The 2026 Take-athon, Part 1 | Real Ones

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What's popping, Logan Murdoch here, live,

from Spotify Studios here in Los Angeles,

here for the first ever take-a-thon with myself,

Howard Motherfucking Beck and Tyler Parker,

where we each have a take about every single all-star.

And we have our buddy, Joe Mayor Denneron,

give the best take and make best the best champion.

We're about to do that next on Real Ones, up next.

Victoria, play the theme music.

What's popping?

Hello everyone, I'm Logan Murdoch,

and I would like to welcome you

to the first ever take-a-thon presented

by Real Ones, where we give the boldest take possible

on all of your favorite all-stars.

I am your host, obviously, and I am joined

by my distinguished panel, Howard Motherfucking Beck.

And you know, an honorary role one of the day, Mr. Tyler Parker.

How you guys doing, man?

Doing great.

I'm just, you and I are in the same room,

which is a rarity in itself.

We're in the same room with the great Tyler Parker,

which is just raising this whole thing

to a whole other level.

I'm very excited about this.

Tyler's made some turns on the Real Ones

when I was subbing for you.

I free-lance a little bit.

When you're gone, I just like,

I just start bringing on random people.

I'm like, you're Tyler Parker?

Cool.

We had fun without you, but it's good to have us all here.

It's fine.

No, it's an honor to join one of my favorite shows.

Always happy to talk, ball.

And yeah, let's get some takes off.

I am a little intimidated by the fact that we are in

this hallowed studio space where the house of R tapes,

so shout out to Mal and Joe.

This is like, I almost put on the night's helmet

out there.

That would have been cool.

If you would have came in with the night's helmet,

that would have kind of taken the show out of it.

It takes it harder when you got a night's head already in that.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

So just little ground rules.

We've been tasked to analyze a group of players

based on the separate teams, the team stars,

the team stripes, and team world.

Each pick will be heavily scrutinized by a resident

take expert, Jamie Ardeneran,

who is going to be here at some point.

And he will, at the end of all of this,

give out the prestigious take champion award for the best takes.

I had no idea there was a championship on the line.

It might be.

It might be.

I'm taking a lot of stuff back home, as you can see.

We have a lot of players and not a lot of time,

but the biggest thing out of all of this is,

we're just here to have fun, how we're back.

We're just here to have fun.

I'm all about fun.

Don't take the take too seriously or do it,

just make it entertaining.

But without further ado, take a look at the first player.

And it is Anthony Edwards.

This is your take.

Man, I get to break the glass here.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

Anthony Edwards.

Anthony Edwards has the best accessory in the league.

Okay.

The number five sweat band on the left calf.

Yes.

This is the, this is the best accessory to me.

It's not too loud, but it's unique.

It says, look, this is who I am.

This is what I'm about.

Yeah.

I, I, I, there, the other, I'm a big fan of Aaron Gordon's

head band whenever he's in the mix.

Obviously, there's a lot of sleeves, a lot of tights going around.

Yeah.

What you're all finding good, but when it, I really appreciate

a leg band, and I like how committed he's been to it

for such a long time.

You know, that is a throwback back to back in the,

like the mid 2000s, where a lot of guys were that,

we got away from that as a basketball culture

with the sweat band on the leg.

But what I love about it is he has a sweat band on one leg,

but he has the flow joe tight on the other legs

to keep that leg warm.

And then he has the arm band here.

We got away from arm bands for a long time,

and we got the, we had the, the wrist Iverson band

for a long time.

And I'm glad that we're getting back to sweat band

because they're very vital.

I feel like the arm band especially is a,

it's a very brave choice to do it on the outside of the elbow

because it, to me, it's going to, it's going to restrict,

it's going to, I'm going to feel it here

when I'm going up for a jumper, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

It's going to, it's going to constrict.

And I don't like that, but I, I appreciate that

because there's clearly a science to what he's doing.

Or maybe not what makes it actually even more.

If it's all aesthetics, honestly, even better,

but like, yeah.

The league got weird about it though in the early 2000s.

That's what happened.

Iverson did his arm sleeve, which shout out to Tyleu

for then emulating the arm sleeve in practices

when they were getting ready for the finals in 2001.

He like, not only was playing the part of Iverson at practice,

he did the sleeve to emulate, but then like,

people started doing like full on leg sleeves

and arm sleeves.

And the next thing you know, instead of wearing like,

you standard NBA uniform, which is like,

you know, shorts and jersey,

it looked like you were just wearing full body armor

and the league would got all weird about it.

Like, no, this is not regulation or whatever.

But that was back during the day too,

where like, everybody had to wear the same colored shoes.

You had to be coordinated.

Now it gets so much more interesting now, right?

Where everybody's got like, just go to full tots Gibson.

Yeah.

You know?

Right.

You ain't sleeves, Iverson sleeves,

just cover the whole body.

Listen, the NBA is going to like allow for like 72 different

fucking uniforms in the course of a season for every team anyway.

You got no standing as a league to tell guys.

You can't wear like various accoutrements, you know?

