Coming up, a little game at NBA too soon. Plus, we're going to try to save million dollar picks. Next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network. I put up a new Rewatchables on Monday. We did The Oman, me and Chris Ryan. Chris Ryan and I also went on the prestige TV podcast this week. And we did a Hall of Fame episode. We covered the pilot of Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip, Aaron Sorkin's show about basically SNL, starring Matthew Perry. It's a really great Matthew Perry performance and really an awesome pilot. I was shocked by how good the pilot was. Show tailed off after that, but we had fun talking about it. You can check that out on the Prestige TV podcast feed. We have some shows coming up on that feed as well. Nathan Fielder has a new show we're going to be covering that and we're going to be covering The Crown. Bookmark, The Prestige TV podcast. Hey, how about this? We're going to be doing a live podcast in Las Vegas before the NBA in-season tournament semifinals. The semifinals are Thursday. Our live podcast is going to be Wednesday, December sixth at Jimmy Kimmel's Comedy Club.

The show starts at 8:00 Pacific, doors open at 7:00. We're going to have the real ones podcast, Raj and Logan with KOC. And then it's going to be me and Rosilloow and almost definitely a special guest. So tickets will go on sale on Friday at 10:00 AM Pacific Time. And if you want to grab your tickets, here's how easy it is. You can go to Jimmykimmelscomedy Club. Com. Once again, Jimmykimmelscomedy Club. Com. Jimmy Kimmel, heard he was a decent guy. Be interesting if he's there, maybe we'll run into him. Yeah, live show. We're going to do a bunch of fun stuff in Vegas for the in-season tournament. We're going to be talking about it in a second. We're going to play a little NBA too soon with Jay Kyle Man and Joe House and cover as many teams as we possibly can. And then our guy, Chris Vernon, from The Mismatch, he's going to tell us what the hell is going on with the OM5 Memphis grizzlies. And he's going to do million dollar picks with me because good Lord, I need the help. It's all next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're taking this Thursday afternoon.

It is before the Thursday Night game. So if anything happens in the Thursday Night games, don't blame us. J. Kyle Maynes is here. Joe House is here. He's showing his face after he guaranteed a Washington Wizards over in the big over under preview pod we did. House, you can back out now. We'll give you a Morgan right now.

Well, I had to come on today because I heard the podcast between you and the cousin, Sal, the Sunday Night Football podcast. I was taking strays left and right. Why am I taking strays from YouTube bumps who can't get an NFL pick straight? Now, the cousin is doing very well. But yeah, I got the whiz wrong. I'm here to own it. But why am I taking bullets on the football pod?

I was just lashing out. I was just bitter about how my NFL season is going. You're winning. You're wearing the square bets of the week. Jay Kyle, man.

Yes.

Before we're going to play a game on NBA too soon, but it might be a little negative some of the NBA too soons, what is the thing you are most excited about this season? The thing that has delighted you to no end. I just want to start a positive note before we start to get a little negative here.

I think we had one night. The easy thing to say is Wmby because it's just nonstop, cavalry of just funhouse. What the hell is going on? It's every night. I said the Leak Pass needs to install an update thing that just said Wmbie is in. And then I can click it and just be like, all right, here we go. Or we need, I was joking with somebody about if they wanted to miss, you want to miss the minutes of somebody you're not a fan of. Oh, I don't want to watch Dylan Brooks. Let me click off, that thing. I think we had one night, I forget what night it was. It was early on, but it was just like back to back to back to back to back, like great games. And I think you and I have talked about this before, but it's just off the charts talent in the League. Every team is interesting. There's something interesting for me to watch in every single game. It just feels like we are in a really, really accelerated period of talent in the League, which means we're ripe for expansion. That's the thing overall. It feels like the League just is in a great place.

Now, there's still a chasm between the guys you can build around and the championship level players. That's still there, the space at the top. But the talent man, it's just blown me away. I'm not trying to be Sunshine Pumper for the NBA here, but it really is true.

I'm with you, How's that? I was watching a Portland game last night, and all of a sudden, Shadin Sharp just starts going by everybody in Crunch Time. And I was thinking, we're probably in the best hands we've ever been with Crunchtime guys this year, even the bad teams like your beloved Wizards. You at least if the game's close, you have multiple guys you can go to who can at least create a shot. I was just thinking where we were in the mid-2000s, how grizzly some of those teams were. And now at least there's offense, there's unpredictability, there's heat check guys on every team. There's some real ass dudes offensively. But do you agree with Kyle about the depth?

Yeah, absolutely. And I really like his innovation with League Pass being able to customize little a la carte selection. I think that they need to create a Shaq and the fool channel and just put every Jordan pool minute on the Shaq and the fool, a dedicated channel, every night in audition. I seriously wonder what the Washington franchise told him when he arrived. Does he think that he is auditioning for an and-one mix tape? Because that's what it looks like when he's out on the basketball floor, fellas.

Well, I knew this wasn't going to start out well. He probably needs to be humbled a couple of times, right, Jordan Poole? He does seem like he walked into this like there's a new big three and it's just me attitude. All right, let's play NBA too soon.

We spent too much time- You had a caveat in there that was tough, though, Bill. You said if the game's closed, the Wizards even have options. That was tough. Yeah. Sorry, I'm not trying to pick on House Further here, but Denny of the High has just had his hands up more than Larry David on an episode. He's just been over there like, Okay, I'll disappear, I guess. Sorry, Bill.

Well, he at least seems to believe in the concept of defense. He can't really play defense, but he believes in the concept of it. But the thing that we're going to be looking for with Washington, they're always in it in terms of a cover because they're going to be double-digit underdogs in the vast majority of these games. The question is, is there a backdoor cover? They almost did it last night against the Hawks. They didn't quite pull it off.

Nba too soon. I'm going to throw some too soons at you, and we can all decide whether it's too soon or not. I'm going to start out with Guns Blazing. This one's hot. Fire's coming out of it. Is it too soon to say that Dametrade may have killed two contenders and created a monster third? Let's just start there. He doesn't go to Miami, they're one and four. He goes to Milwaukee, they can't guard anybody. And then it leads to a sequence of events where Drew Holiday goes to the Celtics and they're averaging 180 points a game. Cowman, too soon to worry about this trade from the Bucks Miami sides?

There are a lot of variables hanging in the air. As fun as it would be to just shovel dirt, as fun as it is to shovel dirt and jump to that conclusion. The big thing here is Midleton. Midleton is on a minutes restriction right now. If you watch them, I mean, they can't guard the ball at all. Bucks Twitter has been really fun to watch, not in the shot and from a way. But I mean, they're mad. A lot of their smartest fans are mad. I think, rightfully so, the things that we saw on the horizon, they sold their soul a little bit for A to Pleasianas. We can talk about the here in Griffin hiring here in a second. But B, the offense, the offensive side. The NBA is a plus, minus game. They were heavy on the minus. They were heavy on the half-court, stifle you, but they couldn't score. They get to the end of the year. They tried to solve that problem by switching out the coach. People complained about Boonholzer for years. I really thought that they should have hired nick Nurse because I thought why not do the Frank Abbey mail with the FBI thing and go get the guy who knows who's been terrorizing us?

Let's go get the guy who has the biggest, Yana's counter book in the world. Let's hire that guy. But I do to put some like, my break pump thing would be, Midleton is going to be huge for their offense to open up. You're going to be able to run more three-man options. He's their best and most qualified ball handler and creator and pull-up shooter. The question would be, is he going to get back to that spot? Is he going to get back to where he can do that? And that still doesn't solve their issue of guarding the ball, because if you compare them to the Celtics, there's a huge chasm between those two teams and pressuring the ball. So I would say they've been shocked. They're not electrocuted. They're not dead. So I'd say it's a little soon to say, but they still have some real, really big issues defensively to answer, in my opinion.

Yeah, I would go ascending order house things that I've noticed. I watched three of the Bucks games. The Middleton thing is the smallest problem because it's probably fixable as he gets back in the shape. On the other hand, he is older. His body has been beaten up. He hasn't really been the same on both ends in two years. And he's a slower wing, which this leads to the second higher thing is that Griffin is put in this defense where guys are scrambling around. And to me, this is a team that's going to, I think by March, probably playing a lot of zone to try to hide some stuff. Right now, they're aggressively trying to... In Toronto last night, I watched that whole game. That game was embarrassing. Toronto had wide open threes, and they didn't make a lot of them. They actually could have scored 20 more points. They did. I think they got to like 1.30. They were giving up layups, transition stuff. And Milwaukee just seemed slow to me, which leads me to the first thing, which is, House, I don't know with the guys that they have, we flagged this before the season, the wings.

You just removed Dame and you just give me all the other guards and forwards on that team that's not Ianes. And it's just a below average crew. Even if Midleton comes back and he's 100 % healthy, he's the only above average guy in that entire thing other than Daim. Daim, we knew about the defense forever, right? Now we're really seeing it. And this team went from the Drew Holiday, one of the best plug and play guys in the League, as Doc said, plus just that was the one thing. Their defense was pretty good unless it was Jimmy Butler or leaving his body. And now I don't see the defense at all. And I don't know what the middle ground is going to be for them, but I actually think it's pretty alarming. And I would be alarmed if I was a Bucks fan. How are we going to get stops? The playoffs are about stops. Do you see them getting stops in May and in June?

Well, who knows? This is precisely at the guts of the challenge for the Bucks. They needed to, after that first round exit against Miami, show up this season and show out. They needed to demonstrate to themselves, to their fans, to the league that that was an aberration. Instead, we have an absolute work in progress. Adrian Griffin seems to have installed a defense that would have made perfect sense with Drew Holiday on the team, except Drew Holiday is not on the team anymore. The Chris Middleton piece, when has Chris Middleton not been on minutes restriction? When was the last time Chris Middleton was not on a minutes restriction? I think your point about the zone defense, you said March, dude, it's November. They need to do something quick. Now, they're middle of the road by offensive rating. They're 29th in the league by defensive rating. That's not feasible. That's not tenable with a guy that's a defensive player of the year candidate in Iana. I think it really boils down to, from my humble perspective as an outsider with nothing invested, I think this Adrian Griffin thing is a real challenge. And him scaring off Stots, Stots picking up his ball going home, that's a concern right.

There, man. Yes. So you got a first year coach who's trying to solve all this. You have a team that has completely changed his identity. I was flagging this all summer and heading into the season. And then it's like, you're a hater. You're just mad the Celtics didn't get them. I'm like, I've watched Dane play defense the last few years. He's not a good defensive player. And just in general, you looked at the collection of guys they had. And I just, as we talked at the top, the League is so deep. Night after night, you're going against Trayong and Dejante Murray. Then you're going against Anthony Edwards. Then you're going against Tyrese Maxi. It never ends. And if you can't guard the perimeter, I don't care how good Giannis is. So Kyle, part of me is thinking if I had to do the running diary prediction of what each month of Bucks Headlines is going to look like if this goes badly. Right now, we're in the zone of, Oh, man, just so much new. Damn, got to figure out his team. Give this some time. And then if it's starting not to look better, then it goes into, This has been a little tougher than we thought.

