Thunder Rule The NBA Now

Summary:

Twenty wins in twenty-one tries, the league’s stingiest defense, and a net rating that dares you to look away—Oklahoma City isn’t just good, they’re defining the moment. We dig into how Shea Gilgeous-Alexander’s MVP-level efficiency, Chet Holmgren’s two-way impact, and Mark Daigneault’s rotation discipline have turned the Thunder into a machine. Then we zoom out to the draft capital that still tilts their future, including a vulnerable Clippers pick that could drop another blue-chip talent onto a title core.

That context sets the stakes for the East. We walk through New York’s calculus: a top-tier offense powered by Jalen Brunson and spacing from Karl-Anthony Towns, real two-way help from Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby, and the nagging question of whether defense demands a move or if continuity is the edge. In Boston, life without Jason Tatum looks unexpectedly sturdy—positive net rating, productive cheap wings, and Joe Mazzulla’s uncompromising habits—pushing us toward a quiet retool that fits the CBA rather than a headline-grabbing teardown.

Back in Los Angeles, we unpack the Suns’ rout to spotlight structural issues and a clearer hierarchy. Austin Reaves looks like a legitimate No. 2 option with elite efficiency and problem-solving against tilted defenses, while LeBron evolves into a devastating connector and matchup hunter. The blueprint is simple: cut turnovers, lock lineups around defense and finishing, and let stars bend the floor without clogging possessions.

If dominance has a zip code right now, it’s Oklahoma City. Everyone else is deciding whether to chase, counter, or wait for an opening. Tap play for data, film logic, and honest team-building talk—and tell a friend who lives for NBA debates. Subscribe, share, and drop your take on X at FrontrunnerPC or at socially underscore FRPC.

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Transcript

Welcome And Show Setup

FROC Host Vince Carter 0:13

What is good everybody? Welcome to Front Runner Podcast Collective where we talk like friends, we argue like cousins, and we still walk out smarter than we came in. I am Vince, your host, your occasional hoop therapist, and your favorite bad influence when it comes to completely reckless NBA over overreactions. That is your guy. That low-key makes some sense. Twice a week, we come to you setting the table, getting you to think about what is going down with NBA basketball. We go into it a little film room style, you know what I'm saying? Because we watch these games. And then we give our observations. We give, we hope to contribute to grown conversations about how players, coaches, and front offices are really moving inside the NBA. We're unpacking everything the wins, the mess, the contracts, the agendas, because believe me, there are some out there, the rumors, the actual receipts behind them, all of it with jokes, stats, reporting, and angles that you can take straight into your group chat and dare people to argue with you about. This is FRPC, I am Vince, and we need to get into it. So today's podcast, we are going to discuss how scary the Oklahoma City Thunder really are. And because of the fact that, and I will I want to touch on the Dallas situation they won last night against Denver. We're not gonna get into it fully because I feel like we haven't really touched the East in a while. So I want to talk about the Knicks and the Celtics, and then I'm gonna propose a question to all Lakers fans out there in regards to the team, in regards or the hierarchy that is going on within that team, and we'll discuss it all on today's plot. But before we get to that, we haven't hit you since before Thanksgiving. So I want to know how everybody's Thanksgiving went. Thanksgiving overreactions, you know, put it in the little hashtag Thanksgiving overreactions, Thanksgiving MBA overreactions. That's also good. If you want to email, we can do that too. That will be frpc vents at gmail.com. Go ahead and hit us up there. Uh, we did get a couple emails over the break as far as that's concerned, and we will get into those as we go along. That is what we are is on the docket for today. Nobody wants to hear about my Thanksgiving. It was wonderful, I will say that, but we need to get into all this basketball, you know, because we got a lot to get into. So let's go ahead and get into that. And we will start off in Oklahoma City. And the reason why we're starting there is because I live in Los Angeles. The Lakers, up until last night, had won seven in a row, and Lakers Twitter is doing we're back. They're doing that thing. You know, confetti, parade roots, everybody in the group chats, and meanwhile, Oklahoma City, the defending champs are quietly looking over at this the little seven-game heater and basically saying, That's cute. Hold my beer. Because uh, I don't know if anybody has checked this out. We're at the quarter mark of the season, and the Oklahoma City Thunder are absolute wagon. They're a fun league pass team, nah, no, no, no. They're not a young, ahead of schedule team, no no no no no. You know what they are? They're legit 20 and 1. 21 games played, 21 win, 20 wins in those 21 games. Third in scoring at 122 a night. Of course, they have the best defense in the league, number one in net rating, historic net rating yet again. I mean, tell me if you haven't heard these things over and over again. And they're doing it without playing with some of their you know their wild track uh pace as far as that's concerned, but there is one true constant to this team, and that is Shea Gilders Alexander. He's out here doing his best Wilt Chamberlain impersonation, 90 plus straight games with 20 or more, 32 and a half a night. The best part about that for me is that you know Luca is out here scoring 35. So I'm like pretty pleased about that situation. At least the Lakers are on top with something, but we do understand that Shea Gilges Alexander has been a 30 a night dude for like the last two years. Like this is not new what he's doing. This is a continuation of what he's been doing all along. Mark Dagnall looks like at the bench, he just looks at the bench and goes, hmm, rubs his chin a little bit, and he's like with kids playing hide and seek. He can just point and almost say anybody, anybody on the bench, who wants it? Kasen Wallace, AJ Mitchell, Isaiah Joe, Aaron Wiggins, Alex Caruso, who wants to come in and give it give us a good 22 to 24 minutes? You know, they all raise their hand like little school kids, like, yeah, I would like some work, I like some run. They out here just doing it. Now, here's the here's another thing that is on the horizon for the Oklahoma City Thunder. And while they're having all this tremendous success, and people are talking about, well, you know, that salary cap is gonna get them sooner or later. The salary cap boogeyman is going to get them. All the while, the clickers are five and fifteen. And I understand that a lot of people know this already, but for those who are not in the know, Oklahoma City made a trade with the Los Angeles Clickers like six years ago. Okay, I'll say that again for you. They made a trade with the Clickers six years ago and is still paying off dividends. The Clickers being 5 and 15 at this point in time, they are now in the lottery. And for our casuals out there, I'm not speaking to my hardcore people, I'm speaking to the casuals right now. And there's nothing wrong with being casual. You're welcome here. To the casuals out there, here's the thing: if Oklahoma City owns that pick, it's a lottery pick, then they get into the lottery, the Clickers end up being either first, second, or third in this lottery situation. Guess what? That means Oklahoma City finishes first, second, or third in this lottery situation. Meaning that the team that has Shea Gilgest Alexander, the team that has Jalen Williams, who just got back from injury, the team that has Chet Homgren and all of this immense just strength in numbers bench that they have. They just have continuous dudes that are anywhere between 6'4 to 6'7 coming in off the bench, just producing