The NBA Playoffs Mega-Preview. Plus, Awards Picks With Rob Mahoney, Chris Ryan, and Brian Windhorst

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Coming up, an NBA playoff mega preview. Plus, I'm going to do my NBA awards picks and a whole lot more.

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Speaker 1 Celtic City. So we have

Speaker 1 episode eight coming on Monday night, and it's the one about how everything turns in the 2000s, heading into the KG era. It's really good.
You're not going to believe this, but KG is a good interview.

Speaker 1 So you can check that out on Monday night. But in the meantime, because there's no basketball, we have a couple of playing games and then everything kicks in this weekend.

Speaker 1 But go check out Salt Lake City on Max. The first seven episodes are up.
I was on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night promoting. It was great to go back.

Speaker 1 It's been 21 years since I worked for that show, which is incredible, right? There's right now there's 21-year-old people probably insulting me and Jimmy on social media right now.

Speaker 1 That's how long it's been since I worked there, but it was awesome to go back. Coming up on this podcast, Rob Mahoney and Chris Ryan join me.

Speaker 1 We're going to preview our favorite round one playoff series, and then I'm going to do my NBA awards picks and bounce them off those guys once and for all. So that happened.

Speaker 1 And then a couple days ago, Brian Winhorse came over to watch one of the playing games with me.

Speaker 1 And we just went into my office and we taped an hour plus about just a whole bunch of evergreen basketball talk, which was really fun. It was great to see him.
I've known him for a long time.

Speaker 1 So, that is today's podcast. First, our friends from Pearl Jam.

Speaker 1 All right, recording this part of the podcast on late Thursday morning, Pacific time. Rob Mahoney is here.
Chris Ryan, the NBA culture ombudsman of the ringer, is here.

Speaker 1 It's a great new title. Big picture czar of the ringer.
You just kind of float in with takes.

Speaker 1 We're going to try on some Thursday nights at least to have the three of us reacting off of some of these games. But I wanted to go through my NBA award stuff with you later.

Speaker 1 I'm going to talk about the series first because we just got news that Dame Lillard is playing in this Bucks series. And the Bucs Pacer series now is

Speaker 1 a stealth, most fun possibility for round one. Mahoney,

Speaker 1 series you're most looking forward to out of the eight. Now, we don't know the two play-in matchups yet, but I we assume those are going to be blowouts.

Speaker 1 But what's your, what's your favorite out of these eight? It's Rockets Warriors. I just think it has all the juice you could ask for, all the animosity you could ask for.

Speaker 1 A lot of people who are just kind of assholes to play against, and I mean that in a very complimentary way.

Speaker 1 So between like the, you know, jet fuel athleticism against the old savvy champions angle, plus all of that going on, like I find it hard to pick anything else.

Speaker 1 CR, that checks a lot of your boxes, too. Yeah, I kind of wish they would bring in soccer yellow cards to this series where they could just flash a bunch of them in the beginning.

Speaker 1 I'm really excited for this one. I was uh really nervous for the Warriors watching that Grizz game, watching the Grizzlies come back.

Speaker 1 Felt like the Warriors' crowd kind of died a little bit in the second half as they were getting clawed back into it. They got a little nervous.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and just you never want to go into the playoffs with your two best players grabbing at various extremities. So Steph's thumb, Jimmy's ankle.

Speaker 1 I'm excited to watch this very, you know, version of the Warriors, but the Rockets do seem like they were built in a lab to screw with them.

Speaker 1 You know what makes all that stuff better is when Dylan Brooks karate chops it, you know, just take some body blows from a Stephen Adams screen, you know, Ahmed Thompson blocking your shit.

Speaker 1 I'm sure it's going to go great for everybody. Well, Stephen Adams has already reminded everyone that Draymond has kicked him in the balls two different times over the course of his career.

Speaker 1 Like that's not even a top three feud in this series. It would be amazing if like as tip-off was starting, like a cage match cage came down and it was just Dylan Brooks and Draymond in the middle.

Speaker 1 And it was like, we're going to settle this right now, brother.

Speaker 1 I had a couple of Warriors fans in my life who were very upset. at me because Mahoney and I did a podcast after the Lakers Warriors game and both of us were like, that was really interesting.

Speaker 1 The Warriors really seem like they have a handle on a Lakers matchup. We liked what we saw.
Like, that team makes sense to us as a win multiple rounds.

Speaker 1 And then after that Clippers game, I expressed real concern

Speaker 1 that they didn't totally look like they knew who they were again. And Zach and I talked about that on his pod on Monday.
I didn't even know about the Kaminga benching until the next day.

Speaker 1 I thought he was hurt. And it just seems like they punted on Kaminga.

Speaker 1 And this is Rob, a different team than they were when we did that Lakers Warriors pod, where I thought Kaminga, I think he brings them something extra athletically, physically, just as a bigger body.

Speaker 1 If they're playing Kawhi Leonard,

Speaker 1 LeBron James,

Speaker 1 against Houston, who has a bunch of physical wings, it just seems, and they're going to play a big lineup. It just seems like you need them.
But the Warriors are done with him.

Speaker 1 And now I feel like they seem really small in this series. This is a classic small ball, big ball kind of matchup.
I'm way more worried about them than I was two weeks ago.

Speaker 1 Is that recency bias or what do you think it is?

Speaker 1 I think they've kind of always been that team and they've, they've shown some of those limitations as far as, you know, how much do you trust Golden State in the half court?

Speaker 1 The good news is probably you trust the Rockets less in terms of executing their half court offense. And so this matchup works for them, but I agree with you.
They're very small.

Speaker 1 The Kaminga element is such a

Speaker 1 such a perfect encapsulation of the Warriors, who I think at every turn have prioritized rowing in the same direction, philosophical alignment, as opposed to, oh, what's like the other counter element that we can bring in to give us a different speed, a different punch?

Speaker 1 Other coaches, other teams, other structures might welcome a Jonathan Kuminga type under those circumstances. Yeah.
But also,

Speaker 1 is he really the answer?

Speaker 1 You know, if you're struggling with a LeBron or you're struggling with a Luca or one of these teams that have big wings at any point in the playoffs, if you're struggling with Tara Eason, for that matter, is Jonathan Kuminga really the solution?

Speaker 1 I'm still a little skeptical of that, even though I respect the talent. Or was he the best possible solution out of all the other available options they had?

Speaker 1 But they, you know, CR, you mentioned the courier injury possibility.

Speaker 1 Butler, just the fact that it's an older team and you have this young, hungry team of pit bulls going against them that also has home court advantage.

Speaker 1 I can't figure this series out.

Speaker 1 What are you looking at on that? You could tell me at the end of this series that this was like

Speaker 1 a version of like the early great Thunder teams that came out and just ripped the Spurs apart, you know, like where they lost the first two and then they just, I wasn't that they won the next four after losing two to the Spurs.

Speaker 1 You could also tell me, right? Yeah, and you could also tell me that this is too much too soon for Houston and that Wiley, Wise, Golden State are going to carve these guys to pieces.

Speaker 1 It feels like a real like

Speaker 1 clash of the Titans to me. And

Speaker 1 in terms of like the two coaches are both awesome. I think that that everything offsets itself.

Speaker 1 So there's like, you can't say that Draymond and Jimmy are going to mentally dominate the Rockets guys or like trick them too much because the Rockets have plenty of guys who are just like, I live this dark arts shit too.

Speaker 1 So it's going to be like one of those like, I don't want to miss a single moment of this series.

Speaker 1 I'm sentimentally hoping for Warriors to advance just because I love watching Steph in big, big moments. And I feel like the Rockets are going to be around for the next five, six, seven years.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 there's some NBA historical stuff with this series that makes me nervous for the Warriors. One of the things that makes me nervous is Tuesday night, they got 75 points from Steph and Butler,

Speaker 1 right? That's about as good as those guys are going to play in a big game. And they barely beat a Memphis team that doesn't play defense, right?

Speaker 1 So you look at that and you're like, all right, that's your best case scenario. If you're not playing Comingo, you have no other wild cards for points.
Kind of need those guys.

Speaker 1 Maybe you'll have some variants with some threes. Yeah.
For the most part,

Speaker 1 you need Butler and Curry to be between 60 and 65 points realistically. And Butler's not, you know, in the playoffs, he's been a little different as we've written about.

Speaker 1 But, you know, it's a lot of points. It's a lot of points to make up.
So unless it's a rock fight from Houston's side, I really worry about the upside of Houston if I'm a Golden State fan. For sure.

Speaker 1 That there's,

Speaker 1 is there another level this team can go to? What is Ama and Thompson going to to be like on a giant stage like this where it's like, hey, yo, shut down Curry.

Speaker 1 Make this your goal for two weeks. Take this guy out.
What happens if they're just throwing big physical swings against Butler over and over again?

Speaker 1 And then the offensive rebounding and the big boy lineups, Shangoon, Draymond Garden, trying to guard Shangoon.

Speaker 1 This to me is a series where you can tell me they have those bets where you can bet on any outcome on FanDuel. Like Houston in five is plus 790.
Golden State in seven is plus 530.

Speaker 1 You could give me any of those bets. I'd be like, yeah, I could see it.
Warriors sweep them. Sure, maybe.
Rockets sweep them. All right.

Speaker 1 Warriors are minus 166 favorites, Rob. Did that surprise you? Because Rockets have home court.
It doesn't surprise me. I think I take everything you're saying about the physicality, the athleticism.

Speaker 1 And I want to reinforce like both of these things can be true. The Rockets have had an amazing season that has been super fun to watch in terms of a young team that's just well ahead of the curve.

Speaker 1 But if you are a young team that's ahead of the curve, I don't want to see like a Steph Curry in a series, a Jimmy Butler in a series, a Draymond Green in a series.

Speaker 1 Like there's a level of collective savvy there, especially between those three that has been so comfortable and so natural.

Speaker 1 Like we've seen them run these just seamless three-man actions as if they've been playing together for years. And that's where I think you get some of those random points, right?

Speaker 1 If those three guys are in concert, Quentin Post is going to spring open for some threes. Gary Payton's going to go baseline for some dunks and get some cuts.

Speaker 1 Like You're going to get random points out of that stuff because the Rockets eventually are going to freak out.

Speaker 1 And so it doesn't surprise me that the Warriors are favored, despite being the undercard in the series. I just think there's so much respect for them and there's so much even sentimental value.

Speaker 1 As you were saying, Chris, a lot of us kind of want to see it. And I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of betters kind of want to see it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't want to be in a world where the Warriors made that Butler move a year too late, which is entirely possible. But I want to believe in another Warriors run.

Speaker 1 And it's kind of funny with the NBA where I, you know, my, the season of the team that I cheer for like exploded on takeoff. So I

Speaker 1 forget. Who's your team? I have been sort of roving around, but like, this is almost like previously on the Golden State Warriors, things were going fine.
So I need you guys to level set for me.

Speaker 1 Like, I don't really remember the fourth best player on a team getting benched.

Speaker 1 uh going into the playoffs it's not good well you mentioned some of these young guys the rockets that we we don't know what we're getting.

Speaker 1 The Warriors have guys who have never been in a situation where they've been counted on in a series like this. Guy Santos might have to play.

Speaker 1 You don't know Guy Santos's background. He's going to play high-level competitive basketball anywhere.
Moody, they actually really, really genuinely need big stretches from. They need him to guard

Speaker 1 whoever is hot. Like if Jalen Green's having a hot game, ultimately, I think it's probably going to be him guarding that.
They're going to need people to protect the boards.

Speaker 1 This might be a off kavan looney series you might see jackson davis who we haven't seen him forever i just if the thing that worries me the most out of all this other than the home court is i haven't seen a better nobody believes in us situation in around one in a while you have this rockets team that's had the two seed locked up for a week that already is pissed off and has an edge and has a coach who could not be less afraid of Steph Curry and LeBron and has already talked shit to both of them in the last year.

Speaker 1 And he's going to get these guys. I watched him do it in Boston.

Speaker 1 Nobody believes in you. We're underdogs.
No, we don't have game seven. Steph is the favored, you know, the favorite character in the league.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Everyone's against us. The refs are going to be against us.
We're going to go, we're going to have Golden State fans in our arena. Nobody thinks we can do this.

Speaker 1 I just feel like he's going to be pushing that, pushing that. But the question for me, CR, who is the guy? There's going to be three games in this series with three minutes left.

Speaker 1 And now I I have to match baskets with Curry and Butler. Who's it going to be? I was going to ask this, and I was going to ask about the dangers of Dylan Brooks thinking it's him.
Well,

Speaker 1 you could go through. We could have a draft.
It's like, what if Fred Van Vleet thinks it's him? What if Dylan Brooks thinks it's him? We could get ugly pretty fast.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Jalen Green also will think it's him. This is kind of part of the Rockets conundrum is they don't have a natural level set.

Speaker 1 Like they don't have a place where when everything goes to shit, the ball finds a certain guy. It's a little bit clawing it out.

Speaker 1 And sometimes it is like Albert and Shangoon making ugly stuff sort of work and fighting through, like fighting through pressure, fighting through good defense.

Speaker 1 I don't really trust their half-court offense at all in terms of the first shot.

Speaker 1 The question with them, as we kind of saw in that Memphis game for Golden State as well, is how many second chances are you giving up?

Speaker 1 Especially if they stick as big as the Rockets usually want to play.

Speaker 1 Like they, it may not be, it may not matter if Fred Van Vliet shoots 36% from the field if you're just constantly getting second opportunities.

Speaker 1 Bill, will you give me the money to go to GoDaddy and register a site called he thought it was him.com?

Speaker 1 And every night after one of these games, I just put up a picture of the rocket who thought it was him.

Speaker 1 It's Jack Landale. Didn't expect to see him.

Speaker 1 I was trying to think of what the narrative, it's a fun exercise when you're trying to think of what's going to happen to just think what the narratives would be after the series.

Speaker 1 And what we last, what's leading a podcast title, you know, what they're talking about on first take. With the golden state, the ones are easy.
Like, oh my God, Steph did it again. Yes.
Wow.

Speaker 1 They just beat a team that was definitely better than them. Oh, my God.
Playoff Jimmy, the whole thing. Is that want for that moment of like the Warriors are back? It's another Steph run.

Speaker 1 Is that a healthy thing for us? Like, I struggle with that of like, do are clinging to guys like Steph or LeBron.

Speaker 1 Are we clinging to them in the way that I'm clinging to like Tom Cruise jumping out of a jet? Like, is it coming at the cost of something? I'm ready for Austin Butler. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like, I'm ready for... That's on Ben Thompson, I think.

Speaker 1 For as bad as it might be for ratings or for narratives, I'm excited at the prospect of New Blood.

Speaker 1 You know, people might be like, who the hell wants to watch Houston OKC in the Western Conference Finals? Like, I think it would be a pretty awesome.

Speaker 1 I would love that. Yeah.
Yeah. From a narrative standpoint, I think the guys that could come out of it from Houston's side are Shangoon.
Yes.

Speaker 1 And clearly Thompson, which I think there's a disparity now between the people that actually give a shit about basketball and watch it. A lot of them work for us.

Speaker 1 And it's to say, hey, have you seen Thompson? This guy's incredible. It's you're not breaking any new ground.

Speaker 1 But there's a whole level of casual fans that I don't think have any idea what's going on with him, how athletically, how different he is.

Speaker 1 There are some people that voted for him for Defensive Poor of the Year, have him in the top three. I had him second team all defense.
It made me rethink, like, did I, did I fuck that up? But

Speaker 1 in person,

Speaker 1 it's unbelievable. and what he did to steph

Speaker 1 a week ago or a week and a half ago now um it was notable all right so we have that as the most unpredictable ready-for-anything series

Speaker 1 the other one i'd put in that category guys is pacers bucks with dame playing

Speaker 1 this pacers team that has looked awesome for the last three months basically right they they if you look at the conference odds they're 28 to one to win the east and i think those odds are nuts i think those odds should be way lower because

Speaker 1 they are going to play, if they beat Milwaukee, they're playing Cleveland in round two. And I think they could throw some haymakers at Cleveland.

Speaker 1 I just think 28 to 1, like if you consider if they beat Milwaukee and now you have to beat Cleveland, maybe something happens to Boston. Maybe there's an injury.

Speaker 1 They're better than a 28 to 1 to win the East. Dane playing now, I think, is going to screw up the odds and make people think Milwaukee has a chance.
Giannis is the best player in the series.

Speaker 1 CR, why don't people believe in the Pacers yet? I don't think they've gotten a chance to watch them.

Speaker 1 I think that this is like a good corollary, maybe even to the Rockets, where your difference between I watch national games and kind of keep up on pods versus I am out here just getting deep into NemHart tape is pretty wide gap.

Speaker 1 And I would probably say that I'm a little bit in the former camp. So it's like,

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 know everything that has gone on with the Bucks this season. They are getting Portis back as well.
Is that right? I don't know what

Speaker 1 you expect

Speaker 1 with

Speaker 1 that. But like, look, I just think that

Speaker 1 it would be so funny if the Pacers just got like a weird slip and slide track back to the Eastern Conference finals again, and that this was like a sneaky, great team.

Speaker 1 I do think the best player in the series has got to be Giannis, and I still think I'm kind of leaning that way. Yeah.
I mean, the Dame Lee, that's your take. Giannis is the best guy in the series.

Speaker 1 Well, you want a big picture.

Speaker 1 Also, I'm not a cardiologist. Like, I don't know what's going on with Dames, like, this blood clot thing.
It did make me a little nervous. I was like, no, now he's fine.
Yeah. Thing went away.

Speaker 1 It was miraculous. But yeah, it's definitely a mark.
Do you think Indiana is underrated or properly rated, Rob? Underrated, almost perpetually.

Speaker 1 But I think some of that is struggling out of the gate earlier in the season, the skepticism that Chris is talking about in terms of, you know, like their playoff run last year, I think felt so fluky to a lot of people based on the injuries in the field, based on some of the opportunities in front of them.

Speaker 1 It felt blazery. Yeah.
It felt a little blazery. I think that's fair.
But I also think they seized every opportunity in front of them.

Speaker 1 And I think they've continued to do that and really rided the ship, not just offensively, but defensively.

Speaker 1 So I am happy to be neck deep in Andrew Nemhard tape and to be an advocate for the Pacers here on a national platform. I think they've been really, really good.

Speaker 1 I think they're better than most people realize. And I think ultimately more balanced than most people realize between the depth and the defense that they've played over the back part of the season.

Speaker 1 They're just a really good team, top to bottom. My biggest issue with them is how stupid they are at the end of game sometimes.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 They're my number one draft pick for, I can't believe you guys just lost that game. They had to have been the number one team that you would say that about this year.

Speaker 1 And I was looking at like some of the odds with them. Like to sweep the Bucs, it's plus 920.

Speaker 1 That's insane. They're not going to sweep the Bucs.
They're better than the Bucs.

Speaker 1 They could just put four awesome games together and Giannis could have his 35 and 20 inning game and they could still beat them if they shot well.

Speaker 1 I think there's too much three-point variance with them.

Speaker 1 The Bucs are plus 490 to win in six and plus 540 to win in seven. And the scenario that would scare me if I was a Pacers fan is you lead the series and you're like,

Speaker 1 how the fuck did we lose that series? We're up nine in game one.

Speaker 1 We turned the ball over three times. All of a sudden, the Bucks are down two and Dame hits a three and we just blew the game.
They do this shit over and over again.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 this is one of those, I don't know if I'm even touching the series from a gambling standpoint.

Speaker 1 I don't know what to expect. I don't really want to bet against Giannis because Rob, he seems like he's he has like been pushed to the edge.
He's John Wick. My dog has died.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but you can't tell whether it's Keanu Reeves being like, I keep getting injured on these movies. This needs to end.

Speaker 1 Or if he's like, you fucking woke up the Baba Yaga. I'm back.

Speaker 1 I'm here to take my cornerback. And like, that's where I think the dame return is such a huge deal.
It completely changes the matchup.

Speaker 1 It also changes it from, I am a battered man who had to carry this team over the finish line for the back part of the season. I'm dragging like Ryan Rollins on offense to make this thing work.

Speaker 1 And now you have potentially a really potent shot maker returning to the field. I thought before the Pacers were going to win in a fairly short series.

