2026 NBA Draft Winners and Losers With Joe House and J. Kyle Mann

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See com slash rewards terms, credit card points subject to issuers, [01:13] terms and conditions. [01:16] The Bill Simmons Podcast live on Netflix. [01:46] for my favorite day of the year. It's pretty sad that this is my favorite day of the year, but it's the NBA draft. [01:51] I'm a J. Kyle man from The Ringer. [01:53] I'm with a deliriously happy and possibly drunk Joe house. [01:57] Whose team had the number one pick? [01:59] And took AJ DeBansa. We'll talk about that later. We have a little gimmick. It's just for the live Netflix show only.

[02:06] We're going to have some voting. [02:08] They started this poll thing that they did during Star Search. [02:12] And we have borrowed the technology and we're going to be able, if you're watching this live on Netflix, you're going to be able to vote on stuff, including houses, blood alcohol level. [02:20] I wanted to mention we put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did a domestic disturbance. The funniest from hell movie of all the from hell movies had a great time with Sean Fennessey and Chris Ryan. We have another one coming on Thursday.

The good son. You can hear houses. [02:33] golf podcast, Fairway Rolling, and you can listen and watch Kyle Mann on the Ringer NBA show. Okay, guys. [02:42] Winners and losers, and I have mostly winners. And I'm going to start here, J. Kyle Mann, as a guy who works on our Ringer NBA Draft Guide and does lots of YouTube clips and studies and obsesses over the draft. [02:53] The drafts become less and less fun. [02:56] over the course of the decade, as everybody just makes logical decisions, [03:01] smart decisions. And nobody messes up.

[03:04] And we have no monkey wrenches and no wild cards and no great players falling. I had the first 12 picks, regardless of the order. [03:13] I thought were the 12 best guys in the draft. [03:16] There were no stumbles at all. [03:18] Is this just where we are now? We have too much intelligence? How do you explain this? [03:24] It seems like the nerds have taken over and the math has kind of crept into the point where even I just feel like it's created these little guardrails for if you have a wild take, you know, I just feel like we we have so much more numbers justification.

[03:38] You know, scouting has improved. The information has improved across the board. I feel like we have fewer and fewer just kind of like good old boy network GM kind of front office people out there. I mean. [03:49] There's maybe one or two left, but they're dwindling by the day. Yeah. But I went through and I was doing my grades on this and I was like, it was hard to really ding anybody hard for anything. I was like, I don't I don't really have any like. [04:03] D's or F's, you know, it's, there aren't any like Kintel Woods or what was the, what was the Juco guy that you guys took?

Keith, uh, Keegan Brown or not. No, Kendrick Brown. Kendrick Brown. Yeah. Yeah. We don't get those. How about the 20 guys houses team took? Yeah. I mean. [04:18] John Vetsley! [04:19] 20 years ago, I just feel like the Kings would have taken Nate Amen, and we would have been like, what are they doing? And now they just take Darius Aikoff. House, you don't care, because your team ended up with the number one pick. And by the way, [04:30] My team is about to pick at number 27, the Celtics, who have had a tumultuous week.

I don't know if we're taking a team psychiatrist or an actual player, but we're going to experience my reaction live. House, your reaction? We had a lot of little birdies telling us that AJ was going to C. [04:49] for the last month and that's what happened. But were you scared in the moment of truth that that wasn't going to happen? No, no, no. And honestly... [04:57] You have to just keep the faith. Let all of the stuff happen out on the periphery. Let everybody talk their talk. I do want to set up right away.

[05:09] My blood alcohol content level is at equilibrium. I'm at 0.0. No booze. [05:17] Or Boozer. No Boozer or Boozer. I stand with my Mormon brother, AJD. I welcome him. [05:23] to Washington C. Me and AJ DeBan, we're no booze for us tonight because we're setting the path for a very clean start to our careers. Well, that's not the house I know. And Chris Ryan stepped up for you last night because we brought him on for the, wasn't it an emergency podcast because we knew Giannis was getting traded? [05:45] So we called it an urgent gathering.

It was being CR and barrier and CR had come home from dinner and it had a couple of cocktails. Yeah. He was a lively CR and he was especially, Oh, here we go. [05:57] This is the only time I'll do this during our live Netflix trap. The pick is in. They're showing Isaiah Adams. Adam Silver is on the clock, and he's going to tell us that the Celtics are taking... [06:08] Oh. [06:11] A Houston forward, Kyle, man. What do you think of that pick? [06:14] Snack? [06:15] Yeah. [06:15] He's somebody that I've been a little more skeptical on Because I said I thought he was kind of in this Well, caveat

[06:25] He's a guy that he's one of those conditional kind of dependent guys. It's like if he went to a team with like poor developmental structure, I would be worried about him because I'd worried that his offense was just in this weird purgatory. They needed to be straightened out where he was like a hypothetical stretch for who really only got ran. He really didn't attack the rim. Even if he got run off the line, he would take these like long twos that weren't pretty. [06:50] He had to kind of be spoon fed any offense that he got, but he's very big.

He's very athletic. He has long arms. Good rebounder. I liked him. I liked him in college. I trust the Celtics to kind of detangle him and make sense of him. So that's a good one. [07:05] Six double-doubles last year, House. Pick 27. Okay. [07:08] You needed size. I mean, it's why you got your asses handed to you by the Sixers. [07:13] One of many reasons. One of many. [07:16] including the fact that we started... [07:18] Ron Harper Jr. in Game 7 who hadn't played the whole series. Maybe overthought it a little.

