Speaker 1: Let's move to the Central Division. We'll start with the
Speaker 1: Milwaukee Bucks. Milwaukee Bucks get a solid C.
Speaker 2: Not a C plus, not a C minus, but a C.
Speaker 1: They have the third best record in the East, but
Speaker 1: I think probably the most disappointing team in the division.
Speaker 2: If the Pistons did not exist.
Speaker 1: They have almost the entire year, with the exception of
Speaker 1: seven games, been lacking Chris Middleton. When they did have
Speaker 1: Chris Middleton for those seven games, he looked like Doo doo.
Speaker 2: He looked horrible. It's never a good sign.
Speaker 1: May They asked Chris Middleton about his time that he
Speaker 1: has been missing, and what I found to be very
Speaker 1: strange is uh that some people close to Chris Middleton
Speaker 1: have said that Chris Middleton's knee injuries will continue to
Speaker 1: persist and continue to be a problem, and they've always
Speaker 1: been a problem. Who are those people close to Chris Middleton.
Speaker 1: Chris Middleton, this is what he said. I've always had
Speaker 1: knee issues since college.
Speaker 2: When I tour my meniscus.
Speaker 1: That was one of the reasons why my stock in
Speaker 1: the draft dropped lower because I was coming off of
Speaker 1: a meniscus injury that a lot of people didn't trust.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 1: It's been great for me so far. What I'm going
Speaker 1: through now normally happens during the off season when nobody
Speaker 1: hears that.
Speaker 2: My knee is swollen.
Speaker 1: I still work out. Rest doesn't do it any good.
Speaker 1: It's just building it back slowly. What so, Chris Middleton,
Speaker 1: you would imagine telling on himself probably not the best
Speaker 1: strategy unless he's like, I don't know, locked down for
Speaker 1: the next five years. It's like, Oh, I'm under team control,
Speaker 1: guaranteed contracts, bitch, I'm just gonna tell you that my
Speaker 1: knees swollen twenty four to seven. Wait, let me look
Speaker 1: and see when his contract ends.
Speaker 2: What next year?
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty four, he's a free agent, and he had
Speaker 1: missed having knee pain and knee swelling. Since calling, He's
Speaker 1: had only played seven games and largely been unproductive. I
Speaker 1: would say for the Milwaukee Bucks, that is a big
Speaker 1: red flag. That's about as big red flag for a
Speaker 1: wing as you could get. The rest of the Bucks
Speaker 1: not giving me much hope either. Giannis all of a
Speaker 1: sudden missing games, not just load management games. This is
Speaker 1: his fourth straight game that he's missed as of today.
Speaker 1: He hyper extended his left knee in the Eastern Conference
Speaker 1: Finals two years back, and now it's the same knee
Speaker 1: that's giving him problems that he played through when they
Speaker 1: won the title. I don't know about that. This team
Speaker 1: feels like a hospital wing to me. Drew Holliday has
Speaker 1: missed time, Grayson Allen has missed time, Chris Middleton has
Speaker 1: missed time. Two years ago, Brook Lopez had back surgery,
Speaker 1: So that gives me a little bit of pause. My man,
Speaker 1: Sergebaka isn't playing basketball that I had to look.
Speaker 2: Him up because he's been so irrelevant.
Speaker 1: The only thing that I know of Sergebaka doing is
Speaker 1: YouTube videos eating bowl penises. He used to be one
Speaker 1: of the best room protectors in the league and now
Speaker 1: he just makes other NBA players admit things while eating
Speaker 1: weird foods.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I give them a very low grade in
Speaker 2: my mind.
Speaker 1: I've always said that the Milwaukee Bucks were healthy, they
Speaker 1: were unbeatable, But the question is that actually true anymore?
Speaker 2: Has the window closed? Like?
Speaker 1: Should we be worrying when Giannis and Chris Middleton both
Speaker 1: aren't healthy, Andrew Holliday hasn't been healthy, The core three
Speaker 1: not fully healthy? I can't tell without a rescue line
Speaker 1: at the trade deadline. The window very much might be
Speaker 1: closing soon.
Speaker 2: Indiana Pacers A minus.