Speaker 1 Like I probably, I picked Pacers in five, thinking Dame was not going to play. Him coming back at some point buys them time.

Speaker 1 I just don't think they have enough kind of like secondary and tertiary answers. Like Dame, in whatever state he's in, is going to be out of shape, out of rhythm, coming back into it.

Speaker 1 Already has had kind of a weird season in terms of the actual impact he's making on the game. And beyond him, you're like, I'm really living and dying with Kyle Kuzma here.

Speaker 1 And that's not something that I like to do personally, but live your life. I think that was a, was that a Michael Mann movie in the 80s to live and die with Kyle Kuzma?

Speaker 1 To live and die in Kuzma? I am.

Speaker 1 I'm probably going to lean pacers by the time it comes to. gut check time for when to make a bet because two reasons.

Speaker 1 It's impossible to overstate how involved Kevin Kevin Porter is in the future of the Bucs right now. Jesus Christ.
They were really, really relying on him.

Speaker 1 And I think they actually need him to be at Indiana. And that is such a wild card for so many different reasons.
And he also needs the ball and, you know, to integrate Dame back into that.

Speaker 1 And there's Porter. That's one thing.
The other thing is something you mentioned about Dame, Rob.

Speaker 1 The fact that he, you know, he hasn't played basketball in three weeks. This was always kind of a bad matchup for him because the Pacers love to pressure 94 feet.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And they love to just bug people and make them work to bring it up.

Speaker 1 And it's like, oh, you're going to have Giannis bring the ball up where we're going to, we're going to guard him almost the whole court. And I think they're going to try to put miles on Dame.

Speaker 1 And I think you're asking a lot for him to just be like, hey, I know you haven't played in a month. I know you're on this blood thinner medication.

Speaker 1 Oh, by the way, we're going to be pressuring you this whole game and attacking you on defense. It's a lot.
It would be like heroic if they won the series because of him. So the safe pick is

Speaker 1 into here, and that's why the line is what it it is. Yes.
The heroic language that reminds me of in Shams' report about Dame coming back. Amazing, colon.

Speaker 1 It was very like the language of the blood thinner thing, which is amazing, is very impressive. I have no idea how he's medically clear to play.

Speaker 1 The framing of it from Shams, with all due respect, was a little bit like Trump's annual physical to me. That was the kind of vibe I was getting about like, everything's great.

Speaker 1 It's the biggest man in America. Right.

Speaker 1 Wildly managing body fat.

Speaker 1 Narratives coming out of this one, CR. If Milwaukee loses, we're just on the clock now for Giannis trade stuff.
That's it. Is that maybe that should be another godaddy.com purchase for you?

Speaker 1 Has Giannis asked out yet?com?

Speaker 1 Yeah, but like, you know, listening to you over the last couple of days, you and Zach on Zach's pod, like it is sort of starting to get a little difficult to imagine these massive star trades unless it's your problem from my problem.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So I do wonder, let's just say,

Speaker 1 like,

Speaker 1 do you have a Phoenix, Milwaukee like crisis swap?

Speaker 1 Is there something in there that you could do? I don't know, but these guys are also going to leverage, like, use their leverage and control their destination to some extent.

Speaker 1 So, I'm trying to, it's hard to go into the trade machine and be like, oh, yeah, well, obviously, you just do this for Giannis.

Speaker 1 I know that there is the rumors about him wanting to go to New York and stuff like that, or even the broader New York, like, it doesn't matter the borough. But

Speaker 1 I think we'll learn a lot from this playoff series. CR, don't step on my podcast in 15 days when I go through all the possible teams, please.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 my money would be on Brooklyn or the Knicks because you talk about how hard it is to match the salaries. There's a Towns,

Speaker 1 Giannis, like very easy flip you can do. Sadly, the Knicks have nothing else to throw in the trade, but

Speaker 1 he's probably going to pick the trade. But I would bet on Brooklyn if I had to, because I think.
Brooklyn's sitting there with a lot of assets and some other moves

Speaker 1 pieces they can put together. Well, that's a good idea.
I just don't want to read another Kevin Durant. Well, I don't want to read another Kevin Durant.

Speaker 1 He's let's just put him on the Timberwolves next year unless somebody can figure out the part where the Suns are going to be like, cool, sign and trade for Randall. Sign us up.

Speaker 1 That's not, oh, and you have no picks? That sounds great too. So we'll just get Julius Randall and Rob Dillingham for KD.
Great.

Speaker 1 Let's talk to my

Speaker 1 favorite series.

Speaker 1 Nuggets Clippers.

Speaker 1 a line that has moved dramatically the clippers are now favored minus 118 favorites denver in five is plus 620 clippers and five is plus 680

Speaker 1 i think it's going longer than five denver is six plus 570 that would mean they won it they uh won in la

Speaker 1 clippers and six is plus 350. And then if you think it's going seven, which would be in Denver, plus 410 for Denver, plus 570 for LAC.

Speaker 1 And none of us are allowed to talk about the Kawhi's been hurt every year in the playoffs, and you have to factor that in. We all know.

Speaker 1 Rob, feels like a long,

Speaker 1 awesome,

Speaker 1 incredible Spurs Clippers 2015-ish

Speaker 1 series to me. And

Speaker 1 as I've said a million times, I think the Clippers are the second best team in the West. I think they're a real threat.

Speaker 1 And I think if Jokic can beat them, this would be way up there with anything he's done basketball-wise.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's kind of why I don't want to over-index on that Clippers-Warriors game too much because the Clippers just became one of the toughest matchups for basically every team in the Western Conference field over a matter of like five weeks.

Speaker 1 They're a really tough Jokic matchup. Like, Zoo plays him pretty well.
I think gives them a chance to play it honestly if they want to try to do that. And I suspect they will.

Speaker 1 This feels like a temperature check series to me on how you feel about Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. Do you

Speaker 1 long term in particular, but even within this series, like we know Denver's depth is an issue.

Speaker 1 We know that they're not, once they go beyond their seventh guy, even sometimes their sixth guy, to be honest with you, things can get dicey.

Speaker 1 But if Jamal Murray isn't fully healthy and he's kind of inching his way back and more or less play off Jamal Murray, they're going to have problems. And if Michael Porter Jr.

Speaker 1 has those games where he's a little spotty and the shot isn't hitting and all of a sudden he has 11 points in a mostly ineffectual game, that's a huge problem for Denver against this Clippers team that all of a sudden just has all of the pieces to put it together.

Speaker 1 You didn't talk about their bench. I'm trying to talk around it.
I'm trying to be nice. Well, it's going to be the top five guys on the Nuggets are going to have to play 38 to 41 minutes a game.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I think Jokic is going to have to be in the low 40s for them to like every second he's out of the game is going to be a disaster for them. What do you see, narrative God, Chris Ryan?

Speaker 1 I'm very interested to see Adelman's first playoffs against Ty Lu. It's probably the best team I have ever seen switch coaches this late into a season.
And does that give them a spark?

Speaker 1 Does that give them any tactical wrinkles? And how much can Lou think on his feet and negate that? Because he's probably one of the best in the league along with Spolstra at doing stuff like that.

Speaker 1 The Joker talk towards the end of the season of like, what did he say? Like a caged beast is the most dangerous animal or whatever. Like, I'm like.

Speaker 1 Let me watch this in slow motion, dude. I just want to like watch back cuts all day long.

Speaker 1 I'm so excited for that but adleman under the lights is like a really interesting question and like whether he does something different than than the malone teams we've been seeing over the last couple of postseasons what prestige tv character does adelman look like to me he looks like the embattled pr person in succession who's getting screamed at by kendo i have to give them a statement yeah

Speaker 1 kendo we got to tell them something and he's just getting berated um

Speaker 1 i i if kawaii is healthy i i just think the clippers are winning this series as great as Jokic is. I think you can give him any stat line in the series, and I'm not sure it matters.

Speaker 1 They have so many people to throw at Murray. This is a nightmare series for Murray.
Just let's start going.

Speaker 1 And we're going to see a lot of Christon, and we're going to see a lot of Nuggets welcoming Christon to shoot from wherever he wants. Sure.
Go ahead. You can have that.
But then he comes out.

Speaker 1 Let's go. Hey, have you met Derek Jones Jr.
yet?

Speaker 1 And I assume Batum's playing. Hey,

Speaker 1 have you met Nick Batum?

Speaker 1 Because because now you're going to have him for four minutes and i just think it's going to be really hard for them to get on track they're going to use all the westbrook minutes against them oh my god i'm sorry about that and uh and then zubats like here's another thing jokic doesn't want to get in foul trouble in these games and if he's going to guard zubats the clippers are really good when they throw it to him teams over always overreact they always send a second guy and if they try to guard him straight up with with joker he's gonna

Speaker 1 he's gonna try to put some some heat on them they're They're also a really good offensive rebounding team. Jokic is the only guy who rebounds on this team.
Nobody else gets a rebound.

Speaker 1 It's basically just him. Aaron Gordon eraser, but largely.
I'm just saying. Like, if they need a big rebound, he's usually the one getting it.
So now he's got to keep up Zoo.

Speaker 1 And then there's a separate Kawhi piece. Can I get a temperature check on big game James under the hotlights? And this is now

Speaker 1 you're going case for Denver, best player in the series.

Speaker 1 We've seen this James Harden play before. We have.

Speaker 1 And Kawhi Leonard, just when you think it's going great, it's like the dunza. It's like in presumed innocent.

Speaker 1 What was that dumb episode? One episode. Rob when the guy had the fake heart attack.
Next week, is he going to wake up? Oh, he's fine. It was just fine, though.
Yeah, it was, oh, he's okay.

Speaker 1 But Kawhi is the dun-dun cliffhanger. Yeah.
Just waiting to happen.

Speaker 1 With Harden, too, honestly. Like, Harden did not have great games against the Nuggets this year, but Kawhi didn't play in any of them, I believe.

Speaker 1 So having Kawhi on the floor dramatically changes every matchup, changes the defensive priorities. And in particular, I like to tie this into what you were saying, Bill, about Jokic and foul trouble.

Speaker 1 It's not just like battling Zoo on the block. It's not just fighting him, fending him off for rebounds.

Speaker 1 It's you're going to be in a ton of pick and roll all night because James Harden is going to have the ball. That is going to be his primary use.

Speaker 1 Like you're going to have to hang in that and not get too handsy along the way. And every foul for Jokic could mean a lot in the same way that every foul for Zoo could, too.

Speaker 1 Well, and Kendall Roy's PR guy, who I think seemed like he did a decent job in those last couple games, but he's going against, I think, one of the best four or five coaching staffs in the league.

Speaker 1 And a staff that is really committed to defense and disciplined on what they want to do and is just really smart. Everyone's on the same page.
They'll bench dudes that, you know, don't look great.

Speaker 1 They'll take them out. We didn't mention the Ben Simmons piece of this, Chris.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Some of my faves.

Speaker 1 I don't know what your relationship is with the other BS at this point, but I'm going to guess estranged.

Speaker 1 Estrange both of the answer.

Speaker 1 We're in a real wish-em-well zone. Oh, it's in the sarcastic wish-em-well.
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I'm excited for Ben. I'm excited for

Speaker 1 which excited, what part are you excited about, Ben? When they go to zone and he doesn't know what to do, if they do hack a Ben, if he takes a shot, what are you excited about?

Speaker 1 Ben getting hack of Ben shooting in front of the wall in Inglewood, like shooting in front of crowd wall. I'm excited for that.
No, no.

Speaker 1 My guess would be he gets phased out of this series as it goes along because I think there's too many unplayable things about him.

Speaker 1 The other thing with all the rest, Zubats always plays big minutes anyway.

Speaker 1 And it's gotten to the point with him where

Speaker 1 if he's out of the lineup, you really feel it.

Speaker 1 They get away with playing Batum at the five sometimes, especially like the non-Jokic minutes are such a wild card in terms of what kinds of fake centers you can throw out there.

Speaker 1 I don't see a reason why that happens. One other thing, guys, I got to mention this.
They really have a home court advantage now, the Clippers.

Speaker 1 There's real energy in that arena. Denver's not going to have a lot of fans there, but that's...

Speaker 1 It's not swinging games.

Speaker 1 It's never going to be the 80s again where you could just put five loud people behind the bench and just have them berate people.

Speaker 1 They were the only five people there. Yeah.
Right. Now it's, you know, there's just a nice energy to it.
So if we're talking narratives, oh, go.

Speaker 1 Oh, I wanted to ask you a question, whether you saw any parallels between the Denver situation and the Milwaukee situation.

Speaker 1 Not that Joker would ever ask out, but like, how different could this Nuggets team look next year if this is a first-round exit?

Speaker 1 I think you're looking at Porter in that case, right, Rob? I think that would be the first piece. I think Murray could be on the table, too.

Speaker 1 Like, that would surprise me. Different financial commitment for sure, but

Speaker 1 I think if the Nuggets lose, and granted, this is a series they well could lose, like a 4-5 in which both are quality Western Conference teams.

Speaker 1 It's not like a disgrace to lose to the Clippers, but clearly this is a team operating with incredible urgency that sees some pretty dramatic changes in its future.

Speaker 1 Why not trade Murray or Porter as a part of that if you think the outcome is disappointing?

Speaker 1 If you think those guys can't take you anywhere, then you got to start, you got to start somewhere with the actual roster.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because you can't get through this series that should tell you got to do something here. Well, because when they fired Booth and Malone,

Speaker 1 you could read that as white flag. We're getting ready for next season.
I have my eye on another GM who might become available soon or is in the mix,

Speaker 1 whoever, you know, and coach. And the same thing for coach.

Speaker 1 And then I think they kind of had a little bit of a dead cat bounce where they're like, no, we're not dead yet. We're fine, you know, and like

Speaker 1 we're still frisky and it's still Jokic, Jokic.

Speaker 1 So it's kind of weird. It's like, I, on one hand, I'm like, are you guys playing out the string or is this like...

Speaker 1 See, I don't think they were doing that at all. I think this was bad for a while.
And I think they wanted to do it a couple of different times.

Speaker 1 And they would just win a game right when you were about to do it.

Speaker 1 And I just think they stared at it and stared at it. And at some point, we're like,

Speaker 1 this is actually going to sink our season if we don't do something. Everything.
This is our last chance.

Speaker 1 Arsenal just beat Real Madrid and then the Champions League

Speaker 1 got the magic touch. So for narratives, for the Denver side, it'll be like, well, Jokic, I thought you'd think he's the MVP and he couldn't even get out of round one.

Speaker 1 Like, I promise you, if they lose to the Clippers, Jokic will not, there will be no shit on his feet. It won't, it will not be him.
They will, the Clippers will win despite Jokic.

Speaker 1 He's one of the best playoff performers in modern NBA, if not overall NBA history. And he also just had one of the best offensive seasons in the history of the league.

Speaker 1 I think there's the Murray Porter question from the Nuggets side, then who's going to come in, all that stuff. On the Clipper side, if they don't win,

Speaker 1 then it's a James Harden. He fooled us again.
If Kawhi can't play seven games in a row or six games in a row, he fooled us again. I think those would be the two things that came out of it.

Speaker 1 Let's take a break. Wanted to mention one other series to you, and then I'll do my NBA awards for you guys.
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We didn't talk Lakers, T-Wolves. I'm really proud of us.

Speaker 1 On ESPN, they would have just led with that. We could have done a GOAT conversation about LeBron and then

Speaker 1 done that whole thing. We don't have to do that here.
We led with Steph instead. You know, we're much nobler.

Speaker 1 I did the artsy. We did the Independent Spirits Award version of the same segment.
Aubrey Flazza was hosting this podcast. Hosting this first segment, yeah.
Adam Scott came in.

Speaker 1 Do you give the two wolves a chance in this series, Rob? Absolutely. I think

Speaker 1 there's a real possibility, and I'm not willing to stake all of these claims at once, but there's a real possibility that all three of these are upsets, that every non-OKC series in the West is an upset.

Speaker 1 I'm not just like zooming past the Wolves at all.

Speaker 1 I think the Lakers, understandably, given just the collective brain power between Luca and LeBron and the way that they really rip you apart over the course of seven games deserves a ton of respect and a ton of deference as we're kind of parsing out what's going to happen in this series.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Ant is still pretty unguardable, and you can pressure him and you can trap him and you can try to make him do difficult things, but this is a pretty capable, pretty deep team.

Speaker 1 They also require you to bet heavily on Julius Randall being good in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 They require you to really believe in Rudy Gobert's ability to hang in this matchup. I'm probably a little more bullish on that than most.
But I think that's a good thing. Hold on, wait a second.

Speaker 1 Why are you bullish on that? I don't think he's a train wreck.

Speaker 1 I think most of the time that Rudy Gobert gets dragged across the Kohl's, it's mostly misplaced frustration at like perimeter people who can't guard anybody or matchups that happen for like three minutes of a game.

Speaker 1 But overall, he may not be always playing up to Defensive Player of the Year standards. And frankly, he hasn't been that guy this year or last year really at all.

Speaker 1 He's kind of come down a level, but he's a good NBA player and he's a good player who has some leverage in a series like this. Like, I think he will make an impact on it.

Speaker 1 Do you think it's an advantage, Rob, that Finch has introduced this idea that there's no sacred cows on this team early in the season where he's like, I might run this five out for the end, or I might run this five out.

Speaker 1 And it's like, just because of your rep, just because of the name on the back of the jersey doesn't mean you're out here

Speaker 1 because you do, quote unquote, deserve it. It's who I think is the best matchup at the end of games.

Speaker 1 If he's been doing that all season, maybe Gobert is more emotionally prepared for eventualities where he's not on the floor because the Lakers are throwing something at the Wolves that he doesn't suit.

Speaker 1 He's not suited for. Yeah.
I think you hope that that's the case. And from a coaching perspective, you're right.
You're doing kind of everything you can to prime your players for that possibility.

Speaker 1 Bottom line, your team has Anthony Edwards, Jaden McDaniels, Rudy Gobert, Julius Randle.

Speaker 1 These are highly emotional players, if we're all being honest about the way that they operate and conduct themselves. They've had fights in huddles.
They've punched things and gotten injured.

Speaker 1 Like this is the core of your team, and you're going to ride and die with some of that emotion. And there's inevitably going to be a fallout during the really, really tough moments.

Speaker 1 But maybe you can get away with that for a series. Maybe you can get away with that for a couple of games at a time.
I think you just have to kind of ride the right wave with it.

Speaker 1 I had a Minnesota fan try to zag with Gobert, and I appreciated it. I won't name who it was, but

Speaker 1 they were like, you know, everybody's talking about playing Gobert off the court. What about Gobert's high lobs? Who's contesting those on the Lakers? I was like, oh, I kind of like that.

Speaker 1 He might play Jackson Hayes off the court. It's like, who are the rim protectors on the Lakers? I was like, well, they don't really have some.
And then

Speaker 1 the other point was that you can actually hide Gobert in this series a little bit more than people realize. Like, if Jackson Hayes is out there, he just stays with him.

Speaker 1 And if they're going to set picks where Jackson Hayes is the one setting the pick, good luck to you.

Speaker 1 And then when Rui's out there, he probably shades closer to Rui or Finney Smith and does the thing that the Celtics do with Porzingus, where he's near the corner, but he can jump back in.

Speaker 1 He can play free safety, yeah. And I don't know, they were just a little more bullish on it than I thought.

Speaker 1 There's a best player in the series question with this series that's really fun where you're like, well, obviously, Luca or LeBron. It's like, I don't know how obvious it is.

Speaker 1 Like, what if Edwards is just incredible?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Edwards certainly thinks he's the best player in the series.

Speaker 1 There's some,

Speaker 1 you know, LeBron's 40 years old. I feel like if you're going to always talk about, well, what if Kawhi gets hurt? I still think we have to.

Speaker 1 at least mention well what if a 40 year old guy playing really physical awesome playoff games every two three days like are we counting on that for three rounds? I think that has to be mentioned.

Speaker 1 And then the targeting Reeves on defense, I think. The smarter teams have done it.
The Lakers know it's coming.

Speaker 1 How much of that are they going to do it? I think it's an awesome series. If you had to pick, who are you picking, Rob? I would pick the Lakers, but I think it's going to be long.

Speaker 1 Like, I'm very tempted to pick a Lakers in seven. CR, do you think Minnesota, you think they get 30% of the calls this series? 28%? Where would you put it? Yeah, what's the circuit breaker?

