Raptors: Real Contender Or Mirage

Summary:

What if the hottest team in the East isn’t just hot, but built on habits that last? We dig into Toronto’s 13–5 surge and pull apart the truth behind the numbers: elite assist-to-turnover ratio, a starting five that actually fits, and a mid-range scorer who stops runs without stopping the ball. Brandon Ingram’s role clicks because Scotty Barnes owns the engine; Emmanuel Quickley sharpens the point-of-attack; RJ Barrett finds long-awaited efficiency; Jakob Poeltl keeps the rim clean. It’s a blueprint you can feel. It’s also fragile if opponent three-point luck cools and the rebounding gap widens. The question for Bobby Webster: double down with smart tweaks, or sell high on select pieces while the market is listening?

From there, we head to Sacramento, where “light the beam” gives way to the grind of a real reset. New GM Scott Perry says sustainable and means it, which starts with evaluation over shortcuts. We map the contracts, the movable vets, the young core worth guarding, and the uncomfortable truth about Sabonis at center without rim protection. The Kings don’t need a new slogan; they need a timeline that matches their market and a sequence of trades that convert today’s names into tomorrow’s playoff habits.

Finally, Ja Morant vs Klay Thompson wasn’t just spice—it was a mirror. Ja’s talent is undeniable, but availability and efficiency tell a different story. We outline the only path that matters: fewer headlines, more tape, and a return to the numbers that once screamed superstar. Respect in the NBA is rented, not inherited. Toronto’s habits, Sacramento’s honesty, and Ja’s next choices all prove it.

If this breakdown hit your hoops brain, follow the show, share it with a friend, and drop your take: is Toronto a real contender or a 50-win mirage? Subscribe, rate, and leave a review to keep FRPC in your feed.

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Transcript

Welcome, Format, And Housekeeping

FROC Host Vince Carter 0:13

What's good everybody? Welcome to Frontrunner Podcast Collective. FRPC is where we talk like friends, argue like cousins, and still walk out smarter than we came. I am your host Vince, your occasional hoot therapist, your favorite bad influence, and when it comes to completely reckless NBA overactions that low key make sense, that's I'm your guy. So twice a week, we are here to set the table. Big clear it. This is what I think breakdowns, film room style, observations, and grown conversations about how players, coaches, and front office offices are really moving. We are here to unpack everything the wins, the mess, the contracts, the agendas, the rumors with actual receipts behind them, and all of it with jokes, stats, recording, and the angles. You can stri take straight to your group chat and dare somebody to argue with. So we're here today because it is a couple days before Thanksgiving. We have a lot on the docket to get to. So my crap work will be uh late night if you if you know what I mean. There'll be some NBA after dark type situations going on in my household, which is cool with me, because you know I love this stuff. I'm a sicko just like you are, so we will get a Friday show in. Now, what I also want to talk about today is all the things we are going to talk about, which we're gonna start off, we're gonna start off in the northern area of North America. We are going to go to Toronto, we're gonna talk about what's going on with the Raptors there in first place. I can't believe it. I'm a little bit stupefied by what's going on here. So we're gonna do that. We're also gonna talk about the Sacramento Kings and the decision that they have come to uh find out for themselves in the epiphany that their general manager or executive of player personnel, um, Mr. Perry, has come to. So we're gonna talk about that as well. We're also gonna talk about the John Morant Clay Thompson situation. That was awesome, and then we're gonna end it off with some NBA things to be thankful for. So we're gonna talk about some teams at the top of the heat, and then we're also gonna talk about some teams at the bottom, and what they have to look forward to, and what they should get given thanks for. So, do we have a really packed show? Really good podcast for you, and I'm excited about that. A couple other things to clean up. One, everyone, I continue to tell you this: be a friend, tell a friend about the podcast. Our numbers are doing very well. I am so impressed with the amount of word of mouth that we've gotten out there. And if you are part of the FRPC army, hit us up on Twitter, hit us up on X at frontrunner PC for myself, and also socially underscore FRPC. That's our group uh Twitter account that uh a lot of people hit up on. Um, engage us, we will try to engage you more. We are trying to uh be better about our social media imprint. I am working hard on that. I even did some live tweeting of some games last week. So I hope you guys enjoyed that. If you are following me on Twitter, please go ahead and I will pick a game and I will watch it. And as I'm watching it, I'm giving you my thoughts and you know some of the statistics that come in and what it all means to me. So if you kind of want to see what I'm thinking about before I even start the podcast, before I even make the mic hot, that's the way the way to do it. I probably will be live tweeting sometime um this week will be hard because of Thanksgiving. I'm not gonna lie to you. Uh I watch a lot of football. Um, but I definitely will get my basketball in. And uh my live tweet tonight, actually. This is Laker game on, so you know I'm gonna be watching that. Gotta be watching my boys get it in. So hit keep on getting with us on social media. The other thing is this again, we are having like countries that uh are coming out the woodwork for us. We are grateful for our new people that are coming in, and we are grateful for our day ones. Thank you very much for being with us today and throughout the year, and we just don't do regular season, postseason basketball. We go straight through. So we go through the free agency, we go through the summertime, we kind of allow the free agency to happen, and then we will go ahead and assess what goes on. So you got us 365 days of the year, basically, in the sense of podcast twice a week, and we try to make sure that it's always hot and it's always spicy for you. So let's get into this podcast, shall we? And we are going to start at the sixth. We're gonna start at Toronto, and um you look at the Toronto Raptors, and they're sitting right now at 13 and 5. They're second in the East, they're sixth in offense, they're sixth in defense, and they're fifth in their net rating at a plus six point nine. They're scoring 120 a night, and they're giving up 113. And the spreadsheet people will tell you this looks like a lot more than a real team than a cute start. And the funny part is is that every big piece that's driving this this ascension to the top of the Eastern Conference is uh Brandon Ingram, Emmanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, and Jakob Pertle. Those are Messiah Ajiri decisions. Those decisions lie with Messiah Jerry who is now gone. Those are the gambles that were getting questioned a year ago. Ownership just fired Messiah Jerry this offseason while his work is sitting at 13 and 5 with an elite profile. Now, Bobby Webster, who took over for Messiah Jerry, is now in charge. And you know, I don't live in Toronto, so if somebody wants to break me off uh uh you know a DM or hit me up on Twitter to let me know some of the things maybe they were tired of Messiah Jerry, maybe they just they thought that he had ran his course, but to see all these moves pay off, and remember, we didn't get to see Brandon Ingram in a Raptors uniform last year when he got traded, he was hurt, so we didn't see him for the rest of the year, and now that you see this team all put together with Scotty Barnes and the rest of the crew, and they're 13 and 5. It seems like the decisions that were made were made with this in mind. On the floor receipts are loud. The most used starting lineup in the league has already logged a hundred and s over a hundred and sixty minutes together, and they're outscoring teams by five points per 100 possessions. They're putting up an offensive rating north of 121 with an assist rate around 68%. That's not just vibes, that's functioning offense built around mid-range killer who supposedly stops the ball. You saw it against Cleveland, the