OKC Wins the Title, Haliburton’s Devastating Injury, the Durant Trade and NBA Draft Buzz With Ryen Russillo and Zach Lowe

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All right, we were recording live after the trophy celebration game said the name Day Finals.

Ryan Masillo is here.

We brought in Zach Lowe for this one.

We thought this was going to be a special night.

It was definitely a memorable night.

It was a sad night.

It was a happy night for OKC fans, sad night for basketball fans.

I've never watched a game seven like that in my life.

Rosillo, I'm going to start here.

I think this might be the first NBA playoffs that comes and goes where the team I'm going to remember isn't the team that won the title when I think of it first.

As weird as that sounds, I can't think of another playoffs.

You always think of the champ first.

You go go through, it's like 21, Giannis,

20, LeBron and the Lakers in the bubble.

Like you go on through this one, I'll be thinking OKC win, but Indy, and they'll be right in the sentence with them.

Yeah, I wanted to wait until it felt like kind of a bummed-out recap of game seven, but I guess it's it's already there because I think all of us that were watching, as soon as we saw Halliburton go down, you're like, all right, how are they going to do this?

And then they're up at half.

It actually felt like the Halliburton injury messed up OKC more than it did the Pacers.

So that would be like the first thing that I had from the game.

Like, are you guys seriously going to let this happen to you?

Or it's the Doc Rivers theory, but it's Doc Rivers theory in-game.

Well, and then on top of it, even when Indy's down, what was it?

They were down like 18 late, Zach, in the fourth quarter.

And Mathurt made a couple plays.

And you're like, are they going to do this?

Like, I wasn't counting it out.

They're down 103.89 or whatever it was with four minutes left.

I'm like, I don't know.

Maybe Maybe they could do this.

I literally went into the living room to watch the last five minutes of the game with my wife and talk her through the Halliburton injury because she was watching it in the other room.

I'm watching it in my office.

So I'm like, it's over.

And then I'm like, I look up the score.

I'm watching Mather.

I said, I literally said to her, I think I might have to go back to my office and

take this, like, watch this with a little closer eye.

Now

this team would not go away.

Man,

the Halliburton,

I mean, there's so many decade ramifications for this.

Like, obviously, the Pacers next year, we can go into all of that a lot later.

Rasil,

did you think they actually had a chance to win tonight when you watched the first five minutes pre-injury?

What were your thoughts before he goes down?

Well, look, every single time somebody asked me about each one of these games, I would just go, like, this Pacers story is crazy, but eventually.

the talent and the defense of what OKC is.

And I know a little bit later, I want to share some of their statistical profile stuff from all these playoff games because you're like, this team just won the championship and it's because of this defense and it's because of that takeover in the third quarter.

So I wouldn't rule out anything with the Pacers because we've all come away incredibly impressed and just their toughness and how they're built and who they are and their belief and all that stuff.

So I think everybody just kind of raving about them on social media.

But in those first few minutes, I thought there was like two things that were going to stand out.

SGA was not ready for how much they collapsed on him in game six.

It was pretty obvious.

He had a career high turnovers.

And with his passing tonight, you could see that he had adjusted for that.

However, OKC, all of these threes are wide open and they still miss them.

This is their ninth game in these playoffs where they're 30% or lower from three-point.

But

yeah, I guess I never really ruled anything out.

Even as Zach was saying, they're up.

OKC's up 22.

You're like, this thing's over.

And then it's the Matherin show.

And you're like, what the hell?

Like in that five, that six to five minute mark, you're like, they've already chipped away 10 points on this thing.

I was getting ideas, Zach, because two things.

They were calling it tight early, which I thought if Indy had the recipe for Indy to win, is are they going to call it tight?

Is OKC going to look tight?

And then could Indy come out, hit some threes, and start?

And they went to timeout, and Halliburton was mean-mugging the crowd.

And I was like, okay, this is if Indy was going to steal this game, this is the recipe.

And Indy, I think OKC was even four for 17 from three at halftime, you know, and then the defense took over, and that was it.

I thought your question to Ryan was actually, did you think they had a chance to win after the injury and at halftime?

I guess that's another question.

Well, because my answer to your actual question is, of course, I thought they had a chance to win with Halliburton playing well.

I thought this was like not quite a coin flip game.

I predicted OKC by four.

That was my random, you know, OKC really close prediction.

Of course, I thought they had a chance to win.

And I don't think you're wrong to say the runner-up is as memorable or more memorable than the champion because this was like some sports magic stuff that happened to the Pacers.

Like actual, and I'm not just talking about the crazy Halliburton end-of-the-shots and buzzer beaters and miracle comebacks and all that.

I'm talking about like, you know, I was talking to the GM of another team today, and I was like, what do you take out of this Pacers thing?

What do they win or lose?

And he said, hope.

We take hope because they are a study in like alchemy and the whole adding up to way more than the sum of its parts.

Like something magical happened to them in the nexus of style of play slash unique superstar, chemistry, toughness, how personalities and games all mesh together.

It was like, it was magic.

And when they're up one at halftime, you allow yourself to think, like, are they actually going to do this?

Now, I thought the whole time they just are not going to be able to score enough points.

And Oklahoma City is not going to have to even play a good offensive game to win this game.

They're just going to grind them to dust piece by piece by piece, drip by drip by drip.

And that's what happened.

But I like, this was a magical thing that happened for the last two months, even extending into the regular season, obviously.

And

it just, I mean,

it's just such a gut punch for it to end this way.

I mean, the shot, I don't know if you guys are still watching of.

Halliburton on crutches in the hallway and McConnell in tears hugging him is just

it's and like I know the Thunder are celebrating.

They should celebrate.

They were the best team all year.

It just, there's no question that it feels like everybody, including the Pacers and starting with the Pacers, was robbed of what should have been an epic, epic moment in the NBA.

Yeah, it's,

as you know, I love sports movies.

And there was that moment in halftime where you're thinking, like, this doesn't even feel like a real

life thing anymore.

This actually feels like a sports movie.

This is like watching the Friday Night Lights movie when they're going in the finals trying, and then they lose at the end.

It's like, oh my God, those scrappy underdogs.

The way they responded to losing their best guy in the worst possible way.

You know, it's almost like you're getting hit by a sniper from the crowd or something when you go down like that.

And to, and to just have them be like, shake it up, be like, all right, let's, let's stay focused.

Like, I don't know how you stay focused in.

a moment like that.

Like, it's certainly this when it happened to the Celtics a couple rounds ago, the game was basically over at that point.

But Indiana, they had 43 minutes left in the game.

