like to go seven against Toronto, who was missing quickly the entire series. And the Cavs will sit here and tell you, well, that made them actually harder to play against. We didn't have a defensive liability to pick on. Well, you have to have both ends of the floor singing to win. And quickly was a big loss. And Ingram was out half the series. Detroit barely beat Orlando and Cleveland barely beat Detroit 8 and 10. I'm just not that impressed. And. But I also don't know what else to. I don't know what the right answer is, but I'm just. I'm not buying, like. Well, because we made it to the conference finals, we are clearly progressing as a team and we have another year presumably to learn about how to play with James Harden. And I'm not like, their assist rate collapsed, they were last in the playoffs, and assist rate, their offense just didn't look smooth. Mitchell and Mobley for the playoffs, that twosome together was -68 for the entire playoffs. So they're doing this thing where it's like, Mitchell, Mobley, Harden, Allen, those are the pairings. And it just seems like two fundamental things are true about the Cavs as they make decisions about how to go forward. Like, leave aside the half full glass, half empty glass, these things are true. Number one, in a lot of ways, there's still the same roster that they felt uncertain about when they had Darius Garland, which is we have two undersized guards and two big guys Whose fit is unclear. Well, the guards aren't undersized anymore, but let's just say two defensively challenged guards and two bigs. Who's fit to us is unclear. And in the middle is this giant vacant hole where the Knicks have three giant wings that are really good two way players and we have none. No giant wings that are really good two way players. Strus is the closest one. They finally started Strus. It was too little, too late. And fundamental truth number two is related to that. It feels like they have to pick a lane sometimes. Like, do you believe in Allen and Mobley together or do you not believe in Allen and Mobley together? And should you just pick one and have Mobley be your starting center? And yet when they play that way, they're so small around him that when he has to defend the pick and roll up high on the floor and they get the ball behind him, there's just absolutely no resistance because they're tiny when they play with one big. And so for as much as they've changed and as far as they've gotten, it still feels like they're stuck in the same problem, same fundamental problem, and not really like that much better. I'm just not that impressed with their playoff run. And yet I don't know, I'm not sure that the answer still isn't let's just stand pat and not do anything crazy because I don't know what their alternatives are.
[40:03]
B
I mean, throughout this era, and I mean, you know, the era of once they acquire Donovan Mitchell, pair him with Darius Garland, tear down and Evan Mobley, that, that quartet, before they broke it up with the Garland Harden deal, there had always been some doubts around the league. I'm sure you and I both heard a lot of this along the way. Just, yes, your, your backcourt is undersized and defensively challenged. That's going to potentially put a ceiling on, on how far you can go with that and how's the fit going to be overall? And you know, over the course of a couple of years, I think it got better in terms of just their offensive distribution and responsibilities and then, and then the two bigs. And then on top of that, that was the playing layer. Then there was the salary cap layer, which was can you afford to keep all these guys in perpetuity because of what it was going to do to your cap, your tax, second apron, all that. And they've come up against that too. And I guess to their credit, you know, they stuck with it because they, they truly believed this is we'll pay the tax. We'll go into the second apron. We believe in, in this, this grouping, and we're going to write it as far as we can. And as far as we can meant ending three months ago, whenever it was when they out of the blue flipped Garland for Harden, a deal that I don't think anybody saw coming until, you know, the day it actually happened. As recently as right before this series, when I was talking to some Cavs people, they were very, very happy with the swap of Garland for Harden. They felt very confident in the wisdom of that move and what Harden had brought them. They felt it was everything they needed. And yet here we are talking once again at the end of another Harden team collapse and how bad he was at key moments and in key games and elimination games. Dude ain't beating the allegations. I don't want to hear any more of the hardened apologists out there saying we've all just been mean to him and we've misread.
[41:48]
A
Let's just read just, let's just read his numbers in while we do the hardened autopsy. First of all, he's 36 years old. And so to expect him to score 25 a game on efficient shooting and defend Jalen Brunson over and over down the stretch of games is not realistic anymore.
[42:08]
B
And I want to qualify my own criticism by just saying this, and I said this to some Cash people not long ago. This is the one time when I think while Harden is certainly as responsible as anybody for what we just saw, this is not his responsibility, this team, at this stage of his career. This is more about Donovan Mitchell and everybody else.
[42:25]
A
So this is a collective, this is a collective structural failure in this series. Not for the season.
[42:33]
B
Yes.
[42:33]
A
All right, Harden for the series, for the playoffs, rather. 19 a game, five rebounds, five and a half assists. That assist number combined with Donovan Mitchell averaging three assists for the playoffs is a red alert number that something was not working with the offense. But 19, 5 and 5, 41% shooting, 30% on threes, 52% on twos. And I mentioned in the three elimination games, 39 combined points on 7 of 27 shooting and was just sort of quietly carried across the finish line in Game 7 against the Pistons that they won by a lot and so no one really talked about like another hardened dud. Now game three and game five against the Pistons, monster clutch moments across the board and you have to give him credit for that. Evan Mobley in the playoffs, again, a lightning Rod player, right? 17 points a game, 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 53% shooting, pretty good. 34% on threes, 63% on twos, pretty good. I thought we'd be getting more than 17 a game out of Evan Mobley. And I thought like we, we had probably progressed by the point where Deuce McBride is stripping him one on one in the post in an elimination game. But we spilled pretty good. Still leave me a little cold. And I want to give the credit to the Knicks for one thing. 34% on threes for Evan Mobley. They never made the mistake that a lot of teams make, which is they just were not going to overreact to Evan Mobley shooting. Semi open threes. They're not going to compromise their defense anywhere else for the most part. And I thought that was smart. And Donovan Mitchell, I'll read you his playoff stats. 26 a game. Okay. 5 rebounds, 3 assists. I mentioned 3 assists to 2.6. Turnover is not great. 45% shooting, 33% on threes, 54% on twos. That sounds good. It didn't feel that good. And there was just something synergistically off with the Cavs in this series in particular. And now they. So like, again, I don't even know what the answer is. Right. They clearly need a wing. They've been searching for this wing since they cycle through. Caris Lavert, DeAndre Hunter, Keone Ellis, Max Struz, Dean Wade. And you saw the difference between Strus and Wade in the series is like when Dean Wade was in the game. Find defensive player doesn't make enough shots. Like find like he's always been an analytics darling. The Knicks could put Brunson on him and just not worry about it at all. Like when you hunt Brunson with Dean Wade as the screener. Brunson's going to double and recover and Dean Wade's going to roll around wherever he rolls around. And the Knicks just aren't going to care when Struz is in that position. The Knicks all of a sudden care. The Knicks have to recover quickly. They have to rotate a third guy to Max Strust. They have to switch sometimes because they're scared of his shooting. Dean Wade was not the answer. I don't know what the answer is. But here's the thing, Mobley. Well, I mean, like here are the decisions, right? Donovan Mitchell's eligible for a max max 35% max extension that would kick in the year after this year and says
[45:37]
B
he wants to stay.