machine was ugly, the team hit five threes all night, and Brandon Ingram still walks off with 37 points on 30 shots. Now, after the game, he said, Whatever the team needs on a nightly basis, I am willing to do. That is your high usage wing coming off an ankle layoff, casually soaking up the old school shot diet, so Scotty Barnes can fly around and putting up 18 and 11 and 6 on absurd efficiency. Meanwhile, the identity stuff, the identity stuff is real. They play fast, but they don't play sloppy. They're top 10 at forcing turnovers and they're top 10 at limiting their own giveaways. The best assist to turnover ratio in the league goes to your Toronto Raptors. And nobody is getting out in transition like they were they are. They're 5-1 against teams that are under 400, meaning they're just beating teams that they're supposed to beat, which is exactly what an actual good team is supposed to do. Right? You're supposed to beat the teams to hell that are so that are inferior to you and your talent. But the cracks are in the math. The opponents are shooting 32% from three, one of the lowest ranks in the league, while the Raptors are hitting almost 39% on relatively low volume. They're below average on the glass, or with or without Yaakka Purdle, and they haven't touched the West Coast as of yet. They played two games against the top six records in the league, and they have been they've gotten handled in both. So I don't want to get over my skis when I talk about the Raptors, and I'm definitely wanting give them kudos for what they've done, but also we also have to keep in mind that the resume is still flawed. So tonight, this isn't about the Raptors for real, it's about what Masai built this version of the Raptors to be, and Bobby Western and this group have an elite net rating, a clear identity, a mid-range star, and a rising to do everything forward, and some real statistical red flags that we're about to unpack right now. Are we looking at a foundation of the next real contender in Toronto or extremely well-built 50 way 50 win mirage that will be going to force Bobby to make hard decisions that Messai never did? So again, Messai's gone. Those are the people that he brought in, those are the people that Bobby Webster are in a sense inherited. Ownership moved on from Messiah after those moves began bearing fruit. Obviously, 13 and 5, second in the east was a 6.9 net rating, which is pretty good. Scotty Barnes, 24 years old, true shooting percentage 0.589. His box plus minus is a positive 4.6. His a win share of 48 of 0.168, which is early franchise cornerstone case. Obviously, this is the dude that you're trying to build around. Brandon Ingram was 28. Now, when he first got brought over, I was wondering how this is gonna work. And I always you know me. I'm always gonna ask and champion the young guy's cause, right? How does this affect uh Grady Dick, and how does this affect you know the younger players that they have? Turns out he was probably the steady influence that the Toronto Raptors need. His true shooting percentage is uh 58.5%, his usage is 27.1. Um is it high usage mid-range hub? Yeah, is he a potential number two option? Yeah, and the best part about this is is that when Brandon Ingram was in New Orleans, and we talked about this last season, there was a thought, or just kind of just rumblings with inside the locker room and around that building, that Brandon Ingram wasn't excited about his role on the team. And what I mean by that is that he was not seen as the number one. Zion, who is institutionally out of the lineup for pretty much half the time, was always seen as the number one whether he was there or not. Brandon Ingram could not get that role from him, it was an absolute stranglehold by Zion, and you know he was frustrated with just some of the things that were going on there. When you go to Toronto and it's a new team, even though Scotty Barnes is four years your junior, you understand that this is Scotty Barnes' team. He's entrenched there, so you have to fall back into that second role, which I think that Brandon Ingram was ready to go ahead and embrace that role now. And I think that's one of those situations where you sit there and you go, Hey, I'm on my third team. I started with the Lakers. I was I was caught up in the LeBron nonsense. I go to to New Orleans thinking that I'm gonna get a fresh start. Here comes Zion. He I'm thinking him and I become this like one-two duo, this Batman and Robin, it never comes to fruition. I'm always politicking or asking for a significant role with inside the offense with the New Orleans Pelicans, Willie Green, who's now fired, you know, make sure that I'm not I'm relegated to like the second man, and now he's in Toronto. So I think personally this is one of those situations that he is falling into the role that he was always meant to have. That leads us to Isaiah Emmanuel Quickly. Why did I want to call him Isaiah? Emmanuel Quickly, 26, uh true shooting percentage, 58.9, heavy three-point attempts, his assist percentage is 25.7, he has an offensive box plus or minus of 1.5. This is a profile of a starting guard. Now he might not be your table setter that you're used to, your traditional guy that sits there and gets you nine assists a game and things of that nature. But what he's doing is he's providing the spear, uh, he's the tip of the spear on the defensive end, highly active there, and then also he's providing a spark on the offensive end with decent efficiency uh for somebody of Emmanuel Quickly's elk. RJ Barrett is kind of the one guy that we have waited and waited and waited for. Now he is a Canadian, which also gives him a little more leeway and grace than maybe uh we are not accustomed to. He did not get it in New York City, which, you know, if you look at the numbers, they bear out. He shoots over 50%, his effective field goal percentage is uh 57.2, his true shooting percentage, this is this is where the key has come in. He is over 60%, he's 60.4, and he has a usage rate of 2424, which is great. This is where RJ Barrett needs to be. This is the most efficient version version of RJ Barrett that we've ever seen. Bobby's leverage to the hot start is to lock in the team-friendly deals or quietly gauge trade market peak value. And here's the thing: I've heard that RJ Barrett is on the market, and I'll tell you why. His defense. Now, RJ Barrett might be a lot of things. This efficiency uh spike that he's had this year is not is not common. So you're looking at a situation where if you are looking to move him, this might be the best way to do it because we are striking when the irons are hot. If Webster is going to go ahead and do that, who's the chip? Who's the untouchable? Who's crying to do what we actually want want to be tied to? And when Barnes hits his peak. That the lineup that we spoke of that has done 166 minutes with a plus five per 100 and an offensive rating of 121.5 also has an assist percentage of 67.9%. That's a leak ball movement, despite the high usage wing score in Ingram. What goes on there is that again when they need him to do more, you know, whether it's efficiency or not, he can do it. He did it against Cleveland. 37 points on 30 shots, crazy. Uh teammates were five of 25 from 3. So he went to work. Porto, on the other hand, he is shooting 73.8% from the field. Now, obviously, he his buckets are coming from within three feet of the basket. His true shooting percentage right now is uh 0.721. His win share per 48 is 0.197. This is ultra-efficient finisher, screen and roll guy that you will want from your pick. And basically, you know what you got in your bench, and you know what you got in your starters, which is awesome. Do we think this is real? Well, unfortunately, I gotta look at this and go, Well, who you have you played? Who have you played? Oh, you beat up on the teams that were that were um a lottery bound? Well, that's great, right? You need to get some confidence before you start playing these teams. This is kind of like the um, if you want to look at it as like a college football reference, this is kind of like the SEC teams that play the directional schools, and then they go ahead and play their conference schedule and or like a Big Ten team that schedules like a Central Michigan or Toledo, no offense to Toledo or Central Michigan, but y'all know who you are, and if you're playing Ohio State, you're probably gonna get smashed, right? What makes this team or what makes us think that this team is doing things in a way