like nobody's business, are gonna have the opportunity to grab not what I've said, and I I'm scouting these guys, but I want to talk about some of the other people out there. I want to shout out Sam Vicini, I want to shout out Jonathan Wasserman, you know, I want to shout out guys like that who are on top of this on a daily basis. We trying to get there, right? We are trying to get there, but they are saying that these are nice, these are pieces, these are franchise, you know, dudes in the top three selections. I've even made the case that Caleb Wilson might be one of those dudes as well, so that would mean there's a top four hierarchy to the NBA draft coming up in the spring or the early summer of 2026. If that's the case, Oklahoma City is on the verge of going back to back on their championship situation, and then they are also in a in a can have a real real chance of getting pick one, two, three, or four in this next upcoming NBA draft. I don't think they have to worry about salary cap implications. Because we've not we got another cheap talent on the horizon who is going to produce and probably produce very big. Very big. Where do we go from here? I hope this doesn't upset other NBA fans of teams or whatever the case may be. If you're the Golden State Warriors, you must be sitting here going like you've got to be kidding me. The Oklahoma City Thunder, their owner has the right to say, we're light years ahead. They can look at Balmer and just go, You spent money for that. They're looking at Mark Walter of the Lakers and going, Yeah, you might overpay for what you got going on here, buddy, because we're gonna run this for a long period of time. The basics of this situation is that they're 20 and 1. They're first in the West by a huge margin already. They're the defending champions. They're uh we told you they're third in the league and scoring. They're 18th in pace, which that could get better with J Dub coming back. Defensively, 106.7 opponents' points per game, best defensive rating in the league, and they have a net rating that's plus 15, which is historic. All-time great. Shea Gilgest Alexander, their offensive engine is uh 32.5 points a game. He's doing this in a cool 33.5 minutes game as well, and he's doing a casual 11 free throws a night, and still giving you 6.6 assists. Chet Homgren, who last year missed half the year, right? He missed half the year with the hip injury. Chet Homgren is averaging 18.2 points a game. He's shooting 55.5% from the field. He has a true shooting percentage of 65%. And this is your third option when Jalen Williams get healthy. Isaiah Hartenstein, who is not talked about enough on this team, the other seven-footer, by the way. This is the other seven-footer. They got they got Chet Holmgren who roams the perimeter and then provides weak side rim protection, right? The other guy who stands in the middle of the paint, Isaiah Hartenstein, 12.2 points a game, 10.7 boards in under 28 minutes a game. He's shooting 67.1% from the field. This is an elite cleanup and rim presence. Because all he's doing is put is getting second chance opportunities and putting them back in. They don't run real plays for him. Every once in a while they'll use them as like a nail hub where they're just trying to get cutters. Let's say Shea is out of the game. They're trying to get cutters like Aaron Wiggins and others involved or whatever. That's the only time he really is kind of like part of the offense. Normally he's just a rim runner. Normally he's just a ball comes off the rim, carries off the rim, I grab it, I put it back in. That's his job. Pretty good job to have. Isaiah Joe out here, just a cool 13 points in 24 minutes, just bombing threes north of 40% on serious volume. AJ Mitchell, 15.2 points a night, almost four assists. This is another one that just came out of the woodwork. They just they just grow them on trees in Oklahoma City. And again, this is your defending champions. The scary thing is that not they just know how they're winning, it's how routine it looks. Blowouts are not occasional, they're normal. They get up by 10, and that's it. It's a wrap. There's no obvious weak link to the rotation, as you can tell by what we put up as far as the the stats are concerned. Shea's whole vibe is quiet, obsessive, and business like. Now, do they think they could probably do better? Do you think they think they could probably run an offense or or be a more significant part of an offense? 100% they feel that way. And for some reason, I don't know what happens to people in Oklahoma City, but these guys seem to buy their time. And then once they get their opportunity, they just they just flash. And this beautiful kind of like butterfly just comes out the cocoon, and all of a sudden, you got AJ Mitchell's other world out here scoring 15 points a game. Y'all know y'all hadn't heard of AJ Mitchell until he broke onto the scene this year. Like our draft guru guys, our draft Knicks out there, yes, they've heard of AJ Mitchell. I've heard of AJ Mitchell. But if you would have told me, hey, I saw this happening for him, there's very few of us that can say that. I'm not one of them. I'll be very honest with you. Did I think he'd be a nice little player? Yeah. 100%. Did I think he'd be a contributor off the bench? Yes. Did I think that he would be like a secondary offensive engine to the defending uh NBA champions? No. Absolutely not. And that's what he was for the first part of the year. I remember talking about this before the season started and said the only thing that can hold Oklahoma City back is complacency. And they're gonna be the the in a sense the the trial tester, the beta tester for uh new school complacency. And sure enough, that hasn't happened. Sure enough, nobody seems to be worried about points, minutes, touches, uh, sponsorship deals. Am I gonna get a shoe commercial? Uh none of that. Let's get a little bit into Shay, shall we? Because this dude is questioning for another MVP. I mean, he has some really stiff competition. But let's just talk about Shay. Let's concentrate on him real quick. My man is shooting 67.4% true shooting. His usage rate is 33.4. That's an MVP, that's MVP plus territory. He's got a 9.9 positive offensive box plus minus and a 13.2 total box plus minus. And his win share is 0.381, which is only is only being beat by Jokic. And by the way, a a point three eight one win share per forty eight is legendary status. Like only the great of the greats get to this level. Like we're talking about special years to get to this level. And this is what Shea is doing. He's a guy with an elite drive volume, elite pull-up, his elite efficiency is out there. He's just doing the damn thing, and we just love it. We love everything about what goes on in Oklahoma City. We love that they have a quiet assassin in Shea Gilge's Alexander. We love that he still wants to do interviews with all his dudes. It's truly amazing. It's the best team that nobody's really talking about. Now, yeah, I know Zach Lowe makes sure that he talks about him. It's appointment uh conversation on Zach Lowe's show. Um, and maybe a couple others. But OKC is so good that people don't even it's on we almost put them to the side. Like, okay, OKC is so good, we can't even talk about them because if we did, it'll make the league boring. Remember when Golden State was going on their run and then they got KD and everybody was like they broke the league. By the way, this is about as good as that Golden State squad. I mean, and it has a chance of getting better because all of these people, other than Shay, is under 25 years of age. Like Chet Homgren ain't what is he, like 22? J Doub's like 23, 20, is he 24? Oh, and again, the boogeyman in the in the closet is the clicker's first round pick that can end up being in that top three, top four. And you just showed these advanced stat lines, and you just say, that's the best player in the league with two more borderline stars and a bench full of plus guys. Now, who's holding it all together? It's pretty much the best president of basketball operations on the face of the planet today, Sam Presty. And the reason why I give him that moniker, I think it's earned. I don't I don't think it's hyperbole anymore. And here's the thing Sam Chresty has been in that front office for a long period of time. He's just stayed quiet, grounded. There are here's the best, here's one of the stats I love about Kresty. 