Deandre Ayton Lands with the Lakers | Trail Blazers Playoff Chances with a Top 10 Defense

Deandre Ayton Lands with the Lakers | Trail Blazers Playoff Chances with a Top 10 Defense

In today’s show, DeAndre Aton signs with the Lakers because of course he does and why the Blazers having an elite defense could be the path to the postseason. Welcome to Locked On Blazers. Let’s get into it. You are Locked On Trailblazers, your daily Portland Trailblazers podcast. Part of the Locked On podcast network. your team every day. What’s up world? It’s your past first point guard and trailblazers reporter Mike Richmond. You are listening to another episode of Locked on Blazers, part of the Locked On podcast network, available wherever you get podcasts and also on YouTube. Thanks for making this show your first listen. Coming at you each and every weekday, Monday through Friday. So make it a part of your daily routine. Make it your first listen and tell your friends to do the same as locked on Blazers, your team every day. In today’s show, we’re talking about two things. DeAndre Aton’s tenure with the Blazers now officially over cuz he’s got a new team. It was officially over when they announced that they’d waved him, but he lands with the Lakers. I got some sort of final thoughts on the DeAndre Aiden era in Portland, uh, now that he is officially moved on to the place everyone knew he was going to move on to. Plus, I did some research about top 10 defenses over the last 5 years in the NBA because a Blazers path to success last year hinged on being a very good defense. And uh prompted by a comment on the on my YouTube channel, I wondered how often have teams that are just straight up good on defense, a top 10 defense in the league, metriculated to the playoffs. Uh I got some research on that I will share with you. It’s July. We’re crunching the numbers. We’re talking DA. Let’s get into it. Welcome to Locks on Blazers. Tell your friends about the program cuz listen listen, you’re not you’re not getting this anywhere else. I’m I’m proud to say it. Uh DeAndre signs with the Lakers. Duh. Duh. Um sometimes the stuff that everyone knows and speculates is going to happen happens because it’s obvious and it makes sense. The deal is reportedly for two years and $16.6 million. According to Jake Fischer of Bleach Report and the Stein Line, the second year is a player option. So DA is either going to um play himself into more money or he is going to make a little over 8 million bucks in each of the next two years. He basically gets the money back um that he gave that he that he gave up in his buyout. Um which makes you think maybe they had already a destination and a paycheck in mind. Uh there no one would ever set up free agency beforehands. Um listen, Aiden’s two seasons in Portland were dis were a disappointment. I don’t I don’t think you can paint it any other way. The majority of his tenure with the Trailblazers was bad. I know he had some bright moments at the end of each of his two seasons. Um a good stretch at the end of his first year after um after a very very rocky first 50 games, but a nice stretch at the end of the year in March and April to kind of close the season. Uh, and this season he had a very, very tough stretch to begin the year and then eight really good games and then he got hurt. Like he was mostly bad. Arguably the two worst seasons of his career came in Portland. Some of that is team context, but also just like he he wasn’t he wasn’t very good. Uh, I think that’s just like factually true. Um, although I’m surprised to think to learn just cruising the internet that many fans uh seem to remember it differently. He also didn’t play that much. Played 95 games. That’s about less than 60% of the games. And let’s be let’s be clear about what happened. Let’s put let’s let’s like let’s be honest about the situation. Very very very few of those were tanking because the first year he got hurt. Um and then he came back at the end of the season was finally able to play after he got out of the ice storm. And uh he he played down the stretch. While they were benching other veterans that he played down the stretch that year because he had missed so much time that they just wanted to see him play. Um and he leaves with a little bit of controversy. There was a story in the athletic uh written by Jason Quick about how uh the place was just like couldn’t put up with with some of the way that DeAndre Aiden was right. Uh tardiness to things and maybe um hard to deal with when he got punished for not playing hard during games like when his spirit was bad against the Jazz. um and just like um they just couldn’t they didn’t want to basically bring keep him around because they couldn’t handle it just the way he sort of the way he was off the courts and they didn’t balance it out with enough production on the courts to to to get it to balance it out um to make that like a fair trade. Um I can’t speak to all of that reporting. My read on on that is that DeAndre was pretty fairly wellliked in the locker room by his teammates. Um, you know, I I don’t spend a ton a ton of time at every single game, but I I I attend a bunch of the games. Um, and I’m in the locker room and like and and and um an observer and I talk to folks and um like uh my read on just being