 Oh, he is back host of the Through the Wire podcast, the Kenny Beecham podcast, a basketball guru. Kenny, first of all, happy holidays to you. We're just going to jump right in because there was so much to watch yesterday. So right off the bat, your takeaway of the Christmas games. It didn't hit the same this year. I don't know why maybe because maybe because it wasn't all basketball. You know, I have a household that have football lovers. So now we got the split screen so I couldn't really dive in as much as I want to. I'm always a fan of the year. Maybe it was the lack of jerseys or whatever. But it wasn't as good as I remember. You know what? I agree with you. We were talking about that during the break. Like there was just almost too much, dare I say, to watch. I know that sounds un-American. The Warriors are five and two since Draymond got suspended. And we talked about it a little bit in the first segment, whether or not he's part of the long term plans moving forward. If it's you, where are you leaning on this? It's hard to really say. I think a lot of things that might happen with the front office has to do with Steph Curry. And Steph Curry is a very unique star in a sense that he isn't a player that, from our knowledge, has added a bunch of pressure to his front office traditionally. Because that team, as long as they've been healthy, has been really successful, right? We see Bron. We see, I guess, Kevin Durant. We see Giannis add a pressure to their front offices to make adjustments, make trades, to make their team better. And with Steph Curry being 35, 36 years old, we don't know how many more years we have of Steph Curry playing as great as he is right now. So I would want him to add the pressure. And the way some of the young guys are hooping right now, some of that pressure might be, hey, maybe we don't need Draymond as much now as we did two years ago or five years ago when we last won our championships. I agree with you, Kenny. Moving on to the Lakers, they've been struggling to say the least ever since this season tournament championship. They've benched D-Lo. If there's one move that you'd like to see them make, what would that be? They need another, I mean, I guess Bucket get them. And I'm not just saying that because the Chicago Bulls have Zach Levine in the market and I'm looking forward to him moving to his next team. It's not what I'm saying that, but when I watched his team play, they have a couple different identities. And I was a guy that was high on him coming to the season because I saw what they did at the second half of last year, how they clamped up defensively and let the offense kind of work. Well, now I know they've dealt with a bunch of injuries between like Vanderbilt or Gabe Vincent, but the defense is not holding as well this year and the offense hasn't been there. Like when they have like Vanderbilt on the team or on the court, their defense is stellar, but now we can guard LeBron a little bit easier and Anthony Dave's a little bit easier because Vanderbilt isn't much of a threat. I want to see them make some adjustments. And again, I was a guy that was really high on their offseason. I had them in my contention list. And right now I'm kind of hesitant to say that 30 games into the season. What about, you know, there's always going to be the first thing is low. Let's look at the coach. Is Darwin Ham safe? No, no, it no LeBron coach is really safe after the first season. It's just the way it works. Should he be safe? It's hard to really say. I know a bunch of Laker fans that that are in my personal life that hate his rotations that, you know, and I kind of like the idea of him switching it up, having D'Angelo Ross come off the bench, having also Reese come off the bench eventually. But I guess I'm not really into Laker fandom enough to say like, Oh, he's he's the problem. But LeBron teams, you usually got like a 18 month window, and then you can get on the hot seat. Can you let me ask you this, you once said that you felt like the Celtics were the best team in basketball. What makes this team different than the teams in the past better equipped to win a championship? I think they also have a bunch of different identities where so far they're 23 and six, they've had a bunch of games where Porzingis wasn't there, we've seen some games with your holiday miss, we've seen their white Miss games, and they've always been able to really put it together. They have the best top six in all the basketball. And when I think about playoff time, and I think about them being healthy, because that's obviously a big thing. There's not going to be a team that can match the versatility where there's not many big second play the defense that they can guard Chris Saspers-Zegas when he's 30 feet away from the rim and simultaneously protect the rim. When we saw that last night, where they were really able to just have a bunch of players contribute, we had a whole stretch where it was Peyton Pritchard dropping 10 straight points. When he's cut him backdoor or LeBron James in the next play coming down and pulling up for three, they just have so many different options and we haven't even seen the best version of Jason Tatum just like he's been great. Don't get me wrong, but like we've seen better versions of him last season. I feel like he's still trying to adjust to having five other players on the court that can create for themselves and create for others. So this team just has it all and they still have a $6.2 million trade exception because of the Grand Williams deal. So they still have room to add maybe the eighth man because I really do like Sam Houser and Peyton Pritchard as far as the playoff rotation, but like an eighth man that can really put it all together. The eighth man, like there have been some hot starts so far this season. It's been fun to watch. If you had to pick one, who are you giving