14 of the 15 standard contracts are from the title team. The one new standard contract is Thomas Sorber, who's out with an ACL, and they're still 20 and 1 without seeing their lottery ticket. Thomas Sorber is a 6'10, 6'11 center, who basically is supposed to take over for Isaiah Hartenstein at some point in time. Nikola Topic has testicular cancer, and that's the only reason we haven't seen him. And I wonder, does the AJ Mitchell emergence happen if Topic gets the opportunity to play this year? No offense to AJ Mitchell, but Topic was in number one, not number one, but he was a first-round pick. And he's supposed to have tremendous like league guard skills and things of that nature. And we still haven't really seen him on the court. Then you zoom out, and you know that the clipper pick is on the horizon. So the Kawhi PG in that group trying to figure, or well, it's not PG anymore, but that trade, right? They're trying to figure out why it is not working. Well, you gave up all your future to OKC. Now you got PG up in Philadelphia, and Kawhi is let's just face it, Kawhi is not the same guy that he used to be. Yes, the stats look good, but he doesn't have the same impact that he did uh on the game like three, four years ago. And even then, we were dealing with a more condensed Kawhi because of the fact that he hasn't really been healthy since he left San Antonio. But this is where the Clickers decided to put their money. Usually Dominance comes with attacks, no picks, bad contracts, aging core. OKC has ducked all three of those pitfalls, and they keep it moving, and they got another plumb first round draft pick. I remember thinking a couple years back that they were gonna have to consolidate some of these picks, right? And turn them turn uh some of these picks into you know another guy to help Shay. No, they just kept drafting. They end up with Chet, they end up with J Dub, they end up with all of these guys, you know. Caseon Wallace came aboard. Casey Wallace would start for a bunch of teams. He did earlier this year when Jay Jalen Williams was missing time. But Casey Wallace would start for teams because he's that good of a defensive point of attack guard. And he can't even start on Oklahoma City. So, I mean, that's what the depth that we're talking about with OKC. So my final analysis of OKC at this point in time is this. We can talk about seven-game winning streaks with the Los Angeles Lakers and who's back and which fan base is the loudest on Tuesday night. But the sport is telling you that there's something loud and very simple right now. The center of the NBA universe runs through Oklahoma City. And people might not want to hear that. They want to hear that Denver and Houston and the Lakers and all these other teams have a real legitimate shot. And maybe they do. Maybe there's a trade to be made for the Lakers and they can help their defense. And we'll get to them a little bit later on in the podcast. And Houston is huge, and they are going to present problems for anybody they come up against. And Denver does have Jokic, who I still contend, is the baddest man on the face of the planet today playing basketball. But you have to look at the Oklahoma City Thunder and look at it differently. Again, they went on a 20-1 record with Jalen Williams playing what three, four games so far this year, and it hasn't been the J Dub that we knew because he's getting the rust off. So here is a second team all NBA player, a second team all defensive player who was not at their disposal, and they still, after 21 games, are 20 and 1. So you call it whatever you want to call it, you can call it early luck. You know, this is a team that is pushing for records or what all that. What I call it is sustained dominance. And we question dominance until it's just there's so much empirical evidence that it is dominance, then then we can't deny it anymore. But up until the point that we're sitting there going, okay, well, that's dominance. We question it. We go, is it really can they really do this? Are they really this good? Oh, they're gonna there's gonna be a a lull sometime in the middle of the year. This is a team that won 68 games last year. I think Vegas had them for 63 and a half this year. They're going over that. This team has a real legitimate shot at 70 plus wins, and that 73-9 record that the Golden State Warriors put together is in jeopardy. Because again, Chet Homegren is ascending. We haven't seen the best Chet Homegren yet. We probably still really haven't seen the best Jalen Williams yet. And I'm not just talking about this year, I'm talking about even last year. And Shea Gilgis Alexander is still that dude. So on the floor, they're a problem in every language. Top three in scoring, best defense, number one in net rating, and they don't need gimmicks to get there. Shea is putting up one of the nastiest all-around offensive seasons we've ever seen. The will adjacent streak is just absolutely stellar. The efficiency, the free throw attempts, the on-ball creation, and he's doing it in a system where Chet and Hartenstein and AJ Mitchell and Isaiah Joe and all these guys can still breathe with inside the offense. That's leadership, that's coaching, and that's culture. In the numbers, it looks even worse for the rest of the league. MVP tier, uh PER, and box plus or minus for Shay. Star level efficiency for Chet and Hartenstein, role players who grade out as plus pieces, and it all stacks up into an absurd plus 15-ish net rating. It's actually 15.7 if you want to be, you know, real just surgical with it. Then you zoom out and you realize they're doing this with a band that basically was intact from last year. They didn't really add anything. And they're doing this with Jalen Williams literally just coming back, and they're still holding other people's first round pain like ugly 15 and 5 clipper starts. So, yeah, if you want to nitpick age, health, small sample, go right ahead. But if you have to argue against the defending champions, it's gotten better, not lucky, and it's against a front office that built a wagon without more mortgaging it future. Until somebody beats them four times out of seven, this is the standard. Everybody else, including the Lakers, on a little heater, is chasing them. If you're OKC, if you're OKC fan, tell me this. What's the first thing that actually scares you about this team? And if you're a Laker fan or a Clipper fan or anyone else in the West, be honest. How confident are you in a series against this group right now? Hit me on X at Frontrunner PC or at socially underscore FRPC. That's where you can find us. We are looking forward to your comments. Put in the tagline, put in like uh challengers to OKC or no challenge to OKC or OKC is a wagon. Hashtag that bad boy and get it to us because that's what we're talking about here on FRPC. They got other people by the way, they still got other draft picks. We were just focusing on the absolute cherry draft pick that they have with the Clippers. They still got like 14 other first round picks coming up in the next five years. Super nuts. Crazy work. Now, if you're not depressed enough, right? We can talk about other teams that are starting to get their stuff together. We can talk about other teams that are dreaming big. We can talk about other teams that feel that they have a Rocky Balboa punchers chance. And we'll start in New York City. Nick fans, let me talk to you about my intrusive thought. You're 13-6 right now. You're second in the East, so you're starting to get better. Top three offense, all that type of stuff. Your net rating is a plus 7.5. That's pretty sound. And my brain is screaming. Do you trade Carl Anthony Towns? Do you break up the Nova Knicks thing? Are we actually one more big move away, or are we about to outsmart ourselves? These are the things that are rattling