The Celtics Made Me Eat Green Crow

Summary:

Boston refuses the “gap year” label and turns Tatum’s injury into a culture test, while we connect the dots between pace, defense, and why the Celtics look built for May. Then we pivot to the Lakers surge, our NBA draft war room sleepers, and the real math behind expansion that could make Seattle’s return more about relocation than new teams. 
• framing the NBA as two leagues: boardroom incentives versus on-court culture 
• why Boston’s slow pace still produces elite offense 
• Jalen Brown’s MVP-level leap and what changed in his game 
• Derrick White’s stabiliser role and the value of the “others” 
• Tatum’s post-Achilles adjustment: rebounding, defense, and sacrifice 
• why we owe JJ Redick an apology and what the Lakers are doing differently 
• the 52-win threshold idea and playoff fraud alarms 
• Luka’s scoring gravity and the ripple effects on LeBron and Reaves 
• draft scouting without box-score traps: Acuff Jr, Burries, Wagler, Fleming 
• second-round swing logic with Elijah Arenas and other wild cards 
• expansion reality check: $7B to $10B fees, TV money dilution, Vegas market risk 
• Seattle’s best path back: relocation scenarios and why New Orleans is mentioned 

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Transcript

Celtics Reject The Gap Year

Jalen Brown’s Superstar Leap

Tatum Returns As Elite Glue Guy

Lakers Reality Check And JJ Redick

Luka Trade Aftershocks In LA

Lakers Defense And Role Players Click

Stop Trusting Box Score Scouting

Darius Acuff Jr Draft Breakdown

Braden Burries The Culture Guard

Keaton Wagler Late Bloomer Case

Kingston Fleming Ceiling Swing

Two Deep Cuts Worth Betting On

Expansion Fees And Owner Greed

Does Vegas Actually Need A Team

Seattle Pathway Through Relocation

Tanking Problems And Talent Dilution

Closing Thoughts And Community

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Good afternoon, and let's hit you with this cold open thought of the day. Right now, there are two completely different leagues operating under the NBA logo. League A. You have the suits, you have Adam Silver standing at a podium and asking for billionaires to stroke a$10 billion$7 to$10 billion check to put an expansion team in Las Vegas in the desert. You have owners terrified of splitting their TV money. And you have front office offices actively throwing away their seasons to tank for ping pong balls. And then you have League B. You have the Boston Celtics. Where Jason Tatum's Achilles pop last spring, and the entire basketball world handed the Boston Celtics a permission slip to cunt this season that we're currently in. We called it a gap year when the season started. We thought they'd pack it, pack it in and rest their guys and look towards the future and maybe possibly get themselves involved in all of this talent that is at the top of this draft that is coming up. Instead, we got Jalen Brown staging a hostile takeover. Joe Mazzo is offering and building a defense that is suffocating and he's using kids to do it. And Tatum has rushed back from his surgery 10 months. 10 months. And now he's sitting out here playing basketball, doing his thing. He's been back for 11 games. Instead, they're taking the Eastern Conference by storm. Adam Silver can take$7 to$10 billion for a new franchise in Vegas or Seattle, but the Boston Celtics are proving that every single night that you can't buy championship culture, you have to forge it. With that being said, let's get on with our podcast. What is good, everybody? Welcome to Front Runner Podcast Collective, the only room where we talk like friends, argue like cousins. We make sure you leave smarter than you came in. I'm your host Vince, occasional hoop therapist, your favorite bad influence, for reckless NBA overreactions and that that actually, hell wait. We do not read the box scores, we pull receipts, we're unpacking the wins, the locker room mess, the contracts, and the front office agendas, so you can talk straight into your fruit into your group chat and end arguments before they even start. And if you are NBA Sicko who values thoughts over tape, pull up a chair, you're in the right squad. Welcome to Front Runner Podcast Collective. So on today's pod, we're gonna hit the Boston Celtics. Obviously, we're gonna also hit this NBA draft. We're gonna give you some prospects that are outside that top three or four that we talked about last week, and then we're also going to talk about a little bit about the Lakers because if I'm talking about the Celtics, I need a palette cleanser, so I'll talk about my Lakers, and then we're gonna talk expansion and what it means, and actually, there's some things that we need to discuss about about the actual expansion and how it's gonna work. I have to start today by looking into the camera, eating massive green and white crow crow right now. Before the season tipped off, I stood right here and told you the Boston Celtics were entering a gap year. I told you that Jason Tatum's Achilles rupture was the death nail to the 25-26 title hopes. I compared them to the Pacers. I said this team would just be happy to be in the conversation while they waited for their savior to get healthy, and I was absolutely wrong. We were all wrong. So for those who are telling me now, I saw this coming. No, you didn't. No, you didn't. The Boston Celtics didn't treat this year like a gap year, they treated it like a hostile takeover. Right now, currently, they are 50 and 25. They are second in the East. They didn't just survive without their all-NBA supernova. They evolved into something more most terrifying. A defensive unit built on youngsters like Jordan Walsh and our guy uh Baylor Shireman. I love Baylor Shireman. They are 30th in league pace. 30th. They are playing basketball at a glacial speed because they know once. They want to make sure that they get a great shot, not a good shot, and that is gonna be their tempo. They are the first in the league in uh opponents' points per game, giving up a measly 106, and they aren't playing a game, they're performing an autopsy on your offense every single night. While we were busy mourning Tatum's loss of this season, God bless him in his Achilles, Joe Mazzula and Brad Stevens were in the lab building a monster that doesn't need a 30-point per game scorer to ruin your life. Well, not exactly 30 points, but we'll get to that in a second. They got a net rating of plus 7.5, fourth in the league, and they're just winning. They're demoralizing their acquisition before the fourth quarter even starts. And calling this a gap year is like calling the 2008 Celtics a nice little start. It's the biggest analytical failure of the decade. We saw them lose to Atlanta the other night. I don't take any real thoughts on that at all. Don't let the late season stumble fool you. Now, Jason Tatum is back. But he's back to a team that already forgot how to how to lose without him. So let's talk about the man who held the keys to the city while Jason Tatum was you know recovering from his Achilles injury. Jalen Brown. We gotta give it to him. 28.6 per game, seven point rebounds a game, and five point two assists a game. Here's the thing that 5.2 assists. This it was only a couple years ago we were talking about this dude's handle and how how dreadful it was, right? It was literally like two years ago that we were like, damn, maybe three years