It's been a lot for Adrian Griffin to put in his new system. There'll be some new system talk, but no shots fired at Adrian Griffin yet. But then if we get to mid-December Christmas range and it's still not better and they still look as slow and disjointed as they have this first week or so, then it starts to be like, maybe they missed Coach Butt more than we thought. And then after that, it becomes trade deadline is coming up. What is this team missing? Now we have the whole trade deadline dialog. And I just think there's going to be a lot of dialog about the Bucks because there's going to be nights when Daim can hide it like he did in opening night where he just scored a bunch of points at the end of the game and they won. But fundamentally, defensively, they give up a ton of points night after night after night. The defensive rating after five games, to me, is not totally an accident because it backs up the eye test of how slow they look. They look slow. The team with the Honest should not look slow. So that's what I see.

So you still don't think it's an overreact or you think it's too early to overreact?

I'm with you that I'll fast forward and be like, my mind is already jumping to the trade deadline. I was joking with you a couple of weeks ago about, I've been on the trade machine a lot trying to get them another guy to guard the ball. They have to address that. Because if you remember the earlier, I'm just working from that just we know that they're going to have to do that. You remember in the offseason when people were just looking at this on paper, they were just like, Oh, transition. I just heard people over and over again. Oh, they're going to be killed. Can you imagine in transition? Well, the key to transition is that unless you have a team like a Kings team that can just get it out even after I made basket and beat you down the floor, this team ain't that. Like you said, they're old. They are going to be a half-court execution team. But for them to be more than that to capitalize on Giannis and the spacing, you got to be able to turn people over and get stops. So by them buying into the offensive thing, they plugged one big hole in the ship and another one started gushing in that they're going to have to figure out how to...

He's going to have to figure out how to balance those two things because transition has to be triggered by defense. I'm so.

Glad you brought up the transition piece because you're either getting off turnovers or you're just running like the Celtics. And I don't know if this is going to last. It's definitely an early-season thing and something they've worked on. But they're just taking off all the time. They want to play with real pace. They're trying to do it. This is what Sacramento does. This is when Golden State is going well, they have a nice mixture of this. There's teams that do it. Then there's other teams like the Lakers that don't want to play at pace like that because they have LeBron and AD and they pick their spots when they run. For Miami, who's running on this team other than Yanes? Dames is not really a fly up and down the court guy. He's a pretty methodical player, so is Middleton. None of their wings are really that athletic. So to me, I don't see the identity. It's like with Philly, where they have this maxi team, where maxi flies and they have a bunch of young wings down. There's this fun team to watch. But if Embiid is not going to run, you're not a transition team.

I don't know, it seems like I'm going to say work in progress house. I feel like we didn't make fun of the Bucks thing enough that this actually might go wrong, I think is in play now. And I don't think people felt that way two weeks ago.

Yeah, I think it was fine to be patient and wait and see. We didn't know what Adrian Griffin had up his sleeve. And we didn't know... There was too many unknowns. We don't know-.

Does he have sleeves? We don't know if he has sleeves. He might not have any sleeves.

We've seen a lot of bad first year coaches over the last few years. It's not a Slam dunk like, Oh, they have a new coach. The NBA is a really hard league to coach. House, you've had some iffy coaches over the last few years of Washington. They're hard to find.

We got one right now. Right. We have multiple right now, actually, across teams.

Yeah. But then the Miami side of this, so they don't get named. They start out one and four, and they barely won the one game. I'm not pouring dirt on them. I'm not even going to wonder. But I do think if there's a do-over to be had with with all of this. And we're just like, what's the most fun bet for the Eastern Conference for competitive standpoint? It probably would have been Miami going to Miami getting Daim, Milwaukee keeping Drew holiday, and then the Celtic not getting Drew holiday. And it feels like these teams would be a lot closer. What Drew is already what you can see with him and White together, those guys are ridiculous. And I don't even think I fully realized how good it would look right away. That's why it's so hard with Milwaukee to be like, oh, you got to give them time. Boston has two new guys out of their top five. Boston lost four of their top seven, right? And they've been able to get it going right away. So I don't know. Are you worried about Miami at House too soon?

Well, they are 24th by offensive rating, 17th by defensive rating, 23rd by net rating. And so you would expect their defense to be a little bit better. Their losses, they played two playoff teams in the Nets, I guess, are going to try and contend. Losing to the Celtics and losing to the T-Wolves at this tough stage.

And no, Caleb Martin for the Celtic game.

Right.

And that was a good game. I'm not worried about them. I did feel like they missed Max Truess, who used to just particularly kill the Celtics, but in general, just wasn't scared and was a wing with size. And then you take Caleb Bart now and all of a sudden, your wings with size are not sizable. I also think there's a wrinkle. And I don't think it's too soon to talk about this. Tatum is bigger and he's punishing smaller guys. And it's a subplot for this season. I think, especially as we get into the bigger games of the season or the playoff games in the playoff series, you're not going to be able to guard him with smaller guys with the weight he put on. And he's really worked on drop step stuff, putting his shoulder down into people. Have you noticed this, Kyle?

Oh, yeah. Are we talking Celtics now?

I'm just talking Tato.

J. K. M, you knew the over, under on how long it.

Was going to take. We're talking Miami.

We're talking to Celtics.

I'm talking bigger Jason Tato, against Miami, a team that seems smaller.

Come on. No, I'm ready. I asked that because I'm ready because I have noticed that. I'm glad that you said that because I do think that the Celtics in the way Drew helped them do that. I think in bringing in Drew, it just tilted their touches and redistributed them a little bit. Jaylen's actually, his touches are down, interestingly enough. But what I have noticed is that yet, and you and I, I think I've talked about this on different shows about different players, that you evolved to that point where you start going back to the bass. I love that quote where Doc said that he said to Tibbs early in the game when LeBron went back to the bass, he was like, Oh-oh. I love that because- Right. What's this? Yeah, that was great. Because I think everybody was thinking that. But I think a big thing for Tatum is he's doing that. They're all cumulatively getting off the ball faster. Their ISO possessions actually are down for the Celtics. But Tatum is able to do this just because they have one through five space. And a sneaky thing about this lineup is that they all can punish mismatches.

And they're like the opening minutes of that Pacers game. They just took turns. If you have a skinny team that likes to run and shoot the ball, a lot of times those guys are skinny and this seems older. So it was just like, Derrick White took his turn, Drew Hall they took his turn. But I think he just in general, this is a problem Katie had in OKC, and you've heard him say it was just like he was always playing against 1.5 defenders. And I'm not going to say that that's something Tatum can just exclusively blame trouble on, but it definitely helps him that they have just insane space whenever they're trying to run their stuff. And you just go across the league, the best teams have that. And the Celtics really, I think, have found something here for him that's going to help him just evolve, honestly, more runway.

What was notable against Miami, and that was where no Caleb Barton, I want to see a game where they have him back. Miami just seems small in that game, especially with Porezingus who got into foul trouble, but he's just gigantic. House was telling us in the offseason like, Poretingus, he's huge. He could shoot. And you can't put a small guy on him because he'll punish a small guy. And they're already experimenting with this. Wait a second. You're going to guard so and so with that guy? Miami had Lowry and Hero out there at the same time and with a smaller wing guy. And then it's like, All right, this is pick your poison. House, you called... You made some soft jokes about Tatum, let's be honest, during the playoff last year. You called them soft a couple of times. It's something that happened.

Well, he deserved it. And he, as the leader of a team that went on this disappearing act, inexplicably, a number of times, basically from the All-Star break through the playoffs. And there was like, if you're going to be the leader of the team, then you got to take the responsibility for the character of the team. Now, Horford's too old to instill his tough guy, quiet persona. But look, man, I was all over Tatum as potential MVP at the beginning of last year. I sang his praises coming off of that final series against Golden State and how he showed up stronger. He caught himself a couple of times. Well, he did know what in the.

Latter half of the year. Maybe you're the reason he put on 12 pounds. We don't know. He put on 12 pounds of muscle.

The combination of KrishNops and Drew Holiday is an absolute force multiplier. You can't measure. There's not a direct link where you say, Oh, it's not one plus one equals two. It's one times 15 equals 30. I can't do math, but you understand what I'm trying to say here.

That leads me to our next two soon, but we're going to take a break. Score early this NFL season with fan to America's number one sportsbook. Right now, new customers get $150 of bonus bets when your five-dollar money bet wins. We're going to be covering on Million dollar picks at the end of this podcast. My favorite bets for the NFL for week nine. I'm also trying to convince them to do something with the in-season tournament where we can make a big future bet. So I'll keep you posted on that as we go. Check out my Twitter feed on Friday. We're going to do some NBA same-game parlay as well. Fandual, great app, so many ways to bet live, same-game parlay, find bets in the new Explore tab, parlay hub, got everything. Go to fandual. Com/bs, kick off the NFL season. In the NBA season, Fandual, official partner of the NFL, you must be 21-plus in President Select States, $5 pre-game money and wage are required. First online, real money wage or only $10 first deposit is required, bonus issue is not a draw, but bonus benefits that expire seven days after receipt. Seed terms at sportsbook.

Fando. Com. All right, coming back after we spent seven minutes talking about myat me, but really talk about the Celtics. Let's actually just talk about the Celtics. Bryan Barrett asked me this, and I don't know if it's too soon to ask this question, and I'm probably going to get hit by a lightning ball and probably get sworn out by some Celtics fans. I'm not talking about the quality, the ceiling of a starting five. I'm just talking about five guys, the quality of each of them, and then the quality of the starting five. So the combo of all five guys having to be at a certain level, but then the starting five itself. If Kp can stay healthy for this whole year, is this one of the best starting fives of this century? Because Barrett asked me that, and I'm like, Wow, that's aggressive. And then I started looking it up and you go through it. The best starting five of the century is Kd and Curry and Iguodal and Jaymond and Clay. That's the gold standard. You have to beat that. Those guys won multiple titles. They didn't all start together in the 17th year, but they did in 18th.

And for the most part, that was their lineup of death. Then it gets dicey right away after that. You talk about some of the great lineups like the Miami lineups. Mario Chalmers was out there in Crunchtime. We Udonis Hazel was out there in Crunchtime, like nice players, but not like guys who could make an All-Star team. The Detroit teams had Billups and Rasheed and Wallace and Rip, Hamilton and Prince, and were famous for those starting fives. But there's nobody in that starting five on the level of Tatum, I don't think. The 2008 to 10 Celtics, pierce, KD, Rondo, Allen, Perkins. Perkins would be the weak link in that starting lineup. You go back even to 1983 when you had that great Sixers team with Andrew Tony and Julius and Moses Malone and Moe Cheaks, and then was Marco Ravaroni was the fifth guy. There's always like a weak link in the lineup. That '08 to 2010 Celtics lineup was plus 13.3, Kyle Man, when they played together. But then you go '01, which I think was probably the second best team of this century, the Lakers in '01. Shaq, Kobe, Horry, Rick Fox, Derek Fisher, tails off a little.

The 2016 Cavs, LeBron, Kyrie, Kevin Love, Tristan Thompson, J. R. Smith. Those last two guys aren't ever making an All-Star team. 14 Spire's, Duncan, Parker, Kauai, Danny Green, Splitter started, but Manu finished. From a one through five standpoint, Kyle, the Celtic team is a little more unique than I think I realized watched then the eye test is like, Holy shit. They have so many options. I just haven't seen a lot of this. Where do you stand?

