Brenden Whitted, LPL, talks NBA and what we're to think of the Pelicans, as well as where are things potentially going to go from here for Draymond Green?

My friend, Brendan Whitted, League Pass Lair, NBA expert.

All right, first of all, let's start locally. Are you impressed with the Hornets going to San Antonio and beating another team right at their level but on the road? I don't like rooting against my own team. I'm not like... You are already rooting against the Hornets? Oh, absolutely. What is wrong with you?

I want the best pick that we can get. Look, this is not... Oh, that ain't going to stop you from being a bottom three or five team. Well, but you're... This is one of the teams that we're going to be competing for at the bottom of that barrel. Right. You know what I mean? And so, look, isn't it impressive that you can come out without LaMelo and put up a dominated performance on the road? Sure, it's against another bad team. Yeah. So, I'm not reading too much into it. But look, I like the stuff I saw from Nick Richards.

If you want to kind of go that way, 19 and 10. And this is a guy that couldn't see the court over a club leap forward. This is a person that just could not find a way to be on the court for long stretches. And now he's able to put up a double-double. And he talked about some of the work he's done in the bodies. He gave me the... I put on 10 pounds of muscle in the off season, which is...

I love the first week of the NBA. Everyone's turned into an arms horse figure. But I mean, he looked good. He looked like he knew what he was doing. And he credited Clifford about, hey, he just told me he wants me to rim run and play defense. Right. Which is weird that... I mean, didn't Vareta tell you this? Like, I mean, literally, anybody who's ever seen you play, say, hey, here's how you go to stay in the league.

But I digress. It was good to see some of the young cats get some run. One of the things that's kind of concerned me so much has been the lack of development from some of our younger players. And you can go back to Lamb all the way back there during Clifford's first stint.

You can go to book night early on in his career. Guys like Vernon Carey, who is now on another team and never really got any significant run. If you're a bad team, one of the very few perks of being a bad team is that you can play young guys. And so not developing those young guys so that you can play Rozier a little bit more or some of these guys that are going to help you win three more games and not significantly change your franchise has always been kind of losing hand.

A point of contention. I mentioned Nick Richards at the center position. A little concerned we did see Mark Williams.

I didn't catch the last like five minutes of that. Yeah. He only played four minutes.

Yeah. So, but I mean, if you're up by 20 against the Spurs for the majority of that game, I don't see him play. And then I'm also watching the Detroit Pistons game, which the other first round pick that the Hornets selected during goes for 14 and 10. Young player in the Pistons history to go for a double double. And it's kind of scary, right? Like one guy can't get on the court and they blow out and the other guys playing crunch time minutes for a team that looks like in the Pistons could be legitimately good.

And if not, anything else will be fun to watch. All right. So real quick about the Hornets and I think you and I are on the same page here. Brennan Whitted, league pass layer is joining us here on Twitter at H.U.

Cosell. As a fan of some of the team, I used to be a fan of a team that was perpetually rebuilding. And I always like to say, all right, let's find, let's find pieces that we can take forward. If we're not, we're not going to compete for anything. We're not going to be a playoff team. We're not even going to complete compete to be in the play in part of the bracket.

Let's find pieces that we can take forward. So this is the opportunity to at least cameo Mark Williams. And that's what, like, no offense to Plumlee. It's Mason Plumlee, right?

They all run together. It's one of the Plumlee's. I don't know. They're literally never going to leave the NBA. There's going to be a Plumlee in the NBA until I'm put into the dirt.

It is very possible. I don't understand giving him twenty two minutes at the expense of giving an opportunity. I'm not saying that Mason Plumlee can't play, but I think Mark Williams has to at least get some run, especially when we're talking about the margins.

So I think that's a mistake. But I also don't see practice and I don't see all of those things that we don't normally see. But I hope he gets some run. Yeah, he struggled some in preseason, struggled some in summer league. So it's not shocking to me they didn't get the bulk of the run. But if you're selecting a guy in the lottery, you need to see him at some point sooner than later.

The other the other you know, there's the other part is. The idea that the Hornets could be showcasing some players so that they could be trade, you know, get some trade bait and stuff like that, like Gordon Hayward look look good in his you know, in his time. Rozier had his flashes like the team look good as a whole. And so if you're if you're thinking about, hey, they might be trading some of these pieces away for contenders who need to get that little extra. Hey, maybe the Suns need to make a move. Maybe, you know, obviously the Gordon Hayward Lakers thing has been a whole point of contention for probably about a year and a half now. Like if there is a team that thinks, hey, we're a little bit of a piece away, we just need a guy that usually will come off our bench or at least a role player that can that can feel somebody, maybe an injury or maybe just get us over that hump. Maybe there is a part of the Hornets that are thinking, hey, through the first three months of this season, we need to be making sure that everybody sees exactly what we have and how good they are.