ago, that damn, if this dude's handle doesn't get better, they are cooked. And here he is. Is he an NBA finalist? With these numbers, he should be. When Tatum went down, the world expected Jalen to be a really good number one. Instead, he became a dominant force of nature. He's shooting 47% from the field on nearly 22 shots a night. He just didn't just step up into the alpha slot, he reinforced it with concrete. There was a narrative for years that Jalen needed Jason to create space that the ultimate 1B, well, 66 games as a lone wolf, Jalen Brown has basically set fire to that entire conversation. And it's not just a scoring. Look at the usage 36.2%. He is the sun the entire Boston solar system revolves around. When the game slows down, when Mozilla pulls the reins and forces you into a 94-pace mud fight, it's Jalen Brown who continues to find the cracks. I want you guys to hit me up on Twitter at FrontrunnerPC or at socially underscore FRPC and let me know what you think about Jalen Brown and where he um kind of resides in the MVP conversation. Is he second? Is he third? Is he fourth? Is he fifth? Or is he not even in the top five? Let me know what you think about our guy, Jalen Brown, and what he's put together this year. I'm gonna tell you right now, personally, I do have him probably at number what I want to say four. Trying to think right now. We got there's gonna be SGA, there's gonna be Wimbayama, there's gonna be Luka Doncic. Yeah, Jalen's there. Jokic as well. Here's the other thing that you want to think about. Here's the real genius of what's happening in the TD garden right now. It's Derek White, it's the Derek White effect. He's averaging 17 and 5 on 90% shooting from the free throw line, which is amazing. He's the lubricant of the other engine while Jalen is the hammer. Together, they kept this team at the number two seed without their best player. It's an organizational master class. And I also want to get into a couple other guys, and we'll we'll talk about Caden Pritchard more as we go along here, but uh the the Nemus the Nemes uh Cadis uh find is amazing. You know, they've unlocked uh Hugo as well. Like they said, they're getting contributions from Jordan Walsh, they're getting const contributions from our guy Baylor Shireman. So this team is stacked, and Brad Stevens in his scouting department deserves a absolute round of applause for what they put together, what they've been able to do. I didn't think they had a center at the start of the year. Neemus uh Cadence has definitely surprised me and surprised a lot around the league and what he was capable of doing. So kudos to Brad Stevens and his uh shout out to his uh scouting department. Let's talk about Tatum's game the other night. Because it was the closest thing to what we've seen with him as far as like him being really, really back. He's played in 11 games. He's shooting career low 30% from deep. He's clearly still finding his legs. The Achilles recovery is a beast that doesn't care about your all NBA pedigree at all. He's shooting 39% from the floor in any other season in any other city. The fans would be panicking. They'd be calling for his calling him a shell of himself. But here's the thing, man. Don't trip. Do not trip Boston. Do not trip my people in Canton. Do not don't trip my people in Stoughton. Do not trip my people in Dorchester and my people all over Jamaica Plains and everywhere else. Also, you know, shots out, shots out to Brighton, shots out to Brockton, you know what I'm talking about. Shots out to North Attleboro, Foxborough, Westwood, where you at? You know what I'm saying? But if you what he did in Charlotte the other night, the 32 points on 12 of 23 shooting, this is more like Tatum, right? He said he felt like he was slowing down. He felt like, and that's the scariest thing. A defender can hear about Tatum. He's not rushing, he's not reading, but the real story is not the 32 points, it's the 11 rebounds. Okay. Tatum has returned from a career-altering injury, and instead of forcing his way back into the scoring title race, you know, just jacking up shots and things of that nature, he's decided to become the most elite role player in the world. He's a rebounding at a rate where we've never seen from him before. He's using his length to anchor the defensive glass, contributing to a Celtics rebounding surge that has them second in the league in defensive rebound rate since his return. True greatness isn't defined by how much you can carry when you're 100%. It's defined by how much you're willing to sacrifice when you're at 70% 70%. Just make sure the team doesn't skip a beat. And that's what Tatum's done. He's currently embracing the Robin role to Jalen's Batman. Now, is he doing it with a smile on his face? Absolutely. Is he adding defensive versatility? Absolutely. Is he hitting the damn glass? 100% he is. And letting the game come to him. If Tatum is willing to be the world's best, most expensive glue guy until his jumper returns, who the hell is going to beat this team in May in the East? Who's going to beat him? These are questions that I have. But before we get out of here, okay, we got some other things to talk about. We have to give flowers to the others. I told you we were going to talk about Peyton Pritchard. Just dropped 36 on Atlanta. He's averaging 17 a game on 45% shooting. Nemias Cada is a walking double-double shooting 64% from the floor. Baylor Shireman is out here busting people's ass. Sam Hauser is hitting corner threes like a G. And Jordan Walsh is coming in and just stifling whoever your uh primary scorer or ball handler is. He's just a nuisance. These are the names that Brad Stevens and Joe Mazzula have cultivated. Their working relationship between the front office and the bench is one of the best in the NBA. They have a mandate. Play defense, value possessions, and crash the glass. Pritcher isn't just a shooter anymore. He's a guy crashing the offensive glass against seven-footers, mind you. In the fourth quarter, that is winning basketball. It hurts my soul to say this. But the culture in Boston is impenetrable right now. They clinched their fifth 50-win season. They faced the ultimate adversity with Tatum's injury, and they just didn't hold on. They thrived. They turned their greatest weakness, rebounding, into an overwhelming strength. So, here's the bottom line. For the rest of the league, you had a chance. You had 64 games to bury the Celtics while Tatum was in a walking boot. And you failed. So, to my Knicks fans out there, to the Cleveland Cavaliers, who thought this was their year. Detroit Pistons, they're not scared of anybody. Okay. We'll have to get into them at a later date. But Detroit, mark my words, Detroit is not scared. Jaden Brown became a superstar. Even bigger superstar than it was. Peyton Pritcher became a weapon of mass destruction. And the defense has become a fortress. Okay, so to NBA fans, this I mean, this is not exclude the Boston Celtic fans, but to my NBA fans, how disheartening is it to see a six foot two guard come in to the paint area and get a bunch of offensive rebounds for second shot opportunities? Because that's what Peyton Pritchard is doing. That's what he's doing. Here's a thought for you, hoop heads in your group chest tonight. Everyone's talking about the return of MVP Peyton, but if you you're looking at it all wrong, here's the other things that we need