where it will continue to invoke winning? Well, we talked about the the assist percentages or what have you, the locker room vibe players talk about the right way habits more than individual numbers or contract gears. Barnes leap in the lane becomes the loudest voice. He's the defensive quarterback, cementing this is my team without saying it. And obviously, with the more efficient quickly, you're seeing just better ball movement, and also what you're seeing in this new system by the uh coach that's been here a couple years, is that you're seeing just a more efficient offense, and you're seeing better shots being taken by the Toronto Raptors. You know, the mic the macro profile is the offensive rating at a hundred and nine hundred and nineteen point six. We talked about that, we talked about their net rating, what have you. This is the other thing that we kind of need to get to. And we brought it up in the beginning, but I want to drive this home. Opponents are shooting 32.3% from three, which is third worst opponent percentage. Is it likely part of the scheme or is it variance? And what I mean by that is that sometimes your three-point shooting or your opponent's three-point shooting is more luck than it is your scheme. We can look at the thunder, we can look at a couple other teams, and we know that's not luck. We know that their ability to run people off the three-point line is real, it's legitimate, because we got a lot of wings that get out from the paint and are able to quickly get back in and continue to clog up the paint and allow and not allow people to get just runway to the basket. But with Toronto, we still need more of a sample size, and we also would like to see it on better competition as well. Cause again, the two games they played with the versus the top six records, they were both decisive losses. So, I mean, these are things that we're gonna have to see as the year plays out. But are you excited about the 13 and 5 in the top top six offense and defense? Is this uh something that you think is institutional, or is this something that oh, we're just doing this, and then as we get better competition, is are these numbers gonna start to fall off as well as our record? Well, you come to the right place if you're thinking that I'm gonna give you the answer or whatever the case may be because I'm going to try to do that for you. What we like to see next here at FRPC. So let's put it all together on paper. This is the best version of the Raptors we've seen since the title after Glow faded. 13 and 5, second in the east. We talked about their net rating, it's crazy. Now, that's contender contendership adjacent. Not playing noise, right? Because here's the thing. There's enough bad teams for Toronto to beat up on for them to get to the playoffs. The improvement is coming in the from the real basketball thing. Starting five is no longer dragging you into the early holes that they were, because here's the thing: they are able to get good quality shots when needed, and also having Brandon Ingram as a stopper. And what I mean by that is that if the other team, the opponent, is on a run, it is very hard for you to stop bringing Brandon Ingram to get to his spot and then be able to get a comfortable shot up for him. He is a tough shot taker, and he's also a tough shot maker, and he's gonna do a lot of his damage in that mid-range, and it's probably gonna be contested, which is great because he's got this like crazy wingspan, and you know they say he's 6'8. I think he's probably a little bit taller than that, and I think he has like a seven foot five wingspan, which is crazy long, which invokes the 121 plus offensive rating that they have, and the sky high assist rate. Now, as we continue to move along, is this going to be the score they haven't had since Kawhi Leonard, where he's hitting over 50% from 10 feet to the arc? Or is these numbers gonna come down to normal as we get into better competition that they have not faced as of yet? Well, it all depends on your ancillary talent. So if quickly numbers are screaming real starting point guard, and RJ is giving you the most grown-up efficient season that he's shown in his entire career before the knee tweak, then the identity is sharp. They force turnovers, they they value the basketball, they share it at a level that usually you only see in veteran groups, and they live in transition without playing dumb. Those are the kind of habits that tend to survive when the schedule gets nasty and the shooting cools off. If Scotty Barnes is going to be able to live in the passing lanes, if Emmanuel Quickly is going to be the tip of the spear when it comes to your defensive uh going after guards and things of that nature, and you're gonna have enough uh athletic ability to stay in front of your man, then we're going to have a good looking team for quite some time. Do I think this team is going to end up second in the East? No, I do not. Do I think this team can end up within the top six? Meaning that they are not a playing team. Yes, I do. I think if these if you keep these habits up with the defense, you allow Brandon Ingram to be Brandon Ingram, which they did not want him to be in New Orleans. They wanted him to expand his shot diet and shoot more threes. Now, I will tell you I am a proponent of that situation. But Brandon Ingram wants to live here. He wants to live in this mid-range, he wants to take these tough shots. It's all well and good until they stop going in. And that was the problem in New Orleans. Now, did he have the type of talent around him in New Orleans that he does in Toronto? On paper he did, but were they available to be on the court? That was another question. These guys are playing, so he's getting to work with these guys consistently. He knows where they are on the court, they know where he's gonna be on the court, and this is what it's gonna look like. So for what Grandin Agram is able to do, this is good, and this could work. But the receipts on the other side matter. Just as much. The opponents are stuck around 32% from three, and that never holds in an 82-game season. The Raptors own three-point percentage is inflated by low volume. And here's the thing: they're gonna need Grady Dick, they're gonna need a manual quickly to start hitting more threes, or at least increase their uh their three-point attempts. The rebounding is below average across the board. And when Co Porto and Barnes sit, the glass gets scary in a hurry. Well, we'll see what we'll we'll see what our guy Bobby Webster does. Again, they're 5-1 against bad teams, they're 0-2 against good teams, and the West World Gauntlet doesn't even start until that Laker game on January 18th. So we are still more than a month away than when the true test really begins. So where does this leave us? For me, this is kind of this looks like a legitimate 50 win team, a hard out with a chance to be more. If three things happen. Happen one Scotty Barnes keeps leveling up into an unquestioned two-way engine of the team, meaning he keeps his defensive intensity and also still continues to value the basketball. The other thing that I'm looking for is at least one of quickly or RJ Barrett becomes a consistent closing option that can punish the playoff defenses. 