Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Libraries Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Blog Pricing
Podcast Image

The Ringer NBA Show

We Know What You Did (to Your Roster) Last Summer | Group Chat

20 Feb 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

13.801 - 23.796 Rob Mahoney

Hello and welcome to Group Chat. I am Rob Mahoney. That's Kyle Mann. Kyle, we're without Justin today, who we should say is, you know, dealing with a T-shirt cannon-related injury.

0

Chapter 2: What were the implications of the Desmond Bane trade?

23.876 - 26.325 Rob Mahoney

Do you want to send out any messages to our guy?

0

26.761 - 46.169 J. Kyle Mann

I was asking him. I was like, it was suspicious, you know, that I don't know what was what was what was laced on that T-shirt. What kind of, you know, respiratory illness maybe that was they were taking him out. They heard some of his complaints about tanking. Follow the data is all I'm saying. I'm not trying to be too conspiratorial. Maybe we'll get an episode of wait a second about it.

0

46.589 - 49.153 J. Kyle Mann

What do you feel? You feeling as conspiratorial about it as I am?

0

49.353 - 66.707 Rob Mahoney

I think we need to know who was on the other end of that T-shirt cannon. You know, we need to know who pulled the trigger. We got to check the footage. We got to check the logs. We got to check the security tape. I think there's a lot to uncover here. Yeah, yeah. As anyone can probably tell, we are glad to have NBA basketball back tonight.

0

67.869 - 71.096 Rob Mahoney

Getting back into the flow of things certainly feels good at this stage of the season, Kyle.

Chapter 3: How did the Kevin Durant trade reshape team dynamics?

71.677 - 82.738 Rob Mahoney

I get a little antsy during these breaks, even like a couple days off. I don't quite know what to do with myself. Are you feeling juiced and jazzed about the return of actual basketball into our lives again?

0

82.904 - 101.929 J. Kyle Mann

Well, I just kind of come away from this feeling sorry for you as I often do, Rob, where I have college basketball like a nice, comfy, just comforter that I can lay back on whenever I want to because college has been awesome this year. And they're great games. There was no break. I was I was over here just enjoying enjoying the wares.

0

102.449 - 110.7 Rob Mahoney

I thought you were going to flex with like, you know, your full and complete life outside of basketball. But no, it's just you have other degenerate sports to dive into in the meantime.

0

110.68 - 120.894 J. Kyle Mann

I have other things to dive into. You know, I just started reading The Stand by Stephen King. Been enjoying that. So, yeah, I'm a dynamic person.

0

Chapter 4: What factors influenced the signing of Myles Turner?

120.954 - 122.196 J. Kyle Mann

I try to be when I can.

0

122.657 - 132.891 Rob Mahoney

Has it occupied a lot of your time to deal with, I know you lent LaMelo your camo Hummer, and we saw everything that happened with that. Like, has been dealing with the insurance problems been an issue for you?

0

133.428 - 152.573 J. Kyle Mann

That Hummer, somebody compiled like a series, like a highlight reel of LaMelo pulling out of the Hornets parking garage, which just, I don't know if there was one person doing it the same time every, like noticing that, because LaMelo ran over the foot, right? That was the first incident at the garage. I don't know if you remember hearing about that.

0

152.934 - 174.927 J. Kyle Mann

But someone had the presence of mind to continue to record him every time he pulled out of the garage. And I was just really... LaMelo, I don't think it's talked about enough how LaMelo's vibe is distinctly Jared Leto as the Joker. All of his aesthetic, like it's no other iteration of the Joker. It's Jared Leto. He's neck tat damaged or is it forehead tat damaged?

0

Chapter 5: What insights can we gather from the Michael Porter Jr. trade?

175.127 - 192.544 J. Kyle Mann

I can't remember what Leto has going on. I'm not saying he went up to Steve Clifford and said, I'm not going to kill you. I'm just going to hurt you really bad with a couple of like shock pads, but I'm not going to rule it out. But I'm just saying every car that he had pulling out of the garage was, was 100% Jared Leto Joker. There was like a,

0

192.524 - 207.947 J. Kyle Mann

There was like a bright purple metallic Bentley, you know, and this most recent one, all matter of Ferraris. I don't know how to get into paint jobs or whether he leases them or whatever. It's a fascinating world, but I'm sure he makes enough money to own nice cars. That's the thing.

0

207.967 - 210.571 Rob Mahoney

What else is a young man in Charlotte supposed to spend his money on?

0

211.232 - 217.742 J. Kyle Mann

I don't know, man. But the Hummer, the Hummer was, I didn't know people still did custom Hummers. It was a nice breath of fresh air.

0

Chapter 6: How has the Saddiq Bey trade impacted team performance?

217.762 - 221.147 J. Kyle Mann

I thought we were out of the custom Hummer era, but maybe we're not.

0

221.465 - 238.445 Rob Mahoney

Well, everything that's old is new again. You know, all the trends are circling back. All the old news is new news. And today on the podcast, I think we're going to lean into that a little bit because we're going to be looking back ourselves at some of the biggest slash most notable slash, in some cases, weirdest moves of last summer and see how they've aged.

0

238.485 - 246.274 Rob Mahoney

See how, you know, Kyle, we're feeling about them now and whether they would still kind of pass muster in terms of our own logic. Are you feeling up for a look back?