to talk about. But here's the magic trick. If you play slow, your offense suffers not here. No. The Celtics are second in the league in offensive rating at 120 even. They aren't just taking their time, they're s being surgically precise with their shots. I told you, it's great shot, not good shots. They're third in the NBA effective field goal percentage at 55.3. They don't take bad shots at all. They wait. They wait you out, they probe. And then Jalen Brown or Derek White hits you with a dagger at the end of a shot clock. And the other end, it's a nightmare. They're first in the league in opponents per game scoring at 106.9. Think about that. In 2026, with the scoring explosions that we've seen every single night, they're holding professional basketball teams to 106 points. It's amazing. Watching every team try to score against Boston is like watching someone try to win in a fist fight in a revolving door. You're just hitting the glass until you pass out, fool. Number one, number one in defense rebounding rate since the break. The all-star break. That is a championship DNA. And when people call this a gap year, when they're ignoring the facts that the Celtics have had a statistical profile of a 65-win juggernaut, they don't care about your highlights, they care about the math. And the math is saying that you're losing. And here's the thing 55 and or 50 and 25 with seven games to go in in this season. And again, this is seven more games. Now I'm not gonna say he's gonna play all seven, but let's say he plays five. This is five more games for Jason Tatum to knock some more rust off. Oh, just as another thing with this. We talked about next man up mentality because it's not just your stars. Um, they're also waiting on Nicola Vusevich to get back. So you're gonna have a floor-spreading big out there with Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown probing the paint. You know how I talk about purposeful paint touches. You know how how big I'm in on that. And if you've been with us for a while, go ahead and take a drink. Because I did say purposeful paint touches. Again, um Tatum, yeah, he's struggling to find his rhythm. But he also became the youngest player in history of the Boston Celtics to score 14,000 points. He's 28 years old. He's chasing Paul Pierce and Larry Brown while playing on one leg. Tatum right now is probably fifth all time Celtic, if I you know, if I had to go ahead and give it give him that. But he'll probably be he'll probably be second all time before it's all over. I wonder if people still think he's over. Rated. If you're not a hoop head, you're a casual, change my mind in the tw on Twitter at FR at frontrunner PC and also at socially underscore FRPC. Hit me up. Let me know what's up. This team is ridiculous, and I can't talk about them anymore. Can't do it. I need a palette cleanser for this nonsense that I just said. Listen, Boston Celtics fans, I give you kudos. But you know I'm a Lakers fan. So it's hard for me to do that. But the one thing that I want to do is be objective. I see nothing but greatness out of this team. You have some of the best chemistry I've ever seen. Um you got two dudes who are willing to share the basketball and share the responsibilities of carrying that team. And Jason Tatum to be able to take a step back, not forcing his game onto Jalen Brown and allowing Jalen Brown to cook is amazing. So I gotta give it to him. Gotta give it to the Celtics. So kudos to Brad Stevens, kudos to Joe Mazzula, and kudos to Jalen Brown for holding it down. And yes, my guy, you are a MVP candidate. Don't let anybody take that away from you. Alright. I need a shower after talking about the Celtics for half an hour. We're officially done with the green and white for today. I need some purple and gold as a palette cleanser immediately. So let's head out west and talk about the Los Angeles Lakers. You know what I'm talking about. We also have won 50 games by burying Cleveland's dumbass. And before you get to into the roster, before you talk about LeBron or Luca, a need for us or a host on a microphone to form a single file line and apologize to none other than JJ Reddick. We heard you. We heard you out there clowning. Oh, they couldn't get Dan Hurley. Oh, this franchise is still messed up. Oh, they didn't pick the right guy. Oh, they should have offered Dan Hurley a blank check and whatever he needed to take over the Lakers. That's what we were talking about. JJ Reddick is the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, but here's the thing. Kudos to Genie Buss and Rob Palenka. They hired a podcaster to run their the most prestigious franchise in the sport. People snickered, they laughed, and they made memes. Well, look at the history books today. JJ Reddick is officially the first Lakers coach since the Zenmaster himself, Bill Jackson, to win 50 games back-to-back seasons. To all those front office executives who bought who thought that Reddick was just a guy with a nice microphone and a wine collection. Who in the hell is laughing now? That'll be me. Because I thought that this was a good pick. I did. Go back, check the tapes. I thought that he would provide some leadership. I thought he'd provide some communication that this team desperately needed. The Lakers are sitting at 50 wins, but they're closing in on that magical number 52. And why does 52 matter? Let me open up the John Hollinger gospel for hoop heads out there. Historically, if you do not win 52 games in the regular season, you are a fraud in the playoffs. The only time, the only one time in the last 48 years there's been a champion who's failed to win 52 wins, that criteria that we all speak of is the Hakeem Alajuwan 1995 Houston Rockets team. That means if you finish below 52 wins, you have a 1 in 400 shot of hosting a Larry O'Brien trophy, hoisting a Larry O'Brien trophy. It is a mathematical death sentence for those who do not fit the criteria. Last year's Lakers team thought they were the exception. They won 50 games. They grabbed the third seed last year, and they got the gentleman swept out of the building by the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games. Top three seeds with under 52 wins have a long, proud history of getting absolutely thrashed in the first round. It's not just me saying it, it's everyone saying it. Bleachy Report is saying it. ESPN is saying it. Everybody's saying it. Shouts out to Becky Lynch. If the Lakers don't hit the 52 game winning mark, they are statistically dead on arrival. But here's the thing. We got what? Six games to go? Probably gonna hit that. Tell me if I'm wrong. You know what I'm saying? You go do the research. You tell me if I'm wrong. Hit me up on X at frontrunner PC and also hit up our social team at socially underscore FRPC, and we will get back to you for sure. But this feels like a completely different team. And the reason that they're going to shatter the 52 win ceiling is because the heist of the century. I know Dallas fans, I know. I know. Take a deep breath right now with me, okay? Let's talk about this trade that happened last year. Just for one second. I know Dallas fans are about to be mad at me. Listen, you got Cooper Flag, it's gonna be alright, but we gotta hit this one more thing. You might want to go ahead and mute your devices now for this statistic. Luka Doncic just finished a single month of basketball where he scored 600 points. Let me repeat that. He just scored 600 points in a month. And he did this despite being suspended for a game. He hit the 60, 16-game technical foul uh threshold, so he missed a game, and he still dropped 600 points on the league's head. You know how many points Anthony Davis scored in his entire tenure with the Dallas Mavericks? 