3. Bobby Webster either fixes the rebounding problem with a smart in-season move or doubles down on the internal answers like Sandro Mamas Killis Reely or Colin Colin Marik Borrow Boyles and my uh pick to click is Colin Murray Ball Boyles. Okay, he is a absolute bowling ball with knives on his body, and I think that's the guy that they have to unleash a little bit. Now, if Grady Dick also can shoot better and shoot more threes and get open looks, this team will hang around. Now, are those a lot of ifs? Yes, they are. Do we have a lot of um data that points out that this can happen? Well, we don't because we've never seen it from any of these guys. Scotty Barnes is the more is the most like okay, we've seen it from him, right? He's the guy mostly we can say we've seen it from Brandon, even Brandon Ingram, who has never played more than like 64 games, we're gonna need to see what he's doing now throughout the rest of the year for us to really believe in what's going on. The 13-5 start helps. There are real statistical red flags. If this team is a is still a top eight team in net rating group after the West Coast trip, and the shooting luck has cooled off, when I'm ready to call them a real threat with my chest. If those crack widen and the story of this season becomes whether Bobby is willing to make a hard, non-sentimental decision, like Messiah waited too long to make, then we're gonna be in the same boat that we were in last year. One of the things I said last year, or last season, I should say wasn't last year, it was last season, was that this is the most expensive like team that is going to just continue to make the plans I've ever seen in my whole entire life. And you would go, Well, that's not good. Well, you're right, it's not. We need something better. The good thing about this is is that they do have pieces that if they need to start loading off. Now, the here's the rub. Who is gonna take? I'm not saying it's gonna be Brandon Ingram, but who's gonna take RJ Barrett off your hands at his dollar amount? Who's gonna take Emmanuel Quickly off your hands at his dollar amount? Because you paid them for the production they're putting up right now. Now, we've not seen this in Emmanuel Quickly or RJ Barrett over the last two years, hence why they were in the lottery last year. So, if this is what it's supposed to be and really what locked it in was Brandon Ingram's mid mid-range game and able to also understand his role as a number two option, and then now allowing Scotty Barnes to be who he is, then great. Then everybody kind of falls into their slot, everybody kind of falls into their role, and everybody can get comfortable in that role, and they just can continue to cement and stack up days of consistency. If not, if Brandon Ingram is the guy who we saw in New Orleans, where he's playing against better teams and whatever the case may be, then what's going to happen is that the good shooting percentages that we see right now are gonna plummet. And when they do plummet, then we're gonna find out what kind of team this is. Because the defense can't carry. Now, if you don't get the rebounds, and we got a lot of second chance opportunities by the opposition, then we're in real trouble here. I hope, and I think that Colin Murray Boyles is one of those dudes that as he continues to play through his rookie season, he's gonna garner more and more minutes, and also he's gonna garner more and more confidence, and if he can get that in and become kind of like a uh uh a less shooting version of Scotty Barnes and just be create havoc on the defensive end and grab rebounds for you, you're gonna be in a good spot. I like the kid, I think he's really good. I just don't know when it's gonna click for him. And does Bobby Marks take one of their pieces and he turn it into like two pieces? Is there any way that he can skim some of this salary that is exorbitant amount of money? The time will be able to be told. We don't know, but I hope for Toronto's sake, that what we're seeing that this this version of the Raptors that we're seeing, the numbers, the quotes, the feels, you know, you can believe in the core, and you can believe that they're a future contender. But my whole thing is this is that if for some reason you start to see this go south, be flexible. Be flexible like your your ex-executive player personnel wasn't. Cause he kept on doubling down. He was like, Well, I believe in Jakarta Purdo. Well, I'm gonna double down and I'm gonna get RJ Barrett and I'm gonna get Emmanuel quickly. Okay, this isn't working. So I'm gonna go get Brandon Ingram and pay him a contract with Site Unseen. These were reckless moves. Now, right now it's paying off, but as soon as the slipperage comes, Toronto must pivot. They gotta stay flexible. Because here's the thing here's what you don't want to become, and we're gonna move on to that team that you don't want to become, but we got some good news for them too. You could be the Sacramento Kings. Do you want to be the Sacramento Kings of Canada? No, you don't. I'm gonna speak freely a little bit about Sacramento. I have some uh I have some people in my life. There are full-on Sacramento Kings siccos. These are real light the beam disciples, these are people who still bring up 2002 Western Conference Finals and what and what happened. Um for a minute it looked like they finally had their playoff or payoff in De'Aaron Fox, ending a 16-year drought. Remember the trade for from uh Tyrese Halliburton to Demonis Sabronis. Sabronis is out here spraying dribble handoffs, and the building is feeling alive again. Light the beam became a thing, the purple little beam was in the sky, people loved it. It was let's hit the easy what the easy button, the staples easy button, or whatever the case may be. I know it wasn't that. I'm being facetious, but you know what I'm talking about. The vibes were real, everybody was happy, and we were making the playoffs in California State Capitol. Now, we fast forward like two and a half years later. Fox is gone, he is now in San Antonio. The roster has been gutted in a three-team deal where Zach Levine is now here. Mike Brown, who I don't know if he was scapegoat, I don't know what it was, but he's gone, and Doug Christie is in his place. Now, I don't have anything against Doug Christie. He was a former Laker, now he played for the Sacramento Kings for a lot longer than he was a Laker, as far as that's concerned, but he seems to be a tough guy, a no-nonsense guy, and accountability seems to be a overriding talking point by one Doug Christie. But when you have Zach Levine and DeMar DeRozan in the building, and you look like Chicago West, I got questions. Enter so into that mess walks in Scott Perry. First year GM getting on the phone and saying the quiet part out loud. He tells you this season is about evaluation and about identity, about building a sustainable winner. He uses the word sustainable nine times in one interview. He talks about autonomy from Vivek, about having authority to make necessary decisions. He tells the fans straight up, Rome wasn't built in the day, so buckle up and be patient for the ride. This is the kind of rhetoric we need out in Sacramento, okay? And if you're a Kings fan, that hits a nerve because the last time you heard patience, you were being asked to explain away the Tyrese Halliburton demonic subonis trade. To believe that a Fox Subonis axis was the pathway to relevance. And how Halliburton is a full-blown star somewhere else, and Fox is gone now. And the only remaining piece of that puzzle is Demonisabonis, who is also right now, currently, hurt with a partial torn meniscus. He's a tough bastard, though. So I don't know how long he's gonna be out. But you want him full healthy when he does come back. Now Sacramento right now is 5 and 13. They're the reverse axis of what the Toronto Raptors are. That's why I told Toronto, be very careful about what you do in the next three months. Be very careful if you start to see decline, if you start to see this thing go downhill, the rock is coming down the hill onto your village, you need to pivot and pivot quickly because you do not want to be this. Now, with that being said, let's get back to Sacramento. They are the 27th ranked offense, and they are the 26th ranked defense. You live through fake resets and half measures, you've seen legal pads full of we're changing the culture quotes, go nowhere. My hope for the Kings fans in my life and the 2002 truthers that are still out there is that this is a version of honesty from Scott Perry that actually gives the franchise permission to stop chasing the next cute story and finally commit to a real multi-year build. Hold on to the young and the solid pieces and use the draft and your picks to make shrewd trades on vets like Vlavine, like DeMar DeRozan, and if you can get out from underneath the DeMontis Sabonis situation, you need to do that. And I'm gonna tell you exactly why. All the time. I love him. His work ethic is great, his toughness is great, but here's the problem: if he is your starting center, he provides no rim protection whatsoever. If he is your starting center, and you don't have a bunch of shooters, a bunch of them, then he's relegated to ineffective or effective enough to get you into play-in range and play-in range only. That is my point in this situation. Now, monks, when his value is right, in other words, stop living on old conspiracies and light the beam nostalgia and embrace the ugly, the necessary parts of building something that can be actually that can actually last. Tonight isn't a question about are the kings bad. We know they're bad. The 5-13 record tells us this. Their negative 11.1 net rating tells us this. Their bottom five offense and defense tells you all of what