Speaker 1 What's the lowest amount of calls they could get for the NBA breaks?

Speaker 1 I think 30 is a nice number.

Speaker 1 I'm going with the Wolves. Go with the Wolves.
Yeah. Hell yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's an awesome series.

Speaker 1 I'll tell you this, the fano line of Minnesota being a plus 156 underdog and the Lakers being almost two to one seems off to me because Minnesota has enough talent to hang with this.

Speaker 1 To me, this feels like a Lakers and seven.

Speaker 1 You've been watching Lucas so closely over the last couple of weeks, Bill. Do you feel like he's got his head screwed on right for this? For the postseason?

Speaker 1 I liked what I saw from him last week, but I absolutely think one of Minnesota's game plans is going to be to try to agitate him and annoy him

Speaker 1 and hope that he gets mad, hope that he gets technicals, hope that he gets into mono-amano stuff.

Speaker 1 I just think he's shown some real immaturity on the court. Like he, all the same stuff he's been doing the first seven years of his career, he still does.

Speaker 1 He still talks to people in the front row, all that shit. And I think Minnesota has a bunch of guys who love that.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, and the other thing with Minnesota is it's definitely an irrational confidence team, right? They're not going to be, nobody's going to be scared.

Speaker 1 They're not going to be, oh my God, we're playing in L.A. Like they don't give a shit.
They're not going to care that celebrities are

Speaker 1 around the front.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this will be a good one. I forgot to mention with the Rockets series

Speaker 1 and maybe with the Pistons Knicks, which is the last one I want to talk about quickly. I don't think kids should be allowed in the front row for either of those series.
Those are great series.

Speaker 1 I think it has to be 12,

Speaker 1 12 and up. You must be

Speaker 1 like a Disneyland ride. Yeah, if you're nine and under, you don't get to sit.
Nick's Pistons.

Speaker 1 I almost think that's like an NC 17 movie. You have to be 18 and older to sit.
Child services should be called. If you've got like a child.

Speaker 1 If you bring your six-year-old kid to Nick's Pistons and that kid gets trampled by Ron Holland during like a massive brawl, I don't feel sorry for you.

Speaker 1 I don't feel sorry that your kid broke his wrist when he's six years old. You shot him in the front row for that series.
Counterpoint to this, that'll build character. Oh, there we go.
That's true.

Speaker 1 And we're facing down a time in this country where people are going to maybe have to go back to the factories. And what better way to prepare you than by witnessing a massive brawl?

Speaker 1 There was a lot of people.

Speaker 1 Stay out of the first row. I'm just warning you now.
This is the thing. I don't know that there's an age at which you are safe from an Isaiah Stewart elbow.

Speaker 1 You know, like if it comes down to that, it really doesn't matter if you're a child. It doesn't matter if you're elderly.
Like, these guys are going to spill over. And I respect the hell out of it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because I don't think you could rule out Lakers, Wolves either for

Speaker 1 some sort of feistiness. But Rockets, Warriors, clearly, shit's going down in that series.
And the Rockets are going to hit Curry. They're going to hold him 50 feet from the basket on every screen.

Speaker 1 They're going to knock him down when he goes to the hoop.

Speaker 1 It's just going to be definitely yanking that guy's thumb. I mean, it is.
Oh,

Speaker 1 of course. Um, Pistons, Knicks, any chance, Rob?

Speaker 1 It's a, it's a real climb. I think there's, there's places where the Pistons are going to have definite advantages.
Like, that's a matchup that really suits Cade. I think he's going to play great.

Speaker 1 I think overall, the orchestration is going to be there. But keeping up with the Knicks and kind of the sheer firepower of what they're capable of with all of their guys out there is brutal.

Speaker 1 And I think even more brutal now, like they've had a weird season. They've been up and down.
They haven't all been together.

Speaker 1 Like they've they've played a lot together, but in terms of the chemistry of that core five, it hasn't been as scintillating as I might have hoped coming into this season.

Speaker 1 But then you get stretches where Brunson's out and OG Ananobi transforms into this totally different guy. Maybe there's a huge payoff for that, right?

Speaker 1 Maybe there's a payoff for those minutes where, you know, Towns is in foul trouble, Brunson has to leave the game for a bit or is just kind of being locked up in a certain matchup.

Speaker 1 Maybe Ron Holland is all, or Asar Thompson's all up in his jersey for long stretches. And now it's the OG Ananobi show.

Speaker 1 And I think that's something that the Pistons just don't have counters for, is that sort of layered offensive threat.

Speaker 1 Great regular season story, CR. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think this is probably where the train gets off, and maybe they win one. I think Nicks and four at plus 520

Speaker 1 or Nicks and five at plus 270. Those are probably two of my favorite bets.
The one question I have with the Knicks:

Speaker 1 can Tibbs figure out a way to, like, could Brunson end up with a minutes per game in this series of like 48.2?

Speaker 1 Like if there was like an overtime? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Are all five guys going to be in the 40s every game? Because there's like two days off between games. Yeah, Brunson has to do halftime entertainment.

Speaker 1 Does he have to do the red pin? Yeah, he has to go out there and spin plates. I just want to say,

Speaker 1 I was always a big Kay Cunningham fan, and I was really worried that his career was going to kind of

Speaker 1 get basically torpedoed by the institutional malaise of the Pistons. So to see this turnaround is really cool.

Speaker 1 I hope that everybody, because it's the Knicks, it's New York, there's going to be a ton of people watching this series just inevitably, that it's a great platform and he goes off no matter what happens.

Speaker 1 I think the Pistons definitely get one at home and it's a feel-good story. And I just, I think it's a cool platform to introduce a new star to the league.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Rob, are you watching institutional malaise on Paramount?

Speaker 1 You know, I thought it was a real slog mid-season. It just, it kind of lost me a lot.
I thought it was good to see Carlo Gegino like trying again

Speaker 1 with one of the Wilson brothers. He's a lawyer who's just trying to make it work with Nicole Kidman's three-episode arc.
I thought that was pretty good.

Speaker 1 We should create a video show for the Ringer-TV YouTube thing where we just list four shows and three of them are real and one is made up, and then the viewers have to guess which one we made up.

Speaker 1 Because I think it would be near impossible at this point.

Speaker 1 Apple will have some shows where I'm just like, wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What is that?

Speaker 1 That was Greenlit? There was a show that I heard about the other day called State of the Union with Chris O'Dowd and Rosmond Pike, and it's just about their marriage. And Nick Hornby wrote it.

Speaker 1 And I was like, this feels like a poster in Seth Rogan's office in the studio. Yes.
Right.

Speaker 1 The show that has almost, yeah, it's almost like made it even more noticeable. Yeah.
Rob, are you a 1923 guy? I'm not. Should I be? Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 I mean, am I missing out?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, it's not my favorite Sheridan, but

Speaker 1 it definitely ended with some fireworks. I prefer my Sheridan Modern, if I'm being honest with you.
I prefer it with, you know, guns ablazing, but in a more modern setting.

Speaker 1 Maybe a drug runner is involved. Maybe not.

Speaker 1 I have season tickets now for Sheridan. That's where I've landed.
Sure. I really like 1923, but it's one of the all-time couple shows for my wife and I.
My wife loves it. I have no idea why.

Speaker 1 And she loves shows set in the 1800s and 1900s because she feels like she really would have been an impactful person back then. What is an impactful person back then look like?

Speaker 1 She would have absolutely been able to defend the ranch with guns and

Speaker 1 would have been able to survive in the cold. She would have hit that train, the lady waiting for the train who was freezing to death.
She's like, I would have made it.

Speaker 1 I would have been able to make it until the train showed up. Yeah.
I would have died in the first episode. The median show for a couple is an interesting conversation.

Speaker 1 Like, what show ticks three boxes each? I think

Speaker 1 presumed innocent is a 10 out of 10 on this. Yeah, friends and neighbors right now for my wife and I

Speaker 1 taking equal boxes. Yeah.
Just hamming it up. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's having a ham old time.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Playing games really quick. I picked Miami against Chicago, and I think they're also going to be at Atlanta, and that line is only minus one.
There's no case for the Hawks, is there, Rob?

Speaker 1 I mean, there's a case in that other than what you may have been led to believe by the way that he just shellacked the pulse, this team can't really score in most games.

Speaker 1 And so I don't put it past them on any night to have like a 15-point quarter followed by a 13-point quarter. Who do you think Cleveland would rather play? Probably Atlanta.
I don't think they care.

Speaker 1 I think they probably.

Speaker 1 I mean, look, yeah, if given the choice, one of them is maybe a little less physically taxing than the other, but I don't think the Cavs are having a problem with either of those teams.

Speaker 1 You guys enjoy the play-in experience?

Speaker 1 I think they could dump the 9-10 pretty easily, and we'd be good.

Speaker 1 I think we could could go 7-8 and then loser plays 8-9,

Speaker 1 or we go 8-9 first. Yeah, they play the 7, some version of that.

Speaker 1 I just, although I guess Sacramento's still in,

Speaker 1 but it's almost like they need the college football committee from the mid-80s to kind of step in and just be like, now we've decided Sacramento is not a 9-10 team.

Speaker 1 SAC fired their GM while they're still in. No, no, no.
Like, they would be in. Oh, they would be in.
I see what you're saying. Yeah.
No, it's just

Speaker 1 you know you see those games there was one good game out of four i think they're probably hoping there's two good games out of four so yeah it's pretty tough i think year to year it's just impossible to know and so they keep the option open for the most possible good games and some junk is going to filter in like we're just going to have to sit through it i think yeah um cr

Speaker 1 i know about three weeks ago i heard through the grapevine

Speaker 1 you and your uh financial team bought some nico harrison stock to the lowest possible level. You're like, I'm going to bet on this guy.
A lot of connections, did some great stuff in the shoe industry,

Speaker 1 made some good trades, got pulled the Mavs to the finals last year.

Speaker 1 The stock's never been lower. I'm going to invest.
And then Dallas looks awesome last night in the play-in game. How are you feeling about your holdings?

Speaker 1 I'm the Charlie munger of buying into front offices.

Speaker 1 I find it incredibly funny with all due respect to our former former colleague, Jason Gallagher, who's really going through it on social media about the Dallas situation. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It was just kind of like, of course, they're going to get into the playoffs and we're going to keep having to talk about this.

Speaker 1 I still think obviously it is historically bad trade, but

Speaker 1 AD is good. Yeah.
I don't know. Nico Harrison said they were a championship level team for two and a half quarters.
Like, what more compelling evidence do you need? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, I, my question is, if they did, if they do, there's six and a half point underdogs in Memphis.

Speaker 1 and i to me that game's a toss-up because i could just see davis going nuts in that game um if they did get in the okayc thing one eight and then davis goes nuts in the first game and it just it's the most fun random scenario none of us would have expected like oh my god dallas is up 2-1 and nico's like fuck all of you guys i told you if we had kyrie we'd be winning this thing All the Mavs fans are wearing Joker masks and kind of like,

Speaker 1 how are we supposed to feel?

Speaker 1 Rob, who do you think OKC, I know they don't care either, but who would they rather play? I think they'd rather play Dallas.

Speaker 1 I think they'd rather play the team that basically doesn't have functional point guards, that's starting Najee Marshall out of necessity, that's running Brandon Williams out there, who's played relatively well.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 there's a reason why when you play against anyone who's not the Kings and you're the Mavs, you struggle to get the ball anywhere it needs to go in the half court.

Speaker 1 They just don't have enough, not just spacing, but the floor balance is kind of busted. They don't have enough playmaking in general right now.

Speaker 1 I think that would have been the case even if Kyrie was healthy, to be honest with you, but it's especially true now. Lou Dort's going to be like,

Speaker 1 I don't know who to guard.

Speaker 1 Who do you want me to shut down? Oh, these guys are mediocre.

Speaker 1 I want Dallas to keep winning because I think it would be hilarious. But yeah, this worked out unbelievably well for OKC.
And this is why you get the one seed. And this is what I did.

Speaker 1 All right, before we go,

Speaker 1 I want to do my awards that I handed in on Tuesday,

Speaker 1 not expecting. Uh, I thought I had a little more time, I thought so too,

Speaker 1 but they asked for it on Tuesday. I think they didn't want the play-in game, so I'm just gonna

Speaker 1 tell you what I did, and you guys, I don't think I none of neither of you guys know anything I did, right? No, okay, I can guess based on some of your more recent podcast appearances.

Speaker 1 Coach of the year,

Speaker 1 Bickerstaff, three,

Speaker 1 Kenny Atkinson, two, Whoa.

Speaker 1 Mark Dagnall, number one. Okay.

Speaker 1 Dagnall's been great. Who'd you have, Rob? I did Atkinson one.

Speaker 1 Eme Odoka two, Bickerstaff three.

Speaker 1 But Dagnall's been great. Ty Lou has been great.

Speaker 1 I think Dagnall, in particular, balancing all the injuries that OKC had this season, maintaining an elite, high-effort, high-intensity defense over the entire course of the run, and helping their young players get better.

Speaker 1 That's just not something that a lot of coaches can do all at once.

Speaker 1 So he deserves a ton of credit i was always impressed watching them how well prepared they were how hard they played and how they could basically sustain any injury and it was somehow okay uh but the way the young players have grown on that team and it's got to the point when the trade deadline it's like i don't know aaron wiggins is good why would they why do they need like a swing man why do they need deandre hunter like they have aaron wiggins uh I just thought he did a great job.

Speaker 1 And I think sometimes we default toward

Speaker 1 it's got to be this, you know, like a bicker staff or like a JJ the Lakers only improved by 30. It's almost most improved team becomes coach of the year kind of thing.

Speaker 1 And it's, and I always felt like that was stupid. So anyway, I have that.
Clutch player of the year.

Speaker 1 Jason Tatum, number three. Look up the stats.
Sure. No.

Speaker 1 Jalen Brunson. He's still only 19 years old, Chris.
Jalen Brunson, too.

Speaker 1 I couldn't believe how easy this was for me because I actually watched basketball. Jokic is the number one clutch player of the year.
Does anyone fucking watch the Nuggets?

Speaker 1 He does everything at the end of games for them. Everything possible.
How is he not clutch player of the year?

Speaker 1 Because this award is kind of bogus. That's a ridiculous award.
They should get rid of it. It's reliant on how you parse 12 shots.
Like that, that's what the clutch player of the year is.

Speaker 1 We talked about other possible things that could, Russell and I, that could go in for this award because I hate the Kia clutch player of the year and I think it's stupid.

Speaker 1 But it could be like the an award like the Kia,

Speaker 1 I'd really given up on you, but you kind of won me back over, player of the year. Like, I really think they should have something like that, or I really thought you sucked, and it turns out you don't.

Speaker 1 How do you think Kia would feel about that? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah.

Speaker 1 Does that fit on a poster for them? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Sixth Man of the Year. Ty Jerome third, Peyton Pritchard second, and Malik Beasley first.
And I, I can't believe Pritchard was favored for this award all year.

Speaker 1 I just, what Beasley did all year, clearly the sixth man to me. He didn't start really ever.

Speaker 1 He scored 16 a game. Kurt Goldsbury did a thing on my pod about how he's basically Clay Thompson for them this year.
It's been really good. And

Speaker 1 I just thought it was a no-brainer. Who'd you have for that, Rob? I had Pritchard.
I think Pritchard does a lot of what Beasley does at a more or less similar level, not quite the three-point volume.

Speaker 1 What Beasley's doing is pretty exceptional in that way, but a great three-point shooter himself, plus holds his own defensively. Yeah.
Plus, drives offense off the dribble.

Speaker 1 I just think he's more versatile than Beasley at the end of the day. CR, my thinking was: if Pritchard disappeared for 25 games, it would suck, but the Celtics would have been fine.

Speaker 1 If Beasley disappeared, I think the Pistons would have been in major, major, major trouble because they actually ran real offense for him throughout the game.

Speaker 1 Also, if you had picked Pritchard, most people would have thrown their phones at the same time. That's true for by now.
Yeah, look, man, I really care about these awards.

Speaker 1 I try to do the right thing, even if it's at the expense of pritch please

Speaker 1 please tell me that's not a thing uh that's t-shirt in boston yeah you can look for it

Speaker 1 i'm sure i did pritch please is the hottest hottest selling t-shirt in boston not a lot of pritch please shirts at the coolest i could get you one cr thanks please i'm a medium rookie of the year i went castle one reshade two ed3 i don't Castle did enough, I feel like.

Speaker 1 You know, it wasn't, yeah, he was out there. Any arguments, CR?

Speaker 1 No, I mean, the Castle thing is just so exciting to imagine him with a healthy Wemby Fox full offseason and then maybe an addition that they make in the offseason. Like, it's really cool.

Speaker 1 He's like a perfect winning basketball player on that, on that team. I'll skip the rookie first, second team.
Most improved.

Speaker 1 I did Kamara on Portland, number three. Really?

Speaker 1 I thought. He was stunning.
I mean, he's been great, but he's kind of always been great at those things, though. I get, yeah,

Speaker 1 I really took this one seriously and looked at everybody's because I wanted to do Reeves, and I looked at last year's Reeves versus this year, and it's like, was he really improved?

Speaker 1 He was good last year. Same thing for Cade.

Speaker 1 Kamara became, I think, a guy that the other team was like, fuck. That is true.
They have this guy. Oh, man, this is going to be a hard night for me.
So I had him three. I had Christian Brown, two,

Speaker 1 just getting thrown in the KCP thing. And then I thought Daniels was the clear number one.
Who'd you have number one, Ruff? I had Zoo, actually, number one. Oh, I looked at him.

Speaker 1 I just felt like he was good last year and then went up a level, but he's coming up later. He was good, but like, I wouldn't have put him anywhere close to all defense last year, for example.

Speaker 1 I thought he was really solid, but now he's all defense. Now he's putting up massive numbers.

Speaker 1 Now he's still one of the most impactful rebounders in the league, but has taken like an even bigger jump in terms of what that means to a team. I just think he's been incredible.

Speaker 1 I wanted to put Quentin Grimes number one for CR because he almost ruined CR's draft pick. Oh my God, dude.

Speaker 1 Every night it was like I was at home in Philly watching a run of games that they had, and he would honestly be going nuclear. And you'd be like, all right, Quentin, roll an ankle.
Come on.

Speaker 1 You know, like,

Speaker 1 you've done enough. Yeah.
You hit your over or whatever that is.

Speaker 1 Anything? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Defensive player of the year.

Speaker 1 Number three, Draymond Green. Okay, I'm feeling better.
I'm worried. I'm worried where you're going, but I have hope.

Speaker 1 Number two, Evan Mobley. Oh, fuck.

Speaker 1 We couldn't get Evan Mobley number one. Number one, Lou Dort.

Speaker 1 Should have known. Lou Dort.
I looked at it every which way, and I thought I was going. I thought it was really hard.
And by the way, there's no Wemby this year.

Speaker 1 So this was like an Oscars year where you just take out Titanic out of 1997 and they try to figure out what best picture is.

Speaker 1 I just thought Dort was the best guy I saw in person this year. And I think he wrecked.
the most games that I saw. As good as Mobley is Mobley,

Speaker 1 looked like facimile KG a lot of the times and can guard all these different things. I thought what Dort did to some of the best players in the league was unbelievable.

Speaker 1 And I saw it in person a couple times. Harden wanted no part of him.

Speaker 1 No one does. No, it's just like they, he's just like this.

Speaker 1 He's like Revis on the Jets, just like, all right, I'm going to take that guy. You guys worry about what you're going to do.
This guy's not doing anything today. And I just thought he was awesome.

Speaker 1 I voted for Smart a couple years ago, which became a controversial pick after the pet. And it's a lot of the same stuff.
Like,

Speaker 1 I just think perimeter guys who can make sure the other best guy in the team doesn't hit 30 in the game, which he had a two and a half month stretch where nobody scored 30 on him.

Speaker 1 So I had him. So, Rob, you had Mobley? I had Mobley, yeah.

Speaker 1 Where did you have Amen?

Speaker 1 That was second team, right? All defense, second team? Yeah, I had him second team, and I'm already regretting it. But I'll tell you what I did for the, so I had first team, all defense.