in the locker room is that he’s fairly wellliked by his teammates. Um you know, I I believe he has pretty close relationship with Dano Banton and Tumani Kamaro, but like I don’t think he is um I don’t think he’s everyone’s favorite person, but I think he’s fairly well-liked by his teammates. I think in general he is a person that they like. But like based on based on what happened to him and the the story that Quick wrote, um it it seems like he’s not particularly wellliked by other parts of the organization. So if you are kind of like reading between the lines here, I don’t think it’s like um you know Scoot Henderson, Tumani Kamar, and Denny Odia couldn’t handle with DeAndre’s antics. It’s like Chanty Phillips in the front office were like, “Yeah, maybe the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.” But even if you if you don’t believe any of that, right, and you actually think DeAndre was super chill and fun um because that’s how you want to remember him, right? Um he’s played for two teams and both of those teams have made concerted efforts to be out of the DeAndre Aiden business. Um obviously the Suns kind of botched the end of the DeAndre Aiden business by trading for your little Keon Johnson and Nerk Ysef Nerkage, but like the the package is kind of actually a separate entity from the judgment. The judgment was like they were strongly motivated to be to no longer employ DeAndre Aiden. They just kind of screwed up the exit package, right? Um and the Blazers were motivated to be out of the DeAndre Aiden business, too. 100%. 100%. Make no mistake. Um here’s a little media literacy for you. Uh it was reported by Shams Trannia of ESPN that Aiden quote uh that quote Aiden’s representaton’s representatives approached the Blazers about a buyout and wanting to play in a winning situation. Sources said that’s what what Shams wrote in his initial story. I believe that’s the second sentence of his initial story on ESPN. Then when DeAndre Aton signs with the Lakers, this is Sham’s tweet. DeAndre Aton has agreed to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers. sources tell ESPN between Portland and LA, Aiden will earn $34 million next season. And then he cites the uh DA’s two agents, including Bill Duffy. Um why are you framing it like he’s making $34 million? What does that mean? Who is that for? That’s for the agents that are at the end of the tweet, which kind of informs why the first part of his his his representatives approached the Blazers. Of course they did, cuz they were going to trade DeAndre Eaton. And if he gets a buyout, he gets to choose where he goes. He doesn’t just get sent somewhere to Siberia um or or wherever Nurmal Abu Dhabi like Nurmal. He doesn’t get Nurmled. He gets to choose. Of course, he approached the Blazers because he didn’t want to get he didn’t want to get shipped out of town. According to Michael Scott of Hoopsite, and I’m quoting here, Portland had trade discussions with several teams interested in DeAndre Aiden. However, the Trailblazers made it clear that they didn’t want to take on any multi-year contracts in return, which made it challenging to find contracts and players to match his $35 million salary. As speculated here a cajillion times on the podcast, the value of expiring contracts is taking back bad money from other teams unless the player’s good, right? But like when players have limited trade value, if you think that the the the fact that they’re on expiring contracts is a thing that pushes their value over the top, it just quite frankly is not. Look what Afrey Simons got traded for. someone who I think we all perceive having a very very limited trade value. They attached two seconds to him in order to acquire huge contract of 35year-old Drew Holiday. Um there was a lot of speculation that Drew Holiday on that contract had negative trade value and instead like the Blazers like they didn’t you know they didn’t get this juicy deal for expiring contracts. You do that again for DeAndre and you’re just taking back bad money. And to read it even closer between the lines they didn’t want Jared Vanderbilt. you call up and say, “Well, Jared Vanderbilt for three more years at 11 million bucks, that’s too much money. We don’t we like the Blazers just didn’t want money onto the books.” It because of the the trade packages that were available to him, it made sense just to wave him. Aiden’s representatives approached the Blazers about a buyout and Aiden wanting to play in a winning situation. I bet they did because that’s a better situation than getting Nurmled. All of that said, right, like I think both I think that it’s just it’s factually true with anyone with like just uh anyone willing to be media literate in our modern times, which is increasingly no one. Both teams that DeAndre has played for have got to the end of the DeAndre tenure and said, “We don’t want to do we don’t want to be in this business any longer.” All that said, I’d bet DA will be way better with the Lakers, at least statistically speaking. Um, like in terms of overall impact on a high level team that has like, you know, championship aspirations, which the Lakers always seem to pretend they do. Um, I don’t know about all that, but like I bet Da’s stats will be way better. I bet he’ll be much more efficient. I bet