All right. So winners and losers, and I have mostly winners. We're going to go through this. I did not send you the list. I'm going to be surprising you guys with all of these, and we can react. And it's a way for us to talk about the draft. As I mentioned, the big winners is... [07:35] Just competence. [07:37] Just teams over and over again. [07:40] doing what seemed to be relatively the right thing, [07:42] I'm not a group thing guy but you just kind of it was always like okay they should take him and then they would here's how you know [07:51] The Kings just sat tight.

[07:54] They didn't do anything crazy. They just sat tight and let the guy that made the most sense for them, the guy they had their eye on, he just landed in there. No irrational behavior out of the Kings. Now you know. [08:08] You saw what the Clippers tried to do because there's so many – [08:11] There's so many info guys and newsletter guys, and you can basically get any message that you want out. [08:17] All of a sudden, within two days of the draft, there was a – the Clippers – [08:22] are really becoming intrigued by Acuff.

[08:26] They like him. They've spent a lot of time on him. He could go. There were screenshots of the player development coach's son. That was one of my more entertaining. I don't know if that was an angular approach or what that was about. Could you play Acuff and Darius Garland together if that happened? And Vivek [08:44] You know, it was like, it was just like watching somebody stay disciplined at a blackjack table for the first time ever. Be like, nope. [08:52] I'm just going to double down on 11 here. [08:55] Do they keep Vivek in like in the Wolfman, like they have leather straps over his wrists and he can't touch his phone?

He's just like Hannibal Lecter or whatever it is. They definitely like that article came out. They're definitely like, we can't let Vivek see this. He's going to trade our unprotected 2029 first to move up two spots. So, yeah, House, I'll start with renewed hope. [09:18] Like legitimate renewed hope in Washington. [09:21] Utah. [09:23] Memphis, [09:24] Chicago? [09:26] Sacramento. [09:28] Five punching bags. Five teams that have been in the lottery a bunch of times or have rebuilt a [09:34] I think during the course of last year, we're either... [09:37] egregiously tanking or not as blatantly tanking or actually screwing up the tank in Sacramento's case.

And now... [09:45] That's one sixth of the league has hope. Well, and the crazy thing is, in the context of a third of the league tanking last season, for each of the teams you just rattled off, [09:57] you can come up with a decent, interesting core of guys, two or three or four young guys, all on this kind of trajectory. We're on the same rookie contract. Like, look at this little nucleus that's coming together. The bummer for those teams, and this is one of the things I'm looking at from the Washington perspective, the league is good.

The league is better. Like, you know, if teams aren't tanking next year, I was going through the Eastern Conference standings, [10:27] worst teams are, you know, is there a pathway for Washington to get to the play in? Well, yes, but you know what? It's not easy. It's not an easy path. And obviously the West is, you know, just nails across the board, especially like I look at that Utah roster. I'm like, wow. Wow. [10:46] Oh, I can't wait to talk about that. But look at the West. [10:51] Your stupid team paid Trey Young, but you have Trey Young.

The Nets traded for Julius Randle, but now they have Julius Randle. So you have this whole weird... [11:01] thing that they did, Kyle, with the draft order and the two ping pong balls, if you're in the bottom three, it already seems like it's affected... [11:08] some of the stuff we've seen, right? Like that team's, [11:12] Teams are actually okay getting, you know, basically good stat, bad team guys, which sorry, House, but that's what Trae Young has been. And that's what Julius Randle is. Just say sorry to me. Might be what Michael Porter is.

But Kyle, is this where we're going? [11:26] I mean, it seems like it. Well, it's going to be interesting to see how things shake up here now as these teams like House was saying. It's such a radical shakeup that all these have nots and hopeless wanderers in the desert are just no longer. It was like quick change. It was like the Jazz just had this like sight unseen team that might be. I know House, you were talking about being like a playing team like the Jazz might be. [11:56] have like and and they're rolling this out and i know we'll talk about it more in detail but um [12:02] Pretty dramatic shift in terms of the competency and the way that these teams are being ran.

[12:07] Well, let's talk about them first. House, we'll save your team. We can talk about them for a while. [12:13] Oh, we have the biggest winner around one was the first poll we did on the live Netflix and houses wizards 36%. So maybe the audience wants to talk wizards first. That's fine. We'll do that. Winner. The Wiz. Yeah. AJ DeBansa. I'm just going to call him DeBansa and DeBansa. I'm going to screw it up for 10 years. Yeah. Uh, [12:33] Peace. [12:34] Your first kick-ass competitive wing since when? [12:37] Oh, wow.

[12:39] Otto Porter? [12:40] Otto Porter was a pretty, you know. [12:43] They maxed him. They maxed the poison pill. Otto Porter? He was supposed to be a big three. He was part of the big three. We almost beat the Celtics to make it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. [12:56] I remember you texting me during his rookie year being like, I'm out. [13:02] The saddest thing is that you and Jalen, that was the era where you and Jalen were interviewing the prospects as they came in. And you fed me some information that wasn't very flattering.

[13:15] Well, yeah, we were lukewarm on him. We like to call him the most. [13:19] The one, the one we were the most, the one we were the most worried about was the kid who lied about his age. His name, I can't even remember it because it was so far ago, but, uh, [13:27] So favorite AJs ever? [13:29] Thawne Maker, right? [13:30] Is that right? [13:31] No, not Thawne Maker. It was the shooting guard. I can't remember. I'm blanking. He was a lefty. I can't remember. Anyway. Shabazz Muhammad. Shabazz Muhammad.

There we go. Wow, incredible. So AJ Soprano is the worst case AJ scenario, I think, House. [13:47] AJ Feely's in the middle. [13:50] I don't know. I couldn't come up with that. AJ Foyt? You didn't get AJ Foyt? Don't you remember that? AJ Foyt's a good one. The race car driver from our youth. [13:58] Now here's where Kyle... [14:00] fills a pot of water and dumps it on your head. Kyle, you think they should take a boozer. Just make the case. No, this is a can't lose draft. I mean, I gave the top three picks all A pluses because how often are you going to get?