I can't quite get there with putting that line up ahead of either of those Warriors teams. I think those are the best.

No, I'm not either. Believe me, I'm not. No, the Warriors team, they're the gold standard. Sure. I'm just saying, are we ready to even have the conversation yet? Is it too soon? How is the shaking of his head?

I can't get there. Yeah, because it's just like, anytime you have two MVPs in one lineup, you mentioned the Shaq, Kobe Lakers, and we're talking prime players who are prime candidates for MVPs. I just think that's just the top level.

Well, and then also won titles, right? So that's the other way you do the rankings. It's like you'd have that Warriors team won. The 0.08 Celtics would be in the top five, the 0.04 Pistons, the 0.01 Lakers, the 16 Cavs, 14 Spurs. Those teams all won titles.

And then it becomes the conversation shifts from, can this team pull it off? To we got to stop them. And both those Warriors, like all those Warriors, dominant teams, and those Lakers teams had that like, well, the Lakers had their issues as we went on. But yeah, this team is interesting. You were shaking your head like you had something. Did you have something you wanted to say for us?

I mean, just settle the F down. Come on, we're four games into the goddamn season.

Listen, it's Brian Barrett. He asked me. He asked me to look it up and figure it out.

I like Brian Barrett. Pachimony, Christmas. Keep it in your pants, son. What are we talking about here? This lineup is not even spelling the jock of some of those Miami title contending, title winning teams. It's fine. I like it. I think it's going to be fun to watch. But four games in, congratulations. They scored 155 points against the Pacers. That's the accolade right now.

With that Halibat, too.

Yeah, pat on the back, boys.

Who do you have as their fifth worst starter, Pauwes? Who's the bottom if we're ranking the starters? Who's five for you? Because I actually think for me, it might be Poizingas.

You beat me to it. It's Poizingas.

So Poizingas's average 23 a game last year. This is the point.

Yeah, for the Wizards. Come on. I know, but this is.

The point. When these other great starting fives, they all had like, well, there's Kendrick Perkins or there's Mario Chalmers. There was always somebody who's like, oh, this guy is lucky to be here.

Let him play 50 games before we start covering his ass in glory.

Fifty? How about 25?

Well, just get him to the playoffs, honestly. You could take off the next two months. Just get him to the playoffs.

That that Warriors thing, I had forgotten. Kyle, how does plus 17.7 for three straight years sound as a five man lineup? Per 100. Is that solid? Is that where we're looking for? From the lineup? That's pretty good.

Yeah, I think that'll do PIG. I think it would be the quote there. Yeah. They had an inevitability about them. We'll see. If Tatum can get to the MVP level, you'd add these two just huge sets of problems to solve. I don't know that they're quite there. This team, in terms of how they're put together, I was saying about they're the inverse of the problem that the Bucks have. I was watching the shot clock. That's something that I like to watch with defensive teams that are really solid. If you watched something with the Pacers in that game the other night, Halbert would have helped. But I was watching them routinely. The Pacers would get into their offense at around the 16 or 15-second mark. Then you start to think, Okay, well, really good defensive teams can guard the first action pretty well and talk. Then you get into a situation where that takes about six or seven seconds, and then you have a couple of seconds to have some guy make a decision and pull something out of his ass. If you have a team with some creators, those are the best teams that can do that.

My point is they are going to routinely stress teams to that point. And then it becomes a conversation of like, Okay, over a hundred possessions, how many good decisions are you going to be able to make when the clock is bearing down on you and you're sweating to make a good... That's where they're going to wear people out. And to flip it towards the pessimism that House is talking about, they themselves are going to be stressed a little bit more by the schedule. I do want to see some more of their contests against some of the better teams in the League before we circle back and just dial in what our expectations are. But yeah, they're going to wear people out defensively.

How else? I wanted to enjoy this moment right now because, as you know, Poizingas might not make it to December. So right now, this theoretical, on paper, Celtic starting five, the thing that has been really interesting, and it was what I was hoping was going to happen, but you can really see it, is White and Holiday together, how great it is. Like Doc was saying, and I forgot to follow up with him. He was saying how Drew is one of the five best plug and play guys in the League. And then he said, Derek White was too. And you can really feel like they don't really need any touches. But if you give them, if they have to do something, they can absolutely do it. They can guard anybody. You can see it on the looks of the guards of the other teams where they're just like, Fuck. I got this guy and there's this guy over here. And for Porezingus, it's perfect because he gets to do a lot more rim protection and stuff than having to be stuck on somebody 30-fifth in the basket. I think as the season goes along, teams are going to be trying to really try to go at him, try to figure out how to get him in a switch and stuff that, I mean, I was watched last year on The Wizards.

Good luck, though. I mean, this is the thing. Those two guys are excellent decision makers. It takes so much pressure off of everybody else in terms of what's the right play here? What's the right action here? Where am I going? And Pourzingus got switched into an uncomfortable position quite a bit with Washington because there's no such thing as a good decision-maker with that team last year or with this team this year. But those guys, they cover up so much because of their instinct. The basketball IQ part of it just fills so many holes. It's formidable. I'm willing to concede that.

It's been an absolute delight. And again, this might be the highlight of the season in these first two weeks, but it reminded me of Lombardi was saying on my podcast the other day about he loves when teams double down on their strength. And the Celtics double down on this Derrick White strength they had with Drew, who's in a lot of ways almost like a better Derrick White. And the two of them together, it's just being unleashed. It's really fun. All right, let's do a goofy too soon. Is it too soon to say that Darryl Moray's commission, James Harden portrait, is the worst purchase of the last five years? Did you read that article? The Ramona Shellburn article? He commissioned an artist to make this really- So all that's fine.

Why is it in his living room? They made a point of saying it's in his living room. Why? Put that thing somewhere. It has to be the attic.

That's going right in the attic.

There's a lot of rooms it could go in other than the living room. That's all I'll say.

What did you think, Kyle? Did that go in the attic or the basement?

I was thinking it was a mural. I missed the part that it was hanging a reading comprehension there. Iyeah, I don't know where you would put that one. I don't think my wife would let me hang that to begin with. I was laughing that I don't have any say in what gets hung in our house to begin with, but I trust her judgment to clarify. But I was laughing at like, he repeatedly has just committed. That's Darryl's way of appreciating or just expressing. He had a play. He produced a play that was about the small ball, the micro ball rockets. I thought that the second portrait of I thought I could do it alone was just as strange. The one painting I thought was funny. Just Darryl repeatedly commissioning art was cracking me up during that piece. I'm curious what the next one's going to be. I don't know. Is he going to... Is there going to be an art installation?

I love how weird Darryl is. I support it fully. I don't know if I would have told Ramona about my two portraits. I might have kept that one under my hat.

He put them on Instagram.

He IG-ed themselves. I guess he did. Yeah, I don't know if.

I would have that either. Which is fine. I understand the psychology of my professional career has built off of this. I want to commemorate this. At some point in this attic, I'll get up some posters of all the podcasts in the Rigger Podcast Network and Grantland that I've invited myself onto all of these years. I'll cover all these walls with it because it is a point of pride for sure. But the idea that it needs to be featured in a prominent place in the home, that it's the thing that people walk into when you're hosting, when you have other guests and stuff, that feels a little out of order with me. Now, I do understand the musical because Darryl is nothing, if not an appreciator- He loves the arts. -of the Broadway. Yes, exactly right. A known appreciator of the Broadway. Good autumn with that piece. But you can't have... Why would somebody want to come in your house to see James Harden?

Hey, Howce, you should commission a portrait of Rahim Palmer to commemorate the successful season of the Wise Guys. Tecto, Color, Rahim Palmer. Just put him right in the living room. I love it. I support weird GMs. I love how weird Sam Presty is. He just has to get out in every trade and say, Wait, you're trading James Harden? Can I get a PIC swap out of this instead of my mediocre first round PIC? All right, next too soon. Is it too soon to say the Knicks absolutely one hundred % have to trade Julius Randall? This is an emergency code red. We have to get rid of this guy. I don't know if you followed not only the game last night and his performance in that, but the Knicks fans now have moved into a whole other level of being anti-Judias. The playoffs really got going last year. Then it turned out he was hurt. But now he's back. He looks miserable again.

House- I'm going to let Kyle answer this. The answer is it's too late. It ain't too soon. It's too late. Did you watch what happened last year? The Knicks fans were ready to run Julius Randall out of town in March of last year before the playoffs got going. The playoffs did not help his case any. They for sure, every Knicks fan that I know was trying to come up with a way to get Julius Randall off this team in the off-season, not running out the ball and letting this Knicks team get out here, Villanova North that they got going there. It's a successful bit of chemistry, except for they got this one oddball potion that's dragging the whole thing down, Kyle. I don't know. What are they going to do? They got to get rid of them in some form or fashion.

This has been the thing with him since he was here, since he played for the Kentucky team that sucked the whole year. Then just all of a sudden, they got it together and made a run of the title game. We were frustrated with him. It's just been this like, Mercurial up and down thing. A good microcosm of this is last year we did the top 100. I was the last person to... I missed the email where we went through and picked who we were going to write the blurbs about. Thanks a lot. I just want to say retroactively to my fellow Ringer Writers who left me with Kyl Kuzma and Julius Randol, and I appreciate that. Anyway, I went back- Kuzma is good. I will say, though, it was an incredible writing exercise. It challenged me. But anyway, I know Randol's game. I've watched him a lot. I think the big... What... One of the things was, though, over the course of the year, this is just him in a nutshell. I wrote an initial blurb that was pretty scathing. I was pretty critical of him. I wrote this thing about like, This guy has all these tools, but he is at war with himself and how there's a little Russ energy where it's like he insists on playing this one way, but then you'll see him be like, Oh, he's a good.

He's quick and face-ups. He's a decent screener. He's actually not a bad passing when he's interested in it. But then he gets in these modes where he's obsessed with being a heavy usage guy who steps into tough shots, doesn't always attack the basket, plays to his weaknesses. Then he'll play good for a little bit. I messaged Justin and I was like, Hey, should I rewrite this? And then he was like, Yeah, just wait and see. And sure enough, he regressed. I just think he's at an inflection point where it's a very rusty type thing where he has things to offer. I don't know if anyone is going to convince him to change. I do think that it probably is going to help New York really hot take there. He shoot 25 % from three, 13.2 points per game in 34 minutes. They're going to have to make a change. It's rough. And we saw this coming, unfortunately.

Twenty-eight million this year, 30.3 next year, 32.4 player option million the following year. So he was a trade value guy for me that I ended up putting on because as I was figuring out the list, he was playing well and the Nicks fans are like, Randall is playing well and he's durable. There's good things about him, too. He's been a 24 and 10 guy a couple of years in a row. By the way, I'm now the Nicks GM trying to sell another GM on Randall. Twenty-four and 10 guy, a couple of years in a row.

I was like, What the hell is going on?

He's made an NBA team twice in the last three years. That's not nothing. He's been the best guy or the second best guy and a couple of playoff teams. So I don't know if this is some of our terrible... When we did our worst contracts draft last year, How's this isn't like trying to get rid of Ben Simmons.

He's.

