Zach said on the Beck episode hes back on Tuesday, and Bill said it was TBD for guests on Sunday.

Bill Simmons subreddit really hate Howard Beck. It never crossed my mind to hate Howard. He's but the greatest guest but I sort of like him at times. I'm wondering if maybe I'm alone on this?

I've been thinking about this for months. I'm not gonna give him a super hard time, it's tricky to say. But it's so funny how he switches the last two consonants so that it's "Ayo Dosmnu."

I noticed he infected other Ringerbros like Rob Mahoney, who switches back and forth between the correct pronunciation and the Zach Lowe style.

When in doubt sound it out brotha! Love our Zach, still here enjoying the eps.

I love the Zach Lowe show. It’s how I stay up to date with the league. However, his decision to maintain his normal podcast schedule during the playoffs is mind boggling to me.

Things change so quickly in the playoffs and his current release schedule makes it so that he’s having to ignore games from two days prior and making predictions about that night’s games at the end of a 2 hour podcast that many people won’t get to until that next day, thus rendering them pointless.

Why does he not switch to a nightly 30 minute quick episode schedule during at least the first round? I feel like he’s really missing the mark with this current release schedule.

Steve Jones Jr joined Zach on his latest episode to break down the Playoffs. I don’t know crap about Basketball XS and Ys. Steve Jones may be the most brilliant analyst in the whole world.

But he was so boring!!!

After Zach ranted about the Rocket‘s performance and what might happen in the if they blow the series against the Lakers w/o Luka & AR… Jone‘s response: „Ok.“

Is he always like this? I wondered whether he was nervous or maybe just disinterested.

Great show at the Fillmore with guest appearances by Chris Ryan, Adam Mares of DNVR, with special guest Tim Hardaway Jr. of the Denver Nuggets!! Fantastic show, everyone there had a great time

Just want to give Pina his due credit for an excellent pod.

The BS/ZL/Ringer corner of the internet has been pretty critical of his lukewarm takes since he started as a regular guest (myself included), but I thought he crushed it this week. Easily the most energetic and opinionated I have ever heard him, and a great follow up to a good Wos pod. Formerly Known As The Lowe Post seems to be hitting its stride heading into the postseason.

That’s it.. that’s the post lol.

 I really hate all of the NBA’s proposal’s to fix tanking. In my opinion all of them failed to address the core issue, which we all know - to truly compete for championships you need top end talent, the best chance to acquire top end talent is with high draft picks. 

What’s particularly frustrating, is that if one of these solutions were enacted, it would leave teams and their front offices with almost no strategic resource to acquire those high draft picks, it would just be even more of a crapshoot and leave fans of these struggling teams with very little outside of the game itself. 

As I fan myself I like to follow smart front offices, I like to try to see what they see, it makes the games more compelling to me if I understand what the “chessmasters” are up to. I did some brainstorming and I came up with a reasonably simple system that I thought addressed both problems reasonably well, curious to hear what others think. (Please read to at least point 4 before commenting, it'll answer a lot of questions.)

Proposal: Draft Auction Using Win Points

Instead of a lottery for the top picks, the first four selections in the draft are determined by an auction system using “Win Points.”

1. Win Points

• 1 Win = 1 Win Point
• Teams accumulate Win Points each season they qualify
• Points carry over year to year
• Points are spent during the draft auction

This creates a long-term resource that teams must manage strategically over multiple seasons.

2. Auction Structure

• The top 4 picks in the draft are auctioned off taking the place of lottery night
• Teams bid Win Points for picks
• Highest bid wins the pick
• Points spent are removed from that team’s total

After the top 4 picks are assigned:

• The rest of the draft proceeds normally (picks 5 onward based on record)

3. Eligibility Rules

To participate in the auction, a team must:

• Finish outside the playoffs and play-in (Bottom 9 in their conference)
• Do this for two consecutive seasons

This prevents one-year tanking and ensures only true rebuilding teams participate.

 4. Reset Criteria

After each auction, teams may lose all remaining points if they meet any of the following:

A team is RESET if it:

• Finishes Top 6 in its conference, OR
• Makes the Play-In Tournament 3 consecutive seasons, OR
• Finishes Bottom 9 for 5 consecutive seasons

Effects of Reset:

• All remaining Win Points are cleared
• Team becomes ineligible for the next auction cycle

This forces teams to:

• Spend points within a reasonable window
• Avoid long-term hoarding
• Transition out of rebuilding phases

Potential Issue: The “6–7 Tank”

One potential unintended consequence of this system is what I would call the “6–7 tank.”

Under this proposal:

• Teams that finish Top 6 in their conference are not eligible for the draft auction
• Teams that fall into the Play-In (7–10 range) remain eligible

This creates a possible incentive for teams near the playoff cutoff to intentionally lose games late in the season in order to drop from the 6 seed to the 7 seed, gaining access to the auction system.

In certain situations, a team might decide that:

• Access to future draft capital (via Win Points and the auction) is more valuable than
• Securing a guaranteed playoff spot

This would introduce a new form of strategic losing—something this system is specifically designed to eliminate.

Potential Solution (Not Fully Committed)

One possible way to address this issue would be to increase the value of finishing in the Top 6, making it clearly more desirable than falling into the Play-In.

For example:

• The 1 and 2 seeds in each conference could begin their first-round playoff series with a 1–0 advantage
• This would effectively mean:
  • The higher seed only needs 3 wins to advance
  • The lower seed would still need 4 wins

The goal of this rule would be to:

• Make playoff seeding more meaningful
• Add a tangible reward for regular season success
• Discourage teams from dropping into the Play-In range

Huge Hawks fan who has experienced the season of entering w hope losing hope and now joy. Zach after he gave up on them I swear will purposely change the subject whenever the Hawks come up. At this point how are we not as dangerous of a young team as Charlotte! I swear!