around in my head right now. But I want to try to give you some numbers and some things to kind of think about as we go forward. On paper, the numbers tell you this is an inner circle profile. You got Jalen Brunson who's the offensive engine. He's at 28.5 points a night. On 59.4% true percentage, true shooting percentage. Cat is bodega cat. You know, 21.7, almost 12 boards a game. McKeel Bridges is giving you elite two-way impact. And also his true shooting percentage is 63, 63.6%. That's not cute over a cheeser achiever. That's a team living in the Final Four neighborhood. And that's exactly where New York wants to be. Hey, just give us a chance in the in the conference finals, and we'll see what we can do. But then you watch the defensive slippage, and then you mix in uh Mitch's health, you feel how the three-point dependent the defense is, and then you start building fake trades in your notes app, like I do. Listen, before you guys get super angry, before you start thinking, like, hey, he's out his mind, we love our team. Tonight I want you guys to answer one clean question for me. Are the Knicks truly a star swap away from something better? Or are they already holding the right core and they just need to stop trying to trade their way out of being a contender? Are they gonna outsmouth or are they gonna outsmart themselves? Now that's the old Knicks. I don't think this is the old Knicks. I think Leon Rose has done a tremendous job of building a contender. But I know New York fans, and New York fans, they want championships. You know, y'all live in a world where the Yankees were doing it big in the early 2000s and the late 90s and stuff like that. Mad at Yankees at the Yankees now for not doing it. So let's start here. What actually is on paper, we know about the record, the strength of schedule right now is uh is pretty good. You were which is a plus 6.96, you are a robust 121.5 points a game offensive rating, and you are 13th in defense at 114, you know, not bad. By the way, they're 114 and their 13th ranked uh net defense. Do you know that with Tom Thibodeau, that's pretty much what that what they were last year? I think they were actually 14th. So before we get on my ground and like, oh, this is not a really good defensive team and whatever. No, this team is pretty good. You got all the bones of a really good team. Like we've already talked about Bronson, Cat, McKell, and then you throw in OG Ananobi, Josh Hart, Mitchell Robinson is is real. His defense, his presence is real. And then off the bench, you got McBride, Sham is hurt right now, Jordan Clarkson, and then you have some young itch depth pieces that, if for some reason somebody gets hurt, they can kind of slide into that role. So you're good there. Actually, Tom Thibodeau didn't want to use the bench last year. So Mike Brown has been more open to using bench pieces, which is great for New York Knicks fans everywhere. Your guys aren't playing 44 minutes a game. Josh Hart is not gonna have cardiac arrest on the court. Sounds great. Now, on the floor, Brunson is the start and end of everything. You know, not just with the points and what have you. His offensive box plus minus is plus 5.0. Again, he has a lot of pieces around him that are if you're saying, hey, if we can get this team healthy, get them right, we got a lot, we got some more depth this year that our coach is willing to use. We're not going to absolutely murder our starting offense or our starting lineup with by playing them like 44 or 45 minutes a game, then we should have a better shot in the playoffs. And I thought, with the way you're using your team, that this would be pretty much additive. Here's the other piece of the identity. What kind of grown-up team are you trying to be? You built this very specific culture with the Nova Grain Trust, you got Brunson, the heartbeat, Mikkel, you got Josh Hart, you know, Dante DiVincenzo, rest in peace in Minnesota. He's not dead. I'm just saying, like the Nova Knicks. He thought he was gonna play play with them. Continuity is a weapon, and these dudes actually like each other, they do podcasts together, they hang out, all the things you want to see in a good team. The things that I just talked about with OKC is a big freaking kumbaya on the planes in the great Midwest of America. When we're talking about the Knicks, and we talk about what it is to win, do you really feel comfortable that you have all the pieces? Your offense league wide would say yes. Your defense, well, that's the problem. It's a 14th ranked defense, and you know the drill to be really a contender, you gotta be top ten in both. Right? Well, we've seen people say, well, you don't have to necessarily be top ten in both. It really does help if you look at the history of the league, who's won championships, and how they won them. Like Denver Nuggets have been the anomaly. That was the only anomaly in this group. The rest of the teams have been top ten in both offensive rating and defensive rating. Where could you make an adjustment? Is there something that you already have in your culphers to allow this manifestation of defense to happen? Well, let's get into it. Let's let's figure it out. That's what we're here to do. I'm not here to piss you off, Knicks fans. I'm trying not to, but I also want to give you something that you already know. There's something that you need to do, and I've been trying to figure it out for like the longest period of time. Three things. Do you trade Carl Anthony Towns? I say no. The reason why I say no is because Carl Anthony Towns provides something that a lot of teams don't have. He is a great outside shooter, which provides the spacing that Jalen Brunson needs to be able to enter into the paint, experiment, do all his pivots, look completely saucy while doing it, and either hitting like a mid-range dagger or kicking out to a three-ball that's wide ass open. So there's one. We can check that off the list. We do not want to get rid of Carl Anthony Towns. I've actually liked this rendition of Carl Anthony Towns in New York City. I had a lot of questions about uh Kat in Minnesota, and there's still things that I think he does that are kind of weird. I hate the fouls that are like 43 feet away from the basket. I hate those. Absolutely cannot stand those. But he's kind of curtailed those a little bit in New York City, so I'm excited for the next fans there. So where else can you look? Hmm. Well, could we get a better center and put and put Kat still at the four and run the team that way? Well, how do you get it? That's the question. How do you get that? There's a question of maybe breaking up a little little chunk of the Nova Knicks. Is there a world where you can combine our guy Mikel Bridges and Mitchell Robinson and get the let's call him Mikhail Bridges light wing or shooting guard and get a better uh upside on the center situation. Here's the one thing I love Mitchell Robinson. I think he is a really good defensive center, I think he's an incredible rebounder. I'm always scared that he's going to get hurt, not because he's not physically imposing, he just seems to have like injuries that happen to him, and they happen more frequently to him than other people his size, and I don't know why that is. I have no clue why that is, but it's a thing that for me it really is that sticking point where I'm going. I want to believe, I want to believe that New York City can be on fire, and they can be on fire until June of 2026. But I have a question, and that question is, is there any way that some of these pieces can be either upgraded or tweaked to maximize the window for Jalen Brunson? Now here's the thing. You tell me you don't want to trade Mikhail Bridges? Fine. I'm not trying to trade OG and Anobi. I'm not trying to do that. Because that dude in the playoffs last year looked super special. I don't know if he's super special in the regular season, but I do know in the postseason that dude brought it up to like two extra levels for you guys. And I was like, damn. I didn't even know OG had that. I didn't even know he had that type of tenacity. But it was sure good to see when