← The Zach Lowe Show
The Zach Lowe Show
Wemby and the Spurs Slay OKC With Michael Pina. Plus, Nick Friedell and Cam Johnson.
02:08:24
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- [00:00]
Zach Lowe
This episode is brought to you by the NBA on Prime. Hey, it's Zach Lowe here. Tuesday at 8:30 Eastern, it's the Emirates NBA Cup Championship Game on Prime. This year's quest for the cup has delivered incredible moments and some jaw dropping highlights and they've been building toward this. The final two teams, all eyes on Vegas. The cup has been spectacular from start to finish. We've had some good teams, some upstart teams and it ends with this. The Emirates NBA Cup Championship Game live from Las Vegas Tuesday night, 8:30pm Eastern on Prime. And if you're not a member, that's not a problem. Sign up for a 30 day free trial to get started today. Emirates NBA Cup Championship game this Tuesday, 8:30 Eastern on Prime. Restrictions apply. See Amazon.com amazonprime for details. All right, coming up, we got a loaded Zach Lowe show on Monday. Michael Pina is here. We're going to talk about the spurs ending the Oklahoma City Thunder win streak. Preview the NBA cup finals between the spurs and the New York Knicks. Do a check in on the spurs, the Thunder, the state of the West. Then we're going to go down in the standings. After we do some headlines, we're going to talk Cavs and Zion come back and a bunch of Porzingis stuff and then we're going to go down in the standings to look at the west playing race and zoom in on some teams I haven't talked about much this year so far, at least this deeply. The Jazz, the Blazers, the the Grizzlies. And then my old buddy Nick Friedel. Missed you, Nick. Coming on to talk warriors 13 and 14 just lost a couple crazy Steph games. Crazy schedule to start the season. What do we think of the Warriors? They're in the play in race too. It's playing day, I guess, in the west on the Zach Lowe show, then not in the play in at all. Cam Johnson from the Denver Nuggets. And the young man in the three or the old man in the three podcast stops by for a chat too. We got a loaded show today. Hope you'll enjoy it. This episode of the Zach Lowe show is presented by Amazon Prime. The holidays are here and they move quick. Luckily, Prime's fast free delivery is your miracle play, getting whatever you need there fast. Prime's fast shipping is always there for you during the holidays, especially when it's last minute and it just can't wait. From stocking stuffers to that perfect gift for the MVP in your life, it's on Prime. Head to Amazon.com prime to shop now. Welcome to the Zach Low show. It's Monday morning and we've got a lot to talk about starting with the NBA Cup. The finals are on Tuesday. The New York Knicks against the Oklahoma. Wait, what? The San Antonio spurs ended the Thunders million game winning streak. Dealt them their second loss of the season in Victor Wembanyama's comeback game. An absolute thriller between two teams who have a little spice. A rivalry that could define the NBA for the next five years. Five years plus Chad Wemby. There's maybe not beef there, as Chad says, but there's something there. Awesome game, awesome moment for the spurs. And now we get the final Spurs, Knicks. Michael Pino. What's going on?
- [03:05]
Michael Pina
How you doing, man?
- [03:07]
Zach Lowe
I'm good. You like that game, boy? We got two teams, 18 and 7, identical records facing off for the NBA cup at a game that does not count in the standings. So they will enter at 18 and 7 and exit at 18 and 7 and that. I mean, we just got to start with the spurs because we, the entire NBA media was talking 73 wins. OKC versus the field. I said I tentatively had reached a point where I would take OKC over the field despite the fact that I think at the very least Denver could give them a run for their money in a seven game playoff series. The whole Western Conference watched that game and we're like, yes, okay. A little vulnerability was shown. Wemby came back a little rusty, some awkward turnovers, some limbs flailing here and there. Defense was there. Lob dunks were there. Closed the game. Spurs win. Castle, sensational performance. And Stan Van Gundy just said it right out loud. He says the spurs can contend this year. Now he didn't, he didn't say championship, but I assume that was the implication. Are you there with those Spurs Pina?
- [04:11]
Michael Pina
I think I am. And I wrote this in a little Preview on the ringer.com of tomorrow's final. I, I think if Wembanyama is healthy and you know, able to play 35, 36 minutes a game throughout an entire playoff run, like, why not? I think that this team is mature beyond their age. You watch someone like Dylan Harper who just gets better and better by the quarter almost, it feels like. And just looks like he's 28 years old. Devin Vassell is. I thought his defense in that game against Shay Gillis Alexander was phenomenal. I thought that the. You mentioned Steph Castle. He looks great. He looks like one of the more improved players in the entire league. And he won rookie of the year last season. So I think that there are definitely some flaws with this team. But when you have someone like Victor Wembanyama, he just covers up so many of them and he fills the box score. But at the same time, he makes the box score look like toilet paper. Like everything is superficial with what he does. His impact just kind of pervades the entire game. And I'll give you a really quick example. I don't mean to ramble, but Victor Wembanyama is worth it. At the start of the fourth quarter, Mitch Johnson had Victor Wembanyama basically go to the nail at the start of the quarter and they threw him the ball. He draws a foul on Jalen Williams, who's, you know, the Oklahoma City Thunder regarding him with a small, draws a foul with a rip through move. Next play, do the same thing. He just turns around, shoots a jumper over Jalen Williams head. Next play Case and Wallace digs in to help to anticipate the pass into Victor. And I think it was Harrison Barnes or Darren Fox just flips it over to the weak side and the spurs get a three wide open three. So he's just, I, I don't know what you do with them. And he keeps getting better and better. So to answer your question, yeah, I, I thought that SVG is was right on point with that prediction or that call of that possibility for sure.
- [06:10]
Zach Lowe
Another great Stan moment in the broadcast was, you know, he spent a lot of the broadcasts justifiably celebrating the quality of the game and the quality of the NBA Cup. And then he was like, so it was kind of like Stan just, you know, being very positive about the NBA. And then it was like, then he said, this is what can happen, by the way, when you give NBA players a few days off. And it's like, yeah, yeah, I can. Maybe 82 games is too many, Stan. Maybe you slip that one in there a little bit. But look, you mentioned Harris just, you mentioned a lot of stuff, dear. And Fox, boy, there was a lot of angst over the summer about the max contract, about how is this going to work with Fox and Castle and Harper and are we already going to get to a point where they've got to trade Fox And I've been wrong about a lot of stuff. We're going to get to my worst preseason prediction. Later in this podcast I said I think Fox is going to have an awesome beam team level year. I think this is a total non problem because he is there to make sure that neither Castle, who by the way is averaging four turnovers per game and is one of the least efficient isolation players in the entire league. And I don't even care because he's so goddamn good at everything else to make sure he and Harper don't get overburdened. Particularly if you get to the playoffs against the best defenses in the league. This is a total non problem and it's been a total non problem. Fox is averag 24A game 49%, 39% on threes. The pinky fingers not bothering him anymore. It's a really well balanced attack where they can have two of those three guys on the floor at all times. And if you're going to face a defense like the Thunder, you need minimum two high level ball handlers, if not three to just you're going to have to try every crack every part of the floor to try to break them down and make sure Castle like they run a lot of games where Castle is never the only point guard on the floor where either Fox or Harper is with him. And lastly you mentioned the spurs. Like lots of teams putting a wing on Wemby and putting their center anywhere else but Wemby both to Rove and to chase Wemby around with the speedier guy and that guy in the starting five is Harrison Barnes. And Harrison Barnes is averaging 13 points a game and shooting 41% on threes and almost 60% on twos. He's had enough juice to kind of break that scheme a little bit. So Hand has not and Sohan is on the fringes of the rotation at best. And sometimes the spurs will play four guards around Wemby to make it harder and harder to do that. They'll put champagne in there with the three guards and Vesel has been awesome. I can't championship contender. I don't know if I'm ready to go there yet because the west is just so good and three playoff series wins for a team this young. I think Harper and Castle are going to have some growing pains moments so I'm a little below that. They're a no brainer top six team. And more broadly my guess is the way Castle has played lately, the way Harper has played all his rookie season, the fact that we just got to see their starting five together, all these guys together for the first time all season, the fact that Fox and Wembanyama have still barely played together. Like I think Harper and Wemby have better pick and roll chemistry so far than Fox and Wemby and actually that's good for the spurs because the latter combination will come up. And if I'm San Antonio and I'm looking at all that, and I'm looking at Giannis injured with a lower leg injury and he's had a bunch of those in the last few years, I think I'm probably just going to sit it out. And I suspect the spurs at this point are like, we got to see what we have before we even entertain the idea of as great a player as that is. The kind of roster upheaval that, that indicates for this season, that's my guess, my best educated guess on their stance. They're awesome. I don't think they can win the championship. I would bet heavily against them making the finals, but I don't want any part of this team in the playoffs.
- [10:19]
Michael Pina
Winning the championship is really hard, as you said, and I think for me, like the, the, the label of contender can be pretty generous. You know, I would not pick them in a series against the Denver Nuggets, the Oklahoma City Thunder, probably the Houston Rockets. So, you know, if they can play one of them and get some injury luck and Victor goes crazy and Dylan Harper takes another step and as you said, Steph Castles cleans up some of the turnovers, then who knows. But de' Aaron Fox has been tremendous, as you said, and I wrote this today, but you know, mentioning Giannis and the pursuit of him, I would also sit this one out. If I was the San Antonio Spurs, I would be super patient with the nucleus that I have. I would let it grow organically. I just love the young talent. I love how it's coalescing around Victoria and you know, if I was, if I was the spurs, that doesn't mean I won't be aggressive in a different way. Like I would look at the Bucks and I would ask, can we get Gary Trent Jr. Can we get some three point shooting? Can I get another wing for the playoffs? You can't have too much shooting, you can't have too much two way versatility. So that's kind of where I would be at if I was San Antonio. No disrespect to Giannis at all. It's just if I were the spurs, that's kind of what would be my, my, my goal here in trying to improve my team in the short and long term.
- [11:36]
Zach Lowe
I want to see the team like we still have barely seen the team. Another guy who needs to get name checked is Keldon Johnson, who is doing everything you want out of Keldon Johnson as a six man kind of player. Visel is shooting 40% from three they've just had an A plus year across the board and on Giannis, like, I'm starting to wonder if this is just not going to happen until the summer if what we thought going into the season that his, his leverage really kicks into high gear in the summer when they can offer him the extension and he can indicate that, you know, maybe I'm not going to sign that extension because I'm not sure who the team is that's, that's going to bowl them over this season. And I don't think the Bucks are even entertaining this right now. I don't think they're taking calls from what I've heard. I don't think they're doing anything. Um, briefly on the Knicks offensively. They're up to second in the league and just ran roughshod over a pretty goddamn good Orlando Magic defense in the semis. Second in offense, 11th in defense, fourth in net rating. That's the roadmap. And I thought that semifinal game was one of the best Brunson Cat 2 man games, 2 man game games of their season so far in terms of how they, they leveraged. Oh, you're going to put your centers on Cat because Josh Hart has played so well that you don't feel comfortable hiding them there. We're going to, we're going to run that two man game in lots of different ways. We're never going to spam it the way you might want us to spam it. We're going to have Brunson back screen for Cat. We're going to run some inverted pick and rolls. We'll run a lot of straight up pick and rolls and I just love the way the ball is flying around for them in both the half court and in transition. They look like an awesome offensive team. The bench is a little hit or miss and needs to get healthy with Deuce McBride and Landry Shamut, but they look sort of as, as advertised. And you know, the cup is a bonus obviously for either one of these teams. I think the Knicks look great offensively and if they can hover around where they are defensively and if they have those three wings, Hart, Bridges and Anunobi playing at this level and Mitchell Robinson healthy, I think they can kind of hover around a slightly above average defense. That's the roadmap. Like they're checking every box you wanted the Knicks to check in the post Tibbs era.
- [13:51]
Michael Pina
They've been phenomenal all season. They are, you know, talking about championship contenders. They are in that category and a lot of that is because they're in the Eastern Conference, but that's something that you just get to benefit from. Yeah, I think that, you know, particularly going doing what they did against an Orlando Magic defense that really loves to, you know, limit three pointers, which they did a pretty good job of in that game, and forced Jalen Brunson into a lot of ISO ball. I thought the Knicks handled it really well. I expect to see the spurs do the same thing and they have the personnel to switch a ton and to kind of live with the long twos and just hope that Jalen Brunson doesn't make all of them, which he's capable of doing. But the Knicks have been phenomenal and they seem to have figured a lot of stuff out rotation wise, and their offense is just, it's humming.
- [14:42]
Zach Lowe
Brunson is unbelievable. 29 a game, 49% shooting, 55% on twos. And it just feels like for a guy who's so small, when he goes up for these 17 foot jump shots, he's. Because of his footwork, he's opened up so much space. And if he opens up that much space, it, it does feel automatic, like it's just going to go in. And Orlando, they're fine. They're going to be fine. They just need to finally get healthy at any point and figure out the Paolo Franz combo. And in terms of the cup final, I don't want to belabor it. It's going to be a fun game. I'm just watching the big man matchups. Does Wemby guard Hart or does Wemby guard Cat? Does Cat guard Harrison Barnes or does Cat guard Wemby? Everything flows from there. And who guards Brunson? Boy, I would love to see Steph Castle vs Brunson to start the game. By the way, Houston Denver tonight. Speaking of other Western Conference teams, that's a nice cup break. Headliner. Houston Denver tonight. Okay, you want to do some quick headlines with me before we get to some of the west play in teams that I want to talk about?