[45:39]
A
I talked about picking a lane. You sign him to that extension. That's the lane. That's your lane now your other lane is. And Bill pitched this like, should you just get out of this business altogether and start over and trade Donovan Mitchell for future assets? Based on Dan Gilbert's tweet after the game last night, I don't see that happening. The other decision is Mobley. I don't really see a reason to trade Mobley or a good Mobley trade, but the Mobley for Giannis thing is certainly an interesting trade. The other thing, people have to understand about these fake Mobley trades, and the same thing applies to the Thunder. We'll talk about that. The Cavs are going to be over the second apron or right around the second apron. If they're over the second apron, they can't aggregate salaries. And if they can't aggregate salaries, trading Mobley for Giannis requires, like, a third team, a fourth team, lots of different stuff happening. I don't know. Would you.
[46:28]
B
Would you contemplate that for Giannis specifically, or a mobile trade in general?
[46:34]
A
I don't know what the other Mobili trade is. So for Yanis specifically?
[46:37]
B
Yeah, I don't. I don't know. I don't know if there's another version of it where you're getting Jaylen Brown instead or, like, you know, I'm starting to cycle through like, all the other.
[46:43]
A
Again. Second April, he makes $20 million more than Evan Mobley does.
[46:47]
B
It's really hard. It's just really hard. I. I think I would be very hesitant at this stage to give up on the possibility of Evan Mobley, because we see those flashes, like, you know, at the time he was drafted, people couldn't wait to compare him to Tim Duncan or Kevin Garnett or a combination thereof or whatever he was going to be, you know, this, this do everything big, who was perfect for the modern game and could guard every position and shoot from everywhere and all that. And we haven't quite seen that come together. But, you know, that's one of the hardest decisions, I think, for teams to make, especially when it's your own guy and they're. They're still early in their career. At what point do you conclude that this is as. As. As evolved as they're going to get as a player? He's still 24. He'll be 25 in a few weeks. Not even in his prime yet. I would be very hesitant. On the other hand, if, if you were getting Giannis. The problem with all the Giannis discussions is this. How confident is any team that's acquiring him that they're going to somehow unlock something health wise that the Bucks did not. Right? That's a question I think every franchise
[48:00]
A
is asking themselves because atop the, we have to know that he's going to resign here and then we have to pay him the giant contract that's inextricably tied to his aging and health issues.
[48:12]
B
But if you thought, listen, we have the greatest medical staff that's ever been assembled in the history of humankind. We are going to keep him healthy through a full season. I think you would bank on one full season at minimum, of a healthy Giannis combined with Donovan Mitchell and Jared Allen and James Harden, presuming they're all there, and LeBron on a minimum, let's say, and say, you know what, we're just all in and whatever it costs us to keep him if he wants to stay Giannis, cool, great, fine. But we're, we're, we're going to be all in because Donovan Mitchell's far enough into, into his prime and we've got a window here and we're not giving up on him. And you know, we'll, we'll take our chances. We'll take our chances and extend. And if it means that we're, we're getting killed on the back end of a Giannis contract when it's no longer possible for our greatest medical team in the history of humankind to keep him on the court, fine, we'll pay the price then. But in the meantime, if it gives us a chance to get through the Knicks or the, the still rising Pistons or the reconstituted Celtics or whoever it
[49:13]
A
may be, how about the Pacers who are, exist, still looming? So, so the Knicks are really, in a lot of ways the, and there are other teams like the Knicks. The, the best argument for not blowing it up is that, you know, if you're patient and you keep plugging away and you make some moves here and there, like, you can break through eventually. And I don't see them doing anything dramatic like trading Donovan Mitchell for future assets. They just don't seem like a team that has the appetite for that. Now. His contract and Bobby Marks has the numbers today, it's going to be gigantic. Like all these ones is you just have to look in the mirror and ask yourself like, okay, when he's 33, we're going to be paying him this percentage of the salary cap. Is he good enough to justify that? The answer for almost every player in the NBA other than like the top five guys is like some kind of noise like that. But you kind of just do it but you know, I like how you just threw LeBron at a minimum was just throwing in at the end there.
[50:12]
B
Why not?
[50:13]
A
But you do have to think about like, this Mobley for Giannis fantasy land trade, which, you know, would be a lot more palatable to me if I were the Cavs had I not already traded up in age 10 years by flipping Garland for Harden. Like, if I flip Mobley for Giannis, I've just gone from like a young, funky, interesting team to like, holy shit, we got old fast. Not only that, like Harden plus Giannis plus Jared Allen is just a funky group. Like, the talent is there, but the fit on offense is just. Yeah, so Harden's going to dribble all the time. What's Giannis doing? Jared Allen has no range to his game. How does he fit with Giannis? There's like a lot of questions to answer there. I'm glad you mentioned Jaylen Brown because there's something interesting, a little interesting about Mobley for Jalen Brown as a trade construction. Now, who throws in what to make that happen and the apron issues and all that. But I, you know, I find myself looking at the standings and thinking, like, what really good wings could the Cavs get? And it's hard because, like, Trey Murphy III, Michael Porter Jr. Like, you're not trading Evan Mobley for those guys. And I'm not sure their teams are going to be like, hungry enough to take Jared Allen for those guys. Even if you throw in the one pick that the Cavs can trade. The one first round pick. I tried to get Kawhi, like, is there a Jared Allen for Kawhi kind of construction plus one first round pick going to the Clippers. But again, the second apron looms because Jared Allen makes so much less than Kawhi. I, I, It's a, it's a tough nut to crack. And they obviously have to figure out the finances. Like, Dean Wade's a free agent. Is he just a, a cap casualty? Maybe. But I don't know the right answer and the right answer just may be there isn't a better choice other than kind of mostly standing pat.