you need to know. The real question is does Scott Perry actually have the room? Cause you know Vivek is one of those dudes that loves to stick his nose into situations and start muddying up the waters. The plan, the pieces to turn this into a sustainable winner are is this just another king's regime that's asking you to be patient while we go ahead and just be on that hamster wheel. Just be on that hamster wheel of just redundancy that you guys have been on for such a long time. So let's get to all of this real quick. Fox forced his way out to San Antonio. Part of that reason was because Mike Brown got fired, and he didn't want to be the guy who got Mike Brown fired. I'm not saying he did or he did not. That's for you for scholars, Sacramento scholars, to go ahead and uh ruminate about for eons. Now, he's in San Antonio, your return for this was in some called three-team trade menace toil that shouldn't have ever happened with Zach Levine. And you go, well, Zach Levine is, you know, he's okay. I tell you what, Chicago, the Chicago Bulls look a lot better without him. What does that tell you? Paris North Star repeatable says sustainable winning, not perennial playoff team in his first big interview. He explicit explicitly claims autonomy from the ownership. He says he has full authority to make necessary decisions, no lip service. Now you have Demonisabonis with 94 million over the next two years. You got Zach Levine with a huge player option for $48.9 million, and you know he's gonna pick that up. And you got DeMar DeRozan, who's 36 years old. He has a partial guaranteed contract for next season, which is approximately $10 million of the $25.7 million that he signed for. Now, you also have Malik Monk, who is a diminutive uh six man, who is making forty one point seven million dollars over the next two seasons, including a 2027-2028 player option, meaning that if he wants to pick that up, guess what happens? So, these are the pieces that you have in your coffers to trade, these are the pieces in your in your in your cauldron of trade um alchemy that you have available to you, right? Now, market reality. Those vet deals are movable, but it's tricky. How much can you get back? That's the question of the day. Now, if you are looking at this and you're a Sacramento Kings fan, I want you to understand two things. You are not getting like we're not getting lottery picks back, dog. Okay? Not for Zach Levine. Cause here's the thing with Zach Levine, and I love you, Silla. You know, I hey listen, if you've been with me for a long period of time, you know I'm eight clock all day, fours up, all of that. Bruin Nation, I'm there. You know what I'm saying? McCrony got the boys playing well, they five and one. We're about to go to a tournament up near Sacramento Way anyway, and we're about to dominate up there. You know, that's what I'm hoping for. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. Okay, we'll see how it goes. But Zach Levine has never truly understood who he was and what he was as a basketball player. And what I mean by that is that he's not a number one. I don't necessarily think he's a number two. I think he's better off as a number three. And a number three that gets a little less shots, a little less opportunity, he has to understand that he needs to share the sugar. Mean coming off that ball, stop pounding that ball for 22 seconds, looking for whatever angle he is trying to get to the basket, or some sort of 32-foot long-distance three-point shot. Now, DeMar DeRozan, I love the depth. You know why? Not because he goes to USC, but I love the heart. I love what he's done. He's been a basketball chameleon his whole entire career in the NBA. And what I mean by that is that he's always been a mid-range guy or whatever. But when he's needed to be a playmaker when he was in San Antonio and also in Chicago, he was that. When he needs to get you a bucket, you know, and go off like go crazy and get you 30, he can do that. He rebounds pretty good for his size and also his age still. Now the defense is not his calling card, right? That is not what he does, but he can play positional defense, and he can be where he needs to be in within the all the defensive scheme. You have Malik Monk. Now, Malik Monk might be the one piece that a lot of people want. A lot of people love an energizer six man off the bench who can explode for 35 at any given point, and Malik Monk can do that for you. He might be the one piece that you can get like multiple things for i.e. picks and young players or whatever the case may be. The person that I think will be hard to move is demonic bonus. Because you need to put him or place him in the exact right spot with the exact right team. Because you're not building around demonic bonus, what you're trying to do is put him in a situation where he can be additive, and those are hard to find because of what I said, right? The lack of rim protection that he provides, and then also the lack of outside shooting that if you do move him to the fourth spot, even though he is such an offensive creator and get you into great looks as a as an offense, it's hard because everybody's clogging the paint because we know what he is, and usually he's with another big that can't shoot either. Now, what do you have for as upside? Well, you own your first round pick next season. Congratulations. Congratulations on that. It is a good time to have that. We got some good dudes coming out from the Fox trade, you get a 2031 unprotected pick from the Minnesota Timberwolves and five second rounders to add to your war chest of stuff that you're gonna need. Perry's stated approach to use this season as an evaluation year, then makes moves that fit his sustainable vision and not quick fixes. The core business question is do you chase short-term credibility or with this vet group or treat it as a future trade chip around the younger core? That's exactly what you do. You're looking at Keegan Murray, you're looking at uh my guy, I love Neek, that's my dude, I want him to do well, and I like Devin Carter. So I'm not looking at this and going, hey, let's go ahead and try to build around demonic bonus and see if we can strike lightning in a bottle who you know with somebody who's like not happy where they are. And here's the other thing that Sacramento needs to understand. They're never going to be a destination, they're never going to be the Los Angeles Lakers, and I know y'all hate that. I know y'all hate that. Okay? Don't hate us because we live in La La. Don't hate us because we are the entertainment capital of the world. This is where all the IG models come to play. Don't hate us for that. It is what it is. So if you know that you are a mid-level market or whatever the case may be, or even a small market, you need to act accordingly to what you are. And you are a small market. Understand that. Be that, embrace that. What can you get for Zach Levine? What can you get for DeMar DeRozan? Those are the type of things that Scott Perry should be having conversations about. How quickly can you get Sabonis back to see what his value is going to be? And who is the team that would pull the trigger on DeMonis Sabonis? Another guy who you might be able to trade is Dennis Schroeder. Dennis Schroeder has been a good vet for the last four years. He's been a good soldier wherever he's gone over the last four years. Right now, he's only shooting 39.6% from field goal total, and his true shooting percentage is 0.495. Terrible. This is below average efficiency, and he got to pick it up. Now you could sit there and spin this a different way. You can say, hey, we got Zach Levine, we got DeMar DeRozan, you know what I'm saying? And Dennis Schroeder, who normally is a guy who can inject energy into a group. Just got to a group to where he couldn't inject his energy into. But his last other stops might be a template of things to come if he was traded. So those are the things that you have to kind of prioritize, and those are the talking points that you need to throw out into the universe. Um, when you talk about Zach Levine, you talk about his three-point shooting, you talk about his athleticism, you stay away from defense, and you stay away from usage rate, and you stay away from assist percentages. Those are the things you stay away from. But you hone in on if you need a three-point shooter for spacing, Zach Levine is your guy. You can also say for somebody who's 30 years old and has some injury history, he's still pretty damn athletic. That