- [15:47]
Michael Pina
Let's do it.
- [15:48]
Zach Lowe
Headline number one, the Cavs, three and six in their last nine games lost last night to. Who did they lose to last night? I already forgot.
- [15:57]
Michael Pina
Charlotte Hornets.
- [15:58]
Zach Lowe
Oh, the Charlotte Hornets in overtime right after sneaking out a win over the Wizards. And I love this trend that's emerging that any team who beats the Wizards in a close game, their entire postgame media is about how disappointed they are in their performance in just barely beating the Washington Wizards. Look, you can, as I've said many times, you can wave all this away. Garland's hurting. Mobley's out two to four weeks now with the calf strain. The two scariest words in professional sports right now, calf strain. And you know, their lineup, their core lineup numbers are still all very good. Stre has missed the entire season. He's critical for their identity. Sam Merrill's been out for a little while. You can wave it all away. This is, I opened the whole season saying this is the existential, existential crisis season for the Cavs. The existential crisis is here. Despite all the mitigating factors that I just talked about. They are barely over.500. What are they three games over now? 15 and 12, which again, in the East A on one hand, not so bad. They're two games out of third. They're five games out of second. That's a lot. They're reaching the point where, yeah, they'll probably be in the top six. Yeah, maybe they'll get home court in the first round. Their road to the, to the conference finals or wherever they think they're going to get to is going to be much harder than we all assumed it was going to be before the season where they were penned in as the number one seed or number two seed in the East. The odds are they're not going to get there. Garland is hurting and that feels like a permanent thing every game. There's five instances where you see him wince or start to limp or start to kind of kick his foot around to see how his toe is feeling. And you know DeAndre Hunter and Jared Allen got benched last night in the fourth quarter in overtime. DeAndre Hunter shooting 30% on threes. The defense in the rebounding are as meh as ever. I would start, I would go ahead and start Streuss when he comes back healthy and put DeAndre Hunter back into the six man role. And Jared Allen getting benched is like a non event now. It happens all the time. And I'm like DEFCON 2 for the Cavs right now. That's all.
- [18:08]
Michael Pina
No other notes is DEFCON 2? Is DEFCON 1 the worst DEFCON?
- [18:14]
Zach Lowe
You gotta watch more fun military movies. Start with war games, which came out before you were even born. DEF CON 1 is the worst. Okay, you can go on to the new one that came out, the Kathryn Bigelow one, which I will not say anything more about other than I saw that one. Listen to Sean Fennesee's rant about it.
- [18:33]
Michael Pina
Saw that one. The ending. We don't need to get into it, as you said.
- [18:38]
Zach Lowe
So Then you should know your defcons.
- [18:40]
Michael Pina
Yeah, I get confused. The Cavs, they've been really bad. I thought that their effort in particular in that game against Charlotte, it was an early start. The effort was just atrocious in the first half. And you can see Kenny Atkinson, he's just, he just looks like a man completely fed up with what he's watching. I've been teetering back and forth between excusing this team because of injuries and just being patient with them and thinking that there was a crisis. And I'm now teetering, I think towards this is not good. And the standings stuff that you just mentioned, being in the east, only two back from third and the Celtics in third place. But like losing to the warriors at home without Jimmy Butler, Steph Curry, Draymond Green losing to the Celtics without Keita, who has been Wilt Chamberlain this season, and Derek White. Very concerning beating the Spurs. But the spurs did not have Castle Cornet or Wemby, and that was kind of a competitive game a little bit. I mean, I just think like with Evan Mobley's injury, this could get real bad real fast. And they're just so expensive. I don't know what you do, how you pivot. It'll just be really interesting to see how they approach the trade deadline. Although they don't have a lot of flexibility at all. And it's kind of like a. They're in the bunker, they have who they have, and we'll see what happens. But I just think like the offensive approach, the, the, the. The three point volume is kind of getting to a level where they're just jacking up threes. And Kenny Atkins talked about. Kenny Atkinson has talked about that and it's been a little worrisome. But yeah, I just. They don't have their guys. But at the same time, like you would just expect a little bit more from who's playing given like that the star power. Donovan Mitchell's having a tremendous season and playing really well. Didn't play really well against the Charlotte Hornets, but I, I don't know. The.
- [20:44]
Cam Johnson
It, it.
- [20:44]
Michael Pina
It's not looking good in Cleveland. It's not looking good.
- [20:47]
Zach Lowe
Well, you mentioned the threes and you know, the other sort of. If you want to wave it all away and assume everything's going to be fine and be the dog in the house that's on fire. Meme is they're. They've shot threes very poorly and their opponents have shot threes very well. And both of those things would figure to regress, especially For a team that lit the whole NBA on fire last year, I just don't love a lot of the threes they're getting. I mean, they're getting some great threes like they always do, but I. It just. Their drives are way down, their paint pressure is way down, mostly because Garland isn't Garland, and they're just shooting tons and tons of threes without the requisite sort of rim pressure to create the best ones. And there's just been too many games this year where if I'm Donovan Mitchell, I'm like, I get. Do I have to shoot 35 times again? Like, do I have to do this again? Because I'm getting kind of tired of shooting 35. I like shooting. I like scoring. I'd like to not shoot 35. I'd like to go back to last year where I was praised for sacrificing my own offense for the sake of the team. And now I've done this one 80 where it's like, all right, I guess I got to shoot 40 times tonight for us to win. Headline number two, Zion's back. I checked the box score this morning. I did not watch Pelicans, Bulls last night, and I was like, oh, Zion. Forgot about Zion. Came off the bench, played 15 minutes with Derek Queen, which is the pairing. I'm interested to watch and see how that works. And they were plus seven together. I don't want to. I've talked a lot about the Pelicans. The only thing that's interesting, they got a couple of wins recently. They've won two in a row, and they're up to 5 and 22. They're only a game behind the Kings. They're only a game and a half or two games, really behind the Clippers. They're now tied with the Pacers in wins. Pacers are 6 and 20 or 11 win behind the Pacers. They're kind of tightening up with the Wizards winning the sort of tank race is temporarily a little tighter than it looked even a week or a week and a half ago. And that obviously impacts the value at the tighter that gets or the more wins that New Orleans gets, that pick that the Hawks hold becomes an asset that is a little bit more, and it's a great asset regardless. But it's a different kind of asset when the Pelicans are one of the two worst teams in the NBA with a bullet versus in this clutter of, like, the five or six worst teams in the NBA. And that brings us to headline number four, Kristaps Porzingis. Is going to be out at least another couple of weeks with illness related issues. We hope he gets well. I just don't know what to make of the Hawks. I don't know what that means for the Hawks. They remain to me the most interesting Giannis team in that they hold that pick. That half belongs to Milwaukee. They hold half a piece of Milwaukee's pick next year. They have the big expiring, semi expiring salary and Trey Young, although I'm not sure how expiring it is. They have Risa Shay. They, I think like San Antonio and Houston are playing so well that the upheaval factor and young talent factor mitigates against them making any crazy, any sort of earth shattering decisions right now. As we talked about. I don't, we're not, I'm not going to do the whole Giannis trade landscape. They, they are the one team I could see looking in the mirror and saying, hey look, if this poor Zingus thing is just, it's not going to happen. Like we just can't, are not going to be able to count on him. We're currently playing Mo Gay and Asa Newell as our backup centers behind a Congu who's been outstanding and we think we can make a leap, like a real leap with Giannis both this year and we think our roadmap for the next three or four years is like way, way better with Giannis than without Giannis because we're not sure what's gonna happen with Trey. Like there's a lot of factors that would sway me to think pretty hard about it and this Porzingis thing is one of them now. It would also make me think, should I just see what the price point is for Anthony Davis and just tried to do that maybe because I look at the Hawks and I was a huge Hawks optimist before the season and they're 15 and 12. They're playing fine. They've been a little bit better without Trey than with Trey, but they just look kind of like an average team to me. Like they're just not, they're not as good as I thought they were going to be. I don't think Trey returning is going to really change that. Their total point differential for the season is plus 15. I just think they're not good enough to really do anything serious in the playoffs and I just wonder what they think of that combined with the fact that I don't. They know much more about Porzingis than you and I do. But from the outside looking in, it's Hard to look at him and be like, oh yeah, we'll just pencil him in for like playing every playoff game if we get there.
- [25:31]
Michael Pina
Yeah, it's a bummer for sure. I thought he had his health situation under control. I'm sure that's extremely frustrating for him and all the best. Hope he gets well soon. I guess when I watch the Hawks, my expectations for them have kind of dipped a little bit. They're just, their defense has been very up and down and when I watch them I just, I kind of just focus in on Jalen Johnson and see just how much better he is getting because he's just a nightly triple double threat. And when he has the ball in his hands, basically anything can happen. He's, he's been brilliant this season and he kind of coming into this year he was more like a flow player who would just kind of not really be able to pick his spots, but just kind of go with the flow of the, of the game and you know, make reads on the fly, be in transition. But like this year he's really the three balls falling, which is really nice, but he's like getting to kill spots and he just has a lot more poise to his game offensively. So I've been enjoying him but you know, I don't really expect too much from the Hawks in the short term right now.
- [26:39]
Zach Lowe
Well, and the other thing with Jalen Johnson is as great as he's been and he should make the all star team. I do look at him and I wonder. There's sort of a chaotic team, like a frenetic team offensively. A lot of cuts, a lot of movement, a lot of improvisation, a lot of like possessions that get messy and then they clean them up with like kind of interior passing and improv plays. I do watch them and think is, is he ready to be crunch time, slow game, elite defense? Like does he have enough at this point to really run an offense and be a go to scoring option in those scenarios? And I'm not sure that's the case. And that's fine. Like that could be fine. He's very young and he's awesome and he should be a no brainer all star. I'd like his defense and his rebounding to be a little better by the way, which sped like again he's a triple double threat but if you watch them, he's, he misses some pretty key box outs here and there every game. But then you have to wonder like Jalen Johnson plus Giannis plus Akongu, does that threesome work if you go that direction. I actually think it probably does, but I don't know. I just. It's kind of a meh year for the Hawks in, in a, in a man half decade for the Hawks. But, you know, things looking up either way. Things are looking up. That's the good thing for the Hawks. Either way, no matter what you do, you're going to have some interesting stuff this offseason. And by the way, if you just vaporize Porzingis, because before the season there was this like, well, if they extend Porzingis, what's the number going to be like? I would assume from the Hawks perspective that's over. And I, and I can have a lot of cap flexibility going forward as a result, almost no matter what I do.
- [28:18]
Michael Pina
Yeah. And I, I don't know. I liked Asa Newell. Had a pretty good game against the Sixers last night.
- [28:23]
Zach Lowe
I thought he looked good.
- [28:24]
Michael Pina
Real. Yeah, he looked look spry. He had good touch. He made some really nice passes that I didn't know he had in him. So that's, that's positive. And Nikhil Alexander Walker has also been tremendous for them this season in a bigger role than I'm sure they or he anticipated. But. But yeah, I just, I kind of echo everything you said about the Hawks and just sort of the security blanket of this pick from the New Orleans Pelicans has to feel good.
- [28:48]
Zach Lowe
Shout out. Paul George, by the way, 35 points on 11 of 21 shooting has been quietly exactly what the Sixers need him to be in a Maxi World 17 a game on decent shooting. And I looked up, I looked up some pick and roll numbers. I ostensibly looked them up to talk about John Morant, which we will do. Of all 189 ball handlers who have run at least 50 pick and rolls this season, Paul George ranks fifth in points per play directly out of those pick and roll. So he shoots or a guy one pass away shoots. And number one with a bullet in overall points per possession for his team on those plays, number two is another headliner. Number two on that list is Bones Highland, who has stepped into the starting lineup for the Minnesota Timberwolves with Ant out the last couple of games, has stepped ahead of Rob Dillingham and Jalen Clark in the Wolves rotation and has played the best ball of his career. And it's sort of sustained calm chill. Okay, Just make the right play. Don't force it all the time. And is is playing if this I need to see it for a little longer. Defensively, it's always going to Be an adventure. But if he has given Chris Finch another bit of an option with Mike Conley's health, always up and down, it's just. I'm just. I'm just watching Bones, that's all.
- [30:15]
Michael Pina
It's a big deal, you know, for the Minnesota Timberwolves. I thought his first real taste of being in the rotation against the Suns. I watched that game last week. He played really well. He gave them energy, hit some shots. Did not watch the Kings game, but I was. I heard this thing that Austin river said recently about Bones. Um, and Austin was his. Was his teammate.
- [30:40]
Zach Lowe
Boy, does Austin. If I want someone, I don't think my wife likes me as much as Austin Rivers loves Bones Highland. My God. And his little on the bench role. I don't. By the way, I. I don't love the, like, analyst on the bench thing for NBC. NBC's. It's just. It's a lot. There's just a lot of talking, and I'm not sure it's additive in a way that it's meant to be additive, but he was in that role, and he just loves Bones Highlander.
- [31:08]
Michael Pina
Yeah. But he did say a point I thought was interesting. And maybe I'm forgetting the early days in Denver and how weird it was for him, but he's always been on good teams and he's always had been on teams with a lot of depth and not a lot of. Not a lot of opportunity. And so this could be Bones Highland's opportunity to show off his skill. And he's always had a lot of talent offensively. But, yeah, it'll be interesting to see. And real quick, on the NBC announcer point, I kind of feel bad for the play by play guy. I feel like he's kind of on an island and lonely is how I would put it.