[52:10]
B
That may well be the case. And I also think this is one of those cases where given a choice between staying the course and trying to augment as you go and bank on some internal improvement and whatever, better chemistry and who knows if it's that versus like whether it's a tear down or just a semi tear down, a blow it up trade Donovan Mitchell for assets and all that stuff. I just don't See that as being necessary right now. Right. This is not a case where like I wrote about this, it'll be up on the ringer today. But like, if you're in the west, it would be understandable if you have a certain amount of despair. If you're not the spurs and Thunder, like how are we breaking through this gauntlet anytime in the next five years and maybe longer then the east is not that way. Right. All due respect to the Knicks who are on a historic tear right now, but this is not Wembanyama and Castle and Harper or Shay, Chet, Jalen and a gazillion other players. With all this depth, you're not trying to get through the LeBron Wade heels or the warriors of Steph, Clay, Draymond and kd. If you're the Cavaliers, you have at least a little reason to believe that with a tweak, tweaks here and there, or maybe some one big swing but not a tear down swing, trying to improve, we'll still be there with the Knicks and the Celtics and the Pistons and the Magic maybe and the Hawks and whatever. Yeah, the east is. Is a mishmash, right? We are. It's funny because if you go back to October, we all thought this was a two team race, or maybe, you know, most of us did. I thought it was going to be between the Knicks and the Cavs in October.
[53:48]
A
And it was in the end.
[53:50]
B
And it was in the end.
[53:51]
C
Yay.
[53:51]
B
I was right. Except I was wrong for like five months in between when we all got, you know, caught up in the wave of oh my God, look at the Pistons. Oh my God, look at the, the Celtics overachieving without Jason Tatum. Ooh, now Tatum is back. I think they're the finals favorites. I thought they were, but I think it just goes to show that like, there was just a lot of volatility and these teams, as I wrote after the first round, the, the parody, the era of parody we're in is not just applying to the Finals and the champion each year and having a different champion and different finals entrance every year. It's that there just isn't a massive gap between these teams. We are not in a super team era for the most part. All due respect again to the Thunder and Spurs, but like, especially in the East, I just. The Knicks, what they're doing right now makes it look like the gap is massive. If you had asked about what the gap was between all these teams in March or April or February, I don't think we would have thought it was that Huge. And so if you're the Cavs, I think you just try to stay in
[54:49]
A
that race, much like last year's conference finals, although more embarrassingly so for the Cavs than it was for the Knicks. I would love to just see the alternate reality of how the series unfolds if the Cavs win Game one, because I just think you can't absorb a loss like that, particularly when you're the underdog. There was just no coming back from that game. I don't know. We'll see what they do. These are very tough decisions. Like, the Mitchell extension is as easy and clean as it looks. Is like, oh, we're Cleveland. We traded a ton to get Donovan Mitchell, like Lowry market and has become a top 25 player in the NBA and he was just sort of not even the headliner in that trade. The picks were. So there's not a sunk, Sunk cost is too pessimistic a term. But like, they're, they're going to be very motivated to bring Donovan Mitchell back. All these decisions are hard. I just don't know. I haven't been. I have not found a great alternative, like, mega decision for the Cavs. Like, I haven't even found like a great Jared Allen trade for them, let alone a Mobley trade. Okay, let's leave the Cavs behind as they, as they prepared the shot quality banner for. For the Rocket Mortgage Arena. Rocket arena, whatever the hell it's called now.
[56:02]
B
I think it's just Rocket arena now. Which that was like. That's a good edit. That's a good edit. It sounds cooler. No, one more. The, the word mortgage does not sound cool or interesting.
[56:12]
A
You know what doesn't sound cool? The diff still doesn't sound cool. No, it does not. And Humongatron does not sound cool. Retire both of those.
[56:21]
B
Oh, Cavs game ops, man.
[56:24]
A
Quick, quick, run through some NBA news stories, including game five of the West Finals. Jaylen Brown. Did you see Jaylen Brown's reaction to not making first team all NBA on his Twitch stream? Which again, I, I want to come on the Twitch. Like, I'm just throwing myself out there as a guest. I'm, I'm available.
[56:40]
B
I just want to be one of the people who stands in the background seamlessly.
[56:43]
A
Me and GRD hashtag Green runs deep. Like, I'll go on. And did you see his reaction to this?
[56:51]
B
I did. I did not see it. The, the actual tape. Yeah, I, I, yeah, I know that he in real time reacted first, acting very aggrieved and then when the second team came out. I guess this was happening in real time and he was like, oh. And then suddenly he was very, you know, semi magnanimous.
[57:08]
A
Yeah, I'm not the most liked fan or media. Sometimes I use my platform a little controversial. So I'm surprised I'm on any team, let alone first or second. I'm grateful, blah, blah, blah. You know, look, no, there was no conspiracy. The five guys who made the first team just had better seasons than Jalen Brown. Sorry. Like the moment that Kate and Luca were ruled eligible. And maybe that's the conspiracy he's hinting at. Jaylen Brown became a second team all NBA player. And by the way, he received the most votes by far of everyone on the second team and almost made first team. There's just no. I. I mean, like, you can make the case based on wins. And he played. I have all the stats up here right now. He played 71 games, which I think is the most of. It is the most of the sort of general group of guys who would have been, including Luca and cade, who played 64 each. I mean, there's just no argument for him over Luka or Kate, I don't think. I mean, I'm so sorry. I don't really have a hot take on that one second. Ty Wall, NBA is an awesome honor. Like, there's no. There was no. The content of Jaylen Brown's media interviews and Twitch stream did not infect the all NBA voting.
[58:20]
B
Well, couple things there. One is that, yes, Jaylen Brown has taken some hits over the last couple of weeks and a lot of criticism from the media because of all the things on the Twitch stream. But that has nothing to do with the vote for all NBA because that happened weeks and weeks ago, before the Celtics had lost, before Jalen Brown had talked about this being his most enjoyable season, all that stuff. So if he's saying that it's past things that he said that somehow has the media, you know, has it in for, I. I don't even know. I think this was his highest ever finish all NBA wise. Right. He had a third team before, if I'm remembering correctly.
[58:54]
A
So I think this is up right now. Howard. I'm too focused on other things.
