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Brian Geltzeiler joins the show to discuss the Wizards start to the season and preview which teams make good landing spots for an eventual Anthony Davis trade.
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00:00Right now, though, I want to jump to the Rude Guest Hotline.
00:03Welcome in our friend from SiriusXM NBA, Brian Geltziler.
00:08Geltz, what's up, man? How are you?
00:10I'm doing great, guys. How we doing?
00:12We're good, man.
00:12Good, dude. Thank you for making some time for us.
00:15I want to start asking you just what you think of the Wiz so far.
00:19AJ DeBots is playing really well since he's made his debut.
00:23The Wiz are over .500 in November.
00:25I feel like that might be the first time it's happened in a while.
00:28What do you think of the team we've got in Washington?
00:31So it's interesting with the Wizards here early on, guys,
00:35and the respect that we've gotten to see them without AJ,
00:38and then we've gotten to see them with AJ.
00:41And it won't surprise you guys for me to tell you I like him better with AJ DeBotsa.
00:46He's the difference maker for this team.
00:48And I say that in the respect that, you know,
00:50Anthony Davis is going to put up his numbers.
00:54Anthony Davis is playing for his next contract,
00:57and he's playing hard.
00:58And, you know, I like how Keyshawn George looks.
01:02He's gotten better year over year.
01:04He's developing nicely.
01:06Trey Young is never going to be a good defensive player,
01:08but I will acknowledge that his effort level on that end of the floor
01:12spans what it's been in the past.
01:14So all those things are kind of pulling in the right direction for the Wiz.
01:18I think Alex Sar's trying to figure it out around Davis.
01:20That'll take some time, but I think that happens.
01:23But the thing is, if you want, and I know what Wizards fans want this season,
01:27Wizards fans want a top-ten finish.
01:29They want to at least be in the play-in tournament and feel like off of this
01:33misery in the last three years, we're seeing some meaningful progress.
01:37That meaningful progress is tied to one guy and one guy only, AJ DeBotsa,
01:41because the team looks different with him on the floor.
01:45He has so much gravity in terms of defenses having to pay attention to him.
01:50The other thing that's incredibly impressive about him, and we've seen
01:53similar things out of Yaxo Lendenborg in Golden State, his ability with that
01:57kind of size, 6'9", 6'9 1⁄2", to play off the bounce off two feet where he has
02:03just limitless choices on what to do with the basketball, including shooting over
02:07people, which because of his size and his athleticism, he's able to do relatively
02:12easily in the mid-range.
02:13It's an unbelievable weapon for him in just how he's been taught to play and how
02:19he plays in his comfort level.
02:20The other thing that I love about him that you're seeing is he's not forcing
02:24action.
02:25He's letting the game come to him.
02:27And for young players, that's so hard to learn sometimes.
02:30But I also contribute some of that to the context that he's playing in.
02:34When you have guys that have been all-stars in this league and all-NBA guys like
02:38Anthony Davis and Trey Young offensively, it's easy to defer to these guys and just
02:43kind of play within the framework of the offense as the ball gets to you instead
02:47of trying to hunt out opportunities to look for shots that many times end up
02:51being bad shots.
02:52So that's kind of a long-winded way of me saying that the shot selection thing
02:57with him is something that young players struggle with.
02:59I don't think he's struggling with it at all.
03:01No, I think he's very good.
03:03You said AD is playing for his contract for the future or whatever.
03:09Is that here or somewhere else?
03:13Either way, listen, I think right now the Wizards and Anthony Davis are pulling in
03:19the same direction in one respect, Brian.
03:21And that's the fact that the Wizards would like Anthony Davis to play as well as
03:24possible because I don't think they want to give him his next contract.
03:28And if he comes out and he plays really well and other teams like him and somebody
03:31does want to give him his next contract, they'll get value for him.
03:34And I think ultimately the Wizards grading for him at essentially what was 50 cents in
03:38the dollar at last year's trade deadline, they're looking to get something more like
03:4275 to 80 cents on the dollar and spin them out for more than what they traded them for,
03:46which to me would be a very smart thing to do.
03:49And when you're looking at the fact, and I do think Sarr's struggling to play with him
03:52a little bit, and I think that'll work itself out in time.
03:55But ultimately, Sarr's going to be the future in terms of a big for the Wizards at that position.
04:00And it may just be that the Bons who's playing a lot of two now, his best position in the
04:04end may be more of a stretch scoring four type of thing.
04:08And there may not be room for that with Anthony Davis.
04:10So I think my point being is that for Davis, I don't think the Wizards are in a hurry to
04:14give him an extension.
04:15The Wizards are thinking, they're thinking forward right now.
04:19And I give Michael Winger a lot of credit in that respect because they know they're going
04:22to have to pay Sarr.
04:24They know they're going to have to pay the Bons of sometime in the future.
04:27They want to pay Keyshawn George and keep him.
04:29I bet Trey Johnson's looked a little bit better this year.
04:31And I think they want to keep him.
04:33You can't afford everybody in the second apron era.
04:35And certainly paying Anthony Davis well into his 30s, the kind of number that he wants,
04:39does not equate with how the Wizards want to do things.
04:42And keeping in mind, they just signed Trey Young to what I think was an absurd contract
04:45extension at $55 million a year, but I never would have signed him to.
04:49So all those things combined, I don't think Anthony Davis fits long term.
04:53But if he's out there playing well right now and they can get value for him in a deal
04:57and he can get a contract somewhere else, that works well for everybody.
05:00So you have this unique circumstance, at least right now at this stage of the season,
05:04where everybody's pulling in the same direction because the goals aligned.
05:07Brian, I'm curious.
05:10We saw this organization a few years ago trade away Denny Avdia, and they said that Denny's
05:16timeline was different than the Wizards' timeline.
05:19And I think there's a lot of truth to that in that Denny was ready for winning in competitive
05:24basketball and Wiz as an organization, we're not.
05:28I'm not sure AD's timeline is the same as this Wizards' team.
05:32Like you said, you said a top 10 finish so they're at least in the play-in.
05:37I'd love the sixth seed so you don't even have to be in the play-in and you get a
05:41real
05:41playoff series, but I think we're splitting hairs on that.
05:44The expectation for fans is competitive basketball, playoff basketball, not necessarily championships.
05:51And I think AD wants to compete for championships.
05:55And they could get to January and everybody's on the same side, but it still makes sense to
06:04move him.
06:05And then you think about Will Dawkins in Oklahoma City.
06:07AD, kind of the last piece of their rebuild was the Paul George trade that returned SGA
06:13and a bunch of draft picks.
06:15Are there clubs out there that watching AD, now granted it's only seven games in, but
06:20watching him play at this level, what are some of the potential suitors you would think
06:24for Anthony Davis?
06:27So we'll start here.
06:28There's a lot in that question.
06:30So let me get to a couple of things here.
06:33First of all, I don't think the Wiz were right about Denny Avdia.
06:36Yeah, because right now the Wiz are kind of ready to compete right now.
06:39And Avdia is in the beginning of his prime.
06:42And right now you have Avdia in a situation in Portland where guys like John Morant and
06:48Damian Lillard are deferring to him as the guys.
06:51And so Avdia would have been ready in time for them.
06:54So it's kind of, you know, he is, Avdia looks terrific.
06:58I don't know if you guys watched him close the game against Denver the other night.
07:01He was superb.
07:03And it was one of those things where Damian Lillard just gave, pretty much gave him the
07:06ball and told everybody to get out of his way.
07:09Like that, that's who Denny Avdia has become.
07:11So with that thought in mind, when it comes to AD here, there's going to be a runway where
07:17AD and the Wizards are aligned.
07:18And that runway is now to the trade deadline.
07:20So if they end up keeping him after the trade deadline and AD already understands the Wizards
07:26aren't going to be the ones that extend them.
07:27He realizes that that's not going to be the case.
07:30And if you look at the history of this right now, where the leagues evolved and Kirk Goldsberry
07:34has a great piece on the ringer right now up there about it, it's become a young man's
07:38league guys.
07:38And Anthony Davis isn't a young man anymore.
07:40He's 33 years old.
07:41And so it's some team, if our team's going to pony up big for him, listen, the last team
07:47that just ponied up big for a 31 year old superstar, Giannis Antetokounmpo, who by all objective
07:52measures is a better player than Anthony Davis.
07:54Where the heat right now, I know they're two and five.
07:58They can't guard anybody.
07:59And Giannis can't raise everybody up in the way that he used to.
08:02It's just, it's a fact.
08:03My point being is that I don't know that you're going to get that kind of godfather offer
08:08that Indiana and Oklahoma City ended up getting for Paul George.
08:12I don't think you're going to see something like that for Anthony Davis.
08:15With all that said, a team like Golden State right now, who all of a sudden is better than
08:20they look and is going to get Jimmy Butler back and has at least halfway there with a
08:25contract of Kristaps Porzingis, which would just be the way to get off a contract, which
08:31wouldn't be bad for the Wizards.
08:33Like you can kind of, if you do enough math there and with the willingness to swallow Moses
08:37Moody and there's a couple of picks involved, maybe that's the deal.