means he can yak at the rim if given the chance. If he was on the second side or on the weak side of the offensive uh possession, and you have pretty good creators around him, oh, he would eat large in that role. The thing about it is that we know about Zach Levine is that he has never wanted to be in that role. So he would have to go to a team that would almost force him to be in that role. Like, hey, bro, I don't know what you think this is, but you're not that guy. You're not a number two for us. You're barely a number three for us because we got a young guy coming, or whatever the case may be. I don't know what that scenario is. I don't know what fit is out there for our guy, Zach Levine, but that is the type of guy that you have to go ahead and say, hey, this is where we are. Now, I'll tell you a team that might be in that zone for him, and it is the Los Angeles Clippers. Now, I'm not saying the Clippers are interested in Zach Levine, but they do need a score because they just lost a UCLA uh guy. They just looked, they traded him away to the Miami Heat, Norman Powell. So if you want to place one, replace one UCLA guy with another UCLA guy and say, hey, listen, you are our third to fourth option at best. You do understand that Kawhi Leonard is on this team. You do understand that James Harden is on this team, and we have a stud at center in a visa zubots. Now, if he decides, he looks around, says, I'm in Los Angeles, I love being here, you know, I went to UCLA, and I am going to love it in LA. For sure, because it's not Sacramento. No offense, Sacramento. That wasn't a shot at you. I'm just saying what Zach Levine might say. If he decides that he can go ahead and accept the role that is given to him, you might be able to see the best out of Levine. And these are the things that Scott Perry need to be telling these GMs. Because here's the thing. Here is what you need to worry yourself about. Is Keegan Murray a guy or not? He's had so many people around him. You give in lots of opportunities to Damonis Sabonis. You're giving lots of opportunities to De'Aaron Fox who's no longer there. Now you got Zach Levine and Damar DeRozan who suck up all the possessions. Keegan Murray needs to fit you need to figure out if Keegan Murray's a guy. Also, Keon Ellis. Now, Keon Ellis, I would love to keep if I was you guys, right? But if for some reason you can get good draft asset value for him, go ahead and trade him. Because he's a really good point of attack defender. He can shoot the three at a really respectable rate, as far as on low sample size. And I think that's the type of guy that would be valued around the league, and you might be getting some like low-key, like interesting things back for him. The other guy is Neat Clifford. Okay, you are building around Neat Clifford, and you're saying to yourself, I don't know if Neat Clifford is a guy. We don't give a shit whether Neat Clifford is a guy. What we do know about him is that he's a solid player, he's a solid rebounder, he's a connected piece, he can shoot the three, he's got a lot of tools. And for whatever the next iteration you're going to be, young cheat talent is something that you absolutely need. You need to get out of the business of older vets that are super expensive, and Neat Clifford is one of your brighter lights that you have on the squad. Now, you want to talk about who's going to like stir the plot for this team? Well, that's Doug Christie. Former king from the early 2000 glory days, and now, you know, he's in what the second-year head coach. Perry's assessment, calling Doug passionate, emotional, and a natural has natural leadership qualities and a deep love for this franchise. Well, he does. He acknowledges Doug is learning on the job as a second-year head coach, big learning curve. Christie's harsh realities uh in the press conference before the Douglas game, he showed frustration and urgency, but he's not delusional. And this is the quote that I loved with Scott Perry. He said, We're not where we want to be. We haven't shown the identity necessary to create sustainable a sustainable winner. That's being honest. That's being honest. I'm glad that somebody's finally being honest out there. Where does this all leave us? Tell you exactly where this leads us. It leaves us here. This is where we land with the kings. Strip away all the nostalgia and the 2002 conspiracy theories and the beam memes and whatever the case may be. And just look at what is in front of you. It's a 5-13 team. Okay. You got a lot of vets on this team, like DeMar DeRozan, who's giving you 18.7% points per game. His true shooting percentage is 601. Zach Levine is around 20.5 a night. With a true shooting percentage of 63.2. We're at the zenith of their value at this point. Now, do they have flaws and do they have warts? Absolutely. But this is the zenith of their value, and you need to get whatever it is that you can't. So can you get a second draft guy? Can you get younger? Can you get more maybe like lower level first round picks? Can you get maybe some second round picks to add to your coffers? It's not gonna be a haul, it's not gonna be a very, very attractive haul. Okay, you got a two dudes in your thing that you can definitely trade for hauls, right? And one of them is hurt, and again, I will say to you, the one that's hurt, he's gotta go to a specific situation for it to all work. I do have a team that I'm very intrigued by. I want to give it away for a second, but give me a second. Malik Monk is also another guy that is a real shooter. But you're building this around Keegan Murray, Keenon Ellis, and Neat Clifford. I don't know what you're gonna get out of Max Renault. I have no idea. But he's 7'2, he's young, and hopefully there's some promise and some up some uptick ability going on there. Your Scott Perry's mission, if he chooses to accept it, is can he sell Zach Levine? I think that he would be able to get off of Damar DeRozan, and can he find a way? And this is where we get into trades and whatever the case may be. You already went to the well with San Antonio once. Is there a way where you could go ahead and trade Demonisabonis to the San Antonio Spurs? Now he doesn't really fit the timeline personally, but you see they already have Darren Fox there. He kind of not necessarily fits the timeline either. But the one thing that Demonisabonis does there is that he provides a toughness next to Victor Wingbyama that they don't necessarily have. Right? He's an undersized center, which, if Victor is hell-bent on shooting threes, or whatever the case may be, and just being a freak of nature, he is your rim protector, where then Demonic Sabonis is not gonna look like an absolute sore thumb. He's not gonna stand out and he's not gonna embarrass you. But what he is gonna do is get you into great offensive sets. He also has a synergy with Darren Fox if you decide to keep him long term or even short term, you can continue to increase the value of what De'Aaron Fox is and what that entity is going to be. So, what can you get back for DeMontis Sabonis in that deal? Well, you're looking at like Keldon Johnson, you're also maybe looking at the contract of Harrison Barnes. I understand Sacramento, that's not what you want, but guess what? You need to take that shit back. Can you get a first-round pick? You know, is there another first-round pick that you can get? Yeah. But this is the type of place where he could demonstrate the wellness could thrive in. Like, yeah, Phoenix would probably love him too, but the problem is they don't have another center who is a rim protector who can also shoot the three. Okay? A visa Zucbox is not that guy in in Los Angeles with the Clippers, so you know you don't have that. Right? Demonisabonis in Golden State sounds great. They already have a guy who does all the things that he doesn't also doesn't shoot from the outside. His name is Draymond Green. So it's a specific fit of where Demonis Sobonis needs to go. And I'm trying to tell you that you need to go back to the well and talk to the San Antonio Spurs and see what the hell you can do. Because here's the thing they might want to accelerate their window. Not saying they are looking to do that, I'm just saying they might. You gotta have those talks. So we're just as a leaves. We got a couple things, a couple more things that we need to get to, and I'm actually kind of excited about this one. Um it wasn't long ago that John Morant and the Memphis Grizzlies were the darlings of the league. They were