[59:00]
B
His tone changed very quickly from aggrieved and there's a conspiracy against me to, oh, I made second team and the universe is wonderful and everything is great. And at that point, he's not saying, gee, thank you, media for actually recognizing what a great season I had. It's still the aggrieved Aspect of not being first. And it was just. It was strange.
[59:21]
A
He made second team all NBA in 2023. Okay, so twice in general, with very few exceptions. I think Fox Mulder would be one. If you think there's a conspiracy against you, you're wrong. There's not a conspiracy against you. Just in general. Just as a general rule of thumb.
[59:41]
B
I'm glad you mentioned this. Can I just a quick tangent in this exact zone though, of conspiracies, fake conspiracies, things that do not happen, have not happened, are not happening a couple of weeks ago.
[59:53]
A
And I'm going to be about aliens.
[59:56]
B
It is not going to be about Victor Wembanyama. It is about Luka Doncic and the fact that when he did not finish higher in the MVP race, I think he finished fourth. There were a lot of people. The. The.
[60:08]
C
The.
[60:08]
B
The Luca stands. The.
[60:09]
A
The Lucas does not even deserve our time, Howard. It doesn't deserve our time.
[60:13]
B
It doesn't. I just want to note. He was on all 100 ballots for all NBA. 91 first place votes and 9 second place votes. All 100 ballots and only played 64 games and had to get a pass, a waiver from the NBA to even be eligible. If there were a conspiracy against Luka Doncic, he would not be on all 100 ballots with 91 firsts and finishing first team. So the next time somebody on social media or elsewhere tells you that there is some mass media conspiracy, they hate Luca. Ooh, they hate. We don't know why they hate Luca, but we know they hate him for some reason. There's something. Maybe they don't like his hair. These people are rage baiting. They're grifting, they're misleading. You don't listen to them anymore.
[60:53]
A
You've already given it too much oxygen
[60:54]
B
then it is, by the way. I just need to get that off my chest.
[60:56]
A
Speaking of aliens. Speaking of aliens, I'm a little nervous because my level of excitement for the Steven Spielberg movie disclosure day, which is coming out soon, is when I get this excited about a movie, I'm almost always disappointed. And it's my fault. My hype level is too high. I haven't been this hyped for a blockbuster movie in a long, long time. And I'm not like, I don't know the MCU I'd like. That's not my thing. So there's probably other movies that have had this level of blockbuster intrigue. This one, I'm just very excited. I feel like it's a Steven Spielberg Passion project that he's been waiting to make for a long, long time and has now made to his liking. So anyway, real quickly, Jalen Duran making all NBA over Scotty Barnes now looks like immensely regrettable given how amazing Scotty Barnes was in the playoffs and how not amazing Jalen Duran was. I'm here to defend that decision. I don't think it really even needs to be defended. Just, just again, it's a regular season award. I'm just going to say right now. And there's this idea that Jalen Duran is just mooching off of Cade Cunningham and that Scotty Barnes is the number one option on a team that needs him to do everything. And there's truth to to both of those polls. Jalen Duran averaged almost 20 points a game in the regular season. He on isolations, averaged 1.225 points per isolation. I'm looking on the second spectrum stuff that was fifth among all ball handlers in the NBA with at least 50 isolations. You combine that with an offensive rebounding rate of 15% and his ability to push and transition in his passing, he was creating a little bit more offense than the oh, all he did was dunk off Cade Cunningham, critics would have you believe. Now a lot of the offensive rebounds are created by Kate Cunningham. Cade Cunningham's Kate Cunningham, Cade Cunningham's penetration. But I just think and defensively he was good. Not great, but good. I as a regular season award, I think he was completely deserving. And Scotty Barnes was a tough casualty and in the end, whatever. And I also saw like some criticism of, well, he fattened up against tanking teams toward the end of the season when Cade was out with the collapsed lung and the Pistons remained awesome. I just like for the whole entire season. The Pistons in something like 700 minutes with Jalen Duran on the floor and Cade Cunningham off the floor were plus 11 per 100 possessions for the entire season. So it's like there was a pretty airtight statistical case that Jalen Duran deserved to be all NBA. And it's not like he's the only guy who made it at the expense of Scotty Barnes. So I just like want to put that to bed. Let's talk. Let's end on a glorious note, which is game of the year is happening tonight. Spurs, Thunder. Give me one thing you're looking forward to in this game, Howard Beck.
[63:57]
B
I mean, I don't know how many times I've shrieked in the last week just at Wemby things often when he's pulling up from somewhere between the logo and the arc. What am I looking? I don't know. These two teams are incredible. It sucks that Jalen Williams and AJ Mitchell are both out, I assume still tonight. And hopefully on the spurs side of it, you know, Fox and Harper are still good. Good to go. I would love to see both these teams at full strength for this entire series. That's not the reality of the NBA in 2026, unfortunately. I'm just looking forward to seeing whatever the next stage of Wemby's real time growth is right before our eyes. Right. And this is not to ignore anything about the Thunder or any disrespect to them. Like they're, they're a fun team, but you know, it's. This is how it goes, right? Their breakout was last year and we got to like discover what they were all about and just how far they stretch themselves and the things that Shea could do. And this, this is new. Like Wimy's been around for a couple years, but this is new. Every single stage, every game of his first NBA Postseason at age 22, to see the, the how serious he's become, even how ferocious. One of the things I've loved about him personality wise, is how giving he's been of himself in interviews. Right. He's very open. He's very elaborate in his, in his answers. Do you notice how curt he's gotten and not in a rude way, not off putting. He's not being. Being mean to the media or anything. He's just got like, he, he. The dude's gotten deathly serious and the answers are very. He's always very literal anyway in the sense that he always tries to answer the exact question. He won't just take off on his own whatever. He usually tries to answer it directly and he's doing that, but he's. That dude's locked in and it. I think it's one of the things I loved about him most the last couple of years and seeing how he's. He's come into this, this, this place in the, in the league is that the greats aren't just talented on day one. Like, oh, look at his, his wingspan. Look at his, look at how well he can shoot the three for a seven footer. Whatever. All this, all the stuff that, that charts out as an all time great. It's ultimately ends up being a lot about how they conduct themselves, their work ethic, their seriousness, how much they actually care about how much they actually want to win. There are plenty of guys with a lot of talent who don't really want to win as much as you would hope they do or think they do. They do. This guy is about it. And the joy of watching him is not just the incredible feats of athleticism and shot making and ball handling that we see. It's seeing he actually fucking cares. He wants this badly and I don't know that I think for just permeates everything in watching a game with him
[66:47]
A