And they said it repeatedly on the broadcast. And it's true. You could choose your flavor here of this Neapolitan sweetness of prospect goodness at the top of this draft and become always satisfied. There's a perfectly reasonable case for taking AJ that I understand that is very sober like house tonight, unfortunately. [14:30] I just thought that – I thought the basketball – [14:33] I said this to you all repeatedly, I just thought in the basketball sense to make them a competitive team that was going to be very efficient and focused and get the most and elevate their guys.

I thought Boozer made a lot of sense. But if they end up having Trey on the team, which it seems like they're going to, and if AD hangs around and you think about putting Sarr at the four and then you put AJ at the three and then you got Trey or Bub or whatever it's going to be at the two or Kaishan or Will Riley has been showing out and looking good. I don't know about the two, but I think [15:02] they suddenly have a pretty balanced team. Like it's going to be pretty interesting, I think.

So, [15:06] So, House, I was studying him carefully this whole week and all the interviews, and then even today, and at one point, [15:12] The pre-show, somebody complimented his outfit and he said, I actually went to France to [15:17] find this and brought it back. I'm like, I don't know if I love that. Why don't you love that? I didn't, I didn't love it. How about getting in the gym and working on some threes? Um, [15:27] But he's very polished, almost a little too polished. [15:31] Like polished enough where I'm like, huh, he almost seemed like a 19 year old.

He's trying. I mean, this is a very polished 19 year old. Yeah, that's right. So polished that the league selected him as their sort of youth draft correspondent to go participate and interview people and, you know, be in the playoffs and be kind of a digital media guy for that. [16:01] Reflection on his maturity by contradistinction. It was, you know, when you're splitting the hairs so fine, his his personality coming out was the kind of the opposite of what we saw out of Darren Peterson. Now, you're not drafting personality here, but, you know, we are trying to come up with a reason to choose one guy over another.

And that's part of why I like the Bonsa. [16:24] Yeah, Peterson seemed a little better... [16:26] after he got picked. It felt like he could see the weight. We'll talk about him in a second. So, winner, DeBatsa. [16:33] Who. [16:34] We've talked about it a bunch in the pod. I remember... [16:37] when was that early February? I had you on the pod, Kyle. And I was like, the bounce is going to go first. Like this is, this is a wrap. The guys, his, [16:44] He's too filled out already. Like, what's he going to look like when he's 27?

And there's just not a lot of guys like him. He's somebody that could have played in any of the last three playoff series we watched. He could have been thrown out there. He would have survived physically. [16:57] There's, if you're nitpicking, there's, [17:00] He talked about his off-ball defense. Some people don't love his shot yet. It's all stuff that will get better and better as he goes along, but he seems like [17:09] At one point, House, he said, [17:11] I've been number one my whole life. I expected to go number one in this draft.

Kyle, that's just like the kind of confidence I think you would want from your number one pick, right? [17:18] Yeah, I mean, he's he has earned confidence. I think an interesting thing about Devonza, too, that I've been amused by through watching him come up through the grassroots circuit, knowing people that have interviewed him and his family. There is just a stern focus about them, you know. [17:34] as a group and i have friends who know his dad who were like talking about he would have aj talk to these different players and just to like kind of get on his ass basically uh on purpose to give him feedback critical feedback and he and he and his dad specifically i remember said i don't kiss his ass ever he's just like on him all the time so that's the rick brunson strategy worked when the next title [17:59] And the other thing I wanted to tell House is, I was thinking about this this week, if we watch these playoffs and we think about the way it gets officiated, if you watch your beloved Denny Avdia, if you watch just any of these downhill guys, whether it be Shea or whoever, it's going to be a good guy.

[18:13] You think about DeBonce's specific set of gifts. He's not like I'm just going to roast you with a live dribble. He's not like one of those nuclear athletes, but he's his gracefulness and his balance and his power combined with being a pretty good athlete. Getting downhill makes him really potent. And I wanted to throw this stat at you, House. I was looking up listening. I was looking at this. Did you want to jump in, Bill, real quick? No, you do. There was there was. [18:39] paint touches in Division I college basketball this year.

Guys that averaged over 20 per game. The top five is all point guards. Number one is Abuka Corey, who got drafted tonight. He was vicious downhill. Darius, this is efficiency among guys that had over 20 a game. Darius Acuff was number two. [18:59] Among these point guards, number three, downhill paint touch efficiency, scoring the ball, J. DeBonsa. So that's how that guy's six foot nine. So he is set up to just get to the line and score a ton. Just by the way he plays. [19:13] I mean, we could do a whole thing of effusive praise for what he's bringing to the table, how easy it seemed like the scoring came, especially after Saunders got hurt, where he became the focal point of the offense.

But what I really love is he goes both ways. I love seeing him go left with the Euro step. [19:34] Oh. Pause. Jesus. Go ahead. It's like 11.30. Are you drunk? No, I was kidding. Go. Three hours ago, you would have gotten that. I got it immediately. [19:49] The, uh... [19:50] The... [19:51] Here's the thing with AJ. [19:52] He's not LeBron, obviously. Nobody's going to be LeBron. We'll probably never see LeBron again. [19:57] So don't aggregate this. I'm not saying he's next LeBron. How many guys have come... [20:02] into the league since LeBron, where you say to yourself, "Eh, kind of a LeBron body."

[20:08] right? Where you look at him and go, I could see him at age 27 looking a little LeBron-ish. We'd, [20:14] That is not a long list comment. [20:16] I would say that's less than 10 guys that we've had come into the league. And sadly, not all of them are good. Like maybe you could have said that about Josh Jackson. [20:23] Like, oh, Josh Jackson, when he's 27, he might be ripped. It turned out he was in the league. But – [20:29] physically, I think it's just going to be really easy for him to get his points.