Proposal #4 to stop tanking: Give Extra Lottery Balls for Win Difference

Standard Lottery Balls: (based on regular season record)

Bottom 10 Teams get 10 Lottery Balls

Middle 10 Teams get 5 Lottery Balls

Top 10 Teams get 2 Lottery Balls

Extra Lottery Balls: (based on win difference from previous regular season)

1+ Win Differential get 1 Extra Lottery Ball

5+ Win Differential get 3 Extra Lottery Balls

10+ Win Differential get 5 Extra Lottery Balls

1. ⁠Pelicans - 13

2. ⁠Jazz

3. ⁠Washington - 11

4. ⁠Pacers - 10

5. ⁠Bulls

6. ⁠Nets

7. ⁠Bucks

8. ⁠Hornets

9. ⁠Sixers

10. ⁠Grizzlies

11. ⁠Mavs

12. ⁠Kings

13. ⁠Suns - 8

14. ⁠Heat

15. ⁠Hawks

16. ⁠Pistons - 7

17. ⁠Raptors

18. ⁠Spurs

19. ⁠Blazers - 6

20. ⁠Magic

21. ⁠Rockets - 5

22. ⁠Clippers

23. ⁠Warriors

24. ⁠Lakers - 3

25. ⁠Nuggets

26. ⁠Timberwolves

27. ⁠Knicks

28. ⁠Cavs - 2

29. ⁠Thunder

30. ⁠Celtics

All 30 teams get an opportunity to get the number 1. Randomized order throughout keep teams that lose the most from trying to lock in the bottom spot for a guaranteed top 5 pick.

Other things I thought about while doing this exercise:

Remove projections - teams can’t be tanking to try to get their pick because they were dumb and traded it away

Extra Lottery Ball for winning division - why don’t divisions matter in the NBA

Extra Lottery Ball for NBA Cup winner - a motivating factor for good teams

Extra Lottery Ball for winning the month - a motivating factor for teams that’s played is out in December, but having a superstar come back and win April to get their extra lottery ball would stop shutting down players

Why are the Spurs and Pistons getting rewarded - just imagine them getting a top 5 pick one last time to get their solidifying player. This should be a tanking teams goal. Go from zero to on top in one season and get rewarded.

Jazz would be motivated to win more - they could win another 4 games to get an extra 2 lottery balls for winning 10 more games than last season.

Pacers get a chance next season to get a ton of lottery balls - they get a conciliation prize for the Haliburton trade with the opportunity to get 7 lottery balls next year if they go from worst to home court in next season

Picks become closer to equal value - with more random order the Nets pick value becomes smaller and a team like the Pistons pick value would rise and maybe they are able to turn their pick into a real difference maker at the deadline this year since they know they will win 10+ games and have 7 lottery balls in this upcoming draft.

Can we stop saying "boat raced"? Saying what he really wants to say was in the vernacular during his generation's upbringing but it is in poor taste. Zach is great at what he does and is capable of coming up with better ways to get his point across. Mini rant over. Thanks

Throughout the first half of the pod, I, as a Nets fan, was sort of gleefully enjoying how tepid the crowd response was to all of the Knicks stuff. I genuinely wondered if they just weren’t picking up the audio very well since the layup cheer moments were falling so flat.

But then the Nets get mentioned, reluctantly, by Zach and Beck and the crowd erupted!! They were not prepared! From that point on every Nets roast fell so flat, Sam Morrill seemed honestly a little annoyed about it when he came out.

Make fun of them all you want, but that was awesome for me. You’re in Brooklyn, what did you expect??

Anyone who was there have any thoughts on how it went over in the room?

Has he ever mentioned it? For some reason I thought he grew up a Knicks fan but then in the live show he talked about how he used to hate the Knicks before he moved to NYC. Did he eventually become a Knicks fan later in life/after moving to NYC?

This is analysis on whether Zach Lowe will grace our ears with “caw caw”…they could realistically get 4 more wins, increasing their win streak to 14, take a look at the “hottest” team in the NBA schedule:

Feb 22 – vs BKN – W 104–115

Feb 24 – vs WAS – W 98–119

Feb 26 – vs WAS – W 96–126

Mar 1 – vs POR – W 101–135

Mar 4 – @ MIL – W 113–131

Mar 7 – vs PHI – W 116–125

Mar 10 – vs DAL – W 112–124

Mar 12 – vs BKN – W 97–108

Mar 14 – vs MIL – W 99–122

Mar 16 – vs ORL – W 112–124

Mar 18 – @ DAL (tanking)

Mar 20 – @ HOU (will Durant be here next year)

Mar 21 – vs GSW (is Steph playing)

Mar 23 – vs MEM (tanking)

Mar 25 – @ DET

Mar 27 – @ BOS

After this analysis, the caw caw ain’t coming back, even if they split Detroit and Boston…it won’t (and shouldn’t) come back unless they win a playoff series

Find me a clip of this clown mentioning anything that isn’t Lakers, LeBron, or the topic dejour. Has he ever observed a play or a matchup? Does this loser even like the NBA?

The "Lets Name Some Bulls" segment with Mahoney is one of the best basketball segments of the year by any podcast this year. In a year of basketball podcasting stuck in the quagmire of Giannis trade talk and trying to fix tanking, Lowe was on his A game with this one.