it came to playoff time last year. I was excited about that. Where do we go from here? The version of the Knicks, the spreadsheet says they're 13-6. They're second in the East. All looks well. Brunson's playing like a real offensive engine. Cats still giving you high in scoring and rebounding. And Mikhail Bridges is Mikhail Bridges. I wish his defense was a little bit better. He's turned into a little bit more of an offensive player. I always think of like somebody like Jaden McDaniels. You know what I'm saying? Like Jaden McDaniels. I love that kid. He you know he's brought up his offense, but that defense is state. You know, his defensive tenacity is state. And I wonder if Bridges can get back to that point. Cause that dude was a problem in Phoenix on the defensive side of the ball. He was an absolute menace in Phoenix. And I just wonder if he's if that's all gone. Now Josh Hart, Josh Hart is one of the best rebounders for his size on the face of the planet. Josh Hart is six foot four, and he seems to be able to out-rebound dudes who are six, seven inches taller than him. He has a lot of heart. Excuse the pun. Hart has a lot of heart. But I still wonder if there's a trade to be made and where is where are the pieces for it? Unfortunately, I do believe that the pieces for it are in the starting lineup. And we can debate whether that's something that you will want to do, you should do, or ultimately you're gonna have to do, as far as where do you want this team to be at? Because here's the thing if you think you're gonna roll into Oklahoma City, and Oklahoma City's gonna be scared of Jalen Brunson and Mikhail Bridges and OG Ananobi and Carl Anthony Towns, you got another thing coming. They're not scared. Hell, they got a championship, and they're still ascending. Can you say the same for your group? Or is Jalen Brunson pretty much a finished product now? Is there another level for Jalen Brunson to go to? Is OG Ananobi the complete version of what he's going to be? And we we can honestly say that Carl Anthony Towns is exactly who he's going to be. So my question to New York Knicks fans is this Does continuity win out? Does the magic of Madison Square Garden still come best team on the planet today, which is the Oklahoma City Thunder in a championship series? Hell, here's the other question Do you even get there? And this is gonna really upset Knicks fans because I think that some of you know that you might not have enough, especially if Cleveland gets their stuff together. And this Detroit Pisson thing, is it real? Because if this Detroit Pistons thing is real, and God forbid they make a trade, what are the Knicks going to do? These are the questions that are on my head, these are the things that brought me to start working the trade machine on ESPN and whatever the case may be. I think also on Fans Bowl, but I'm just trying to tell you guys I am cautiously optimistic about the Knicks, but I'm also kind of wondering, do we have enough right now? Which leads me to the other team in the Atlantic division that has quite the conundrum going on, and that is the Boston Celtics. I'm going to be honest with you, when the news dropped about Jason Tatum, that he was going to be out for the season with the Achilles tear, I was like, might need to tear this down. Might need to tear this down. My intrusive thought had had me like slow playing a tank, slide down the standings, grab a blue chip pick, and then reopen the window when Tatum's back in 2026-2027. On paper, that sounds responsible. 20 games in, the floor has completely rejected the idea. You got a team sitting around sixth in the east, rocking a plus four net rating, a top five offense without their franchise guy, and a bunch of kids in cheap wings that are getting it done, and nobody knows who they are. Can I interest you in some in some Josh Minot? Does anybody know the center Cada? Jordan Walsh, you might remember him from like March Madness, Baylor Shireman, y'all know of Creighton fame, and Hugo Gonzalez, who was their first round pick this year, has been getting some run as well. These guys have been driving winning. Meanwhile, your head coach is literally wired to find joy in the misery of competing correctly. He couldn't tank if you spotted him lottery picks. This isn't broken roster pretending to be plucky. This is a retooled team accidentally proving it's good. So tonight's question is simple. The 2025-2026 Celtics, are they really a stealth tank candidate or are they a bridger contending contender that needs a war room directive, not a demolition plan? We are gonna hash that out right now. Here's the thing they have Jalen Brown. Jalen Brown is still in his prime, they got a bunch of cheap wings that are going on. You got Brad Stevens doing his best lab work. We'll get into all the moves that he made in a second. Do they have playoff expectations? I don't know. I think they're tempered. Again, the productivity you're getting from the Monot, Cada, Walsh, Shireman, and uh Gonzalez is crazy. Now, here's the thing. This is the thing that I know for a fact that Joe Mazzula is thinking in his head because he's so maniacal. If we tank, and I know he doesn't even say the word tank, it's not in his vocabulary, it's not in his verbals whatsoever. But he's saying you're basically we rather have a mystery teenager than real data on the group that we currently have that's playoff adjacent. Now, the pushback to that is collective bargaining uh agreement reality. You need cheap plus rogue guys when Tatum walks back into his supermax deal and Jalen Brown is already paid. The cap sheet plus kids screaming retool around this core, don't light it up one year lottery dart. No. Again, the CBA is here to put a kibosh on super teams. OKC has found a way around that, and the way they found it around that is that they did they did do like a soft tank. Took them three years, they hit on every draft pick, but guess what? They're racked. And here's the one thing I'll say to Boston. I do like what you guys got going on. Is it Clucky? Yes. Is Peyton Pritchard playing like a real man? 100%. Is Jalen Brown just doing his thing, being super offensive engine dude? Yes. I do wonder if this season, because of the fact that in the end, you know that Joe Mozilla and Jalen Brown are playing for championships. These dudes have tasted champagne on their lips before. Maybe not the Jordan Washes or the Catas or whatever the case may be, or the Baylor Shireman's, but Caden Kirchner sure has. Derek White sure has. Jalen Brown was the finals MVP, for God's sake. So my thing is that, yeah, I'm not everybody thinks that I'm just big tank guy. Let's go tank every time something happens or whatever. No. My whole thing is that the reality of the situation is that you got Jason Tatum, who is on a super max deal, he's gonna be making like 60 plus million dollars. Jalen Brown is in that high 50s range, that's 110 million right there. You know what the salary cap is, and if you can get some high-end, young, inexpensive talent, it is almost your fiduciary duty to go out and claim that talent. And if there was a year to kind of take a step back, it's the year that your superstar, your number one, supposedly, Jason Tatum, who has the Achilles tear. Now I know there are people in Boston, there are people in Coolidge Corner right now, there are people on Chest in Chestnut Hill, there are people in Dorchester, there are people in Roxbury, there are people in Canton, Massachusetts right now. Sharon, I see you. You know what I'm saying? Brockton Massachusetts, I see you. Waltham, I see you. I live there for 15 years. Not Waltham, but I lived in Massachusetts for 15 years. So it's one of those situations where you can sit there and you can go, hey, we like our Celtics, we like them to be competitive, we like them to be in the mix, we don't want to tank. I'm not here. I'm not telling you that this is the way you have to do it. But I would love for you guys to be open-minded about it. I would love for your coach well, we forget him, you're gonna have to almost pull the players out of his dead cold hands. Which maybe be up to Brad Stevens. And maybe as we get closer and closer to 2026, maybe that becomes more of a reality than this kind of the sun is rising, the birds are singing, everybody feeling good, you got your Dunkin' Donuts coffee, you know, you got your French vanilla extra extra going. I see y'all. Y'all got your sausage, egg, and cheese on a bag or croissant going crazy. So my thing is is that does a step back really hurt the Celtics? Does it hurt the Celtics cry? I don't know. Here's what I will say, or here's what the stats say Manat per 100, 19.2 points a game, 13 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 2.2 steals, 1.1 blocks, and a plus 2.6 box uh box plus minus. Cater per 100, 20.5 points a gain, 17 and 17.