- [31:45]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, it's. It's a strange setup. Maybe it'll grow on me. But it should should be noted the general manager for all the flack Bones has taken over the years. The general manager who brought him to Denver brought him to Minnesota, too. So if Tim Connolly likes a player, you got to pause and say, okay, what am I maybe missing? Because Tim Connolly's track record speaks for itself. The Zach Lowe show is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA season on FanDuel, it's all about the boost. Because game days mean your chance to boost your bet and make every play pay off. That's right. All customers, all of you, get a 25% SGP and parlay profit boost. The games never stop on the fanduel. You've got more ways to make every win bigger. So lock in your bets, boost your odds and make every night count with FanDuel. Official sports betting partner of the NBA must be 20 or over in President select states or 18 and over and President DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Opt in Required bonus issued is not withdrawable. Profit boost tokens Restrictions apply including any token expiration and max wager amount. See terms@sportsbook.fanduel.com gambling problem call 1-800-gambler or visit rg-help.com call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chatincenetic okay, I wanted to hit three Western Conference play I want to do Western Conference play in Mania today just because there's some teams I haven't hit that hard and hit them in a while. Zooming out the west has sort of maybe begun to sort itself out, at least preliminary. Preliminarily. We have a top six that I don't think is going anywhere. These are these are going to be the top six teams. They were they've been the top six for a while. Phoenix is a strong number seven. I think Phoenix and Golden State probably belong in their own mini tier at 7 and 8 and then Memphis, Dallas, Portland, Utah are all kind of jostling for spots 9 and 10 and then a tier below them for now. Clippers, Kings, Pelicans I don't think the Pelicans are going to elevate a tier. I definitely don't think the Kings are going to elevate a tier. Think the Clippers could just because of where their incentives point and where Utah's incentives point is we'll get to but I think there's some interesting teams in here. Can we start with Portland? Portland has only played 10 home games, fewest in the league. 16 road games. They've played the second toughest schedule. They are 10 and 16. Feels disappointing. 18th in offense. That feels about right given that this is the team that can't shoot straight. And they've had no Drew Holiday, no Scoot Henderson, no point guard, no traditional point guard period. For a while have played some games without clinging and time Lord recently. 22nd in defense is the part that feels disappointing given how this team was built. And again, Drew Holiday, Blake Wesley was a menace. Thibel has barely played. They're a completely different team with clinging on the floor in terms of defense and rebounding still feels disappointing. They are 27th in opponent free throw rate. That's horrible. 26 in defensive rebounding rate, although they are almost like number one with clinging and number 30 without clinging. And opponents are scorching hot from mid range so that would cool off a little bit. There's some interesting this is a team that if they got healthy and I have no idea what's going on with Scoot at this point, but if they got healthy and particularly if they got like the Drew Holiday that showed up for them for the first 10:12 games of the season, they could put something to not crazy. But I think they're better than their record and one of the reasons I think they're better than their record is Shaden Sharp's last week has been very encouraging to me. I'm very reluctant to sort of say that there's anything transformational happening because I've had these little blips with him before and then he goes back to playing the way he usually plays. But there's some even beyond Abdia, who's been amazing all year and one of the big stats of the Blazers is 117points per 100 possessions with Abdi on the floor. That's like a top 10 ish. Number 99.8 with him on the bench is embarrassing even given the injuries. I think there's some stuff worth looking at under the hood here though. What's interesting to or are you just out on the blades like this seems just disappointing and bad.
- [36:05]
Michael Pina
No, I I enjoy watching them. I could I think Denny Abdia has been one of the stories of the season. I mean you just hit such a great stat. No player has had a more positive impact on their team's offense this season than him. Leads the league in drives. Just has kind of mastered the I'm going to rip my arms down low and make you I'm going to dangle the ball in front of you and you're going to slap my forearm and I'm going to get to the free throw line. His playmaking has been excellent. He's like fourth in potential assists in the entire league. And that has been necessary because as you said, they do not have a point guard. Have not had a point guard for quite some time. I've had. I've had fun watching this team. I, you know, the Shade and Sharp experience is I think I've been pretty down on him this year. I thought he was he's been pretty disappointing given just his shot selection. But to be fair to him, I don't think that he's well suited to be in an offense that does not have a point guard and someone to settle things down and organize sets. And also that game against the warriors that he had last night was just absolutely ridiculous and he was doing whatever he wanted and hitting absurd shots, getting to the basket, which he can do at will. So like the outlines of a superstar are still there when you look at him play, just given his athleticism and how dynamic he is. But I just wish the decision making was a little bit better and that could come along. He's still very young, but I like the Blazers and I think that you talked about incentives before we started. This team, I think is the only one really or the out of the three, this team has the most incentive, I would say, to make the playoffs and play in a playoff series. Given their draft situation and just given kind of their composition and how they want to progress as an organization, I think that they, they are the team that really wants it this year.
- [37:59]
Zach Lowe
Well, and after last year where they had that hot second half run and they kind of got in the play in race and they talked about how much they wanted to get in there and fell short, six of their next 11 games come against the Kings, the Mavs, the Pelicans, the Clippers and the Jazz. A bunch of them are at home. So if they want to start to make something of the season, it's going to happen. Now. I agree with you on Shade and Sharp for most of the season and I say that as someone who has been Pretty strongly like top 5% bullish on shade and Sharp. He was in my most intriguing players column that never ran wink wink last year was a wonderful section and I like he's just one of those guys who you just need to bag the off the dribble 18 footer with 15 or more on the shot clock. It doesn't go in enough. It comes at the expense of better stuff and there's too many of them. There's like four or five of them per game and it should be pretty close to zero. And last night against the warriors, he showed you what he could do when he does bag those plays. And I'm not talking about five of seven on three. He's been hot from three lately. He's like 40% in his last 10 games. I'm talking about like lefty hesitation, dribble blows by his defender and when he does that, I'm starting to think I don't know what's going to happen here. Something bad. Two defenders converge on him and he right away kicks the ball to Jeremy Grant in the corner for a three. Then he got a hockey Assist in transition. A couple plays later there was another pick and roll in the first half. He turned the corner lefty, one hand pass to the opposite corner shooter who I think missed the three. And it's like if, if you can bottle those kind of decisions, bottle like instead of the 18 footer. He is so crafty off the dribble and, and he's not a super physical player but he's pretty big and he can get where he wants to go. He can get to the basket I think more than he thinks he can get to the basket. And we saw some of that. Like there was a pick and roll where I think post dropped on defense, dropped back Quinton Post and Shane Sharp was like, dude, you have no chance. I'm just going right around you and you got an and one last night. If I'm, if I'm Thiago Splitter, I'm sitting him down and I'm watching film of all of these plays and being like, you're not going to score 35 a night on 12 of 18 shooting. But you can play like an all star if your decision making is like this. And it's kind of been like that for the last three or four games. I'm always like, I don't want to be Charlie Brown with the football and with Lucy so I'm going to be cautious. But I've loved the last week in the shade and Sharp experience and if that's a real thing they are going to become must watch TV because he's a, he's also just a crazy dunk waiting to happen.
- [41:00]
Michael Pina
Yeah, that play you just called out the, the one handed pass or the left handed pass to Jeremy Grant, that was a blow by a buddy. Healed a few plays before that I had in my notes. Sharp makes three passes. We know he can do it. So just like with an exclamation point like that was. It's three passes on a possession for him are steps in the right direction and you just haven't seen it as much. But as you said, he's kind of teetering in that direction. And when you add that to just.
- [41:35]
Cam Johnson
The.
- [41:37]
Michael Pina
Lightning bolt athleticism and the ability to get to the basket and the turnarounds and the, I mean he should be able to get to the free throw line at will. So he's been fun. He's been really fun. And that isn't to say anything about the dunks and the putbacks and all that sort of stuff, but he's been, he's been really good over the past.
- [41:55]
Zach Lowe
Few Weeks, he's a top five in the entire NBA. Top five of like, oh, boy moments when you watch when, like, if he gets any kind of clear space in front of him, you immediately perk up because he can fucking fly and he likes to go after people. It could be in the half court. It could be a leak out in transition. It like, it just. I sit up in my seat in anticipation. It's like peak Zach Levine basically from, you know, Bulls, Wolves days when you just didn't know what was going to happen. Sissoko's not bad. Wizards freaking waved him. He's not bad. The only downside on Denny, I don't. I don't. I don't take any pleasure in saying this. Michael Pina. I think he's taken the whining at the ref's throne from Luca because it's just incessant. It's every single play, he doesn't get a call. It's the same, palms up. Like what? Yelling at the refs. It's like, every time, if I were a ref, I'd be like, you know what? Just for fucking spite, I'm not giving you the next three calls. Stop yelling on every single play. Stop whining on every single play. Who do you want to do next, Memphis or Utah?
- [43:02]
Michael Pina
Let's do Memphis.
- [43:03]
Zach Lowe
The Memphis Grizzlies, 11 and 14, 7 and 3 in their last 10 games. All but one of those wins came against the Pentagram of Hell in the Western Conference. The Kings, the Pelicans, the Mavericks, the Grizzlies themselves, who they can't beat. Themselves and the Clippers. And then the other one was against Portland. And just as soon as Zach Edie got rolling, he's out again for a few weeks to deal with this ankle injury. Zach Edie is plus 113 in 284 minutes in 11 total games. He is 42nd overall in overall plus minus. That is a crazy number, even though it came against mostly bad teams. He's out. John Morant is back. I thought he looked pretty engaged, at least on both ends of the floor against Utah on Friday or Saturday, whenever they played Utah one in Memphis. But he's had a miserable season across the board. And with Edie out, Morant in, it's going to be very interesting to see how Memphis sort of pivots if they can keep stringing some wins together. Obviously, they haven't had Ty Jerome the whole season. They haven't had Scotty Pippen Jr. Brandon Clark. Like, it's a pretty deep injury. List of Guys that are good. But it's just a shame that Ed was playing so well and the team had sort of walked into a new identity around him. And he goes away, Morant comes back and we'll just have to see. But I don't know what's interesting to you about these guys.
- [44:35]
Michael Pina
You know John Morant, anytime you watch him play, particularly this season, well, he's capable of anything. At any moment. This year it hasn't been great. One of the more inefficient players in all of basketball. I mean, I'm trying to think of something positive to say. I mean, I love watching Cedric Cowardly. He's really great and kind of coming along. He had a, after a hot start, kind of a down month, I would say, relatively speaking. Looked like a rookie being in the starting lineup, but really poised. Really knows how to just like draw contact. He's been great. Love players who have a wingspan. He has the longest plus wingspan in all of basketball for his position. I guess, like what I really want to talk about is Jared Jackson Jr. And just the disappointment that he has shown this season. And I guess there's been some frustration with regards to how the rotation is kind of the shorter stints in the rotation for him and his inability to catch a rhythm. He's averaging five and a half fewer points than last year, fewer shots. I think defensively he's really kind of taken a step back. And the Memphis Grizzlies are allowing opponents to shoot 70% at the rim when he's on the court, which is just like an aberration for him that doesn't normally happen. So he's been really interesting in so far as how he has struggled given the, the, the extension, max extension that they just gave him and just kind of where this organ organization is and when or if they pivot away from these 22, 26 year olds that they thought they would be able to build around.
- [46:27]
Zach Lowe
You know what would help Extend Jaren Jackson Jr. S stints on the floor is not fouling all the time in the stupidest possible ways. Like illegal screens where your feet are eight feet apart and your elbows are out. Those kinds of things would help you stay on the floor a little longer. He's been a little disappointing for sure. They're 13th in defense, which actually surprised me when I looked it up because it just felt like with Triple J having just an okay year, Clark being out, obviously they've lost some good perimeter defenders via trade, et cetera, in the last few years that they've lost a little bit of that identity and that edge. But 13th is okay. 25th in offense is a disaster. And this like I mentioned, Morant looked engaged against Utah. He had a chase down block. He had a back cut score or I can't remember if he drew a foul or made a layup. He had a couple of classic Morant transition passes where he slows down and waits for his teammates to catch up to him. And hit Santi Aldama for a lob. It's like a trail lob kind of. And Jalen Wells who's been on fire for a month now basically for a three. I mean his numbers are bad. We know they're bad. They've been worse with Moran on the floor. The under the hood numbers are even kind of more disturbing than the surface level numbers. So here are some of them. Only 29% of his shots have come at the basket according to cleaning the glass. That's the lowest rate of his career. He's shooting 52% at the basket. That's a career low by far. He's shooting 40% on like Florida range twos. That's tied for a career low on the pick and roll I mentioned the pick and roll rankings with Paul, George and Bones at the top. There are 189 total guys who have run at least 50 pick and rolls in the league. Almost 200 on points directly out of those pick and rolls. John Morant ranks 137th on points per possession, 161st. There are 93 players in the league who have run at least 50 ISOs on offense this year. John Morant is 91st in points for possession, averaging 0.66 points directly out of ISOs. And it just feels like a lot of these drives are almost prayer shots. Like he's pulling up at the dotted line or in these weird like 13, 14ft away from the rim positions and trying to step in and just like hurling these shots up towards the top of the backboard and just they're like hope. They're either hope for a foul or hope that they just go in randomly shots I it's not even the numbers, it's just how it looks. The power, the fearsomeness, the ability to actually explode toward the basket just don't seem to be there the way they need to be there and this whole thing falls away. Obviously if Morant is a shell of.