loud, they were brash upstarts out of Memphis, Tennessee. The new age, what we what want all the smoke version of the franchise that used to wear grit and grind like armor. This is the name of the building that made its name on Mike Conley, Mark Gasol, Zach Randolph, Tony Allen, and that crew. That group earned respect by playing through pain, winning ugly, and backing up every word, something bloody on the scouting report. Jos version, you try to inherit the respect without walking the same road. Fast forward to right now, Josh 26, and instead of talking to us with his play, he's back in the headlines in street clothes, arguing with Curly Clay Thompson in the tunnel. Clay's line after the game was brutal and accurate all at the same time. He said, They asked him, what did Josh say to him? He said, Nothing of intelligent depth. He's out there running his mouth. He's been running his mouth for a long time. It's funny you run your mouth when you're on the bench, is kind of the story of his career so far. Leaving us wanting more. Leaving us wanting more. That is what Klay Thompson, the four-time champ, one of the greatest shooters ever, basically is telling you, you're a lot of talk and not enough tape right now, my guy. Yo, Klay Thompson sonned this dude. He sunned him. And guess what? He's not wrong. There's nothing he said that you can't, there's nothing fraudulent. He told no lies in that statement. Because here's the thing. The receipts are here. It's not working. Ja won rookie of the year in 2020. He put a 17 point 17.8 points a game and 7.3 assists on 47% 47.7% shooting as a 20-year-old. And by the year three, he had exploded to 27.4 points a game and 6.7 assists. He was all NBA second team guy and top 7 in MVP with a 24.4 PER and a true shooting percentage of 0.575. He followed that up with a 26.2 per game scoring average and 8.1 assists the next year and another top 12 MVP finish. And it looked like the future, the face, the future face of the league was here. Okay? It did. Now, since then, it's been everything bug basketball. 25 uh game suspension that happened a couple years back. Um flashing a gun on social. Another suspension this uh last season for um he threw up like gun fingers or whatever. Like clearly you don't you didn't read the room. Like you were in trouble for having gun Brandison guns on social media. You can't be sitting out here dunk doing like shotgun um paraphernalia or antics on the court. This season, my man has been uh suspended for conduct detrimental to the team, and now he has a right calf strain, keeping him out again. Over the last three seasons, he's played in 71 games total. This year, he's at 17.9 points a game on 35.9% shooting from the field and 16.7% from three. It's the lowest PER of his career, which is 12.7, and he's shooting a true shooting percentage with his absolutely god-awful, which is 0.77. This is the least this is the least efficient version of Ja since he walked in the door the advanced metrics that used to screen superstar now have him underwater with a negative box plus minus. So when Ja pops into the into his teammates post-game interview and says, tell him who's the best shooter in the house, and it wasn't that bro from Golden State, and he's not even in uniform, that's not trash talk doc. That's a player who has become a caricature of his own brand. Clay even drew the line between the error and said, I do actually have a lot of respect for the Grindhouse. Mike Connolly, Zach Randolph, Marcusall. That was a hard team to beat. This new team though, they just talk a lot. They always talk a lot. They never really back it up though. This is Clay. Clay, one of the more reserved dudes in the league, just just talk, just tearing you down. Now, respect in this league is rented, it's not inherited. You don't get it, you don't get the same reverence as Connolly and Z Well just because you share the building. You earn it by giving the game your availability and your focus. Ja hasn't played more than 65 games since his rookie year. That was 67, by the way. He played in 67 games his rookie year, and then he has not hit, he has not touched 65. He's missed a third of the season this season. Now we're only 18 games into the season, so you do the math. He played 18, he's missed six. That's 33% of the games he's missed. But that's a trend, though. That's a trend. The numbers in the games played, the suspensions says it all, right? You're not the grim reaper of the West right now. You're a storyline in street clothes. And at this point, Brass should be the last word in his repertoire. The only acceptable energy is bunker mentality. I've embarrassed myself. I've let my team down, and when I want to when I get back, I'm standing on business and reminding this league who I actually am. That's the kind of shit I want to hear from Jock. That's the kind of stuff I want to hear. I do not want to hear all this, oh, Klay Thompson's a bum. Oh, by the way, that dude, that bum got four rings, bro. Four of them. You don't even have like a Western Conference Finals appearance. Think about that. John Morant, who has signature shoes by Nike, right? He has incredible highlights in his early days. Cockback dunks on people, all of it. All of it. You know this kid got talent. You everybody sees it. But all we get is rhetoric. All we get is all this bluster. That's all we get from this kid. He's getting a max deal right now. And he ain't living up to it. The early years justified it. We talked about the rookie of the year. We talked about the all-NBA second team. Uh, we talked about the we didn't talk about the most improved player. The top seven MVP finished in 2021-2022 at his peak. He was 27-4 per points per game, 6.7 assists, almost shooting 50% from the field at that point in time. Real superstar production type stuff. He followed up that season with 26.2 points per game with 8.1 assists and a 23.3 PER and a little less version of true shoot true shooting percentage, but we still was kind of like, well, Jos dope. Which was um uh.557. The problem is, again, when are you gonna play 65 games? By the way, that's the standards for you to reach all these uh regular season awards and what have you. Like your shooting is terrible right now, and you can tell me all the things you want to tell me. Well, he is clearly upset in Memphis and he wants to be moved and all this. Well, guess what? Nobody's gonna want somebody who's shooting 16.7% from three. Nah. That's not happening. Now, stylistic strength, he still has an elite first step. He can live in the paint if he wants. He's he's an actual lob threat, and also then creates lobs for his bigs because of the pressure that he can put on the on the rim. He has high assist rates throughout his career, which he is at 36.4%. He's still drawing fouls, his free throw rate is at 35.4%, shooting uh 5.8 free throw attempts a game, 90 94.2% free throw line, which is great. Now, the athleticism is still there, the rhythm, but the rhythm efficiency and the decision making have regressed, and the gap between Ja and the brand, and Ja, the box score, has never been wider. So you want to live up to the Conley, Gasol, Zebo, Tony Allen group, right? If you got Klay Thompson out here talking about you running your mouth, it's funny you run your mouth when you're on the bench, and that's a story of your career, leaving us wanting more, meaning him. Meaning Clay is saying, yo, bro, I thought you were gonna be better than this. And I'm just disappointed. Clay sounding like a like a like a TV father over here. I'm just disappointed. I thought you were gonna give us years of sports center dunks and stuff like that, but here you are sitting on the bench doing absolutely nothing again. And if you want to trade, these numbers that we're seeing are disturbing. Now, let's talk about the front office. I'm gonna tell you right now. Uh they saw Jaws as a franchise killer, that's why they gave him the max money. Now, if you're looking at him right now, I know that it's quite as kept. Zach Kleiman and the boys in Memphis right now are sitting there going, like, what are we gonna do? Because right now, if you trade him right now, you I mean, I know he's a name. I understand that people are gonna sit here and say, Well, it's John Morant. But I'm gonna tell you right now, these teams are cutthroat. They're gonna look at him like, uh, we'll give you a protected first round pick, maybe a quick swap, you know what I'm saying? And then uh we'll give you some contracts that are, you know, suspect