Clearly somebody who might need to change his scenery. I think the problem for them is I thought Towns was going to be the natural place for him. And towns and Go Bear wasn't going to go well. And Minnesota is going to be like, Fuck, we got to get out of this deal. We got four years left. The last year of it ends with a six, 61 million. Let's get out now. But then you watch Minnesota and it's like, I actually wouldn't do anything if I was in Minnesota. They beat up on Denver. They're the only team in the League that's not afraid of Denver. And in general, they're a weird team that I'm not sure it makes sense, but I also would not even consider doing anything yet if I were them. I don't really know what other routes they have. And the league is deep. Who's sitting around going, Oh, man, can't wait to add three years to Julius Randall. They might be stuck with him unless there's some other unhappy guy that becomes available. Like if the Bulls, that thing goes south in one of those guys. But I actually think they're stuck with him, Kyle.

I don't think there's any outs. So they just better hope he plays better. If anything, they should come out and say, You know what? Julius is taking some shit. He's our guy. Fuck off. We're not trading him. We believe in Julius. But it's tough when he's not even running hard and not boxing out and doing some of the stuff he's been doing.

Yeah, he does seem to let one side of the ball affect the other side of the ball. I just really think with some of these guys that have a hard time buying in and just changing their game, they need to go into one of those extreme accountability situations. I always think of DeMarcus Cousins as a guy that repeatedly had problems throughout his career. Then he gets with the Warriors who have a strong structure and strong accountability, and he behaves, basically. He basically played ball with them. I think he's more talented than Randaleen when he was hurt. But I just think, I don't know, I was thinking about the Hornets are a weird team that I could see that maybe don't totally know where they're going. They're a team that could use a big with some connective ball skills. I know they have some problems with some of their players right now. That could be an opportunity for them to go. I was just thinking randomly about the Hornets the other day, but he's going to have to get in a situation like that that's going to influence him to play differently, honestly, because I think he's hurting himself with his insistence on playing the way he plays.

I don't want to step on the grizzlies segment. I'm going to do a little bit later with Chris Vernon before we do million dollar picks. Are the grizzlies a bad idea for Julius Randall? As we're typing this, the grizzlies are on five. Put him next to Jaron Jackson. They're last in offense right now. They still have 20 more games to go with Jah. Could they just steal them for not that much? That was the only team. By the way, I don't even think they should. But that was the only team I was thinking could maybe talk themselves into him and the contract is like, What the fuck? And then hope Memphis gets him going.

Yeah, I was looking out west for sure because I honestly think he would be incredible in Miami, except for the Knicks are not going to trade him to Miami to let him come kick them in the ass. But I think that would be a situation where he could really flourish. But I don't think the grizzlies is a terrible idea because I went to the Wizards' home opener. The one thing, watching the Wizards and the grizzlies go up against each other, I didn't fear one guy on the grizzlies as a potential scoreer. I mean, Desmond Bane is nice and he did indeed get hot and the Wizards gave him every open three look they could imagine. The grizzlies did battle all the back and get it inside of 10 points in the last minute and a half, but I feared no one in terms of an offensive presence. I think his combo ability, the biggest pressure there would be, can Taylor Jenkins reign him in? Can they come up with a lineup that makes the most sense for him? I don't think Julius Randall to the grizzlies is crazy talk, though.

Here's what Verner is going to say when I ask him about it when he comes on. Fuck, though. We are training for Julius Randall. What hell, Simmons?

He is going to say that. You're absolutely right.

Let's take one more break and then a couple more for you. All right, NBA too soon continues with a question that hurts my soul, but I'm going to ask it to Kyle, man, anyway. Is it too soon to say definitively that Scott Henderson will not win R rookie of the Year?

We're off to a tough start. I was doing some research here. I was just trying to go back and compare. I think he's two for 21 from three to start the year. I was comparing top 10 picks since 2015 because it's not fair. Whenever you compare players, it's not totally fair, especially to compare point guards before that just because the League changed so much after that. I went back and I was just looking at the guys, their starts, basically their first four games since I knew we were going to be talking about Scoot. And he's a pretty glaring outlier in terms of volume of threes in their first five games. Yeah, he's shooting, let's see, nine % from three. Yeah, nine point five. And the only guy that really even comes close, let's see, Jamal Murray actually had a bad start. I guess the question you're going to have to start asking yourself is he's not doing the things that he did in the G League. A lot of his offense was really heavily around the elbows. He really loved to get into the mid-range. And if you look at his shot chart, he's not shoot from there at all.

He shot a decent percentage. And I don't even mean shooting the pull-up jumpers. I mean, he's not even shooting floaters.

I haven't seen the downhill stuff at all. We're seeing it more from Shane and Sharp. I'm a little alarmed. But on the other hand, he's a rookie, and this is how rookies should probably look when they come into the league. I think the other problem is that Malcolm Brogdon comes in and he's a really competent point guard to won sixth man of the year. So Scoot comes out who's just been handed the car keys, barely knows what he's doing. And then Brogdon comes in and actually knows how to drive the car. So I don't think that's helping. And it's a weird team that got thrown together. I'm not panicking. It sounds like you're 10 % more panicky than me about this.

The things I was worried about are rearing their head. I worried about him being a half-port chess player in the early goings. I thought the best situation for him would be to be moving on and offball a lot, which is what he's doing. I just think he needs to shift from aggressively hunting his three the way that he is because he wasn't a great dribble pullup shooter from three in the G League. I think he only shot like 30 %, but he did shoot almost 43 % from three on catch and shoot threes with the G League. We have a sample of him against good defense shooting the ball. I just think he needs to do what you were saying. I think his game needs to ripple out from getting in the paint, getting off the ball. You're not Jamal Murray. Play to your strengths. You're a great athlete. I still think he needs to improve his left hand and his defense is atrocious. It is bad.

Yeah, I actually thought that was going to be better. Well, listen, Kyle, it sounds like I'll be purchasing your scoot, Henderson, stock right after the podcast.

No, you won't.

I'll buy more. No, I'm going to buy it. I'm stepping in. I'm going to talk to your broker. How? Am I buying your scoot, Henderson, stock or are you keeping it?

Oh, no, I'm keeping it. Already it's sunk cost all over my gambling tickets that I invested in over the summer with scoot, Henderson, for R rookie of the Year. Here's the thing, and Kyle nailed it, he needs to reorient himself. The fewest number of minutes he's played thus far is 25 minutes. He's played four games. He's got 36 minutes, 25 minutes, 27 minutes, 34 minutes. Across all of that time, as a new player in the NBA, he's taken five total free throws. That's not enough. You're not a three-point shooter. You didn't arrive in this league to be a three-point shooter. I want Coach Chaunce to channel some of his inner point guard coaching and say, Let's just reset. Let's reorient your arrival here. Do the thing that's easy. Do the thing that you have a natural advantage, and that is get to the hole and absorb some physical contact and get to the free throw line. Make the easy baskets. Don't try and make the hard baskets. You're a nine % shooter from the hard baskets. Go to the free throw line and try and get a couple of those easy ones. I hope that's what we see in this upcoming chapter.

All right, so I'm going to put my call to houses broker on hold, but maybe check in in a couple of days. I'm not worried about scoot yet, but I agree with you guys. This is a stylistic thing. Somebody just got to tell them, Go to the basket, scoot. You're ridiculous downhill. Nobody's going to be able to stay in front of you. Just go to the basket. You're not pulling up like you're not trying to get embedded Twitter videos of all your game winners from 25 feet. Go to the fucking hoop. I'm not worried about you yet, scoot. Is it too soon? Oh, House, I can't wait for you on this one. Is it too soon to say that Anthony Davis is definitely going to break down? Here are the numbers. He's played 210 minutes in five games. He leads the NBA 40.2 minutes a game through five games. He has played over 2,000 minutes once since 2017. In 2020, he played 2,131 regular-season minutes, 769, and playoff minutes, missed games since 2019, 28, 10, 36, 42, 26, house. They threw a lot of stuff in Anthony Davis' car, and they even put some suitcases on the top and they have them driving cross country.

I don't know if it's a good idea. I don't know if the engine is going to make it. What are your thoughts?

Well, here's the thing. The conundrum for the Lakers is they entered this season and said, By golly, we are not going to do what we did last year, which is stumble out of the gate and have to play Ketch-Op through two-thirds of the season and then put ourselves in this position at the All-Star break, where if we don't ride Anthony Davis from the All-Star break up to the playoff moment, we ain't going to make the playoffs. They appear determined to avoid repeating that fate. Yet, unfortunately for them, that means that both LeBron James, who's been absolutely incredible in his 21st season, and Anthony Davis, must carry the load because the supporting cast is just a supporting cast. We're trying to speak into existence some of these guys stepping up and playing a more.

Formal role. Yeah, but they realized something in that Clipper game, though.

Well, it does seem like it, right?

In the end of the fourth quarter in OT, they started running more stuff through Reaves. And I thought things unlock for him and for them. I watched a lot of Lakers this year already. I just could not believe how involved that D'Angelo Russell was and everything. It was like they made this concerted effort to... I don't know whether they're trying to boost the asset or he's playing with something to prove. And Reeves just didn't have the ball enough. And then he missed a couple of shots. The Laker fans got pissed. By the way, I'm buying all the Reeves stock. Please put it on the stock site because I'll buy it. I like when they run stuff through him and they give LeBron little breaks. And then it's not just like throw the ball in the Davis or D'Angelo Russell, whatever. So maybe they'll unlock like that. But Kyle, do you see Anthony Davis playing 3,200 minutes this year? Because I don't.

It's hard to see it. The idea was that he was going to be taking some of the load away from him, some of the load away from LeBron. That was the entire idea. It's like, Hey, man, you're younger. You're moving into the prime of your career. You have these ways that you can grow. And they've talked repeatedly about he's going to take six threes per game. Right now, I think he's taking 1.4. He's shooting the ball pretty well. But the idea there's a lot of burden on LeBron early, which is a wor them if you want to worry.

About- I don't think they wanted that at all.

No. I mean, 29 minutes, 35, 39, 32, 42. He's playing a lot, man. I mean, itLeBron is just a little older than me. I will say.

It really seems like he can just get to the rim when he absolutely has to. Guys just don't want to stay in front of him and be bulled over by him. At some point, it becomes too... It's like a game of chicken with two cars driving at each other. And at some point, the car that's not LeBron always veers to the side and LeBron just keeps going. He's really figured out. It's so funny how he uses his size now compared to that late 2000s version of LeBron that was like all finesse and athleticism. And this one is like, there's this brute force element that's just awesome. But I thought the reason... I think they have too many guys in the roster, but I thought part of the reason for it was that you wouldn't have to put the miles on these guys. I think what happens is the NBA. You play 11, 12 guys. It's never gone well ever in history of the week. Yesterday, they played eight, and they're trying to get to that eight or nine. But you can't just keep throwing guys out. I don't believe in the Christian Wood piece of it at all.

And to me, that seems pretty fool's goal. Ultimately, I think Reeves is the guy they have to figure out how to unlock as their version of Manu or you pick any six-man/supporting guy, swingman, who can also make plays at the end of games. That's going to help them the most. How you see if you had to guess in the Anthony Davis, he's been scratched from the game. It's going to be a couple of days. When are you thinking, Thanksgiving?