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 2.9 blocks. He has an offensive rating of 138, a defensive rating of 111. His on off is about 16 plus. Jordan Walsh is already a positive across the board with an on-off around 9.1 plus. He's guarding actual assignments. He's getting he's getting heavy, heavy, like number one assignments and doing real well. And he's knocking down the open three ball at a respectable rate of 39%, and I did not ever see that happening. So I am really big on Jordan Walsh's development. And then you got your crazy ass coach whose his religion is that fun is in the details, the fun is in the effort, the grit it takes to get where you want to go. That's not a guy who's cool with accidental blown leads for lottery positions. If the front office tried to tank, your tank would look like your coach is screaming about box out in a 20-point uh loss and benching the kids from missing rotations. Because he's done that this year. He's like, he literally admits I can make anything miserable, the ride home with my kids, dinner, with my wife, etc. Gotta do it the right way. That dude is wired in a way that you love, he's wired in a way where this could be grading on people. I'm giving you my thoughts on this, and I'll kind of finish it up with this. If you're if you're a G if you're if you're thinking that about this like a GM lens, right? And you're saying, okay, Tatum's out with the Achilles. The core is very expensive, no one wants to live in a six-seed purgatory, but 20 plus games into the season has answered a question for you. You're still sitting around sixth-ish with a net a plus four net rating, a top five, uh, a top five offense, and a rotation where Monakeda, Walsh, Shireman, Hugo are doing real big things. Is this where you want to live? Or is there some tear down pieces that you can get to? Because if we're being real honest with ourselves, did we expect this Boston, this uh, this iteration of the Boston Celtics to be 11 and 9? I did not have this on my bingo card. And kudos to Joe Mozilla, his staff, for saying, hey, we play a certain way. We shoot a bunch of threes and we defend. And you're gonna box out. And if you don't box out and you don't hit your defensive assignments, you don't play. I don't care if you're Peyton Pritchard, who's won a championship, or Jordan Wash, who I will land base at a drop of a dime. I'll I will go ahead and pull your ass from the game, you'll come sit on this bench and chill out. I'm not asking Joe Mazzula to change, but I'm gonna talk to my guy Brad Stevens real quick. Yo, Brad, you my man's a hundred grand for sure. Okay. I'm not saying I'm not saying that you have to bottom out. I'm not even saying that you have to you know trade like pieces that are gonna help you in the future. But I'm saying, hey, is there Anthony Simon's trade out there? Is there another piece that That has some decent money other than Jalen Brown that you can maybe unload and get either draft picks or whatever case may be back. Can you kind of reset your books and become a little less expensive? Does Bill Chisholm, the new owner of the Celtics, see it the way I see it? Do we stealth tank this year? Get the and here's the thing. There's no guarantee that you end up in the top four. No guarantee whatsoever. But there are some really talented guys that are in this draft. And here's the thing, you already got a number one and number two. I'm not asking you for you to go out and get another number one or another number two. I'm asking, hey, can we get a solid three? Is there a guy in this in this group that's like maybe five through ten, five through twelve, that profiles as a number three of Mikel Brown Jr. maybe? Uh a Nate Ament, maybe. Hell, is there a big out there that you're absolutely in love with? My guy C Mac or CNAC, the guy from Duke, excuse me, almost niece. We'll take that out in the edit process. So my question to Brad Stevens is that yes, your coach doesn't want to tank. And I'm not asking you to tank, but I'm wondering if you can just take your foot off the accelerator just a tad. And put yourself in a position where you can get a high-end rotational piece that costs you almost absolutely nothing. Here's the thing. Our guy Derek White, who's absolutely beloved in Boston, is become very expensive. And he's also on the wrong side of 30. Is there a way to parlay him into something else? Is there a way to parlay him into picks? Future picks? Can you go the Oklahoma City route where you're you still got your core? They're expensive, but we're starting to replace some of the the rotational pieces with young, inexpensive pieces that are going to be able to produce. We see how Joe Mazzo gets the best out of his young people. Is there any way that we can even further the ceiling on that talent level that is not your one, two, or three rotational guy? Just a question that I had. Now, for the last thing that we need to get to, and of course, we come back to Los Angeles. We come back to the La La. And you say, Well, Vince, you live in the La La. Why do you always come back here? And I go, Well, the Lakers are never boring. And I got something to talk about with the Lakers. So let's go here. Lakers fans, I'm gonna ask you a question. I need you to be honest about it. I need you to think not with the purple and gold glasses on. I need you to really think. Do you trust Austin Reeves as your second option now? Are you still waiting to see in the Western Conference finals? And if you're watching from outside, how high is he on your? We cannot let this dude get comfortable list in a seven-game series. I'm gonna need you to hit me in the comments, hit me on X at front runner PC or at socially underscore FRPC, because at some point the undrafted joke dies, and the rescue and the scouting report has caught up. So let's get into this whole situation. Alright, we got a lot going on here. It's gonna be great. We're gonna get into it right now. First and foremost, let's talk about this. The Lakers got smashed. They got absolutely smashed last night. They played the Phoenix Suns. The Phoenix Suns, now the Lakers could we're not gonna go excuses. But the Lakers are coming, they played back to back. Now they were at home, they slept in their own beds, whatever the case may be. They did not handle business against New Orleans and it got them in trouble. That team was up big and they couldn't put their foot on New Orleans' throat, and it hurt them because the your your guys ended up playing a lot more minutes than they probably necessarily wanted to play. Then Phoenix rolls right into town and they put the ass whooping to the Lakers for sure. Now, through all of this, we've had a bright spot, and that bright spot has been Austin Reeves. Austin Reeves has been excellent all year long, and the reason why I say this is because of the fact that it's 100% true. Austin Reeves has been that dude. He's been that guy. And I've been excited to watch it. And what he's been able to do with this team has been nothing short of an absolute miracle. But let's talk about it. I'm gonna say the quiet part out loud right now. Arson Reeves is the second option, not LeBron James, and that might sound insane to the most of you, but until you stop and look at the jerseys on the name, and you just specifically look at just how this season's gone, Luca is giving you 35 a night on MVP efficiency, right? Reeves is sitting out there giving you 28 and 7 on a true shooting percentage of 0.680. His usage rate is at 28%, and let's be honest, at the end of this month, LeBron is gonna be 41 years of age. Just being honest, does Reeves have a bit of the turnover problem? Yes, he does, because he showed it last night. But then the night before, was he brilliant? Yes, he was. 33 points, he had eight assists, nine of fifteen shooting, four of seven from three, eleven of twelve from the uh charity strike. He was only outdone by Luca by a little bit because Luca had 34 points, 12 rebounds, and seven assists. Let's talk about last night. The Lakers committed 22 turnovers, 14 of them were done by Luca and Austin Reeves. Not great. Not great, Bob. The Suns only gave it away 11 times. On the 22 turnovers that the Lakers did have, the Suns scored 32 points off those turnovers. The Lakers scored on 13 of 11 turnovers. Hmm. Phoenix ran wild. Like they got open shots, they just kept running on the Lakers. They were like, we gonna we're gonna run these dudes to death. 