and he since the second half of game three. Obviously that was a Thunder win Game three, but has after a brief blip of okay, they're defending me with big guys after game one and I'm not sure how I can get to the rim as easily as I did in that game when 70 something percent of his shots came at the basket. He has just played with more force in the last six quarters, just rolling harder to the rim. And Castle's got him baskets at the rim. Fox has gotten him baskets at the rim, just directing as much of his energy toward the basket as possible. In game four, 54% of his shots came at the rim. In games two and three it was about 30%. And the spurs got 46% of their shots at the basket in game four, which is their highest amount of the series. The thing I will be looking for is it's a little unfair, particularly if J Dub and AJ Mitchell, the second and third best ball handlers on the team, are out and chet is averaging 11 points a game in the series and just hasn't been able to get into the series offensively. So it's all of that said, a little unfair. I think this is the biggest this game tonight is the biggest challenge of Shea Gilders Alexander's career. And I say that because I said this with Bill on Sunday. Game four, it's two two, so no one has figured anybody out. But game four had the feel of the spurs figured out the best way to defend the Thunder. They stopped trapping high on the floor and they only really sent dramatic help to Shay. Whether it was on the let's just stick to the ISOs when Hartenstein's off the floor and Victor's playing his own, Shay can get into the paint at will like no one is keeping him out of the paint. The difference was the help was only coming when he got in the paint and I think it was just an understanding of they're just killing us when we trap with open threes and if we have Victor back there, we don't have to do all this crazy stuff, let him get into the paint and then we'll swarm him and he'll have to figure it out from there. And it's just a very hard thing to navigate. And even like those Hartenstein floaters at the beginning of the game when he is in the game, they just made a decision like Victor's coming up to the level of the screen on Shea and he's going to track Shea and just not let him get clean twos and force the pass to Hartenstein and he can get back and make him take those floaters 17ft in the air because he's so goddamn tall. But when Shay is playing the one on one game and the traps aren't there, it's just a really hard puzzle to solve because he gets in the lane with a guy on his back and Victor in front of him and two guys showing a little bit of like, on our toes help, but not totally committed help from the wing. There's just no room to do anything. And I don't even know what the solve for that is other than they still were able to generate some good threes and they just have to make more of them. Like those Kenrich Williams threes were, I think, instructive shots. Even though the game was out of hand at that point. I don't know what the like part of the part of it is he's just gonna have to make more of the clean ish shots that emerge. And he had one where he like was like, you know what, if you're gonna crowd me in the middle, I'm just gonna dribble all the way to my, my pet spot on the baseline sideline area and make shots from there. It's the biggest challenge he's faced. And it had the air of that game. Had the first moment of like, okay, one of the teams has figured out a fundamental thing that works in this series and is sustainable. And I just, without a second and third ball handler to kick it to, because that's the way you really beat that defense is kick another guy drives, you relocate. And we pile the advantage on top of advantage on top of advantage until it gets wider. We make Victor defend multiple drives and kicks. Without those two guys, it's really hard. And I'm just curious to see what the answer is. Game of the year tonight. Howard Beck, you're the man. Thanks for waking up early with us today. And. And boy, the Knicks. I'll see you somewhere. World's most famous arena is going to be hosting the NBA finals. New York is going to have the finals and the World cup at the same time. And it's going to be summer and I'm a little. I'm a little afraid for what the city is going to be like.
[71:01]
B
I just know that.
[71:03]
A
Sorry.
[71:03]
B
I just know that I have never seen so many NYPD in a four block radius around the Garden as I've, as I've seen after the first couple of games of the conference finals and I can't even imagine what it's going to be for the finals. It's going bonkers. We need to reach the.
[71:15]
A
Never mind. I'll save the commentary for later. Howard Beck Real ones this week and you're going to have something up on theringer.com about the Cavs, it sounds like. Thank you for your time, buddy. Let's bring in John Hollinger and talk about the other big issue in the NBA this week.
[71:29]
D
Lottery for adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms. Every choice matters. Tremphya offers self injection or intravenous venous infusion. From the start. Tremphya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self inject Tremphya, proper training is required. Tremphya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur before treatment. Get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu like symptoms or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about tremphya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit
[72:26]
A
tremphyaradio.com this episode is brought to you by ebay. I've been hearing people talking about selling on ebay a lot lately and honestly, I get it. We all have stuff that no longer fits our lives and from what I hear, selling on ebay is actually really easy. Just snap a few photos, write a description, set your price. Suddenly the stuff that's just been sitting around is in front of millions of buyers already searching for what's next. Find what you love, sell what you don't on ebay. Reform. Okay? The other big story in the NBA that affects the sad sack teams and some of the non sad sack teams is happening. In two days, the board of governors will vote on the 3 2, 1 boom. Lottery proposal. John Hollinger you're the perfect guy to talk about this with because a you are brilliant and B you worked in a front office. You worked in a front office that is has some particular things at stake with this vote that we'll talk about. But I just wanted to like there's been you've written about it and there's just been a lot of debate about I think everyone understands broadly what this proposal does with its relegation zone and its ever flattening of the odds. It just makes it less profitable, be terrible, more random in terms of who picks at the top in the middle and everything just inc with still the general withered away but still their principle of, you know, the best teams won't pick at the top and the worst teams will disproportionately pick in the top 12 at least more randomization, more flattening. And this general debate that you've written about this general discomfort that I think exists even though I expect this proposal to pass of okay, we get that this is addressing egregious tanking, which was particularly egregious this season and really removes the incentive to do that. But does it have a downside of the draft is supposed to be hopeful for bad teams. It's supposed to redistribute talent to the teams that need it the most. And are we risking trapping bad teams in an endless cycle of badness by not rewarding them with or a better chance at least of a high pick in the draft? It's a hard debate to wrap your head around because I think all of our basketball souls are sick of tanking, but also well versed in the reality that the draft is supposed to be a mechanism to redistribute talent to the teams who need it the most. And I've always kind of believed in my gut like I every time someone would propose, well let's get rid of the draft or let's have all 30 teams have an equal chance at the number one pick and just disconnect records from pick order. That has always felt icky to me and I've said many times it all sounds great until the Thunder get the number one pick in the draft. You're like, oh, the Thunder just got AJ DeBancer. That seems bad. But where do you net out on this proposal? Has it struck the right balance? Are you, as we approach the vote, are you more enthusiastic than you were two weeks ago? Less enthusiastic? What are your actual thoughts on it?