Absolutely.

What's your favorite wristbands and headbands in two?

Look, what do you, what do you guys like?

You haven't played pick up in a while,

but what do you wear the headband?

Like, what did you wear?

I like to, I like to the wristbands.

I like to, you know, like, like, what,

I love back of the day because wristbands were actually utility, right?

Like, it was actually like, this is why we use them now.

We just put them everywhere.

They started because they actually helped, I think.

Yeah.

I didn't have, I didn't have one.

I tried to experiment with a wristband here every now and again.

My dad had an old air Jordan one that he get from like late 80s,

like with the flight logo, with or with the wing logo, you know?

Yeah.

And I was like all about it.

But every time I would wear it like early in the first quarter,

I would start to feel like it was bother me and then I'd always take it off.

I had the, I had the Iverson headband, like the Reebok Iverson headband.

And I would wear it over the ears, but then Derek Fisher used to wear it,

like covering the ears and then he really pinned them back with that.

Yeah, yeah.

And then I would wear them around my neck.

I'll, uh, uh, Sugs NBA is hating on that too because that was a good one.

Yeah, NBA let's Sugs, let's, let's Sugs eat.

Let it go.

Yeah, what the fuck are we doing?

We don't want to, we don't want to hinder bravery and invention.

And the, the, the, the, the, the, I heard nobody.

Areas are cold, bro.

Areas are really cold places.

Let's put the bucket.

Let's warm the, uh, the neck.

Yeah.

I tried to do a leg sleeve for a little bit to or let, like a leg sweatband on the leg.

Like same kind of, honestly, similar to what Edwards did, but it just never,

never felt like me, you know what I mean?

And then let's boring boy.

Let's normalize again, just getting swaggy for a pickup game.

It doesn't matter at all.

And that you're probably going to be trashin'.

Let's just normalize.

Yeah, I mean, I'm into that.

Okay, that was a good, uh, first player.

Great first take, buddy.

Hey, thank you so much.

Next player, please.

Oh, we're getting spicy.

Yannis, I did a combo.

That's a howard take.

I got a lot of, a lot of thoughts about Yannis.

We have emptied out a lot of that.

I don't know we had any more thoughts about Yannis.

I didn't know it was possible.

I had to, I had to get a little more creative here because we have talked so much about him,

about trade demands and non-trade demands and his passive aggressiveness and all this stuff.

And I stepped back for a second and I thought about it and this is where,

where I landed for our NBA all start, take a thought, which is no matter what happens next,

trade, not trade, more drama, whatever it is.

I think he's already the greatest buck of all time.

Over Kareem Abdul-Jabbar then Lou Elcinder.

The greatest, greatest person to ever play so bucks, the Kareem buck.

Kareem getting fed with the, with the betting company.

Maybe not the most ethical, but the best.

I just said, the new Kalshi's swerve by him does, it's, it's coloring some things.

I can't distinguish Kalshi from like Kalshi, like the little rice cereal stuff.

Yeah, I don't, one is probably better than the other.

But greatest buck.

I'm not, this is not about ethics or morals or anything else Logan.

This is not even about whatever.

He's not the most moral buck the best lady in jail.

Just the best buck.

Listen, Kareem, of course, all time legend should be in every goat conversation.

But Kareem spent six seasons with the bucks.

He won one championship, two finals appearances.

Yannis won championship only one finals appearance.

And Kareem did have three of his MVP's in that span, Yannis too.

But Yannis has already been there for 13 seasons.

Yannis is the longest tenured all time great to play for that franchise.

And it had been a very long time.

Half century since they'd won a championship until Yannis brought them back to that.

And I think what's happening now is as we all start getting into the weeds of Yannis's

trade slash non-trade demand, it's kind of coloring our views of him right now,

because he's kind of annoying a lot of people.

He's pissing people off.

But I think we need to take us that back and recall what he has done and where he has come from.

Kareem got there almost as a fully formed star.

Yannis got there as like this skinny teenager with no promise of anything.

And he's delivered way beyond what anybody could have expected.

He embraced Milwaukee and he for all of what's happening now

in what is eventually going to be a divorce sometime this off season almost certainly.

He gave them a lot of really great years of really great basketball and put a small market

cold weather city back on the NBA map.

There's no small thing.

It's tough on this one, right?

Kareem did have better individual circumstances and a better individual career in Milwaukee.

But we got to have a little bit more nuance as to why he left Milwaukee, right?

I mean, he had gotten up into some politics at that point and it didn't necessarily jive well

with the community in Milwaukee.

He also had a few of his own trade demands to get out of Milwaukee as well, right?

Right, so they're even on that score too.

Yeah, and who knows where Milwaukee goes.

I mean, who knows where Yannis ends up being.

I don't know if he's going to be a Laker, I don't think so.

But like, it's weird how those two, they're connected even more than we give credit for.

But I don't.

And I'm not saying he's better than Kareem.

No, no, no, no, he had a better career.

But how much did that?

I got to admit, I got to take Howard's word on this because I mean, I wasn't alive.