And I agree that I thought it affected both teams.

How could it not?

And OKC, even a little more.

And they were saying the crowd was kind of

like, what do you do for the crowd?

You know, the whole thing, definitely one of the weirdest things I've ever seen in a big game.

Rousseau, can you think of

in any other, like this is a do or die game and you bring in this variable that nobody's expecting?

I couldn't even concentrate on the next half hour of the game.

Like, I don't, I didn't even really take notes.

I don't know.

I was watching it and, you know, Indiana was hanging around, but I don't really know.

I don't really know what happened in the first half.

I was just like, kind of stupefied.

I was like, did that just happen?

Well, these games, I think the last two, the first halfs have been played at such a frantic pace.

And, and I don't know that that showed out in the pace numbers because that was a big thing that we talked about with the way Pacers had run through the East because OKC was going to be comfortable doing some of that stuff.

But I think the energy, right, the effort, the sheer effort that you see the Pacers throughout, you either match it or you don't.

And you see what happens in game six for OKC.

And then it always felt like the games when they came out in the second half, like the last couple, it was just, even though you just come off this break, you could see that that first half was like draining for all of these guys.

And, you know, I expected.

I expected

OKC to shoot it better because the role players are going to shoot it better at home traditionally.

But

I don't know, man.

Like, it was, I think it actually speaks to the Pacers in that all they've done is fight now for months.

And if Halliburton's going down, as much as the three of us could be sitting there and be like, how do you reset yourself?

Like, because it happened so fast, like, you're out there.

There's nothing, there's no other game.

And if anything, right, they've proven that they're going to respond.

So

I, yeah, at halftime, Nemhart hits that shot.

You're like, they're up one.

Anything.

I think you know how to talk about it at halftime when they do the halftime show.

They're like, what's like, they didn't even ask Bob Myers.

You were in this exact spot six years ago.

I can think of one game, one thing they could have talked about at halftime.

Well, I mean,

it would have been how I led the show.

Like, Bob, this, you had KD coming back from a calf strain in 2019.

You were worried about it.

He came back and he made the injury worse.

Everyone was saying this wouldn't happen to Halbert, and then it happened.

I, I mean, I got to admit, when he had the calf string game five, I googled all the Achilles injuries and there, there, it didn't seem like there was any sort of rhyme or reason to whether there was a connection or not.

Some people are like, it's two different injuries, but this was exactly what happened to KD.

It's hard not to think this was just the sequel to it.

And I, I mean, there's

this one, you think this is different than KD

just because it's, it's game seven.

It's, it's a couple minutes in.

Well, I'm saying it's the same situation where he's coming back playing hurt on an injury that if it was the regular season he's out for three weeks four weeks like he's resting it but that he was playing on an injury he shouldn't have been playing on normally and they were claiming it wasn't going to make any worse and then you know it gets gets worse and

i i i just don't know what's going on they i mean this is a whole separate topic and it was one that i was texting with a bunch of different people on it's like where are these achilles injuries coming from these used to be old man injuries, they are now happening to these dudes who are in the prime of their career in Tatum's case and Halliburton's case.

And

I just don't fully understand it.

And I don't, I know that's going to be a huge topic over the next four or five days, but it's maybe some of the stuff we've talked about on past pods about how the sport's harder to play.

There's more running, there's more training.

the miles that you're carrying are from a AU is they're just more wear and tear in these guys.

But it doesn't make sense to me why guys who are 24, 26, 27 years old are blowing out their Achilles.

Well, the other difference with Durant, too, is Durant hadn't played in a month and then he came back.

And like Halbert, the reason it feels a little, it doesn't feel that different to me, but the difference is Halberton just kept playing through this and played pretty well last game.

But look, I mean, like, it's a hard game to talk about because we should, this should be a crowning moment for the Oklahoma City Thunder for

just the greatest, quickest rebuild

from bottoming out kind of to utter dominance and having a team that is literally the best team ever, probably in all of professional sports, the best positioned to win now and win later of any team that maybe has ever existed.

And it is their crowning moment.

But

in 15 years, the number one thing we'll remember from this game is that Tyrese Halliburton in a game that we were all jacked up to watch got hurt seven minutes into the game.

And a game where all the casual fans are watching.

Like this was one of the, this is like my wife and my daughter are watching this one.

My dad's here.

My dad and I got to watch Keegan Bradley

somehow get back come back on Tommy Fleetwood in the Hartford Open today.

And that was that was a fun sports moment.

This was not as fun to watch Halliburton go down.

I don't know, Rosillo.

The OKC piece of this,

I think Zach makes a crucial point that this might be the beginning of,

you know, a half a decade run.

I feel like you and I have talked about this after titles before.

Like we did this, we talked about this this after the Denver finals.

I remember like, Jesus, Jokic Murray, they're both so young.

Like we kind of do this after every finals, but in this case, with how young they are, I didn't even feel like they've peaked with whatever their core is.

It feels like that's two years away.

So this is pretty unique.

There's no reason to think that this is Jalen Williams' peak.

There's certainly no reason to think that it's Chet's peak.

I mean, offensively, he was so good defensively tonight, especially to close that one out, you know, and the Pacers wanted to go small because they wanted to be chaotic.

They wanted to try to challenge all the inbounds.

I mean, OKC didn't have a time after Caruso couldn't get the ball in, so they were going to have a timeout the rest of the game.

SGA's got the fifth foul, which is another thing at that five-minute mark.

You're going to what if the like TJ went right at him on the next possession?

I'm like, if he fouls out, like, this has been four guys on the thunder all looking to get the ball back to SGEA for about an hour and a half here.

So, yeah, like, what's that going to look like?

Um, and a real weird part of me was like almost rooting for SGA to foul out, just be like, all right, here we go, Like Halibert's out, SGA's out.

Like, let's see what happens here.

But yeah, I don't always love the, it was kind of the mission impossible line that I had where like when the eighth one comes out, you can't say this is the third best one ever.

You have to say that it's the best mission impossible.

Nobody's going to do that and have it be in the ad.

And no one can just win a championship without the follow-up questions of like, how real is this?

And a lot of times it's total bullshit.

It's a waste of time.

It's a Monday topic after a championship.

It's not good enough to just celebrate the championship.

But as Zach said, considering what they've done, how they've built this, how young this team is, what, the youngest team in 40 plus years to win a championship like this.

And even with a couple warts, you know, that their defense seems to solve.

And we can say now solves enough for them to win a championship.

It's totally reasonable to look at them and go, all right, you know, of all the teams in the West, I know we'll get to the East later because Sixers fans must just be like, all right, is this the year?

there's no reason to think any of that stuff.