to say the least. You're not getting the plumb prospects, you're not getting maybe a dude that has been kind of buried on the bench, but you know, your scouts have done like all the video work, and they're saying, like, yo, if we get him, if we can acquire this guy right here, he's gonna help us. This is not what you're getting. You're getting basically the poo-poo platter of the team that you trade him to. First, you rebuild the trust and the structure around him. Uh, better support, clearer boundaries, and you hold the line accountability. Okay? Hey, bro, we need you to play basketball. We need you to be about these this hoop life and not the thug life that you're trying to be about. Okay? That's the first thing that we need to talk about. Second thing is this stress test the entire timeline. Keep evaluating whether his habits and the health justify staying uh fully tethered to him. Here's the thing. What we're trying to do is get you to play basketball. Alright? We are trying to get you to play basketball so we can build up your trade value so we can get you up out of here. Now, the other thing is this is that he has a lot of the pieces around him that make him successful. Zach Edy is a 7'4 mountain of a man. He can set picks for Jaw, and then Jaw can get to the rim. Now, your shooting, your spacing has been compromised because at some point Zach Kleimer and the and the Bros in Memphis were going to pull the plug. And they traded Desmbay to Orlando and got four first-round picks, the whole deal. You are going to have to create spacing. So whoever it is that's on that bench, I don't know if it's Gigi Jackson. I know, you know, Jaron Jackson Jr. can shoot it from the outside. You are going to have to put shooters around Ja. It might not work with your system completely that you are building right now, but we are trying to build trade value for Ja. Cause this 17.9 points per game and this 35.9 field goal percentage. This is terrible. The 16.7% from three is god-awful. This is not tradable. Unless you want absolutely nothing back, and you're just like, We'll we'll make our stand in the lottery. So John Moran in Memphis basically it's a question mark on paper. This is still one of the most gifted guards we got in the league. But his performance over the last couple years is alarming. And the regression is so real right now that he has no trade value whatsoever. And that's when he is suiting up. Right now he's not even suiting up because of the the cap strength. So Klay Thompson voicing what a lot of veterans are thinking was a turning point. Again, talking about running his mouth for a long time. Again, talking about you're on the bench a lot. You're leaving a lot of us who love basketball kind of in a large right now, leaving us wanting more. Then the second punch. They're definitely not talking about Zach Edy. They're talking about John Morant and John Morant only. Clay Thompson won four titles. Against the old grit and gr uh grind grizzlies in a playoff series that we know what it looks like, right? It was awesome. The passback is still here. It's not complicated. Even if it's hard, he has to stack seasons where most the cont the most controversial thing about him is his box score. Is he playing 70 plus games or close to 70 games? Is he back near 24 to 26 points a game or real efficiency and the assist rates and the pressure, the realm pressure that he provides most of the time is back in line with his prime? And no headlines involving suspension or detrimental conduct to the team. He's gotta act like a professional. He's gotta act like the things that Klay talked about. When you're a star, it comes with great responsibility. We hate to see that go to waste, but here we are. And you can tell me, hey, if you move him to the right team, all of all of this will be forgotten, and whatever the case may be. But here's the thing. You take you with you, and I know this for a fact. I am now almost nine years sober, right? And I don't want any awards for that, and no, I don't need any claps for that or anything like that. I spent 30 years of being a shithead. You know? I drank, I lied, I cheated, I was devious, I was a deceitful person, I was just not somebody that you should should have been around. But I now carry that every single day, and I try to use that impact for good now. Like, I am trusted. People can count on my word, people can rely on me. I am a pleasure to be around now. I have a pretty good damn work ethic. Put in the time, put in the grind, and I don't ask for anything to be fucking handed to me. You don't have to give me anything. But it takes every day, and it takes one step at a time, every single day. You have now set a precedent, you have now have a a book on you, you know, whether you want to call this a couple to couple chapters or not. We haven't seen anything else but this. So you need to walk this down. You need to walk this down, so then there's more positive days than there are negative days. And there is a there's an absolute way for you to get back. But it's gonna take you. So whether you trade him to Miami, or you trade him to Toronto, or you trade him, God forbid, you trade him to Sacramento. Ja is still going with Ja. Unless Ja changes. So y'all gotta just take that, understand that, and uh what have you. So I'm gonna hold off this last piece because you know what? We about 130. You know what I'm saying? We about 130 in. Um, and I'm gonna hold this last piece to Friday because I think it's awesome what it is, and we'll update the numbers to make sure like everything is still relevant, whatever the case may be. So, let me go ahead and say this for you guys. Thank you again for the guy for the people who are downloading the podcast. Remember to follow and download the podcast. We need it, we want it, and we want you to want to be with us, FRPC. Trust and believe that. Alright? The second thing is this join us on social media at frontrunnerpc and at socially underscore FRPC. Okay, that's where you get us. Give us suggestions for shows. Hey, you're not talking about our team enough, whatever the case may be. Also, if there's something from the podcast that you liked, hit us up. You know, if you like the job morant rant, put that in the subject line and send it off to us. Also, you can get us on email. F R P C Vince, V-I-N-C-E at gmail.com. That's where you get us, and we will go ahead and uh, you know, we'll if the lines are good, we'll put it on the air, my guy or girl. You know, we'll put you on the air for sure. Shout you out, all that. So with that being said, let's do this. First of all, I want to say happy Thanksgiving to everybody. Enjoy your time with your family. Enjoy uh good eats, good conversation. Uh, and hopefully you're getting back in touch with people that you hadn't talked to in a second. You know, so enjoy your time, appreciate your time with your family. I hope everybody has a good one, and also have a safe one. You know what I'm saying? And we're gonna leave you with this the best part of you is you. It's still you. It's not your record and it's not your feed, it's you. Surround yourself with people who give you light, insight, joy, and accountability. That is your real max deal. Appreciate them out loud. Don't wait for later that nobody has promised you. So make sure that you are FaceTime people, make sure you're texting people, make sure you know we're gonna get some FaceTime with some people for real this week, you know, this weekend. You know, saying you're gonna watch a lot of football together. Put your hand on that person's shoulder and say, hey man, it's it's it's been a while, I haven't seen you. How's everything going? You know, let them know how much they've impacted your life in such a positive way, or whatever the case may be. Reconnect with those who have given you some positivity in your life. And if you're still looking for your hoop family, well, you got one here with us at FRPC. We joke, we overact, we get loud, but we respect your brain. Thoughts over takes every single time. And remember, anyone can yell a take, but very few can defend a thought. Until next time, keep your mind sharp, your heart open, and your circle tight. And remember, to protect your peace like cap space and never waste it on bad basketball or bad energy. I'm your host Vince, and again, happy Thanksgiving to those who are gonna celebrate it. Uh enjoy the turkey, enjoy all the fixings around it, enjoy your family, and we will see you back on this feed on Friday. Two susis, we out.