And the fact that he produced in college, I think matters, which is, [20:36] Same thing for Boozer. So the Wiz are a winner. [20:40] Sadly, they're also a loser house because you gave Trey Young four years, $212 million with a player option year four that I think he's already picked up. [20:48] I don't know who you're bidding against. I don't know why he did it. It was inexplicable. We're going to do worse contracts with Waz in March. I was screenshotting you pictures of us with the first, second, or third pick next March.

Why? We have to wait till March. Why can't you have good things? Why can't you have good things for a week? Why did this have to happen? This is what I said with all the local folks here. Did they have to announce this on Monday? Why couldn't we just wait till Friday or something? Make it a Friday news dump. [21:18] with AJ it would have been fine and I had already wrapped my head around the idea that Trey Young was going to be in my life for the next three years I imagine three years 140 100 maybe like you were crazy 140 how about three for 100 sounds great really you know [21:36] But the...

[21:39] You have to sort of go, oh, Willie, there's a floor to the salary. You have to have a floor to your salaries, and you have seven guys on rookie contracts. You've got to pay somebody. You've got to pay somebody. You sound like CA. You're just making it. I'm just telling you, I am literally making shit up because it makes no sense whatsoever to pay that man 53 effing million dollars a year. No sense. Here's my problem with it, and then I'll stop. [22:08] Give me one example. I need one bit of evidence.

[22:14] that this guy at the point guard position has made a teammate better. Give me... Yes, he helped John Collins rim run. Yes, he helped Clint Capella rim run. Neither one of those fucking guys are still with the Hawks. He didn't help them extend their careers with the Hawks. And... [22:35] He was just in a situation where they had the number one overall pick in the draft, and they had a real young stud in Jalen Johnson, and Trey couldn't coexist with those guys. For whatever the reason was, stylistically, whatever the vision is, whatever Quinn Snyder's offense was.

[22:54] It didn't work there. So, yeah. [22:57] That's a lot of money. [22:58] for a project, by which I mean you're projecting. You had two minutes. You took two and a half. [23:09] It was horrible. It was egregious. It was a crime against the Wizards. And I don't know, this would be the only reason I wouldn't want to go to a Wizards game next year. [23:17] And Trae Young's obviously not a bad player, but I just think we did this when you did Bradley Beal, and Bradley Beal was coming off a good season when you gave him the dumb contract.

[23:26] Trey Young was coming off a season where his team gave him away. [23:29] And the revisionist history of this where it's like, well, Trae Young chose the wizards. He did? Who wanted to trade for him? Not one person. How should I have this friend at CAA, Kyle? [23:38] who's relatively powerful. [23:40] And we were texting him like, [23:42] You guys, why did you do that to the Wizards? [23:46] Why did you do that? I congratulated him. Yeah, we were congratulating him. Somehow you found the sucker at the poker table.

Just hilarious stuff. Who leads that team house? Who's the leader of that? That's what we were speculating about. I was just like, I could see... [24:01] I don't want to speculate too much here, but I can see AJ and Trey being at odds at some point. They like to have the ball. I'm just wondering where – that seems like a lot of personalities that I could see – [24:11] The biggest problem with Trey is he's this three-point Curry lookalike three-point shooter, but the threes don't go in. [24:18] He doesn't play off the ball.

I mean, that's the key thing. It makes sense if the threes go in, but he's been, you know, low 30s now for three years. Well, he's going to set up. Trey Johnson is going to have nothing but open looks. He's going to be. This is the master facilitator version of Trey Young, that one of the all time leading assist guys by, you know, per game. [24:40] Um, this is true. He did lead the league in assists, um, in recent memory. We were going to do a poll for, do you think the Wizards made a mistake with the Trae Young contract?

But, uh, [24:52] Netflix said we couldn't do polls where it's 100%. Yes, they made a mistake. They wanted us to have polls where people had two votes. Another winner. [25:00] So we mentioned this earlier, Utah. [25:03] They take Peterson. We'll see how this turns out. Obviously, the ceiling of this is the highest of all these guys. [25:10] On paper, [25:12] And it didn't really fully cement itself until they actually took him. And he was walking up there and he seemed really relieved and happy with Triple J, D. [25:21] Kessler, Lori marketed, [25:23] George, [25:25] Peterson.

[25:26] It's your starting five. [25:28] Ace Bailey is your sixth man. They have sense of bar, they have some good pieces, they have an owner who's gonna spend money, [25:34] And you could see how they would have talked themselves into like, this is actually... [25:38] Boozer would be an awesome pick for depth and maybe he's the best guy in the draft. But if we hit with Peterson, this is like the missing piece for us. We could be like a six seed next year. [25:48] So what do we expect from him next year, Kyle, man?

[25:51] I mean, he could average over 20 next year, I think, for sure. That's definitely possible. Wow, really? Yeah, I think so. I mean, you can't say he's one of the generational scoring talent and then not kind of. I mean, I think he could definitely do that. Not 20 missed games, right? 20 points a game. 20 points a game. Okay. He and Keontae, I think, are the biggest question about just how do those guys find kind of a synergy together. But, man, just the shooting, a one through five shooting on that team.

[26:21] That's what's worked for eight years when everybody on your team in a playoff series can shoot. House, did you have a moment with him where... [26:29] Maybe like a 1, [26:32] You cheated on AJ and you looked at some YouTube clips and watched a little Darren Peterson. You started thinking about it. Took your engagement ring off for an hour. Well, I... [26:42] I don't want to talk about... Stay married, House. [26:46] Thank you. [26:47] I am married. Super happily married. I don't wear one either. Not a ring guy.