[75:31]
C
I am probably more enthusiastic. There are a couple of micro elements that I think could be better but let's not have the perfect be the enemy of the good. I think the number one objective, I mean, the end of this season was awful when half of the schedule is unwatchable on any given night. Because if you have eight tanking teams, they all have an opponent. That means 16 out of 30, that's half the league, right? So, like, you can't do that. You have to protect the product first. So this definitely accomplishes that. Teams will be trying to win basically through the end of the season. There will be some teams who are locked into the three ball area that will take their foot off the gas probably the last couple weeks. But other than, other than that, everyone's going to be trying basically through, through the course of the entire season. And it even disincentivizes some of the things like shutting guys down, even if. Because when you're out of it, yes, you can tank for the lottery pick, but the other thing you do is shut down veteran players because you just, you don't want them to play anymore, basically. Not just from a tanking perspective, but from an injury prevention perspective. And so those teams just descend into awfulness either way. And, and so I think they've done a lot to address those things. And, you know, we've, we've definitely settled on tagging as the best way to improve a bad team. Every bad team has relied on that for years now. So is that the only way to improve a bad team? I mean, I think, I think that remains an open question. I mean, you look at Brooklyn, they had no picks. They had probably the worst rebuilding situation in history, and they still built themselves up to a playoff team before Katie and Kyrie arrived. You look at Indiana last year, they did, they, they were able to do a middle build with no tanking, and we're one game from the championship. Several of the best players of the last several years were not high draft picks. When you look at Giannis, Joker, even, you know, Curry, Thompson, Draymond, not a top five pick among them.
[77:41]
B
So,
[77:44]
C
yes, it was like, given the option, if I was running a team, yes, I would, I would tank given the incentives that were in place. But there are other ways to do this without tanking. And would they be as likely to be successful? It's just a straight tank. Probably not. But we know that there are other ways to bake this pie.
[78:05]
A
I've always said tanking is the most effective of a bunch of long shot ways to build a championship team. It's still a long shot. It might be the shortest long shot the easiest long shot, whatever, but it's still, you need to get the right draft, the right pick, the right time. And you know, like, let's just first be clear about what we're talking about in terms of the change currently. Just a couple of statistical examples to really boil it down. Currently if you're one of the three worst teams in the league, you have a 40% chance ish at a top three pick. That will shrink from 40 to 16% in the new system when you are, if you're one of the three worst teams, you're in the relegation zone. If you are a mid tier team, like one of the three ball teams right now, you have, depending on where you are, a 10 to 15% chance at like a top three pick that's going to go up to 24%. And similarly for a top five pick you have, again, it varies a lot depending on where you are in that range from like the fourth worst to the 10th worst, like a 25% chance at a top five pick and that's going to go up to almost a 40% chance. There are some teams like, like if you just isolate like the sixth worst team, their odds at a top three pick actually go down a tiny bit in the new system. So it really depends where you are. But those are the changes we're talking about. And honestly, like, if I had to, I like the proposal. I think it's got some flaws that we can talk about. I just, I'm with you in that. Tanking has become a worse problem than being trapped in badness. And I'm ready to live in a world where we prioritize eliminating the worst problem. And that's tanking in part because we've seen teams trapped in badness under the current system already. The Wizards, the Kings, New Orleans for like a lot of their history have not been helped by tanking. Tanking is not a fail safe. And so I'm okay with sort of changing the incentives that way. And this is just where I really come down. I was talking to a GM over the weekend about this, wrestling with this and he said to me something that I feel too is like we've never really lived in a reality where we know what the NBA looks like when everyone is actually trying to win. And I'm, and I'm ready, but I'm like, I'm ready to live in that reality because, you know, it's probably not that hard to build a 500 team if you're trying to win. And we've seen teams build to that and then get to that level and then make some smart moves to climb up even further. And I'm ready to just live in a reality where everyone is trying to win all the time with the remnants of a draft that still is going to reward the worst teams or the bottom teams more than the good teams. And it could be that like when everyone is trying to win, it actually gets harder to build a 500 team than it is now because you don't get to. You don't get to fatten up against these teams aren't trying to win. But I'm ready to live there.
[81:17]
C
Yeah, the NBA is Lake Wobegon right now where everyone who's trying is above average. There were 19 teams with winning records this year. That should be impossible. And it was possible because the 11 teams that were under were so bad. Like winning between 30 and 40 games is basically a suckers bet. And you've seen very few teams end up in that Golden State accidentally ended up there this year. But you see very few teams end up between 30 and 40 wins because they reach a point where they realize they're going to end up there and then they pull the ripcord and knock themselves down in the standings like Memphis did this year. And so that's going to end and that will be a really welcome thing.
[81:55]
A
There's also these sub rules that you can't have the number one pick in the draft two years in a row. So Wizards, you cannot get the number one pick again next year. You shouldn't be trying to get the number one pick because you have Anthony Davis and Trae Young, long time illustrious Wizards careers for the two of them. And the controversial one, Kevin o' Connor broke this news over the weekend. You can't have a top five pick three straight years. And why that matters is they're backdating it to the 2025 draft where Utah had the fifth pick and selected Ace Bailey. Utah has the second pick this year, so they will be banned from having a top five pick next year. Problem. They don't own their pick next year. The Grizzlies do. And so the Grizzlies, by the transitive property of NBA lottery math, are now banned, as the current proposal stands, from having a top five pick next year in the event that Utah's pick falls there seems unlikely Utah has telegraphed through its moves that it's trying to win next year. You never know. Guys get injured. Teams don't work lottery balls. Lottery balls get more random. You can jump in there, right?
[82:59]
C
Utah could easily end up in the play in be a two ball team and then have a decent chance of ending up in the top five.
[83:05]
A
Yeah. And Memphis I'm assuming is furious at this. I actually think this is one of the rare cases where a team is blindly self interested and also correct. I think that's, I think that's an unfair wrinkle. They made this trade based on a different set of rules and now a new set of rules is being inflicted upon them. Now I think they are supportive of it from what I've heard. I think they're one of the teams that's very supportive of the relegation zone and all that. But it doesn't feel fair to me that that's being, that rug is being pulled out from under them. Am I missing something? I am always suspicious when a team is self interested, but they actually seem correct.
