We're back. We're back. I'm Drew. That's Marchman and Marchman. We have a special guest today. We have someone outside the Gizmodo Media Group Empire.

Although I'm not that far outside of it. It's the one and only. The blogger who never blogged it's Kyle Wagner say hi Kyle

hey guys I actually just blogged you're catching me on the day I put up my blog for the week

that is amazing that is amazing giving your your prodigious blogging abilities I expect

anytime I ask you a fun bad question today we'll take you nine days to formulate an answer to

each question so this could be an exciting podcast Wagner Wagner. It's going to be really, really good. Now, Wagner, the reason we have you on is so you can pimp whatever shit-ass podcast you happen to be on. And I believe yours is called the Lab from 538. Is that correct? Yes, it is. All right. Do I need to know anything else about it? It's you and Chris Herring and Neil Payne and you issue NBA takes. Is that correct? Yep. We just talk about, you know, what's going on in the league. We'll usually focus on one team, one player, one trend that's going on in the league and, you know, take apart, you know, the way that it's working, why it's working, why it's not.

Kyle, what's up with the 75% shooting that Janus is doing from the paint? NBA expert. Is that what we're doing? We're just hopping right in? Yeah. All right. I mean, he's just really good. And he's a ridiculous finisher already. He already was that last year. but what he can do now is like he came into the season and his kind of like Steph in the 2015-16 season where he just went nuclear to start the season and everyone's like what's changed. Like to me watching him, his handle is just tighter. It just, it looks better like he can just get to different spots on the floor without having to wait for a pass. We can just, you know, he's kind of like a big man. Like he's whatever, 6-11, whatever the hell he's grown into.

And so he can just dribble himself with like a point guard handle into the paint, into like

the high post and just take an easy shot over like his whatever, 6-8 defender.

So that is he good enough and is he making that team good enough, where I can actually see a scenario where there's not a Cavs Warriors final? Oh, yeah. I mean, the Cavs are terrible right now. And, like, depending on what happens with Isaiah, like, there is a good chance they're going to remain, well, maybe not this bad, but like pretty bad.

How much of the Cavs problem do you think is structural? And is it just that putting Kevin Love

at center or having to have Tristan Thompson playing full center minutes is just inherently disastrous?

No, man. Like it's not like, I mean, it doesn't really matter what you do with those two. I mean, like, yes, they need to be, you can rearrange the kind of what they're doing. Sure, but that's just deck chairs, man. Like, Kyrie Irving was replaced with Dwayne Wade and Derek Rose. Like, what did you think was going to happen here? So you think that their problems are not, it's not just standard, because I've, I've seen this movie before. I've done the whole, oh, what's wrong with the Cavaliers in fucking October? Right. But you were doing that with like the team like as it was composed before, where like they had LeBron, they had Kyrie, they would get to the playoffs and those, like, WMDs in the playoffs. Kevin Love is, you know, still producing at a really high rate. It's just they don't have that last guy. Like, Isaiah Thomas was supposed to be that. He's going to be on the bench for a while. And, like, the guys they have in his place, which are Derek Rose and, and Dwayne Wade are really, really bad right now.

Is this going to get laid onto the coach?

Does that mean that Tyrone Loo is going to get boned over in midseason and fired?

I mean, it's possible.

But like, I mean, I'm not really in those circles, so I can't really tell you that.

But I mean, this is just an obvious personnel thing. Like, they lost Kyrie, who was really good. LeBron shot 60% last year when he was passing to them. He was, like, their only other above average, like, efficient, like, shooter who would, like, create his own shots. And, like, they just have a bunch of guys who are putting up shots that, you know, are not very efficient and, like, they're not going in right now.

So, like, that's, like, the calves are not that complex of a problem to me. It's just they lost a really good player, the really good player that got in return, who also was like he was, Isaiah was great last year. He's not playing. And they have shitty players who replaced him. Please, Kyle, you can, remember, you can speculate.

This is not an ESPN podcast.

You don't have to have facts or research or have talked to people.

You can, you can just go ahead and bullshit and tell me whether or not you think,

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