Surprise Teams Through One Month

one bad. I can't get into all of them, and I'm going to continue to rolling them out. Maybe we'll do some more later on this week, But the first one that we need to start talking about is the Okay, see Thunder, what's happening there? Holy shit, they are absolutely flying. They how much they are putting up numbers going straight total. They were eleven and a half point dogs. That just tells you eleven and a half point underdogs to the Boston Celtics, and they were ahead the entire game. I

was like, these motherfuckers are gonna win this game. Holy shit, they're gonna They took Boston to the brink. Tatum had a good jillion and they still barely beat the Thunder. They put the fear of God into them. Boy, the Thunder can score. They can score, and they don't even have their complete roster, like a team that went to the finals and you take them. They just hung around and just hung around and hung around and hung around. Shay who is, by the way, I don't know, top

five favorite player to watch. Maybe maybe not that high, but it's very high. He's now. He put a damn near forty on the Celtics. Jalen Williams from Santa Clara. He's gonna be a stud. He's only played three games this year. He came in, was very productive as a starter. I think he had fourteen points for them. He did his thing, really nice little mid range game for Jalen Williams. By the way, they do have two Jalen Williams. It's the one from Santa Clara. I must just give that out.

Very balanced effort all the starting five. Poku, Yeah, Poku was fucking solid. Yes, Poco's like my guy. He's like a little wish Chet, you know, like a little more a little more chaotic, a little like more feeling himself. He's like if Chet, if you got Chat at the dollar store, you know what I mean? Like, I love Chet, I love Pocu. He's clearly not Chet, but he does a lot of the same things that Chet does and he is balling. Holy shit, he what he got twenty five.

We'll talk about him in a second. Mind you, all of us starting five were double figures, almost twenty points by all of them. They had one hundred and twenty two points. And they barely got any production out of their bench because why they don't have one. They don't really have a bench. Okay, so Giddy, Dort, Poku, all almost scored, all almost scored twenty this coming off the heels of going up into the garden and putting the

straight SmackDown on the Knicks. To the point, think about this, The Okac Thunder destroyed the New York Knicks so badly there are now think pieces being written about Tom Thibodeau being fired. That's how much they did. That's what they did to them, one hundred and forty five points in the garden. The thunder put one hundred and forty five points on a team that's supposed to be built around their defense. And now Thibodeau is on the hot seat.

Mind you chat Hoolmgren, The real chet Hoolmegren is out for the year.

what I'm talking about. He was like Google's Chess movie in the middle of it, the Queen's gambit where he sees all the defenses on the ceiling and he's like, yep, just go this way, go that way, slash through him that way. He is imagine when he gets his jelly to the peanut butter, when he gets Chat, it's gonna be curtains. It is gonna be absolute curtains. For the rest of the league, they put up one hundred and forty five points without Chet Holmgren. What would they have

done with chet Holmgren. Sheesh, think about how good Shay is when he's off the floor. They're just trash. They're just horrible, Like they are one of the worst offensive teams in the league when Shade does not play. It's just literally that simple. That is how much gravity he's bringing to the team. And we talked about Poku a little earlier about the Summer League. He's scoring twenty five percent more this year than he had last year, progression

what we would call on display. Just in the game against the Bucks, he had a full stat sheet, blocks, dimes, rebounds, Pokus stats, just absolutely through the roof trying to get get them full for you because you can't really even get Poku stats if you just google it because there's a bunch of poku's I guess. So game against the Bucks he had ten rebounds, two blocks, seventeen points and two assists. Just ridiculous, just absolutely ridiculous. Lou Dort just

got paid, as we know, finding his offensive stroke. Now that they've hired Chip England, Josh Giddy averaging fifteen, seven and six, He's raised his three point shooting by seven percent. It's still very early. Like this is a squad. If you are not watching Okay see, you are missing out. This is a fun ass, fun ass team. They're shooting thirty nine percent this season on shots over twenty feet,

which is three percent improvement over last year. That's because, like I said before, Chip England's gonna come in here. What did he do? He comes into a team and every single time, without fail, they increase their shooting percentage by three percent every time. That's what he does. Shot doctor three point shooting league. And even though maybe three percent doesn't seem like a lot a lot, but like that's now they're fourteenth in the league. Where they were