[83:41]
C
I don't understand why you couldn't grandfather in the picks that were already traded.
[83:45]
A
Right.
[83:47]
C
That seems like the easiest thing to do because I mean like if Brooklyn had won the lottery this year, that would have affected Houston next year, not Brooklyn. And there are chances that those Phoenix picks Houston because to be clear, because
[84:02]
A
to be clear down the line, because to be clear, just to simplify it for people, Houston has the right to swap picks with Brooklyn next year. And if they had gotten the number one pick this year, Houston would have been like, wait a second, we're not allowed to get the number one pick because, because Brooklyn got the number one pick last year and we happened to own their pick. And like you said, they're looking at these Suns picks or the Nets are looking at these Knicks picks or Denver picks that are distant future picks and thinking, well, it doesn't seem likely that any of those teams, even the Suns are going to be picking in the top five year after year after year. But you never know.
[84:35]
C
The real design of the rule is to stop the spurs from getting Castle, Wembanyama and Harper in three straight drafts. Right. And the number one rule is designed to stop, you know, what happened in Cleveland a decade ago and that's fine. But when it's, when it's a different team that, that already has control of the pick, I think you can use some common sense and grandfather that one in.
[84:58]
A
Yeah, I agree. I don't, I don't really get why that would apply the way that, that it does. And by the way, you nailed it. The, the top five three years in a row thing is I think a direct response to what the spurs have done and credit to the spurs. Like nobody Made the other teams not pick Steph Castle second and third and first.
[85:16]
C
As an Atlanta resident, that hurts.
[85:18]
A
But yeah, yeah, it's not looking great for my other, my fellow Zach down there. But. And, and if that's really your target, well, Utah picking twice in the top five and then Memphis picking once in the top five. It doesn't really fall under the auspices of what you're trying to target. I think this is going to pass. It seems like a fade accompli that it's going to pass, but you never know until the votes are cast. I'll bet some team votes against it out of principle. I'm overall, I get the small market concern. I get that you're taking a tool out of the toolbox concern. I'm ready to live in this world and it is not meant to be a permanent solution. It is a temporary solution potentially, unless everybody loves it with a sunset provision built in and the ability to look at it again in a couple of years, a few years, whatever. So I think it's good. Do you have any reason to believe it's not going to pass?
[86:15]
C
Oh, I think. I think it'll pass. Yeah. And even like the Memphis situation, so there are like 14 other teams that are okay with that because it increases their odds of being in the top five. So. So I think that the, the vote is actually a little unfair for them that way. I'm actually curious if the Knicks will vote against it just because they vote
[86:37]
A
against everything, then maybe the Knicks are in such a good mood that they'll actually end their. End their streak of sending James Dolan's representative in there and just. No, no, no. I don't like the food at this meeting. I want a different kind. I want a different kind of sparkling water. I just we Everything different. I do want to go through something that I've hinted at before, which is a type of proposal that is gaining momentum around the league, not for now, but for five, eight, ten years from now if the league decides that this thing isn't working. Is a credits proposal where you just. The lottery's gone. Not the lottery. The lottery's not gone. The. The ordering of the draft is completely kind of scrapped in the way that we tie it to record now and every team gets a credits proposal. Now I've hinted at this and I have the proposal. Do you want me to just read. I have one proposal. One. The one proposal which has come from the Celtics. I have it. It's been sent to me not by the Celtics, but by other teams have seen it and I just think this is a useful example for people to like understand what this is or I'm going to just sort of outline it to you. Okay. Every team starts every season with 100 credits and you bid the credits on draft slots. So if you really want the number one pick and you own a first, you can still trade draft slots. So like I can trade you my draft, my first round draft slot unattached to a particular pick in 2032. And now if I'm a team, I have two first round drive slots, but I can take all my credits and bid them on the number one pick and credits can roll over so I can keep all my credits. If I see a draft two or three years down the line, I can bid 300 credits on the number one pick. We can trade credits back and forth, we can trade players for credits and I'll just read how it works. In late April, each team secretly submits a credit bid for each pick they have. In early May, the league publishes all the bids on lottery night for the first pick. The top four highest bidders for that pick are put into a lottery amongst themselves with probability proportional to the number of credits each team bid toward that slot. So there could be a team with a huge edge based on if they put a gazillion credits. The winner of this mini lottery gets the first pick, gets charged halfway between their own bid and the bid of the lowest bidder and is removed out of the pool. For the second pick, the number five bidder is added to the three non winners and another lottery is held. And we do that all the way down until the end. You are subtracted 20 credits for every playoff series that you win so that the worst teams in any given year still should have the most credits. Teams can have more than one pick slot in either round of the draft. Each slot is associated with a separate bid. Teams may bid zero and just pick at the end of the first round and the second round operates the same way. And what else? The league can find teams by docking them credits if they believe that they're tanking. And that's basically it. And the idea is a market based system. And I think the main criticism of it is it's confusing for fans. But you know, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But what do you think of that general notion?
[90:09]
C
The biggest, the biggest thing that I wonder in my head is that there are going to be years where 15 teams bid 0 credits and how you resolve the back end of the draft that way. But that's A relatively minor problem in the grand scheme of things. It's a, it's an inch. It's an interesting proposal. It would probably be less redistributive than, than the current system. I, I guess I'm trying to understand what happens with a pick that I've already traded.
[90:41]
A
That's all covered. I'm too bored to redo that now. But yes, that's all traded picks and protections obviously go away. There's no protections because you're just bidding on pick slots, basically. And I can own more than one pick slot in a draft, but I can allocate my bids so that everything is so like, I could say if I'm an, if I'm a bad team, I can trade you my veteran player for 40 of your draft credits. I can roll over 100 of my draft credits if I want them all for the next draft and then I can bid 250 credits on the number one pick in the AJ debance a draft and think, okay, I've given myself a chance and if I don't win that, I'll probably win the second pick or something like that. It's interesting. And the point of it obviously is it completely separates. Not completely because of the playoff teams losing draft credits as they win series, but it more or less separates record from draft position. You can still, but still leaves room for like organic rebuilding. Like, okay, we are. This team has hit its apex. Let's start trading people for credits. And maybe, maybe it's just interesting you
[91:47]
C
wouldn't even bother trading for picks. It seems like you would just trade for credits.