Next week? What are you talking about? I'm not rooting for it.

He looks great. He's playing great. Yeah, none of us are rooting for it. I'm just like-.

I'm a fan. I'm a big Anthony Davis fan. I want to see him in the playoffs, though.

We just respect the history. When you come to visit me and I feed you too much food and you have a couple of glasses of wine, I have 20 years of experience to know that we're going to sit down on the couch, put a basketball game on, and you're going to immediately start snoring. I'm not sitting there going, Oh, this would be the time House stays awake and watches this whole game with me. Then maybe we'll watch something else. I'm like, No, House is going to pass out. This is what he does. You did it the other night. I did it. You talked to my wife for three minutes, and then she looked over and you're like, I threw out. This Anthony Davis thing is the exact same thing. Do not put 40 minutes of game on Anthony Davis. We know how this is going to play out, so they have to fix it. I think this is a really dangerous game they're playing. Is it too soon to say OKC might be a top five team in the west? Because that one, I feel like it might actually be too soon. Because if you have Denver and you have Golden State and you have the Lakers, I think I have Minnesota over them right now.

And then probably Phoenix would be the five. But I do really like that OKC team. And what it comes down to is whether they make threes or not. They lost two games this year. Last night, they were seven for 34 on threes against New Orleans. Against Denver, they were six for 32. Now they also got smoked by Yokeage. But erratic three-point shooting might be what keeps them on the side. And by the way, pretty fixable thing if they wanted to decide to get frisky this year. But what do you see from them, Kyle?

I trust their three-point shooting. If they did get the opportunity to be in a playoff shooting, I feel like it will balance out. They run the risk of that. I've talked with a lot of Thunder fans about them getting Cason Wallace, who has been unbelievably good in there. And I'm not just saying that because he went to Kentucky. He's been awesome. I've wondered if his defensive prowess and shooting ability and extra playmaking ability could free them up to maybe make some... There are some teams out there, cough, cough, Milwaukee, who need some ball pressure. I don't know if they could make a deal with you. Those two things, I don't know, there's something to think about. Yeah, overall, I do trust their shooting and stuff to level out. In terms of getting into top five, for me, the Wolves and the Thunder are close to a push. Would they beat the Clipper's in a series? I don't think so now. I don't think that would happen. Could they be or like-.

So you put the Clippers in the top five. I'm not there yet because I just don't know. To me, that's a week by week. Let's see who's playing.

Well, Dallas is first in the West right now. Are they a top five team beginning to end?

That was my next too soon. Is it too soon to say the Mavs might be a playoff team? How is your OKC thoughts quick? And then we'll go to Dallas.

Well, OKC remains that work in progress to be imagined. You like the direction that they're headed in. They have all of these young parts. I think Kyle's point about them figuring out the three-point thing makes a lot of sense. I do think that they would benefit from an adult, from a vet, from somebody that comes that can be a sidekick to SGA. I don't know who that player is.

How Kuzma?

At what position do you think, though? That's what.

I keep asking myself. I don't know. Honestly, I think that a little bit of size like that because when you get put into the half-court offense in the playoffs, you're always in the half-court offense in the playoff. It's a slowdown time. Size never hurts. It's either a C-O-C-I-M- It's either a C-O-C-I-M options out there.

Yeah, it's like a C-O-C-I-M, or it's just a second center, and then you can go to Twin Towers that you have some shed insurance.

What about Rob Williams? Tyler's been getting offended when people talk about them trading for a five, so I always try to tread lightly with the question. Could they go get him?

Yeah, I think they could.

The big guys are just they're burying Chet in the basket. I mean, Andre Drummond made him literally almost break his own ankle. They're going to have to have another Yaka, Pertle-E type guy who may not be like- Right.

That's a great point.

They just need a rotation big who's competent. Can they go find somebody like that? I do think they're going to need that tool on their utility bill.

Yokech said he needed to get fatter. I still think Chet as a rookie of the year candidate, I'm pretty bullish on that one. I've been really impressed. Yeah, he's too skinny and there's a couple of centers in the week that we're going to overpower them. There's not that many of those centers, though. They haven't played the Lakers yet, I don't think. But when they play Davis, Davis is going to try to bullyball him, and he probably will. And that's where you need that Rob Williams, whoever. But that team is a little closer than I was even hoping for because I was bullish on them to be over 45, a potential 50-win team. I think they look really good. I just think they're missing one piece. So the Mavs, playoff team for you, House? Are you going to get seduced by four wins over the Spurs, Brooklyn, Injury, Prairie, Memphis, and then the messed up Bulls? Is this win you over yet?

No.

Definitely.

Not. I'm glad for them to be in this position out of the gate. They're handling the business the way they're supposed to be handling their business. But you mentioned, they're barely inside the top 20 in defensive rating against teams that aren't exactly burning their house down. They're second in offensive rating. This is if you're a Dallas fan, this is exactly your best hope for beginning to the season. We'll have our true referendum, our true state of the Dallas Union with the Friday Night Game against the defending champions.

I'm glad you brought that up.

Great job. Lucas gotten off. He looks engaged. Lively is lively. I really love that lively.

I like lively, too. Yeah.

I like that. Good for them. They're handling their business against bad teams to start the season. I'm not going to knock them. I took their over. I think they're like a 44-win team. It doesn't feel crazy to me.

Yeah, Lively has been certainly more impactful than I was thinking. Grant Williams, we knew what he could do. He had a great game last night. As usual, this comes down to, can they get a full normal season out of Kyrie? We just haven't seen it in a long time. But is he just going to be happy to be in this team and not do anything to undermine it or any of that stuff? What does Shark say about this Miami team, Kyle? I mean, Dallas team.

Hard to say. I mean, he was a defense guy. I think he would have come around on Lively by now, who I think you all are right. He, Lively, could not have been drafted to a better situation for what he can run, he has energy, he can catch, he can dunk, and he's defensively has good hands. I'm sure they've been really pleased with him. He's been ahead of schedule. So it's all going to be, how far can Luca drag them? It's ultimately what this is going to come down to. And I mean, he's been unbelievable. I mean, he had a 35, 12, and 12 the other night. And that's just like, Who cares? That's how good Luca is. I got an email the other day. It's funny. You get those emails from, I think, Cleaning the Glass about who was above their and below their box score. And Luca and Yokech, both are two guys where it'll say like, Oh, below their box score. And you'll look and it'll be like, 25, eight, and nine. You're like, Oh, what a shitty outing. Shame on you guys. The schedule has done them some favors, but they have a lot of questions to answer for them to be a serious contender.

But they're going to be a pain in the ass just because Lucas is a pain in the ass, and he can litigate. He's just like, he's a pain in the ass basketball litigator. He's going to slow it down, drag you into the mud. It's very LeBron-esque.

And he's unafraid in any mano a Mano the last three minutes situation. All right, last too soon. Is it too soon to say Denver and Boston are levitating above everybody else right now from what we've seen? I can go quickly. And I would have Denver over Boston.

Yeah, I can go quickly. The answer is no. They are in an entirely different class. We forecasted coming in. They're the only two teams, I think, above 50 wins that we, you, me, and Rosillo sitting and doing our win total forecast. We took the over with Denver. We took the over with Boston. I think we were unanimous. I think it was a six for six on those picks because we could imagine what we're seeing with our own eyes now. I will say this, I've been so impressed by Denver.

Me.

Too. Absolutely. The open question around what does it mean with Bruce Brown's not part of this team? Will the young replacement talent that Mr. Booth has brought to the table bears out? It bears out. I'll raise my left hand up. Yeah, it's a good situation there.

Did you just go Doris Berkron us and call Mr. Booth?

I was like, Calvin. Calvin. He played for the Wizards... Calvin won the long-passed.

Believe me. He was one of your many mediocre centers. Yeah, I think their big question that we had just talked about them before the year and we all went over on them, Kyle was, All right, Bruce Brown is leaving. Do we trust these young guys? Do we trust Christian Brown to come in and take those minutes? Do we trust two of these younger dudes that they have to maybe play and be impactful? And I think that's what's been the surprise. Minnesota whacks them, but I also think every great team is going to have their one team. That's just a weird matchup for them. The next Denver-Minnesota game is probably the most interesting game of the year from a standpoint of, All right, let's see. They tagged Denver. Denver didn't see it coming. They broke a beer bottle over their head. They didn't see it. But now we're outside the club. What do you got? Let's go. And I want to see how Denver responds to that. But you think Denver and Boston levitating over everybody else right now?

Yeah, I think so. I think the house is right that maybe we did overplay how heavily they were going to be leaning on the rookies. They don't really leaned on them hardly at all, honestly. And we leaned a little bit on the Bruce Brown thing. Bruce Brown became the I know, Ball guy to be like, Oh, Bruce Brown, Screener. And those things are true. But it's not like Bruce Brown went to the Pacers and instantly changed that team. He's a great player. But I think this is speaking to the power of Yokech, quite frankly, is that when you have a player like him, not only is he a floorraiser, but he literally affects the value of every individual player that you have. Suddenly, 50 cents ain't worth 50 cents. It's worth 75 cents with Yokech. Your money goes further. The other thing that I think that people underwrite about them now and in the past, they lost Jeff Green, but it's the fact that they've got these big mobile forwards, too. They can do a number of things. They have these lineups where Aaron Gordon can play five. Aaron Gordon in Denver has just been a revelation, honestly.

Kcp, they have continuity. I would love to see them play Boston in the finals just because I think their personnel would stress Boston in a way that could really yield some interesting things. So I agree. I think those two teams have the playoff pedigree. Yeah, they're above everybody else in my book.

How's 20 seconds on the hard and trade before we go?

Good luck to everybody involved on the LA side. Steve Ballmer went on TV last night and talked much louder and much faster than me, touting the fact that he wants to get folks from the food and the bathroom back to their seat as quickly as possible because of that new stadium experience. I can only imagine the good people of Los Angeles hustling back to their seats to see James Harden pass the ball to Russell Westbrook because Paul George and Kauai Leonard are out for extended stretches, which is exactly what the L. A. Clippers do. Congratulations. Best of luck to everybody at the ball.

I was shocked how many people seem to be in the camp of, Well, they're better. That's like, Well, they gave us some stuff, but can't argue with the results, they're better. Really? Yeah. If you give up two and a half first round picks, I would hope you're a whiff better. But I just, listen, I'm on the record. I don't think it's going to work. Kyle, 20 seconds on James Harder.

I was telling somebody hard in getting traded to the Clipper on the day that you needed to have a podcast come out was like an NBA jam behind the back lob. I felt like you were like 40 feet in the air ready to catch it. I said it was like asking Mozart, Hey, we need a melody for this waltz. I was just like, This is Bill's Bat signal. This is.

The best. I was excited.

I was like, He has to just be foaming. I think that they offensively, you're putting Harden in a lesser role. The issue, I think, with Embiid was just like, you need... If you've got a guy who's not going to elevate the personnel the same way that a Yokeach would, your square one is just really tough when you bring in a guy who also doesn't move, who also isn't going to cut, who also just is really inflexible. I think the ball is going to move a little bit more in LA. I think they're going to be a pain in the ass, but I think defensively, they're going to run up against some problems at the end of the day. I don't know. I feel like they're going to be better offensively. I'm torn, honestly, on the Clipper's thing. I don't think they're going to win at all. So I think that's just where the conversation starts and ends, honestly.