that award to? It is the Boston Celtics. It is the Boston Celtics. They have had the, I think, third hardest schedule all the basketball in the game. We're sitting at 30 games to the season basically with only six losses and it's only going to get easier as time goes on. Again, health is a big part with them when you think about the players that are on their roster with the older guys and like Al Horford or Porzingis who struggled to stay healthy over the last five seasons or so, but that team feels in my eyes right now, unbeatable in a seven game series based on the competition. So if you had to pick the hottest player start, is that person coming from the Celtics? I'm sorry, say that again. If you had to pick the hottest start for an individual player, are you picking anyone from the Celtics or is that someone else altogether? That's probably someone else and it feels bad saying this right now because he just had his worst game in the season last night, but I might say Terry's maxi as the hottest start to the season. I wanted him to go on national TV and just have a great game in front of the national audience. And of course, he didn't do that, but I think his leap is the reason why the 76ers are still as good as they are this year versus last year when they had James Harden. Now, he's not the best player on that team. I know I know he's not. Hey, Joel and beat is my MVP right now. But having a good number two goes a long way and Terry's maxi is that. All right. All right. I get it. Hot starts, Lou. Hot starts. Yeah. Kenny, everyone was everyone was ready to run them through the mud and write them off why they make this trade for James Harden. And they've lost their last two without Kawhi Lair. They're now 17 and 12, fifth in the West. Are they real? Is this a contender? It's a question that I've been wrestling with during their win streak. There is a stat that they put up on the broadcast a couple of games ago that when when Kawhi Leonard scores over 30 points in his Clippers tenure, they win 82 percent of games. And we just saw him for for three weeks, average 30 points. So if we get in that version of Kawhi and we saw him in the playoffs last year before he got injured, then I would say yes. But we also haven't seen Kawhi play this much basketball early into the season. I don't know what he looks like at the end of it. I don't know how resty he will be for the playoffs. Right now, I'm still very hesitant to say contender. But if they are a contender, they're very close to it right now. So I switched pace with you. Timberwolves, best team in the West. Are they title contenders? Or do you think this is just regular season success? I got a lot of love for Anthony Edwards. I got a lot of love for Rudy Gobiar as a rim protector. It's so they've had a schedule where they've gone against teams and a lot of the teams they've gone against or missing their best player. They have a win against the Heat without Jimmy Butler. They had a win against this team without their best player. So I'm not saying that their 22 and six star is fraudulent. But I do want to see them play against the best teams with the best players playing before I really say that their defense is really good. This is really going to be a testament to who Rudy Gobiar is because we've seen him in the playoffs before half series where he really struggled. But now he has other pieces around him that can can help him anchor that defense where you have Jada McDaniels and Anthony Edwards who don't give up defensively. Are they are they contenders? I'm going to say I'm going to say yes. What? But if they didn't, if they didn't end up doing it, I'm not really upset about it. You think this is a contender? Who do you like out of the West, then? Well, I'm still I'm still Denver Nuggets until they show me otherwise. I know Yolkich hasn't had the same start to the season. He normally does. But I talked to Michael Porter, Jr. He admits that they have the championship hangover right now. I'm sure by April, when things matter the most, it'll be all gone. So I still them have them as my favorite out West. But it's wide open, though. It's not like they're world leaders. They're not destroying every team that they go against. But I still give them the benefit of the doubt right now. All right, let's talk a little grisly is obviously John Morant is back. And since then, they've won all three games. I mean, the hole that they've dug for themselves is obviously very deep. Can they still make the playoffs? Yeah, because we have some teams out West that are not competitive at all. We have like the Spurs. We have the inside chairs where they can just they can just jump up them really easily. And they're playing a different brand of basketball. Well, I guess it's the same brand that we saw last year when John was healthy, but a new brand compared to before he was healthy. Well, I do believe that they could win at a pace of about 50 wins. And that will put them in like a play in range. I mean, I don't know that I'm not saying they're finishing the season 50, but I'm saying it from the point. John got there until the end of season of 51 pace. And they will put them like at the seventh seed. And we've seen them go into a play and game before in the genre era and win game. So I think that they could still make it happen. There are some teams out there that are really taking a step up like the Houston Rockets that we don't know for sure if the Rockets are going to be a team that can hold on for a full season. So I would give the Grizzlies a benefit of the doubt. It's going to take a lot for that team to climb uphill. You know, they basically got to win 85 to 90 percent of their games. They got to play perfect basketball, but they have one of the top point guards to do it. What is what does John rank in your list of point guards so far? Man, what is he ranked? So last time I was