- [49:22]
Michael Pina
Himself, yeah, 40% in the floater range for someone who's shooting 18.5% from behind the three point line is just like non negotiable for just about anyone who has the ball in their hands as often as he does. I thought that the Utah Jazz over the weekend, the Jazz beat them and the way they were guarding John Morant in the fourth quarter was like. It reminded me of how the Lakers guarded Rajon Rondo in the 2010 finals.
- [49:51]
Zach Lowe
It's funny you say that because it was something like, you don't see bad shooters guarded this extremely much anymore because teams have gotten so smart about, like, we're going to talk about Isaiah Collier in a second. Like, if you're going to go under screens against me, I'm going to set the screen lower and lower. I'm going to race you to the spot behind the screen, and if I'm John Moran, I'm going to beat you there. And so you don't. It was like, it was like the Spurs CAVS Finals in 2007 where they treated LeBron like the worst shooter who ever lived. It's funny you thought the same thing.
- [50:24]
Michael Pina
Yeah. And he just couldn't capitalize. And they were like, it was. The defensive execution by Utah was so poor. Like, with regard, you know, John Moran would try to basically hunt Keonte George down the stretch, and Keonte was wanted, no part of switches, and he would try to hedge and recover. And there was one player where he like, hedged, and I guess there was a miscommunication. They thought they were supposed to switch and he just turned his back on Ja Morant and tried to walk back to his man, and Ja couldn't do anything with it. So plays like that. It's just weird. It's like you would think that the attention to detail with someone who is so explosive and dynamic would be a little bit finer. And the Utah Jazz aren't a great defense, so that kind of is what it is. But he's just been, I know it was his first game back in a little while and we'll see kind of how he, how he progresses over the next couple of weeks and finds his rhythm. But he was terrible before. And I just wondered, at what point is this the new John Moran? At what? Just, it's tough to watch. I don't know what else to say about it.
- [51:27]
Zach Lowe
I, I, I mean, I don't mean this facetiously. I was happy to see his engagement level given, you know, the meet the comments a month ago. And it was, he was totally sort of checked out on the coaches, and you got to ask the organization. He played hard on both ends of the floor. And that's step one. Coward. He's a stud. Like there's nothing else to even say he's a stud. He's huge. He's going to shoot fine from three, defends his ass off and plays super hard. So if you watch that game, you know there was one play where he was a fast break. He went up for a lob, couldn't finish it, fell out of bounds hard and got up so fast that he put back the follow up miss. He got a rebound. Maybe he drew a foul but he like the point is he fell hard. He got up so fast the Grizzlies shot again right away and he was already into rebound. Either draw a foul or score a basket. I couldn't love him anymore. Okay, let's talk about Utah. 9 and 15 had a tough schedule. They have the marketing issue hang over them. Maybe it's a non issue now. Ace Bailey is now a full time starter. CER is back sharing some minutes with Keante George. Those minutes have gone very poorly. Keonte George looks like a real guy. I had actually a coach text me over the weekend. I've had you get these texts every once in a while from coaches being like do you think Keonte is, is a, is like a real guy or is this just a good team? I mean a bad, bad stats, good, bad team, good stats guy. I was like he looks pretty real to me like every, every. Not saying he's an all star right now or even maybe in the future, but I think he's got a shot to make an all star team in the future. Every part of his game has matured and gotten better. Unfortunately for Jazz fans who would like them to chase the play in spot, they owe a top eight protected pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder. That becomes nothing, no obligation at all if it ends up in the top eight and the Jazz keep it. The Jazz currently as we are recording this on Monday around noon eastern time, have the 8th worst record in the NBA which would give them yeah like a slight majority chance of keeping the pick. Something like a 60% chance. That ain't good enough. Given the stakes here, I think the Jazz are going to try to slide their way up the lottery standings and get to a point where they're a little bit more comfortable. That probably relies on them getting fifth or sixth. That's going to be an interesting sell to Lowry Markkanen who I think is tired of losing but also loves Utah. I've heard his family loves Utah. I think both he and the Jazz the ideal outcome is we eventually win here and that winning on some level has to start next season with another draft pick. Our young guys getting even better, you know, unless they get absolutely bowled over, which is possible because Larry Markkanen is averaging 28 points a game and is. Is like almost like big man Steph Curry in the way he moves around the floor and creates openings for everybody else. Unless they get absolutely bowled over. I actually think they're serious about keeping them this year and riding this out. But I don't. I mean it just. There's. There is some interesting stuff going on here. I don't know if you want to start with Ace or George or whatever, but it just. The incentives just are going to point them where they're going to point them.
- [54:50]
Michael Pina
I. Let's start with Counte George. I think he's been a huge bright spot for the Utah jazz this year. 22 and seven efficiently. Only six players or seven players have made more free throws this season, which is a pretty eye popping number.
- [55:03]
Nick Friedel
Wow.
- [55:04]
Michael Pina
I have a comp for you for Keonte and this is. I don't know if this is too pie in the sky, but I feel like it's realistic. Is there a Tyrese Maxi type of leap in here for him?
- [55:21]
Zach Lowe
I mean, that's. You're talking 30 a game on efficient shooting. I don't think that's insane. I don't think he's quite that level of athlete. But you know, he's. His numbers are very good. He's averaging 23 and 7 on 45% shooting. I think there's certainly a leap somewhere between here and where Maxi has been this season. For sure. Like I said, I think he could make an all star game in the future, but I'm not sure he's going to be that. I mean, you're talking about. Tyrese Maxey's in the conversation for second team all NBA. Maybe. You know, I haven't done, you know, right now a.
- [56:00]
Michael Pina
It's a best case scenario for sure. I was just kind of looking at numbers combined with, you know, he goes through these stretches where he's just. He's a blur and he's almost unguardable and he's hitting ridiculous shots off the dribble and kind of getting where he wants. And he just reminds me of what Maxi was a few years ago right before he won most improved player. But no, he's been. There's really not a lot of positive things to say and I think that they will be a team that is, you know, as you said, they are not going to be winning games intentionally over the next Few months. I mean, at some point they want to keep their pick. Obviously. I'm also right with you with Lowry. Markkanen. Right before the season started, I was kind of obsessed with him getting traded, particularly to the Detroit Pistons. Now I kind of just think he's too good to trade and I wouldn't trade him unless, as you said, you got some kind of godfather offer out there. But I don't know where that's coming from given his contract. But he's just the way, he just enables Will Hardy's playbook to look like it does. And Will Hardy's playbook is one of my favorite in the league. I just love watching the Utah Jazz play basketball aesthetically. I love all the off ball movement, the screens, the cuts. I love how he uses bigs to pass. And even though Yousef Nurkic will throw the ball out of bounds every now and again, just having him at the high post and making him, letting him make reads on the fly has been kind of fun to see. Also Kyle Filipowski utilizing his vision and his playmaking as a big, really fun. But I would kind of hold on to Lowry and I would get this other pick. I kind of like the progress that Ace Bailey has made. After a very slow start, he looks like someone who the coaching staff is increasingly trusting with regards to. Just like how they're using him in the offense. And you know, Lowry is, he's only 28. You have him under contract for the next four or five years and he can fit anywhere. As you said, seven foot Steph Curry, not as good of a shooter, but someone who moves like Steph Curry and has the gravity.
- [58:13]
Zach Lowe
I just mean that in the sense of this, like what you just said. But also he only averages 2 assists a game and I would, it would be great if Flowery market were a little bit more of a creator for others with the ball. But his movement, his movement is his passing basically. His movement is opening up gaps everywhere that other people fill. Look, everybody in Utah coaches across the board love Ace Bailey. They've been so impressed with how hard he plays. He's playing as playing hard on defense, like not making as many mistakes defensively as you would think untested rookie would make. They're throwing him into pick and roll a little bit as a screener and he's made some nice plays out of that as a role passer kind of guy. I, I think you have to be happy. Despite the numbers being underwhelming, Collier is a little bit of a mystery. Like if he's not going to look at the, at the basket from three. It's. It's hard for him. Fun stat. The Collier Keante George minus 131. That duo in only 184 minutes. That's pretty hard to do. And it made me go look up the worst plus minus combos in the entire NBA just for fun. And as you would imagine, there's some wizards and some pelicans near the top of the list. Bub Carrington and Keante George minus 1 64. But in twice as many minutes as the Keante George Collier combo. The most depressing one. It's just couldn't be more depressing. Number three on the list. Checking it at minus 1:47 in 532 minutes. DeMar DeRozan and Zach Lavine. It's just, it's the saddest, it's the saddest stat that exists. I will say when Collier can get downhill, he's kind of a force though. And when, when Lowry is playing with, with Flip at center or Kevin Love at center, they can use him as a ball screener a little bit more because they can space around him. It's just there's some interesting stuff going on and Will Hardy's yelling at people. That's fun. Okay, last thing. One prediction gone wrong. Michael Pina. I'll start. I'll make it easy for you.
- [60:22]
Michael Pina
Okay.
- [60:22]
Zach Lowe
I went hard on. I, I think to quote myself, I went hard on. What is the case to be optimistic about the Boston Celtics this year? Their depth is horrible. They have no front line. Like what are we going to really get this kind of season out of Keda? Chris Boucher, Luca Garza. Who's their backup? 5. Who's their backup for? Josh Minot flamed out where he went. Sam Houser has got to be ready for a lot more. Hugo Gonzalez. I'm counting on this guy to do stuff. You Jordan Walsh, is he even going to play? Is he going to be in the G league? The Boston Celtics should be laughing at me. Their coaches took note. I know of what I said. They are 15 and 10 with a top five offense in the NBA. Kata is playing his ass off. Jordan Walsh is maybe the revelation of the season. Peyton Pritchard's offense and shooting have sorted itself out. Jaylen Brown has been a mid range efficiency machine. I worry that we're going to see a little bit of a dip there because he takes a lot of hard shots. This team plays hard. They're. They're outscoring opponents by almost six points. Per hundred per game rather that's almost tied with the Pistons. I can't believe how good the Celtics are and I can't believe how wrong I was. And I do think, I think plus six per game is a little over their head. I do think they're hanging in this top six race for the entire season. I think they're legit this good about almost as good if healthy. And I was dead wrong. Apologies to the Boston Celtics. I'm a moron. Michael Pina and I said, I said you can't pick the Clippers. You have to pick a non Clippers prediction going wrong gone wrong. So what's yours?
- [62:03]
Michael Pina
Well, sadly I did not pick the Clippers as you instructed me to, but I did also pick the Boston Celtics.
- [62:09]
Zach Lowe
Look at that.
- [62:12]
Michael Pina
I thought they would be in the lottery. I thought I was, I was a big gap year believer. I thought that the intention of the organization in spite of Joe Missoula being Joe Missoula was you know, to not win basketball games this year. I was basing that off on the personnel moves that they made over the summer. And I will say like I still think it's technically possible for them to fall off a little bit based on some of the stuff that you said. And I'm committed to not believing what my eyes are telling me when I watch them sometimes. And just where they are in the standings now, the ninth seeded Hawks are two games back but for an entire month they have the best offense in the NBA which is just one of the more wild things I've seen since covering the league. And I want to I'll zoom in on the biggest reason why for me and one of the reasons why I had such doubt on them was Jalen Brown as primary option with no other all stars on the roster. And you know Derek White's fantastic, Peyton pitcher's fantastic. But I just had no, I did no belief that he would be able to not only lead the league in I expected him to shoot a ton. He leads the league in shots per 100 possessions, shoots the crap out of the ball. I had no expectation for him to do that. Also playmake, you know he's like top 10 top 5 in true usage. He does a ton of playmaking for this team and also not be super inefficient like he's his true shooting is right about league average a little bit above league average. He's getting to the free throw line, he's finishing at the basket, he's attacking in transition and he's taking really difficult shots, I mean 64% of his shots are unassisted. His previous career career high was 54%. When he's on the court this year hit the Boston Celtics offensive rating is at the highest point it's ever been in his entire career. So when I look at him like he's all NBA, he's definitely an all star. And aesthetically in terms of how he gets his shots and like where they come from and how well he's hitting them, he kind of just reminds me of like a less efficient SGA who also turns the ball over a lot more. And that sounds insulting, but I promise it's a compliment. So that, that's, that's, I think like the Celtics are shocking me. But Jaylen Brown also, I know he's won finals mvp. I know he's been made an all NBA team, but he's, he's really surprised me this season.
- [64:50]
Zach Lowe
He's been outstanding. And you know, look, I said they're going to hang in this three to nine race all season. I had them penciled in for the lottery. I took the under on them. I think they were 41 and a half or 40 and a half or something like that. And only one game right now, literally one game separates third and ninth in the East. So there's going to be a lot of jostling. I don't think they're as good as a plus six scoring margin there. If they take an injury like any other of these teams are going to be pretty vulnerable if one of their top three or four guys gets injured. But you just. The reason I'm picking them is I could not imagine a 25 game sample like a third of a season, a real sample in which they were this good and outscored their opponents by this much. Kudos to the players. Joe Missoula and his staff has done a great job. Michael Pina ringer.com gotta call him up apparently. I gotta read it. I gotta check it out. I haven't looked yet this morning. I can't wait. You're writing for us. Like gangbusters. Everything is must read. Thank you for coming on. And it's time for a little reunion to talk about the Golden State Warriors. Michael Pina. Thank you, sir.