08:40And maybe that's the suitor to be able to just say, hey, you know what?
08:43We're going to forget about players.
08:45All we gave up for Davis was really picks.
08:47We're just going to collect some picks that are better picks than what we originally gave
08:52off because if we take them enough in the future, we're going to get post-Steph Curry
08:55Golden State picks, which is what you would want.
08:58So off the top of my head, there was a lot of rumors in the offseason about Davis and the
09:02Warriors.
09:03And for what the Wizards were asking, the Warriors were clearly not interested.
09:07But I think that, you know, the Warriors have played well enough right now.
09:12And Lendeborg looks good enough.
09:13And Butler could be back by January or February, where maybe as you get into the deadline,
09:19they play well enough that they do want to put their chips to the middle of the table.
09:22Listen, they were looking at this year, the Warriors, as potential gap year, which is
09:26weird when your best player is 38 years old.
09:28Steph Curry and Yatka Lendeborg have showed you right now this may not need to be a gap year
09:33with especially OKC with all of their injuries.
09:36San Antonio doesn't look as good.
09:37All of a sudden, this thing in the West got a little more wide open.
09:40And maybe that's your destination for Anthony Davis.
09:44Maybe that's the place where he ends up landing.
09:46I would think that would make a lot of sense.
09:49You know, the other team that I wouldn't necessarily dismiss is, you know, and again, they don't
09:53have draft picks, which is unfortunate.
09:55He would fit with the Lakers with Luka.
09:57He would certainly fit there, which is somewhat ironic considering that he came there.
10:00Again, you have to have a couple of picks.
10:03It's good.
10:04Listen, the price tag for Davis is going to be two first round picks, one high quality, one
10:09lesser quality.
10:09That's what I believe it's going to be.
10:11Finding someone to pay, it's going to be the challenge.
10:13But I think for Golden State and their situation, that's a really interesting fit.
10:19I'm really interested in that.
10:21By the way, I agree with you on Denny.
10:22I think they made the wrong evaluation and then kind of spun in his timeline.
10:26Correct.
10:27I think, who's the best team in the NBA right now?
10:31It's a fantastic question.
10:33And I would tell you, I would probably say the Philadelphia 76ers.
10:38And the reason I say that is because, listen, we knew the offense was going to be a work
10:44in progress.
10:45But ultimately, the offense will get to where it needs to get to and is at certain moments
10:50here.
10:51It's getting to where it needs to get to.
10:52But the thing with the offense here is that as long as guys are willing to be selfless
10:56enough, the offense is going to be fine.
10:58Their defense is incredible.
11:00And that's where I'm completely impressed.
11:02And the weight loss for him, Dean, has been an enormous help because he's playing up closer
11:08to the screen line on the perimeter now.
11:10So he's not playing exclusively drop defense.
11:12So he's making things tougher in the mid-range.
11:14They help really aggressively.
11:16Three terrific athletes on the defensive end of the floor in Edgecombe, Jalen Brown, and
11:21Maxie.
11:21And Maxie's guarding 94 feet.
11:23Their defense, to me, has been an enormous factor.
11:27But if you're going to ask me that question, I do have to give you an honorable mention,
11:30and it's the Houston Rockets.
11:31If you told me the Rockets could win games like they've won games over the course of the
11:36last couple of days with Durant barely getting shots, it's incredible.
11:42Durant has enormous level of decoy value for them right now.
11:46And Shangun has appeared to up his game a level.
11:49Vambleed is back.
11:50And there's an adult in the room late in games offensively that's finding the right
11:54places to go.
11:55Marcus Smart's been a perfect player for them because of his versatility and his defensive
12:00profile fits what they like to do.
12:02Houston, to me, is a dangerous, dangerous group because they're healthy.
12:07And they have, to me, behind OKC, they're the deepest team in the league.
12:12And being healthy and having this depth and being able to spot guys sitting.
12:17Listen, Steven Adams is a superpower for them, offensive rebounding-wise.
12:20And he hasn't, he's barely played this year.
12:23And that's out of rest.
12:25They want to make sure that the knee's strong and healthy by the time they put him out on
12:28the floor, he'll be on a minute's limit.
12:29But they're playing it different with him this year than they did last year.
12:31Last year, they played him a ton early.
12:34He got hurt and they didn't have him.
12:35This year, they're shitting him a ton early, figuring they're going to have him later on.
12:39And I think it's a smarter approach.
12:40I love what I've seen out of the Rockets here early on.
12:43Geltz, great stuff as always, man.
12:44Appreciate you, dude.
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