Stop it.

I tried to have something profound.

That was what happens when I, when I try to go into a profound rebuttal, I just,

I couldn't do it because I really don't have anything to stand up.

I'm actually watching the last Kareem in Milwaukee play.

No, no, I did not.

Who would be, who would be is the only other player that would even be in the conversation

to be Oscar, right?

Yeah.

That's got to be it.

Why is he better than Oscar?

Has him a walkie-butt?

I didn't even have to consider Oscar within this because I'm,

Oscar's going to be the notch below Kareem, is he?

Right.

Yeah, he is.

No, he is.

We've got like a reverse.

Who's going to have something?

Do you, do you, is your argument?

And I'm not going, I can go back and forth.

I don't really have a rebuttal because again, that was, I'm 12.

Still, right now.

But how much are you considering the story of both players

as it means to talking about their impact on that community, right?

Because I feel like you're, you're, you're, you're completing also the story of Yannis

in Milwaukee as a part of his story of being the best, right?

Because right out of the gate, if you look at Kareem's stats going into,

they were bananas.

And that also speaks to the time in which he played, right?

His, his, his stats rival, Will Chamberlain of that time.

And in a way that Yannis's stats just even at his peak don't even touch Kareem's.

So that would, I guess, be my rebuttal during that time.

It's like, what is, are you saying it because of the relationship that Milwaukee has with Yannis

based on how long he's been there or the play in which that those two played for each other,

like played in that community?

This is, this is basically a, what did you mean to that team during your time,

with that franchise?

Okay, so that, there's a difference between most loved and best, right?

Yeah, but I just said the greatest buck and that is,

that doesn't mean he was better than him overall.

It doesn't mean he's got more hardware because he doesn't,

it doesn't mean he's got more of the other accolades, he doesn't.

And, and when all is said and done,

Yannis is not going to touch Kareem in, in, in the pantheon and the all-time,

in, in, in Bill's pyramid, like Yannis will be really high,

but he's not going to be in Kareem's tier.

That's fine. For the period of time that each of these guys

anchored this franchise, what did they each mean to it?

What did they, and what did they leave behind?

At the moment that Yannis leaves, there will be a lot of those same bad feelings

that we see every time we, we see a version of this,

LeBron, KD, everybody, and, and, and, and,

But those time will heal that though.

I mean, like, last time the bucks were, were in the finals, Kareem was there.

But I think it's important at a time like this,

when we're about to see the backlash because of the parting,

to remember what he has meant to do.

I think he would be based on what you're saying right now,

because I, I don't, I think when you look at the stats,

and I don't have them right in front of me at this very moment,

but like, it doesn't even compare the stats.

It's, it's apples and oranges from Yannis

to what Kareem was at that time, right?

But I would say what you're trying to say,

it feels like one is the more beloved figure than the other, right?

I don't even even be beloved. I just mean imprint.

Okay. Okay. And that's, and that's the time argument.

So yeah, okay.

One of the points that you made that, that strikes me as significant

is how much of a, like,

doormat the bucks were whenever he got there.

Like, they, you know, they were, they were far removed from,

separate Kareem from, yeah, well, that's, yeah, they were far,

but like, it's, it's hard to be competitive in the league now,

I think, than it was them.

Back, like, there's just more teams, and I think it's harder

to be competitive in Milwaukee now than it would have been then,

whenever there's just like, like, let me say,

fewer teams on the board, and players maybe haven't,

like, embraced free agency in the way that they have now,

and been able to move in the way that they can now.

The, so bring them from, you know, the bottom to what he did

in the current modern NBA, it has to count for something.

Also, you know, there were 17 teams in the league when the bucks

went in the championship with Kareem.

There's 30 now, obviously.

So it's a different landscape.

It only had to win two rounds to get to the finals back then too.

So there's like the, you know, everything is different,

and it's always hard to compare errors because of those,

like, just fundamental differences.

But also, back then, though Kareem, you know,

and maybe was the first to do this, I want out,

and I wanted to go to New York or LA, I want a big market.

That's like the norm now, right?

Which is why it's even all the more important and impactful

that Yannis has spent 13 seasons with a small market cold weather team

at a time when superstars do not go to these places.

And if they do go because they get drafted there,

they're getting out the first chance they get most of the time, right?

He has been, you know, loyalty is overdone,

but he's been more loyal the most,

and everything has limits.

And his limit is, you know, I'm 31 and I need to win more championships

and it's not going to happen here, which is reasonable.

To be fair, he was saying that like 26, 25.

As soon as he became Yannis, he was like, okay,

if we're not winning a championship,

not me doing, what are we doing?

And like, even he said that with a ton of gongouli,

you know, he said that behind the scenes after his first conference finals,

flame out, you know, he kind of has, I feel like with Yannis,

it's a, there's two things pulling at him.

It's the loyalty aspect, you know, this,

this community of Milwaukee embraced me.

I owe this to them because they embraced me,

a young kid from Greece, a young Nigerian kid from Greece

who had to figure out how to just live a life and grow up in a certain place.