And then the final point about the Hornets I think I'll make is you you're starting to hear a little bit of the rumblings about Lamello not necessarily loving what's going on with the franchise. You hear from LeBar LeBar ball and you can poo poo it if you want to, but that is his father. And this is a guy that knows something about the NBA. He got three sons in the, in the, in the league.

So he knows a little bit something about how this thing works. And you started to hear some of the best stuff. And for a guy that is one of the best pastors in the league right now in Lamello to not surround him with talent is it's it's it's almost malpractice. So there, there does need to be some sort of upward trend sooner than later, because that's the, I don't want that situation to get untenable later on. There's no question.

I asked this of Travis Hancock yesterday. It was pre-imposed for the Hornets. I just said, I, it wasn't that long ago when we looked at the Hornets as potentially a team on the upward trend. And now I think we all assume that they're going to be very much in, uh, in range to get, uh, Victor Wenbunyana. Uh, all right, Brendan Woodard, let's go to fingers crossed, man.

Fingers crossed from your, from your lips to God's ears. I mean, he's a 7-3 or 7-4 guard. You put a franchise changer.

That's what he is. Yeah. That's something for a team that can't seem to get the high level free agents like Charlotte. Hortis can't draft is the only way you get a guy of that caliber. So yeah. And then other guys would make want to play with this guy. All right.

We, I think you and I have talked about this before. Uh, the Brooklyn Nets might be the most talented team in the entire league. Well, they opened up their season by getting Molly whopped by the new Orleans Pelicans who also are pretty talented. How much of that was new Orleans? How much of that was Brooklyn?

Uh, I think it's mostly new Orleans. I'm, I'm being completely afraid. I've told you I'm all in on the, on the Brooklyn thing, but man, I've got, I've got new Orleans in the West conference finals.

And I'm very, very serious about that because it's not just like one great to see Zion back, uh, on a court again, love to see him play basketball. Look, look, look great. Look spry. He did spry, spry about a 23 year old. What do you, anyway, like, but he looked like, you know, he looked, you look good.

Look, look great. Uh, they, but they beat, uh, the, the next in the way they beat teams. They're a top five team, even with, even when they lost Zion and offensive rebounder percentage, they murdered Brooklyn on the boards. They had some like 32nd chance points, some ridiculous number against them. You know what they're able to bludgeon you. And it's not just CJ McCollum.

It's not just BI. It's not just Zion. It's Valanciunas. It's Herb Jones, who I'm a huge fan of a lockdown sort of defender. When you can't really say that as much about guys like that, that term gets tossed around.

No, it comes up very, very frequently. When you talk about Jones, that is a whole team. It's not just the stars. And so that's legitimate. And then they also, there's a certain amount of continuity from last year. Nets have none of that, right? You, you, uh, you're, uh, they're trying to incorporate Simmons. They're still, they still don't have Curry, uh, right. So new was there. Like there's a, there's a whole bunch of stuff that's going to happen, have to happen for them to kind of jail and come together.

You have to talk to me a little bit more about them probably in late November, December before I'm saying, Hey, this is what the finished product is going to look like. Yeah. Look, um, I'm not going to bang on the nets. I think the nets are going to be really good as well. I'm not even going to point out that Ben Simmons had a triple single and fouled out in 23 minutes. Uh, good for, uh, he shot, he shot the ball three times.

He attempted three field goals. So, uh, good for, uh, good for Ben. Um, I know the Knicks lost in Memphis, but is there something to be pulled from that game? If you are a Knicks fan, I'm not, I'm people.

I don't care. Um, cam reddish had a big game for them. They got almost nothing out of RJ Barrett. He was better later, but cam reddish was huge for them.

Is there something to pull out? Uh, if you're a Knicks fan to be somewhat optimistic that they might not be terrible, there's plenty to point out one, this is on the road versus the team that other Memphis is legit. Like every, I think, I think everybody will across the board will tell you that they are a legitimate contender to come out of the West. So you go on the road first game and you play them, you fall down early. They were down double digits in the game.

Yes, they were at my time and they got all the way back in it. Julius Randall looked like his old self. Um, but well, I guess two years ago, his own self and, uh, Brunson, I had my, I had real questions about what kind of point guard without a, without a guy like Luca beside him, run this. And he showed me with non-assisted zero turnovers to say nothing of cam reddish. As we mentioned, I've been a fan of camera since he got drafted. I didn't understand why Atlanta dealt him for so little.

Uh, I didn't understand him not getting ticked last year. I'm hoping that somebody finally sees the stuff that I've seen sort of a crazy freaky athletic good shooter. Uh, can't seem to have enough of those on your team. Like the Knicks have a lot of really good stuff to look forward to.

I think I know it's not y'all I'm sorry. The Knicks fans should be pleased. Yeah, they should. Um, and they've got a lot of the same though. That's the only thing that, uh, that worries me is that they seem to have some redundancy, but, uh, cam reddish could be a game changer for them. Uh, we we've got no, well, let me, let me just close on this, uh, cause you and I haven't talked about the warriors.

