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The Zach Lowe Show

Playoff Preview, Awards Picks, and Tanking Fixes With Stan Van Gundy

The Zach Lowe Show

The Ringer

Sports, Basketball

4.82K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2026

⏱️ 76 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Zach is joined by Stan Van Gundy to preview the upcoming playoff matchups, hand out some awards, and discuss how to fix tanking. Plus, they debate whether James Harden or Dwyane Wade had the better career and discuss how their Finals picks have evolved as the season has gone on. (0:00) Welcome to The Zach Lowe Show! (2:09) Stan Van Gundy joins the show! (7:33) What playoff series that isn’t set yet is the most interesting? (15:46) What did we learn from SA-DEN? (26:26) Stan’s award picks (38:08) Cooper Flagg has taken on a huge role for the Mavs (46:01) What tanking solution do you like the best? (59:39) Who had the better career: James Harden or Dwyane Wade? (1:04:56) Who was your Finals pick to start the season, and what is it now? Host: Zach Lowe Guest: Stan Van Gundy Producers: Mike Wargon, Jonathan Frias, and Billy Gil Social: Keith Fujimoto This episode is sponsored by State Farm®️. Like a good neighbor, State Farm®️ is there with the Assist. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Coming up on the Zach Lowe show, the regular season is almost over, and we've got a lot of news.

0:11.2

Kate Cunningham came back last night.

0:13.3

How did he look in his first game back against the Bucks?

0:16.2

Victor Wembeyanama apparently is going to be semi-okay with a bruised rib.

0:20.7

Missed San Antonio's last game of win over Portland, but appears likely to get awards consideration by playing one more regular season game playoffs. That's pretty hopeful. We'll see how he looks. And the Spurs eat of it 100%. There ain't no margin of error in the halacious Western Conference. We're going to talk about all that with Stan Van Gundy.

0:37.8

Oh, Jade McDaniels came back too. We're going to talk about which playoff races that are still in jeopardy are most interesting to the great coach Stan Van Gundy. West 3, 4, 5, East 5 to 10 remains a mess. Portland Clippers, do you care? Should you care? Do they even care? Yes, they do. We're talking about that. Stan's going to reveal his awards choices.

0:55.3

He is one of the most independent thinking awards ballot voters in the whole league.

1:01.3

He went off the grid on a couple of choices last year in a good way. He is not afraid to be against the consensus.

1:07.4

He's going to reveal his choices. Dwayne Wade versus James Hardin. That's been an ongoing

1:11.7

debate. We'll get into that. And he's going to talk about Victor Wenbanyama's defense

1:15.9

from a coaching perspective. We're going to get into all of that and more with the legend

1:20.3

Amazon's Stan Van Gundy. The Zach Lowe show is brought to you by Fandul. The NBA postseason is here, and Fandle knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win is winning along with them.

1:33.7

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1:37.7

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1:41.4

And don't forget, with Fandual, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the Fandual Sportsbook app now and play your game. 20 or over in select states, 18 and over in D.C. Kentucky, Wyoming, gambling problem. Called 1-800-Gambler. Call 1-88-7-89-777-7-7-7. Or visit ccg.org slash chat in Connecticut.

2:12.2

Welcome to the Zach Lowe show.

2:16.3

We are entering the last two to three games of the regular season.

2:20.4

And look who's here, the legend from Amazon Prime Video,

2:25.5

from just a bunch of teams in the NBA, the great Stan Van Gundy. How you doing, sir?

2:31.5

I'm good. And I, you know, you got the New York hat on, but I appreciate for my, as an Orlando person, that you got the Mickey Mouse shirt on to make me feel at home.

2:50.6

Yeah, you know, I'm not bitter, Stan. I'm not bitter about what happened at the worldwide leader. I still like Disney. I still, I still go down to the theme parks. I just won't get to discounts anymore. I made good use of them back in the day. So a lot of stuff still happening in the NBA, even as we get to the home stretch.

3:28.1

Victor Wenbanyama apparently going to be okay or okay-ish. He looks likely to play in one of the last two games to get awards consideration. And thank God, because no one wants to tear up in their entire awards ballot in multiple categories at the end of the season. Playoffs, you know, you'll play, I'm assuming, and we'll see, there's no margin for error in the West. There's no margin for like a little setback in the West. Cade Cunningham came back last night against the zombie bucks. I thought he looked pretty good. Jada McDaniels came back for the Timberwolves. That's like a sneaky, important thing, particularly if you're looking at the third seed, maybe Denver and like, I got to go through full strength, Minnesota, full strength, San Antonio,

...

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