they were, where were they at last year? They were at the bottom, So that three percent changes everything, and that is why they can score. They're averaging. It's just it's just been absolutely ridiculous. Back to Shay really quickly. He's averaging thirty one and five. Shay is averaging thirty one points per game, six assists, five rebounds per game. He has two steals per game, one and a half blocks per game. What the fuck? This is what JJ Reddick just said. You are missing a show if you're

not watching Oklahoma City Yeah, that's exactly right. That is exactly right. In any given year, those numbers are first team All NBA numbers. Yeah, there's a reason that the Sheae is the lead target for all these different Again literally, now, all these trade rumors about the Knicks going after Shay, that's he's broken them. He has broken them, torched them for thirty seven against The Knicks have thirty seven against

the Celtics. And this is like a very unselfish offensive scheme that eight players getting double digits a week ago, first time in the team history that they've done that. You add Shedd in there, man, this is this team's already a problem. They're already covering big numbers. I tell you what. You add back in, and they're definitely getting a top five pick, right, It's probably gonna be someone good. It's probably gonna make them even more dangerous SGA though

my prediction definitely an All Star. Definitely, I'd say second team All NBA. Tell you what that team is buyer On the flip side of the coin, we just talked about, okay, see and how exciting they are, how fun they are, how impressive this roster is, how they're just really a piece or two away from being really competing, and they're like winning games they're not supposed to win. So that's on one side. What is happening with the Houston Rockets? Why is nobody talking about them? How bad are the

Houston Rockets right now? They are fucking trash. I'm sorry. There's people in my youtubes. Oh, you cuss too much, too many cuss words, too many f bombs. I watch it with my kids. I'm sorry. If you're watching the Uston Rockets right now, you'll know what I'm talking about. Why are we not holding them accountable? Why? Because we want them to just be good? We want them to be fun. They're a cute little League past team, right. I love Jalen Green, and listen, I'm kind of a contrarian.

So when Bill Simmons said all those mean things about Jalen Green, I was like, no, we love Jalen Green. Jalen Green is a winning player. And I'm like, in my heart of hearts, like if I was just me and you in the lamp post, is he I don't know. I don't quite know if he is yet. I'm not sure I want to think he is. He shoots a lot, he's a bucket. We know that, what does that matter? I don't know. Like Paul George's bucket too. He hasn't

won a damn thing. They had to get rid of, like pieces on this Rockets team because they were also buckets that weren't winning players. I don't know. And now things are boiling over all. Right, not only are losing games, which is what we've expected that they would do. They're two to twelve, so they're one of the worst teams in the league. They're gonna continue to be. We've got teams that are tanking, that are five hundreds. So what are they They're like, they just don't even care at all,

but they are. Now things are boiling over to the point where frustration is leaking out onto the floor. Veteran Eric Gordon, who God knows why he's even still there, why a team hasn't saved him, He's fed up with his teammates. This is what he said postgame. We didn't play our game. We didn't have energy, we didn't play with togetherness, and we got the result. That happens if you have a winning mentality, moving the ball is something that you should do. Pretty common. Yeah, believing in your

teammates and believing in what you should do. That's the way it goes when you're trying to win. We are not doing that. It's very tough. It's been the same thing year in year out, game to game. It's a long season. When we have games like this early on, it's tough. Yes, and we've seen this. It's like these guys will not pass each other the ball if they're wide open. It's it's like when you go to Equinox. It's not exactly like this, but you know what I mean.