Speaker 1: This is maybe the biggest surprise in the Eastern Conference,
Speaker 1: maybe the biggest surprise in the entire NBA. I saw
Speaker 1: the Sacramento Kings coming. What I did not see coming
Speaker 1: was the Pacers, and they are fun. Everybody thought that
Speaker 1: the Pacers were gonna be a lottery team. Even the
Speaker 1: Pacers thought they were gonna be a lottery team. The
Speaker 1: Pacers told the world at Summer League, we're in the
Speaker 1: sweepstakes for Victor wamba Yama. Let me tell you this,
Speaker 1: they are not. They are not even close to getting
Speaker 1: Victor Wambanyama. They are in eighth place right now twenty
Speaker 1: three and twenty one, and they've.
Speaker 2: Had injuries too.
Speaker 1: They're doing all this with guys out of the lineup,
Speaker 1: like Miles Turner, like Tyrese Halliburton. D'orte has missed twenty
Speaker 1: two games. But Tyrese Halliburton is now becoming one of
Speaker 1: the best playmakers in the league, making that Sabonis trade
Speaker 1: look beneficial for very much both sides. He's consistently getting
Speaker 1: double digitusists per game. He's scoring twenty four forty, just
Speaker 1: massive numbers on a night to night basis. And oh
Speaker 1: did I mention Ben Maturin? Akaa, Ben Mattherin is averaging
Speaker 1: over seventeen a game as a rookie coming off the
Speaker 1: fucking bench.
Speaker 2: Can they keep this up? I don't know. I think so.
Speaker 2: But they're probably gonna have to pay Miles Turner now.
Speaker 1: They're probably gonna have to pay Buddy Heel now, or
Speaker 1: they're gonna trade him for a boatload of assets to
Speaker 1: some aspiring team like the Milwaukee Bucks that want to
Speaker 1: win a title and get a lot in return. Keith
Speaker 1: Smith that spow Track wrote a piece about a month
Speaker 1: ago about how the Pacers are looking to lock Myles
Speaker 1: Turner up for an extension, and he said, no, so
Speaker 1: who knows. But they have been largely excellent all year.
Speaker 1: This is a very fun team. Not something I thought
Speaker 1: I would be saying.
Speaker 2: Chicago Bulls c minus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are in crisis mode, aren't they. We talked
Speaker 1: about it recently, We've talked about them all year, and
Speaker 1: not in good terms. Right, they are just not very fun.
Speaker 1: Everybody on the bull seems to be ready for a
Speaker 1: blow up, right, Like Lonzo Ball just gave an interview
Speaker 1: today where he said whether he would even play the
Speaker 1: rest of the season. You've got the Bulls taking on
Speaker 1: insurance policies in case Ball doesn't play basketball ever again,
Speaker 1: covering eighty million dollars left on his contract. You got
Speaker 1: Zach Lavine, who hates everybody on his team. He's taking
Speaker 1: mid range twos with four seconds left to go down three,
Speaker 1: very much trying to lose that game. Billy Donovan hated
Speaker 1: by everybody. DeMar DeRozan the only bright spot on this team,
Speaker 1: but he's had injury issues as well. Is there anything
Speaker 1: to like about this team? Is there anything fun?
Speaker 2: Well, I guess Alex Caruso is fun. But that's it.
Speaker 2: They could be beating anyone on any.
Speaker 1: Given night, and they could be beaten by anyone on
Speaker 1: any given night. I don't know what to make of them.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're gonna be sellers. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they're gonna be buyers. Every time they tank
Speaker 1: and everybody thinks, okay, it's a blow it up scenario,
Speaker 1: they win five, and then.
Speaker 2: It's like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Now, the delusional Chicago fan base is getting excited again.
Speaker 1: They are a C student. They barely show up the class.
Speaker 1: When they show up the class, they fall asleep, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, on a random Tuesday, they
Speaker 1: have intelligent questions and they have thoughts and notes and
Speaker 1: poignant pieces of knowledge to share that maybe nobody in
Speaker 1: the class has ever thought about before.
Speaker 2: But that happens like literally when the blue moon is.