587. Luca outscored AD's entire Dallas career in four weeks. Somewhere in Los Angeles, Rob Kalinka pours a glass of scotch every night and he toast Nico Harrison, thank you, Nico. You funded a dynasty. And you know what? To all Laker faithful out there, I want all of us to go ahead and put pick up our glasses right now. Pick up your your goblet or your scotch glasses or your beer, your cervasa to my people in Downey, my people in Bellflower. Pick up your glasses, pick up your beers, and I want you to toast Nico Harrison for giving us, gifting us Luca Donches. Sense of great, Luca is shooting a blistery, blistering 40.5% from beyond the arc. He's weaponized, and because he's creating absolute chaos on the perimeter, LeBron James is casually shooting 53.7% from the floor, and Austin Reeves is marching to the free throw line over six times a night. They're second in the NBA in field goal percentage since the all-star break. They're not they aren't just beating you, they're mathematically solving you. But the offense isn't just a story. The real reason this team is terrifying is what it's doing on the other side of the ball. A few weeks ago, they were 23rd in defensive efficiency. They were absolute sieve now. Since the all-star break, they're 11th. 11th is not bad. They're absolutely suffocating people at the three-point line. Since the all-star break, opponents are making only those threes a game at a 32% clip. Both of those are the lowest marks in the entire NBA. So you heard it here for first. So they're they're rushing you off the three-point line. And if you do get off a shot, you seeing bodies in front of you, so you're shooting at a 32% clip. They held the Washington Wizards, which is listen, I know it's Washington, uh, to 20% from deep. JJ Reddick has completely rewired the defense to close out and the closeout logic. And stopped me, and stopped giving the ball away. They ran from 20th in turnovers down to fifth. Austin said it best, they just started passing to the guys in their own jerseys. Well said, Austin. But you have to look at the continuity. The only guy gone from opening week is Gabe Vincent. They flipped him for uh Luke Kennard, an absolute shooter, a laser. DeAndre Ayton uh is you know, he has really good games, and he has he has some some duds in there, but lately he's been playing with a lot more force. I can honestly say that. Um Letting Jackson Hayes thrive in with the second units, Marcus Smart is a plus 238. A plus 238, anchoring perimeter defense, allowing Rui Hachamura to be more of an absolute microwave off the bench, and also normally uh Rui is on the back line of the defense now instead of being out and chasing wings off the perimeter, which is better for him because sometimes he gets lost in the sauce. By the way, Jake La Ravia is not shooting the ball, awesome, but you know what he is doing? He's D'ing fools up. He's out there D'ing fools up, he's on some like some old Duke, slap your slap your the baseboards uh of the of the court type shit. Okay, he's out here doing that type of stuff. Man, this dude had like five steals the other night. It was crazy what he was doing to Cleveland. It was nuts. Last year, the Lakers were a collection of talent trying to figure out how to survive. This year, they're a fully optimized machine that knows exactly who it is. Continuity is the currency of champions. LeBron James said the chemistry right now is incredible. He said that he he they love being on the floor together when LeBron James team has elite vibes in a top 10 defense heading into April. The rest of the league needs to be on high alert. High alert. They head to Oklahoma City on Thursday. Next to prove they uh they could bleed the top seed. We'll see how it all works out. But let me look right into the camera and speak directly to San Antonio Spurs right now. I think that you have a chance of winning the championship. I think you have all the ingredients of winning the championship. But I'm gonna tell the the fans of the Spurs right now. If the brackets holds and San Antonio has to see this version of the Los Angeles Lakers in the second round, you better pack your lunch, buddy. This isn't a disjointed team from last spring. This is a team that's probably gonna win 52 plus games. They have been on absolute just winning streak, they've been crushing people, crushing the teams that matter, the teams that have 600 winning percentages, they've been absolutely destroying those people. And historically, lethal Luka Doncic is per perfectly optimized. LeBron James is being like the best role player we've ever seen, other than Jason Tatum, and the defense that completely turns off your perimeter water. Well, we know that San Antonio does have an issue with perimeter shooting. So, to my friends in San Antonio, don't think that the Lakers are a complete cakewalk. Be very careful for what you wish for. And the West is officially on notice. Now, where do we go from here? I'm gonna tell you exactly where we're gonna go. We're officially shifting gears to the NBA draft, people. I need everyone to close their laptops and put away the analytics page and listen to me very carefully because right now, every casual fan and armchair general manager is looking at the college box scores and falling in love with numbers that lie. Okay? You're watching Marshall Madness right now, and you're going, oh my god, this guy is great. I'm gonna tell you right now, there's some good ones out there. There's still some good ones out there, and we're gonna talk about one of them in a couple minutes. But today we are opening the FRPC Warroom Dossier to talk about the exact names that are going to define the next decade of professional basketball. We're putting the tape on the table and we're going to talk about Darius A. Cuff Jr. out of Arkansas. We're going to talk about my man from the desert, Braden Burries from Arizona. Okay. We're talking about the we're going to talk about the late blooming genius of Keaton Wagler of Illinois. You know what I'm saying? That dude is awesome. We're going to talk about the nuclear athlete, which is Kick Kingston Fleming of Houston. Uh, and then we're also going to talk about a couple guys that you need to take a swing on. I'm going to tell you right now. Darius A. Cup Jr., let's talk about him a little bit. He averaged 22 points a game, 6.2 assists, on 49% from the from the field, 42% from 3, 79% free throw shooting. These are his splits in the SEC. Those are grown man numbers. Okay? He also has downhill pressure down on a lot. Now, I'm gonna tell you why he does that in a second. Um his shot making versatility and his pick and roll creation he's the most polished floor general in college basketball. He also has a 3 to 1 assist to turnover ratio, which is just crazy. This kid is an absolute bucket. He controls the tempo, plays off two feet, he manipulates screens like a crow. But here's the problem. He is 6'3. He is a score first, but here's the deal. Here's the deal with him, though. The dude is nasty. He is nasty. Your your your worries with him are on