he’ll be a better pick and roll player because like in Portland, he never played with like a real actually talented pick and roll guard. Amphry Simons was supposed to be that but just never got there, right? He just like, “Oh, maybe he’ll blossom.” Never did. Never did. Just he didn’t. They gave him he had two seasons with like the full reigns and he just he never got there on that type of creation level and and and they didn’t have other players that were that type of um pick and roll so Luca Donic is a pick and roll soant. Um DeAndre from all that we’ve seen with him over the last um seven years of his career when he plays with really really high level pick and roll players Chris Paul uh to some extent Devin Booker he’s been great when with Phoenix he was a very very very good pick and roll big he was bad with with the Blazers some of that is team context right not the right type of creator not the shooters around him to give him space all of those things has limitations right he can’t really score off the dribble at all. He doesn’t space the floor. He’s not a passer. Doesn’t do stuff with the ball. But like, keep it simple for him. Create 17footers for him and let him roll to the rim. If you do that with the right type of spacing and like a highle pick and roll creator, he can be good. Like I I I think he’s a massive upgrade for the Lakers over Jackson Hayes. I like um will this end with the Lakers no longer wanting to be in the DeAndre business? Yeah. I mean, yeah, maybe. Right. Like that’s maybe how that works. But I think for them, this is a relatively lowrisk um low-risk, highreward signing. Um and and DA um has a chance to either play himself into more money uh with a good year in LA or he is a guy who is sort of um in the mid-level money and below range. Uh we will we will see how it works. Obviously, this year was a little bit different because um he’s getting paid because he’s he’s getting his money. So, it wasn’t uh and and he was like entering the market where there was no free agent money and all of that. But, um we we shall see what be what becomes of DA. And with that, we officially close the book on talking about DeAndre Aton’s Portland Trailb Blazers tenure. I want to talk about top 10 defenses because the Blazers had one to close last season. In fact, they had a top five defense. And I did a little research about what historically over the last five seasons, what that has meant for teams and their pursuit of the playoffs. Let’s talk about that cuz the Blazers are going to probably be a pretty good defensive team. The question is how good and if they are and if they are good, what does that even mean for him? Join me in that second segment. We will talk all about that to close the show. First though, let’s talk Monarch money. All right, so the Blazers closed out the final 41 games of the 2024 2025 season as a just a straightup good defensive team. um from January 19th on that’s game 41 into the future. Um they were third these these numbers every all the numbers I’m about to tell you for the remainder of the show come courtesy of cleaning the glass the indispensable stats website from Ben Faulk. Thank you Ben. uh from January 19th forward, final 41 games of the regular season, they had the third best defense in the NBA in terms of points per possession. Third best defense in the league. They went 23 and 18. They were 20th on offense during that same stretch, just uh in case you are curious. And they were like that was what fueled them, right? Um, you know, as I mentioned, Aiden played at the first, uh, he played eight eight games during that stretch before he got hurt with a calf injury. So, they played a bunch of that with with Donovan Klingan in the middle and and he kind of showed himself to be a formidable defensive player. There’s an obvious caveat here that these games in March and April are are considered the silly season in the NBA. and that if you look at sort of just like the Blazers general wins and losses, they didn’t really it’s they they they took care of business against um bad teams, right? They they beat the bad teams and when they played good teams, particularly good Western Conference teams, like playoff teams in the West, they did not have much success. Like I I understand the caveat. I watch the games. Like I I record a freaking podcast every single one of I I I I understand the minutia and and all the push back, right? But they were like they were good on defense. I think the question is twofold. How good how real is that? And with the addition of Drew Holiday and the sort of commitment to no DeAndre Aiden and like a lot more Donovan Klingan and um a little bit of more of of Hansen in there and a little more of Rob Williams in there. Um what does it look like? right? Like what what what what like where how good how good is this group because you would assume that even with Drew Holiday’s struggles as it his last season when he had a down year, he’s certainly a better defensive player than Afrey Simons and they barely had Matise Thyel last season. You’re going to put him in, you know, a former alldefense guy who is um even if he’s not like an alldefense level contributor over the last few years, he’s reres havoc on defense. So, like a lot more Thyball, a lot more Drew, no Anthony Simons. Um, DA