I don't wear jewelry. I lost three. I don't either. I lost way a while back and my ring fell off and I never got a new one. I lost three. I wore it. I lost three different ones anyway. I did flirt with the idea of a, I will say, Darren Peterson and I had like 24 hours. You had a fling. You went to Cabo for 24 hours? [27:17] I took a look. I was like, wow. Maybe I didn't give... Wow, he looks like Kobe. I didn't give enough. I don't think I gave this guy enough credit.

I need to think about this a little bit. It really was the movie list. That's what really pushed me, like, [27:31] He's a deep thinker. It was the most important thing he did. He's an interstellar. Outstanding. Well, this would be really fun. Look, [27:39] Great coach, stable owner. He goes with Will Hardy, goes with the [27:43] Stable ownership franchise goes with a really thirsty fan base. [27:47] A fan base that has been there for a long, long time since they moved there in the 80s has had some... [27:53] Really good moments.

Made two finals in 97-98. Had a nice almost run there with Williams and Boozer. [28:00] Um, and then the Mitchell Gobert thing just never really played out, but they've been once a decade, they've been relevant and they were obviously the most relevant with Malone and Stockton, but that's a. [28:10] really, really starving [28:12] fan base that will show up in big ways. So that might be great. I will say this, Kyle, man. [28:17] Danny Ainge, really awesome track record with taking elite guys. And if he likes Peterson, that makes me feel a lot better about Peterson, as weird as that sounds.

[28:26] This is the same guy I wanted to take Durant over Odin. I think he hones in on star talent in a unique way. [28:34] And obviously likes this guy. So I think that's a great sign for the Jazz. He's never going to cower from like, oh, are you going to be able to handle, you know, unless it's just like a, are there examples of just totally. [28:46] You guys had him for a long time, Bill. I mean, you know the track record really well. Is there a guy that he ever was scared away from?

Like, it's just not worth it? Even though you told us the story. No, he went the other way. Yeah, he would take like the R. Giddens types, the super talented guy. [28:59] screw-up types just because they had talent. He couldn't resist those guys. He always saw the talent. [29:05] So with this, you have talent, work ethic, [29:08] whole bunch of things. So Utah, [29:10] I don't know. This would be a good Netflix poll. Could Utah be a playoff team next year? [29:15] How's the you think? [29:16] Could you see them as one of the top eight seeds next year?

Is that conceivable to you or no? You're basically saying that they're going to replace Phoenix. I think that's, that's how you get there. Um, [29:27] And at least on paper, like the talent is there. They're way more talented. Like I'm not even close. The enormous unknown is like what's Will Hardy capable of? Like how can this all come together? [29:42] with this team actually trying to win. And it feels like we might have the answer in the first 10 games of the season. You said you think that Peterson's going to start.

I think it's fine to bring him off the bench. Let Ace start. Either way, it doesn't really matter. [29:56] But it's kind of a [29:57] an embarrassment of riches and a really fascinating challenge for them. But the West is so good. [30:05] It's Portland and Phoenix that they're going to be competing with. [30:10] In Portland, it still has a chance to get better. We'll see with Phoenix. The Netflix audience thinks... [30:15] Utah should have taken Peterson 60% on that. Question on, you mentioned the fugitive. I was noting this in our draft grades.

I was like, do you think Darren Peterson sees any sort of kinship with, you know, Richard Kimball, the way he's in a bus, you know, his college season is like a bus crash and it's rolling down the hill and he miraculously escapes it as it explodes and still gets taken. Number two, do you think there's like maybe some parallels there? Shaves his beard, dives his hair. Yeah, it starts out. [30:45] the coach, was that a big game? Like 15 minutes before the game? I'm not playing. Not going. Yeah. That was when I got really concerned.

Look, [30:54] The talent's there. We've talked about it a bunch on the pod. There's no question. If you're going to pick who has come into the league in the last 30 years, who's looked the most like young Kobe, you would pick Peterson. [31:04] Um, [31:05] There's red flags though that I can't ignore. I don't know how it's going to play out. I'd be hesitant to make a prediction, but I will say this is the best scenario I think for him. [31:14] It's going to be far away in the Pacific Northwest.

Where's he from? That's not Pacific. Mountain West. [31:24] It's almost nine o'clock. I had a whole John and Vinny's two hours ago. To think Vegas, but four hours. It's closer to Vegas than you think out there. Yeah, West Coast, whatever. Perfect spot for him. Yeah. [31:37] I'm going to take a break and regroup after saying Utah is in the Pacific Northwest. We're going to be back in one second. We'll be the rest of the winners and losers. Yeah, there's some good ones. All right. [31:47] This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats.

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[32:22] Order now for 30% off your game day snacks and grocery order only on Uber Eats for a limited time. [32:28] Offer eligible for 30% off entire order. Taxes, fees, and terms apply. Offer valid. [32:34] through July 5th. Product availability varies by region, [32:38] Exclusions may apply. [32:42] Winners and losers, we got to hit Memphis. Shout out to our guy, Verno. Verno was at a draft party. He said the entire city was rooting for... [32:49] Boozer. [32:51] Um, [32:52] No disrespect to Peterson, but I think [32:55] I think that City's had a little bit of a rollercoaster ride the last few years with unreliable guys and, [33:02] It was basically looking forward to a guy who you could just come into the league and pencil in for 20 and 11 every year for the next, [33:08] 12 years of his career.

He actually sent in the video, the crowd exploded at the draft party. [33:12] when Peterson went number two. So this is like a classic Memphis guy. This is the grit and grind Grizzlies. He would have fit right in. [33:20] You have him and Boozer, him and Coward and maybe Edie. [33:24] um well i think i like wells well yeah they have a bunch of dudes um [33:29] And I think you just tell him coming out of the gate. If, if job calls you to go out and celebrate the pick, um, tell him, [33:36] Tell them you had the sniffles and maybe get out of that one.