I thought Kauai look good in the Laker game. That was the first time where he still... It doesn't seem like he has nearly the same lift. When he jumps now, now it seems like he just gets one inch off the ground. The explosivesiveness, it doesn't seem where it was four years ago, and it shouldn't because he's older. He's had some surgeries. But I thought he was really effective in that game and really competitive. I don't know if he can keep it going, but didn't change my opinion on the trade. All right, Joe House, we can see you on Sunday on The Wise Guys showon Faneuil TV. You can keep your Hot Street going. I'm going to try to keep my Cold Street going with Chris Vernon in a second. Kyle, man, we can see your videos on the Ringer's YouTube page, and we can see you on One Shining Podcast with the one, the only, Tate Fraser. What else are you up to? Anything else?

Working on a ranking for the site. Tyler and I have a little thing that we've been working on that's going to be ridiculous. We'll see. And then, yeah, I'm all over the place. I got a lot of irons in the fire.

All right. Good to see you guys. All right, our guy, Chris Vernon, is here. He is the co-host of the Mismatch Podcast. He does a lot of stuff in Memphis. I have recruited him to help me with my slumpy million dollar picks. We're talking grizzlies first. Your team is on five. We played a game with House and Kyle Mayn called Too Soon... Is it too soon? Is it too soon to completely panic about this grizzly season?

Completely panic? Yes. Be worried? No. I do think what we've learned, though, Bill, is over the last couple of years, we do this every year. Last year, Philly started one and four. The Lakers started zero and five. Sacramento started zero and four. I mean, it happens. We got to two weeks into November, and the one seed, I think, was Utah, and the two seed was Portland. We got into two weeks into December and the one seed was the New Orleans Pelicans. It's a really long season. It's a really long season. But certainly to start off 0 and 5 and put yourself in a hole.

Is.

Not a good look at all, especially when you know you got to somehow get to what? You want to be at least in the mid-40s.

In terms of when- 45, 46. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, 45 got the four seed last year. That's what Phoenix had. They were 45 and 37, and they got home court advantage.

So I don't know- The problem is the conferences might be more lopsided this year because the east just looks like it's weaker across the board, and the West looks like it's better across the board. There's no question. And it might be like, remember that... Wasn't that their year that Phoenix had 48 wins and didn't make the playoffs? I don't know if it would be that bad, but I think mid-40s is going to be the number.

Yeah, I think you're right. That was the Eric Bledsoe, Isiah Thomas, that old crew where we thought the guy did the best coaching job ever.

Back.

Then. But yeah, I don't know. They've been terrible for sure. And to lose to... At Utah is not terrible. At the Wizards is abominable. I mean, you can't lose that game. You can't lose that game.

The scoring is rough. House was talking earlier about your 29th in offense, and he just wasn't scared of any scores on the team. Bane is good, but you don't have that, Oh, my God, we need a bucket. This guy is definitely going to get us an awesome shot guy. Bane is probably the closest.

The only thing that you can hold on to is they have run into historically great shooting performances. No one has ever given up more three-pointers in the first five games of the season than this Memphis Grzzlies. 89. They've had two teams shoot 50 % against them. Now, when teams shoot 45, 55 shots from three, if somebody goes 50 % from you, you're dead. You're dead.

Right. Who have you seen in person? Who's coming to town?

I have seen Denver, unbelievable. Dallas, but they were without Kyrie.

Which.

Was shocking considering the player participation thing is working so well. That was the third game of the season. Third game of the season. He wasn't the injury report. I show up to the arena and they say there's no Kyrie. I said, Why? He sprained his foot. Oh, my God. He must have sprained at mid-afternoon. I have seen them. I've seen the Pelicans.

The first game of the season. What do you think of them? What was your Pelicans take?

Look, I've gotten in big trouble, and the Pelicans, their team account is now mocking me because I just thought it was... I thought they had a weird chemistry with that starting five. They're hardly interacting with each other. I don't know about the Ingram, Zion thing, but I guess, lucky for them, they never play together. They're already not playing together by now. But I think it's hard. I actually think that they're going to have to do some figuring out to reach where they want to be in terms of the pecking order and also just getting some role guys. They've got Nancy, they've got Alvarado, they've got Trey Murphy. These guys are all good role players. A couple of those guys are obviously not in the mix right now. Tyson Daniels could be a role player. But when they're starting, they're starting four non-defenders and Herb Jones. Right. I don't know who odd man out is in those mixes, but you know when it comes to reaching their potential, I think you're going to need some guys in there that could get you some stops. They also don't shoot a lot of threes, and I think it's hard now.

Phoenix does this as well. If you don't shoot a lot of threes, the math just doesn't go in your favor a lot of times. They don't have a lot of guys. Obviously, Murphy is probably the best of the three-point shooters. They're trying to get this Hawkins kid going that they drafted. I like him. Yeah. I think their whole thing is how much health can they have, too? Ingram's already out. We're week two of the season. That's been their issue thus far anyway. Look, it's not a demerit to watch them and say, Hey, these guys don't seem to have all that much chemistry, considering they never played together. None of them. Now, already by the second week of the season, they're not playing together. I think I've seen... Yeah, 0 and 3. I've seen Pelicans, Denver, Dallas.

I watched the OKC New Orleans last night, and it looked like OKC was just going to win by 20, they were way up. And then New Orleans has these weird heat check guys. Yesterday was McCollum. But all of a sudden, they'll get points and bursts. I'm still trying to figure them out. To me, that's like don't gamble on them or against them, team. If you're just betting basketball.

Stay away from that dude. I watched them as well. And Oklahoma City is too small. Right.

They need one more guy.

I mean, they're running Ched out there to play center. And you're going up against Valance, Unis, and Zion. And I mean, they got full grown men on that.

Pelicans team. The only thing is there's only a couple of teams like that that you could say like, oh, man, this is a big boy team. You guys are in trouble tonight. So there are certain nights like, Yokech is going to be a disaster for them every time they play.

Yeah, I mean- They say physically, they can't handle it. Yeah, but I mean, look, the grizzlies ran into it last year in the playoffs without Adams. The Lakers are big. Lakers are big.

Minnesota is big. Minnesota is big and a little clumsy and really hard to play, which Denver found out last night. So where is the city at with the Jaw Saga? Give us the update. How are people feeling? Do people feel like it's now us against the world? Are people in Jaw's corner? Are people worried about him? What's the mindset?

I think it was upset with him, for sure. Very disappointed. Then I think the best thing that ever happened to him was the ESPN article. Because I think what happened is it's like everybody's mad at you. You know what it reminded me of? It reminded me of Will Smith, how we all loved Will Smith. Then Will Smith went and smack the shit out of Chris Rock. We were like, Damn, man, what's up with Will Smith? I always thought he was cool. I always really love Will Smith. I'm so disappointed. Then Jayda Pinkett went on her tour and started trashing Will Smith. They were like, Oh, hell, no. No, no, no, no, no. We're allowed to not like it. But this is overkill. This is too much. You don't have to humiliate the guy. That's where the ESP are in the absence of a bunch of new stuff. It was almost like, all right.

It feels like- You're going with the small business owners. Come on.

Yeah, it feels like piling on. I think that on that point, it was like, okay, you got people back on your side. Then now that the team is not any good, obviously, there's a bit of resent about that. Like, man, why did you have to do the Instagram live thing? It's so stupid. But I also think that we have... When I go out and around, all anybody says is, Do you think you could be 10 and 15? Or, Do you think you can be nine and 16 or whatever by the time we get him back? And it's just now, just like, All right, these next 20 games, we'll see what happens. But can't wait till game 26.

Yeah, even if you go 10 and 10, you're going to be 10 and 15 when he comes back, which is not ideal. So I don't know. The story sucks. I actually miss watching on play. It just sucks to get guys pulled out of this daily CavalCade to awesome NBA players we get to watch every night. And it really might be too late by the time he comes back. Because if we think it's 45 and they're 9 and 16.

Yeah.

And he has 57 games left and you have to get to 45 wins, which means you need 30. So you got to go basically 36 and 19 the moment he comes back. I would assume he has to get into some game shape, stuff like that. All the West, you're not going to have the easy games like you would in the past because there's going to be 11 teams that think they have a chance. I think it's going to be really hard. You need something to step up. This will make you mad. But we were talking about Julius Randall with House and Kyle. We talked about could the grizzlies roll the dice with the Julius Randall trade?

Oh, come on. No, good grief. Look, they're going to go get themselves a good wing… Okay. That's what they're going to do. They're going to go get themselves a good wing.

Like a Jeremy Grant? How good of a wing.

Are we talking? No, I don't know. I just think that this is my prediction. What's going to happen is they were going to let all the young guys figure it out, and they were going to see who could separate themselves. You're going to throw them all in a bucket. Zahir Williams, David Roddy, Luke Kenard, Jake LaRavia. They're going to throw them all in a bucket and they're going to say, All right, who comes out of this? Now, in the end, when Jah comes back, Smart will probably just roll over to small forward in the meantime to be a wing defender. But I do think that they could look at a wing to try to get one of the... To try to get maybe you revisit the Ananobi-type stuff or you rebate. There are guys out there that become available. I think.

That's one- Or maybe go the other way. Well, if nobody- You know what? This was the year from hell. We lost Brandon Clark, we lost Stephen Adams, we lost John for 25.

No. Not when you've got John Morant, Desmond-Bane, and Jared Jackson Jr. Come on.

You're ruling it out. What if they're 6 and 19 when he comes back?

They're not going to be six and 19 when he.

Comes back. You would have said they wouldn't.

Have been on five. I would have said they wouldn't have been on five. But I mean, playing five games in the first seven days of the season is pretty extreme. It's not that good of a basketball team. You don't want them to be good. You want Marcus to suffer.

No, that's not true. I like Marcus. He's not going to.

That's not true. All you Boston fans say the same thing. You guys all, yes, you are. It's like your ex and you're checking on Instagram to make sure that she's doing shitty. Not true. Yes, it is. It's 100 % what's happening.

No, we love Marcus. We're super happy with our team. He's been pretty good. Actually, looks like he's in... I was worried about the abdomen thing, but he actually looks like he's in good shape and he's moving around.

This is my dream. My dream is that you look up in April and it's a nightmare for you. It's John Moran, Desmond-Bain, Marcus Smart, Jaron Jackson, and big Rob Williams.

You've got to sit there. That's who you want. You want Rob Williams.

I mean, come on. What's going on? What is he doing in Portland? He's collecting dust. It doesn't make any sense. They need him for- They should be sitting there. They need him for… Yeah. He's got a $12 million contract or something, so it's not even a big… Not that big. It's not that big of a deal to have to deal for.

Well, you can't score. You can't really rebound. And you just listed five guys in a row that you were counting on for one of those guys to step up. And it was basically the poopoo platter. You were like, If we can get the spare ribs or the chicken wings or the egg rolls, if one of those can be good.

It would be great. I like radi. I do like radi. The other ones, we'll see. But it's five games. You just outlined like you were like, Well, what if they got to go this many? Then they got to go this many, then they got to go.

