Pacers, Wizards did was what expected this season

Kenny Beecham names teams that successfully tanked this season based on their preseason expectations such as the Washington Wizards, Brooklyn Nets and Indiana Pacers.

Video Transcript

Let’s start off with they knew what they were doing and they succeeded.

These are the Brooklyn Nets, the Washington Wizards, the Indiana Pacers, and the Utah Jazz.

Before the season started, these are four teams that we all believed were going to be towards the bottom of the standings and we were right.

Now, I know that the Pacers over under was, I think about 40.

Like, so there were people that believed that the Pacers team, even without Myles Turner who went on to the Milwaukee Bucks, or without Tyrese Haliburton who went on to rehab, rehabbing that Achilles injury, some people did believe that they would be able to still sustain at least a decent enough team.

I was not one of them people.

I, I was right about that.

I, I thought that them and the Boston Celtics were gonna take this as a gap year as you’ll see later in the episode.

The Boston Celtics are on a whole different tier almost by themselves.

but yeah, I didn’t see this Pacers team as a team that was gonna go out there and be hypercompetitive without, you know, their star player.

And it just made sense in my mind for those two teams to take a step back.

And, but as we know, you know, Tatum comes back from his injury, Jaylen Brown plays as an All NBA first team caliber, so there’s no center for them.

and, but in that, in that time it was like, “Hey, this is the only year, one of the only years they have their own first round pick, so let’s go for it a little bit.”

To AJ D’Mont is in the draft and I’m pretty sure he’s a diehard Celtics fan, so maybe they could do it.

No, no, no.

They said, “One timeline maybe we still competing for championships,” but the Pacers didn’t have that in mind.

The Pacers are a team that very rarely picks in the lottery, so if we gonna have our star player be out and take this whole year to rehab, we’re gonna lose a center and we’re gonna replace him with a replacement level center which I’ve said before not having a center, a competent center or like a good center is a sneaky way, a very sneaky way to tank.

Like any team that doesn’t have a center that you see as a starter caliber expect that team to lose a bunch of games ’cause the center position is such an important position specifically on the defensive side of the ball.

So the Pacers bring in, you know, Jay Huff who had a pretty solid season in Memphis before that but not enough for us to think that he was an NBA starter caliber player and that was kind of it, so they were just gonna makeshift the center position.

And obviously they started off the season with other injuries to other guys, so it made sense for them to take a step back.

Eventually they traded parts of the 2026 pick, so we’ll see where they land in that lottery and all.

But them, the Wizards had their idea of what to do this season.

Obviously halfway through the season they saw some really buy low case and they went out to go get Trae Young and Anthony Davis and Trae Young played a handful of games while AD is still going through his stuff.

But there was, there was something that made me wanna go back to watch a bunch of Washington Wizards over the past week.

Will Riley just the other day had another, like a 30-point game and I’m like, “Okay, I gotta, I gotta really dive in.”

And they got a very intriguing team, man.

The only one of the big caveats with this team is like overall health between, you know, Trae Young hopefully when he comes back next season can play 82 but who knows?

And then Anthony Davis has always had this attached to his name, so it’s like them staying healthy is really important but they just have some really good young intriguing players.

I watched Will Riley a lot last year at Illinois, and he was the high-highest, I don’t know, highest Canadian recruit I think that’s what he was, came to Illinois.

He looked w- looked decent but he’s thin framed, super young and the last month or so Will Riley has showed you a lot that makes you feel like he is like a real true ‘Cause they got a lot of young players.

You have to figure out which one of these players is a core piece versus like they cool for now but maybe not something we care about.

Will Riley has easily jumped into like, “Oh yeah, this guy’s a part of that young core,” ’cause he’s, he’s pretty good off the bounce.

His catch and shoot numbers are pretty solid and I think you gotta, you’re gonna have to need that when you have Trae Young as your initiator.

I’m just, I’m excited to see what Will Riley could turn into basically is what I’m saying.

So between him, Trey Johnson who we know is just gonna be elite level shooter for the majority of his career, Alex Sarr who had a great breakout year too.

It, it goes on and on.

I’m excited for them.

I don’t know, it’s still, still too early for me to say this is a 45 to 50 win team.

Ask me again in a couple months when I, I really think about it.

next we got the Brooklyn Nets who Joe Tsai came into the season the owner, he said, “Hey man, this is the only year we have our own pick so any season ticket holders…” This is not him, this is me.

“Any season ticket holders from Brooklyn Nets you might wanna just put them up on, StubHub or SeatGeek ’cause this is not a year you wanna watch because we’re not gonna be in there looking real good.”

Now they’re not incentivized next year to lose ’cause they have a pick swap with the Houston Rockets so I’m excited to see what their off-season looks like but they wanted to have a top pick and they were undoubtedly are gonna have one of the top, what?

Six picks I think is the lowest they can drop so that’s pretty fun.

And then the last team the Utah Jazz another team like the Washington Wizards that went on to, you know, buy.

Jarren Jackson Jr. is on the team and a lot of these younger guys, I don’t know may-maybe that is the silver lining between watching a really good team go against a really bad team is that a lot of the time that really bad team is playing younger guys.

So like you watch the Utah Jazz you say, “Oh Cody Williams is kinda popping off the screen a little bit.”

a lot of mid-range jump shots a lot of them but like he’s popping off the screen a little bit.

He’s getting down hill, he’s finishing at the basket which I think is pretty interesting stuff.

Bryce Sensabaugh one of my favorite guys coming into this year for the last month he’s averaging 20 and I don’t, I don’t know, I, probably not.

It’s probably not likely that Bryce Sensabaugh is a starter player for this Utah Jazz team next year but like for him to be able to score like that as a sixth or seventh man next year and Cody Williams if he continues to go the path that he is going down they have a pretty intriguing team.

Kiante like I’ve mentioned before there’s a ton of pressure on Kiante to be a good initiator and passer ’cause there’s not a lot of play making in this potential starting unit but Kiante, Ace, Lowry, Jarren and Walker Kessler when he eventually comes back that’s, that’s sneaky interesting.

And then off the bench you still got Filipowski who’s g- like straight up just a good ball player but just won’t play fourth quarters because they’re trying to lose basketball games.

Filipowski, Bryce Sensabaugh, Isaiah Collier who’s a, a like a kind of a throwback point guard in the way where his passing ability I don’t know man.

Are we buying a little bit of the, of the Utah Jazz?

I’m really excited because them and the Wizards have told us based on their actions that this is their last year tanking which is smart because tanking may not be a thing anymore in the next years-

Pacers, Wizards did was what expected this season

Tags: