All right, Matt, hit us up with the next tier here.

All right.

The A tier of trouble is three teams that are in very different situations.

And I think we only need to talk about one of them.

And that's the Thunder, the Nets, and the Bucs.

The Nets and the Bucks, I think, are pretty evident.

Like, Bucks, a lot of their picks are gone.

Next tier.

And, like, is it too early to say that he's already better than Darren Peterson, like it's over? It might be too early to say that, right?

Sure, sure.

Like, careers are long.

Like, Peterson, you know, and, and you draft guys for the duration of their careers, hopefully.

Although, I will say, you know, if you go back and you look at the history, a lot of the guys [laughs] that, the rookies, the top 10 rookies that you draft that become All-NBA don't become All-NBA with you.

Like, they, if you draft a top three guy, you're drafting a guy that will become a, an All-NBA player.

He just might not be All-NBA with your team.

Like, how is Dar- am I missing something? How is Darius Acuff not awesome?

But like, to what extent do you believe, like, because I think it was kind of implicit in what you said, that what the Knicks did last year was fluky and also any other context you want to clarify around that?

yeah so i i've pissed off several fan bases with this kind of perception and so i do kind of want to clarify what i mean yeah the word adorable was a bit much that was that was me being a jerk um and that's just like you know you get me going and i will be smart me and unbearable but i will also when we start to actually have a conversation about it here's the reality We are in an era where we're seeing these teams, because of the parity and the level of competition combined with the injuries and everything else, we're seeing teams that are consistently going and having playoff runs that are way beyond what we saw previously in terms of outlier performance.

And the way I've kind of talked about this, the Mavericks in 2024 were a fluke.

That team was not good.

They were not good.

Like, and I think it's funny that we don't reassess these things.

Like, oh, Daniel Gafford is Rudy Gobert now.

Yeah.

Anthony Edwards is plus 950.

Yeah, so if you pay attention to how Ant talked about the addition of LaMelo Ball in the offseason, he's complained about having to bring the ball up and having to navigate the offense and be the primary scorer a lot.

Effectively, he, much like Devin Booker, does not enjoy being double teamed.

It turns out the guys that are scoring threats do not like having multiple defenders thrown at them.

And so he was facing bring the ball up, orchestrate the offense, And score all the points.

And that's a lot to ask for a player.

And I talked to some Wolves guys last year in the playoffs, and they're like, yeah, his defense isn't really the same as it was because of the incredible amount that he has to do every night.

And you are looking to fade the Knicks, Matt.

Mm-hmm.

I think Brady is phenomenal.

I follow him, I like, I fi- I learn stuff.

But, like, had a comment about, like, "I don't understand why these people were questioning Klay Thompson's defense.

He's awesome." And I'm like, "Because he's played in the league longer than he's played on Miami.

He didn't just appear on the Miami Heat, Brady.

Like, he's existed before then, and he's sucked for two years defensively.

Mm-hmm.

So what does that say to you about the state of executive decision-making, agility, and preparedness today?

Yeah, Joe, it's, it's really interesting.

I mean, I think we've seen, you know, leaders have, you know, over the last several years really hardened their, uh, protection mechanisms.

Successive shocks they've been able to navigate successfully.

They have confidence in their ability to change, but they're not yet certain about how quickly they can respond when opportunities present themselves.

And so, um, it, it's an interesting nuance i- in the data which tells us leaders know they need to respond quickly.

They know their organizations can change, but they're not yet confident that they can act with the conviction when they see the signals and then capture the opportunities.

And with the result of that, you're going to reduce the number of fire drills you have.

Matt, over-under 23.5 wins for the Nets, and if you've got any particular reason why, I'm wondering about that, too.

I'm going to go a slight over here.

I have them at schedule adjusted.

My numbers are 26.6.

So some of this is as simple as, look, they're going to tank less, right? So usually I have to take the base rating for where I get these teams to.

And if they're a tank squad, I have to very aggressively start dropping them, right? But the Nets really don't have any sort of reason to do that.

And I do think that...

Matt, what do you got for this one?

on the roster everything's very exciting and matt is a guy who you know if you're familiar with his um persona on the internet tends to be rather antagonistic especially to raptors fans but that ended last year after you came on this podcast and i kind of convinced you that the rappers were going to be pretty good turned out i was right on that it's a rare occurrence where i'm right about something and you have i think been i think more sort of transformed into someone who respects the raptors likes the raptors loves the raptors to your core uh you of course have referred to raptors fans as the who's down in whoville you of course being the grinch in this analogy and of course over the last year your heart grew three sizes and you became boring uh matt how are you my friend and uh what are you doing now to sort of reckon with the raptors being potentially a contender in the eastern conference after just being merely cute and good last

year I am ex I don't know that there's a team I'm more excited about this season than Toronto.

I really don't know if there's one that I'm like more excited about is a very weird occurrence for me.

And so to have this situation where I, you know, now in the last, since the trade went through and everyone kind of started looking at the rosters and now you're starting to see like this bubble kind of form of like, I I'm trying to be an early adopter so that I don't, I don't have to go the other way and be like, well, all right it's like slow down i don't want to do that because i'm just like this team's gonna be awesome and it's odd because uh this should be a combination of of so many things that i've hated on in previous years not only with um toronto and i was very skeptical of darko until last year and even really kind of Scotty when he hit that lull where there was like reports of like Messiah having to come in and like talk to him early on in that kind of stretch.

I was kind of like, yeah, I don't know how this is going to go.

And then on top of it, I am like the number one, I think, kawaii critic on the internet.

I'm like the only person that's like, hey, so like...

Scotty, Graves,

Where, what, why, how? How did that come about?

Well, I first heard about the opportunity maybe mid-February.

And I got told that there was going to be two qualifying races, which was the Napier Triathlon Sprint Festival.

And I finished second there for eligible sort of contenders.

And then the second race was Oceania Junior Champs over in Devonport, Tasmania, over in Australia, where I finished first in the eligible age group.

Awesome.

Yeah, then it was just up to the committee to decide.

How big's the whole New Zealand team going over, do you know?

Like, are you kind of taking in that kind of thing into where the product's going as well, or, like, you're already thinking about that? Like, just, yeah, what are you guys thinking about all of this?

I think it's a nice tailwind for us because I think we do a lot of the things that folks need in order to satisfy these things.

All of our images carry SBOMs that we generate at build time, but we also go out of our way to make sure that SCA tooling that generates SBOMs works exceptionally well with our software and, you know, the binaries that we include in that software.

And so we definitely do a ton of stuff to make it so that folks, you know, can either get the artifacts that they need from us or generate them from the images that we are producing.

And I think, uh, you know, one of the interesting things, just to sort of circle back to the Trivy breach, you know, I think the European Commission itself was actually compromised by that, that Trivy breach, right? And so they disclosed that they were compromised by it because of that 24-hour reporting deadline, I think it was beginning of May, and something like 340 gigs of EU citizens' data was leaked as a result of that, right? And, you know, that's, you know, w- something that wouldn't have impacted them if they were using Chainguard's images, right? And so I think that even if folks are seeking this really just to be compliant, right, there's really nice security properties that you get out of, you know, adopting hardened images, adopting software that knows exactly what's going into it.

I worry that when folks talk about, uh, things like SBOMs, that they aren't talking about the complete picture a lot of the time, though.

And so everything that goes into our images is captured in our SBOMs, and I can assert that because everything that goes into our images comes from one of our packages, and all of our packages capture everything.

What friction points could you, I guess, speak to that's not a friction point, it's just a perceived friction point, and actually, I guess, using Chainguard as, like, you should just talk to us?

Do you think that it will mean that there are other moves that are cost-saving in their primary benefit that have to occur, or it will just be that Watson in, Johnson out?

That's a good question.

And there's been a lot of messaging on all sides of this.

Where I come down is I don't have a lot of confidence that this team is gonna be good enough for ownership to justify the tax bill by the deadline.

So this to me screams, "Okay, yeah, we lost Cam Johnson, but we kept Peyton Watson, and he's our future, and we love this guy, and he's gonna be so good." And then you get to the deadline, and it's like, "Oh, the Nuggets are only on track for 45 to 47 wins, and it hasn't been our year again, and this team doesn't have it.

Well, we need to change something." And it's very easy to change something by, oh, look at that, they also shed some salary in the deal, whether that's Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, et cetera.

I have been on this on Locked On Nuggets, and this is not an anti-Jamal, uh, argument, because I'm actually very much...

Mm.

Where's LeBron going to go? How many times have you been asked about LeBron and where you think he's going to go in the last, like, 10 days?

About 1,800.

It just feels like every single day.

It's a new story.

What about this? What about this? And everybody's got a different idea of who the leader in the clubhouse is.

At this point, I think you have to just kind of consider it Cleveland.

A lot of people around the league have just kind of been indicating why the suspense.

What did you make of what the Bucs got in return for Giannis Kellel? Where, Hero, and a couple of picks?

Do you agree? And are you backing some of his props as a result?

Yeah.

I mean, they're not going to move off of him.

A big thing that people I think have gotten confused on is like the value of deer and Fox.

And a lot of this is their half court offense is absolute garbage in this series.

When he is not on the floor, they cannot create anything.

Cause when you have Stefan castle, a second year player, and you have Dylan Harper, a first-year player, you're not going to be able to get the kind of offense that you need to win a possession-by-possession battle in the finals.

If the Knicks win, who's your MVP?

Do you agree? And are you backing some of his props as a result?

Yeah.

I mean, they're not going to move off of him.

A big thing that people I think have gotten confused on is like the value of deer and Fox.

And a lot of this is their half court offense is absolute garbage in this series.

When he is not on the floor, they cannot create anything.

Cause when you have Stefan castle, a second year player, and you have Dylan Harper, a first-year player, you're not going to be able to get the kind of offense that you need to win a possession-by-possession battle in the finals.

If the Knicks win, who's your MVP?

Do you agree, and are you backing some of his props as a result?

Yeah, I mean, they're not gonna move off of him.

A, a big thing that people, I think, have gotten confused on is, like, the value of De'Aaron Fox, and a lot of this is their half-court offense is absolute garbage in this series when he is not on the floor.

Uh, they cannot create anything 'cause when you have Stephon Castle, a second-year player, and you have Dylan Harper, a first-year player, you're not gonna be able to get the kind of offense that you need to win a possession by possession battle in the finals.

You can't-- Their transition attempts have been horrible in the series.

So Fox does make an impact even when he's not creating stuff.

However, he has continued to go over his rebounds and assists line.

When do you expect a Giannis trade?

Yeah

... that don't wanna be there.

Um, there's usually an understanding of the money that's gonna be involved.

And so, yeah, I would say, you know, between that 17 and the 30 is probably where they're gonna, where they're gonna wind up landing.

Uh, that makes a lot of sense.

When you look at kind of his comps, uh, based off of some data that I've run, Tyler Herro is a name based off of his extension.

Devin Booker actually, um, scales up very, you know, as far as like a, the way he plays.

[laughs]

[laughs]

Look, I, I can tell you more clearly the difference in how I snapped back from rough stretches of life or fun stretches of life in my 20s versus 30s and 40s.

And so it's just like, look, these, these guys just aren't gonna feel it.

Like, you just do snap back.

Your body just recovers faster.

If the Spurs were a veteran team, I would be a little bit concerned.

If you want the opposite argument, okay, the opposite argument is the Knicks have had so much time to game plan and rest that that's an inherent advantage.

Yes.

Yeah

... and that should be enough for them to be okay, where it shouldn't be this big deal for the rest, rust thing.

I, I do think it's a little bit different when you have the finals just because they probably flew yesterday, and then today is probably the first media day.

Um, and so the media is just like a little b- it's so different.

It's not Super Bowl, but it's dragged out and you have all these different things that you have to go do.

So there, it does mess, I think, with the calendar for these teams a little bit, um, when they're, versus like a normal having four days off.

Uh, that said, I don't really give a lot of, um, I don't think that, that the rest, rust thing is gonna be a problem.

Best bet in the series.

I, I think those are just kinda comparable coaching blunders of, like, you gotta change something and you gotta do it right now.

Yeah.

And it's, you have a game plan and you wanna kinda stick to it, and there has been some data, I will give Kenny this, there has been some data that has suggested that the stuff with Harden in iso is not horrific.

That...

So a lot of this is, like, how it feels versus how it is, and that's a very tough line to walk.

So I understand it.It's just like there's gotta be a point where we just let have deductive logic of being Jalen Brunson should not be defended by James Harden.

Like, that just shouldn't happen.

Lock it.

What is your solution there?

I mean, my preference would be for them to probably retain Cam Johnson and Peyton Watson because I think Cam Johnson is an extremely valuable player.

And, you know, Christian's contract is prohibitive.

But all of these conversations are about what is the front office willing to pay, not what do they have to do in order to field a good team.

And that's annoying because it's just like, hey, you're the richest landowner in the United States.

Why don't you just pay the tax, bud? That's my personal position.

But if we're talking about the reality of...

I'll leave the floor to you on this one.

Right

... is expendable because of his injury status and his inability to stay healthy with soft tissue injuries the last two seasons.

Jamal Murray is expendable because he has to be because he's the asset with the best value right now if you're...

And also additionally, it's a, I'm of the opinion that you quite, as good as they are together offensively, and they are, you quite simply can't build a good enough defense with those two.

Um, there's a lot of talk about how, like, well, the offense is what failed them in the playoffs.

Th- that's true by the numbers, but if you ask the Timberwolves players, coaches, or media, or fans, they'll tell you that it was too easy to score on the Nuggets because of you could blow by Murray and Jokic doesn't protect the rim.

So they're gonna have to kind of reconfigure this, which is gonna mean major changes.

Harden was getting a lot of floaters in that game one too

Um, what, what, what did, what did you see as their sort of strengths in those last, I guess it was two and a half games, even, even without Anthony Edwards?

Yeah, I mean, I think... [laughs] So this is, this is where it gets tough, is okay, they were functional.

Like, they were able to function and it was effective.

And so you get to this question of how much of that was Minnesota still having this level of versatilityand execution and how much of it was Denver's defense absolutely sucks and they can't stay in front of anyone and they have no rim protection.

Joker won't even put a hand up.

Like, he won't even, like, you get to the rim and he's just like, "Cool, can't risk a foul." There's a layup.

Oh, there's another one.

Do you see a path forward for him in, in this series to be more impactful, um, on offense, but just overall than he was against Denver?

W- so what, what do you, what are your thoughts on the Cavs? And, like, who at the end of the day is coming out of the East?

Yeah, so the, the soft thing is a very common criticism with Cavs fans, and they're pretty fed up with it.

Um, they are-- the Cavs are one of multiple teams.

There's, like, five teams where it's like they gotta blow this thing up.

Like, everything is going so badly.

Like, Houston's on the verge of this.

Like, either Alperen Şengün or Kevin Durant's getting traded this summer.

There you go.

[laughs] Did you have any, uh, main takeaways from last night's game, and how do you even approach analyzing the whole league in March?

Yeah, so I, I think, um, to say that the league doesn't play defense is categorically false because there are teams that when we adjust for efficiency and pace metrics, which both those are up in the current league, some of these teams grayed out are some of the best that we've ever seen defensively.

Um, Pistons are up there.

Thunder obviously have been at the top the last two seasons.

Boston's defense is great.

Uh, Houston's defense is great.

Phoenix's defense is actually pr- really good.

Uh, what is your, in your opinion, their best bet or best plan on defense versus teams like, let's start with OKC and San Antonio?

Matt, is it time to have a conversation about Shai, to Rylan's point, being the best in the world, the number one guy over Nikola Jokić?

I mean, anytime that you win an MVP, you b- you get to be in that conversation.

Um, the MVP is a resume award.

It's what did you accomplish.

I am not ready to give him the best in the world title.

I'm just not, I'm just not.

I don't ...

Really?