Normally, that post-championship discussion, I just think is so fatiguing, and this one is completely relevant.

Well, can you imagine if they had ended up with Philly's pick, if they had the seventh pick with all the Ace Bailey drama right now?

Be like, are they going to fucking get Ace Bailey?

Is that where we're headed with this?

I mean, that seventh pick, especially, I know Rossello's been grinding tape.

I think even our guy, Zach Lowe's been grinding a little bit, grinding, grinding a little bit.

Grinding is strong, whatever is like a little soft handing yeah finished sanding yeah but that seventh pick is you know you might really get a dude there so that maybe that's the one silver lining with this okay c piece Zach one thing I liked about them today I thought you know Jalen Williams was bad in the first half but really came on second half SJ was great the whole game I really liked everything he did today and then uh chet was great you know you win the title you want your best guys to have a good game in the biggest biggest stage i do think we're gonna have a complicated relationship with this as a game seven though because you think back to all the game sevens from the past and the first thing that jumps to your mind with each one like 2016 lebron the block kyrie shot and you just go through and it's in this one you you're probably going to think about how burn first and then probably sga second what uh what else what would be the takeaways other than that well sga you know, greatest eight of 27 shooting game of all time.

Like, it snuck up on me how bad he shot from the floor, but he made 11.

He made a shot for the last 40 minutes, right?

But 11 free throws, 12 assists, one of the best passing games of his career.

J-Dubb, like you said, recovered from a shaky first half, pretty dominant second half, and Chet was just everywhere defensively.

And just their wealth of defensive talent, when they don't play Joe at all, it's like, what am I even supposed to do against this team?

It's just what, like, that guy made all defense, that guy made all defense.

Those four would have had they been eligible, but they didn't play enough games.

Like, what am I even supposed to do?

And that's like the ultimate tribute to this team: the one thing that's consistent game in and game out is the puzzle that no team could solve four times in seven games is Oklahoma City's defense.

No team was able to solve it.

Maybe the Pacers, you know, who knows what happens if Halliburton doesn't get hurt?

Do they put up a better fight, obviously?

But, like, this is a tribute to how good the defense was.

With 11-22 left in the game, Shea hit a step back three, 84-68.

I wrote in my notes: zero test by that, and which by which I mean, could they not score the rest of the game and still win?

Is Indiana even going to get to 84?

And they did get to 84.

They got to 91, but like, I actually thought, could the Pacers pitch a shutout for 11 minutes and 22 seconds and still not win the game?

Well, what was it?

They had that stretch where TJ was the only guy that scored for

10 plus minutes of the game.

And like Pascal, I like,

I

just,

it shows you how great Halliburton is.

Like, he is the straw that serves to drink.

His combination of the threat to shoot off the dribble from 30 feet, the instant getting off the ball, passing, the unpredictable movement, it's like without him, the whole thing, they're not the pacers.

And they were, they, they did enough to stay in the game for a half, but they just, their backup plan just wasn't there.

The separation that Siakam thrives on, all the gaps he sort of darts through when they open up, they don't open up without Halliburton.

Yeah, Siakam hit that three, right?

So there was that weird near-shot clock violation three that Dort hits, and it's ridiculous.

All right.

And it was off another one of these kind of like messy, just get it back to SGA.

Like there were a lot of offensive possessions here for OKC where I was like, dude, the other four guys have zero interest in doing anything and just hoping SGA figures it out.

So I think I'm with both of you guys that.

If you look back at the box score on this one and be like, SGA didn't really have that great of a game seven and shoot it.

It's like, yeah, but he's dictating everything.

It's like a bad Steph Curry shooting game where you're like, okay, but he's still so important, everything that's happening.

And I do think there was an adjustment and his willing to pass because he only had two assists in game six.

So Siakam comes right back and hits that three, I think about 1030 left in the third quarter.

And at the time, I'm like, if the Pacers pull this off, like I wrote it down, it was like, this will be such a monstrous three because Dort shouldn't have hit that one.

It just goes in.

From that 1030 moment on, even though TJ is just dicing every up, because even in game seven, the secondary defenders still weren't ready for this TJ McConnell fucking show.

It's unbelievable what he did.

He scores all those points in a row.

Siakam did not take another shot in the third quarter until that thing at the very end with five seconds left.

Now, he did sit for five minutes.

So then when I thought, okay, he got that rest.

He wasn't a big part of the offense because everybody's kind of watching TJ go off.

I was expecting him to try to get that push.

And very early in the fourth quarter, he gets a possession.

And you can see that he wants to be aggressive.

It's not him checking out.

It's him not, you know, like being afraid of the moment.

It wasn't any of those things.

But he gets into this position where Chet comes over, just swallows him up.

And Siakam twice had these two early positions in the fourth quarter where he's like, this is to Zach's point, like, oh, shit, like, everybody's paying attention to me now.

And I'm not going to be able to just cut off Halliburton, dicing everybody up and just breaking the paint.

Well, that was the fun part about that McConnell stretch when he scored all those points, but I think he also had at least four turnovers.

And they were just like,

if you ever wanted your answer on could McConnell be Jalen Brunson on the Knicks, if if you geared your offense around him we're throwing everything we have at stopping him i think he had the two turnovers in a row when they hit the three threes when they blew it up and all of a sudden they were up nine um and they were just coming at him coming at him and it was like oh man the clock struck midnight for poor tj mcconnell and then he scored 10 straight points he was like no i'm just gonna go the basket over and over again uh and was just fighting these guys off by himself but yeah i thought the thing they miss i mean on top of all the other stuff you miss with halbert and they just don't get fast breaks without him You know, they're not.

They couldn't push the pace at all.

And if it's going to be a half-court game, OKC's beating anyone except maybe Denver, if we're just going half-court versus half-court.

And that's how Denver was able to hang with him.

What else do we need to talk about OKC wise, Zach?

Is there a way for them to get better, in your opinion?

Oh, absolutely.

What would be our number one move?

Well, I think, I mean, you know,

the talking points are always, well, Chet's just scratching the surface of what he can be offensively.

And, you know, he did not shoot the three.

He made one or two from three today, did not shoot the three well in the playoffs again.

And J-Dubb still has levels to get to as the second and third guys.

I think just along with that, those guys getting better offensively comes a

they still have like molding of a general offensive system to do that's that doesn't default all the time to just like Shay, can you do something at the end of the clock?

And I think that's what Ryan was talking about earlier of like just the dependence on his one-on-one game, the synergy between Shay and J.

Dub.