And then also what is expected of a star of,

in a talent of his caliber?

And I think those are always kind of pulled at each other.

And it's, it's, it's going to be interesting for a guy who moves on,

how, if he does want to championship somewhere,

how much that is going to fulfill him,

because Milwaukee means so much to him as both a player and a person.

So, you know, we'll see what, what happens.

I think, I think one thing that like is pretty inarguable

is that if we're looking at most important bugs,

I think finacis is in the top five.

I mean, he is.

I think you have to consider, I think, I think he, he deserves his day.

Is he behind Michael Red?

Michael Red, big dog finacists, they're kind of all the same, you know.

So it's, it's, it's, it's hard, but, you know, I just, I want to make sure we give him a shout out

because, you know, his contributions have been enormous.

I think that is a sign that we need to go to the next play.

What is the next player?

Okay, Jalen Johnson, this should be fast.

Um, Tyler Parker, who's your Jalen Johnson?

I think Jalen Johnson is the most complete offensive player in the East right now.

Wow, most complete.

I think he's, he used average in 23, 11 and eight.

He's shooting 50% from the field.

He's shooting 35% from three's on like almost five attempts at game as a big.

Um, I mean, he's like taking off from a step inside the free throw line and dunking on Nick

of across the spectrum than anybody else in the East.

Are you taking an account injuries right now?

What do you think is Tatum?

Is Tatum just to say I think Tatum would be more would would yeah, yeah, Tatum's definitely

got an argument to be more complete, but he's hurt right now.

Are you, wait, does this mean you're also like if you had to build a team from scratch exercise?

You're taking Jalen Johnson over Jalen Brown or Cade or I'm not taking Jalen Johnson over J,

I'm definitely not taking him over Cade, which that will come up later.

But the, um, and I'm not taking him over Jalen Brown, but I'm just talking about as an offensive

engine, somebody who can do a whole lot with the ball in his hands.

Hmm, I think he's the most complete offensive player.

Yeah, let's see what Jomi thinks about that.

Let's get to the next one.

Oh, that's crazy.

That's just why I liked that though.

That's old.

That was bold.

I mean, it's a take a tossie.

Let's do it.

Well, good.

Let's take some chances.

Oh, well, you say that.

Oh, Jalen Brown, um, I think we're going to come, I think we're about to have another

impasse between Jalen Brown or also something's coming going forward.

There's a little, like, there's a little sprinkles and tea leaves that, um, he is really,

really excited about being the lead guy.

And I know there's always been stuff behind the scenes, um, of him having some level of

frustration, not necessarily with, with Tatum, but the, what the partnership means for him individually.

And he's kind of like, he's kind of said some quotes over the last couple of months where it's like,

huh, is he going to be okay when Tatum comes back?

Well, he had that quote right where he's like, I mean, now you got it right here.

He says, I feel like I've sacrificed over the years in order for us to be a championship

caliber team.

And I think now we're getting to see a little bit what exactly I was capable of and what

I was sacrificing.

I think before, maybe it wasn't so obvious, but I think now being in the, at the helm of things,

best being the second seed in the east kind of likes this, you know?

But I do believe this has always been a friction of Jalen Brown and Boston that he isn't

thought of in the way that he thinks of he is.

And I think this great season he has validating.

And once you get the taste of being a number one option and having the success,

it's really hard to come back.

And Tatum has been the chosen son in Boston from the moment he got into the city.

And Jalen has had to work for it to get to this point there.

I feel like there's going to be a friction.

And I don't think the saga is over.

I mean, Jalen did win finals MVP when they won the championship and conference finals MVP.

So it's not like he hasn't had his moment to shine and to get recognition for his abilities

to be kind of the lead guy.

And it was, you know, maybe by a couple percentage points within a couple of series, right?

But yeah, you're right.

I mean, it's always still a bit about like, it's Tatum's team.

And then we also have this guy, Jalen Brown, who's this amazing co-star.

And like, nobody wants to be the Robin to the Batman, right?

And that was always the tension behind the scenes anyway.

It was like, well, are these guys going to stay together?

And it wasn't because everybody's saying they don't get along or don't like each other.

It was more just like, Jalen Brown thinks he can do more.

And he has just shown us to his credit.

The guy has walked the walk.

He has proven everything that he projected about himself.

He can be a number one.

So now it's just a matter of like, can they be co-number ones?

But also like, I don't think we have to worry about that or they don't have to worry about that.

In the near term, because when Tatum comes back,

assuming he is coming back in the next days to weeks here,

he's coming back as a guy coming off in Achilles after less than a year.

And he's going to need to lean on Jalen Brown.

So for the duration of at least this season and this postseason,

I don't think there's any, there's no reason for their to be tension,

because they need Jalen Brown to be the guy carrying the load.

For next season, maybe Logan's going to have a point, who knows?

We'll see. I'll just end this segment on a quote that Jalen gave me in 2020.

When I asked to point like, how long he wants to play with Tatum.

I just enjoy the time that you have now.