here, we were talking about point guards, and we didn't mention John Rank, because he didn't play. I mean, when you look at the first his first game back versus the Pelicans, that was like a storybook movie type stuff, like coming back and hitting the game winner. I put in up 30 points. He's he's comfortably in my top five. I don't know if he's comfortably in top three, though. So maybe maybe maybe four or five, maybe four or five. Why are you laughing, Jaylor? Like that's because I've been drinking the juice on the Jalen Brunson's, the Tyrese Halliburton, the Tyrese Maxies and now John Moran's back. And I feel like I feel like it's Steph, Luca, and then I feel like it's John Moran. Like he's I feel like he's that he's the next one up, which is crazy, though. We have so many nuts. Kenny Zion seems like he's always taken all this crazy criticism, what is his work ethic, his weight and hurt, whatever it is. Do you think some of that, all of that, none of that is warranted? I think some of it is. I think I get a little bit too personal for my liking, but it's only thing I do is compare Zion to Zion, right? The best version of Zion a couple of years ago, where he was averaging 28 on 60 percent shooting and he was missing shot to get in his own rebounds. That's the version of Zion I want. I'm not comparing him to this fictional version of him that was supposed to be the next LeBron James, whatever they said after his rookie season or whatever. If we could get him back to that version again, I know it's a stretch because stuff he is going to be one of the top ten players, but we haven't got that. And the Pelicans are a team that have the depth to be really, really good, but they need their 1A to be a 1A every single night. And there's too many times I'm watching close games of the Pelicans and he's just sitting in the dunker spot where he's not really involved in the actions. And he had been involved in the actions through the first three and a half quarters. And I think that's something to happen in that jammer at return game. We kind of just waited around and let Brandon Ingram do his thing and B.I. is a killer in himself, but having both of those dudes be really good options offensively can go a long way. So I think it's somewhat warranted, but it has been overdone at this point. I like that. It does feel personal at times. Let's talk Cleveland for a second here. They're 17 and 13. And something bad is in the water injury wise because now you got Evan Mobley, Darius Garland. The Donovan Mitchell stuff, it will never quiet, right? But at this point, if you're the Cavs, are you really entertaining the idea of maybe trying to move Mitchell and make a change? I would say yes, because all we've heard since he got to Cleveland is that one day he wants to play for New York. He obviously is going to be done with this contract relatively soon. I think he's got another season after this and then player option at the end of it. And if we believe that that's the case, then this is the time to get the most value. I feel like in the league, we get so many organizations that tell themselves that we can convince them to stay. And then we get to the point where he's got three months left of his contract and then we're trying to trade him and we don't get the same value back. I mean, I think it was a worthy shot to trade for him, but I think the core and the version of them that's going to compete for championships have to do with Darius Garland and Evan Mobley hitting their next steps. And I think they might have just increased the timeline a little bit too fast for me. And I just saw Craig Porter Jr. act like Andre Miller against the Bulls the other night. I think they'll be fine. They'll be fine if they make that trade and they'll get back pieces that can improve their depth and they'll be all right. Okay, okay, so Cleveland's fine. Then let's concentrate on the next side of things because now it looks like Mitchell Robinson's out for the season, that's a big loss. If they were in fact to figure out a way to bring Donovan Mitchell over, talk to me about who you move and what does that look like on the court? I think that the Trey, so the Knicks have a bunch of different draft capital picks which obviously will go a very long way because the Cavs already traded three to get Donovan Mitchell into the door. So I don't know the exact number, but some Trey pieces and draft capital, probably like RJ and then whether it's quickly or Grimes who's already been relegated to the bench. It's something like that. Again, I'm not a GM. Shams will probably do a way better than me telling me what the noise is. But I have, my closest friend is a Knicks fan and he loves Donovan Mitchell, but he also loves Jalen Brunson. And he is a guy that's like, if the Trey happens, I'm cool, but if it doesn't happen, I'm cool too because though he didn't go full Becky Hammond, he does believe that having two 6-2 point guards as your back court, it'll be a little bit tough to win a championship that way. But if Donovan is saying he wants to come to the team, I think Leon Rose has to do what he can do to make it happen because it's only so often that you can get a guy of that caliber in the locker room and then you figure out the rest later. Well said, your Bulls, they've been kind of sneakily playing pretty good lately without Zach Levine. They're waiting for us since he's went to, you know, on an active list here. What's going on here? Do they move them? Do they roll with this team? What we got? I think that they should still be trying to move them. Obviously all of the rumors that the market isn't as great as the Bulls kind of anticipated, but I'm loving having Kobe White with the ball in his hands. We saw this towards the end of last season where he did look really good the second half and then the first 10 or so games here in Chicago, I mean, he was shooting very