You know, we saw them run a few pick and rolls in this game, like they did at the end of

game five, I think it was, uh, when they, when they cracked the defense a little bit with that.

I just think, like, just building out the offense is the thing that would scare me about the Thunder if I were all these other teams in the West trying to load up and compete with them, is that they still have, as a collective, levels to get to.

But look, I mean, the Halliburton thing is also a reminder that even, I mean, the Thunder are probably going to be the exception given how well they are set up now and later, but like, none of this stuff is guaranteed.

That's what's heartbreaking about this Halliburton injury.

Like, it's not like when were the last time the Pacers were in the finals?

There's no guarantee they'll be back at this stage ever in Tyrese Halliburton's career.

Like, none of this is guaranteed to you, not even to the Thunder.

And that's why getting all the way here after all this grueling stuff and having an MA just sucks.

Like, it just subjectively sucks.

I would also add, like, I'm happy for Presty

because it it was always the annoying guy, and I'm using that as just the catch-all annoying guy of, like, oh, if you're so good, you know, dot, dot, dot, and you're just like, shut the fuck up.

Okay.

And to think of what Zach's talking about with Halliburton, like, I thought about it too.

It's like, what's the likelihood Halliburton gets back to the NBA Finals?

Like, it's far more unlikely than likely, just the way this stuff plays out.

And if you're a Thunder fan, and it's not like I have this decades-long like sympathy for Thunder fans the way you would maybe say the Cleveland Browns or something.

But for that group to have Katie, Westbrook, Harden, Serge, and make it to the NBA Finals in 2012 and feel like they were competitive, right?

Even though it was a five-game series, and you're kind of leaving there going, all right, you know, we got some of that playoff seasoning and we're good.

And imagine like telling anybody, imagine telling Pretty Be like, the next time you guys are going to be here, it's in 13 years.

So it's like an amazing rehabilitation.

Yeah, I was when they were watching everybody hug and celebrate, and they showed Presty hugging SGA.

And you think back to that summer when, and Ryan and I were doing pots together that summer,

and all the focus was on the Clippers trade.

And man, OKC did well for themselves because they had hit a dead end.

The Westbrook era was done.

This, this,

that was it.

There was no chance to win a title with Westbrook and Paul George and whoever else they had.

And to be able to parlay that into what what they did with weirdly an umbilical chord to that 2012 finals that Ryan's mentioning, where it does feel like it's somehow connected to that era because they took that era as far as they could, and then they turned all the assets into

the rest of it.

I do want to point out they did, I mean, did you feel like this was OKC's first title or their second, Zach?

Just a just question.

I don't get the question.

OKC won the title today.

Is it their first title or is it their second title?

I'm not going to wade into these wars with you.

No, you're wading in.

It's a question.

You have to answer.

It's their first NBA championship.

Okay, there we go.

This is my Minneapolis Lakers case or something.

But does anyone know?

Nobody knows OKC and the fans are like, we got our second one.

No one's fighting with you on this one, right?

Yeah, but this is the Minneapolis Laker point.

They still claim the five Minneapolis Lakers titles.

Whatever.

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Can we fast forward to how weird the East is next year and then circle back and talk about the finals?

I don't know how long Zach's staying because he's on East Coast time.

I'm glad.

We have to talk about this no but i'm glad you're doing it this way because and i'm this i just want to say this before we go forward i'm glad we're doing this right after the heat of the moment and after the trophy presentation because it's going to go down as a weird podcast like we and it's weird because we don't know how to talk about the game like what you said before about i was just in a haze for like an hour after Halliburton got hurt.

So this should be a strange podcast that jumps from like, hey,

who's favored in the East next year with all these injuries to what do we think about the Thunders' legacy as a champion to poor Tyrese Halliburton?

Because it just, it's a hard, it's just a strange moment to be, to talk about.

So I'm glad we're getting strange.

Let's talk about the freaking East next year.

Yeah.

So, so two pieces.

The first piece is the Halliburton piece.

Out for next year, no question.

Heartbreaking.

I was so bummed out.

Like,

I just couldn't believe it.

I like, because you knew right away, it feels like we've seen enough of these that as soon as you saw the calf shimmy, you're like, oh my God, really?

This is happening?

For him,

he just went through this whole eight, nine-month thing where he went from basketball fans knew who he was.

Wasn't really a household name to like, I felt like he became a legitimate star.

He became the face of a team that we all loved.

Even if you weren't a Pacers fan, you have your own thing.

Like, this was the front man of a team that i think was the biggest winner of this entire nba playoffs that didn't win the title and now he's just gone we have no idea when he's going to be it'll be 18 months before we see him play basketball again

and i i just can't believe this is how this worked out rasillo where you have somebody who's it's like watching some like a summer movie where they're promoting this movie coming this movie coming this so-and-so it's like oh man this guy's the new superman he's gonna be a big star and then that's it we just don't see him i just can't believe this is how it happened.

Yeah, because I couldn't even start thinking about the East until like halftime because then it crept into my head.

And I knew we probably should have to do some of this.

Because, yeah, I think all three of us are like, you know, it's not like we're a thunder podcast.

You know, sometimes, like, I think of the sports center rules, the arguments I would get into the radio show back in the day of like, well, this team won.

It's like, so what are we supposed to do?

Just say they were awesome for seven minutes?

Like, what's the actual topic?

Yeah, and we've, and we've gone, we've all had our own podcast, we've all talked about all the reasons they're awesome.

I mean, the East was weird before this Halliburton injury.

We were like, what's going to happen with the East next year?

We had no idea.

Now it's three times weirder.

Well, maybe I could guess that Zach, the GM you were talking to, wasn't Kobe Altman.

If he was like, this gives us hope because it felt like a team, a team that didn't have high-end talent.

And after Cleveland gets

you excited for the potential Lamello Ball Jalen Green back court down the line?

Yeah.

Con Kniple.

Yeah.

Let's go.

Knipple and Jalen Green work together?

I don't know.

But if you're looking at everything that we said in the moment with Cleveland, you're like, another disappointing early exit.

Incredible regular season profile.

Clearly, Garland is even more hurt than we realize if he's going to miss time in next season.

But I would always talk with you about it and be like, you know, most of the GMs are just going to go, hey, we really like our four guys.

We spent a ton of money on the fifth guy and Hunter.

We added shooting and all these different things.

I mean, Ty Jerome's probably gone, but we'll probably probably just run it back, even if we seem a little flawed and it's embarrassing that we lost that series to the Pacers, even with the Garland injury.

Now, if you're Cleveland, you're just going, well, of course we're running it back now.

Like, who are you afraid of?