If it's your whole career, it's your whole career.

But it's not, it's not.

Obviously, some of the greatest people,

greatest players of all time finished their career with their organization.

Didn't finish their career with the organization.

Michael Jordan retired a wizard as much as we like to like it here.

Enjoy being here.

You see real life takes you.

You see other process goes.

All you really have to focus on is what's in front of you.

Jalen Brown to the wizard is done.

That's what they want.

Next player, Luca Dodgers.

Oh, yeah.

My favorite topics.

So, been kind of a jagged ride so far in LA.

So this isn't necessarily about Luca as a Laker.

The totality of his career so far with the Mavericks.

One final's appearance, not so great of a final's performance.

And then we're in this really interesting moment here,

where the Lakers have a lot of major decisions this summer.

And all of them need to revolve around Luca, right?

And I keep thinking about what this is going to mean.

What this next phase of his career is going to mean.

And I keep coming back to aside from all the things

that the Lakers need to do for him and around him,

that the greatest threat to Luca's overall legacy

when we start getting to like, he's like mid-career now, right?

With seven, eight years in,

the greatest threat to Luca is Luca.

That's a great take.

He's every year, there's some little like,

you know, Luca's really trying to rein himself in

and coaches start praising him for doing a good job

of not chewing out the rest of the time.

Dude is still fucking complaining about every single call

on every single position.

He wanted a whole media run about how he lost weight

and is going to play defense.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, but there you go.

Still chewing out the rest all the time

for every call and every non-call and everything else.

Still too consumed with that.

He's the biggest whiner in the league by far.

The biggest whiner among stars by far

and maybe the biggest whiner among stars

that I've seen in 30 years of covering this league, right?

I think he has surpassed him, Duncan, at this stage.

I think that he is going to be shielded by all of that

because the fact is he has the leverage over the Lakers right now

and he has the built and excused that,

hey, man, you guys, at least at this point

you haven't built a team to my life.

Yeah.

And they continue to not do that.

All the stuff you say is kind of a relevant

and the narrative space.

Well, he can shield himself from it in the short term

if that's the case and especially if they screw up this summer

which they cannot afford to screw up this summer

because he won't stay, I think, if that's the case.

Contract or no contract, as we've seen,

you can always force your way out.

But the things that have been the major knocks on him

throughout his career,

mid-career are still the major knocks on him.

Yeah.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

Defeat.

He's really shown kind of an unwillingness to,

and there's, it is always a red flag

when a player does have glaring weaknesses

like he does on defense,

and you don't even see a ton of effort put forward

on that end to try to mask some of the,

you know, lateral quickness issues that he's got, right?

Like there are some things are, you know, physical limitations,

but there's a lot of Matador out there from him.

And it's, that has always been my biggest thing with him

is because he does, he will talk about how, yes,

I do say too much to the refs.

I got to get better at that.

I got to come in and better shape that sort of thing.

But when it, the same things are issues every single year,

there is a problem.

He's incredible, but there is a problem.

He's incredible.

But in that, the way he carries himself

on the court really greats on people.

All right, who's next?

Carl Towns.

That is, it says Howard, but that is actually me.

Oh, we made a trade.

We made a trade.

We made a trade.

After the game you had last night, I don't know,

this is, I don't know how good of a take.

This is going to be, but I'm just gonna roll with it.

I think Carl Towns would have been better

surf stand in Minnesota.

And I'm talking about no,

I'm not talking about the contract situation.

I'm not talking about the apron.

I'm talking about sheer his responsibility

of what he was asked to do.

He was asked to be, at a lot of times,

a number two on a next team on Giving Night,

especially from a scoring perspective.

And I don't think that should be his role.

I think that he should be maybe a number three

or number four option.

And when you need 50 points, he can provide it.

But sometimes he kind of fows out of games

and you need a nozzarie to kind of hold down the board.

I think he might have been better served

standing in Minnesota.

I know all the cap situations, I know everything,

but I think that his career,

he had, obviously it was great for him to go home.

It was great for all of the personal standpoint.

But I think from a game standpoint

and being able to help a team,

I think he's kind of miscast his role.

Wouldn't he have still been the second best player

on the wolves though?

Yes, in theory, sure.

But I'm saying like if he did the things

that he does late in stretches of games,

he has a little bit more of a buffer.

Maybe, I mean, that marriage would go bare.

They'd not inspire a ton of confidence in that.

I heard what you said.

Hey, man, it was a take that I needed to have.

You know what I mean?

Also, you know, he wasn't quite the arm band taker.

He's just like, you know,

hey, that's what I thought when I was at 11.

I was like, huh?

He didn't at 11 o'clock at night.

Huh?

The next thing is not going smooth.

It's not going great.

Yeah.

He didn't choose to go there.

He got trained.

He wasn't mad at it.

He wasn't mad at it.

He was very much like a homecoming he embraced.

But he also like, like we were talking about with Yannis

where there might be mixed feelings

because Yannis really did embrace Milwaukee.

Chronythany Towns really put in some deep roots

in Minneapolis to his credit.

And then John Krasinski athletic wrote

really beautifully about this at the time of the trade

and since then.

And so great piece he wrote after the trade.

Right after the trade.

Yeah.

And I think, but Towns very much loved the homecoming.

Everybody, all the New York area guys

love the idea of the homecoming and it

almost never works out quite the way you hope.

And one hand he's excited about it.

He's happy about the homecoming.

But like the homecoming to New York

also brings a crazy amount of stress

from a press standpoint that he has been on the bad end of.

And I think that's another reason why I think it would be cool

because I think a lot of his struggles right now in New York

is the fact that he is reading about himself

every day in the paper and they are relentless.

And Minnesota, if he was doing this,

which he was, that's Carl Towns.

Sure.

It, I mean, he has had a little Jalen Brown in him

where he talks about how much he is sacrificing.

And I don't think that's ever a good thing

for any player to do the thing.

And not brag about doing the thing.

If a player is feeling the need to be like,

hey, yeah, but look at how selfless I'm being, right?

Like that's not what you.

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All right, who's next?

Tyrese and Maxi, okay.

All right, this is the most exciting offensive player

in the league now.

Behind Steph?

Even above Steph, huh?

He's faster than Steph is now.

Tyrese has also started to incorporate

these deep, deep threes and to expand.

Wait, more exciting and wimpy?

I think so.

That was that was my first shit.

I saw wimpy last night and he was fucking crazy.

You are out of your mind.

Last nighties.

You are out of your mind last night.

You are out of your mind.

I think Tyrese Maxi is ballin'

and I know Cliff is gonna watch this and say Tyler's right,

but he is the biggest fucking Philly homer

that we have on this program.

I think you're out of my mind.

Cliff, what's up, man?

I agree with you.

Chris Ryan, I know you agree with him as well.

Yes, wimpy is amazing,

but wimpy, there is some element with wimpy of like,

well, yeah, you better be amazing.

You're seven seven.

You better be doing this wild shit.

You're seven seven.

You have a, someone just says like Tyrese,

we're giving you a ticket to one game, the entire season.

You're gonna say Tyrese Maxi.

One player you get to see or one team you get to see

and you're gonna pick Maxi over wimpy.

Well, no, I mean, look, defense was championship.

So I think Nico taught us that.

No, no, no, no, no, I'm not only about winning.

I mean, for entertainment purposes.

Right, no, I would rather watch,

I would wanna watch Maxi play against a great defensive team

like the Spurs.

I'd rather watch him play against the Thunder

because I'm a homer.

But like, I think that Maxi now has the full end to end stuff,

the hyperspeed like all the acrobatics around the rim

and he's starting to take these shots

from like New Jersey.

You know who else is taking shots from New Jersey

when they're in Philly, Wimpy Nyama.

Okay, I can't do this.

Not like Maxi.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joey will give us a score at the end.

It's a wild take.

Can we, um, Maxi, next player, Jesus.

Pascal Seeacum, Howard.

Pascal, you're great.

He's great, great player.

Um, this is, this, I don't mean,

I don't mean for our lack of collective enthusiasm here

to be any reflection upon Pascal Seeacum.

He's a really, really, really good co-star.

He might be the ideal co-star.

And I think if I have a take on Pascal Seeacum,

that is, that is about as strong as I can get.

He is, he is the best prototypical number two

in the NBA right now, possibly.

The question is, he doesn't, he doesn't need,

he's not a dude around.

He's going to say, I need to,

he's like, he's going to be Carlton Townsend.

Look how much I sacrificed.

He helped, why would a championship?

He got, he helped Tyrese get to the final.

Nothing is this though.

The question is, when Tyrese comes back,

he's fine.

No, I'm not, no, no, that's not what I'm saying.

If Tyrese doesn't come back as the number one that they need

and Pascal has to be put into that number one spot,

they're done.

That's when they're done.

That's when they're cooked.

They're cooked.

Oh, but he is, he is the ideal.

If Tyrese is Tyrese again when he comes back,

we all hope he is.

Pascal goes right back again.

This incredible number two who can just do a lot of everything,

guard multiple positions, he's wonderful.

All right, who's next?

Brandon Ingram, Salah Gorilla.

He was a laid-back.

He was a laid-back.

He was a laid-back.

Brandon Ingram.

He finally gets to live up to the promise that we thought

that Jomi thought he was going to be

when he got drafted, you know?

I'm just happy to see him healthy.

I'm happy to see him healthy too.

Also, shout out to, I don't even have a take,

but shout out to Brandon Ingram for outlasting Ben Zimmons

and proving to everyone in himself

that he was the better player all along.

Outlasted everybody in that AD trade, right?

No, he did.

Including AD somehow.

All right, next player.

Scotty Barnes.

Oh, this is going to be fun.

All right.

When Scotty Barnes plays well,

people should call him Scott Bones.

Why?

I think it's a better, more elevated name

for a guy who's starting to play a mature physical brand of ball.

I think that he should...

Because right now, if you go to basketball reference,

his one nickname, he's got a Scotty B.