Speaker 1: Out, as you have to start talking about the Cavs
Speaker 1: through the Dawnovan Mitchell lens He's incredible. He's the most
Speaker 1: dramatically different player from last year to this year that
Speaker 1: I've seen from a superstar.
Speaker 2: Just changing teams.
Speaker 1: He's increased how many threes he takes per game. He's
Speaker 1: taking sometimes ten threes a game. He would take three,
Speaker 1: four five threes a game in Utah. The way that
Speaker 1: they play is really beneficial to him. He's bouncier, he's faster,
Speaker 1: he's quicker, he's just got it. He's just so fun
Speaker 1: and this trade looks amazing for the Cavaliers.
Speaker 2: They just do.
Speaker 1: He's playing defense now, clearly something that he did on
Speaker 1: purpose to Utah to say, you know what, fuck ERU
Speaker 1: to Gobert, I'm not gonna play defense.
Speaker 2: Because why because you guys have a two time defensive
Speaker 2: player of the year. He can handle it, you know what,
Speaker 2: Let him do it.
Speaker 1: And the one thing that's strange I think that's holding
Speaker 1: the Cavs season back is Evan Mobley.
Speaker 2: Evan Mobley has regressed.
Speaker 1: He's not the player that he was when everybody thought
Speaker 1: he would.
Speaker 2: Be the rookie of the Year. And I think that's something.
Speaker 1: That's gonna take time for him to figure out his role,
Speaker 1: because I think he can be an all NBA kind
Speaker 1: of a guy.
Speaker 2: I think he's got all the tools. I think he's
Speaker 2: got a great attitude.
Speaker 1: But their fifth place standing a half game out of third,
Speaker 1: pretty much expecting where I would think they would finish
Speaker 1: right right in the slot, maybe fourth, maybe fifth, maybe
Speaker 1: third somewhere in there. You add in Garland, who has
Speaker 1: missed time with his own eye injury. You now get
Speaker 1: Ricky Rubio back though to counteract that, and then you
Speaker 1: know you've got Mobley and Jared on the front line.
Speaker 1: And all they need really is a wing, a good
Speaker 1: solid wing to get rid of a coro's ass and
Speaker 1: find somebody competent that can play three. If that is
Speaker 1: the case, If they do that at the deadline, what
Speaker 1: they really need is LORI marketing back.
Speaker 2: They could be very, very dangerous Detroit Pistons. They get
Speaker 2: a D plus. That stinks. I like so much. I
Speaker 2: wanted to give him a C minus. I just couldn't.
Speaker 2: They What are they right now?
Speaker 1: Record wise? It's not great. They're twelve and thirty five.
Speaker 1: You can't give somebody a C plus when they're twelve
Speaker 1: and thirty five.
Speaker 2: But they're fun, right Like, they're.
Speaker 1: A team that you enjoy watching on a night to
Speaker 1: night basis. They compete and lose, same kind of thing
Speaker 1: as they did last year, same kind of thing as
Speaker 1: they did two years ago. This year, Cad Cunningham gets hurt.
Speaker 1: He goes out for the rest of the year. That's
Speaker 1: a big setback.
Speaker 2: They weren't gangbusters when he was playing.
Speaker 1: But I tell you what, you're not gonna win many
Speaker 1: games when the number one overall pick is down for
Speaker 1: the year with a strange injury, right, and now you
Speaker 1: don't get to develop chemistry with Ja n Ivy, the rookie,
Speaker 1: you know, Jalen Duran, he's not finding time with Cad.
Speaker 1: So it's just another wasted year of a rebuild. And
Speaker 1: you wonder, does Sadik Bay now get moved. What do
Speaker 1: we do with Bogdanovic? Did they really want Bogdanovich to
Speaker 1: begin with or is he just an asset that they
Speaker 1: locked up long term to be a valuable trade piece
Speaker 1: in the future. So this team's probably headed for another
Speaker 1: high lottery pick. They will consistently be athletic, they will
Speaker 1: consistently be fun, they will play hard for Dwayne Casey,
Speaker 1: and they will be extremely watchable. But they will not
Speaker 1: win games, and unfortunately, the off season has been a
Speaker 1: bit of a wash.