28 fast break points, 56 points in the paint. That's something that the Lakers usually do to their opponents. And now you break it down by quarter, you see where it all goes back. First quarter, it's a stalemate, 31-31. Second quarter, this is when the Suns open it up. They go out and score 35 points and hold the Lakers to 21. And then in the third quarter, they also increase that lead, which is great. They go out, score another 30 points, and the Lakers score 25. So you're looking at a minus 19 in those two middle quarters. Not great. The Suns also end up with 12 more field goal attempts in the Lakers, 92 to 80. That's because of all the damn turnovers that the Lakers had. Dylan Brooks looked like some version of Klay Thompson last night. And then Colin Gillespie looked like Steph Curry. They look like the Splash Brothers circa 2016-2017. Now Luca did his thing. 38 points. Reeves, not so much. 16 points. Usually he's into the high 20s or in or in the low 30s. He did not really bring it last night. He had five of those turnovers that we talked about. LeBron barely scored 10 points. He did it on three of ten shooting. He was more um I mean he just didn't have it last night. He just didn't. To start the game. You had Zion, Trey Murphy III, DeJounte Murray, who's coming back from an Achilles injury. You had uh Herb Jones and who else? They had somebody else sitting on the bench. They had like five dudes sitting on the bench. Crazy. Now, the Lakers went out and smashed them, but they let it stay kind of close to the point where you got, you know, you got your starters in for a long period of time, which was stupid. On the actual season, Austin Reeves has been putting in work. I want to give a couple comments that his some of his teammates have said. Um and some of my observations that I've had on Austin. You know, he says early on I wanted just you know a spot on the team. Uh I was a two-way guy for a month or so. Once he made it there, it's all about how can I help the team be successful? That grew from there. You know, he got his first contract, got a shoe deal, then he makes team USA, and now he's a nightly co-star to Luca. I mean, it's been a meteoric lies to our guy Austin Reeves. He's great at problem solving. Instead of breaking apart, we come together and we figure it out. It's all about the staff. The coaches basically give us the answers to the test, and we just gotta go out there and do it and play hard. He has star responsibility with a role player humility and is exactly what you want in your personality for your number two. LeBron was asked when uh what still impresses him about Reeves. He said nothing. I told y'all AR can can fucking hoop. That's what I told y'all. AR is great. That's a quote from LeBron James. Now, he's on one of the greatest contracts ever. This dude's making like 14 million dollars right now. That's all gonna change this year, so don't don't get too used to it. But the proof is in the pudding. If you got Luca averaging 35.3 points a game, right? On 22, almost 23 field goals a game with uh almost a 38% usage, and his uh true shooting percentage is 0.627, and then you got Reeves out here averaging 28.1 points a game. He's he has 16.6 field goal attempts, his usage is at a 28.2%, and his true shooting percentage is sixty-eight percent. That dude is out there doing it. He's put up some monster games when Luca's been there, he's put up some monster games when Luca wasn't there, he put up some monster games when your grandma was there, he put up monster games in a lot of places. But at the end of the day, do you trust him as your number two? Is that is that's what you trust him as. Getting him as a number two option with the production without paying him number two max money is a second Apron Chain's world dream. He's done it next to different superstar archetypes. He's done it with LeBron and AD versus doing it with Luca. He's done it by himself. Now Luca makes it easier for Austin. He bends the floor, they go out and blitz Luca, then they pass it to Austin, now you have a 4-3 advantage, and at that point, Austin Reeves is one of the better problem solvers in the league. And if you're putting him in a situation where he has the advantage in the number game, he's gonna figure it out, and he's gonna get he's gonna maximize that possession for you most of the time. Now, last night is not really indicative of what Austin Reeves usually is, but what I would say to that whole situation is that it's not normal. It's not normal at all. This is not what we usually see out of Austin. I look at this and go, hey, this is just one of those things, this is where we are. We still gotta make the decision whether he is a real number two. Can he be stopped? You see the game against Phoenix and you go, well shit, we kind of needed you to go off, my guy, and you only had 16 points. Where were you? Now you could say, well, Luca out here taking 26 shots. I don't know where my shots are gonna come from. This is where Austin has some growth to get to. And what I mean by that is that I'm not saying he necessarily needs to speak up. I think what he just needs to do is say, hey, I'm just gonna let you know. Next time up the court, I'm getting into an action, I'm gonna get myself going downhill, I'm gonna decel or accelerate, and I'm gonna get fouled, and I'm gonna get an N1, and uh, you know, we're gonna make a stop to this mini run that's going on with Phoenix. That's what needs to happen. That's the next maturation of his development, and that's the one thing that we have not seen. Now, you can say all you want about LeBron James. He's old, he's this, he's that, he's this. Here's the thing that dude averaged 25 points last year. Okay, that was just last year. This year you say, Well, you know, he hasn't played, blah blah blah. This is where the cliff happens, and you know what? You could be right. This could be where the cliff happens, this could be exactly where it happens. But until I get more data, I cannot sit here and close the book on the greatest player of this era that we see. It is absolutely hard for me to sit here and go, Well, LeBron can never score 20 points again. I mean average it. You know, and here's the other thing. He's working him his hiself back into what he was. And you say, Well, how's that even work? Look at what the Lakers were without him. And now he's supposed to be just dropped back in. Oh, go be LeBron. Well, when he was LeBron last year for most of that season, Luca wasn't there. Keep in mind, the trade happened. What 35 games left in the season? We got 82 of these bad boys. They have played like 50. So don't sit there and tell me, oh, LeBron, we just drop him in the mix. By the way, he's a smart dude. He is a student of basketball. He sees Austin out here cooking people left and right. He's probably, I don't want to mess with that flow. Let me just kind of ease my way back in. I can be a good distributor of the ball. You know, I'll get I'll get my guys Luca and Austin their shots. I'll even, you know, I'll dime up Aiden as well. Rui Hachamura standing out here at the uh corner three. I'll make sure he