Justin Verrier

Do you think the Wizards will ultimately, with AD and Trey and all these young guys, be higher in the East standing than the Jazz will be in the West standing?

Which one will ultimately have the better seed next year?

I think it's two different conversations.

It's like, are they a better team when it comes down to a seven-game series than the Timberwolves?

No, certainly.

I'd be shocked if they won a playoff series against the Timberwolves next season.

But could they be the type of rock-solid regular season team that a team like the Timberwolves struggles to because there's so much just like weird shit happening seemingly every two weeks and needing to run off the court and take a shit and all of a sudden it's just like that's the dominant storyline of the Timberwolves?

That's a very normal thing to happen.

Do you ever have to do that in the middle of a pod?

Yeah, no, it's just it has a way of selling that in a way that it certainly does.

But like I could see the jazz just being very good at the regular season, in part because they have all of this size, which I think like is a nice little wrinkle.

Like if you catch some teams that just like can't deal with that.

We talked about that with other teams like with Wemby.

Like who has just like the bigs to go up against a frontline potentially of Kessler, Lowry and Jaron Jackson.

That's just like a lot of big old boys.

And also the versatility, I mean, including Ace, who's like six, nine.

And honestly, the way his gate moves and the way that he goes around, I'm like, is this guy like six, 10, six, 11?

Actually, is he doing like a Durant where he's suppressing how tall he is?

I just think like they have versatility and all of this depth that we're discussing with some of these young guys.

I do wonder, and especially as you watch like the Lakers kind of plow through and get the third seed, like a team that is motivated and built for the regular season, I think could have more success in the West next year than we expect.