How does this play out? They've got Curry under a long-term deal. They just signed Jordan pool.

Uh, the, uh, also known as the, the punching bag. Uh, they signed it. Well, I mean, they signed Andrew Wiggins, clay Thompson's under contract.

How do you think the Draymond green thing plays out in golden state? Well, I mean, I don't think that they, I don't think they've extended Wiggins yet. Maybe, maybe they did.

I believe they did. Okay. All right. Well then I missed it.

Well, yeah. I mean, it's, it's feeling a lot like in the reports already coming out that, that, that Draymond is, uh, that Draymond is out there. I, I w I'm trying to remember because I thought Wiggins was on his last year.

Cause I thought that was part of the motivational stuff that they were talking about. Like there was, there was a conversation about him getting his bag and if I, and if I missed it, that that is completely on me, but like, he's turned into their best defender. Um, and he's, and he, and he's such a two way player now. Uh, and there's, there's a confidence he, he got, uh, early on first half of that game of that Lakers game, he caught the ball early on in shot clock in transition pools, three bang, like no hesitation, Curry's on the floor, clays on the floor. And in situations prior, he might've held the ball, tried to figure some stuff out.

Nope. Went right up and pulled it and was trying back before the ball came out. And he was like, I'm trying back before it even dropped. Like the amount of confidence that he looks like a different player, but he was always extremely talented. This is a guy that had average 20 points a game, multiple times while he was with Minnesota. But now between having the championship between being their second best play player in that post-season run, there's a confidence to him now that it, that is, that is completely insane. I'm, I'm interested to see this golden States ascension or dissension from the championship throne will, will be based on their young guys.

It's going to be based on comminga and Wiseman and Moody. Those guys, are they going to get better? Cause we saw the, we saw pools ascension right out there. Pool will probably stay around the same. He had six more points per game last year.

I don't, I'm not expecting that sort of jump again. Maybe he's maybe gets a little bit better with the, with the, with a few more shot attempts or something like that, but I'm really interested to see who their young guys is going to be. Cause remember they lost Porter and they lost Peyton and those guys were intro integral parts of their championship run. So they weren't able to make some big free agent splash. And so are they going to be able with the roster that they have now to improve?

Because you mentioned some of the money constraints that they're going to have moving forward, that salary taxes comes for everybody eventually. And so they're, you know, it feels like greens last year there. And are the young guys going to be able to step up and step out when they need them to like they did last year? Well, it might not be greens last year there, if Draymond decides to opt into the 27 million for next year, which if I were Draymond green, I would opt in today on that because I Draymond's role on that team is diminishing to the point where now I think he's still an important player now. And I think if he's there next year, we'll have a role next year, but we are trending towards you.

Donna's Haslam territory for already. Yeah. I mean, I think we are. I think that's, I think part of his decline also has been, they've used them in a way that like, we talked about like running back, kind of running or running back into the ground, those death lineups of him having to play, you know, seven foot guys that are outweighing him. I think that, I think that has worn on him like physically over the course of it.

And I think that's part of the offensive decline that we've seen. The only reason I think that he wouldn't opt in and look 20 million sounds fantastic to me. Cause you know, 27 million, 27 million.

Yeah, I'm going to home coming down. I'm like, man, I could really use 27 million. But like he probably wants one more long-term deal. And if you wait even an extra year, that means you'll hit free agency after that.

And now what are we looking at? What kind of long-term deal kind of long-term money? If you don't opt in and get and get that long-term deal now a year earlier, how's that, how's that money going to play out? I don't know.

I don't know what the marketer bear. I don't know what these free, what that free agent class would look like, but I'm at least interested to see what he would think. And it's, you know, the Meyer had talked a little bit about, Hey, his destiny is in his own hands where to come to his future with us. That's not something you ever want to hear from your opponent. I mean, I think what they're saying is that Draymond can come back on the veteran minimum. That's what I think they're saying. They don't, they, they're not, they do, do not have financial room unless Klay Thompson is also gone.

And I think Klay, if he's healthy, I think Klay is back before Draymond is back. Brendan Whitted, my man at hucocel on Twitter. Thank you so much, man. I'll talk to you later. Absolutely. Have fun at homecoming. Oh yeah, absolutely. HU, you know.

Go bison. Oh, can I say one quick thing? I'm sorry. I forgot to mention. I didn't even realize you had Howard. You had a Howard shirt on. I got the Howard shirt on, uh, I'm hosting a, uh, HU, uh, game kickoff pregame show, um, from 11 to 1230 at, uh, the VIN on M M C row, uh, 2015 Massachusetts Avenue come through if you're in the DC area, but if not, you can also go to bison expresses YouTube page.

I'll be there live. Uh, you can hear me talk about college football, uh, which is a little bit different from the NBA, but it's still a whole bunch of fun. No question. All right, man. Go check him out. Good luck. Have, uh, again, go bison. I love it. See you, man.