was fine, but most of his stretch last year, the Blazers were pretty awful on defense. The first 41 games, they were a bottom six defense in the league. Um, they he was they the eight games he played though, they were rolling. He was he was good. He was good during that stretch and they were good during that stretch for sure. No doubt about it. Um, I want to cite myself here though on a March 19th episode of this very podcast. It’s a good thing about doing this all the time. Sometimes I can revisit things I talked about, but I mentioned like kind of how much of the Blazer success is real. That was like a a question, you know, as we got to the end of March, like how real is this, right? Heading into the final month of the season. Um, and I and I had mentioned in that particular program that part of the Blazers secret sauce was that teams were just missing three-pointers against them. And that’s only so much in your control. Uh, I think the smart people who do this suggest that um you almost have no effect. the the the the larger data says that you almost have no effect once uh once sort of the ball is in the air on three-pointers. I think you could quibble with that a little bit because sometimes you see a really good closeout um and not all threes are created equal, but in general because of the qu because of the way teams um hunt threes, because of spacing in in the league and because of uh players general comfort taking relatively contested threes and and I think we we can say like, oh that’s a good contest, but like for for for in the NBA the math maybe suggests that like doesn’t matter. Um, but if a the strength of your defense is built on teams missing threes, there’s probably a little bit of just luck in there. How much luck is maybe what you’re asking yourself. But, um, as I mentioned in the March 19th episode, the Blazers were just they were benefiting from this. And so, I went back and revisited those numbers. Um, from January 19th on, this is the second half of the season, the Blazers were seventh overall in defensive effective field goal percentage. EFG is uh a field goal percentage while understanding that three-pointers are worth 50% more than two-pointers. Um, it is is factoring the value of threes. Um, so they’re seventh overall in defensive effective field goal percentage. Very good, right? Limiting, making teams miss shots is a big part of defense. Um, but they were 15th in what Cleaning the Glass calls location effective field goal percentage. So that would be if teams shot the league average from the places you allow you allow them to shoot from or places where they take their shots. You don’t always allow, sometimes they earn uh the places where they take their shots based on the location of their shots. What would be the expected effective field goal percentage based on a league average shooter? Bl would drop to 15th. There’s some Jedi mind tricks there. Over the final 41 games, the Blazers were third overall in in uh in in opponent three-point defense. Opponents shot just 34.7% from three over the final 41 games. The league average during that stretch was 36 12, but they had crazy good luck in the corners. Team shot 33.7% from the corners. Blazes first by a mile on opponent in opponent three-point percentage from the corners. first by a mile. The league average on corner threes in the second half of the season was 39.4 and Blazers opponents shot under 34%. Those are the Jedi mind tricks. These are not the corner threes you’re looking for. Some of this is the Blazers do a good job of limiting shots. Um they allow during that same stretch the second fewest three-point attempts in the league. They pressure on the lines. They they they play um you know, watch them play. They play aggressive perimeter defense uh with headed by Tumani Kamar. They they try to limit threes. It’s part of their math, right? They’re not going to give up a ton of threes uh just in terms of attempts because they don’t give up a ton of threes. They do give up a ton of rim attempts. They’re 22nd in the league in rim attempts. But they defended the rim well. Fifth in effective field goal percentage of the rim. Run guys off the line, send them to Donovan Clling. And that’s the calculation, right? Maybe you’re not as lucky as you are for the regular season, but in terms of general process, the general process is pretty good, but I think it’s fair to say that if you aren’t can’t duplicate this type of like this is luck, this is shooting luck. Um, again, it’s the level of shooting luck might be, but when you’re first by a mile, the second best team in the league in terms of opponent three uh three corner three-point percentage during this uh same stretch was at 36%. The Blazers are under 34 by a mile, right? They’re just they’re just so much better than everyone else. This is shooting luck, right? Um you can probably good defenses probably do, you know, in general make uh teams take tougher shots. Uh but it’s you’re you’re not going to have that distinct advantage for an entire season or at least it shouldn’t be baked into the calculation because you know teams shoot threes, teams shoot a lot of threes and the smart people will tell you that um you you can only do so much. However, if you think that sure, okay, they were the third overall in defense the the second half of the season, but they’re still going to be good and they added better defensive personnel. What if I told you that having a top 10 defense over the last 5 years in the NBA is a strong indicator for making the playoffs? How strong? Join me in the third segment. I’ll tell you exactly how strong. Still a pass versus a point guard. Still Mike Richmond. You are still listening to Locked on Blazers. Since the 2021, excuse me, since the 2020 21 season, that was the 72game season that started in December of 2020. Uh with mostly no fans in the building uh until the end of the year, but that’s five seasons. Over the last five seasons, only six teams that have finished with a top 10 defense have missed the playoffs. That’s 50 teams. Five seasons of top 10 defenses. 