[91:51]
A
Trade for credits instead of pick slots. Yeah. And what it does to the trade market is, is interesting. I mean, even this current proposal, the one that's being voted on on Thursday, I'd actually want to get your thoughts on this. One of the concerns is because every pick is going to have a higher chance of being. Because mid middling first round picks are going to have a higher chance of moving wildly up in the draft. It's going to freeze the trade market a little bit. Do you buy that? No, no.
[92:18]
C
I think for secondary players, we'll just see top five protections on picks and it'll be just like it was, except you have a better chance of getting the pick if you're the receiving team because the team can't tank their way to keeping it. So I don't really see a change in that. And then the best players are still going to command unprotected picks. I mean, that's, that's Just how it is. Like, like a guy like Giannis.
[92:43]
B
Yeah, those are.
[92:44]
C
It's still going to be unprotected picks. It's not, that's not going to change anything because the receiving team, and really the trading team too is expecting that the team to get Giannis is probably going to be pretty good. Right. So I don't think that's going to change much of the logic there.
[92:56]
A
And I only outline this credits thing because it deserves a fuller hearing than it's gotten so far. I've just mentioned it here, there, and I, and I have it and I'm looking at it and I think it still deserves a fuller hearing than this. But it's, it's a kind that it's like being tabled for now while we look at whatever emerges from this board of Governors vote. But I'm actually surprised how many teams kind of like it. I expected it to be a little too wonky, a little too like, not, not complicated for teams. But there is a concern of like, at what point is this all too confusing for casual fans to follow? But like, I think the proponents of this system would be like, a, it's not that complicated and B, can casual fans follow, like the five team pick, swap that Memphis, Phoenix, Orlando, whatever the hell it is, or like, do they know what the second apron. I mean, it's already wildly complicated. I think this, I expect this kind of idea and this is just one of several proposals like this. We'll get a deeper look as this goes along. But we both expect the rules to pass this week. I guess bottom line is we both expect the rules to pass this week and we both, although there is no perfect solution to any of this and everything has downsides and unintended consequences, we both seem to think, like, I'm ready to live in this world.
[94:09]
C
Oh, I'm excited to see like real games in March between teams that are out of the playoffs where, like, you can actually, like, one of the things fans love to see when it's a losing team is give us hope by letting me watch like our draft picks and our young good players. But even those guys get shut down now. Now you're watching. You're not even watching that. You're watching Bezem Bang. And you know, I feel bad that
[94:32]
A
he's become the just the go to reference for that guy. Just played hard. He's just like, give me 48 minutes. I went to Yale. Like, I'm in. This is great. Like, and now he's like the go to reference for this
[94:45]
C
I had Lucas Williamson on the tip of my tongue too. So that was. But that. That Jazz Grizzlies game at the end of the year was a cry for help.
[94:53]
A
Did you watch it, John?
[94:55]
C
Oh, hell no.
[94:56]
A
I was gonna say, because that would be the ultimate cry for help. If on a menu of all the games, you were like, you know what, I gotta dig in on this one. I would have been like, actually, the person who needs the help is you. No, but you're right. I mean, the relegation zone games, the relegation zone against each other games, and the relegation zone against the teams just outside of it would be like really fun games and the teams would try hard. And that's the point of that proposal. And I just, I get the concern, I get the idea that these. It's going to be harder for some teams to dig out. I just think the league has correctly identified what the more serious problem is. And let's, let's, let's at least give it a shot. And by the way, I've said this before, you have to give it a shot. And whether you like it or not, whether you're pro it or anti it, if in the same. I can't repeat it enough. The same thing happened with these lottery odds that exist now. The current ones are relatively new. They're like 8 years old. And they were designed to kind of randomize the lottery a little bit more to flatten the odds. And everyone voted for it except the Thunder. I think, if I'm remembering correctly, after an initial vote where it was a little less popular. And then what happened? The exact thing that the rules were intended to do happened. And everyone after the first year was like, oh, my God, it's a bad idea.
[96:16]
B
Idea.
[96:17]
A
We've erred on the side of randomness. And it's like, no, you just give it 15 years to play out and it'll find the right balance of randomness. In some years, mostly bad teams winning the lottery like we saw this year. But people just get so impatient, like, you need to give these systems time to act before you judge them. And that's my worry, is that the league will do this. There'll be an outcome everyone hates, and then there'll be an immediate rebellion, like, oh, my God, what have we done?
[96:45]
C
Yeah, you know, it's going to be another impact too, that I think people aren't really talking about is in the trade market. Like, teams that are bad now still have an incentive to put together a real roster, and so they're going to be in the market for good players in a way that they were not for the last several years. And so I think that's going to change some things when we look at the markets for like second line guys. Like if Trey Market was, Trey Young was still with the Hawks, he'd be a perfect example where like a team like Washington would be like, yeah, sure, you know, like, that's, we'll do that. I mean, they were, I don't know if they knew this was coming, but they were, you know, ended up kind
[97:27]
B
of ahead of the curve.
[97:27]
A
They might play him to your point, they might actually play Trey Young and Anthony and Anthony Davis after acquiring them.
[97:34]
C
That would be the other thing.
[97:35]
A
Yes. Anyway. All right. Well, this is just a very interesting big picture conversation and you're the best person to scratch the surface of it with John Hollinger, the best to ever do it. Read him at the Athletic. Everything you read is must, must read. Everything you write is must read. You wrote about this maybe what, two weeks ago before the combine, I feel like. And that was the impetus for me having you on. Go read that column if you want John's deeper thoughts on this Hollinger and Duncan podcast every Fridays. Where are we now?
[98:04]
C
We usually record on Wednesdays, but we move it around a little during the playoffs. Cause I'm traveling and he's doing stuff,
[98:10]
A
you know, I will see you soon at the NBA Finals. John Hollinger, thanks, bud.
[98:15]
C
Thank you.
[98:18]
A
All right, that's it for today's edition of the Zach Lowe Show. Thank you to Howard Beck, thank you to John Hollinger. Thank you, as always, to Mike, Billy and Jonathan on production. And thanks to you all for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe Show. We'll be back on Thursday. In the meantime, enjoy the game tonight. Whoo. It's a biggie. Thanks again, everybody. 21 or over and 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 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chatincut or is it mdg.org in Maryland? Hope is is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema. Org or call 800-327-5505, oh for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE NY or text Hope NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 1-877-770-7867.