This many. This is why you're on the NBA too soon podcast. All this is too soon. What else are we going to talk about?

I just told you the Laker started 0.5. Sacramento started 0.4..

Philly started 1.4. I know you got it. You ran off the stats. I got you. All right, speaking of people who were off to terrible starts, million dollar picks for me. I got killed one in four last week, including an absolutely devastating Brown's loss in Seattle. I lost a million dollars last week. I lost a million 65,000 last week. I'm down to 1.93 million down for the season. And I actually don't even feel that bad about most of my picks. It's like combination of bad luck, maybe missing on stuff, doing it on Thursdays. I'm trying to get my mojo back, and I'm going to start bringing in Degenerates on Thursdays. And you're one of my favorite Degenerates.

You love this shit. Like I tell you also, a lot of people think it's fake money. You really lost a million dollars. It was 100 % fake money. You're the only guy I know that actually lost a million dollars.

No, we called it million dollar picks, like started five years ago because we thought it was good gimmick. We had a million fake dollars every game. It's not a fun gimmick when you're down to $2 million heading.

Into week nine. I didn't think the bit started until after you sold the wringer. No, no, no. I thought.

It was actual. I was like 2018. I'm going to give you a couple of games I'm looking at. Actually, why don't we flip it? You give me three games you're looking at. Let's see if I have five games that I have circled, and I wonder if you have... You said you had three. I wonder if any of them.

Co-exist with mine. I got two that I.

Really like. Okay, let's hear them.

Okay. The first one is a team that you have liked in the past, though they're not any good. I even heard you talk to Lombardi about them earlier this week, and that is the Carolina Panthers. I am on the Fade the Colts train. They have given up 38 to the Saints last week. The week before, they gave up 39 to the Browns. That's like giving up 100 to the Chiefs. They're giving up 39 to the Browns. They gave up 37 the week before that to the Jags. Now, on the other end, you can say, Well, it's not like Carolina doesn't give up a ton of points, but they just played pretty well against the Texans. That was a super close game and they covered that game. They're supposed to get their safety back, Goosevon Bell. I love the guy, Brian Burns. I don't think defensively, they're terrible. The big thing is this, they always perform at home. They only had.

Seven- Yeah, they're a good defense at home. I'm with you.

They only had seven wins last year. Five of them were all at home. I look at it and I go, All right. They lost it. So far, they're home games. They had an eight-point loss to the Vikings. They lost by three to the Saints, and then they beat Houston. Those are only three home games they've played thus far. The Colts, alongside, now I don't blame them, but they've given up these huge numbers and it does coincide. They've lost all three of their corners. You just can't. You can't lose that many guys. They got the new offensive guy calling the plays for Bryce Young, so maybe he'll hit something downfield. I just feel like it'll be ugly.

I like the locker room after the game. Frank Rett gave a nice speech. They gave the ball to Bryce Young. They shouted at it. It seemed like it was a happy one in six team. They don't have their pick as the other thing. They have no incentive-.

That's right.

-to go.

Backwards because- This is my opinion. I just don't think that... I just don'tis my opinion. I don't think the CULT should be favored against anybody.

So you think this line should be like Panthers minus one over the CULT, something like that?

Yes.

So we're getting three and a half free points.

Yeah. I mean, at worst, the PIC.

Do you like the Panthers plus two and a half, or do you like them plus one and 22 to win outright?

I like both. I think the Panthers are going to win. But let's take.

The two and a half. Well, have you noticed? Because you've been gam in a while. Have you noticed how they're killing us now on the money line underdogs? In the old days, the plus three money line underdog was like plus 145, plus 150. They gave you some actual action. Now it's like plus 122. Og, thanks.

The other thing is we didn't have... There was a couple of weeks there at the beginning of this season where we didn't have the upsets. So I always follow a couple of these guys on Twitter that post... In the mornings, they'll post all the public bets, right?

Yeah.

And so then I'll just go through them and I'll just bet the other money line and I'll just round-robin it, right? I got my ass kicked on those. Before a couple of weeks in a row, the public was just.

Oh, my God. That's one of the tricks I use. It's like, Oh, my God, everybody's on this team. I'm going to zag. And the zag has not really worked this year that well.

Not this year.

Yeah. All right. I like that Colt's one.

What was the other one? No, Carolina.

I mean, Panthers. Yeah, Colt's, Panthers.

Yeah. The other one is… You're not going to like this one. I know you're not going to like this one. It's the Falcons.

Why? I've lost money in the Falcons multiple weeks. What do you mean?

You know what? I think you do like Taylor Heineke.

I do. I've enjoyed his work. I think the quarterback has murdered a couple of Falcons bets this year just single-handedly that were winning bets.

They actually have some weapons, Drake London, Kyle Pits, B-Johan, they got some guys you could get the ball to. There are things that are at home. That cousin's thing was just devastating. Even if you think he's corny, that guy is a real leader. It's not even like they get to just go and play their backup because their backup's got a back injury. They have the trade that they just.

Made for Docs. Yeah, the Docs isn't playing.

He's not playing. It's Jaron Hall.

Fifth-rounder from BYA who's like 25 years old already.

Now you're going to take him on the road against the team, by the way, who is as good against the rush as any team in the National Football League.

Although they just lost one of their main guys for that. But then they made a trade and they tried to stop you after it.

I got you. But the Falcons can stop you from running? So now you're taking a kid.

Who.

Has no business playing. He would have been third or fourth on this list. Now you're going to throw him in on the road in Dome and you can't run the ball?

Well, he's got to beat you.

And the other thing is they only got one.

Receiver left. The Bikings can't run the ball anyway.

But they only have one receiver left, the Addison guy. Atlanta's got Jeff Udoka. They could throw Udoka on the one guy that can make plays. I don't know. I think Atlanta might bone them.

My only fear with that game was that Flora is just blitzing the living shit out of Heineke and doing dumb stuff. And the other thing is if it was minus three, you'd love it. But that minus three and a half, it's a classic, Oh, that extra half point. But I think you might be right. Sometimes you just got to suck it up and go for it. All right, so.

Those are two- Have you ever heard of Jaren Hall before yesterday?

I mean, when you're a fifth round QB, you're usually like, it's a miracle if you play two games. You know. All right, here's what I was looking at. I love the Bengals last week. That was the only one I won. They're playing Buffalo again. I actually think the Bengals got their mojo back. Buffalo's last four lost to Jacksonville in London, had a big injuries. Giants that barely won, probably should have lost. Pats that lose. Pats suck. Tampa, they let Tampa hang around. They win by six. Tampa got a late cover. Sincey beat the hell out of this team last year in the playoffs. And I felt like in the game when Hamlin went down, I thought they were beating the hell out of them in that game, too. It just felt like they were going to pull away from them in that game. I think they might just have their number. And Buffalo has had all these injuries. I'm not sure how deep they were to begin with. And the Bengals, it's one and a half right now because people don't trust the Bengals thing yet because all the advanced stats are like, Well, they're taking into account the whole picture.

But the team I saw against the Niners last week, I thought was legit. So I don't know. I feel like I'm getting free points with this. It feels like a Bengles by three to me.

If I bet that game, I'm going to take the over.

I- Bengles with the over.

Yeah. I mean, if you want to take a side, yeah, then I think... I do not think those teams are going to stop each other.

I don't. Interesting.

No, Bills gave up 28 to your team, right?

He gave 28 to your team. Since the Matt Mulano thing, it's like, I don't know. He's a big.

Part of their team. They're training for Rosuel Douglas, who Josh Allen made fun of. All right, I'm marking down. So you're not against Bangles Minus 1 or not?

No, absolutely not. At home?

Eagles minus three against your Cowboys. They're right next to each other in DBOA.

This is why you invited me on?

No, this is one of the games I was looking at. And I actually think the Eagles are a little undervalued because itsense. They let teams hang around. They haven't really played an awesome game yet. Aj Brown's been, in my opinion, him and Tyreke have just been head and shoulders above everybody else as weapons. I think you're going to have trouble running on him. And I still wonder with Daak against big physical teams that can pressure him, what do I have? Who are you going to on third and eighth? I'm doubling CD-LAM. Now where are you going? You're going to Jake Ferguson? Brandon Cooke. Right? Coke and Brandon Cooke is going to get like, I still don't trust your team. I don't love the value of the minus three is the hesitation with me. But give me the case for why you think Dallas would win this.

The case would be that their offensive line is a little banged up.

And.

That you just get there. You get home and hurt. He got a little hobbled, and so he's not... I don't think he's going to be wanting to run-.

So you think you're deline this game.

Run around everywhere. Yeah, right. I mean, the way to... Kind of like what Lombardi was saying, if you're playing five Mississippi, you got time to get down on the field. If you're playing three Mississippi, you don't. You're counting on your front line, whether DeMarcus Lawrence, Michael Parsons, and a lot to be able to get home and put a lot of pressure on Hertz. Look, after that 49ers thing, I'm so beaten down. I get it, and I said this last week. I knew it. I knew they'd do this. I knew they'd rope me back in with that RAMs thing because this is what they do. They beat the crap out of everybody that's 500 or less, and then they don't perform against the good teams.

That was my next question for you. Are they the good bad team? Are they the good, bad team?

No, I mean, they always kill everybody. Not only do they kill them, they cover, they win. The Arizona game, notwithstanding. Generally, since Doc has been the quarterback, their record and their against the spread record against bad teams is unbelievable.

Not so much against the good ones.

All right, well, you certainly did not talk me out of Eagles minus three. I would tell you that much.

Well, I don't think the Eagles are that good either. They're not nearly what they were last year. They're not.

Last year.

Going into the game, I was like, Oh, hell. This year, I think it's a toss up, honestly.

Okay. Texans minus three over the Bucks was looking at this one. Texans, they lose to Carolina. It looks bad. Everyone's now up to Texans. Oh, they must not be good. They lost to a known 16. It was a must-win kitchen sink coming off of by game for Carolina. They don't want to go in 17. Closed game came down to the last couple of minutes. I just don't know what this Tampa team, which seems like arrow pointing down in a hard, hard way, Bakers are already banged up. Texans can rush them. Their home. They have a chance to have a winning record after this game, which is bonkers or they'll be four and four after this game. I think the Bucks get to 500.

As well. Aren't the Bucks a game under 500?

One of these teams will be 500. Yeah, Houston's three and four. So one of these teams will be 500 after this game. I don't know. I like the spot. The minus three, I wish it was minus two and a half because I feel like they could win by three. But is this a stay away?

You're making a pass. Yeah, I would not. I wouldn't bet on it. I would let this play out and just see what happens with Stroud. Whether the.

Leagues figured him out a little bit.

Yeah. Was this a little flash in the pan at the beginning? If he goes and plays really well in this, but I just want a bigger sample size before I'm trusting him laying points.

I think that's fair. Raiders are minus one and half over the giants. In the new Coach theory is looming for this.

Tell me you saw the press conference.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. I grew up in Compton. I was bumping NWA to Raiders Games. This is Antonio pierce. I was like, Oh, my God. This is the greatest thing ever. I don't know if it works, but every time, and I know you resent these, but there's a 100 million athlete podcast now, right?

Why would I resent these?