Tatum's out, Halliburton's out, and the Knicks just had a coaching change, and God only knows what's going to happen with them.

Dame's out.

Does that even, I mean, if you think that matters or not, yeah, that's definitely 100% part of it.

And Orlando, who does this Bain trade, and now they're like, Jesus.

Did you see the Orlando odds went from 30 to 1 to win the title to 12 to 1?

After the injury?

Come on.

Yeah.

Well,

this is one of my subplots that I talked about last week.

And it's even more relevant now.

Is there another Bain style move coming for like a random team?

Not that Orlando was a random team.

I thought Orlando would have been a 50-win team this year had they stayed healthy.

So they're above that.

But like, are the Hawks going to be like, hey, you know what?

How many picks we got?

Like, can we go?

Can we go get, I don't even know who it would be.

Can we go get this guy, that guy?

Like, why not?

Do you want to do some Hawks trade exception talk?

Oh my god, because it's 25 million.

Yeah, they could fit Dylan Brooks right now.

We'll take them.

Think bigger.

I don't know.

No, I'm just

thinking smaller when it comes to trade exceptions

because I was doing some free agency thing the other day, and it's like, oh, it's like, okay, right.

So the $25 million player has to be another guy that costs that much.

The other team doesn't want anything back for a value.

I'm ashamed to admit.

The only reason I know about that trade exception is I was looking at three-way deals with Drew going to Phoenix and Dylan Brooks going to Atlanta and the Celtics getting Royce O'Neill and saving like $23 million.

I gave it a test drive on the trade machine.

I'm not saying it's a trade that could happen, but I was trying to.

trying to figure out some because

I probably should have.

Maybe I could screenshot it and put it on Instagram.

But yeah, if you're Cleveland,

you have

like a legitimately embarrassing loss.

You win 64 games and you just go out.

You get basically sucker punched in round two.

And then after that happens, Tatum go, as that's happening, Tatum goes down, Halburt goes down, and the Knicks,

we still don't know who their coach is.

So you're saying Cavs 73 and 9 next year?

Let's put that pressure on them now?

Let's run.

And then Orlando, I think, is feeling good.

And then I think you guys are right.

Like, there's going to be some wild card East team.

We've had some fun trades where teams who weren't in it were like, maybe we're, maybe we're a contender and they'll just do something crazy.

I'm not saying

they start calling up Constantine.

What's going on with Julius Randall and you guys?

Hey, look, man,

Toronto took Jakub Pertle off the table for Kevin Durant.

Like, I don't know if I don't, maybe Toronto's not our candidate for a wild trade.

If you're taking Jakob Pertle off the table and Kevin Durant trade talks, it's, you know, maybe.

Is that real?

That was real.

Yeah, it's a real thing that happened.

Was the Miami thing real that Shams said?

Because that, like, that Haywood at Highsmith and

Kolyovich weren't.

No, yeah, that one was Shams with Miami.

Was no one was available.

Tell me what he said.

I didn't see it.

He's basically saying, like, they were like, we'll give you

Wiggins and a contract and the 20th pick.

Like, they basically offered nothing.

Sounds like somebody's a little anti-podal.

I like Jakub Pertle just fine.

I'm just like, like, if you do, are you, can you, do you want Kevin Durant or not?

Like, do you like Training on the phone with whoever's taking calls for the Suns?

If Jakob Pertle, who,

what is he, the 16th best starting center in the NBA, 12th, 9th,

18th?

I don't know.

I certainly would not take him off the table for anyone who averaged over 20 points a game last year, much less 25, 26, 27.

Uh, yeah, so he ended up going to Houston.

We're going to talk about that later, but yeah, so Cleveland, Orlando.

I, I mean, and then you look at the Pacers, they have this magical run, it's amazing, and now you know, no Halbert next year.

Um,

not a lot of ways, Detroit 58

58 wins next year for the Fistons.

I mean, have you come back?

Ron Holland, year two.

Are there

our guy?

is there anyone else now that Durant's off the table that you feel like is a

elevator for a team like Detroit, for instance?

We've already had Bain and Durant traded.

I'm looking at the standings.

I mean,

it's going to be hard to find

a team that's like motivated to sell.

Let's call it like the Jeremy Grant line, a team that's motivated to sell a player that's better than Jeremy Grant.

Like, I think we all agree Jeremy Grant's a nice NBA player from a team that might at some point want to pivot away from him, but also not a guy who you're going to be like, whoa, they got that guy.

That changes my, my whole thinking about the team.

And the Memphis guys seem to be somewhat off the table.

I think your best candidate would be Markin, right?

Like just like if they decide just this, this is.

John Collins is Collins above or below the Jeremy Grant line?

Below.

I don't mind him.

I think it's an expiring contract, too, but the Grant thing, you're taking on some real money.

That's like over

90 billion.

So I'm not as excited for that.

I know if Rosillo was a GM,

he would have already scouted all the eight and post-ups from last year.

Try to talk yourself into it.

The other place to look is like...

Like DeRosan to me doesn't do it, but the Levine, like, is there any big Zach Levine fan?

Like, this guy's changing.

Is he above the Jeremy Grant line?

I think he probably probably is, but not by not by as much as his sort of raw stats would suggest, I don't think.

Well, he's playing for his number one fan right now in Vivek.

Briscilla, how far below the Jeremy Grant line do you have Bradley Beal?

Is it like you go into the basement and then there's a special freight elevator where you have to go another, it's like nobody knows about the elevator, and then you go another three floors down?

If I could do Beal for Grant, I'd make a Grant statue.

If you're, if you're Phoenix.

Yeah, you don't even have to play.

And then he would veto it after you made the trade.

Yeah.

So,

you know, one of the reasons that Durant trade happened was because the draft is somehow three days from now.

It's on a Wednesday night.

We just had game seven.

It's that we have a 7-2-hour.

And so Phoenix wanted that 10th pick.

I still feel like Dallas has, Dallas is the one I'm watching because I just don't think the roster that they have is going to be the roster they start October with.

And I don't know whether it's going to be Gafford or Clay or PJ Washington or what they do, but I just feel like there's some sort of move with them.

And I think Gafford would have real value.

But I'm talking about like, that's not catapulting.

That's below the Jeremy Grant line.

But I think Dallas is the most likely trade.

And then I think Sacramento, I'm always going to be on the edge of my seat waiting to see what they do.

I don't think we were going to do a Gafford-Grant debate, but I mean, Gafford probably means more for certainty

than Grant would because as talented as Grant is, he also can be a little Tobias heresy.

Look, I just want to apologize

to the listeners.

We're all just part of my basketball soul just evaporated during the Tyree Court.

And now my brain is broken.

And I'm going to say the following sentence out loud on a podcast an hour after Thunder won the championship.

Does anyone know what's going on with Zion Williamson?

If we're talking about the Jeremy Grant line and tradable guys, like, is he do the Pelicans want him?

Joe Dumars is somehow now the GM of the Pelicans.

Like, do we know what's happening there?

Because I guess that's another name we should at least be like, that guy could change.

If he ever actually played, he could

change some teams.

Well, Rosillo's our number one Zion expert.

I know he's been monitoring it.

Yeah, I still think ownership really likes the idea of him there.

And they feel burned historically with other other big names asking out and having great stories.

Um, but you know, again, I don't know that because Baron Davis was good after, I'd be like, we have to keep Zion.

I personally would just be like, hey, it's it's time to move on from this, even though I think all of us, when it's good, we love watching it.

I've referenced that Minnesota regular season game when he was back and he was spry and ready to go.

And I was like, this is a fun, fun game.

But there's also like a basketball question with Zion because the best version of him is when he's your point guard and you just let him go point Zion and he kills everybody.

No one can stay in front of him.

And the funny thing is, like, you play off of him because he can't shoot.

And that's normally what you do against somebody who's a penetrator, but you actually are allowing him to get a running start.

So it kind of backfires.

So you then have to close out on somebody who can't shoot.

And then I've always kind of liked his passing, but yeah, look.

If he were healthy, we could probably have this conversation about him.

But I do think that there's a fair conversation about like what he would actually bring to an already established team if it's we just got to clear out and let him go a much taller, more athletic version of TJ McConnell.

Like, as great as TJ McConnell has been throughout this series, I didn't think I'd ever see five-out TJ McConnell just beating up on a defense player in the restricted area and a team being like, this is how we want to run our offense.

This is like who, this is our identity.

Zach, if you had to make a documentary about anything about the 2025 finals, would just a TJ

just trying to

figure out how this guy was attacking one of the best defenses we've seen in the last 40 years and getting shots that he wanted, just trying to understand that.

That's like a two-hour doc.

Apologies to the listeners again, but there was like, there was two and a half years ago,

he would not shoot.

Like he did not want to shoot.

And then sometime last season, this, the, I don't know if he flipped a switch in his head, if Rick Carlisle flipped a switch in his head, he was like, I'm going to go get me some buckets and I'm like going to be an elite isolation.

Isolate.

Forget picks.

I don't even need picks.

I'm just going to isolate like I'm a 6'8 wing and I'm going to get buckets on fucking everybody off the bench and play my way into the six-man of the year conversation.

I've never seen a transformation like it.

The Thunder just won the NBA championship, by the way.

So do so Lou Dort would be the only.

Well, Lou Dort would be the only thing if they had to like try to save money with the extensions.

That's the only move.

And I just wouldn't trade him.

He's beloved now.

He's beloved.

And I'll tell you this about Lou Freak.

He's also too important in what they do.

I just, to me, it's not.

You know what we can say about Lou Frekendor?

You can say a lot of things about Lou Frekendor, but you could never say he will stop shooting threes if he goes into a slump.

That dude is going to keep on shooting contested three after contested three after contested three, right?

And he doesn't care if he's missed six in a row.

He shoots with the conscience.

of like Clay Thompson, just like, of course, I'm going to make like the next seven that I take.

I love it.

I always feel like they're going in.

You do?

I do.

I don't know why.

I just

something about him.

He's got a very specific launch angle where there's some where you go, whoa, whoa.

Like this, he is playing this one up.

I did have a list of to-dos for the Thunder had they blown this, which I wrote some of that stuff down.

First, one of the reasons they can't get rid of Lou Dore, even though it's been.

suggested if they want to get really clever and constantly stay in front of this and allow themselves financial flexibility.

I would be afraid to see what the personality of this team is without Lou Dort.

Yes.

Okay.

Because every team needs a badass.

And he's still kind of a quiet badass.

He's not an outward emotional guy.

And at the times when I was wondering, what the hell's going on with this team?

Like, what's wrong with the Thunder right now?

And it's like, are they too casual?

Are they still a little too chill?

Is that still even something that's fair to say about a team that just won an NBA championship?

Because clearly it's not so detrimental that it prevents them reaching the ultimate goal because they just did it an hour ago.

But it's part of the Dort conversation because this is, it's like taking Draymond away from prime Stephen Clay.

As great as those dudes were, you needed somebody who was always on edge.

And I think every team needs one of those guys.

And Chet's certainly not ready to be that guy.

I don't even know if that's in his personality physically.

Like I'm so excited about Chet when he can actually hold his position because, I mean, it's just a nightmare for him trying to hold up, which looked a lot better when the other team went small tonight.

But the Dort thing, I think, is really interesting because I'm with you.

Like, you would hear, could they get in front of that?

And I think they desperately need his personality.

Yeah, because he's the reason you do it is I think he's up to like 20 million a year, and you could just, you have guys on your bench that are cheaper replacements.

That's it.

That would be the only reason.

But Zach and I went to game four,

and in the second half of that game, he I thought he was the MVP of the game, him and Caruso.

They just took the game over with their,

you know, by just being like alphas alphas on defense in like a really specific way, like the way they carried themselves, what, what they try to do to Halbert.

I mean, one of the complaints I had about this series was there was

very little bad blood, shit talking, anything, all the stuff that we're just used to in a final.

It was a very polite series.

And that I thought the second half of game four was the only one when they really ramped it up, where it felt like a little more,

a little more personal.

I don't know, Zach, so if they keep him, then you have all these young guys on the team.

I guess it is what it is.

Seems great.

Yeah, I was going to say we can.

There might be some topage minutes somewhere, maybe some garbage time stuff for him.

I don't know how they change.

They have 15 contracts next year, like 13 guaranteed contracts.

And then A.J.

Mitchell and big Jalen Williams are team options.

That's 15 dudes.

That's all you can have on an NBA roster.

I think the guy to look at for like

how do they reorient the roster a little bit to just not be a second apron team and just get crushed by a luxury attacks.

More so than Dort is Hartenstein's player, team option rather, for 28.5 million in 26, 27.

Maybe, you know, I'm not saying they would decline that.

I just think like that's, I'm sure that some part of their brain is like, it would be really great if two years from now, he was not super essential to our, like Chet had ascended and the the rest of our team had ascended, where it's not like super essential to pay another center this much money.

And I bet Dort would take a decent, like, team-friendly deal, too, when it comes to him.