It's like when you go to Equinox and you're like the new person on the court for the lunchtime run, and it doesn't matter if you've got seven feet of space. They are not passing you the ball at all. Not doesn't matter what kind of screens you're setting, defense, you're playing, how good you looked in the little pregame warm up thing, how many shots you've hitt in it, you're not getting the ball. That's the Houston Rockets, but with all of them, it's like every single player on the court is that

new person at the Equinox run. If that other person has the ball, like nope, not passing. Do you Jabari Smith underneath the basket wide open. Fuck off, I'm gonna shoot this, thirty Bartter, what is going on? Do you know what it means when a veteran has been on a losing team and he finally decides he's gonna all out that team publicly. It means he's been saying it privately for a while right like they are being and he said it. This is selfish team. This is a

selfish team. You can feel in his voice, what am I doing here? What is this? This? The resignation in his tone is palpable. And that is what happens when you're thirty seven, which is what he is, on a team that's on track for the third straight year to be one of the worst teams in basketball. So at what point do we start holding them accountable? Houston, Houston, We've got problems on this roster. Like I'm not talking about Steven Silas. I'm fine with him. I don't even

know what to make of him yet. I don't know if he's good. I don't know if he's bad. He's not elite, that's obvious, but he's who knows. Could he be Steve Clifford, Sure? Could he be Dwayne Casey. Sure, I don't know. Could he be TIBs maybe? Could he be better than that? Is he nick nursed? Probably not. Back to the point, this team doesn't have pieces that

really make any damn sense. You know. It's like he's tasked with babysitting a team who is basically saying publicly on all the blogs, on all their you know stuff that they do that one of the cornerstone players that they have, And don't kill me on this because there's a lot of people who love him because he's a bucket. He's a bucket. He's a bucket. But the cornerstone on the team is a player that was waived by the

Cleveland Cavaliers for throwing food at his teammate. I know that's not relevant, but he was a cast off and you're making him a corner You got him for free. Okay, you literally got this piece for free, and now it's the centerpiece of your room, you know what I mean? Maybe not like great. When I look at this roster, there's five guys under twenty five guys on this fifteen man roster that can't even drink right now, many have even played in college. Not saying that's necessary. But like

I think, four haven't played in college. They've come over either through the G League or international. It's hard seeing an elite team here. He got guys that played one year in college who are very wild now being sent down to the G League. Intari Easton, who I love. What is the upside of this team? I don't know. If I saw this stat about what Jabari Smith is averaging right now, and it's awful, It's god awful compared to Powlo, which is what they'll always be compared together.

And I thought to myself, what would Poolo be on this team? Would they be passing Poolo the ball? I don't know. Jalen Green thinks he's pretty good. He is pretty good, but you know what I'm saying, Jalen Green wants to be the man you got. Kevin Porter Junior wants to be the man you got Josh Christopher. He shoots a lot. You got Alpera and Shangoon. He wants the ball? Are they giving the ball to Poolo? They have out Alprin Shingun. I like him, but he plays

no defense. He's bad. He's really really bad. Does anybody think Jabari Smith is better than Pawa right now. No, but if they switch places, then everybody like, oh, thank god Orlando didn't take Powello because Powell is just languishing in Houston. Anyone who was drafted to go to Houston was going to be languishing in Houston. Uzman Garuba, they took Uzman Garuba in the first round. Why he's doing absolutely nothing. They could have had Io de Sunmu, who's ballin'.

They could have had Herb Jones ballin'. Like they're just passing over good pieces for very irrelevant fringe players that are doing absolutely nothing from a production standpoint. No Shade, Jayshawn Tates and Dayshawn Nicks. I'm sorry, I don't even think they're a starter for a real contender at this point. When you have veterans like Gordon and they're calling those guys out, that's not a sign good sign. That's not a good sign. They're not playing a team game. They

will not pass to one another. Watching their offenses like watching a competition as to who can get theirs. It's like watching duct tape, you know what I mean? Just sticks stick stick sticks. Someone's open. Like I said, nobody's passing the ball. They're two and twelve. What happens, though, The worst case scenario is this, Hopefully there is some sort of conspiracy around the lottery, because if Victor Wambaanyama ends up a Houston Rocket, I will lose my shit.

I don't know what. I don't think he'll fit on that team at all. No wonder Christian Wood wanted to get out of there. I'm sorry if you're a Houston Rockets fan, I really am sorry for you, because it's a fun, young team could compete on a night tonight basis. I read a two thousand word think piece article from some random local Phoenix newspaper about how dangerous the Houston

Rockets are seen around the league. I'm sorry. I don't buy one word of that fun team might compete for a quarter or two, but ultimately probably the worst team in the league.