eats. I can go here and be that second side, weak side initiator, but on the highest, highest level of that food chain. Which really sounds scary as shit. It just sounds scary as hell. You got LeBron James, one of the smartest dudes who ever touched a basketball on the weak side, and now you giving him numbers? Oh, it's four against three, and I'm six foot nine, two hundred and fifty pounds, and I'm a freight train coming down the track. So before we step off this ledge and say that LeBron is done in his Austin's role as the number two guy, I actually had to give some context and some credence that LeBron, until we have more data, until we have more evidence, we cannot just throw dirt on this dude. I tried to do it. I tried to do it two years ago. I tried to do it three years ago. I stopped doing it last year. I just said, you know what? It's gonna happen when it happens. It's gonna happen when it happens. So now I'm on the other side of it going, hold on, let's count the brakes. Let's count the brakes a little bit. Give LeBron 10 to 15 games, see where he's at, and see what goes on from there. But do I think Reeves is capable of the second option? This is where I will tell you I do not want the Lakers trading off the Reeves. Now, if you're telling me, hey, there is a you know 25, 26 year old wing that's all world that's coming back, I might have to think about it. But if you're telling me we're just getting some dude, I don't want nothing to do with that. Give me Austin Reeves and give me Luka Doncic. I know that I'm gonna get good offense from those guys. Let me put three guys around him, and I hate to say this because it sounds like I'm just being um an asshole to the Dallas Mavericks, but if you put dudes like Najee Marshall, um Daniel Gafford around Luka Doncic and Austin Reeves, uh, and maybe, you know, maybe non LeBron, maybe it's Rui Hachamura, maybe somebody else. What does this team look like? How defensively solid are they? Uh we've seen Luca make strides in his defense, not saying that he'll ever be all world, because he will not. But he's had a hell of a lot more steals this year than he's had in prior years. So I say all that to say this. This version of the Lakers, the Suns lost exposed every structural problem that the Lakers have: 22 turnovers, 28 fast break points, 56 points in the paint, um, 61 from Brooks and Gillespie without Booker. Remember, Booker went out in the first quarter. They did all this without Devin Booker. Um, still, the offensive hierarchy is still crystal clear. Luca is carrying the load. Reeves as the only other guy really bending defenses right now. LeBron is more of a connective third piece as of right now. Then you drop in the Pelicans game. Yeah, it's a 3-18 skeleton crew of a team, but Reeves goes and gets 33-8 on elite efficiency next to Luca, and that's what it's supposed to look like. Plus, the fact that LeBron and Luca talk about Reeves like he's a peer. That cannot be forgotten. And it gets really hard to pretend that he's just keeping the seat warm. One bad night against Phoenix or one soft matchup versus the New Orleans Pelicans doesn't make doesn't define this situation. The entire body of work does the Suns and the Pelicans. If you look at both of those games, they're not rewriting the narrative, but they do give you some insight into what's going on. Reeves over LeBron? Hmm, no, but right now, yeah, until LeBron is ready. Now, once we see LeBron back, and let's say he doesn't have the same um explosive first step, let's say he's selling for more jump shots than he usually was doing. Maybe he's decided, hey, I am gonna be okay with this number three role. Because until LeBron basically gives you that nod and says, hey, I'm gonna go ahead and take this number three role, you're the number two. LeBron will be the de facto number two. Is that the right way to go? That might be another question for another day. Because I would might tell you that the best way of going is to have Austin be the number two, and then LeBron being the most nastiest number three we've ever seen in the league. And then that means a LeBron that's more dedicated to the defensive end of the court. And maybe at almost age 41, which will happen at the end of December, maybe that's the best way to go. Maybe we get 17 points a game, LeBron, but we also get 11 rebounds, LeBron, and like he's a just a defensive, like absolute demon. And I'm not saying like he's out here running around crazy, whatever, but he's still so smart that even in the he's one of those chess pieces that only like he can almost like he can almost kind of jump out at you and and scare you to death. Cause keep in mind he's 6'9, 250 pounds. He's still super damn athletic for somebody 40 years of age, damn near about to turn 41. With all that being said, we gotta get up out of here. So let me go ahead and do this. The best part of you is still you, not your record, not your feed. You surround yourself with people who give you light, insight, joy, and accountability. That's the real max deal. Appreciate them out loud. Don't wait. Don't wait till later. Because we're not promised later. And if you're still looking for your hoop family, you got one with us at FRPC. We joke, we overact, we get loud, but we respect your brain. Again, thoughts overtakes every single time, and remember, anybody could yell a take. Very few can defend a thought. And I want to leave you with this. Um, shout out to everybody who's downloading the podcast. Shout out to all of y'all. But um, I'm gonna take something from somebody that I know. So shout out to my guy Van Lathen. Um, he's doing something on his podcast. I'm gonna go ahead and try to do something on my podcast. Tell a friend about our podcast. Tell somebody who loves the NBA about our podcast, whoever you really shoot the shit with about the NBA, tell them about our podcast. Tell them that we do it twice a week. Last week, a little bit different, Thanksgiving, whatever the case may be. But we do it twice a week. We're gonna go ahead and get up out of here. We will be back on Friday on this feed. I want to thank everybody for getting with the podcast. Remember, you need to follow the podcast. I would love for you guys to interact with me on Twitter or X, as you want to call it, at FrontrunnerPC or at socially underscore F RPC. That's our social media group. Let us know what you're thinking. Do you agree with anything that I said today? Or do you disagree? Do you dis do you agree with the the Austin Reeves deal if you're a Laker fan? So hashtag Lake Show. I want to see y'all in the comments. Interact with me. Let me know what's up. If you're a Knicks fan, are you appalled by what the hell I said about your team? You know, he's trying to trade who? He's trying to do what? Can we just live? We're gonna get to the finals. I know I know your Knicks fan so so confident y'all gonna get to the finals. And for my Boston people out there, shout out to my people in Watham and Walpaul. Shout out to my people in Westwood, Massachusetts. You know what I'm saying? I know where y'all at. Shouts out to my people in North Attleboro. Shouts out to my people in Newton and Wellesley. Shouts out to my people in Cambridge, you know what I'm saying? Y'all keep it dirty, y'all keep it gritty, you know what I'm saying? Love y'all. Let me know what you think about kind of slow cleaning a soft tank, getting a real good, inexpensive asset to add to Tatum and Jalen Brown and continue this wagon y'all got going on in Boston and two mock people in Oklahoma City. I just salute y'all. I salute Sam Chresty and all the hard work that he got going on, and I just celebrate y'all. 2001 is nothing to sneeze at. I don't care if it's the regular season, preseason, uh, college basketball, uh, you know, exhibition, whatever. Y'all 2001. Get the hell up out of here. And y'all got the Clippers pick. Super scary times for the rest of the league. We might just we all might be playing for number two, Oklahoma City. I'm just being honest with you. So with that being said, I'm gonna get up out of here. We'll see you back on this feed on Friday. Peace and love. We out.