Speaker 1 I I had Mobley, Green,

Speaker 1 Dort, Dyson Daniels, I felt like had to be the poke check shit he was doing. Nobody's done that in 40 years.
I've never, and

Speaker 1 the one thing I didn't love about him was the big physical guys. I felt I could overpower him a little bit, but everything else was there.
And then I put, I put Zubats first team. Yeah, why not? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I thought their whole defense is anchored toward funneling people to him. The rebounding, which I think should matter at least a little bit in all defense, protecting the boards.
And

Speaker 1 I like to have my teams look like a semblance of a team. I know these are all fake teams.
They're extremely fake. They're extremely stupid and fake, but I like that I want them to look like a team.

Speaker 1 So then second team, Kamara, Ananobi, Ahmed Thompson, Jalen Williams, and I had Giannis over Gobert.

Speaker 1 I just feel like we skip over Giannis every year with all defense for some reason. Then you watch these games and he's all over the place covering.
JJJ, not in either? None? Neither. Damn, none.

Speaker 1 I think he's in the group that could have like a first-team argument. I think, you know, it's on that borderline where you're either going to go Amen, Jaron Jackson, Zoo, someone in that category.

Speaker 1 But I think he's got to be there. I think he's got to be their second team.

Speaker 1 Sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 1 Stay in the fucking court. I've watched too many games where he does the dumbest foul.
He did it in the play-in game. He does dumbest fouls at the worst time.
And I think that's a huge part of this.

Speaker 1 Zubat stays on the court. That is true.
Zubats is like 2.1 fouls a game and Jackson will be

Speaker 1 any big game and watching the play-in game, I'm sure it'll be the same thing. He's always lingering around foul trouble, foul dudes 20 feet from the basket.
What do you have, CR?

Speaker 1 I was just going to say in honor of your Kia, I thought you sucked, but you actually impressed me this year award or changing that title. I think we could do the Kia.

Speaker 1 I like watching you play defense more than I like watching most guys play offense team.

Speaker 1 And now we're talking. The Kia

Speaker 1 are just popping off right now. I like watching Ahmed play defense more than I like watching 80% of guys play basketball.
Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, he's, it would be a weird word to have athlete of the year in the NBA, but for me, he's athlete of the year.
Yeah. That's the over and over again when people see Houston in person.

Speaker 1 They're like, Jesus. It's really jarring.
What happened to this guy?

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 All NBA first team, Shea, Jokic, Tatum, Giannis, Mitchell. You knew those were the five.
Second team, Edwards, Curry,

Speaker 1 Mobley,

Speaker 1 Towns,

Speaker 1 LeBron James.

Speaker 1 There's some cases against LeBron because of the net rating, Rob. Like he had a net minus 1.3 net rating on a team that won 50 games.

Speaker 1 Do you care about that stuff when you look at votes? I think you have to flag it and kind of kick the tires on it, but ultimately you circle back to the fact that this is LeBron James.

Speaker 1 And you can see so much of the impact he has on the game. He's not a subtle player.
Like he has the ball a lot. He makes incredible plays that no one else can make.
I think it's worth looking at.

Speaker 1 But the Lakers' rotation has been so funky all year. I think there's just a lot of noise in it, to be honest with you.
Yeah, and CR, I was like, it was just a goofy season. Davis gets hurt.

Speaker 1 They make a trade mid-season, and he was

Speaker 1 the only constant. So you're good with LeBron's second team? Yeah, and I think that you should almost give him credit for

Speaker 1 the adaptability. that he's had.
Definitely.

Speaker 1 Some nights he has to be the man.

Speaker 1 Some nights he's like playing setup guy for luca he's weathered all these different storms and he's actually been like pretty healthy for a 40 year old and when he's been on the court he's looked awesome every time i want to heat praise on him he does stuff like saying how he was in the bottom half of the league with free throws over the last whatever that thing he said on mccofee was easily debunked or then rich paul goes in and talks about how the three guys in miami weren't actually a big three if you look at it it's like yeah they were bash was like a 24 and 10 guy in his own team it was a big three dude um the The constant trying to push this GOAT agenda with LeBron.

Speaker 1 They're making it worse, not better. I'll just say that.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 NBA third team. Cade Cunningham and Brunson.
No surprise.

Speaker 1 The last three spots were pretty divisive all over the place. And a lot of people had Hal Burton and

Speaker 1 Jaron Jackson here. Neither of them made my list.

Speaker 1 Come on.

Speaker 1 Why? Jalen Williams, OKC. Shorts.

Speaker 1 Zubats. Okay.
I put him on. I like that.
Because I just, look, the NBA does this thing where they've just like, there's too much controversy with these, with the ONBA teams. Just pick 15 best players.

Speaker 1 And it's like, I don't want to do that. You're throwing away 80 years of history by doing that.
I still think I have to have a big man on every team.

Speaker 1 And if there's no big man, then sure, I'll have four guards. But if there's somebody who deserves to be on it, I'm just picking them over having four guards.

Speaker 1 I thought Zubats, I made the case for him Sunday. I thought he was amazing and incredibly important.
And

Speaker 1 it was a good litmus test of are you watching basketball or not this season? So that last spot came down to James Harden or Tyrese Halliburn for me. And I can't believe it.
I took James Harden.

Speaker 1 Incredible. Can I ask

Speaker 1 two clippers on my third team? Do you think it's just funny to cost Steve Ballmer a lot of money? Because

Speaker 1 these guys probably will like trigger. Or do they have like bonuses? I didn't even, I didn't know about that.

Speaker 1 I just thought Harden, I watched, I really like the Pacers, but there are some Pacers games where he just wasn't, didn't have to be that important. First couple months of the season wasn't great.

Speaker 1 Last three, four months, he was way, way better, really good. Definitely.
Harden does everything for the Clippers.

Speaker 1 Even when Kawhi's out there, everything's still running through him, and he was really durable. He played, I think, like 78, 79 games.
And I just thought he was really, really good.

Speaker 1 I had a lot of, I couldn't leave him off. So, Rob, what are your take? Two clippers

Speaker 1 it's a lot of clippers even for a great clipper season i especially at haliburton's expense who will it will surprise no one given my pacers advocacy uh i know that i have haliburton i actually have him on my second team wow

Speaker 1 he is the style of play for a 50 win team yeah like that's that's a pretty compelling case he doesn't have a straightforward one-on-one game and that makes him kind of a funky player but he has a comprehensive winning effect on everything that's happening around him and harden has some of that too.

Speaker 1 I want to be fair. Like Hardin handling and shouldering as much as he did is what lets you play Chris Dunn as much as you do.
It's what lets you play Derek Jones Jr. as much as you do.

Speaker 1 It's what lets you get away with all these other guys slotting into their roles.

Speaker 1 And so the usage kind of efficiency trade-offs of that are not always going to look great for Hardin, but the impact is there and is substantial.

Speaker 1 But him and Zoo over Hall of Burden, I think the only way to do it is to do what you did, which is construct an entirely new set of rules by which you need to put a center center on the team to make it look like an actual basketball team.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And if it was going to go, you know, hey, do whatever, then I probably would have done Halliburton and Harden.
But I really, I

Speaker 1 genuinely think Seabots deserves it. Those are the rules are do whatever.

Speaker 1 But they're not his rules. That's true.
Look, a man's got to have a code. Those weren't the rules in 1973.

Speaker 1 Those weren't the rules in 1997. I'm not going to move America forward.

Speaker 1 Bill's keeping the positions of all NBA and we're going to start smoking inside a restaurant. We'll start messing around with the Constitution.
All of a sudden, Trump's in there for multiple terms.

Speaker 1 What could go wrong?

Speaker 1 I felt really bad about Halliburton. I had basically 16 guys for 15 spots.
Jackson wasn't going to make it for me, but Halliburton.

Speaker 1 So that's it. I'll probably maybe regret it.
All right. MVP, last one.
I put Mitchell five.

Speaker 1 I test drove the Edwards case and I test drove the Curry case. Did you do similar test drives, Rob? For Curry, more than Edwards.
I think Ant for me is like maybe a slight cut below these guys.

Speaker 1 Tatum, four.

Speaker 1 He was three for me most of the year, but I thought Giannis, whatever happened to him the last month, was just out of control.

Speaker 1 And he just had to be three, especially when Dame goes out and it just didn't matter for them. So Mitchell, Tatum, Giannis.

Speaker 1 And then I battled back and forth between Jokic and Shea, and I changed my mind a hundred times. And I really don't think there was a wrong answer because Shea had one of the best seasons by a guard,

Speaker 1 probably in the last 40 years. When you're talking about his offensive production, the consistency, how he did against teams head-to-head,

Speaker 1 what he meant to a pretty young but incredibly deep OKC team, and the fact that they won 68 games.

Speaker 1 Like, I just thought he was an incredible candidate and probably would have taken easily 80% of the seasons. And I think he's going to win this year anyway.
I voted for Jokic.

Speaker 1 I thought it was the best offensive season I've seen since Jordan.

Speaker 1 Like for what somebody did game after game, quarter after quarter, all the shit that he did for that team. Not only was he, first of all, to be top three in points, rebounds, and assists is

Speaker 1 bonkers. I just can't believe, but not trying to pad stats, not doing the shit Westbrook did in 2017, where, can you box out so I can get this foul shot rebound, all that stuff.

Speaker 1 His usage rate's not that high. So if you're going to compare it to Luca last year, like Luca had the ball all the time last year.

Speaker 1 Jokic kind of has the ball at a necessity, but he wants the ball to keep moving almost like a hockey player.

Speaker 1 I thought the stuff he did day to day, week to week, I've never seen anything like it. And

Speaker 1 I was leaning there and leaning there. And then that 60, 10, 10 game.

Speaker 1 I just, I was like, this is,

Speaker 1 we may never see anything like this again.

Speaker 1 And I just had to pick him. So that's where I landed.
I felt like just the fact that he'd won before would be the only reason. I get it.
Shea with the wins. I mean, there's great cases for Shea.

Speaker 1 I didn't like making a pick, and I'll probably regret it a week from now. But I just feel like I'm never going to see a season like that again.
He got 50 games.

Speaker 1 They were in a three-way tie for the third spot in the West, which was really competitive. The Coach GM situation was a catastrophe.
Murray didn't show up for the first two months of the season.

Speaker 1 They had no bench. The advanced metrics for when he was on the court, when he was off the court was the biggest disparity in the history of the league.

Speaker 1 And it's just like, at some point, what are we doing? So I took him. What are your, what's your take, CR?

Speaker 1 Well, I want to ask you whether or not you think you might regret it in two months if Oklahoma City loses like two games in the playoffs. And he's

Speaker 1 16 and two. Because I know it's a regular season award, but like, how will it sit if Shay is leading this historically good Oklahoma City team to their first title? And he is like, it's me.

Speaker 1 Like, I am him. You know, like, you guys are worried about Luca and Luka.
I don't feel stupid. Right.

Speaker 1 But I can see that. He's a regular season award.
That's the thing. And, and the thing is, Shea was incredible.
Like, I almost feel like it's not, it's not even like a, like a slap on him.

Speaker 1 He had, he had like a better season than any Kobe Bryant season. He had as good of a season as any season Jordan ever had statistically when you look at the wins and all the other stuff.

Speaker 1 But I just, the Jokic thing I thought was like a fucking unicorn season. Rob, what's your take?

Speaker 1 I also voted Jokic. I think Shea did, as you said, every single thing you need to do to win MVP.
But sometimes you play at the same time as Nikola Jokic.

Speaker 1 And I mean, this is where every voter is so different.

Speaker 1 For me, if you are definitively the best player in the world and Jokic is having a season representative of being the best player in the world, I kind of start there and you have to have the burden of proof to overcome it.

Speaker 1 And I think Shay got as close as I can imagine a player possibly getting getting with the season that Jokic had. Like that is an incredibly compelling case.

Speaker 1 What the Thunder were overall, a 68-win team, how dominant their defense was and his role in that, especially juxtaposed with Jokic, who has not been good defensively all season.

Speaker 1 But the way that Jokic carries that team is totally unique. And overall, his production, I think, is just something that is really, really hard to talk your way around

Speaker 1 or out of. And so.

Speaker 1 I don't feel great about it, but I also don't think I'm ever going to be at the point where I'm losing sleep over voting for Jokic for MVP.

Speaker 1 As long as he's playing like this, I'm going to be at peace with that, even if it means someone who also very well could have, and I think will be MVP, was not number one on my ballot.

Speaker 1 It feels like Jokic has moved into the Jordan LeBron zone where he's MVP every year.

Speaker 1 And it's really up to the voters to be like, I'm bored, or something has happened that feels like lightning in a bottle.

Speaker 1 You could tell me that next season Shay's not in the top three for NBA voting, MVP voting, and I wouldn't be shocked, right? But I would be if Jokic wasn't.

Speaker 1 Well, like LeBron was in the zone from 09 to 13. He won four or five, and then that Miami season, the first one was the one he didn't win.

Speaker 1 But it was just like when he was on that level that he was at,

Speaker 1 nobody was taking the MVP from him as long as his team was winning enough games. And then he went to Cleveland.

Speaker 1 I think the one LeBron season you could probably make the case after 13 was that last Cleveland season when he played 82. His stats are really good.

Speaker 1 But if you go back and look, like Harden's team won 65 games, and his stats were basically dead even with LeBron. He was a better pick.

Speaker 1 Well, the one quirk in that, though, was that LeBron was the best player in the league and did have that acclaim, and Derrick Rose won. And this, look, Shay is complicated.

Speaker 1 Like, no, this is not that. Shea is absolutely worthy and not just like a narratively driven winner.
Like, he has every literally everything you would want on the resume.

Speaker 1 And I think, especially going to get head-to-head against other good teams. Like, he did it.
He was an incredible.

Speaker 1 But I kept coming back. Like, I did, you did the Ringer 100, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I had OKC. I had them, I had Shea 2, 17, 18, 62, 65, 79, and 96.
I had them with seven of the best 96 guys. In Denver, I had 1, 41, 60, and 78.

Speaker 1 And I'm not even sure how good I feel about the 78, which is Porter. Like, that might have been even a little bit too high.
And then you think, like, no, I'm just like, I don't, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't know how much I like Porter.

Speaker 1 And then you throw in the bench, which is like every 30 seconds he wasn't in the game, you felt like Denver was going to fall apart.

Speaker 1 I thought it was a historic season. I feel terrible

Speaker 1 that I didn't vote for Shea because Shea did every single thing you ever could have asked.

Speaker 1 I just think Jokic's position is more important if you're going to look at it to be like a point center that is also the best rebounder.

Speaker 1 He did everything, but he not only made the meals for his team, but he like fucking spoon-fed them teammate by teammate. I've never seen anything like it.
And when he was out, they were eating gruel.

Speaker 1 Like they were eating. Yeah, they moved to prison food.
So we'll see. Jokic could lose in five games in round one, and it could be a 2007 Dirk situation.

Speaker 1 Well, so, Bill, you said you had seven Thunder players on your top 100 ballot. Is Aaron Wiggins one of those players? No, but Kayson Wallace was Kayson Wallace.
Oh, I love Kayson Wallace. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, now we're talking. Yeah, because I just feel like if Kayson Wallace was on another team, that's a 35-minute a game guy for 25 other teams in the league.

Speaker 1 Straight up one of the best ISO defenders in the league.

Speaker 1 And it's luxury for them. Maybe their third or fourth best defender, which I think is

Speaker 1 a real state in terms of what they're doing.

Speaker 1 So if you're going to ding Shae for anything, and I don't even know if it's a ding, that team is so, and they were missing, like, Hartenstein was out for a while. Chet missed two-thirds of the season.

Speaker 1 Like, I get it. But when you just like, like, fundamentally, that team is built so perfectly for them, where they can lose any two guys for a game, and it's still okay.

Speaker 1 They can guard everybody in every conceivable way, and Shea just really has to worry about, I just got to score for us in crunch time. This is my job.
And he was awesome at it. Yep.

Speaker 1 But man, that Jokic season.

Speaker 1 One other thing about the Jokic case, too, that I've seen going around, like, I get that the Thunder ran away with the West, and they deserve credit for that, and Shea deserves credit for that.

Speaker 1 When was a 50-win season not good enough to win MVP?

Speaker 1 Never. I mean, you want to be in the top four seeds.
I think if the Denver had fallen to like a seven seed, I think it gets a little dicer.

Speaker 1 I know everybody was split by a game, but still, you know, the West was the West had,

Speaker 1 what,

Speaker 1 eight of the best 11 teams in the league, basically?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 Miscount and Indiana, and most of the good players in the league. So, all right, CR.
I thought you'd be, I thought CR would be more upset. CR, who'd you have? Shea or Jokic? You didn't tell us.

Speaker 1 I have Shea, but it was only just because I, I kind of have a weird feeling that like Oklahoma could just like run away with this.

Speaker 1 This might not be a very close postseason. I think they're so far and away the best team I've watched this year.

Speaker 1 And we haven't had one of those in a while where it's just like, whoa, this train just like left the station. So I think that in honor of that, there's nothing against Jokic.

Speaker 1 Jokic played one of the best basketball games I've ever seen in my life was that 60-point game. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I just feel like it was Shaysier.

Speaker 1 I think OKC gets to the finals unless I think the Clippers are the only team that has a chance against them. I think they beat everybody else.
I think they're just going to win.

Speaker 1 I think this is their year.

Speaker 1 It certainly feels like it, especially if Jalen Brown isn't 100% Jalen Brown and they play Boston in a finals where they have home court and it's an 80% Jalen Brown and versus them versus Cleveland, I would just take them 10 out of 10 times.

Speaker 1 Anyway, Mahoney, CR, I kept you way longer than I promised, but I had a good time. Thanks for popping on.
Thanks for having me, Bill. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats.

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Speaker 1 Brian Windhorse is here, and we're taping this this on a Tuesday because you came over to watch the first play-in game with me.

Speaker 1 We're running it on a Thursday, so we're going to try to go as evergreen as humanly possible.

Speaker 2 We'll pretend that we know what's happened in the next two days, but we don't know what's happened. For all I know, Jaw scored 56 tonight.

Speaker 1 Tonight was the greatest day of basketball.

Speaker 2 Ja rescued his reputation tonight and pushed the Warriors to the thunder. And what I'm trying to do here is sound smart if something like that happens.

Speaker 1 Ja retired the grenade celebration and had a 70-point game.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 So I want to dive into your life, which I'm fascinated by. You're in LA,

Speaker 1 but you're doing get up. Yes.

Speaker 1 And you told, what time did you get up to do get up?

Speaker 2 I get up at like 3.41 a.m. when I'm here.
When I'm doing get up, not every day.

Speaker 1 What's your normal time zone? Which one is it? What's your normal time zone? Okay, so you're two hours, but three hours

Speaker 1 behind DT.

Speaker 2 I love doing get up. Yeah.
It's such a fun show to do. I'm not just saying that, I swear.
I love working with Greenberg.

Speaker 2 I love working with their show. I don't want to do it 20 times a month, but it's playoffs, you know, so whatever.
But it is hard to, like, tonight, it's going to be a struggle to stay up for this.

Speaker 2 Like, I'll be struggling in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 1 So, you wake up

Speaker 1 quick shower just to wake up? Are you getting coffee? Like, what's your mind?

Speaker 2 I don't drink coffee. I don't, I don't drink coffee, so it's a problem.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 I get up.

Speaker 1 Get to put like self-makeup?

Speaker 2 No, well, so it's a good question. See, since you're in the business, so

Speaker 2 I do put on self-makeup. The makeup artists come about 6 a.m.
because there's a show starting around then.

Speaker 2 But I put on some powder at like 4.45. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That was, I remember my friend Rob Stone, who works for, does a bunch of stuff for Fox I've known forever. ESPN let us do a college basketball game once at Pepperdine.

Speaker 2 Amazing.

Speaker 1 And it was like in the mid-2000s. And

Speaker 1 we get there and we're about to go on. He pulls out this thing and he's doing this.
And I'm like, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm powdering up. Do you want some? I'm like, no.

Speaker 1 And he's like, well, you're going to regret it. And then he was right.

Speaker 2 Well, like, the thing is, like, too much information. Like after I take a shower, I get like a red face.
So I've got to, I got to do it. I got to put on the powder.

Speaker 2 So I've got like a little compact with me.