- [65:54]
Michael Pina
Appreciate you, Zach.
- [65:57]
Zach Lowe
This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. The holidays move quick like a fast break down the court. Luckily, Prime's fast free delivery means everything arrives on time. We use Amazon prime all the time. We have a kid. Anyone with a kid is using Amazon prime all the time. Halloween costumes. I'm a last minute planner. You order a costume, you have no good idea, you need it by October 31, otherwise there's no point. Amazon prime gets the job done. That's happened for me multiple times, multiple Halloweens. Prime's fast shipping is always there for you during the holidays, especially when it's last minute and just can't wait. Need some holiday magic? It's on Prime. Head to Amazon.comprime to shop now. Look who it is. A little bit of a reunion. Nick Friedel. I worked with you once, I think. Can't remember where, but we definitely did. How you doing, buddy?
- [66:48]
Nick Friedel
It is great to see you again, my man. It's been way, way too long. But it's great to find you again in a new place. And you know, as always, when I see you, there are many, many things to discuss and things haven't changed in that regard at all.
- [67:07]
Zach Lowe
You're a long way from the Bulls suck beat. And the bulls still suck, McFidel. They still suck.
- [67:15]
Nick Friedel
You're the amount of people, Mr. Lowe, when I go into an NBA arena still to this day, and you trademarked this, you coined this like 10 years ago. But they'll see me and they'll be like, friedel, are you still on the Bull suck beat? And I'm like, no, no. You know, it's different now. I'm back with the Warriors. But the Bulls suck beat has. Has not only withstood the test of time, it is stronger than ever because I was there about a week ago and oh my, the suck meter is running off the charts right now.
- [67:52]
Zach Lowe
I'm glad. I've made a lot of positive contributions to the discourse in society over the years. You are now covering for the athletic, the Golden State warriors, who round out our play in discussion in the west today, 13 and 14. They lost two games over the weekend. One to the Minnesota Timberwolves without Anthony Edwards, one to the Portland Trailblazers, one to without any point guards. Steph Curry scored 87 points combined in those two games on 30 of 54, shooting, 18 of 34 on threes. I think he made 12 against Portland last night and the warriors lost both games. They lost despite getting Jimmy Butler, Andreon Green back for the Blazers game and Bella. Jimmy played the Timberwolves game. They are a very strange team, Nick Friedel, because you can look at a lot of numbers and be like, all right, they're better than 13 and 14. They're going to play right there, play right back up to standings. They are 20th in offense, which seems puzzling. Fourth in defense, which seems outrageously good. They are plus 12 per 100 possessions when Steph Draymond and Jimmy are all on the floor. That seems good. They're plus 4 per 100 possessions, according to cleaning glass. When Draymond plays center, that's good. They're plus six and a half per 100 possessions when Jimmy Butler is on the floor and Steph Curry is off the floor. That's exactly the design of the team. And then you like, how are they this bad? Like, how are they 13 and 14? Despite all these positive indicators, part of it is just the starting lineup roulette that will never end. I just. I guess they're just never going to have a starting five. Al Horford's been injured for a while. The Anthony Melton just came back. Jonathan Kaminga has been banished from the rotation. And holy shit, have I taken an L on my Jonathan Kaminga optimism. Because it's over. It's as over as over can be for Jonathan Kaminga in the warriors. And obviously they'll have some trades to make. I don't know, man. 13 and 14. Disappointing. And even if they play their way up the standings, they're five games out of a top six seed. They're looking like they're going to have to go through the play in again, which by definition counts as a disappointment for them.
- [70:05]
Nick Friedel
No question. And we don't have enough time to break down all the different layers to this team. What I would tell you, Zach, is the warriors are the most interesting 13 and 14 team I've ever seen. There is something new every single day with this group. They are a content machine to me. They lapped the field this year in being interesting. There is something going on, and there always is with the Warriors.
- [70:31]
Zach Lowe
Content per win, interest. Interesting comment. Per win.
- [70:35]
Nick Friedel
Content for win. They. They are absolutely running circles around everybody else. I think, to answer your first question, and there are many, many questions with this team, the problem is they've been injured. Steph's missed nine games. Draymond's been hurt. Jimmy's been kind of off and on. He's got a lingering knee issue. The much larger problem, though, is the inconsistency. If you were banking on the warriors to have a good year this year, you were banking on Brandon Pajemski, Kaminga and Moody to take another step collectively in their development. That has not happened this season, and there are a lot of reasons why that is as well. But that to me, when you look at the warriors, and I still, I think these last two games are going to make me shake my head and alter my projection a little bit. But I still. When the season started, I thought the only two teams I knew for sure in the west could beat them in a series for sure, were the Thunder and the Nuggets. After that, I was kind of like, I think they have a legit chance against anybody else. As I watch them now, two months into the year, I go, if you're getting these type of games from Steph and you're still losing, you've got big, big problems. And I think what we've seen is Steph when he's out there, still playing an incredibly high level. Draymond defensively, still playing a high level. He didn't play well against Portland. Better days are ahead for him. Jimmy, I'm starting to worry about a little bit if I'm a Warriors fan, because I don't think that knee is right. I don't think he's jumping the same way and has the same push that he needs. And Zach, all these years you and I have been having the Jimmy conversation. When he wanted to turn it on, he could, and he could just dominate. That part right now doesn't seem to be the same. And I think frankly, he's still struggling with trying to figure out exactly how to play around Steph and the rest of the group, even though it looked really good for that first stretch after the trade. On the whole, though, the rest of the pieces on this roster that were supposed to be there just haven't played at the level they need. And you mentioned Horford. I mean, he is provided them basically nothing for the first couple months, and he's been hurt the whole time. So there are a lot of pronounced flaws. They've got to fix whatever they can near the deadline, but I just don't think they're going to get to where they wanted to this year, which is too bad because Steph is playing out of his mind.
- [73:16]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, I. I've been saying for two years, I think it's over. I think it's over for now and I think it's over for the post step future in terms of like, is there a championship nucleus here? When they got off that, that said, I, I thought they were a very good team. I took the over on their win total, which I think was 45 and a half or 46 and a half, something like that. And when they came out playing super well, I, I said I had shut the window and I'm keeping it shut, but I'm just opening the latch a little bit because if a number of things break right, the latch is. The latch is closed. Now, again, on Jimmy, he's been fine, but when Steph's on the bench, you expect him to go into Jimmy mode and it just kind of hasn't been there. And those lineups are living on defense more than anything that Jimmy's doing on offensive defense. Part of their team, they're fourth in defense. It's been so weird that, like, you look at Pajemsky's numbers, he's averaging 12 a game, shooting 40% on three. Moody's averaging 12 games, shooting 38% on three. Their minutes just go up and down like this. And I'm watching that Blazers game last night as Steph is doing everything he can possibly do to will them to a win. And they. They roll out Steph, Pajemski, Moody, Butler, draymond at the 5. And I'm like, man, I really have always been intrigued by that, that specific five man lineup. Is that their best lineup? I've really wanted to see that lineup more. I feel like I've barely seen it. It's played like 19 minutes the entire season. And then they switch it up and put Melton, who just came back, and I think will help their team, in the Moody spot. And it just feels like for every possible reason, Steve Kerr just has no consistent rotation, let alone a starting five for this team. And now Kamingo has been benched, and that feels over. As I said before, that helps clarify some things, but it's still so murky with all the guys that have been in and out of the lineup, and it just. They just, as old teams tend to do, they just look a little older. When that Steph Draymond pick and roll happens. And Draymond's being guarded by a five. That used to be the most terrifying moment in the NBA. And you see little flashes here and there. Draymond four on three, throws a lob here, throws a kick out there. It's just not as scary anymore because he's lost a little bit of a step. Jimmy's lost a little bit of a step. And Jimmy's, you know, has shot well on threes this year, but doesn't really shoot them. And so he's not. The spacing isn't the same as it's been. It just kind of feels all meh. Despite the fact that, like, you cannot yell this from the treetops enough. Nick Friedel, Steph Curry is averaging 29.6 points per game. That is the third highest figure of his entire career, he is shooting 48%, 41% on threes, 60% on twos. That would be the second highest number of his career in 91, of course, from the line, almost a 50, 40, 90 season. It's insane how good he's been. And they just didn't used to. He makes 12 threes and they lose. Like, that's not a thing that happens.
- [76:31]
Nick Friedel
That is the biggest red flag that there is. And Zach, now that we can curse in our new format, the way I would put it into context for you is Pat Spencer is that motherfucker.
- [76:44]
Zach Lowe
Lax Bros are taking over the league in Memphis and Golden State, baby.
- [76:47]
Nick Friedel
That's right. So Pat Spencer is that motherfucker. Steph Curry is still the baddest motherfucker going. That dude, when he gets on the floor and he's racing up and down and he's knocking down shots. And he did it a couple times that Portland game where he puts the shot up and starts running down the floor without watching it going in. He knows how good he still is. So do they. The problem is that the rest of the group just doesn't have the talent level right now to maintain the consistency. The most fascinating part in the short term of what I heard out of the post game comments last night was Draymond repeatedly, unprompted, sticking up for Steve Kerr because he's being asked about the consistency. And Zach, that was the ninth straight game where they've had a different starting five. And again it's injury and it's Kerr looking for any answer that he can. And Kerr 20 minutes before that is saying, it's on me. I'm not doing a good job this year. I have to be better in putting guys in spots to succeed. Then we walk over to Draymond and Draymond and he's active on social media, he's got his podcast, but he's hearing all this stuff and people are killing Kerr and saying, Kerr needs to do this, Kerr needs to do that. Draymond's going, the fuck do you want him to do? Like, he's trying everything that he can and it's just not working. So when you're trying to figure out what's going on with the warriors, it starts with the injuries to key players, the inconsistency. But to me, as I'm watching it day by day, it's Steph is at this level. Draymond and Jimmy are still close to him. Draymond, especially defensively, is awesome when he's engaged and locked in. But when you pass Jimmy. And I think, again, this is a huge part of it. They were expecting Jimmy, to your point, when steps off the floor, to just dominate. And Jimmy wants to make the right play and doesn't want to force himself, but they want him to. They want him to go be the guy that you and I have seen and discussed for years and years, and he just hasn't been as aggressive as I think they wanted him to see. When you cross that gap, though, when you get past Jimmy on this roster and it's not the same Jimmy that it's been the last couple years, oh, everybody was expecting that next wave of players to be better than what they are, and there's still time. A lot of those guys are young. They're trying to come into their own. But if you were banking on the warriors to make that push in the west and have the success and clear that win total, you were banking on the rest of that group to do something that they have not shown this season. And when you watch them, Zach, they might have a good game. Moody had a game in New Orleans. He was hitting a bunch of threes. And Pajemski is having his moments. Although I think so much of his issue is some of the things that he said before and in the beginning of the season. Rub some of his teammates and some people in the organization the wrong way. And the guy who has all the confidence, he doesn't have as much confidence right now. I think he's trying to work through that. And Kaminga's situation, he was great early. He wasn't as good. He got pulled from the starting lineup. He got hurt, he came back. He didn't play well. The end, I mean, that's where we're at the end. Although I would caution everybody, anyone who thinks that January 15th, they're going to wave a wand and he's going to be moved. Good luck. That's just not the way that things go. But the problem with this team is the talent level. They have a lot of solid players, but they have not had a lot of players behind Steph raise the level of their own games this season. It's why they're in the place that they are.
- [80:31]
Zach Lowe
This was always what was most likely to happen, is that the old guys get old and the young guys don't get good enough soon enough to save the team. When the old guys get old, this is still. I think they're going to start winning more. I mean, the underlying numbers are pretty good. They're plus almost 2 per 100 possessions. So they should be over.500. They have a bad record in close games. Even last night, Steph bonked that layup late in the game that would have given them the lead. It's like, oh my God, he makes 12 threes and he bonks that one. It's so uncharacteristic. I think they'll correct themselves a little bit. Their turnovers are insane right now. I mean, part of the benefit of giving Jimmy getting Jimmy Butler was he's such a low turnover player and he still is. He shrunk by himself their entire turnover rate last year and it's back up. And as much as I love Draymond as a player, like, his turnovers are crazy. He's throwing these like hit ahead passes that are getting picked off every game. He in post miscommunicated like 4 times last night against Portland, his turnovers are up and they're all crazy live ball, really damaging turnovers. I do think a lot of this will correct. It would really help if Warford could get healthy and give them anything. But even if it corrects, I think they're closer to a 44 and 38 team than a 50, 49 kind of win team that I thought they were. And even if really things go right, they're most likely scenario, given how the standings are, is they're in the 78 game playing like hell to either face Oklahoma City, Denver or Houston in the first round. And we saw the beat down. I mean, they beat Houston last year, but it took so much out of them physically. And then Steph gets hurt, Jimmy's getting worn down, and they get rolled by the Timberwolves. It's like it's. It's very hard to see them winning a round in the playoffs this year, let alone making a run.
- [82:24]
Nick Friedel
I'm. I'm getting more to that side day by day. The only reason that I still caution anybody to write them completely off of not being able to do anything is because of Steph. And he is. When you watch him, he's still just incredible.
- [82:44]
Zach Lowe
Incredible.