the defensive end. Okay? That's your worries. On the offensive end? It's the closest thing to Kyrie. That's what I'll say. It's the closest thing to Kyrie I've seen. And he's gonna be box office when he hit the league. So he's like probably like fifth on boards now. I wonder. I wonder. I wonder if we see some surprises in the draft this year. But nobody wants to make the Scoot mistake. And hey, listen. I thought Scoot was gonna be box office. It didn't happen. I have kind of re-um reimagined my draft situation and how I look at players. I'm still I love Acuff Jr. I think he has all the moxie and the talent that you need to make it in this league. And I think he has like that bravado that you need if you're gonna be a lead point guard, a lead guard in this league, too. Now let's get on to our guy Braden Berry from Arizona. He's a two-way power guard. Uh he's normally in your top 10 of uh draft picks if you start looking at uh mock drafts now. Barry started slow. He's averaging 17.3 points a game, shooting 52% from the field, 39% from three, and 78% from the free throw line. Those are just awesome splits. I just love it. He's also grabbing 5.5 rebounds a game, and he's giving you th almost three assists a game. I love his toughness. I love his mid-range game. Using it in college basketball is fantastic. He's also a physical driver to the hole. Uh he embraces contact. I think that's because of his build. Uh he is a he's an aggressive rebounder with quick hands, but the questions are that can he separate from his man consistently in the NBA? Well, I think if you learn some of the tricks of the trade, you'll be able to do that. Now, Garius is the anti-ACU. He isn't going to break you down, uh break down an elite defender with a string of crossovers, but he's going to outwork, out-muscle, and out-compete the guy in front of him. He is built like a damn running back. He's 6'4, 205. He's a connector who defends his ass off, rebounds like a real wing. And um, here's the other thing. He hits okay shots. The concern is the lack of the lack of leap burst and the reliance on self-created jumpers. But again, if you got the craft, if you got the know-how, if you got the the time to put into your game, Jalen Brunson is not the fastest dude on the court. Okay, let's get this straight. But because his footwork is of a sorcerer, he can still do it. Now, if you draft Burries, you already have a primary and you have a primary creator. If you need a culture setting two guard to round out your backcourt, he's a high floor, low-ceiling prospect who will absolutely find a way to stay on the floor in big games because he doesn't have glaring weaknesses. I think this guy is going to be really good. I don't know if he's going to be um parental or all-star, but he'll be that guy that, if left open, knocks down the shot that absolutely guts your team, and you're sitting there. Why did we not have somebody on him? Why was there not somebody on Barry's when he's out there shooting threes? And I'm gonna tell you right now, I think he's gonna make it in a league. I think he's going to be one of these guys that's probably drafted anywhere between 8 and 12, and whoever gets him is just gonna fall in love, and he's just gonna be solid. Rock solid for you. Now, let's get on to the guy who is still playing in the March Madness, and that is one Keaton Wagler. And if you've not seen this guy, if you don't know his story, we're gonna break it down for you right now. But it's awesome, it's an awesome story, and I love talking about this kid because I love kids that just don't worry about if they're a four-star, three-star, five-star, twenty-star. Well, you know, you are you're not in the ESPN top 100, whatever the case may be. You just go ahead and get into your bag and make people, you know, make people feel real bad that they didn't go out and get you earlier. He is one of the best stories in the draft. He was ranked outside the top 150 out of high school, and now he's leading the number one offense in the country. He doesn't have a nuclear athleticism, but his processing speed is elite. He plays the game two frames ahead of the Defense. Um, and do not ignore this late blooming genius. He's 6'6 out of Shawnee, Kansas, 20.2 points a game, 5.1 assists. He's shooting a blistering 44% from beyond the arc. Okay. So this dude was ranked outside the top 150 high schoolers in the in the land. Haha. Joke's on you, Jack. He plays the game again. He just he just out thinks you. Um, he reminds me a lot. Tyrese Halleburton, and also um a little bit of what what was the kid that also played in Indiana? Oh my god. It's killing me right now. He had an injury-field career. He reminds me a little bit of Brandon Roy, but not obviously is not as filled out as Brandon Roy. He he just got a lot to his game. Wagler is the ultimate Brad Stevens feel for the game type of dude pick. You draft him because of his shot creation, his IQ will translate uh day one. He's a guy who makes the rest of your roster look 20% smarter, but just sharing the floor with him. He's just one of those dudes that's gonna make it. He's going to make it. His physical makeup doesn't look like it's going to make it, but he's one of these dudes that I just I'll I'll bank on. I think he's going to be uh again. I don't know if he's gonna be like an all-star or whatever, but I do know that he's going to surprise some people next year. He's going to shoot the ball very well, and he's also going to surprise people with his his ability to get into the paint, his ability to hit the open man, his ability to the floor recognition and getting people when the defense is off is is off kilter and be able to find the open man for a wide open shot, he's gonna be able to do this. Our guy Kingston Fleming, who also was a dude that kind of came out of nowhere, if you want raw, unadulterated burst, then this is your guy. Lightning quick first step that shatters defensive shells. More importantly, he plays with Kelvin Sampson. And if you know anything about Kelvin Sampson, Houston guards are forced in the fire. They understand defensive accountability and physical toughness. This dude dropped 42 on Texas Tech like it wasn't nothing, and he also dropped 25 on Tennessee. So is he afraid of the bright lights? Absolutely not. The other thing is he finds a way to get 17 points in a college game every single time. It's not like he shoots the ball like, oh, I'm gonna take a bunch of shots, I'm gonna make sure I get my points. But he is just a guy who gets to 17 points no matter what. Uh he averaged 16.4 points a game, 5.2 assists, playing, he's a blur in transition, and he's a menace getting two feet into the paint. If his jumper stabilizes, he has the highest ceiling of any guard in this class, not named Darren Peterson. That's just what I let you know about this kid right here. Now, the next thing that we need to talk about is two guys that if you want to take swings on. Now, Chris Sinac Jr. when when we started this process in August and September, and we started talking about prospects and whatever. Sinac Jr., who was who played at Houston, is a 6'11, 240-pound big. Um he was he was told to us to be a modern floor spacing big. Now, he struggled. He struggled, okay? Um, but you started to see the remnants of the game that you saw in high school. Is he a legit 6'11? I don't know. We have to go to the Chicago um Scouting Combine