Speaker 1 And you put your little thing, your little head. Yeah.
And can you, are you on the delay? Because that's always one of the hard things in those.

Speaker 2 No, so like I'm here in L.A. We have a studio.
I go into the studio.

Speaker 1 Oh, you go in? Yeah. I go in.
Oh, I walk. I mean, it's a short distance from the hotel to the thing.
Okay, I get it.

Speaker 2 But during the playoffs, I'll be doing it for my hotel room a lot. I choose hotel rooms.

Speaker 2 I choose hotels in the playoffs based on when I can do a good morning TV setup in. Like, I know this is going to sound strange, but there was a hotel in Dallas last year

Speaker 2 that I picked because I did it in the Western Conference finals and I came back for the finals that I knew they had high chairs in the lobby. I swiped.

Speaker 2 I came up, I went to the bartender and said, hey, can I borrow one of these chairs? Because, you know, you got to sit on a high chair.

Speaker 1 She's like, hey, you're Brian Winhurst.

Speaker 2 He didn't know who it was.

Speaker 2 And I dragged it into the, like a bar chair into the elevator.

Speaker 2 I took it upstairs.

Speaker 1 They probably thought you were sitting there.

Speaker 2 Because you need to sit on a high chair. You know, it doesn't look good when you're scrunched up.
So you don't have that in a hotel room. So I, and I did it in Minneapolis too.

Speaker 2 Like I, I'd like, borrow chairs and take them to my room. Like when I'm on the road in the playoffs doing get up and first take take in the morning.

Speaker 2 Like sometimes I'm at the arenas where they have setups, but on nights, on days when I don't, and I'm in a hotel, that's what I do. But when I'm in LA, we have a studio I go into.

Speaker 1 Well, and then you do, you attempt the craziest thing, which I have never done and will never do, is doing actual content on the court after games

Speaker 1 when people can interrupt you. Zach told me, you could tell the story, though.
Somebody interrupted you and came in and had some amazing story and then it wasn't recording. You lost it.

Speaker 1 So what was that story?

Speaker 2 So the Dan Hurley thing had just gone down.

Speaker 2 He came out here to the Lakers and got a new contract. It was after one of the games in Boston.

Speaker 2 It had to have been like game two. Okay.

Speaker 2 And Zach and I are on the court and Gino is,

Speaker 2 Gino walks past, because, you know, what you're doing on the court, it's just live. Like we're constantly grabbing people who are walking by.
Gino walks by, says hello to us. We're recording.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 he had just signed a new contract.

Speaker 2 And I made this joke. I was like, hey, congrats on your new contract.
I was a little worried they might not retain you. Right.

Speaker 2 Make a joke. He goes, yeah, I should have, somebody, there was a job open.
Oh, it's a Cleveland job. He goes, yeah, I should have pretended like I was going to go to the Cavs.

Speaker 2 I could have got more money.

Speaker 2 Like, only half joking.

Speaker 2 And I mean, maybe he was fully joking. I don't know.
But it was like an amazing job.

Speaker 1 Or maybe he wasn't joking at all.

Speaker 2 It was an amazing moment. Like, oh my God, I think he just took like a soft shot at Dan Hurley or maybe a hard shot.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 And then like two minutes later, Cedric Maxwell walks by and he's always good for talking shit about the Lakers. Yeah.
And, you know, I think Boston got up 2-0.

Speaker 2 And I prompted him to talk some trash, which he did,

Speaker 2 which is always great. Like, this is now like multiple finals in a row where I've gotten Max to do this.
It's almost like a trope. He knows.
They all know.

Speaker 2 Zach and I are sitting there with microphones. They all know what's going on.
And so he makes like some sort of passing comment, making fun of the Lakers or James Worthy.

Speaker 2 And he keeps on walking and he walks because, you know,

Speaker 2 there's wires on the ground. He walks

Speaker 2 through the wires and he pulls it. And the recorder goes flying onto the court, explodes open.
Things that

Speaker 1 you lose everything.

Speaker 2 We lost everything.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 So that's like my worst nightmare.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, and you know, Zach, like,

Speaker 2 Zach doesn't do the second take. Like, he was ready to like

Speaker 2 he was ready to walk. He's like, we're just not going to do it tonight.
I go, no, Zach,

Speaker 2 it's a game two of the finals. We need to do it.
So, yeah, that happened.

Speaker 1 It's been really fun for me to watch your, your,

Speaker 1 your, I don't know, I don't want to say rise, but like, whatever the journey has been, where you're going to be.

Speaker 2 By the way, thank you for letting me have the Larry Bird cup. I did.

Speaker 2 I wasn't sure I should take it.

Speaker 1 Watching the rise, we talked about, or the journey. We talked.

Speaker 1 You came on after the

Speaker 1 Utah thing.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The finger point, which is still going. GetUp is still milking that

Speaker 1 as a gimmick for you.

Speaker 2 It's milked everywhere across the country where I go.

Speaker 1 But then last year, you did the Luca thing during the finals, which I immediately took seriously because I've known you for a long time. And I don't think you do stuff like that lightly.
Right.

Speaker 1 And it felt like there was real thought put into it for a bunch of different reasons. And you were just like, fuck it.
I'm doing this right now. I have all this different intel I'm getting.

Speaker 1 I was at the the same game you were, and I thought Luca really screwed the game up and just was acting like a brat that game. I'm pro Luca, by the way.

Speaker 1 But he was bratty and he really hurt them that game. And then you just said, fuck it, and went for it.

Speaker 2 I was angry because the finals were over.

Speaker 2 He, you know, he fell out of this game and the finals were over.

Speaker 2 And I thought it could have been a good series.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And the reason that I was having that visceral reaction was because I'd seen him do it before. It was an international play.

Speaker 2 Two other times in his career, he got disqualified from essentially an elimination. It was an elimination game, which that was an elimination game.

Speaker 2 It happened when he was on the Slovenian national team.

Speaker 2 One time he fouled out because he

Speaker 2 got a technical foul, which in international competition counts as a personal foul.

Speaker 2 And he fouled out on a technical, like in the European, in the Euro Cup, the Euro basket they call it. They were their defending champs.

Speaker 2 One of the great moments of his career, by the way, was winning Euro basket with Slovenia.

Speaker 2 slovenia slovenia it's laughable that they could win not laughable it's impressive i would say impossible they won the european championship like in the late teens and then when they had their they were defending their title he got ejected from the game they got eliminated it was ridiculous and then in the in the uh world cup um in the philippines in 23 so a year earlier he got thrown out of the quarterfinals.

Speaker 2 Now, they probably would have lost the game, but like in the middle of the game, he was angry at the officials and he went over to half court. This is in Manila, Philippines.
I know nobody watched it.

Speaker 2 It was in the middle of the night. And he is cursing out the Secretary General of FIBA.
Like the free throws are going on. He comes down and curses out the Secretary General in Spanish.

Speaker 2 I know because I was talking to the people who were sitting next to the Secretary General. Yeah.
Who knows what he was saying?

Speaker 2 But can you imagine, like, in a game, like, because you know where Adam Silver sits. Secretary General was sitting kind of in the same spot, like midway up the deck.

Speaker 2 Yeah, can you imagine like going over and cursing out Adam Silver because Scott Foster had just called a foul? Like, it's it's it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 And by the way, the idea that they would not want Luka Doncic and Slovenia advancing, that's it's a preposterous um conspiracy.

Speaker 2 And then a few minutes later, he got a second technical and got thrown out of the game. And I'm like, Luca, what are you doing? The only chance Slovenia has is if you're great.

Speaker 2 How are you getting thrown out of these elimination games?

Speaker 2 So, I didn't, I was, that was at least the third time that I know of, and I don't know his whole career, that he had allowed himself to be basically getting disqualified because the sixth foul was a preposterous foul.

Speaker 2 It was a ridiculous foul, and his behavior the whole game was ridiculous. And so, I was angry that I'd seen him for the third time, the second time in person in less than a year,

Speaker 2 disqualified from an elimination game where he totally undercut his teeth. For

Speaker 1 just just petulance. Yes.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I was criticizing him, obviously, but I was the reason I was angry was because he's so much better than that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And that's what I was saying. I was like, that's not winning.
You know, winning is what the Celtics are doing. This is what you're doing is losing.
This is a losing mentality. And so.

Speaker 1 Well, obviously the Mavericks agreed with you.

Speaker 2 Well, the people in Dallas did not agree with me because it was not the most fun next two days.

Speaker 1 I was going to say, yeah, because I don't remember if I saw you after that, but we were there for an off day and then Luca came back and played great in game four. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like played defense, like was focused. And people were like, oh, he proved you're wrong.
And I was like, no.

Speaker 1 No, you're down 3-1 in the series. You proved nothing.

Speaker 2 It was upsetting because he could have played that way the whole time. And, you know, what's funny about this?

Speaker 2 I was seeing, I don't remember what day. There's one day off in between games three and game four.

Speaker 2 It's the only time there's one day off in the finals, and so there was one day off in between, and then there was the whole pregame for game four.

Speaker 2 I was in the arena for many hours the next two days, and all kinds of Mavericks people were there-front office people, coaching staff, executives, what have you.

Speaker 2 Nobody said anything to me, nobody said,

Speaker 1 Nobody defended him.

Speaker 2 Well, I don't, I mean, I'm not saying was in there, I'm not saying they had to. I'm just saying, like, I was prepared

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 Jason Kidd said some stuff

Speaker 2 in the press conference, like, he was, like, defending Luca, which he should.

Speaker 2 But, like, no, I was available.

Speaker 2 Like, if, like, trust me, I get when I say something that pippises people off, not every day, but you know, people will reach out to me, like, you were wrong about this.

Speaker 1 Well, especially at the finals, you're going to run into them the next day. So there's a

Speaker 1 Titan level of something.

Speaker 2 I mean, at the time, I didn't think like, I wasn't like noticing, boy, no one's saying anything to me. I was like, well, they're down 3-0 and the series is over.
They're not really in the.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 I said on one of the pods I did this week about Minnesota Lakers. I can't remember because I did my pod, then I went on Zach's.

Speaker 1 I really feel like Minnesota as a game plan in that series should be to mess with Luca and try to get him.

Speaker 1 I've watched him, I've watched it happen multiple times already in this Lakers season.

Speaker 1 He, for some reason, and I kind of, I got to be honest, I kind of like it because it's almost like he almost seems Italian to me, even though he's Slovenian, but he just takes everything personally.

Speaker 1 If somebody talks shit to him, he can't believe it and he'll just keep it going for five minutes. He'll talk to people in the first two rows.

Speaker 1 He'll get mad at a ref and keep going with the ref for 10 minutes. And then the thing that really bugs him, which is so funny, I think he's the only guy in the league that does this.

Speaker 1 If there's a foul on him, like somebody fouls him, and the guy who fouled him is then turned into the ref and complaining about the thing, and Luca thinks it was a foul, he actually gets like offended and he'll like get involved in the argument and he'll start and he'll just go back and forth.

Speaker 1 But he just said, he plays with such a chip on his shoulder. I feel like you could use it against him.

Speaker 1 You look at Minnesota, they have Edwards, they have McDaniels, they have Alexander Walker, like Randall. They have some guys who can, I think, mess with them.

Speaker 2 Well, I will say this. I've been talking with the guys who covered the Mavericks.
He's had ongoing feuds with individual fans for years

Speaker 2 like sometimes fans no no on the road like there's a you know because he got into it with the guy in oklahoma city yeah two weeks ago apparently that's not the first time those guys have gotten into it or if not it was somebody nearby like he goes i mean like i actually i don't have a problem with him getting into it with fans I would rather him go back and forth with a fan or the opposing player as opposed to getting back into with the refs.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Because when he gets back and forth with the refs, he hurts his team.

Speaker 1 Well, and they just get so fed up with him after a while, too. Right.

Speaker 2 Well, that play, like, he was incorrectly ejected from that game in Oklahoma City. Nobody would question that he was.
Obviously, he was talking to the fan. Yeah.
But the ref, I believe it was JTOR,

Speaker 1 had

Speaker 2 there was not even contact on that play. He scored on the interior.
There was no contact. There was nothing for him to really complain about.
But the ref has heard him for years.

Speaker 2 And did you see what he did? He like wound up and gave him the baseball umpire.

Speaker 1 Get out of here. Yeah.

Speaker 2 This is what happens with Draymond, too. Like, the refs, like,

Speaker 2 they are so tired of hearing it that they

Speaker 1 there's one other guy that's, if you were doing the first team all NBA for this, the sneaky guy in this team is Tatum.

Speaker 1 This is a running thing with him all year. He just, and,

Speaker 1 you know, obviously I'm a Celtics fan, so I'm, I see his side on it because I do feel like he gets doesn't get the benefit of the calls all the time. But now, so that he does this wave thing,

Speaker 1 refs, certain things trigger refs, and one of them is the dismissive wave. They just fucking hate it.
They really don't like it.

Speaker 1 He gets whistled on that over and over again, or they hold it against him. And it's weird because I think he's probably the quietest, most unassuming superstar we have.

Speaker 2 He's a really good guy.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And this is like his one thing.
Like he just gets really pissed about it.

Speaker 2 I've had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with him at Team USA.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I spent three weeks covering him in China in 19. I spent,

Speaker 2 we weren't as close in the 2021. When I say we weren't as close, I'm talking about we couldn't get access because of COVID.
In Tokyo, but still,

Speaker 2 he was, by the way, was awesome with the Tokyo team. I kind of feel like people didn't watch that final, that Olympics.
It was just off and everything.

Speaker 2 Nobody ever talks about that Olympics. Durant was absolutely freaking.

Speaker 1 I honestly can't even remember what happened, but I don't remember anything. I don't remember 2020, 2020.

Speaker 2 Tatum was arguably their second best player.

Speaker 1 Well, it felt like Tatum was going to have this arc where he was going to be one of the best American players. Because he was just such a perfect

Speaker 2 Olympic guy. He still can't.
Like, he's got plenty of time. We're going to be here in L.A.
in three years, four years, whatever.

Speaker 1 Well, they, I mean, he's the number one guy they need

Speaker 1 just because of what he does specifically.

Speaker 2 He is a perfect international player. And

Speaker 2 he was that in that Olympics, they were in big trouble against Australia in the semifinals.

Speaker 2 Australia had been building toward that game for a decade.

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 their guys, you know, Patty Mills and Joe Ingalls, and

Speaker 1 um,

Speaker 2 who am I forgetting? I mean, the golden generation of all they won the bronze, they ended up getting their first ever medal.

Speaker 1 This was their sports movie, and this was the ending.

Speaker 2 They are ahead by 12 or 14 in the third quarter, which international basketball is like 25 because the games are shorter. Yeah, and Popovich goes to a triangle in two,

Speaker 2 which they had practiced like like for like barely part of one practice.

Speaker 2 Australia like staggers for like three possessions. They've never seen the Americans do this before.

Speaker 1 Durant hits like three threes.

Speaker 2 Tatum misses shot. I can't remember who else, but Durant turned it because Durant was untouchable.
You know, Durant was coming off the Achilles and played because he loves TMUSA so much.

Speaker 2 It was such a wholesome moment.

Speaker 2 They come back and beat Australia. It's a great comeback.
Nobody ever remembers it. If they had lost, lost, people remember it forever.

Speaker 2 And then they play a really competitive game with France in the title game,

Speaker 2 where Tatum, I think, played really well. Like

Speaker 2 Drew Holiday was huge defending in the semifinals and finals.

Speaker 1 That's when all the coaches really fell in love with him. Yes.
One of the things I like about you is you love international basketball and taking big, giant takeaways from them even more than I do.

Speaker 2 Well, they just

Speaker 1 value it. I think it's such an interesting kind of laboratory to put all these great players in and see how they're going to respond.
Like the fact that Jokic,

Speaker 1 you know, almost beat Team USA by himself and it was sitting there for him.

Speaker 1 And, you know, he didn't have the most amazing game, but the fact was, his team thought he was the best guy in the court and he gave them the chance and then they missed some shots.

Speaker 2 The Serbians are fascinating. The way they play, Bogie Bogdanovich

Speaker 2 is like, when you, the same way with Patty Mills. If you watch Patty Mill, he's now he's past his prime, but Patty Mills, if you squinted, you thought he was Steve Nash.

Speaker 2 The way he plays for Team Australia in 2019 in China, which was the World Cup in China, they ended up finishing out of the medals there.

Speaker 2 But he played a couple of games where you're like, why isn't this guy a Hall of Famer?

Speaker 1 Well, remember the Spain team in the 2000s where, like, Juan Carlos Navarro, why isn't this guy?

Speaker 2 Why isn't this guy a third-team all NBA? Well, Spain won in 2019. The Americans had a terrible team.
Tatum was on that team. He was leading them.

Speaker 1 Tweener team.

Speaker 2 He sprained his ankle in a game against Turkey that they win in overtime.

Speaker 2 And again, like, I'm in Shanghai on a Saturday night. It's the middle of the night in America.
No one cares. And Ursan Ilyasova is kicking our ass, right?

Speaker 2 And Tatum is saving the day. They end up going to overtime, and Tatum sprains his ankle in overtime.
And he's cooked the rest of the way. And we end up in

Speaker 2 seventh.

Speaker 2 But anyway,

Speaker 2 in that game, Ricky Rubio. So now you're going to remember Ricky Rubio's story.
Yeah. Rubio

Speaker 2 was boy wonder for Spain.

Speaker 1 Age 17 playing against the U.S. in 08.

Speaker 2 Exactly. Comes to Beijing.
They've made documentaries about this game. Rubio is trash.
He was trash in the game. He was miserable in this arena.
Now, we are now 11 years later.

Speaker 2 Rubio has gone through his career. He's had a middle-income.
He's had his moments. 2019, he is playing in the same arena.

Speaker 2 They are playing against Argentina in the final. Luis Scola turns the clock back, somehow gets Argentinians to the final.
Rubio is amazing. Dancing on air.

Speaker 2 Marcus Saul has just won the title with Toronto. A few months later, he wins the gold medal.

Speaker 2 You know, this is this, you know, the Spain, the Spanish get this world championship. They're celebrating.
Rubio is amazing. Rubio is named, um,

Speaker 2 is named

Speaker 2 an MVP. His mother has just died

Speaker 2 of breast cancer a few months before.

Speaker 2 He comes over. We televised the game at the SBN.
Again, no one had watched this because why are you watching in the middle of, or, you know, maybe it's at, you know,

Speaker 1 it was at 2 a.m., whatever.

Speaker 2 And Rubio is having the greatest moment of his career. He's won the MVP for Spain in the arena.

Speaker 2 And I ask him, I do the post-game interview because I'm doing the sideline interview.

Speaker 2 Rubio does like seven interviews, like because he's, you know, all the world feeds. He does, you know,

Speaker 2 France and whatever. And I ask him about his mother and he starts crying.
No one ever saw this. It's the greatest.

Speaker 2 I'll never do, I don't do sideline interviews, but I will never, I could do a hundred of them and never do a better interview. Rubio is in tears, having this amazing moment.

Speaker 2 And the average NBA fan, you could even be a Rubio fan. And you don't know about this moment where he wins.

Speaker 2 And, you know, subsequently, like, basically, he quits basketball because of, you know, mental health stuff.

Speaker 1 So I still feel like if you redo,

Speaker 1 that's a classic, let's redo the career and try another,

Speaker 1 try another outcome. Let's just hit the reset button on the video game and bring him into the NBA and he got drafted instead of Steph Curry, and then he didn't come over right away.

Speaker 1 And he was on the dumbest team ever. Kobe fell into his leg.
It was just everything went wrong for four years. I still feel like there was a

Speaker 1 moment.

Speaker 2 So that's what I get in international basketball. You have these moments.
Bogey Bogdanovich is is in a feud with his coach.

Speaker 2 This guy,

Speaker 2 if you saw,

Speaker 2 what's the Netflix series? They had him on there. Part of

Speaker 2 Pesich. He's this old, hard, mean

Speaker 2 SOB. And he and Bogdanovich got into it during the 2023

Speaker 2 World Cup. Jokic didn't play.
I don't know why Jokic didn't play. I can speculate as to why Jokic didn't play.
Whatever. Jokic doesn't play.