- [82:45]
Nick Friedel
Break down an entire team. But also in context, Zach, I sat there in Washington, Portland, he was killing the Blazers. And the crowd is going absolutely nuts the way that they don't usually do anywhere on the road. But they were into the step show and they still lost. And it was the first time he knocked down 12 threes and they lost. And that is a real big problem. But again, this is where I at least have to throw caution out there. Out of the almost two decades I've been doing this, job. Never in my life have I seen a schedule the likes of which they're going through the year ever. They have flown across the country three times. They've played a ton of road games. They've got some home games coming up. They've got one more trip before the end of the calendar year to the east coast, like Toronto, Brooklyn and Charlotte. And then they are home for the vast majority of January and a chunk of February going into the break. So I think that that will allow them to take a breath. The problem, though, is you can't be this reliant on Steph and not get enough behind him. And that's what scares me. When you look at the numbers and you pointed them out defensively, they look really good. Last night in Portland, they had some terrible moments, but I think they're going to write themselves on that end of the floor. It's the offense, and that's where you need Jimmy. And Kerr has mentioned it many, many times. He stabilizes them. He gives them a different look and can get to the foul line, but you need him to take over sometimes, and he's just not doing it. And Curse said I've got to do a better job getting him in rhythm. And Draymond said he could do a better job getting him the ball, but he's the one that said the quiet part out loud. And he said we need Jimmy to go take the ball sometimes, and we need Jimmy to take over. And that just has not happened much this season. I think it's because when you watch him play, that knee just isn't the same. And it's been a lingering question since the end of the days in Chicago. The knee, the knee, the knee. I think it's more of a problem right now than it has been because of all the years and all the miles there.
- [85:07]
Zach Lowe
I'm glad you mentioned this schedule because it's been truly hellish for them. They've played 11 home games and 16 on the road, and you've met that they've just played a ton of games all over the place. That's a reason I think things will normalize. The clutch time record, I think, will normalize. The defense is legit to me. And they also have a history, even dating back to 2021, when Clay was out the whole year of surging late in the season. They did it again last year. They did it to make the play into 2022 like they have not in 2022. They won the championship, but they've surged late in the season a lot and I said, like, they feel closer to a 45 win team than a 50 win team. To get to 45 wins from 13 and 14, you've got to be pretty good in the Western Conference the rest of the way. Like, I think they're a good team. It's just they've put themselves in, they, the schedule, injuries, et cetera, have put themselves in such a tough spot. And it does make you, you see people reflect on this all the time and it's been constant of, you know, the two timelines thing, which was never a plan, it was an accident. It will be interesting to see did they miss any chances to really load up around Steph? Because they did go out and get Jimmy Butler and when they did that and they went crazy at the end of last year, everyone said, okay, that's the exact kind of transaction we're talking about. They tried to get Paul George and Market in together. I don't think that ever got far. They tried to get Durant. Durant vetoed that. They tried to trade the Wiseman pick and couldn't find. I remember like Bradley Beal was mentioned, Ben Simmons, like, I don't think any of that went anywhere. They tried to get into the Raptors stuff with Siakam and Anobi. They tried to get Lebron. Like, I, I can't. There's got to be. I, I don't, I don't remember what other missed opportunities there were, but it's not like they haven't tried. And they did end up with Jimmy Butler and it did look like that's exactly the kind of guy they need. I don't know if I'm, if I'm forgetting any other sort of like, well, they should have gone out and gotten that guy. They do have all these. They have three picks to trade now, plus Kaminga. I think they'll try. They'll try on everyone. They'll try. And freaking Giannis, you know, they'll try on everyone. But I don't know what they're, what they're going to get.
- [87:08]
Nick Friedel
And that's really the problem. And in fact, what I would tell you is when you watch the roster, I just don't see the move that they're going to be able to make that is going to take them from wherever they're at right now. Even if you and I both agree that better days are probably ahead here at some point in the next couple months to get them from wherever they're at. Into that conversation again with the Okcs and the Denver's, they're going to try like hell, but I and this goes always back to Kaminga. I think the problem is fans are sitting there saying get rid of them, move them for some for Malik Monk, they don't want to add more salary and another guard and for some pick down the line, I don't know if that one is actually going to come to fruition. And I think the part that has kind of gotten lost in the framework of the conversation is I think when you miss that big on the number two pick and it's not pinning at all on Wiseman because he was the player that he was, but when you have that pick and you don't take advantage of just leaves this huge gap that really has never gotten filled and Kaminga just isn't the player that they hoped he would be. Moody is a solid rotation piece, but he's not going to be a difference maker. Every single night you get what you get and I think you nailed it. When you have an older team, you need somebody to come up behind them and give them help and that help just has not been there this season and it was a help that they're banking on. So the roster is what it is. They have a lot of solid pieces, but they don't have a lot of game changing guys that are going to be able to take that weight off of Steph every night. Jimmy can still be that guy in flashes. He just can't be that guy consistently the same way. There are a lot of reasons why they've fallen into where they are. I'm just concerned if I'm a Warriors fan that you look ahead and you go, okay, try to make a move in order to give up what it would take to get any one of these pieces that we're talking about, I don't think that whatever that move is is going to be a fix that places them back at the top of the conversation yet.
- [89:26]
Zach Lowe
If you had to boil it all down to one moment, it's the Wiseman pick and we don't need to go back and relitigate that. All that said, this team's better than its record and I love watching Steph and I love watching these guys rage against the dying of the light. And that's what we're going to be in for for the next 50 whatever games is these guys raging against the dying of the light. And Nick Friedel is going to be there to cover it all at the Athletic. It's great to see you, buddy. I think you got your cup shirt on. You know, it's all, it's all happening. I miss you. Oh, Rhino. Rhino. Man. Boy, that's a tough one.
- [90:00]
Nick Friedel
It is. But I, I, I can't tell you how much I enjoy being with you again, but it's been too long. It makes me feel good to have this conversation again. And for all the warriors fans, I do think they're going to put some more wins together, but I would close it this way. There was so much hope that when they got Jimmy and they made that move, Zach, it was Jimmy, Draymond, Steph, two more years. Two more years. And Horford, two more years. I think what we're seeing is this is it this year. Because I don't know what the hell you go and do next year with Steph going on. I mean, he's going to be 38 in a couple months, and, you know, he's going to be 39 next year. Jimmy on the knee, Draymond, an extra year. This is the last run right now. Whatever it is next year, you know, what do you do? You, you run around with Steph and you say, steph Curry is incredible. We need to all appreciate what we're seeing on a nightly basis. But there was supposed to be a two year window with this group. What we're seeing very clearly is this, is that last year of that window, and it's, it's getting shorter by the day with the inability to find the consistency that they need.
- [91:19]
Zach Lowe
Well, that was a depressing way to wrap it up, Nick Friedle. But it is great to see you. I will see you down the line somewhere at an arena around the NBA. It's good to see you, bud. Go, Cubbies.
- [91:28]
Nick Friedel
Always my man. Talk to you.
- [91:31]
Zach Lowe
All right, let's bring on a special guest, Denver Nuggets forward and now podcaster Cam Johnson. Welcome to the podcast family. It's a big, big career upgrade for you.
- [91:41]
Cam Johnson
Thank you, Zach. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.
- [91:44]
Zach Lowe
Are we calling it the Old man in the three, the Young man to the three? Is it both? Depending on which type of episode it is, I'm confused by the titles.
- [91:52]
Cam Johnson
So when I'm present, it's the Old man in the three. The Young man in three still will be in operation. Those episodes drop on Thursdays, I believe, and Tommy's just going around kind of more of like a team based thing where he's getting guys in a group environment. And then when I'm present, it's the Old man and the Three that are dropping on those Tuesday episodes.
- [92:12]
Zach Lowe
But you're younger than Tommy. There's a. There's a dissonance here that I can't. I. I feel like we need to simplify this. I feel like it just needs to be one or the other. But anyway, you just started out. It's going well so far. I've listened to the first couple of episodes. You having fun?
- [92:27]
Cam Johnson
Yeah, it's cool. You know, I did a lot with the young man in three last year. Just hopping on in the studio in Brooklyn when I was there. I think you guys might know the backstory of that. JJ had put a golf simulator in there. Really nice golf simulator. And it was only five minutes from my apartment, so I would mosey on over there, get on the sim, and just through the process of being around so much, I ended up hopping, you know, just down the hallway into the studio and getting on the paw with Tommy, and we decided to take it a step further.
- [92:55]
Zach Lowe
So you had an apartment in Brooklyn, like a normal New Yorker. Except I heard you have concluded New York not for you.
- [93:01]
Cam Johnson
I'm not a city person in general. Never have been. I'm from the suburbs of Pittsburgh. But, you know, I started to enjoy it as time goes on. Of course, as soon as you start to feel a little bit more comfortable is when you get traded. That's kind of how life goes. It's kind of how the NBA goes. But it won me over a little bit as to how I viewed it when I first got traded there.
- [93:22]
Zach Lowe
I lived in New York for 20 years. Never lived in Brooklyn. I skipped Brooklyn. I went Manhattan, Queens. Very uncommon trajectory. Everyone stops in Brooklyn at some point. But we were a pandemic. Move out of the city for more space, into the burbs. I miss it every day. It's still my favorite place. Okay, you mentioned the Nets. You have told the story many times about how you found out you were traded. From the Suns to the Nets, woken up in the middle of night to a flurry of texts and all this. But what about. What about this most recent trade? How did you find out you were traded from Brooklyn to Denver and kind of like one of the sneaky, important deals of the off season. Who told you? What was the first wind you got of it?
- [94:02]
Cam Johnson
You know, those trade rumors have been flying around for 15 months, 14 months, by the time I actually got traded. So every time my phone rang and my agents called, there was that little voice in the back of my head that was like, okay, this could be the time. This could be the time for over a year. So fast forward to the summer after the season, you know, Just being around the league, you understand how the business works, how movement works. And I feel like the longer you're in those trade talks, you know, it kind of just means the more likely it is to come true sooner than later. So around the draft time, I catch wind that a couple teams are sniffing around, maybe four teams are sniffing around a little heavier. Nothing went through on draft night, but still, at the same time, things were heating up, so my antennas were a little tuned. I got a phone call late June in the morning. I had just finished working out. I was moving on to the next part of my day, and my agent called. And right off the bat, immediately, I could tell with the tone of his voice that this one was pretty serious. And he kind of just blurted out, there's a deal on the table sending you to Denver. It seems pretty real. He gets that out. He's like, okay, that's. That's Sean. Mark's calling me right now. I'm gonna take this call. He called me back 30 seconds later, and he's like, all right. It's pretty much a done deal from there. And then Sean called me a couple minutes later, and that was that. You know, continue on with your day, Wait for correspondence from the Denver people, and start that transition.
- [95:34]
Zach Lowe
So you learned, like, the proper old school way, like you didn't learn on Twitter. You got word from your agent, and you got word from the GM trading you before it was public.
- [95:43]
Cam Johnson
Yes. And I believe it was intentional on Brooklyn's behalf, and it was really appreciated. For me, obviously, it was completely opposite. The first time, it was Twitter notifications, and I'm not a Twitter guy, so it was my little brother and my dad calling me with Twitter updates and then trying to find it from there. But, yeah, this time they told me straight up early, and it was 30, 45 minutes before the news came out.
- [96:09]
Zach Lowe
Wow, that's like. Yeah, it was like a week in modern time.
- [96:13]
Cam Johnson
Exactly, exactly. And so then it was like. And it moves fast, right? Because then I'm having conversations with my family. It might have been my mom or my older brother. Somebody didn't catch wind of it until maybe an hour or two later, or somebody was out about at the time, and they didn't know until they got back to my house. So, yeah, it was a decent feeling to kind of be early on the news.
- [96:39]
Zach Lowe
Who's the first Denver phone call to you? Is it their front office? Is it David Adelman? Who's the first call?
- [96:45]
Cam Johnson
Yeah, it was front office, guys. It was Ben Tenzer, John Wallace, those Guys had taken over in the front office. And then quickly you kind of pivot to training staff, getting in for physicals and that and that sort of thing.
- [96:59]
Zach Lowe
And what. When they. When they talked about what they saw as the vision, why you. What you would bring to the starting five, which was like the most established starting five maybe in the entire NBA, what kind of stuff did they talk about?
- [97:12]
Cam Johnson
Yeah, and I'm not going to gloss over that because in the whole trade saga, it always felt like that starting five was so established, you know what I mean? So it was like, I never really thought Denver was that true of a possibility just because of exactly what you said. But it's simple. We got guys with a lot of talent across the board, especially in our starting five and even. Even in our reserve group. So basically, for me, just. Just come in, make shots, space the floor, kind of be a secondary creator and then, you know, be all about that team defense kind of mob mentality that we have and that we're growing.
- [97:52]
Zach Lowe
The secondary creator thing is the thing everyone immediately zoomed in on as well. If they see a difference between Michael Porter Jr. Who I thought, frankly, and I've said this before on my show, I thought people kind of rushed him out of Denver and moved on to how excited they were for you. And it's great that Derek said it for you, but it almost felt underappreciated how rare he is as a scorer. 6, 10 can shoot over anybody can get rebounds and all that stuff. But. But what you brought was secondary creator attack closeouts, run pick and roll, occasionally catch coming off pin downs. They. So they talk to you about that specific stuff, like that's something they could use, just another guy to keep the ball moving, keep the blender going.
- [98:33]
Cam Johnson
Absolutely. You spot on.