and find out. Uh he's budgeting three-point stroke. We saw some of that it at Houston. There were just glimpses of it. Like I said, he struggled. Now, his ability to finish above the rim, he has the athletic ability to do so, but he can play some defense. Now, don't overthink this. He's 18 years old. Um, he survived playing for Kevin Sampson, which is a fate onto itself. Usually, he already has a competitive psychotic edge required to survive in the NBA. He's raw. His production fluctuates because Houston's deep, but also he struggled. And they took a lot of his opportunities away from him once we got past like the eight-game mark of the season. You know, Kingston Fleming ascended. And with his ascension, uh, Chris Seenok Jr., he kind of got demoted as far as like production and actual shots that he was gonna get. You know, it's hard when a guard is holding a rock and you're a center or big, you're not gonna just be able to get that ball. Now, he is a wild card, but if you're looking at a dude and you're going physical profile, and I think that he's gonna be a stretch five. If you can get him outside the lottery, if you can get him from 18 to 24, somewhere in there, and I mean some people are even finding him in like the mid-20s in in some of these mock drafts, if for some reason he's there, if the Lakers get him at 25, I'm gonna be so excited. I'm gonna be so excited. Now, another guy that I want to go ahead and put my stamp on is a kid out of USC. Um Elijah Arenas. Listen to me. If you stare at the spreadsheet, you're going to get sick. The shooting percentage was 34.1% from the field. He shot 21.3 uh percent from him from three. This is the kind of efficiency that usually gets you benched in the G League. But as your intelligence engine, I'm gonna tell you right now, look beyond the box scores, look beyond the numbers, and understand what's going on. You have to look at the timeline. He missed his first 18 games of the season due to injury. This dude's car flipped over like 35 times. We he was lucky to be alive. He didn't get to play in November during Cupcake non-conference schedule to build his rhythm and his mechanics and had to adjust the speed of college basketball on the fly. He was thrown directly into the meat grinder of the Big Ten Conference. By the way, the Big Ten Conference has what? What? It has Illinois, has a couple other teams in Michigan. They're both playing for the Final Four. So the Big Ten is uh elite conference. He had to play in this mess. Now, the other thing is that he didn't get to practice. Because once the league, once the uh the league season started, and that's when he basically came back, was during league season, during conference basketball, there wasn't a lot of time for practice. So he wasn't able to get his uh his wind about him, get his legs underneath him, and things like that. So USC was essentially a mess. He was hand handed a rusty teenager the keys to a broken offense. They had a bunch of injuries at USC this year that just really shut down their season. He was forced to take tough contested late clock jumpers because of the system around him was flawed. The real indicator is that if you look at his free throw percentage, he was 79.2, 61 of 77 while drawing fouls at a SURE rate for a freshman guard, including 12 for 16 and a night in Ohio, in C bus, playing the Ohio State Buckeyes. Free throw percentage is the single highest correlator to future NBA three-point success. The touch is absolutely real. It's the shot selection, it's the leg conditioning that are currently broken. Unteachable traits. He's 6'6, 200 pounds. His daddy is Gilbert Arenas. You don't think this kid knows how to score? You can't teach that type of positional size and length for a primary ball handler. And here's the thing: if you want to see the games where he where he showed out, turn on the tape. Of Indiana, where he scored 29, and against Penn State, where he scored 24. When he's getting downhill, his handle, his shiftiness are elite. He has a joystick movement, advanced footwork, and natural feel for creating separation that most 25-year-olds don't possess. And again, he's Gilbert Arenas' kid. So pure scoring is in his DNA. And isolation bag are already there. He knows how to score. He doesn't just know how to play winning efficient basketball as of yet. But if you're wanting if you want to take a shot on somebody in the second round, I don't think he's going back to college. I really don't. But if you want to take somebody in the second round and and and and just kind of bet on the DNA, he would be my guy. So in closing thought of this group, for uh the closing thought for the group chats out there and the barbershot tonight. When you look at the this this draft board and you decide you have to decide what your franchise actually need and and all of that, if you need a guy to run your offense and get you 20 a night, that's Darius A. Cups Jr. Pick this dude. He's the closest thing to Kyrie we've seen in years when it comes to pure downhill shot making and manipulation of people in front of him. He's a bucket walking, okay? So I'm gonna tell you right now, just get some get some some athletic wings around him, and you'll be set. Now you're building a program winner, and you want to make deep playoff runs, and you you have your lead guard already, you have your your your your wing, your real athletic wing, as far as that's concerned, and maybe you have a big. So that's just me thinking out loud. We got one more thing to talk about before we end this podcast, but we need to talk about expansion, and um I know a lot of people have already kind of touched on this, but I want to give you my perspective on it, and also how can I put this? I might have a I might have a thought that a lot of people don't have, so just give me some room. So we're gonna step off the hard roof hardwood for a second and step into the boardroom because Adam Silver just stepped to the podium and officially opened the Pandora's block of NBA expansion. The board of governors voted to explore adding franchises in Seattle and in Las Vegas coming up for the 2028-2029 season. Now, if you listen to mainstream media, they're treating like this is a slam dunk that already printing the Sonic's jerseys and booking the hotel rooms in Vegas Strip so they could go ahead and get their gamble on and then go to the game and take some some hottie and have them as armed candy and take them to the game. So check this out. I need everyone to take a massive step back and look at the math because the math is terrifying. Adam Silver told the owners that expansion fee to join this exclusive little club is going to run between seven billion to ten billion dollars per franchise. When did the Seattle and Las Vegas become like New York and Los Angeles as far as TV media markets? I don't I don't remember that. But let that number wash over you for a second. 