That's a snooze to me.

It is.

That is.

I think Scott Bones, there's something like,

hey, did you guys watch Scott Bones play the other night?

Yeah.

Logan, did you watch Scott Bones the other night?

He was killing Bones.

He was good against the cabs this year.

Yeah, I know.

Also, I think he's the ideal number two.

I think he said, no, I swear.

I don't think he's the number one,

but I think if Scotty Barnes is your number two,

he'd be amazing.

He'd be an amazing Pascal Seacum.

Hey, let's just, you know what?

Let's just trade Pascal Seacum.

I'll see.

Let's just reverse trade.

Okay.

I like Scotty Barnes a lot.

And I think he...

I'm glad that...

I think he's the type of player that when the people around him are better,

you get to appreciate the gifts that he's got more.

He fills in a lot of blanks that a team can have in fun ways.

All right.

Who's next?

Jamal Murray.

Howard.

Ah, so Jamal Murray congrats.

Finally in All Star.

The longest tenured, like, rhetorical best player to not be in All Star.

He took the Damien Lillard award for the most tenured guy who didn't get those stars.

Great that he's there.

We can stop calling him underrated now.

And by the way, honestly, if we're being honest, he never really was underrated.

He was properly rated.

He was properly rated.

He was properly rated.

There's the other thing, man.

In fact, we veered so far to the other side because, oh, he didn't get it.

He got snubbed again or he got injured again, whatever.

Then he became almost like, I don't want to say overrated, but like, we got two...

I hate the rating system.

You are who the hell you are at any given moment.

Okay.

You are who you are.

Here's the thing.

This is not a knock on Jamal Murray who's a very, very good player and a worthy All Star this year.

But like, he's never been among the top scorers at point guard or the top assist guy is a point guard

or the top defenders at point guard.

He's having a fantastic season this year.

He's the All Star, you know, man, politics got in the way.

Yeah, exactly.

He was playing me, you know, politics are.

Like, here's the guys who were always ahead of him in the All Star pecking order of the Western Conference over like since 2020.

Steph Curry, James Harden, Luca, Chris Paul, Westbrook, Lillard, Donovan Mitchell.

You know what?

That was who say that list.

Who was it?

I didn't say that list.

Howard, I think Murray should have got in.

No, I disagree.

Like, there's like a, like Mike Connelly in 2021.

I think that was the year Murray's ACL was somewhere in that range.

Actually, that might have been the year before he got hurt, but still.

John Marant, DeGente Murray gets in after Jamal has the ACL.

Jamal has the ACL like SGA deer and fox like who among these guys was he like clearly better than even if he stayed healthy in a season

So forget it. Just stop the underrated thing. It's he finally got all star. He's worthy. He got a ring

He's got a ring stamped. He got he got a way more money than all of us

We can just maybe show me the rest of it. Um

Yeah, you're properly rated bro. There you go. Next norm pal. Damn

um

Okay, my norm pal take is more of a generalized take which is

Don't disparage solid as it as it as a means of a compliment

Because one day solid can be great. Okay. We need a lot more solids in this world. Okay, all right

We need them on more like the fact that the clippers just let them go for for nothing

Well, it's just a travesty and that's another thing that we talked about

We ran it on the last podcast of real ones of like if you have good dudes in your building don't let them go for nothing

Can I just add on this because it's funny somebody hit me on blue sky a couple of weeks ago

I think it was because of the clippers having given up right and it's like oh, man

Maybe they should have held on to him especially when early in the season when they were really struggling

They're you know, they're okay now with with Collins and it got and got me thinking and I

Pulled up his basketball reference page. Do you realize that every team that has traded norm powell was worse was worse off for it

2015 traded by the bucks with a first that became OG and an OB to the raptors for gravest boss gas

horrific trade by the Milwaukee box

2021 traded by the raptors to the trailblazers for Rodney Hood and Gary Trent Jr

2022 traded by the Blazers with Robert Covington to the clippers for Eric Blitz O'Key on Johnson Justice Winslow in a

Second round pick yeah, they're that's really every single one of these the team trading norm and powell was worse off for it

So shout out to norm powell and you put norm and pal in Miami, which is like the perfect place for

Just be a be solid not solid next one

Oh, Kade cutting him

All right, when he honest is hurt. He's the best player in the east now

Hmm, that's not even if that's it

Complete but you mean the guy that is leading the best the best team in the east is

Is that is that not enough? I mean not piping hot in simon jalen brown

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe jalen Johnson's in there too

I mean he might be less like but no, I mean to me. It's like either it's it's it's it's the two the two other jalins

It's either jalen brunson or jalen brown right now if it's not him in terms of like non-ionist dudes in the east

But I think what he's done this year. I mean, he's been nuts in fourth quarters nuts in the clutch

When's the last time we had a super star with a good fro like just like unapologetically good fro

I feel like it's fantastic as it been um, poof. I don't know stretch from NBA street

Maybe that's it. Stretch look great. He looked great. I mean, it's hard to maintain a lot of hair