Speaker 2 And it's really hard to qualify for the Olympics. It's really hard because you got to go through all this qualifying.
You know, and the Serbians,

Speaker 2 I'm like, well, Jokic doesn't play and Serbia ain't qualifying because you got to be the top two European finishers at the World Cup to qualify. I'm like, they ain't qualifying.

Speaker 2 Well, Bogdanovich, after getting benched by this coach, has this incredible run in the knockout rounds, carries Serbia to the championship. And yeah, they lose, but they qualify for the Olympics.

Speaker 2 And I'm going, again, like nobody cares about this, but I'm sitting there going, well, this is a bad break for the United States. Serbia just qualified for the Olympics.

Speaker 2 And now Jokic will see them in Paris. And I was worried.

Speaker 1 By the way, he really cares.

Speaker 2 I was worried about Team USA losing to Serbia in August of 23 when the Serbians qualified. And then they set up the schedule so that Serbia got three looks at the U.S.
They played them in Dubai

Speaker 2 for an exhibition game, which again, nobody cares, but they got a look at them, then they played them in the pool play, and then they got them in the knockout rounds.

Speaker 2 And Pesich and Jokic and all those dudes played it to set up the United States to go after them. They didn't care what the score was in the pool play game.

Speaker 2 They set it up to go. They were thinking about it for months.
The draw that got Serbia into the USA's pool was like in February.

Speaker 2 They started thinking in February about that night in August when they could get them in the semifinal. They didn't know it would be the semifinal, but they knew they would see them.

Speaker 2 And they set the whole thing up. And they took money, extra money, to go to Abu Dhabi and play.

Speaker 2 And I'm telling you, all building up to that moment. And the average fan, the average USA fan, doesn't care.
I don't blame them, but I'm just telling you, all that drama is going into it.

Speaker 2 And Steve Kerr

Speaker 2 and Sean Ford, like the general manager,

Speaker 2 USA Basketball, they're thinking about it for months.

Speaker 2 As Steve Kerr is coaching the Warriors last year, he's like, I know, but I got to worry about Serbia. And Jeff Van Gundy is like consulting with the Celtics.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Jeff Van Gundy, because he's on the USA staff. He's thinking about Serbia.

Speaker 2 Serbia, Serbia, Serbia,

Speaker 1 and France at home, which is the other one.

Speaker 2 Of course, which the French were actually in the middle of imploding, and then they rallied back.

Speaker 1 It's weird because I actually think they really could have used Tatum. in those games and I understand why he didn't play and you know I think in a weird way you are in the minority because.
No,

Speaker 1 I really get it. I just think they won the title and he was worn out and he had a kid and he missed a couple practices and his shot was off.
And also,

Speaker 1 Steve doesn't give a shit.

Speaker 2 Here's the thing.

Speaker 2 I keep saying this. People don't listen to me.
It's fine. I don't care.
International basketball is so vastly different.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 The difference between 40 and 48 minutes, I cannot underline how big of a difference it is. It is so different.

Speaker 1 Well, the flow of the game is in person, that's the weirdest thing to get used to.

Speaker 2 Also, the five fouls. Things won't stop.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right. You get all of a sudden somebody has four fouls.
There's 15 minutes left in the game.

Speaker 2 Right. And so the other thing is the NBA mindset is if you get down 15, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you can always come back. You can't play that.

Speaker 1 Well, you also can't chase calls

Speaker 1 in that international version. You can't lurch into somebody and you can't get bailed out left and right.

Speaker 2 It's the inverse of the NBA. So, here's the thing.
In the NBA, there's this inherent bias that everybody wants the Lakers and the Celtics to do well. And whether or not that's true or not.

Speaker 1 It's definitely the Lakers part.

Speaker 2 Of course. Nothing ever goes the Celtics' way.
You're right.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we haven't gotten one break.

Speaker 2 In the international game, they want the U.S. to lose.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like when the U.S. loses, the FIBA officials are over there giving each other high fives under the table.
They want the U.S. to lose because they want it to be more of a global game.

Speaker 1 Well, would you change the?

Speaker 1 I've said this every four years.

Speaker 1 I would put a cap on the age of the guys we have.

Speaker 1 Navigo, you have to be in your 20s or your teens, and that's it.

Speaker 2 So here's my recommendation. And I know that people are probably turning off the pod because we're talking about international basketball.

Speaker 1 No, this is great stuff.

Speaker 2 So the next World Cup is in 2027. I will give you all the money in my wallet if you tell, because you obviously need it.

Speaker 2 All the money in my wallet, if you can tell me where the World Cup is being played in 2027. I'll give you seven guesses.

Speaker 2 You're not going to take some be boring, but you have any idea where the World Cup is being played.

Speaker 1 Isn't it somewhere weird, like Saudi Arabia? You're close. Where is Saudi Arabia?

Speaker 2 Probably the next one. It's in Doha.
It's in Qatar.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. Okay.
Are you going?

Speaker 2 I don't want to.

Speaker 1 It's like you're on a plane for a day and a half, right?

Speaker 2 I've gone to Abu Dhabi the last two summers with TM USA and absolutely loved it. And I know that it's...

Speaker 2 You're a big Abu Dhabi guy. I love Abu Dhabi.

Speaker 2 And, you know, the NBA is getting closer to there.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 His Excellency, Mohammed Abu Barak,

Speaker 2 is the head of the chairman. I call him the chairman

Speaker 2 of the Department of Culture and Tourism. He is.

Speaker 1 Possible podcast for you, podcast partner?

Speaker 2 I would love to have him on a podcast. He'd be great on a podcast.
He knows the NBA.

Speaker 1 Windhorst and his excellence, the new podcast.

Speaker 2 Well, you'd get along with it. Well, he hates the Celtics.

Speaker 2 But he went to school at Northeastern.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 he told me this great story.

Speaker 2 By the way, his brother is Khaldun Al-Mubarak, who runs the city football group Man City. He runs Man City.
That's his brother.

Speaker 2 His brother is a couple years older than him. He was going to school in Boston.
I'm not sure if it's a Northeastern or something else. He comes to visit his brother.
He's 16 years old.

Speaker 2 They go to a Celtics game.

Speaker 2 This is like

Speaker 2 the ruling family of Abu Dhabi. They go to a Celtics game.

Speaker 2 And he's a big Laker fan because, why wouldn't he be? Because, you know, he lives in Abu Dhabi. Why wouldn't he be a Laker fan? So they go to the Lakers, the 2010 finals?

Speaker 2 He's going to a finals game, Lakers, Celtics. He's wearing a Laker jersey.

Speaker 2 He doesn't know any better.

Speaker 2 He doesn't understand.

Speaker 1 So he's in Boston with the Lakers?

Speaker 2 He's going to a finals game in Boston.

Speaker 2 And he comes up and he and his brother sit down. And right next to him are these

Speaker 2 husband and wife in their 70s. And they've got like the, you know, the husband's wearing like this old Larry Bird jersey that he probably has since 82.

Speaker 2 And the wife is all dressed up and they're all dressed out and they're all ready. And he goes down and says, oh, hey, how are you? He sounds like he thinks it's charming.

Speaker 2 And the woman looks over at him and flips him off. It's like, welcome to Boston.
So he goes to school in Boston. Anyway, he knows the NBA extremely well.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 He would love to be heavily invested in the NBA.

Speaker 2 I have spent quite a bit of time with him. I like him a lot.
I know that there's challenges when you're doing business in the Middle East or whatever. I don't pretend to know.

Speaker 2 I'm not trying to cast aspersions.

Speaker 1 The global Wendy.

Speaker 1 It's even more impressive than some of my connections.

Speaker 2 I had, like,

Speaker 2 for example, he would make comments. He was talking about a certain Lakers player.
I don't want to put his business out there. He was talking about a certain Lakers player who's no longer in the team.

Speaker 2 And he says, the reason his teammates don't like him is because he doesn't doesn't play defense, that's why they don't like him. This is the kind of commentary he's giving.

Speaker 2 He watches it games in the morning when he's like on the treadmill, he's watching Laker games.

Speaker 2 Like, when I first met him, he was traditionally dressed, but then he, you know, sits down, he's wearing Jordans.

Speaker 2 So he's super into it. Um, last year, when the U.S.

Speaker 2 went to Abu Dhabi to play, um, he came and addressed the team on the first day of practice, and he very begrudgingly congratulated Tatum, Drew Holiday, and

Speaker 2 who was the third Celtic, Derek White. It's like, congratulations.

Speaker 1 So he's not in the new ownership group, I'm going to guess.

Speaker 2 You know, if they allowed him to buy it, he would have bought it, but they don't allow the sovereign wealth funds to.

Speaker 1 Were you, did you think it would get to $6 billion? No.

Speaker 2 Also, the team's not sold yet.

Speaker 1 We didn't start with that. They're not sold yet.
No, that's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 No, I did not think they would get to $6 billion. And Wick Gruesbach, all the way through, said, I'm going to get my price, I'm going to get my deal, which enables him to stay as the government.

Speaker 1 I'm going to get Adam Silver's price.

Speaker 1 That's what it was. Well, his price, too.
The number was six.

Speaker 2 They got more than six.

Speaker 1 Well, when you throw in like that little bully tax you have for the other owners, it's 6'1 plus.

Speaker 1 It actually, that part goes into the sevens.

Speaker 2 From what I understand, and you know, the deal's not official or whatever, but from what I understand, you know, they're buying 51% this year at 6,

Speaker 2 and they're buying the other 49% at like 7%. Yeah.
And so the price is actually a little bit, it's higher than they're being, than they're saying.

Speaker 1 It's the Boston Celtics.

Speaker 1 Not a lot of franchises and pro sports like that. But yeah, it's nuts.

Speaker 1 They don't own their own arena. Now, they have an incredible power spot in that arena because if they decide to start building their own, the place they're in now is screwed.
So they'll be fine.

Speaker 2 Well, I would just say this about the Celtics.

Speaker 2 I think Sportico reported this. I haven't heard this, but Sportico is good at their business.

Speaker 2 I think they probably got it because the Celtics financials got out there because they had to give,

Speaker 2 they had to show them to people. They had bidders.
The Celtics made $450 million last year. That was their revenue, which is great.

Speaker 2 Probably, I don't have the whole league, but definitely top five, maybe top three.

Speaker 1 Well, especially once you go four rounds in the playoffs, that is a whole other level.

Speaker 2 It was probably, it was, I feel comfortable saying, was the largest revenue season in the history of the Celtics franchise.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Their payroll next year is $450 million.

Speaker 1 If it's the exact same or a picture of the case, I don't think any, yeah.

Speaker 2 Fine. I'm just saying, though, that, like,

Speaker 2 why did Wick Group, why did the Groupsbach family want to sell now? Because they know that their payroll is equal to their revenue.

Speaker 1 That's. So I don't believe that.
I actually, I'm going to push back. I don't think that's why.
I think the dad was old, and I don't think he's 90. And I think they have four kids.

Speaker 2 Hey, listen, I don't know. I'm not in their family.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 He hadn't been to a game since 2010. I think he's like, let's sell this thing.
We won the title. Let's go.
And that, I really think it was that simple. Do I think Wick wants to sell it? No.

Speaker 2 Well, he's not selling it. He gets to run it for three more years.

Speaker 1 He gets to run it for up to three more years. Okay.

Speaker 1 That this new owner, whenever he feels like,

Speaker 1 okay,

Speaker 1 I'm feeling good on all my business side. I'm ready to take over.

Speaker 2 I am not claiming to have inside information,

Speaker 2 but you think that the fact that they are going to spend as much money on payrolls they take in next year, in other words, they're facing

Speaker 2 hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, you think that had nothing to do with it?

Speaker 1 I don't. Okay.
I don't. You would know better than me.
I think this was a, I really think this was a family thing, and I think there was a lot going on that had nothing to do with the fortunes.

Speaker 1 Okay. That guy Irv, the 90-year-old, the legend,

Speaker 1 he's made a kajillion dollars.

Speaker 1 You think he cares that they have some packs bills?

Speaker 2 I know he's got a lot more now.

Speaker 1 The thing is,

Speaker 1 I don't think this will be the same roster, which is why the Celtics, this little run, is so interesting. Not only are you trying to go back to back, but odds are this won't be the same nucleus.

Speaker 2 Let me ask you this. If you win again,

Speaker 2 does that mean you keep the roster together or you can start?

Speaker 1 It's the age-old thing, right? Like Dallas didn't do it

Speaker 1 in 11. We've seen teams say like, yeah, we we took that like we we've seen teams like the pistons in the late 80s where they left more horn unprotected um

Speaker 1 i personally do not think the expensive guys will all be together next year but i don't know yeah i don't know it just seems like it would make more sense for them if you're paying let's say holiday or poor zingus you're paying those guys 34 million but with all the other things that come into play those guys now are worth a hundred million dollars And you could reset that way and you lose one guy and you're weaker in one spot, but you still have Tatum and Brown.

Speaker 2 Right. Well, I would hold on to Tatum and Brown as long as possible.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because everybody always thinks Jalen's the one that they would trade. But as you know, and this is why with the Durant stuff, I just, I'm doing a lot of yeah budding with the Durant stuff.

Speaker 1 Like, well, they're going to trade Durant. It's like, okay, cool.
He makes $55 million a year and everybody is handcuffed by this tax in some way. It's not that, it's not easy like it was.

Speaker 1 It's not easy to just get somebody that's making 55 to 60.

Speaker 2 I agree. A Durant trade is going to be complicated because if I don't know what Kevin wants, then I would never, I've learned my lesson not to guess what Kevin wants.

Speaker 2 If he wants to go to a contender, that contender is going to have a high payroll, probably.

Speaker 2 You know, those trades are hard. The Suns are in the second apron.

Speaker 1 But also, if you're trading him to a team that's over an apron, then once we start getting into the, I can only take one guy back, and

Speaker 1 it's really stupid.

Speaker 2 So I would just say, like, I wrote a story about the Suns published this week.

Speaker 2 I mentioned in there, with the help of Bobby Marks, Devin Booker is eligible for a two-year extension this year

Speaker 2 for $150 million. I'm going to say that again.

Speaker 2 He's eligible for an extension for two years and $150. That's $75 million a year.

Speaker 1 Wow. Nobody's even at $65 yet, right?

Speaker 2 Because it's three years from now. Oh, my God.
Okay, so we're projecting the cap out there, but the cap is going to be.

Speaker 1 Not on my LNBA team, Devin Booger.

Speaker 2 We didn't have a good year. But forget about that.
My point is, is that the max contracts are headed towards $75 million a year. Not in 2035.

Speaker 2 I'm talking about if Devin gets the max this summer, which, quite frankly, I don't know how they're going to get away with not paying him.

Speaker 2 Because if you don't pay him, then what sort of message are you sending?

Speaker 1 Well, you could call Daryl Murray and ask how that worked out.

Speaker 2 Well, that's true. devot's 28 though he's not 34.

Speaker 1 i don't know where this goes because i think

Speaker 1 i've talked to a bunch of people about it on both sides and i just the owners in general they're always going to be smarter and they're always going to get whatever they want to get done actually get done and they're trying to put in all these protections basically against themselves they're basically child proofing all of the all of the uh

Speaker 1 you know electrical outlets around their house because they don't want to stick, have their kids stick their finger in it.

Speaker 2 That's exactly

Speaker 1 like eight owners who will just say, oh, what's this? And they get electrocuted. And that's all they care about.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I don't think the players, I just don't think they saw their side, I don't think saw it correctly.

Speaker 1 And they didn't see how hard this was going to be with keeping teams together, keeping players in cities. And eventually, I think there's going to be a backlash with the salaries.

Speaker 1 We're going to move toward a little bit more like the Hollywood system where you have your two guys on the poster and then everybody else is way down there. And I don't think the union realizes that.

Speaker 2 I think the Clippers are ahead of the, the Clippers were targeted.

Speaker 1 Perfect.

Speaker 2 The Clippers figured this out first. Number one, when they negotiated with Kawhi, he didn't get the max.
He got close to the max. This is, in my view, this is going to be the new normal.

Speaker 2 The idea that these guys in mid-career, oh, it's time for a contract extension. You want the max.
Here you go.

Speaker 2 They're going to get extended, but they're not going to get, they're not just going to be assumption. You're not going to, how many max, how many guys right now are making the max contract?

Speaker 2 now i'm not talking about their max because this is a thing the agents play and we help them with it in the media i'm not looking to but like a player's max is the most he can get versus the actual max how many guys right now in the league are making the quote-unquote max there's dozens three years from now i think there's going to be a third of that amount so you think it's going to be like more of a jalen brunson type of situation i think in a situation with jalen brunson you're going to it's they're going to there's teams are going to i think he still signed for less than he could have got the teams are going to they're going to, they're going to give them, they're going to get hundreds of millions, but they're not going to all of us just get the max.

Speaker 2 Like, you're not going to get, okay, mid-career all-star player. You're not getting 35%.

Speaker 1 So you don't think we'll see Bradley Beal getting a no-trade clause and $50 million again?

Speaker 2 That would be a good thing is to put in a little canister, you know, for the future. When is the next no-trade clause?

Speaker 2 Well, I know LeBron will get it when he opts out and re-ups this year with the Lakers, but when is the next new no-trade clause coming?

Speaker 1 You think LeBron will get a no-trade?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think he will.

Speaker 1 Again? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Why would he? He would just opt in if he has to get it.

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Speaker 1 Enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market Terms Apply. This LeBron thing is, I, I just don't understand.
Like, I voted for him second team on NBA. So did I.

Speaker 2 So did I.

Speaker 1 He entered the league. I had been, I had been working for ESPN, I think, for a year.

Speaker 1 I did have a dog at that point.

Speaker 1 I think I was married. No kids.
Like, this is,

Speaker 1 I just don't get it.

Speaker 2 Bill, I had a flip phone. He had a flip phone.
Like, it was laughable. The iPhone was, when he came in the league, we were four years away from Twitter.
We were three, four years away from the iPhone.

Speaker 2 Like,

Speaker 2 I just.

Speaker 1 Like, the Hummer was a car that mattered. Yes.

Speaker 2 When he came into the league, I remember my first trade deadline covering the calves. This is how trade deadline day went.
I went to practice, the shootarounder, I mean, it was practice.

Speaker 2 I did my post-practice interview. I went to lunch.
I was at lunch eating a sandwich. My cell phone rings.
Hello. Jim Paxson, the gentleman of calves.

Speaker 2 Hey, hey, I just want to let you know we traded for Flip Murray. Oh, really? What'd you trade for him?

Speaker 2 2004 second round pick. Oh, Kelly, why'd you trade for him? Well, he's going to help us with scoring off the bench.
Okay. All right, I'll see you tomorrow.
Click. Keep eating my lunch.

Speaker 1 You know, two hours later, went home.

Speaker 2 Then I wrote my story that published in the newspaper in the morning. None of this

Speaker 2 minute by minute trying to find out like who was getting traded. Like, oh my God.

Speaker 1 The judge

Speaker 1 called them was like, hey, we made a trade.

Speaker 2 Oh, really? You know, like, that's how you found out about trades. When the Cavs traded for Shaquille O'Neal, and that was not in

Speaker 2 2000, that was not 1997. That was like actually like, that was in the Twitter era.
That was like

Speaker 2 2009, 2010, I think 2009.

Speaker 2 Danny Ferry just called me up. He's like, yeah, we traded for Shaquille O'Neal.
Oh, okay. What'd you give? I give Ben Wallace in the first round.

Speaker 1 That's how it happened.

Speaker 2 You weren't like waiting, you know, on top of it, you know.

Speaker 1 And that was a good idea. It was basically the ticker on ESPN

Speaker 1 who was breaking a lot of stuff. Even the website wasn't really,

Speaker 1 and I was writing for it at that point. It wasn't really set up to be like, oh, this happened.
Boom. Let's go.

Speaker 2 And in 2009, Twitter was around, but people weren't paying attention as a news feed.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 2 So it, like, you know, like that was. Twitter was like, that was a lot of people.

Speaker 1 There was two years everybody just went on Twitter to like make jokes.

Speaker 2 Yes, that was LeBron's.

Speaker 2 That was LeBron. That was what was happening in LeBron's career.
Like, that's how it was. And now, look at it.