I mean, you just like...

You.

Like the good ones.

But you.

Think that.

There's- I respect the athlete pods. Yeah, I don't personally listen to a lot of them. There's a million of them now. There's a million of them.

There's a million of them. Well, there's a common refrain on all of these athlete pods because I do listen to some of them. It's that anybody that has ever played for Josh McDaniels hates his ass. They all trash him all the time. It's the craziest thing. Everybody that was in Denver just shits on the guy, and it will be the same thing with Raiders. I don't know why they don't like him, but they end up hating the guy.

This has the classic, Fuck you, Josh McDaniels. We're not all over it.

Oh, my God. Now the problem is I don't know if Antonio pierce can go and get five guys that could play offensive line for him because that's going to be a mess.

I had the Lions in a on Monday night. And the Raiders were making me nervous in that game. They're running the ball. They were hanging around. And Jimmy just kept missing throws. I mean, Jimmy and his Adams open twice. But other than that, he just didn't seem right the whole game. But I felt like, I don't know, Max Crosby was awesome. The new Coach Theory, which was solidified forever last year when Jeff Saturday came out of the ESPN booth and do nothing and somehow won his first game. If Jeff Saturday could win his first game, I'm going with Antonio pierce. Wewere on.

Board with that. I think it was against the Raiders. It was. Oh, no.

So they owe me anyway. And then the last one I was looking at was jets plus three and a half over the chargers just because the chargers are a fucking stupid team that this looks like a totally logical game for them to lose. They're favored by three and a half on the road against Zach Wilson. It's like, Pencilman. Put them in a parlay. They'll be fine.

All right, so now we can have real degenerate chat. That feels to me like one that the jets will win, but they'll win like 17, 14 and I'll hate everybody.

Right.

That's just how it.

Feels to me. Or they lose 17-14 but cover the three and a half.

Yeah, other way.

Yeah, that's right. It's one of those. I don't have that as a main one, but I definitely have that.

As- Now.

Is that early? I can check on that one. Oh, it's a.

Monday night? Yeah.

Is that bad or good?

I mean, it's not as good as if it was a noon game. I do like those. After all these years, I still like that West Coast team having to play a noon game on the East Coast.

Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah, a.

Couple of times- I was hopeful that that was the case.

A couple of times the West Coast team hit that and it threw people off the theory, but I'm still in just because every time I go back West Coast to East Coast, I feel like shit for two days. I can't imagine what it would be like to play a football game.

I always get scared. It's like, All right, am I going to be able to sleep tonight if I lose this bet? I used to always say this about Alabama, right? If I bet on Alabama and I lose, I could sleep. I lost betting on Alabama. But if I bet against them and I lose, then it's like, What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I betting against them? Seriously. I do have that with Zach Wilson. Am I going to be able to sleep at night if I bet him and then he sucks. I'm going to go, What did I expect? I was trying to win money betting on Zach.

Wilson against Justin Herbert. You might have talked me out of that. That's how I thought I was looking at the Seahawks money line all week. I was like, How many times can I bet against Baltimore and Baltimore? And then they stick it to me. I'm like, What am I doing? Why am I betting against Baltimore and Baltimore? They always win in Baltimore. So your advice would be stay away from the Jets plus 3.

I mean, I would just be nervous about it. I'd be nervous about it just because, again, if Aaron Rogers plays, I like it.

Aaron Rogers.

Limps out. You never know. You never know with this guy.

All right, so I.

Guess we can decide- How many picks are you making?

Well, right now I have Bangles, Eagles, Raiders, Colts, Falcons. That's five. And I could throw in the jets as a little bonus Monday nighter, or I could stay away completely. Maybe I'll stay away. I think you're right. It doesn't feel good to bet on Zach Wilson. It just doesn't. I think that's been one of my mistakes to share is you betting on these quarterbacks.

That's.

Why I'm- -and it's like, maybe it's just.

Better not to bet on them at all. If I lose to Jaren Hall, fine.

Right.

I get it. It's Taylor Heineke on the other side. But seriously, if I lose to Jaren Hall, fine.

Here we go. Million dollar picks for week nine. I'm down 1.93 million. I brought in special guest, Chris Vernon, a fellow degenerate to try to change my luck. We're going to bet $300,000 each on the following five bets.

You cannot do the Eagles on my watch.

You can't. Listen, you did not recommend it, but I'm doing it anyway. I don't want to root for you to lose though. I am doing two that you did recommend, Falcons minus three and a half against the Vikings.

Yeah.

We are going to be going against the fifth rounder from B-Y-U and the team that can't run the ball and the team with one receiver. And we're going to hope the Falcons cover that minus three and a half. Panthers, plus two and a half at home against the Colts. The plus 122 isn't enough for me from a money line to not just grab those two points. We've seen a lot of one, one point, two point weird games. I'm with you. The Colts give up yards and points to everybody. Maybe this is the Bryce Young breakout game. Maybe this is maybe Houston loses, the Panthers win. There's some Bryce Young. Oh, maybe they got the best guy. So Panthers plus two and a half. Raiders minus one and a half over the giants. The new Coach Theory, we're dedicating this pic to our guy at Antonio pierce. I'm glad you love that one, too. Bangles minus one and a half against Buffalo. I believe in this Bangles team, and I actually think they have the Buffalo's number. And I think we're going to see that this week. And then last but not least, Ferno does not support this one because he loves the Cowboys.

But we're going to take Eagles minus three against the Cowboys just because I think I'm trying to figure out who's going to play the great game this week, and the Eagles haven't done that yet. And I think maybe this is the week. I think Dallas might be the good, bad team. You might have laid out the case. Those are the five, 300,000 on each. And then you like the Bengles, Buffalo, Over to. We're not going to put anything on.

That, but we're floating down. I do like that just because I don't think that either of those teams are going to...

I think.

They'll both score a lot. Chase will probably have big game. Diggz will probably have a big game. They'll throw a bunch of both teams. Two good quarterbacks.

I'm trying to get Fandul to do a in-season tournament bet where you can have Denver or the Celtics, either of them to win the title, you can bet on either. Have you looked at this tournament? No. Where it's basically they've rigged it. So the eight of the best teams are going to be in there because it's going to be really hard for the best teams to lose their brackets. They would have to just suck. Lock. So then it gets to the top eight and, I don't know, Celtics Nuggets. Do you care about the in-season tournament or no?

I think I will when it gets there. I don't mind it because I think everybody is not particularly understanding why they should care about it. And my opinion is what they're going to have to do, and I think they will, they've got to have some stakes that the fans care about.

Not Jake LaRavia making an extra 500,000 bucks?

Nobody cares. If you're telling me why does this matter and the reason it matters is because guys make an extra half a million dollars. That is not a reason for it to matter to me or to say I should care about the bragging rights of some midseason tournament.

Don't leave out the special courts that I'm supposed to care about. I don't care about anybody's court.

Oh, and the horrendous jerseys.

See, the jerseys are going to be annoying. Actually, I dislike courts and jerseys that are outside the norm.

They should have just done everybody wear their classic jerseys.

Yeah, from the oldest year of your franchise.

That would have been the coolest thing.

To do. Then the Lakers would have to wear Minneapolis jerseys. They did. And then the Laker fans would have to reconcile the five titles that they claim from Minnesota that they stole.

You won it so badly.

Let me ask you this. If Vancouver had won a title before the team went to Memphis, would you be celebrated in the 25th anniversary of the Vancouver title in Memphis? Absolutely not. I'm going to say no. There's no way.

Absolutely not.

Yeah, come on. Laker fans are losers.

I do think there's going to be stakes at some point and sooner than later that make fans care about it. You got to get something. Whether that means, okay, now we win a tie breaker when it comes to the playoff standings, or we get a draft pick. Even if you got the whatever you say, All right, the 31st pick in the draft is actually going to be whoever wins this midseason tournament, which again, it would take a level of knowledge to understand. But as you know, that is the most valuable pick in the draft.

That's why- The question is why would the players care about getting the 31st pick for their team?

No, I'm saying that's an addition too. They're already.

Getting that. No, I'm saying the players. No, I'm saying- I'm with you. I would be way more excited if I was like, Oh, cool, we got the first pick in the second round. Now I'm even more invested. But I think-.

They're still getting the money.

Yeah, and they get the pick. But I think their banking on the players getting competitive about it because it's like, Yeah, it's a regular season, but these are the games that are going to stand out. Don't you want to win this? You're in Vegas. Why not? I don't fully understand it. I got to be honest. I'm also going and I'm excited to go.

I mean, it'll be cool just because we don't care about anything that's going on in December with the season anyway.

And that's why they're doing it.

So there's something to at least-.

We have all these people descending on Vegas in December to watch basketball and talk about the NBA when usually that's football is swelled up everything at that point.

Have you been to the.

Sphere yet? I have not. I'm going to hopefully check it out that week. I'm excited.

O'connor thinks it's the greatest thing in the world.

He gets very Scientologist-y about when he has an experience that is really great and unique. He really gets like, he leaves his body. He's like, Deepak Tropra, he comes one with the Earth. The Sphere has changed me. He did it. The Sphere has changed my life, Chris.

Interstellar in the theater. That's what it was.

I saw Interstellar and IMAX, Chris.

Yeah, the greatest thing ever. Oh, yeah. You're not going to imitate me?

I did that earlier.

Oh.

God. You did that.

Come.

On. It's still bad. It's like a D-plus invitation. I'm working on it. All right, Verner, we can listen to you on The Mismatch. You can also tune into all the great stuff he does in Memphis. Have you done Marcus Smart? Have you done Marcus Smart? Anything yet? In Vegas. Any big sit down with him or no?

No, I did the first big sit down when we got him.

You haven't done anything since the season started, though, right?

I've not done anything since the season started. I don't think anybody wants to talk yet.

Yeah, I don't believe you.

I'm not sure anybody wants to talk about how awesome it is.

Good.

Luck with the grizzly season.

Yeah, nobody listened to the episode of The Mismatch that comes out today. Don't do that, because it's just going to be an absolute bloodbath for me.

Bye, Verna.

All right, see you.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Chris Vernon. Thanks to J. Kyle Mann and Joe House. Thanks to Steve, to Rudy and Kyle Creighton, as always. Don't forget, you can buy tickets for our live podcast in Las Vegas, December sixth, Jimmy Kimmel's Comedy Club. Tickets go on sale Friday 10:00 AM Pacific Time. You can go to Jimmykimmel'scomedyclub. Com and get your tickets. Enjoy the weekend. I will see you on Sunday with The Cus. Must be 21 plus and President select states. Fandual is offering online sports wage in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800, gambler, or visit fandual. Com/rg in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. You can call 1-800 Next Step or text Next Step to 5-33-42 in Arizona. Call 1-88-789-777 or visit ccpg. Com. Md. Org/chat in Connecticut. 1-809 with it in Indiana. 1-800-522-4,470 or visit ksgamblinghelp. Com in Kansas 1-8-7-7-7-0 stop in Louisiana mdgamblinghelp. Org in Maryland. 1-800-gambling. Net in West Virginia or 1-800-522-4,700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelp. Linema. Org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts. Sheu sit or call 1-800-7-7, 8-hope and Y or text, Hope and Y in New York.