50 teams. Six. Six of those have missed the playoffs. In 2021, the Golden State Warriors had a top five defense. Uh, and finished, excuse me, I might have said top five. Top 10 defenses. The 50 teams, top 10 defenses, 50 teams. Only six of them missed the playoffs. 2021, Golden State Warriors, top five defense, 21st in offense. They won 39. They went 39 and 33, finished nth, missed the playoffs. 2022 Cleveland Cavaliers sixth best defense in the league, 19th on offense. Yuck. They went 44 and 28, finished eighth, lost in the playin. That same year, the Clippers on the other side, seventh on defense, 24th on offense. Serious yuck. Bottom seven in the league on offense. 42 and 40. Paul George gets COVID. They miss the playin. Um, bummer. That was uh that was an important game for the Blazers and a and a protected lottery pick. Um 2023 New Orleans Pelicans sixth on defense but 18th on offense. They go 42 and 49th losing the playin. And in 2024 Houston Rockets seventh on defense but 20th on offense and a bottom 11 offense in the league. They go 441 and 41 11th. Those are six teams since the start of the 2020 2021 season. Just six teams have had a top 10 defense in the NBA and missed the playoffs. It is a strong indicator if the Blazers can like what that’s why I want to lay out all the caveats, right? I think the Blazers defense, there’s some smoke and mirror stuff, a little bit of Jedi mind trick stuff with the Blazer defense the second half of last season and they upgraded their defensive personnel. So, it’s like you say, okay, a little bit of a little bit of like, yeah, dudes teams are going to make more shots, but also we have more guys that can make getting shots off harder. Like there’s some given there’s some give and take there, right? Um, so like whether the Blazers can be a top 10 defense for an entire season remains to be seen. Uh, it’s going to be it’s going to be tough, right? That those are that’s an indicator for really good teams. Uh, but if they are, there is a very very strong indicator that that if you have a top 10 defense, you make the playoffs. However, there’s 44 teams with top 10 defenses over the last five seasons that have made the playoffs. And the vast majority of those have also featured above average offenses. 29 of 44 teams that made the playoffs with a top 10 defense over the last five seasons also had a league average offense or better cuz good teams are good. Like I I I think like just saying like, hey, top 10 defense, you mostly make it. Yeah. But like some of the teams are are are like the Thunder this year. They’re just like elite on both sides of the of the court. like uh when the the Celtics in their championship season were first and third in offense in defense and offense. Like they’re just like that I think is is maybe an unfair way to measure the Blazers because they also got worse on offense probably, right? Like switching from for all of DeAndre Aiden’s flaws, certainly a better offensive player than than than Donovan Klingan like by a lot, right? Um, for all of Afrey Simon’s flaws, he brings more in terms of individual offensive creation than Drew Holiday does. Um, just like the way they take threes, Simon’s comfortable taking them off the dribble. Drew Holiday can take, you know, some off the dribble, but he’s mostly a catch-and shoot guy. Like that that’s that’s he’s mostly an offball guy in terms of shooting threes, and he just doesn’t get them up at the same volume and certainly not the same difficulty as Afrey Simons. Like the Blazers were a bad offensive team for the majority of last season. All of it taken as a whole 20th in the when even when during their good stretch when they went 23 and 18 still 20th on offense and they probably got worse as a shooting team this year right so I think comparing them and saying like okay top 10 defense is a ticket it’s like nah call it the 2025 Miami Heat warning over the last five seasons the Miami Heat last year were one of just 15 teams to um make the playoffs with a below average uh offense and a top 10 defense. Miami last year went 37 and 45 and finished 11th in the East and then won two playin games to make the playoffs. So that’s more of an outlier situation, right? Um it is it is most of the teams that make the playoffs. This is this is crazy. This I’m going to blow your mind with this to close the show. Most of the teams that make the playoffs are above average on both offense and defense and usually ve very good at one of them, one of the top 10 teams, right? Like