But shout out to cunningham for doing it bro. He's out here moisturized, you know

Shout out bro, you know, we need a star with a lot of hair

Ben Wallace was the last one. Yeah, maybe so. Yeah, he's established a culture though

Like there's like he's got like a way of being that is permeated throughout the whole team

Also that that's also an argument to when you do have a culture setting

Player that you have to also have the culture setting people around him. Yeah, like the GM Langdon is

Trajan Langdon amazing. Yeah, you need that if you're you need to do right by your star player by putting

The pieces around him and Kay got a lot of shit early in his career because he did a lot of losing

But now that he is has the uh

The infrastructure around him. It's been great. Yeah, you got to have serious bonafies if you're gonna like come out of those

Williams years with your on skates with like your soul still intact

You know shout out to him somebody got a 72 million

Did you know that's that's bags

Let me do that. Let me get that uh that money to just sit sit out

Um next next player

Kevin Durant. I don't I don't know that this is a particularly hot trade. Maybe it's just more just an observation

I just think it's fundamentally true

I think Kevin Durant is the most under appreciated star of this era or maybe of any era

And and it has to do with the decisions he made, right? Okay. Thank you. He is we we have the Oklahoma City

Representative sitting next to me. So

The fact that he left okay see to go to Golden State the fact that he decided to leave Golden State to go to Brooklyn and forces way from Brooklyn to Phoenix and then

You know, was that Phoenix or or KD or both that that are responsible for him landing in Houston

when KD

Moves to six on the all-time scoring list

Uh a week or so ago passing Dirk Novitsky

I felt like this wasn't as as celebrated or as it wasn't as as big of a moment as it should have been

And there's a lot of different things that go into that and some of this is self made by KD

But I to me it's a little bit of a tragic aspect of his career

That because you don't have one place that you firmly planted you don't have anyone fan base that's gonna seriously like

Cheer for you and and and give you all the adulation for like oh my god

This is a major career milestone like the only guys ahead of him now in all-time career scoring

Or LeBron Kareem Kromelone Koby and MJ crazy fucking incredible and we've always known this right

We've known for years. He is one of the greatest if not the greatest but like pure score of all time however you wanted to find that

He's been incredible. Obviously two-time MVP of the finals two-time champion regular season MVP

um

But it still feels like people do not embrace or or respect him

Enough and I think it is because he bounced around and that's a consequence of doing that

But I feel like his standing should be high because LeBron bounced around and he's considered the greatest

It's different he didn't bounce around like the around no, but he bounced around with a plan as well

The difference is this one LeBron's got four rings instead of two

So like the like you can you can has a lot more nuance with KB's career

You can you can count one rings at multiple places. You can paper over a lot of stuff if you win a ring everywhere you go

It's that KD like LeBron's choices LeBron said I got to go to Miami to win championships and he and he won two

And then he's like I got to leave Miami to go to Cleveland because I can't win anymore here

And again, he won and then he went to LA and he won and I think yeah winning in each of those spots helps

But also he left pretty cleanly every time he never like except for the first time, but it was

It was no dirty. It

He left as a free agent. He didn't force a trade. He didn't promise anything

Nobody left it the decision was was was pretty there

There was a lot about it that did not go over well

It was it it was also dirty from the Cleveland side bro because again listen you ain't bar

That's it was a weird to burn some research

Even okay see sorry, buddy to burn Katie's jersey and burn like that was very stupid

That I think more often than not that stuff is done by

performative

Dorks that are hungry for clicks that it doesn't really represent the entirety of the fan base like I don't think but Cleveland

No, I think it did for Cleveland because they were that was before the cloud chasing error

They were just out of here. I wrote something about like the

anniversary of the decision earlier this year and I went back and look to see how many jersey burning videos

They're actually worth and there weren't there was like the one that always gets played all the time that they did

In the parking lot outside of a Cleveland bar like right after it happened

And they start throwing the witness shirts on top of the burning jersey and everything like that

It's got some weird like racial undertones. Oh, well big time right?

I mean these dudes are wearing like aeropostal polos

Yeah, bro, it's like they like it towards around like a frat house vomit at them out their ass

You know what I mean like it just doesn't

Because somebody left to go to anyways. It was horrific

But I will just say this to just put a pin on this one

LeBron goes back to Cleveland and always forgotten all this for given and now he goes back as a conquering hero

The Lakers will always love him for putting them back on the map

And Miami will always love him for the two championships there whereas with KD

There are the warriors championships which he will always be celebrated for

But everywhere else that he left they do not have the same adulation for him

As like LeBron is still loved in all these places that he was at and is and is that benefit?

I think also LeBron actually made an effort to be loved in a way KD has it

But we're pushing we're pushing time right now

But I think he is super underappreciated. I think he I'd agree that he hasn't done himself any favors

But I think it's I think it's an arguable that he's like way underappreciated

The ultimate NBA ringer Kevin Durant

All right and that is part one of this series

We will see you guys tomorrow for part two where we crown our champion

Of the take

That's next thanks for watching

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