What do you think of Boozer Memphis, Kyle? [33:42] I think it's going to be great. I mean, like you said, he fits their sort of organizational identity, you know, from the past. But he also, you know, they're big on analytics. They're big on efficiency and winning players and things like that. So he checks both boxes. And I feel like whenever we say grit and grind, I think sometimes we say we make it sound like, you know, we're prioritizing that over skill, over everything. We're just going to claw you to death.

It's like Boozer plays that way. [34:07] And he has all those things, but he's just kind of like a modernized version of his dad. I heard Legler say, Kevin Love, that was something we had in the guide. That's something that I've thought for a while. [34:16] He's just got all these kind of intangible skills that he can space it if they want to play him and Zach Eady together. I think he'll make him like Cam Spencer. He'll make Cam Spencer and Cedric Coward better with his passing so they can work off the ball.

It's a great fit, man, and it's organizational mouthwash. Like we were saying, you know, if Peterson had been there at three years, [34:36] Do you think they even would have... [34:37] taken him? It's such an opportunity. Maybe you don't pass it up, but I think this is the outcome that they all wanted. I asked for an O earlier in the night. I was like, I mean, is that who? Resounding yes, they wanted Boozer and they got him. [34:51] Would have been an interesting one, Haas, if [34:53] Boozer goes too. [34:56] Nayev Wilson.

[34:57] who is the most Memphis-y kind of guy ever. That's a classic couldn't try harder, great kid, would have fit in with all the different teams they had. Would they have done that or would they have rolled the dice? Then later, House... [35:12] They deal 16,000. [35:14] for 17, and [35:16] In two seconds, so OKC can take Bennett Sturtz. [35:19] which is the most predictable moment of the night. And then they go backwards from 17 to 21 with Detroit, [35:26] So Detroit could take a Corey. They pick up three more seconds.

[35:30] And I'm like... [35:31] Ready to stand on my couch and applaud because I think they're going to take Phylon. [35:35] And they took Lopez. So I did not stand up on my couch and applaud. I'm going to give them both a winner for... [35:43] picking up five seconds to move five picks backwards. But let me ask you a thing. I don't understand. I thought, [35:50] when... [35:52] they picked for Detroit when they took a Corey – [35:55] for Detroit. I thought he would be an awesome... [36:00] uh guy for that young nucleus that they have going in memphis what do you think the thought process was [36:06] not taking a point guard.

Yeah. The thought process is probably they're stuck with John Moran. [36:11] and they didn't want to bring in another player. I don't think they have a landing spot for him. [36:15] Has kind of a similar profile to Moran, except a Corey, a Corey super downhill, but he just leans scoring more than playmaking than job. But I mean, yeah, it would have been really fun. I think he would have been a nice change of pace from the size and the grinding kind of. [36:31] Thing that they're going to have going on Just an interesting off-speed pitch In the way that Mara is going to be for OKC Who I don't know if we're going to get to him in a minute But yeah, I thought O'Pourri would have been really fun For people who haven't seen him I mean, he's just like ultimate jitterbug I always say he's like if an NFL kick returner Was playing point guard Like you just can't stay in front of him And you can't grab onto him He's just, he's greased lightning with a basketball in his hands [36:58] He was one of the guys I was praying for one of those guards to follow the Celtics at 27th.

[37:05] Anderson. [37:06] Phylon. [37:07] Um, [37:08] Corey, like just one of them, just hoping that there was a run on other positions. And sometimes guys get shoved down. [37:15] And it started to happen with Phylon. [37:17] Because it felt like if Philly didn't take him, it really felt like the next couple teams wouldn't have taken him. [37:23] And that, so sometimes that happens, but that never really happens. What were you going to say, Hask? [37:27] Just I think it was a sneaky good pick by Detroit. [37:31] Acquary. Yeah. [37:33] Another help them.

[37:34] Yeah, you know what they needed? Somebody who could create a shot. [37:37] Agreed. In April, May, and maybe even June. Well, great times for Memphis. They end up with the third pick. They don't win the lottery. [37:46] That might have gotten the best guy. How's it you? [37:49] You'll root for Boozer, but you don't want him to be too good, right? [37:52] You're hoping he's like a solid A-. I'm rooting for all of those guys. It's such a good draft. I'm fascinated to see now that. You don't want him to be better than AJ.

Just admit it, House. It's all situational. It's going to be impossible to parse. We'll see from the raw offensive talent, we'll be able to judge some. But Peterson's going to look incredible in Utah. I'm prepared for that right away in the same manner that Dylan Harper [38:22] bonkers, but remember, Dylan Harper played in the G League this season. It wasn't right away. I think we screwed that up. I think Carter Bryant did. I'm not sure Harper did. I might have screwed that up, but now you took my screw up. There was extended stretches where he was not getting minutes.

No, that is true. Stretches where he couldn't get on the floor, and it was clear that they were doing something in terms of the work, but... [38:50] It took him a while. He was a slow burn. I don't think that's going to be the case with Peterson. I think we're going to see him right away. [38:57] I have another winner. This is a quick one. [39:00] The Knicks being a defending champion at the NBA draft, [39:04] Thank you. [39:04] It was weird. Was that weird? Happy Knick fans. They celebrated the title multiple times.

[39:09] The Knicks were on the clock. Everybody was cheering. They showed the trophy. [39:14] It was just happy. Nobody was booing. They weren't showing Spike Lee looking like he was ready to have six drinks. [39:21] They weren't booing the pick. You didn't see Nick fans just ready to be angry like the Jets fans are at every draft. It was just happiness coming. [39:29] Did you wonder for a minute if the booing would continue or, you know, just that they won and, you know, that would be just like a nice soothing balm on their on their bad feelings.