7 to 10 billion dollars just to take get a seat at the table. That was the evaluation of the Los Angeles Lakers. A lot of people think that Mark Walter spent 10 million dollars of the Lakers. No, he didn't because he already had like 20 something percent of the of the Lakers already, if I'm not mistaken, I think he had 26% of the Lakers already. And then he to get the majority, he had to put like$4.7 billion on the table. So they were they were evaluated at$10 million. Mark Walter did not spend$10 billion on the Lakers. Just want to clarify. So in the Lakers of the Crown Drew Little Sport, they're in the second largest medium market in the country, and Adam Silver is asking some billionaire to stroke a check for the amount that starts a franchise from scratch. If you think a group of investors is going to pay$10 billion to be an expansion team in Las Vegas when the Lakers are valued at the same price, and here's the other thing the other thing that people aren't really realizing about this whole deal is that you got a lot of transplants in Vegas. Also, you're gonna have a lot of out-of-towners coming to Vegas. So when the Knicks come to Vegas, it's gonna be Knicks fans in that arena. God bless you when the Lakers come. Because Vegas has been a Laker town since the beginning. Like people got got the notice when Lonzo Ball was like per was picked by the Lakers, and it was all purple and gold in that place. But we knew it was a Lakers town before that because the Lakers had been going to Las Vegas for a long period of time. They played a lot of preseason games there and what have you. The Lakers own Vegas. Now you can tell me that they have an incredible whoever buys the Las Vegas franchise if they do, they have an incredible marketing strategy to kind of cut that and gut that out, but I don't believe you. I don't. Sorry. Not gonna believe that. Now, the other thing is this. Is that if you're looking at this and saying, hey, I'm okay seven to ten billion dollars on a franchise, oh I gotta build an arena, I gotta start, you know, my marketing situation and like focus groups and what we're gonna name it and all these other things. That's a lot to ask of a team. That's a lot to ask of a startup franchise. And they're talking about doing this for the 2028 and 2029 season. We're already in 2026. When is all this gonna happen? So here's the other thing. I do not believe that this did this is a done deal. I do not believe that silver even has has the votes to lock this up. Because to get this passed, you have to have 23 or 30 owners to agree to slice up their pie. And billionaires do not like sharing their pie. Okay, and then right now, the media rights money is split 30 ways. If you bring, oh, here's the other thing. Phoenix is right there too, right? Phoenix is right there as well. Utah is right there, and those are two new, along with the Lakers, new uh governor, you got three teams that surround this area, right? So that's one thing. If you bring Vegas and Seattle and you split it 32 ways, do you really think that Matt Ishbia or Mark Walters of the Lakers, the new ownership group of Portland, Boston, Tom Dundan, and our guy uh out of Boston, you think they just gonna be okay with sharing their revenue with this with these uh two new franchises? Their financial forecast when they did these deals did not include sharing their T their TV money with two new franchises. Silver might have just been off more than he could chew with this. Let's focus on the Vegas for a minute, the Vegas of it all for a minute. Everyone assumes that Vegas is the promised land. The NBA already treats it like the 31st market anyway. They have Summer League there, they have the NBA Cup, the infrastructure is there. But let me ask you a very serious question that nobody in the league office wants to answer. Does Las Vegas actually need an NBA team? I give you that the Lakers are already entrenched in Las Vegas. You got Phoenix a little bit south of them, you got Salt Lake City a little bit north of them, Utah, Phoenix, and the Lakers all are divvying up that area. The other thing that I want to ask, can Las Vegas support a fifth professional franchise? You already got, if you look at the landscape right now, you already have the Raiders of the NFL, you have the Golden Knights of the NHL, you have the aces of the WNBA, uh, and then you have in 2028, you have the Oakland A's arriving. I think their stadium will be built by then. So, do you have the the the bandwidth to sell out in Las Vegas with the NBA team with all the other entertainment stuff that goes on? The Lakers fans demand winning, and that's what the reason why the Lakers are sold out, right? We everybody loves the Lakers here. It's a Laker town. Sorry to Steve Ballmer. He knows it's a Laker town. He built a brand new stadium, and every time the Lakers play there, it's like 70% Lakers fans and 30% Clipper fans, and I don't care what you do with that wall, it is what it is. And I'm thinking the same thing is gonna happen in Vegas as well. And I think that will happen for the New York fan. I think this will happen for the Chicago fans. I think this will just continue to happen. And here's the other thing if you live in an area like Indiana or you live in an area like Chicago or Minnesota, would you love to see your team play in Vegas? You go on A trip in the middle of February and it's super cold where you live, and it's nice in Vegas, and you can turn it into a little vacation. What are we doing right now? You don't think these teams, these fan bases don't are gonna have like little special package deals to go to Vegas and like your airfare, your hotel situation all set up. You know, you turn it into a little three-day situation, and you know, you watch a basketball team play, you gamble, you know, the kids can go. There's enough stuff to for the kids to do there. You can go to the sphere and see a concert or whatever's going on there, you know, and it's not just like Wayne Newton anymore. Like Pink did a uh a stop there. Um Bruno Mars has been there for, I don't know, five years now. Paying off gambling debts, I think. But he's been there for a long period of time. So you're seeing like contemporary acts there as well that people know about. So there's a lot to do in Vegas, and I'm just wondering how the Vegas people feel about having an actual basketball team there. You have also some other markets that just got kind of left out of this situation. You're gonna tell me that the people of Kansas City or St. Louis or Nashville, markets that actually have corporate backing and rabid local fan bases, but silver uh is memorized is memorized by the neon lights and the masses gamble, no pun intended. Now we get to Seattle. Do not lose hope, Seattle. You got you got ganked for your team. I thought it was appalling that the Seattle Supersonics are no longer in the NBA. We got and now they're winning championships. My God, it's it's it's amazing. But Seattle is not the second largest media market without a team. Okay, I will just say this Samantha Holloway and the Kraken Ownership Group are already building the umbrella company to make this happen at Climate Pledge Arena. But I think there is a completely different pathway to get a team to Seattle that doesn't involve$10 billion of expansion fee. I think it involves relocation. And let's talk about the New Orleans Pelicans. Gail Benson owns the Pelicans and she also owns the Saints. And to be brutally honest, she cares way more about the football team than she does about the basketball team. Her late husband, Tom Benson, bought the Pelicans as a favor to the NBA when the league literally had to own the defunct Hornets for two years just to keep them afloat. Do y'all remember that? Do y'all remember that the NBA used to own the New Orleans franchise? New Orleans attendance is historically shaky. The corporate dollars are always an issue, and