0

246.845 - 268.583 J. Kyle Mann

I'm always down to look back as somebody that, you know, we both laugh a lot about people our age, our impulse, the Freudian impulse, Rob, to sort of look back. We're not looking back as far here, but we definitely want to kind of just do some relitigation of these moves, right? To see, you know, we know what you did last summer and we're going to say, you know, just kind of discuss

0

268.563 - 272.749 J. Kyle Mann

whether there's regret or there's just steadfast continued belief with these moves.

Chapter 7: What are the potential future scenarios for the Orlando Magic?

273.089 - 289.052 Rob Mahoney

Well, we are, as you say, Kyle, large children living in younger versions of ourselves. We're also navel gazers by default. So I think we're particularly equipped for this. I want to start with one of the biggest move just by volume in terms of the amount of like assets that went out the door. And that's

0

289.032 - 308.057 Rob Mahoney

The Orlando Magic's trade for Desmond Bain, which if you'll recall, involved giving up the number 16 pick in last summer's draft that ended up being Jan Hansen flipped to Portland, plus three more unprotected firsts, a pick swap, Contavious Caldwell-Pope and Cole Anthony to get back Bain. How are you feeling about that particular move?

0

308.077 - 312.964 Rob Mahoney

And would you still do it knowing everything we know now from Orlando's perspective?

0

313.433 - 324.005 J. Kyle Mann

Well, first of all, I mean, I think you have to start at what was, you know, what were the stakes here? What were the terms? And young Hanson, I mean, we can just say MVP level player. I think we can just start there, right?

0

324.366 - 326.448 Rob Mahoney

I mean, if Justin's not here, someone has to say it.

326.969 - 342.647 J. Kyle Mann

We got to throw some change in the jar for Justin. KCP, obviously they saw him as a depreciating guy who, I don't know. Do you remember whenever that, whenever Denver sent, you know, well, was he free agent or was that a flip? He was a free agent, yeah. Yeah.

342.627 - 363.15 J. Kyle Mann

Whenever he left Denver to go to Orlando, you heard some murmurs from some Outspoken Nuggets fans because nobody's watching their team as closely as the people nightly on League Pass. And I did see some people being like, I hear everybody talking about KCP, but the idea of KCP is not the KCP now. And they were on that scent early.

363.69 - 384.582 J. Kyle Mann

We get to Orlando, for whatever reason, I think some of this can spin into, is Orlando sort of a pit zone? a Bermuda Triangle for basketball value because it's kind of starting to feel that way based on the way the team is built. Cole Anthony, another guy that just has bounced around, ended up getting waved by the Bucs, who we'll talk more about. And then, yeah, so...

385.051 - 394.405 J. Kyle Mann

I guess let's just, where do you want to, do you want to do just like the basketball fit? Start wherever you want to with Desmond Mayne. What was your first impression how we, and then leading to where we are now?

Chapter 8: How does the trade of C.J. McCollum reflect team strategies?

1008.333 - 1028.043 Rob Mahoney

I still think that version of the team deserved a shot. They haven't been healthy enough to actually put that into action on the court. But I'm cool with it because Bane can roll over and continue to be a factor for the team. If that weren't the case, if he only made sense for a Paolo Franz combination team, then yeah, that sunk cost would be pretty brutal at this point.

0

1028.103 - 1045.46 Rob Mahoney

But they really do need to figure out a style. And whatever that style is, I feel confident that Desmond Bane, who's at this point putting up 24-4 on reasonable percentages, and we know what kind of shooter he can be, we know what kind of secondary creator he can be, That's just a useful guy to have around as you pivot, frankly.

0

1045.58 - 1053.509 Rob Mahoney

Like that's a good piece to pencil in while you figure out what your team looks like without Paolo or without Franz or however they want to reimagine this thing.

0

1054.17 - 1063.44 J. Kyle Mann

Yeah, you're mentioning the Pistons is an interesting comparison because is the difference that you just kind of have to have an elite heliocentric type guy?

0

1063.7 - 1071.529 Rob Mahoney

Or just someone who sees the floor like Cade does. Like they don't have that playmaker. They have a lot of guys who can kind of pass, but nobody who can really pass.

1071.948 - 1091.475 J. Kyle Mann

Yeah, and the threat to score for that passer, too, is a big thing, too. Definitely. Because it's just like Paolo and Franz both have these sort of caveats that I think undermine how effective it is. And especially when you put them out there together and they're just kind of taking turns. It's like Cade is just on another level in that sense. So I don't know. Yeah.

1091.843 - 1102.586 J. Kyle Mann

Can you be... I think what we're seeing, basically, is we're seeing a Helio sort of idea of a team that doesn't have quite the... It's not optimized to work.

1102.847 - 1123.623 Rob Mahoney

Yeah. I mean, to me, the spinning wheels is captured in the fact that if you look into the mileage tracking data, which... Take it with a great grain of salt. It's very contextual in terms of what that stuff actually means. You looked up their mileage tracking data? Well, the one that I keep an eye on because of the spinning of wheels is how much is Paolo moving on offense?

1124.083 - 1144.278 Rob Mahoney

And he covers as much ground on offense as basically any non-movement shooter in the league. He has to constantly being called up to screen, being called up to screen, being called to cut. You have the ball now. You have to half drive into a kickout. He's in a lot of action and a lot of stuff is happening. Some of that is because every magic possession seems to go 23 seconds into the shot clock.

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.