I wondered if they booed Silverwood, of course, they immediately booed him when he came out. They did boo the San Antonio Spurs, which I enjoyed. [39:48] All right. [39:49] I'm bouncing around. We haven't gotten to Chicago yet, but we'll get to them. [39:53] Because I needed a loser. [39:55] Um, [39:56] Loser, number 10. [39:58] Brandon Burris, who I love, probably one of my three favorite guys in the draft. [40:03] Could have gotten drafted by Dallas and played with Cooper Flagg at number nine and Kyrie and just been in meaningful basketball games right away with a bunch of role players.

[40:11] He could have fallen to 11. [40:14] and joined Steph Curry, one of the 10 or 12 greatest players of all time. [40:19] on their last run of relevance with two years with Steve Kerr and Draymond and maybe LeBron going there and, [40:25] The whole thing. He could have been part of that. Playing for Arizona's Steve Kerr. [40:30] The Arizona Connection. [40:32] What happens? [40:33] He gets drafted by the Bucks at 10, the crappy Bucks. [40:37] the all-time mediocre. There's never been a more likely 31-win team than this Bucs team.

And now he has to fight for shots with a bunch of guys on their team. [40:47] And I just got bummed out, Kyle. [40:49] I think the good thing about Burry's though is that I don't know that he'll necessarily be bummed about that because he's just such a quality like fits in wherever he is. I mean, it's a missed opportunity for him. Can I be bummed for him? [41:02] You're welcome to do that. Yeah, I'll permit that. He's... [41:06] Yeah, I mean, he missed out on being in a more fun basketball environment in the short term, obviously.

I think you can clearly see the thinking for the Bucs, though. It's just like they don't necessarily, and I hope they're not thinking they know they have a centerpiece right now. They're still going to try to figure out what their direction is. And taking somebody, Buries will fit into whatever they choose to do. And then they took Amit with their other pick as sort of an upside swing. But I thought he made sense for them to pick because he's just going to be around for whatever happens. And that's one of the things with this draft house.

[41:36] years ago, they'd take amen at 10. [41:39] And Burry's falls to the Warriors at 11. And then we spend the next five years going, are you fucking kidding me? How does this happen? But no, the Bucs. [41:49] wisely were like, you know who should take the guy who's by far the best player in this spot right now? So now Burries has to go to this. [41:56] If he gets a text that says, Kevin Porter Jr. and Kyle Kuzma want to take you to dinner tomorrow night, [42:01] Again, I'd go with sniffles, maybe some bronchitis.

[42:05] maybe some tinnitus, maybe you went to a concert, your ears were hurting. Right, the ring ears. Were you surprised that the Mavericks did not take him because they took Merez Johnson instead? [42:15] All of that whole situation with Dallas changed, I think, in a pretty dramatic way with the Dusty May thing. Yeah. Like, look at that situation that presents itself. And the most interesting thing is Dusty May got to choose his favorite, who he thought was going to be most impactful at the pro level. And he chose Marez. Here's the best part about that house.

[42:41] he can also say he didn't choose it. Of course. No, you're absolutely right. Yeah. So I, I just got the job. They were already locked in on Mraz. Obviously I told them he's a great kid, but you know, I can't, I just got hired. I can't come in and start telling these guys what to do. Like, [42:59] I just got hired a week ago. [43:02] But, you know, he probably was like, yeah, because everything. And this is why we all love them, Kyle. Like this was just the classic. These are the guys that would fall in the draft 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago.

[43:14] Um, [43:15] Just the heartbeat of a great team in college. [43:18] The engine... [43:20] All the quotes about him was like, we could never have a bad practice because of this guy. Every time we needed to pick up in a game, he'd do something. He was relentless. [43:29] the most competitive motherfucker on the planet, all the stuff you want to hear. [43:33] All things that we discounted for years and years and then finally started listening to, but [43:37] You were a little more down on him in the draft guide than – [43:41] Where'd you land on him?

Like... [43:44] I ended up with Merez at 13. So, I mean, I wasn't like out. So he went nine. Four ahead. Yeah. No, I mean, the argument there for him. He's really young, too. I think people should keep that in mind. Like Merez played a year of college at Illinois and went and played like FIBA U19 with like AJ and Michael Brown and those guys. So he's really had a year. So he's young for a college sophomore and just really dogged. I mean, and I think that. [44:12] Cooper being there and making the playmaking progress that he made, and then you got Kyrie coming back.

Granted, we don't totally know what's going to happen with that. Because you were thinking maybe they'd make a swing at a playmaker-type guy there, but you talked about it. I think the conventional wisdom has just kind of evolved over the years, where you would just see teams get in the top 10 and be like, [44:33] It's this illusion of being in the top 10 that makes you feel like you have to be in this mindset of like, well, we're here. We got to like take this chance on an upside pick.

Right. It's like and the upside picks year to year can be like pretty volatile. They can be huge risks. And you'll see teams take the swing at those guys and end up with like a Kevin Knox or somebody like, oh, you get tantalized. Like, oh, he's inefficient, but I'm tantalized. And the safer thing to do is to take the dude who can switch one through five like Mraz Johnson, who's a winner, who's going to be on your team. [45:03] It's a safe, smart pick. [45:06] I like it. I think it's good.

[45:08] I told you I did this exercise. I went through the last five drafts. [45:11] and try to separate the guys based on studs, playoff guys, or just wild cards. And wild cards can be upside or small guards or shooters. [45:20] And the playoff guys year after year, like in last year's draft, it was Cedric Howard, [45:26] Murray Boyles, Carter Bryan, and Hugo. [45:28] were the four guys that, [45:30] are just guys that have that playoff profile, that can guard different positions, that have energy. They bring some sort of skill set that seems to matter when it gets to April and May.

In '24, [45:40] The playoff guys were... [45:42] Your guy, Sar, is a guy. [45:43] House. I can't give him a stud. But he's, you know, maybe Serge Ibaka in the right situation. Better Serge Ibaka. [45:51] Uh, Clingon. [45:53] AJ Mitchell, [45:55] Jared McCain. [45:57] Baylor Shireman. [45:59] Right. So again, like no, like small offense first shooting guards, right. [46:03] no kind of upside guys. These are just dudes that play. And then, [46:07] The year before that was... [46:09] Kamara, Kaysan Wallace, Jaquez, Derek Lively, and Podzemski. [46:14] as like your playoff guys.

So I look at Merez and I'm just like, he just feels like he's in those three classes. I just, I can just see him in a playoff series. Everybody seemed to think, okay, so he was either going to take them or trade up if they didn't feel like they could get him at 12th. [46:29] And I do wonder if they've infected people. [46:31] thinking of these teams a little bit. Back to Milwaukee, though. [46:36] um, [46:37] I had as a loser... [46:40] the honest trade already 24 hours later, which I didn't like yesterday when we did the, the, uh, [46:47] urgent gathering podcast.

I usually like to get a, [46:51] Blue Chipper, when I'm trading one of the best 25 ports of all time, [46:56] One of the things they got was the 13th pick in the drafts. [46:59] And they took... [47:00] Nate Amet, who I think was the most polarizing guy of these first 15 years. [47:05] Classic. He... [47:07] I don't want to be mean about somebody who's 20, but hits the draft checklist of, [47:11] Well, he didn't shoot last year, but he's a good shooter. Well, he struggled down the end of last year, but he was injured.

[47:18] You could see the upside. It's all like upside and not stuff. If you actually watch the games and you're just like, what is this guy? Is he Brad Sellers? [47:26] So what is this guy? [47:28] And Billis was like, he got fouled a lot. He stuck his nose in there. It was just kind of really getting creative with it. I mean, I do think there's something there. It's just a matter of what level of investment you want to put in him. I mean, I was lower on him than consensus.

I ended up with him at 20%. [47:48] Just because of where I was comfortable with that. I mean, I heard somebody on another NBA show say that he reminded him of Perry Jones III, which is kind of. [47:57] Honestly, the way people used to talk about Perry Jones, he'd be like, oh, it's so big. Watch him move. Oh, my God. You just get caught up in these hypothetical vortexes where you're like, oh, the hypotheticals, man. It's like, no, I kind of would like to see something not hypothetical at some point.

But he's like Senac. It's like he's a guy who's a streaky shooter, and he's just not comfortable at the rim. It's like maybe you can kind of develop him into like a solid role player. I don't know if he'll be a star, but I think role player is what I would aim at first. At least with Senac, he rebounds, right? [48:27] He's got one scale that could be like, well, at least he does that. Right. I don't, I don't know if they, amen. I think the Perry Jones thing is a really good.

[48:34] It's a really good one. There's so many of those guys house. Why do us feel like we had way more of those guys in the 90s and the 2000s? [48:41] We probably did. [48:43] Maybe just... [48:44] The whole infrastructure for youth basketball is just better now, but... [48:48] Um, listen, I, [48:49] Maybe it'll happen. I don't know. But he set off a lot of red flags for me. My favorite, though, about the honest trade. [48:55] Shamsu seems to really... [48:58] want to make it work for the bucks that this trade was a good trade.

[49:02] When it was, as I said yesterday, this is a trade you make when you want to keep your job and everyone else's job in the front office for another three years. Just a lot of picks that are out in the future. [49:12] You're sort of rebuilding. You have these guys that you might keep or trade. [49:16] And at no point does anybody look at you and say, well, why aren't we better? We just traded for Jalen Brown. Shouldn't we have 50 wins? Why do we have 30? [49:26] Sham said at one point during the draft, [49:29] The calls are continuing to come in for the Milwaukee Bucks.

[49:33] for their guys. I find this hard to believe. I actually literally heard the opposite, that the calls were going out. [49:40] from the Milwaukee Bucks asking if anybody was, [49:43] Excited about this house. You never gave your thoughts on the podcast about the Miami honest trade. Um, I, I, my first reaction was, wow, this is a rare lose, lose trade. You don't get a lot of those in the NBA. Um, now, um, [49:58] Miami had to do it because what the hell else were they going to do? I didn't like the trade for them either.

It is Giannis. I'm being a little facetious. I get it from their side. I get it. Exactly right. But, okay, great job. They moved up from being the play-in 10th team to the fifth best team in the East? Sixth best team? Yeah. What did you think, Kyle? Kyle? [50:22] You think they move that high? [50:24] I mean, this is the conversation to be had, right? Well, you're factoring in five seed. You're saying Giannis is going to play 70 games with the five seed. Exactly right. [50:35] That I am doing. All of their top six guys are going to play 70 games because they can't afford for any of those guys to miss 15 or 20 games here or there.

They really can't. When we did the pod yesterday, we were like, well, they'll bring Norm Powell back. And then today it's like, yeah, Norm Powell's not coming back. They don't have enough money to pay him. [50:51] So we'll see. They can patch it together. But what do you think, Kyle? Defensively, I think they could be pretty interesting. I mean, they're going to have to work their magic in the margins and finding guys, though. I mean, because you're going to need some more, you know. Shooting. Yeah, you're going to need some more shooting.

I mean, but that's kind of their specialty. They pull those guys just out of nothing. Like, they find them, they target them. And there's a few guys in this draft, I think, that they could go target.