poorly and I was just like, that's not him. Now he's also not the player that's gonna shoot 60% from the field, 50% from three and 97% from the free throw line, but he has been really good and this team has a new, I guess flair to him. We set our record for most assists in a single game a couple of times since Zach Levine injury. So I would still be looking to move him. When he gets to the point where he is healthy, it's gonna be an interesting conversation to figure out what do they do because again, the team has been rolling and they were awful when he was playing. Maybe we get him buying back in. I don't really know. I'm kind of enjoying the good vibes. This was a team that I had no plan to drive into the United center to watch and I've been to three games since Zach Levine has been out so it's been really nice. Now for Zach Levine fans. Three. Where should Zach Levine go? Following that? Well, there was a year where the All Star Game was here in Chicago in 2020 and Zach Levine was doing his thing and doing his media run. And then he went on TV and said, I would love to play with a player like LeBron James in a defensive anchor like Anthony Davis. He said that and then Bulls fans, everything caught on fire because he was up for an extension soon. We were like, no, he's leaving to LA. He's leaving to LA. And obviously that didn't happen but I know that they got connections with his agent in the Los Angeles Lakers. For him, he probably loved LA but again, we don't know if LA would really, they would have to trade a bunch to make it happen because we're talking about a $40 million contract. So I think that's the best place for him for the Lakers, maybe not so much. Kenny, let me ask you this. You were at the game. You said you're starting to like go into the games but you were there when Yelchich was ejected. Do you feel like this season, the referees doing a little too much? You think they're exerting their power in the games too much this season? I think so. And I guess it's hard to quantify really but just the eye test just says, we've seen some really tough ejection so far whether it be Yelchich or I guess Tatum had won this season. Jaylen Brown also had won this season where it felt like the actual result of the technical or the ejection wasn't really warranted. I think that Nicole Yelchich didn't even get a warning before. It was just two texts immediately and you're out the door and it happened to be a game where it wasn't Serbian heritage night but there was a large Serbian population in the United Center for the people that don't know. Outside of Serbia, Chicago has the most amount of Serbian like the biggest Serbian population. So anytime Yelchich is in town everybody's there to see Yelchich. I was there to see Yelchich and he only played like 12 minutes and I was really upset about it. So there has been a power dynamic where there are players that don't have as much of a leash as far as what they can and can't get away with and other players like Yelchich has to have a shorter leash and when you're talking about one of the top players in basketball we don't wanna see him eject it without a warning. Give him a technical for the words that he said and let's go back to basketball. Luckily for them, the Nugget still pulled out that win but for the fans, I saw a lady that literally walked out of the United Center when Yelchich got ejected. Like that's not a story, that's the real life. So for us fans, when you think about all of the people that are buying ticket cities games, it's just too much. Did you real quick, did you boo? And then I'll ask you my real question. Yes, yes. I just wanna make sure that you were booing. That's important to me, Kenny, that you boo. All right, Pistons, it's 26 straight games right now. Here's the next, so I think five games. Net Celtics Raptors Rockets Jazz. Can this thing go 31? It definitely can, it definitely can. So I, there was a night where there was seven games of basketball in the one game that I watched was Jazz versus Clippers. No Larry marketing, no Keontae George, no Jordan Clarkson. I was like, if history is gonna stop, it's this game. And they lost that game by double digits. This team has no business being as bad. When I look at the roster, they have talented pieces, right? This is not a team that looks like 26 straight losses but we might get to 30. And- Oh God. History is history, I'm here for it. I mean, maybe there's- He's measuring all things, thanks. Yeah, what's it like in the locker room? It is, but that's like, that's damn near two months of just straight Ls. Like, that's hard to do. What would you guys do? Would you fight with each other? Like, what happened? I can't imagine the practice facility right now. Oh. No, it's just deep quiet in the practice facility. Surprise, there's no stories coming to blows or alterations, because at some point there's gotta, as a man, you gotta, enough's enough, right? Like, Kenny, if you're in that locker room, you're in the front, what do you, what do you do? Do you try and get better players? Is it just that simple? And is it, what, it's bad? At this point, nobody is safe. You cannot go 26 straight losses on the fourth year of your rebuild. Like, they blew it up four years ago. And this is what we got, you know? There has to be something. Obviously I've never been in a high level locker room like you two, but from my days of high school hoops, we lost three in a row and I was ready to call it quits. So I can't imagine 26 in a row. And their coach has an absolute bag too. Is there any fire on their coach? Well, I mean, maybe, can you forfeit the season and then just write it off as a lost tax wise? So that's how to write off? So the season's forfeited already. Oh, that's a great point. Kenny, love having you on. Can't wait till the next time you're here. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you everyone.