Speaker 1 You know, it's pretty nuts. I even think like how different things were just from

Speaker 1 you go the

Speaker 1 year that the year that Twitter took off, 09,

Speaker 1 and there were all these stages with Twitter, right? Like, the decision was a stage,

Speaker 1 Blake Griffin being the first kind of guy who, when he dunked, maybe you could see some grainy video of it on Twitter. Yes.
And he became the first like social media dunk guy.

Speaker 1 Then the DeAndre Jordan thing was another great one where that was in real time. We're following through Twitter how that's going.
So it's had these.

Speaker 2 My first big Twitter thing was

Speaker 2 the LeBron free agent meetings. Because nowadays, free agent meetings, like,

Speaker 2 first off, like by July 1st, they're all done. Nobody goes on free agent meeting tours anymore.
Secondly, they do it all in secret, you know,

Speaker 2 it's people's houses and stuff.

Speaker 1 Or three, four months before free agency starts. Or a year.
Yeah. Or, oh, I didn't realize you were going to be at this dinner.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 The owner of the team that has cap space.

Speaker 1 Have you met him? This is Bob.

Speaker 2 Listen, I saw Joelle Embiid and Paul George on the countdown set during the finals last year.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 That was an amazing moment. It was an amazing moment.
And, you know, Joelle gave him the side eye. I mean, like, it's a little bit manufactured.

Speaker 2 Obviously, Joelle and Paul George had communicated before that meeting. Like,

Speaker 1 all these dudes know each other.

Speaker 2 Of course. Well, anyway, the day of the free agent meetings, like, was three days.
You know, they were having them at this office building in Cleveland.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 the teams are just walking into the lobby, and I was just sitting in the lobby, and I was just tweeting it.

Speaker 2 Jim Dolan just came in.

Speaker 2 Pat Riley is waiting outside the elevator. I remember the Clippers got there.
The heat ran really late, and there was no place for the Clippers to wait. And Neil O'Shea and Andy Roser

Speaker 2 just were standing there in the hallway and just walking back and forth, waiting for Pat Riley and Eric Spolster and Mickey Erison to finish. And I was just live tweeting it.

Speaker 2 I was just live tweeting it. Like, I was like, well,

Speaker 2 Mikhail Prokhorov just left, but Jay-Z is staying back. He must be having a special meeting with LeBron.
I was just tweeting what I saw. And like, nowadays, you'd never get that.

Speaker 2 But, like, I think I had 14,000 Twitter followers at the beginning of that.

Speaker 2 And three days later, I had like 32,000, which blew my mind. Wow.
But that was like an actual event where I was just like, just,

Speaker 2 nobody was saying, it wasn't like Mickey Harrison was saying, yep, we got it done. I was just tweeting when I was sitting there watching.
I was just standing in the elevator lobby.

Speaker 2 I was sitting in the elevator lobby watching it.

Speaker 1 And then every time you think we're post-Twitter, then something like the looker thing happens.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 and then it's, there you go. When did you find out? Did you find out?

Speaker 2 Shams tweeted. I had no idea it was coming.
I did not know. Most of the time, you know, when stuff's coming, like we do.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, you can't always, sometimes you know something's going to happen and you're just waiting. You know, in our case, it's almost always Shams.
Shams knows it. He's got the story written.

Speaker 2 He's got the tweet and the drafts, and he's waiting.

Speaker 2 That happened this week with Mike Budenholzer.

Speaker 1 Shams. Oh, I'm sure there was a David Griffin

Speaker 1 typed-out tweet there, too. I don't know that for sure.
No, I'm just saying.

Speaker 2 No, without pulling the curtain back too much,

Speaker 2 Shams had the Mike Buttenholzer story written before he was actually fired.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because Shams is on top of it.

Speaker 1 I mean, he could have written it in February.

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 that was a different thing. But

Speaker 2 the Luca thing came out of absolutely nowhere.

Speaker 1 So, what is your honest take for how many people knew before the trade came out?

Speaker 2 I know you and and I are on different sides of this. I think it was a small number.
It's bigger than the purported number, like whatever they said, but, you know, I think it was a small number.

Speaker 1 I think it was bigger. I know you do.
And I think about an hour and a half before when Utah found out who was in the trade,

Speaker 1 then it's out. And I think it's out at that point.

Speaker 1 And I'm actually... And my theory was that even if they were telling other people they thought Luca was about to get traded, who would have ever believed that in a million years?

Speaker 1 It was like, you might as well have said a UFO just landed on my roof, right?

Speaker 1 There's no way to even conceivably think that was possible.

Speaker 2 So the only thing is,

Speaker 2 the only thing I'll say is, I wondered if Anthony Davis was wearing thin in

Speaker 2 LA because he had done that interview where he's like, get me a center. I don't want to.

Speaker 1 He 100% was.

Speaker 2 Okay. So when I saw that, like a lot of people, I actually listened.
There were two Lakers podcasts that I listened to afterwards. Oh, look at you.

Speaker 2 Where the people, because the Lakers had had a game that night, I think, in New York.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 LeBron was awesome in the game, which I thought looking back is also really interesting. He was very energized in the two games leading up to.

Speaker 2 I don't want to give this away because it's not my story to tell, so I'll just tell half of it.

Speaker 2 One of my ESPN, so the Lakers were in New York.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And one of my ESPN colleagues ran into JJ Reddick in New York that day.

Speaker 2 And they knew JJ. And obviously, hey, JJ, what's up? He's like, hey,

Speaker 2 I got to go. I got to go on a walk.

Speaker 2 I got to clear my head about something. And he excused himself and kept going.
And so

Speaker 2 JJ knew and went out for a walk.

Speaker 1 That's one of the.

Speaker 2 But, you know, the person obviously didn't know, you know. But JJ.

Speaker 1 If people think JJ and Jason Kidd didn't know

Speaker 1 a couple days before that trade, there's, I just, there's no way I know.

Speaker 2 Well, whether it was days or hours, yes, the coaches knew before Shams tweeted it. Yes, of course.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but like you people honestly think like LeBron and Rich didn't know that that trade was coming and that Davis was just like, yeah, I'll just waive my no trade.

Speaker 1 I just found out about this trade a minute ago. Get the fuck out of here.

Speaker 2 We're talking about the trade kicker.

Speaker 1 Yes, that is trade kicker. That is suspicious.
Suspicious?

Speaker 2 Like, I don't, I don't know.

Speaker 1 Don't he love being in LA? He loved being the Lakers and the whole thing. And he's just, all right, fine, cool.
I'm going to,

Speaker 1 you know, not only am I okay with the trade, I'm going to give you a job. I'm not sure for knowing in advance.

Speaker 2 Because like, according to Polenka, they negotiated for a month.

Speaker 1 I think they knew, I would say, I don't know for sure, but I'm excited for when it all finally comes out. And I'm sure there's going to be a now, as Brian Curtis would say, a now they tell us.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I can't wait for the now they tell us because I think the circle is wider.

Speaker 2 I think Rich and LeBron knew, but it wasn't too far or before.

Speaker 1 Like, I believe them. Well, Rich definitely knew because he had to, you know,

Speaker 1 the trade couldn't have happened if AD didn't waive the trade kicker. It would have been way more complicated.

Speaker 2 The trade could have happened, but

Speaker 2 I agree. That's a flaw in my thinking.
I agree. And I asked Rich about that.

Speaker 1 That's the red herring of this whole thing.

Speaker 2 I asked Richard.

Speaker 1 And also, do you think they really would have traded LeBron's guy, Anthony Davis,

Speaker 1 to another team and just not tell LeBron? What you are saying?

Speaker 1 What do you think they're not doing that?

Speaker 2 What you are saying makes sense, but they they were focused on keeping this quiet.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I think they did keep it quiet, but at some point.

Speaker 2 But if you put the trade standard, is your standard that they knew one hour early or that they knew three days early? Because I think they knew maybe one hour early.

Speaker 1 Is that advanced?

Speaker 1 If I had to bet on a scenario, I would bet that probably two, three, four days earlier.

Speaker 2 I don't believe that. I know.
No. And I couldn't believe that.

Speaker 1 That the trade wasn't done.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 But I think it probably got to the point where they were like, I got to bring you in on this. I think you actually have a chance to do this.

Speaker 1 And that's when you expand it to the coaches. I just, I know how the league works and so do you.
You don't just hide shit from your best players.

Speaker 1 Nobody does that.

Speaker 1 I think so. And that's why the Durant thing was so crazy that they were shopping him around and not talking to him and Rich Kleiman about it.

Speaker 2 That is what they were trying to do it.

Speaker 1 The reason that got out, I'll tell you.

Speaker 2 I mean, like.

Speaker 1 It was the other teams.

Speaker 2 Well, that's the thing. The Suns can't execute.
They're so hamstrung with their thing. They can't execute.

Speaker 2 execute there was a there was a i won't go into there was a third team involved and the third team was negotiating

Speaker 2 with the warriors on a seven reported right was it in miami yeah so miami is negotiating with the warriors on jimmy butler and they're they're trading

Speaker 2 they're trading proposals and then all of a sudden the warriors change a proposal and the heat noticed that one of the assets being offered was owned by the suns

Speaker 2 ah now i'm not saying that miami leaked it because Miami doesn't leak anything, but the talks with other teams,

Speaker 2 that's how it got out.

Speaker 1 But that's why it's so hard to do three, four teams. Because every team has the six people in the front office and one person who knows how much you can trust that one person out of the six.

Speaker 2 Of course, which is one of the reasons why the Heat are so good, because the Heat speak with one voice. Like, it's Andy Ellisberg.
You deal with the Heat, you deal with Andy Ellisberg.

Speaker 2 Obviously, at some point, especially at this type of trade, maybe Mickey Harrison or Andy Pat Riley. But when you negotiate with the Heat, you negotiate with one person.

Speaker 2 You negotiate with the other team, sometimes there's three or four. But

Speaker 2 they were trying to keep it quiet because when you don't keep it quiet, it's when things fall apart. And that's what happened there.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think they kept it quiet. I really do.

Speaker 2 And maybe

Speaker 2 now they tell us, I'll look like a fool.

Speaker 1 But in this case, I don't think you'll look like a fool because I think they've all stuck to their story. But I just, I think Kid New and I think Reddick Newton.

Speaker 2 I was listening to these two Lakers, there were two, maybe there's even more. The Lakers had a game that night in New York.
They won.

Speaker 2 the laker fan pods are or analysis pods whatever you want to call them are recording after the game they're looking over the went over the knicks and i loved it i listened to them learn learn it live oh

Speaker 2 i mean i was listening live i was listening back to it somebody sent it to me and said listen to these guys because it's hilarious when you know you have the knowledge and you're you're listening to them and you can watch them like they're like well oh shams got hacked you know right And they're like,

Speaker 2 that kind of be crazy, wouldn't it? Like, all right, in that third quarter tonight, they did a real good job in the pick and roll.

Speaker 2 ESPN just tweeted it. Like, it's almost like a movie.
And they're like, oh, my God, like, it's, you know, and I love that. It was like one of my favorite.

Speaker 2 Like, I used, I love it when

Speaker 2 you see, I remember when this became a thing on Sports Center, when they, when, like, last decade, when people would videotape themselves watching the end of sporting events.

Speaker 1 Like, I remember the

Speaker 1 World Cup was a big one for that. One of the World Cups.

Speaker 2 The one I remember was, do you remember the Alabama-Auburn game where they returned the field goal? The short field goal was too short and he returned it 108 yards.

Speaker 2 One of the great things I ever saw on Sports Center was the Auburn and Alabama fans, the Alabama fans thinking they're about to win it and they're horrified.

Speaker 2 And the Auburn fans thinking they're about to lose it. And there was like all this stuff.
And then like

Speaker 2 seeing like the Cavs fans in 2016 watching the end of a lot of people videotape themselves watching watching the end of game seven. Amazing.
I just, I have great memories of that.

Speaker 2 This was what that was like. You could watch it.
So anyway, the shock of it was one of the reasons why it was such an amazing story.

Speaker 1 Well, and it was a shock that everybody could feel, whether you covered the league, talked about the league, wrote about the league, liked the league, were dating or married to somebody who was involved in basketball.

Speaker 1 Everyone had the same sort of, You remember where you were when it happened, which is such a rare thing for sports.

Speaker 1 Even the decision, I don't remember where I was when that happened because you knew it was coming. You know, I remember watching it.
I don't remember where I watched it.

Speaker 1 This, I was watching a movie with my wife.

Speaker 2 But the reason that I believed it in the real time, because I didn't know it was coming,

Speaker 2 was that I thought I was in the back of my head. I was like, I wonder if AD is greasing the skids on, you know, on his time in L.A.

Speaker 2 Like, it was not something I thought was going to happen at this point.

Speaker 1 I don't think that thing went over well when he was complaining about stuff.

Speaker 1 It's tough to complain when you're either guy when they gave up like 10 assets to put the two together.

Speaker 1 That's where I started having issues.

Speaker 2 I think the issue might have been that he was talking to Shams about it and not talking to

Speaker 2 Plinka and Julie about it. I think that's where the issue may have been.
Like what he was asking for was not unreasonable. Yeah.
The venue which he asked for it, I think, may have caused it.

Speaker 2 But I don't think that they were like, let's get rid of AD. I think that

Speaker 1 look, this is a once-in-a-lifetime situation. And as Russell and I talked about on Sunday, to do that without Reeves is the craziest part of the whole thing.

Speaker 1 Well, to me, like, I just don't understand how Reeves isn't in the deal. I'll never understand that for the rest of my life.

Speaker 2 This is what Bob. So, like, you know, when you were doing Countdown, you would

Speaker 2 talk with Magic and you would,

Speaker 2 I was never there, but you described these amazing conversations with Magic during the games. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, I've gotten to do Countdown about a dozen times this year. I've gotten to do it by half of those with Bob Myers.

Speaker 1 It's,

Speaker 1 I.

Speaker 1 Because you're hanging out for six hours. Yes.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I covered all these Warriors Cavs series and just the way Bob and I, the way Bob talks about the league, like,

Speaker 2 I'll bet he gets a job offer every day. Like, the way he views the league, like, and the part of it is because he's so

Speaker 2 successful and comfortable, and he doesn't have to worry about like, you know, part of it is the space he's in.

Speaker 2 Listening to Bob talk about the league

Speaker 1 privately,

Speaker 2 you can see why every owner would want to hire him.

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 2 what he does on TV, I think, is great. I don't think actually he gets, of course, I'm biased.
He's my teammate.

Speaker 2 The way he talks about the league, like the way he talked

Speaker 2 last week about, I can't remember, it was

Speaker 2 some front office challenge. Like, oh, it was a Michael Malone firing.
Like, he talked about that whole thing.

Speaker 2 Like, what he was saying was like literally worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in in consulting money. Like if he had consulted with the team.
But anyway, he feels the same way I do.

Speaker 2 I feel good that I'm on the same side as him, which is he can get to a spot where he sees why they traded Luca.

Speaker 2 He doesn't agree with it, and nor do I, but he can see why, he can see how the Mavericks got to it. They didn't want to pay him the $300 million, whatever.

Speaker 2 They have more information about Luca than anybody. He can even get himself to the spot where they said, we want Anthony Davis.
That's going to be our guy. And so can I.
I can get to a spot,

Speaker 2 Again, I wouldn't do it, but I can see how I can see if I put it in the middle of the day.

Speaker 1 Him as the centerpiece of a Luka trade.

Speaker 2 I can see how Anthony Davis was a guy they wanted. Like, this is what we're going to do.

Speaker 2 And even those two steps are big steps. A lot of people, and I think probably about every Dallas fan, couldn't make the two steps that I just made.
But I've been around the league. I can see it.

Speaker 2 The return is what

Speaker 2 I can't square.

Speaker 2 That's where I stop. I stop right there because here's the thing.

Speaker 2 Reeves makes Reeves has one of the best value contracts in the league.

Speaker 1 And he's gotten better every year.

Speaker 2 I just voted for him for most improved. I had a real problem for

Speaker 2 the most improved. What did you do for your three?

Speaker 2 Reeves.

Speaker 1 Reeves won.

Speaker 2 Reeves won.

Speaker 1 Oh, man.

Speaker 2 Zubach. I think I had Zubach.
No.

Speaker 2 I had Denny Avia.

Speaker 1 I looked at him, but his numbers were basically the same. I left him last year in Washington.
He was a trade. He was a great trade.

Speaker 2 One of the reasons why why Joe Cronin got extended in Portland was because that was how good of a trade that was.

Speaker 1 I did Daniels. I mean, I thought Daniels was a no-brainer.

Speaker 2 Totally. I'm a big

Speaker 2 plays internationally. You know, I like it.

Speaker 1 I did Brown on Denver.

Speaker 2 Totally acceptable.

Speaker 1 And I did Kamara, who I couldn't believe wasn't in the discussion for any of this stuff. Like, I put Kamara who that guy was a year ago.

Speaker 2 I put Kamara in my all-defensive team.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 All of those are good. I'm not going to try to, it's a bleep show.

Speaker 1 No, I looked at the Reeves thing. He was, I had four guys I liked, and the only thing with Reeves was I liked him last year.
I didn't, like, how much did he improve? He was really good last year.

Speaker 2 Look, again,

Speaker 2 TOSA, I fell in love with him in the summer of 23.

Speaker 2 He was already a no, it's not like.

Speaker 1 Why didn't you tell San Antonio?

Speaker 1 He couldn't. He could have saved all of us.
He couldn't have a lot of issues here.

Speaker 2 So I was, because Steve Kerr is such a wonderful guy. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Steve Kerr let the media for that summer in 23. We were sort of embedded with the team.

Speaker 2 Me and Joe Varden of the Athletic, we were the only people really traveling with them.

Speaker 2 We went on the team bus when they went to the Grand Mosque. We flew on the team plane.

Speaker 2 Tim Reynolds from the AP was also there, the three of us. And

Speaker 2 I was riding the bus with the players, I think to the airport or somewhere, and the players were questioning Austin about the contract.

Speaker 1 He'd already signed it, right? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, and he's like, you know, he's like, he's like, well, you know, I mean, this is all off the record. I shouldn't say what he said, but they were.

Speaker 1 No, I know this story because he was an undrafted free agent. Yeah, well, he wanted to get away from it.
Nobody really came after him.

Speaker 2 The Spurs really seriously looked at it. The Lakers were given a gift when the Spurs didn't offer him the offer sheet.
They were given a gift. And they were able to get him on a deal.

Speaker 2 Now, what Austin got was he got a player option after a year three because the Lakers were not incentivized to give that to him.

Speaker 1 There was no. Well, they knew that there was no

Speaker 1 Spurs, what I heard, the Spurs just kind of farted around with it for a few days, and he started a panic that he wasn't going to get any offer. And I think the Lakers strong-armed him.

Speaker 1 Palinka being a former agent, I think in situations like that, really helps him.

Speaker 2 I will say that he got the player option. So after next year, he can opt out.

Speaker 2 And if he didn't get that, he was under this contract for two more years. So like it was a victory for him and his agent that, you know, because when you're a restricted free agent, you're screwed.

Speaker 1 He usually don't get the PO.

Speaker 2 So he got the player option.

Speaker 2 He got an offer sheet, but he didn't get an offer sheet.

Speaker 1 Now he's in the best situation.

Speaker 2 And he's guaranteed himself tens of millions of dollars.

Speaker 2 And so his set for life, his family is taken care of, and he's got a player option after year three. He did okay, but the players on the team were like talking to him about it.

Speaker 2 Like, yeah, man, we, because he was, he was great for team USA. I realized nobody watched it.
I understand that. And defensively, he was taken advantage of late in the rounds.
The teams targeted him.

Speaker 1 But at least he gives a shit.

Speaker 1 There's guys who get taken advantage of, but at least they fight. And he'll at least fight.

Speaker 1 We're going to see it in the playoffs. Everybody's going to target him for three rounds.

Speaker 2 There's no way you were part of Team USA. I actually almost didn't vote for him for Most Improved because in my mind, he had already improved.

Speaker 1 That's why I didn't vote for Cade. Well, because I was like, Cade was the number one pick.

Speaker 1 Year three, he's supposed to be this good.

Speaker 2 You can't give a guy on a max contract most improved. No offense to Cade.
For year four, which is. Cade was on my all-in-the-A team.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 2 so, yes.