what happens if the NBA decides that expanding by two teams is too complicated, too messy, or the other word, too expensive. What if they decide to fix a problem market instead? What happens they decide like you know what? We got LSU football down here, the Saints down here. Could the New Orleans Pelicans be earmarked for Seattle? It makes too much sense to me. You avoid the expansion fee nightmare, you avoid diluting the talent pool, you avoid splitting the TV money 32 ways. You just pick up a struggling franchise and drop them into a rabid top-tier market. Watch the Pelicans very closely over the next 24 months. That's all I gotta say about that one. I think honestly, that you know, people been talking about the arena down there and how uh, you know, and some of the amenities and everything like that. I don't know. I think that if you took this thing to Seattle, it'd be box office. They got a lot of young players, a lot of young up-and-coming talent, and you put it in a city like Seattle, where and then you put them in that green and gold, and they they become the supersonics, man. I'm gonna tell you, that place will be on fire for the Pelicans. And it's cool. Listen, Norris, you tried it twice, man. You had the Jazz down there, and you had the Pelicans, and it just didn't work out. You know what I'm saying? It just didn't work out, and that's cool. You got a football team, you got enough college scores to handle your situation, it might just not be in the cards for you to have uh a basketball team. It is no shade to y'all. Because here's the other thing. If Zion never gets hurt, and I know if if we're a fifth, we all be drunk, but here's the deal. If Zion is what is promised, and he's able to stay healthy and he's able to play, we might be talking about a whole other different team relocating than the New Orleans Pelicans. We might be talking about another squad. But unfortunately, it's your squad, it's a lack of fanfare or lack of support of the fanfare down there, as far as that's concerned. And again, I think it's a confluence of events more than it is like you guys can't support a basketball team. So please do not think that I'm taking shots at your fandom. I just don't think that the leadership of that team has put you guys in the best position to really get behind that team. That's what I gotta say about that. You are a first-class party city. I think that if this team would have kind of broke through a couple times and brought the city some real juice and some real excitement in Zion is just dunking on fools nightly in the big easy, then we're talking about a whole other different ball game. We're definitely looking at another team to move, or maybe we are talking about real expansion, maybe not seven to ten billion dollars. But before we wrap this up, there's one more massive hurdle that the owners are going to have to bring up behind closed doors. The product on the floor. We already have tanking issues in this league. They've been talking about it all year. We have teams blatantly throwing seasons away to manipulate the lottery. What is going on right now? If you add two more teams, you're diluting the talent pool even further, which I think we have enough talent to do it, but I think what it will do, it will it will then because anytime you do something, there's an unforeseen um thing that happens in the league, right? And I think what will happen is that oh, okay, you're taking some of the talent away from us. We need to get the super teams back. We're gonna have to go ahead and start putting the super teams together again. So if you add two more teams, I think you're gonna have eight to ten franchises pushing hard against expansion. Because they know the scratchy, the scratch scratching of talent out of 32 teams is going to create even larger gaps between the contenders and the bottom feeders. I think that is true. You imagine all the teams we got tanking right now, and then you add two more teams to that, how that's gonna look. You know what I'm saying? Especially like, let's say a team was like, let's say a team like uh Minnesota, and let's say they were playing Washington, who's terrible right now, Brooklyn, um, Sacramento, Utah, you name it, right? And then we throw these expansion teams in. Let's say the last 10 games, that's all they're playing, and they go from fifth to second in the in the standings. Not saying they didn't deserve it because you know schedule is what the schedule is, but that does make a difference between playing good teams, playing teams that are quality, getting you sharp before the playoffs, or playing these teams that are not even trying to win. Expansion isn't about growing the game, it's about growing the wallets, and the moment the owners realize the math doesn't work in their favor, the Las Vegas and Seattle Dreams might turn into a mirage. So, here's the bottom line for the group chats and the barbershops today. The NBA wants you to believe that 32 teams is a foregone conclusion. But I am here to tell you look at the money, look at the saturated markets market in Vegas already, and then look at the relocation candidates. Seattle. In Vegas, you might have to settle for the Summer League for right now, my guys. You know, in the in-season tournament. The battle for the future of the NBA has just started, and the billionaires haven't even drawn their swords yet. So, I want people to sound off. Hit me up on X Frontrunner PC or also at socially underscore FRPC. Um, and let me know what you think about relocating the Pelicans to Seattle, getting the Sonics back in the league, which will be great. Oh, by the way, New Orleans would then who are already in the West, you would be taking a team from literally the southeast and moving it to the actual West. You move the Pelicans to Seattle, and already you change the you change the map of what the league looks like. Then you have to worry about where Memphis is. That's the only other team that you have to worry about where they are. So we'll work it out at some point. But I will say this. We should be back on Friday with another pod, look, another dope pod to step to. Uh, I want to thank everybody out there, and I'm gonna leave you with this. Before we get out of here, I want to say that there are a million places you can spend your time and your attention, but you chose to pull up a chair with us today, and we do not take that lightly. So surround yourself with people who give you light, keep you accountable, and actually no go. That's the real max contract. Appreciate them out loud. Don't wait for later that no, that nobody's promised. You know what I'm saying? We're never promised tomorrow. So if there's people out there that you're thinking about right now, reach out to them in a text or FaceTime and let them know that yo, they're important to you and they're important to the your day-to-day operations. Now, if you don't have that in your circle yet, if you're trying to find friends or whatever, then you got one right here at FRPC. We joke, we might get loud, but we always respect your basketball IQ. Like I always say, thoughts overtake every single time. Because anyone with a microphone can yell a take. Very few can actually defend a thought. Until next time, keep your mind sharp, keep your circle tight, and protect your peace like cap space and never waste it on bad basketball or bad energy. I'm vents, and we out.