one of the the top third of the league. So, I I think several things and this was prompted by a you an interesting YouTube comment um uh like saying like, you know, if the Blaze are good on defense, you might think that they can make the playoffs. I I think there’s a path, right? Because I think it is a has been a strong indicator over the last five seasons that being good on defense gets you a puncher chance, right? Because even the teams um that have had a top 10 defense and and missed the playoffs, the Warriors were ninth the the in 2021. In 2022, both Cleveland and and uh the Clippers finished eighth. Again, New Orleans finished ninth, Houston finished 11th, but they were 41 and 41 in a year where the teams that made the playin won 48 games when the West was just balling in 2024. So, I think several things here as a takeaway. one, being really good on defense is such a good foundational start to being a good competitive team. And I think the Blazers have enough good defensive personnel just to be miserable to play against on a lot of nights to be able to put out some really killer defensive lineups and then a lot of lineups where you just don’t know how they will score. But for the most part, you you know, less than a third of the teams that have had below average, you know, uh, you know, of the 50 teams with with top 10 defenses over the last, obviously, they have to get to that threshold for this to matter, right? They have to be a top 10 defense in the league for the year. But, you know, less than a third of those teams have made the playoffs and also sported a below average offense. And the idea that the Blazers are going to suddenly have an above average offense this season seems wild to me. So, you’re really talking about a relative long shot if they were to get in there and um like a a a play in at least a playin game, if not two, to make it. And what I didn’t drill down on super hard here is um is east versus west, right? Um, it is it is undeniable that of the six teams and a team I haven’t mentioned anytime when I’ve run through this is the 2023 Chicago Bulls who were uh had the fifth best def defense in the league, 24th on offense, went 40 and 42, finished 10th in the East. Sorry, missed them every single time I read through my list. But of those six teams, four of them are in the West. I think Houston in 2024 is probably the closest parallel, right? Where you think like they might be awesome on defense this year. And Houston was awesome on defense, right? Seventh, but they weren’t good enough on offense to make up for it, but they were competitive, right? 41 to 41. This is a competitive team. I think you can see like if you’re thinking like the high-end outcomes for the Blazers, that seems like the reasonable correlary. But the West can be hard because there’s going to be 13 teams that are vying for 10 playin spots, 10 postseason spots. And then even if you get to 10th, you still have to win a couple games to finish eighth and your reward is probably like playing the Thunder in the playoffs, right? Like um certainly the Blazers would be an achievement. We can argue like much much later not in early July about what what like if they should or should not make the playoffs. That’s for another time. Um but if you are indeed like rooting for them to be successful, the foundation is that they’re good on defense. There’s some indicators to suggest they might be a darn good defensive team. Although they’re going to have to overcome some Jedi mind tricks. And if they are a darn good defensive team, the history the recent history of the league suggests good defensive teams have a have a strong chance of being a playoff team. Albeit the exceptions for teams that miss it when they do have a top 10 defense are teams that are below average on offense. 21, 19, 24, 18, 20, and 24. Those are the offensive ratings of the six teams that have missed the playoffs with top 10 defenses. So maybe the threshold is something like 16. A slightly below average offense, right? A slightly below average offense. We’ll get the Blazers their path there. Okay, that’s going to do it for today’s show. Uh programming notes. I’m going on a little vacation over uh the July 4th weekend to celebrate a birthday in my household um and also take a little bit of time off during a federal holiday. Um so no no podcast coming for you on uh on on July 4th. um or um so you will you know this this is in your feeds. This is Thursday’s show um July 3rd. There’s not going to be one on July 4th, but I will be back next week with five more shows. Um if this isn’t one of those situations where if something big happens, I’ll pop on. If something big happens, you’ll hear from me Sunday. Uh I I assume the Drew trade will be official, so we’ll probably talk about that or whatever else happens in the league. Um come back for more shows next week. Uh, enjoy your time off if you do indeed get it. Uh, if you don’t, uh, enjoy whatever you can. Uh, life’s hard. I appreciate you listening. Tell your friends about the show. I will talk to you soon.

Deandre Ayton heads to LA because of course he does. We close the book on his Portland tenure. Plus, a look at the recent history of Top 10 defenses and making the NBA playoffs.

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