- [98:36]
Zach Lowe
Do you feel like that has. Has, like, come to fruition? You. You've slow start, obviously there was a lot of like, wait, where's Cam Johnson? What's going on? You had a shoulder issue. You're up to 40% on threes all of a sudden. Quietly 11 points a game. I think it's been like three, four weeks, and you've looked like the player that they envisioned. But do you feel like you're starting to find it kind of fit that role?
- [98:55]
Cam Johnson
Yeah, I think there's still just a ton, a ton of space to grow in the system. And I'll be honest, the way we play is a lot different than a lot of the situations I've been in before. And the vast majority of that is that there's really Nobody like the joker out there. And so I think what we're seeing is we score the ball really, really well. So those offensive issues that I'm having personally, like, for me, you cannot let that get in the way of a team whose offense is number one. So for me, it's that continue to build game by game, continue to just feel comfortable in the space while the team is still our best offensive self, and then bringing that defense along with it. So I don't think I've shown exactly what I've been brought here to show, and that's completely on me. But that does not mean that the work behind the scenes is not going in every day to get there is.
- [99:58]
Zach Lowe
Is it. It would be human nature for me. I'm not you. Is it human nature for you to, like, check Brooklyn box scores and be like, okay, well, Mike. Mike is kind of balling out over there. Or have you just left that. Left that behind and like, you do you in Denver?
- [100:12]
Cam Johnson
Well, it's human nature in the fact that those are also, you know, guys that I spent a lot of time with. Mike is not the only guy on that roster, you know, the rest of those guys that I put in a lot of hours with and the coaching staff. So of course I check in. I check in on all their games. And what I've seen Mike do. I think a large part of that is the system and the places he's put in and Jordy's emphasis on just, hey, let it fly. And Jordy. Jordy's a great coach in that regard. And you're starting to see growth from the team perspective from there over there in Brooklyn now in terms of being able to. To. To spin it and get some wins. But, man, we all know Mike's shooting ability and how he's kind of just able to shoot out of anywhere, any contest, any spot on the floor, and that's exactly what he's showing over there.
- [100:57]
Zach Lowe
Okay, Joker's in Serbia. When you get traded to Denver with his horses, with his family, what is the first. Not text, not whatever, like actual voice to voice conversation as a Denver nugget that you have with Nikola Jokic.
- [101:13]
Cam Johnson
Right there. Right there. Right before media day, baby.
- [101:16]
Zach Lowe
That's it. Wow. Didn't even. That's it in Denver. So, like, when he comes back to the States, what's the conversation like? Hey, I'm Nicola. Welcome to the team. Don't fuck it up.
- [101:25]
Cam Johnson
I wouldn't say that last part's in there, but it's definitely like, hey, like, you know, welcome to the team. But you know, at this point in the preseason we're, you know, everybody got a lot going on, so it's not even that much of a introductory kind of kind of conversation. Just like, hey, what's your next media stop? You know, you're good. Good morning. We'll see you over at practice later on.
- [101:48]
Zach Lowe
That's it. Welcome to the Nuggets. And has it been, obviously you watch basketball. We all watch basketball. This is a three time mvp, one of like the all time unicorn players. Has it been what you expected playing with him and his passing? Has it been different in some way that you didn't expect? What's the early experience like?
- [102:11]
Cam Johnson
Oh man, it's, it's kind of been what I expected, maybe even a little crazier. We all know he can pass the.
- [102:23]
Michael Pina
Ball.
- [102:25]
Cam Johnson
But he's just what I've seen from being his teammate. Now, you know, when you play against him, your team, game plans for him, you feel like, all right, we're going to do this because this is our best chance of slowing him down. We're going to do that, we're going to do this. But now when you're on his team and you're his teammate, you'll see. You know, we played probably somewhere in the high teens worth of teams and what you see is everybody does something a little different and you know, everybody or some teams do minimal and kind of play them more straight up. But the bottom line is it's really hard to slow him down. Like all these adjustments that teams go to and a lot of the times it's just, you know, they're handicapped on exactly how they can game plan. And what it leads to is what you see when he has kind of like scoring explosions like he had in Atlanta down the stretch and you know, he's had a handful of times this year against la and LA A is just, they don't have the answer. And that's kind of what you. I've come to see that maybe I wasn't expecting quite as much, but it's, it's a lot of times like teams do not have a good answer to slow them down, period.
- [103:39]
Zach Lowe
You guys are, I think 17 and six something in six. The west is just full of juggernaut teams. You've got Houston twice coming up in the next 10 days. You don't play Oklahoma City until March and then you play them four times from March till the end of the season. Are you already in a place where like those games are circled on the schedule? It's like all right. I mean, the first Houston game was, was a, like a playoff level, sort of strategic, back and forth, physical. Are those games that you're already kind of looking forward to and thinking about and are you like, to what degree are you watching Oklahoma City and what they are doing in your conference?
- [104:18]
Cam Johnson
I try to check in on all these teams kind of periodically. OKC obviously is playing at a high level and it's predictable. You know, they have their guys, they have their system. Any fall off would kind of be self induced from that level. But I think what's made them so successful over the past couple years in terms of being able to build so consistently is they seem on the outside looking in to have like an unselfish approach to winning. And that's the bottom line, that's what they care about. Obviously, we know Houston has a ton of talent, but for us, we want to win every game. We want to win every game. But our goals are in the end, more important than, bigger than how our team is playing at this very very moment. And so right now we have a couple guys out. We're working on our flow, we're working on our defense, our intensity and those things that will help us win games, closing games in the fourth quarter. And I think the better we get that, the more prepared we'll be down the stretch. And so I think the goal of our season is to just hone in on these things. Kind of control we can control. Because I think what we've shown now is we can beat teams and we can beat them by scoring, we can beat them through pace. There's a lot of different ways, but the more ways that we can uncover, maybe, you know, figuring out those games where the offense is a little tougher and we're winning games with stops down the stretch, maybe having different guys step up and close games, the more we can kind of uncover, dig up, you know, accumulate those things, the better off we'll be as the season starts to get tighter and tighter and tighter, which we all know it will. We all know how tight the west will be come April. And so also to that point, all these games really do matter. And we've seen that in previous years, especially last year, is a great example of how one game at the end of the season moves the playoff standings all over the place. So, you know, I think our future is really bright, but we're not a finished product yet.
- [106:29]
Zach Lowe
Have you caught a Jokic touchdown pass yet? An outlet pass, like a 90 footer, 85 footer, or have you dropped one? Have you finished one.
- [106:37]
Cam Johnson
I've probably dropped a few, but I've definitely. I've definitely finished a few. And it's like, you know, you just know that, that, that he's going to throw it.
- [106:45]
Zach Lowe
And have you had the experience of a pass whizzing towards your head when you didn't necessarily think a pass even existed? But he did.
- [106:53]
Cam Johnson
The best example of that was preseason game two. He threw a crazy baseline pass without looking like a wraparound baseline pass against the help. And so far, none have topped that one. But you always got to be ready for his passes.
- [107:07]
Zach Lowe
All right, let's do some Cam Johnson, greatest hits. Rookie year bubble. How'd you stay sane in the bubble?
- [107:15]
Cam Johnson
Well, I was young man. I was, you know, fresh out of college. Covid quarantine kind of time was crazy for everybody. And so for us, the young guys on our team, it was me, Ty Jerome, Mikael Bridges, Javon Carter. We had a lot to prove in the league still. And this is my rookie year. Like, I don't want it to be over, you know, I still. There's still so much for me to learn. That's when you have that real pure, genuine excitement to get back to playing. So when we were let in the bubble, we were 26 and 39. We were the last team let in, our Phoenix team. We were just excited that, like, we'll be able to be around our guys again. You know, we'll be able to hang out with our people and hoop, you know, it was really hard to do those things before. So when we get to the bubble, it's kind of like you do your best to treat it as like a college trip almost. There's like arcade rooms in a hotel that we would go and we'd play NBA Jam. We'd play ping pong. I played probably hundreds of games of ping pong versus coaches.
- [108:19]
Zach Lowe
Okay, who's your team at NBA Jam?
- [108:21]
Cam Johnson
Oh, who was I playing with? I think it was me and Ty Jerome on the same team, maybe.
- [108:27]
Zach Lowe
And we were playing with.
- [108:28]
Nick Friedel
No, no.
- [108:28]
Zach Lowe
What team would you use? Who would you use?
- [108:29]
Cam Johnson
I'm telling you. I'm telling you. The Pistons. The Pistons. Isaiah Thomas and Laimbeer, I think was a combo that we ended up going with. And sometimes the Hornets.
- [108:39]
Zach Lowe
Lj, that's lj.
- [108:41]
Cam Johnson
And Kendall Gill, I think is.
- [108:43]
Zach Lowe
That's a good one.
- [108:43]
Cam Johnson
This was a long time ago. This is.
- [108:45]
Zach Lowe
Yes. This is my era. I always went. Tim Hardaway, Chris Mullen, warriors, just bombing threes.
- [108:52]
Cam Johnson
See, that's a great. We needed some interior presence. So Lambert is kind of holding it down for us. I think that was our winning combo.
- [108:58]
Zach Lowe
How's your ping pong game and who's the king of the 2020 Suns ping pong?
- [109:02]
Cam Johnson
I think I, I came away with the most wins.
- [109:04]
Zach Lowe
All right.
- [109:04]
Cam Johnson
Elliot Kobo, who's on the team at that time, was, was a great competitor. One of our coaches, Ricardo Fo, who's now with the Knicks, was a. We, we probably played 50, 50, 60 games just between the two of us. I love ping pong and I love some good competitions. I'll play, I'll play for hours.
- [109:20]
Zach Lowe
What did the bubble was like this galvanizing thing for you guys that obviously carried into the next season. When you get Chris Paul and you go to the NBA, you go to the finals. But like, did you feel like you go eight? No. By the fourth game or third game or fifth game, do you actually start to feel and talk with your teammates like this is. Something is actually happening here? This isn't just a fluke.
- [109:44]
Cam Johnson
Yeah. So I think we had a great approach as a team. It was tough. You know, there's a lot of ways you could have looked at the bubble and some teams definitely took it harder than others. And the teams that stood to be there for a long time, probably mentally from the jump, had it worse. Just, you know, you're going to be isolated from your family or, you know, in this specific environment for multiple months. For us, the way coach Monte approached it was like, this is an invaluable opportunity to grow a program, period. We're not going to worry about the playoffs, we're not going to worry about the results. We just take care of what we need to take care of on a daily basis and go out and win games. So we beat a fully healthy Dallas team, pretty much fully healthy. We beat a fully healthy Clippers team. And then we got some teams as they were resting, guys, sitting guys, you know what I mean? And so as that momentum grew and we were able to stack those wins, it was an energy that we played with that felt contagious and that just felt like it built upon itself. I also think maybe there was a benefit to us playing those eight games, going 8 0, handling everything that we could possibly handle on our end, and then getting out. It ended on a sweet note. Only a handful of teams left the bubble with the win and we were one of them, Lakers one of them, and maybe a another team or two that won their last one. But we were the only team that didn't lose there. And it felt like it gave us a lot of momentum going into the next season.
- [111:15]
Zach Lowe
Next season. Some more greatest hits. I rewatched a couple of like landmark Phoenix 2021 moments. Jay Crowder salsa dancing in LeBron's face and getting ejected from the game. You are next to him and are holding him back as the salsa dance is concluding and he's getting ejected. What do you remember of this landmark 2021 NBA moment?
- [111:35]
Cam Johnson
But so that first round of the playoffs was crazy. The Lakers wanted us in the first round. We were two, they were seven. They were like, we're going to get the seven, we're going to find you guys and we're going to beat you guys. I think we started off down two. One AD goes down. But I think CP got hurt early in that series too. But it was just a gritty effort on us and a highly emotional series where tempers were kind of flaring. And that salsa dancing moment, like I was trying to, you know, I'm one more so to probably say, you know, maintain our composure, be the bigger person. We win with grace, we lose with grace, we move on, get ready for the next series. But some of my teammates had some other ideas and they wanted to savor the moment. So as I'm trying to pull Jay away, I had guys get mad at me like, nah, nah, nah, let em go.
- [112:23]
Zach Lowe
Like, who are you with? I'm like, who do you think I'm with?
- [112:25]
Cam Johnson
You know, so it was a funny moment there, but I was like, I'm just as much down for this as you guys are. So at that point I'm like, you know what, Jay? You know, salsa dance your way all the way back to Phoenix. It was a great series for us and, and, and a tough one too.
- [112:39]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, it's. I can tell you're laughing as you are trying to de escalate the situation at the same time.
- [112:44]
Cam Johnson
Exactly.
- [112:45]
Zach Lowe
The value in the conference finals Game two, it's the famous inbounds play that Ayton dunks had beats with to beat the Clippers. And you are like curling around on the perimeter almost as. I don't want to say decoy, but obviously you're trying to draw some attention. That was that, that was the plan. As you run. I, I know that's the Jay Triano play, but had you actually run that play before, had you been in that play, do you feel like you executed your role correctly? Did you know it was going to work?