Speaker 1 So the

Speaker 1 if

Speaker 2 Austin Reeves was making $37 million, okay,

Speaker 2 the Mavericks could look at you and say, well, look, we can't have Kyrie and AD

Speaker 2 and Austin Reeves all making, you know, $40 million because we can't do that. If that was the case, I would get it.
Like, okay, you can't do the trade.

Speaker 2 He's making like $14 million.

Speaker 2 And next year, he's making like $15 million.

Speaker 2 Like, it's one of the top five value contracts, well, top 10 value contracts in the league yeah that's why it's and he's one of the best 45 guys in the league right now that's 45 50 where we want to put him so at least if it's a two for one you can talk yourself into it more yeah so that's my like in my mind they should have gotten reeves and the other first round pick and the pick swap they should have gotten all of it and and and i know what what's been said what's been said is that when genie bus heard about this she said we're not trading and i'm sure rob plinka didn't want to trade him either i'm i'm not saying rob

Speaker 1 eventually it's we're going to lose Luca unless we don't do this. They're trading him.

Speaker 2 The excuse

Speaker 2 that comes out is that, no, Genie Buss said Austin Reeves is not being traded. And I'm like, okay,

Speaker 1 then

Speaker 1 hang up the phone.

Speaker 2 We're trading you, Luca Donchis. You give us what we want.

Speaker 1 Fine, I'll shop him.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 1 Let me see what I can get for him then.

Speaker 2 So I just

Speaker 2 disagree with the trade because as critical as I've been of Luca, I recognize he's a top 10 player, top five player, top three, whatever you want to say. Like,

Speaker 2 you dream of having a player like that.

Speaker 2 He's an imperfect player, but I can close my eyes and I can see him holding the Larry O'Brien trophy in one hand and holding the Bill Russell trophy in the other. I see it.

Speaker 2 I can see it multiple times. I would not trade a player like that.
Sounds like a name. At least not age 25.

Speaker 1 Wearing a Laker uniform. Sounds terrible.

Speaker 2 You should feel that way. And so I'm saying.

Speaker 1 We were almost done with this Lakers team.

Speaker 1 I mean, they were, this was it. They were last legs.

Speaker 2 One of of the great lines, I, when you remember when they had the press conference and Polinka was wearing that leather jacket

Speaker 2 at the press conference? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I was texting with a high-ranking executive from their team, and he was watching at the same time. I go, hey, what do you think of this Polinka jacket?

Speaker 2 You know, because it was not, it was not normal press conference wear.

Speaker 1 No, he looked like a John Wick villain or something.

Speaker 2 And he goes, after that trade, he can wear a speedo.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 it was just like, right. It was like, yeah, like,

Speaker 1 um, unbelievable. Well, I think it was the, honestly, the greatest thing that ever could happen to Luca Donchich.

Speaker 1 Like, we talk about well, because not only do you go to a bigger market, you're a bigger star, and a team that has, you know, big resources, you get to play on a team that has a chance to win the title right now, but also like they lit a fire under them.

Speaker 1 And sometimes people need that in life.

Speaker 2 Well, that's what I think is, I mean, his agent, Bill Duffy, is one of the great agents of the last 40 years. He's a Hall of Famer.
I don't know if he's actually in the Hall of Fam.

Speaker 2 I don't know if they put agents in the Hall of Famer.

Speaker 1 He was more ripshit than anybody.

Speaker 2 But I think with Bill Duffy, basically, I shouldn't maybe share everything, but

Speaker 2 Bill's thing was they traded you to the Lakers. So, like, you know, Luca is, as you can see from the tears.
Devastated. It's like they traded you to the Lakers.
Right. So

Speaker 2 let's take a step back and evaluate. you know, that you were traded to the Lakers.

Speaker 2 And I think Luca is coming around on that. We'll find out this summer because he's got to sign the extension.

Speaker 1 We'll find out in the playoffs how he does and how everything fits in. And we're going to find out how the LeBron and Luca together, you know, which I think LeBron's handled great so far.

Speaker 1 Is it going to be a little different in a game four when you're down 2-1 in a series and who gets the bomb?

Speaker 1 I can't wait for all that stuff.

Speaker 2 But isn't this

Speaker 2 like great for LeBron?

Speaker 1 It's great for the league. It's great for us.
It's great for LeBron.

Speaker 1 And LeBron's never been in a situation where he clearly wasn't the most talented guy in his own team. Now, he's age 40.
If this was 2012, LeBron, it'd be a little different.

Speaker 1 But the only time I can remember even close was that first Miami season, which you covered because Wade was incredible that year.

Speaker 2 LeBron was in his headspace, was in a completely different space.

Speaker 1 And LeBron was, yeah, LeBron was a mess for a variety of reasons. And Wade was awesome.
That was probably the last great Wade season.

Speaker 2 Dwayne Wade was so great in that 2011 finals.

Speaker 1 One of the best. That was at game three.

Speaker 2 He was the game they won. They won game three to go to one.

Speaker 1 Awesome in that game. He was,

Speaker 1 I feel like he's weirdly become underrated now because his prime wasn't kind of as long as it should have been.

Speaker 2 I've said this, and it's kind of laughable, but league pass wasn't as much of a thing. We couldn't watch it on our phones.

Speaker 2 But in 2010, when I moved to Miami, obviously Dwayne Wade was already on his way to being a Hall of Famer. He'd already been a finals MVP.

Speaker 2 But until I watched him play 82 games or whatever, he played 75 games, night in and night out, covering the heat, I didn't appreciate how freaking good he was.

Speaker 2 Like 25 games into that season, as you know, the heat that was very dramatic, I remember thinking, my God, is he good?

Speaker 2 And I know that's kind of weird to say, but like I had such an appreciation for how good he was.

Speaker 1 Well, I felt like in, and I remember writing this, in 09, when he was stuck on a pretty bad Miami team and he kind of carried them, got them in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 But I just felt like he was as good as Kobe for a couple years there. And I don't think people,

Speaker 1 you know, I have Kobe as one of the 10 best players of all time. Like, I wouldn't say that lightly, but I think Wade's, Wade's best was as good as Kobe's best.
And I think you saw it in the 06 finals.

Speaker 1 Like

Speaker 1 if he really wanted to be great, you could really build the right team around him and he could carry somebody to the top of the mountain. Kobe did it way longer.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I think that the problem for Wade is he had a six-year peak. Well, he got hurt.
He got hurt a bunch of times, but his peak was basically from 06 to 11.

Speaker 1 Kobe had the first peak and then had the second peak from like 08 to, you know, 2012, where he had like almost a whole second career. For sure.

Speaker 1 And Wade was like basically by the 2014 finals, wasn't an impact guy anymore.

Speaker 2 That's right. That's one of the reasons why LeBron left.
I mean, there was a number of reasons why he left, but he was looking over at Dwayne and he was like, I don't, you know.

Speaker 1 I wrote that when it happened. That it was always like, he's going back to Cleveland.
He's going to be. And I was like,

Speaker 1 he's dumping this Miami team because he knows, because he's a fucking basketball genius. He's like, this is done.

Speaker 1 I've maximized all of my

Speaker 1 assets out of this team. I'm out.

Speaker 2 One of my most vivid memories of my 22-year career in the NBA was the locker room after game five of the 2014 finals. The Surs

Speaker 2 magical magical crushed him

Speaker 2 4-1. Kawhi was great.
The ball's moving. Danny Green doesn't miss for days.

Speaker 1 They went to dinner that finals.

Speaker 2 In Miami. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm in the locker room in

Speaker 2 whatever they called the Spurs or ATT Center, whatever they called it. And

Speaker 2 Battier retires,

Speaker 2 which we weren't

Speaker 2 surprised about. Ray Allen basically retires.
That one, we were caught off guard.

Speaker 1 He felt like like he had like three more years. I thought he had one more at least.

Speaker 2 And he was like, yeah, I think I might be done. And we were like, whoa.

Speaker 2 Bosch is like genuinely relieved. Like,

Speaker 2 not upset, like,

Speaker 2 almost like I've unburdened myself.

Speaker 1 Haslam.

Speaker 2 First off, half the team, like half the team is about to retire. Like, they don't all know it.
Like, Rashard Lewis doesn't know he's done, but he's done.

Speaker 2 But like, a year later, half the team wasn't in the league.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 I'll never forget that. It was like they were happy it was over.
It was such a finality. Like it was almost like senior year.

Speaker 1 Like, okay, guys.

Speaker 1 Four years that were like six years.

Speaker 2 Exactly. And so when you look at, like, LeBron's looking around that room, you know, half the guys are about to retire.
You know, Wade is like wheezing. Like they spent the whole year.

Speaker 2 Tim Grover, who was, you know, Jordan's guy, Tim Grover spent the whole

Speaker 2 season in Miami working on Dwayne Wade

Speaker 2 to get him

Speaker 2 taped together to get him to the playoffs. Now, he ended up playing a couple more years, obviously, but like they spent the whole year just trying to keep him together for the playoffs.

Speaker 2 LeBron is seeing all that, and he's just like, I thought he maybe would have come back for maybe one more year just to see.

Speaker 1 I remember everyone got mad at me because on TV, Cleveland won the lottery. And

Speaker 1 I think, which was, I think, before the game.

Speaker 2 It was in Indianapolis. Another vivid memory.

Speaker 1 And LeBron had a weird first half. And I think I said something at halftime: like, that was a weird LeBron half.
It's almost like it broke his brain that Cleveland was getting the first pick.

Speaker 1 And that's because we were talking about that that whole playoffs, whether he was going to go back there. It wasn't a good lottery, obviously.

Speaker 2 It was the Wiggins lottery. It wasn't like

Speaker 2 that.

Speaker 1 It was an asset to trade.

Speaker 1 And that was the Kevin Love stuff had already started.

Speaker 2 So post-game,

Speaker 2 I can close my eyes and see the locker that LeBron sits at. It was, you know.

Speaker 2 I said, what do you think about Cavs winning the lottery? He's like, yeah, pretty amazing, huh? Like, there was a little back and forth after that game. Like,

Speaker 2 because they'd won it two years in a row and like three out of four or something like that. Because they won the Kyrie.
Yeah. Kyrie, Anthony Bennett, Andrew Wiggins.

Speaker 1 I got mad on TV and then everyone got mad at me about that. I thought it was outrageous that they won three in four years.
Of course.

Speaker 1 We need rules. How is this a rules? Of course it's outrageous.
It's a thing that's allowed.

Speaker 2 Yes, of course it's outrageous.

Speaker 1 They've done a better job with it now. Like even,

Speaker 1 you know, Bub Carrington makes a crazy shot. So Utah's one and

Speaker 1 Washington's two, but they both have 14% odds. And it's not as impactful as I think it would have been.

Speaker 2 Having said that, there were like eight teams tanking at the end of this year, something like that.

Speaker 1 Well, the schedule is too long. It just is.

Speaker 1 This is what happens when you're playing for fucking ever. And, you know, you get to mid-March and eight teams just want the season to be over.

Speaker 2 That's true.

Speaker 1 That's one. Were you touched when LeBron took that shot at you and everybody rallied to your defense? It was like, it was a great online moment for you.

Speaker 2 It was.

Speaker 1 People were very protective of it.

Speaker 2 I prefer that it didn't happen.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But I kind of feel like

Speaker 2 everybody

Speaker 1 who

Speaker 2 knows what's going on knew,

Speaker 2 but everybody who didn't know will forget.

Speaker 2 So, like,

Speaker 2 I actually felt like it might have... My concern was that it would damage me with players because he's so influential with players.
Yeah, that hasn't been the case so far.

Speaker 2 I've had more players come up, and

Speaker 2 not that everybody, not that all of them are, but I've had more support from players, current and former, than I thought I would get for that.

Speaker 1 So it's a weird moment. I don't, to me, I read that as like, man, that's just, he said something, and I bet he would take it back a day later.

Speaker 2 In all honesty, I don't know because I haven't talked to him. I actually haven't seen him since.

Speaker 2 McAfee, I've done McAfee a dozen, I don't know, eight, seven, eight times.

Speaker 2 McAfee would put up this photo of where he superimposed me as one of his high school teammates. Yeah.
He always used that photo. It was funny.
You know, McAfee's show has all these tropes.

Speaker 2 That's a trope. He's put that photo up a number of times.
I don't know what LeBron was thinking, but I kind of think when he saw that photo go up, he thought that was weird.

Speaker 2 Well, maybe he thinks I'm weird. Maybe, maybe he does.
Let's put it this way.

Speaker 2 There's probably 15 things LeBron could be angry at me about, like, that I've said or written over the years, that he could legitimately be like, that was wrong. That was unfair.

Speaker 2 You don't know what you're talking about. And he could have hit me with any of those.
I'd have been like, you're right.

Speaker 2 Shouldn't have done that. I was out of line.

Speaker 2 But what he accused me of was not one of them.

Speaker 2 But I almost kind of think he saw the photo and thought that was weird. And that's what he was reacting to.
As if I made the photo or something.

Speaker 1 Every year you go viral and America's behind you. I don't know.
This is the same thing. You think America's a bad idea on that.

Speaker 2 I don't know about that.

Speaker 1 You don't think so?

Speaker 2 I think people in media who knew were behind me. I don't know about America.

Speaker 1 I don't think it was bad for you.

Speaker 2 No, I don't. It was fine.

Speaker 2 Like I said, and I'm not just saying this, like, he doesn't owe me anything. So it's fine.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 It was a great relationship for all sides.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, I don't know how he feels about it, but it was a great relationship for me.

Speaker 1 I do think we are entering in this, and we've hit all these different kind of checkpoints with basketball coverage. And this, whatever era we're in now,

Speaker 1 where fan bases can be mobilized if somebody writes or says something that a player doesn't like, that's a little hairy.

Speaker 2 Well, I think it's okay for media to be held accountable.

Speaker 1 I couldn't agree more. We're supposed to be fair and accurate.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's fine. But, you know, like

Speaker 2 I don't think there's an understanding of the job. You know, there's not,

Speaker 2 that's one thing that's kind of

Speaker 1 like even you look at the award stuff, which, you know, Zach just dumped his ballot at eventually.

Speaker 2 I was really annoyed about it.

Speaker 1 He couldn't handle the swings.

Speaker 2 But I told him that I was annoyed about it, and I am annoyed about it, and he should get it back.

Speaker 1 But, like, you know, yoke at your SGA. It's a good battle.
Talk to different people. They're going to say different things.

Speaker 1 Nobody is going to do an MVP vote. Like, finally, I get to do my anti-OKC agenda.
Right.

Speaker 1 So, I'm so glad, right? Like, I voted for Dort for Defensive Party of the Year, and Black vote for Coach of the Year.

Speaker 2 I wish I had had the guts to vote for Dort. I said I was, I was seriously thinking about that.

Speaker 1 I just didn't have the guts, but um, it's like when they say that a golfer makes like an 18-footer at Augusta, they're like, the guts, the guts to read that pattern.

Speaker 2 Um, here's the thing about a media voting for awards: were the best bad bad were the of all the bad options, were the best bad option.

Speaker 2 So like, and this is not speculation, they let the fans into the all-star voting, and the fans are like trying to vote Zaza Pachuya.

Speaker 2 And like, you know, with all due respect to Lamello Ball, he's a great player, but he had no business being a starter in the All-Star game this year.

Speaker 1 He did not.

Speaker 2 Fans put him in. So the players and the media had to check on that.
The players,

Speaker 2 first off, they vote for all-star, and they don't, half of them don't take it seriously. You can see the votes.
and like Bub Carrington's getting votes. All the respect to Bob.

Speaker 2 The players' awards, you remember that lasted for like two or three years? That was a disaster.

Speaker 1 Who could have predicted?

Speaker 1 It was a disaster when they did it in the 60s, and they had people voted for MVP. Some of the votes were

Speaker 1 one of Bill Russell being like fifth.

Speaker 2 Okay, of course. One of the most amazing awards every year is the Executive of the Year award.

Speaker 1 Voted by other executives.

Speaker 2 The other executives vote for it. It's like the pettiest

Speaker 1 award.

Speaker 2 Like, there's so

Speaker 2 bias and pettiness. And, like,

Speaker 2 if you go back and historically look at some of these vote totals, you can't trust that.

Speaker 1 Only the NBA governor's meeting is more petty than the.

Speaker 2 Can you imagine? So the players don't trust the owners. The owners don't trust the players.
The players can't be trusted to pick the other players. The fans can't be trusted at all.

Speaker 2 So is the media perfect?

Speaker 1 Hell no.

Speaker 2 But we're the best of the options.

Speaker 1 Well, and also, you can't fuck around with your ballot. You can't be like, I'm going to put Bronnie James third for rookie of the year because then it's going to be shown that you did that.

Speaker 2 I know. And my colleagues don't like that their votes are public.

Speaker 1 Well, so I don't care if my vote's public.

Speaker 1 I watch basketball all year. I really care about the process.
I've talked about it forever. And I'm going to do my ballot the way I want to do it.
I have a whole process and I care. Okay.

Speaker 1 And so hold us accountable. If people disagree with it, that's fine.

Speaker 1 But I do wonder, though, if they should make it private and

Speaker 1 if they don't like certain ballots just knock those people out for the next year well you know that is something that could happen hold us accountable what i don't what here's here's why i say that i worry about the group think for stuff because people are afraid oh if i do this and not enough people are with me then people are gonna

Speaker 1 say whatever right and then if you're just like ah it's just safer for me to do this because i don't want to be noticed that's not then we're not voting anymore and i do think people do that Yes, I definitely think that happens.

Speaker 2 And I think, especially with the teams that you have to cover, you know, like if you are.

Speaker 1 Right, you've Jaron Jackson, you leave him off third team all NBA, and then you run into him. Okay.

Speaker 2 It's like, hey, dude, this is one thing that I do. And I did that this year.
Evan Mobley and Jaron Jackson are both guys who, if they make all NBA, get the bonus.

Speaker 2 Mobley is already in his contract. Jackson is eligible for the Supermax.
Doesn't have it, but he's eligible. So I have a rule that if you're close, I put you on.
I did this with Jalen Brown

Speaker 2 two years ago. Jalen Brown had earned it.

Speaker 1 He was second to Jalen Brown should have been on.

Speaker 2 He earned it. That's a bad example.

Speaker 1 Well, but Jaron Jackson's an interesting one because Jaron Jackson on.

Speaker 2 I put him on.

Speaker 1 I put Zubats over him.

Speaker 2 And I'm not going to argue that with you. I'm just saying, like, I have this rule that if it's close, I give it to him.
I can't argue with it. And Evan Mulby was on it too.

Speaker 1 Speaking of arguing, we went way too long. We have to watch him play in basketball game.
Now we now missed the first quarter. But I had a great time.
It was good catching up.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I always love talking to you. Thanks for coming.
Can I just say, real quick, I don't know know if it's still available on the web anywhere. You and I, when you did your book of basketball to

Speaker 2 what did, what did you call it?

Speaker 1 When you did

Speaker 1 the podcast, it's on YouTube. It's on YouTube.
We did LeBron's The Shot, right?

Speaker 2 We did the game seven. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's the most fun I've ever had doing a podcast. Oh, that's nice.
And it is probably

Speaker 2 the best pod, the best, some of the best content I've ever done.

Speaker 2 We did it. We did it at the studio at the Rams.

Speaker 1 Pre-COVID.

Speaker 2 Pre-COVID. I remember coming across it during COVID, like in

Speaker 2 the darkest of times and listening to it. So if you are a LeBron fan or a Kyrie fan, just go find that.
I mean, all of you did a whole bunch of them because now it's half a decade old or longer.

Speaker 2 But I just want to say.

Speaker 1 Oh, I'm glad. Well, you were great on that one.
That was a really fun one. I loved it.
Okay. All right.
Thank you. See you.

Speaker 1 All right. That's it for the podcast.
Thanks to to Windhorst. Thanks to Mahoney and CR.

Speaker 1 Thanks to Jesse and Gahal and Sarudi for helping out behind the scenes. Don't forget, you can catch up on Celtic City on Max if you haven't watched it.
I'm really proud of it. I hope you like it.

Speaker 1 If you like basketball, I feel like you're going to like it. And then enjoy the playoffs this weekend.
I'm going to be back with Rosillo on Sunday night after a whole smorgasbord of games.

Speaker 1 See you then.

Speaker 1 I want to see them

Speaker 1 when we

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