The Hartenstein signing felt like the cap scheduling signing that we see a lot of teams do, where it's like, before we have to extend all of these guys, let's just use the space now, add the asset.

You got to have the owner sign off on it.

But,

I mean, he's a really big story.

And remember, last year, their fatal flaw felt like the rebounding.

The rebounding rate numbers were atrocious.

They weren't great this year.

They weren't very good at all in the playoffs.

And he wasn't very good in the finals.

No, I really think he became, you know, they ran the first two plays for him where game six, it was a hard roll.

And then they did the same thing tonight, but they weren't able to get it to him.

And sometimes when I see that kind of stuff, it's like they want to set the tone to have him be a little bit more engaged offensively.

And even his passing is really good.

But, you know, it's one thing when you're running your regular season offense through him 30 feet away from the hoop and he's kind of passing over the top of defenders if you if you're caught up in some sort of scramble but you could see dagnal with just trying to go away from him you know i mean he started a series of them on the bench you know so that's a really expensive luxury to have for a team that's going to have to pay a ton of other guys So that special portion of today's episode where we looked at the Eastern Conference was brought to you by Loom by At Lasthand with video messaging from Loom.

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Zach, I don't know how long you're staying, but we got to talk to SJA really fast here because he is the first

since Shaq 2000, scoring title, MVP, finals MVP.

And

the problem with SJ is there's not a lot of controversy with him.

There's not a lot to say.

There's no zags.

He's just scoring 30 to 32 a game.

Sometimes it can get a little one-dimensional, but I feel like that's probably the fault of his team, like Russell laid out earlier.

His assist stuff was really good today, which is a theme that we've seen in the, as we get, especially these finals games at Apple and Tatum last year, where the unselfishness really comes out as like a strategy.

But is there another level for him to go to or is this it?

No, I mean, look, it's hard to have another level from MVP

in a year where Jokic had the year that he had and you still won MVP and it wasn't like an outrage.

I think he stepped up his three-point volume this year.

And if you could marry that with some better three-point efficiency, he'll continue to grow as a playmaker.

I like the stuff they were doing out of timehouse with him off the ball.

We would talk about that on podcasts where he would set back screens like you knew leave.

But there's like what else he's supposed to do?

I do think it's kind of cool.

The whole foul grifting thing kind of faded, like it wasn't a talking point at all in the finals, and I didn't feel like it needed to be.

Like, if he wasn't shamefully going for fouls, and I don't, I think that was always kind of overblown.

It was cool that that just vanished as a storyline, yeah.

What do you got?

Yeah, so no one talked about Nemhart

trying to get fouls, just a little counterpoint there.

Uh, decent Zag.

Yeah.

Not even a Zag on that one.

8.9.

It's funny because Tatum, the Tatum conversation always felt like, hey, he's really good, and he's never going to be the best player in the world, and it's okay.

And the Celtics were always ahead of schedule playing deep into the playoffs.

And then it was like, yeah, but you actually think they were going to beat some of these teams at the Eastern Conference Finals.

Like, granted, there's a heat or two one in there that you're like, okay,

what went wrong there?

Especially a couple of years ago.

But

it felt like Tatum, and maybe it was because of the Olympic stuff where it was like, if this guy's so good, you know, the cool thing for SGA, because it all feels very on schedule with this team, because as you said, which I think another thing we need to give the Thunder a ton of credit for, is I've heard people talk about them like, oh, they tanked.

They had Chris Paul that one season.

They get the game seven of the first round against Houston.

And then they have two down years.

And then they're right back into it to being competitive.

This is one of the quickest resets ever.

And again, when you nail on the same draft, Chet and Jalen Williams to go with a guy who's going to be MVP, like that's pretty good.

Like a lot of the hard stuff is done on your to-do list and building out a roster.

So,

however, this team has been around, this isn't like, and this may have led to some of the lack of interest that it wasn't the best player in the game at a young age trying to finally get over the hump, or it wasn't one of the guys who was considered the best player in the game.

Like, imagine Giannis without a ring being in the NBA Finals in 2026.

And it's like, man, now maybe with him not being American, that would be a little different.

But there seems to be a need for some dramatic buildup.

And the funny thing is, this all feels very, very on schedule.

Like it makes sense that they, I think they still should have beat Dallas last year.

They didn't.

They house Minnesota.

We start to think, okay, this Pacers thing's probably over.

It ends up being a terrific series, but them winning this in this year in this form,

even though I still want a little bit more from the guys around him,

it's just so like

there's nothing disruptive about it.

It's ahead of schedule.

It's ahead of schedule.

I mean,

well, I'm just saying the team to your teams don't get this good this fast with this many young players.

And even Shay's turning 27 in like three weeks.

He's still like not like he's just entering his traditional prime.

Yeah, but it's basically their second playoff run.

So from that standpoint, just based on how the league works,

how the league works, I would say yes, they're hit.

But they were the favorites.

Yeah.

But based on the competition.

Yeah.

But it is weird that they didn't have their version of,

you know, the, the, the Steph game in 22, 22 against that Celtics team.

Like, there's just like the heartbreaking loss.

The closest they came to was Shea Fowl, who's at PJ Washington in the corner on the three.

That was their heartbreaking loss.

Usually you have a couple years of those and they, they just didn't.

Flashback to two years ago when denver wins the title if you had said who wins the championship next well who wins the championship sooner the nuggets again or the thunder you would we would have all said the nuggets of course like the thunder their play-in team like they've before the zeke not

the play-in the leap last year

it's fair it's a fair point again before they were crippled by one eight million dollar extension completely paralyzed the play-in team to what they were last year is

that's the mega leap.

I mean, they made another mega leap this year, but that was the one where I was like, you saw it coming.

I didn't think they would make that leap that fast.

And that, that's like a massive, massive jump.

Yeah, I went, I remember doing this before two seasons ago, just trying to figure out was it realistic and looking at history.

And there were some, some pretty decent examples, which is why, like, if you're Detroit or Orlando, you can look at OKC and be like, hey, it's not, it's, you know, it's not as crazy as you, as you think.

They were below 500 two seasons ago.

They were 40 and 42.

Right.

But everybody thought that year they're going to have like 20 wins.

And Rousseau, the point you made about how they really only threw away two years, it felt like more than two because all the Poku five out offense, just watching that on league pass in real time in February, March, and April.

That's why it felt like five years, but it was really only a little cluster of a couple months.

And you think Poco watched?

Sorry, boy.

Yeah, he did.

I'm sure he did.

Cal Giddy none.

More bummed out, Poku or Josh Giddy?

Josh Giddy's going to get paid.