- [113:14]
Cam Johnson
All the credit on this one goes to Coach Mont because as soon as that timeout was called, he Grabbed the clipboard and got to explaining the entire play. No stutter, no hesitation. And then went to each individual of the five guys and told them exactly what to do and exactly what to look for on the play. And then he ended with, there is no goaltending on an inbound pass. Try to almost make a shot. Jay Da just put a hand on it, send it in a basket, we'll win the game, we'll go home. So my specific job was come off that screen, like you said, as a decoy. And Mon's like, just do whatever you can to make it look like you're in the play. If you can get your defender, which was Paul George, I think it was Paul George to follow you out of the play. Perfect. You did your job. So when I started making my run, I felt like, okay, if I just run with intent, like the play's gonna come back to me or something. I'll get him out of play. And sure enough, he followed me all the way to the freaking sideline.
- [114:13]
Zach Lowe
He tracks you.
- [114:14]
Cam Johnson
He tracked me. And to see that play kind of unfold in real time and the confidence that was in each player to execute it was pretty cool. And the result was even cooler.
- [114:26]
Zach Lowe
Okay, now a negative memory from the 2021 finals. The Drew Holiday steal from Booker and Aliyub to Giannis to basically clinch the NBA championship is one of the all time. Like, no, it was clinching game five. It wasn't the NBA championship.
- [114:42]
Nick Friedel
It wasn't the.
- [114:42]
Zach Lowe
I don't think it was the last game.
- [114:43]
Cam Johnson
Yeah, but a home game to go up three, two.
- [114:45]
Zach Lowe
Yes. That's what it was, was in Phoenix. You're right now I rewatched it. You're on. You're on the bench. But I remember I was not at that game, but I remember watching that. And the steal is incredible. And they could have basically just played a conservative and you would have had to foul them and go to the line and instead they go the entire other way and try this Ali oop to Giannis, who's not a good free throw shooter, so you better convert it. You're on the bench watching, are you? Just like, what, what in the world is happening? Like, what's your vantage point on that play? That's an all time crazy NBA play.
- [115:14]
Cam Johnson
Yeah, man. I hate that play. I think we're up one. Is that correct?
- [115:18]
Zach Lowe
I'd have to go back and look. I don't remember. I think they're at one.
- [115:21]
Cam Johnson
So if we, if we foul them and they make two free throws, you know, we still are three point away from tying. So the real. What really felt like it hurt was Chris Fowling and Giannis making.
- [115:37]
Zach Lowe
They're up 1, they're up 120.
- [115:39]
Cam Johnson
If I said they're up 120, I meant they're up 1. So what really hurt was fouling and Giannis making the dunk and potentially going down four in. The game's out of reach. And did Giannis miss the free throw and they got the offensive rebound.
- [115:55]
Zach Lowe
You're doing more of a deep dive than I did in preparation for this. I, like, blacked out when the lob got thrown. I couldn't believe it.
- [116:02]
Cam Johnson
It was gut wrenching, man. Just because, you know, and we had been closing games so well all year. And you get down to that moment, you have the ball in Chris's hands, you have the ball in Book's hands. We're at home, where we've been winning so much in the playoffs. We felt comfortable on the sideline. I felt comfortable over there. And so, like, just. And a lot of credit that goes to Milwaukee and how they were playing the gaps in the finals. If you really watch how they played the gaps in games three, four and five versus how they played it in games one and two, it just led to a lot more moments of hesitancy. And one of those moments was. Was where Drew was kind of able to sneak back into play, get that steal and create that fast break. And so that was just a gut wrenching play, man. I mean, you talk about being up 20 that game 22 after game 4, when we were up 9 in the fourth quarter of game 4, and then to go up 25 early in game 5 and Jrue Holiday go crazy and bring them back, and the game's tied all the way to the end. Like, gut wrenching moments, man, and obviously ones that I wish I could have back because you just get so close and then you realize how hard it is to get back year after year after year.
- [117:10]
Zach Lowe
I promise I'll end with a couple of fun questions, but it's. It's been three years now. It's been three years. Can we hear the real story of what happened in Game 7, 2022 against Dallas, when I blinked and the score was like 50 to 20 and Ayton was benched and everything was going completely haywire. Like, what actually happened? Did you feel going into the game like something bad is going to happen tonight?
- [117:36]
Cam Johnson
No, I didn't feel like something bad was going to happen, but I did not. It's not like I Felt the opposite. It's not like I felt like we're going to come in here and win handily. The one thing that was on our side for sure was the fact that we had dominated home court and whoever was home won the first six games and won handily. You know, our margin of victory is probably 15 plus at home, and theirs is probably 10, 15 plus at home. So you go back home, you figure, you know, we're back home. This is where we've been comfortable. We've been winning games here, but from the tip. But something was a little off and they took advantage of it. And we missed shots, they made shots, we played sloppy, they played clean. And so I remember at the end of the first quarter, it just felt like such a desperate feeling. And then the message at halftime was basically just like, hey man, whatever the result of this is, go out with your heads held high, compete for the next 24 minutes and let the result be the result. And we'll continue to move on and build from that point and, you know, attack it again next season. And it was such a disappointing way to end such a great season across the board for our team. And one of the most heartbreaking moments of it all was that was my last playoff game as a son, you know, and in that moment, it's my third year. We have a relatively young group outside of Chris. You're not thinking that the end is near. You're not thinking that I won't. You're not going to play another game, playoff game with this group. You're not thinking that, you know, 40 games later you'll be traded and, you know, and all those things. So all you're thinking is like, man, we gotta go through preseason training camp, 82 games and a series just to get back, to have an opportunity to win a round two, just to get back to two years ago to win a finals. And up until that point, I like to say this one, up until a point, our progression had been very linear. The bubble team was better than the prior team. The team that made the finals was a two seed, 51 and 21, whatever it was, made the finals but lost. We come back the next year, we up it, we are, whatever it was.
- [119:35]
Zach Lowe
66, 60 something wins.
- [119:37]
Cam Johnson
Yeah, yeah, 60. And we, you know, we almost felt like we could maybe chase 70, but we started to try to gear up for the playoffs, you know, that sort of thing. And we're a one seed and we win our first round. So up until that point, you know, we're, oh, every step we're better. Every step we're better. Every step we're better. That was the first time we really got punched in the face and, and didn't make it to kind of a better mark, which is going to happen. But like I said, man, you come back and things change and the league moves fast and you just got to move with it.
- [120:11]
Zach Lowe
You are famously an astronomy nerd. I read something where you had a telescope that was in your apartment in New York and had been in your apartment or your house and whatever in Phoenix. But all the light in New York from the buildings, from the lights and stuff, it disrupted your telescopic view of the universe. Is it with you in Denver and is the view better in Denver?
- [120:33]
Cam Johnson
I'm downtown in Denver, so it's not that much better. I know, and that's, that's frustrating in and of itself. But when I'm back home and I still live in Arizona in the off seasons, so when I'm back home, I have my telescope back there. And sometimes you don't even need the telescope. Just looking around and kind of just admiring. Admiring the beauty of creation is. Is sometimes enough.
- [120:56]
Zach Lowe
Cam Johnson's best outer space movie is what?
- [121:00]
Cam Johnson
Interstellar. Easy.
- [121:01]
Zach Lowe
Wow.
- [121:02]
Michael Pina
Easy.
- [121:03]
Zach Lowe
I got to rewatch Interstellar. I watched it. I watched it on a plane, which is not the way you want to watch that movie. And I was like, at some point, I just was like, I don't know what's happening anymore.
- [121:12]
Cam Johnson
Yeah, that's fair. No, it's an amazing movie. It's definitely the best movie along that, that line.
- [121:18]
Zach Lowe
All right, I go, I go, Aliens, Alien or Aliens. I almost view them as one movie. That's if you've seen those movies, though, because you're much younger than me. Have you seen, like the original Alien movies?
- [121:28]
Michael Pina
Yeah, of course.
- [121:28]
Cam Johnson
Of course. And they're freaky.
- [121:30]
Zach Lowe
Scared the crap out of me as a kid, which is. I like being scared. I like being scared in movies. You are from the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Moon Township.
- [121:40]
Cam Johnson
Moon Township. That's it.
- [121:41]
Zach Lowe
But you are a Bengals fan. How did this happen?
- [121:44]
Cam Johnson
All right, so my dad's from South Carolina, Myrtle beach area. Conway. He grew up a Cowboys fan, I guess, just because they were on tv. Although he didn't like the Cowboys at the time. When I was a child, he still didn't like the Steelers because of that, you know, long standing rivalry stuff. He went to Pitt to play basketball, stayed in Pittsburgh, but was never a Steelers fan. He liked Cordell Stewart, who was a quarterback. Around 2000, 2001, Cordell got traded, let go, whatever. They started Tommy Maddox. Afterwards, he didn't like Tommy Max at all. So he talked real bad about him. Up until that point, I was probably five years old. I was obviously a Steelers fan. I'm from Pittsburgh, my mom's from Pittsburgh. My whole, you know, that whole side of the family's from Pittsburgh. And if you're in Pittsburgh, man, you're a Steelers fan, period. So I went rogue. My dad and all my siblings did too. I have three brothers. Nobody's a Steelers fan. My dad just talked bad about him and, you know, you're impressionable. He had influence over our train of thought. And I became a fan free agent and I started watching around. Obviously I'm six, seven, I don't really know what's going on. But then something catches my eye. It's a team of black and orange jerseys. I'm like, oh, that's cool. They got tiger stripes on the sleeves. Seven year olds love that. And then they have one guy who's very outgoing and funny and a great player. In the back of his jersey says C. Dot Johnson. I'm like, ah, that's me. If I ever get to a professional league or play in the NFL or play in the NBA, my jersey will say C. Dot Johnson. So I was like, I asked my parents for that jersey for maybe a year or two, and I finally got one. And from that point, black or white? I got the black one. Then I got the orange one.
- [123:20]
Zach Lowe
Oh, nice.
- [123:21]
Cam Johnson
And from that point on, I was a diehard Bengals fan, for better and for worse. Missed two Super Bowls for the Steelers. You know, spurred fights and, and drama that I probably didn't need. And, you know, maybe my football fandom would have been a little bit cozier of experience had I stayed a Steelers fan. But, you know, once you're a fan of somebody, once you're a fan of a team, it don't go away.
- [123:46]
Zach Lowe
Well, as someone trying to brainwash my 10 year old daughter into being a Mets fan, like I am and was for most of my life, I'm glad to hear that parental authority and sway really works. My mom, by the way, grew up in a little town called Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, which is about 20 miles south of. Yeah, it's about 20 miles south of you. So we would go there two, three times a year. I hit the Bridgeville Chuck E. Cheese hard in the late 80s. Oh yeah.
- [124:09]
Cam Johnson
Oh yeah, That's a classic. See, that's the, that's the Chuck E. Cheese we went to as kids too.
- [124:13]
Zach Lowe
Same one.
- [124:13]
Cam Johnson
There's 79. No, it's not. I wouldn't even say it's 20 miles from where I am. It's probably more like 10 and it's all Highway 79.
- [124:21]
Zach Lowe
Yeah, my parents hated that. Chuck E. Cheese it. To a parent, it was just a hell of noise and robots.
- [124:27]
Cam Johnson
I think it's shut down now.
- [124:29]
Zach Lowe
I think it can't. Yeah, it can't exist. But no, I love Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is one of my all time favorite cities. One of the most underrated cities in America. I wish there was an NBA team there. All right, Cam Johnson, any parting thoughts on the Nuggets? We didn't talk too much Nuggets because it's early. It's early. But any parting thoughts on Nuggets on the podcast that everyone knows, the podcast. JJ built it up with Tommy and now you're taking the baton.
- [124:50]
Cam Johnson
I think there's a lot of potential. I think if I just look at myself and what I bring to the table, it hasn't been anywhere near my personal expectations, which happens in life sometimes. But looking forward to getting myself back to the type of. Just the type of play that I'd want to be at. And, you know, I think our team potential is just really high. And you got a guy like the Joker. The way Jamal's been playing this year has been nuts.
- [125:17]
Zach Lowe
Gotta be. You said it already, gotta be on the All Star team this year. This has gotta be the one.
- [125:21]
Cam Johnson
And it's only 20 some games in, but what he's put together is definitely, if there's an all star selection now, he'd definitely be on. But you can't ignore the way AG's been playing either. AG's been playing lights out until that hamstring injury. So when he gets back, which, you know he'll come back soon enough, just. I think we just have so many weapons across the board, starters and bench. And as we continue to clean things up and get better and better, I think our potential is high.
- [125:47]
Zach Lowe
I love it. Cam Johnson, Old man in the three is you, young man in the three is Tommy. It's all the same pod feed. It's always a great listen. And Tommy's bouncing around to different teams. You're going to tackle a lot of different topics. Congrats on the gig. Congrats on winding up at the Nuggets. Have fun. I will see. You know what? I'll see you. I will see you in Toronto. I'm there over the holidays. You guys are in Toronto. I'll say hello there.
- [126:08]
Cam Johnson
Thank you so much, man.
- [126:12]
Zach Lowe
All right. That's it for today's Zach Lowe Show. We'll be back later this week with another episode. As always, thank you to Mike, Billy and Jonathan on production. Thank you to Cam Johnson. Thank you to Michael Pina. Thank you to Nick Friedel. Thank you to you guys for listening to and or watching the Zach Lowe Show. Enjoy the hoops. We'll see you soon. Must be 21 or over in President select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 and over in President D.C. kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem call 1-800- gambler or visit rg-help.com, call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24. 7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY in New York. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online and more personal info in more places that could expose you more to identity theft. But LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, our US Based restoration specialists will fix it, guaranteed your money back. Don't face drained accounts, fraudulent loans or financial losses alone. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com podcast terms apply.