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess he is.

Kiddie will get over it.

I'd bet money Poku didn't watch.

He was like, that was last night.

I didn't realize.

Well, it is interesting because you think of the initial incarnation of this team.

It was SGA and Giddy together.

Right.

And then there was this moment where SGA,

all of a sudden it's like, yeah, yeah, Josh,

you're just not going to have the ball a lot anymore.

We have this guy, and he's going to average 30 points a game this year.

Our whole team is moving this way.

So maybe you can learn how to shoot some corner threes and push the ball when you get it.

And that was it.

And SGA just took the team from him.

The Jalen Williams piece, him, I remember he was such a fun draft guy.

I think the ringer was really high on him that year, right?

Weren't we all in on him?

As like the,

what draft was that?

2022?

Was that

the same drafts in the same draft?

I remember, I remember sharks loved him.

Like, we were, we were, uh, we loved all the is there a Jalen Williams for this year for you, Rossello?

Do you have one yet?

Oh, oh, you heard that.

You mean little Carter Bryant?

I don't like Carter Bryant as much as everybody else does.

Okay, apparently, like every single team really likes him, and I'm always kind of like, oh, wow, I guess I'm wrong.

We shall see.

Zach, you should

sand that Carter Bryant tape for like about eight minutes.

You know, but you know who Jodobo is for me.

There's, I actually should make a list of these guys.

There's always a bunch of guy.

There's always one guy every draft, maybe not even every draft, maybe every other draft who I watch him play.

I'm not a college basketball guy.

I'm not doing that stuff like you guys are.

I'm a just fly in and watch a little YouTube and do this.

There's always one guy who I watch him play his first NBA game and I text like 10 scouts.

How the hell was this guy picked 12th or 15th or 17th and not like way higher than that?

And Jalen Williams was that guy.

I watched him play one time.

I was like, whoa, this guy was like, well, he was 12th, right?

Like, and he was like a late behind to get 12th.

That's right.

Same draft.

You know, so that's why I'm still excited about it.

Presty took him before.

So, you know, does Zach know about Usman Island?

It's just Rasillo in a cabin with no electricity.

Just like

cabin.

Sail.

It's on shore.

Just washed up on shore.

I'm reaching out.

You're trying to get off like Tom Hanks and Castaway.

The waves are smashing your raft.

No, he's not giving up.

I mean, he's only like 22, right?

Isn't he?

He's still young.

Unfortunately, he's on a team of people who are also 22 and way better than him.

I could see a second unit running their offense through him.

It was a worse roster.

But then again, people used to say this about Neesmith Island.

And look what happened.

Well, now I floated out Cam Whitmore Island today, and I'll tell you, we weren't, didn't have enough people working in the office to write down all the credit cards.

People are in.

People are ready.

People are saying TJ modeled his game after Cam Whitmore.

So we have

finals odds right now in FanDuel.

OKC is plus 220.

It's like far ahead of everybody else.

Just to make the finals?

No, to win the finals.

To win the finals.

This is about as prohibitive of a favorite coming out of the finals as we've had.

So my thing is,

if I'm chasing a ring,

I'm trying to go east harder than ever now, right?

Like we talked about the LeBron scenario.

What was that four weeks ago, Rossello, when I was throwing Cleveland Trade Z with LeBron?

Jared Allen and DeAndre Hunter for LeBron,

something like that.

Little who says no action.

Is this where Marvis has to say he has the no trade clause?

Just in case.

No, he would have to agree to the trade.

But if he's agreeing to a trade, there's only one place I think he would go.

But if you're LeBron, could you talk yourself into that?

I don't know.

I'm just, I'll put it this way.

I haven't taken my eye off that situation.

Imagine if I'm not.

I know I sound like a lunatic.

If Giannis had ended up in the West.

Right.

Well, now, I mean, we didn't talk about Milwaukee, but they weren't trading Giannis anyway, but now they have to feel even more emboldened to keep Giannis and see what they can pass.

It's a whole conference of why not us?

Just every team.

Why not us?

Is it?

Well, I'm going to bring up the Celtics.

It's the 56-minute mark.

Do the Celtics re-evaluate how they're thinking about everything?

My quick answer would be only based on the options that present themselves.

If somebody thinks they're getting Jalen Brown at a discounted rate, they're probably just going to say no and be a competitive team next year.

I would say no.

Yeah.

I still think they have to slough off some pretty major salary just to just to do it and uh

it's been a really frustrating uh conversation with celtic fans in my life who don't seem to understand how the salary cap and trades work where they're going to trade holiday they're going to trade drew holiday and get under the second apron it's like well

you know they have to take a contract back look i know these things are very complicated and running a sports league and organizing a sports league and a collective bargaining agreement is very hard the nba has not helped itself be fan-friendly in that regard.

Like I like the swaps upon swaps upon swaps upon swaps thing.

Like I just have regular people in my life who are like, can you explain why this pick is?

I thought my team had a pick, but my team suddenly doesn't have a pick and it's this pick instead.

I'm like, it's, let me direct you to Real GM and even that, you might want to get your attorney to help you understand what's written on Real GM to figure out that one.

The only one who has it figured out is our friend Bobby Marks, who just has these screenshots with all the information that he can Twitter pick out at any moment that just tell you exactly what a team has.

He's the only one who seems to understand it.

I remember Russell and I were doing OnePod after they did the CBA, and we felt like something substantial had happened, but we didn't understand it.

And we were like,

this feels like something,

it just feels, and we just, and then people started telling us after like, oh yeah, this is a fucking disaster.

It's a hard cap.

And now Zach officially anointed it a hard cap, but even the Durant trade, I think that was one of the reasons it's just not

there are all these trapdoors that you forget about.

Like, oh, but if I do that, oh, then I'm capped at the first apron.

That's right.

If I do this in a trade and like I send a pick over here, then oh, the first, I'm hard capped at the first apron.

So I got to do this.

It's like, okay, okay.

The cap guys should all make like a million dollars, the best cap guys, because it's so goddamn hard.

I'm sorry.

I just saw a headline on ESPN.

Oh, let's hear it.

Oh, now

SGA in the conversation with Jordan and Kareem.

What conversation?

Tall, athletic.

Wow.

Okay, so I see the headline, and it's a, it's a talking, it's a, it's a video clip.

So I would watch the video clip.

Maybe it's single season accomplishment.

I'm assuming

that's the context I would assume it is in.

In which case, it's like, okay, you know, 30 points a game, 30 points a game in the finals again, finals MVP, regular season, MVP.

I'm going to listen to it.

Yeah.

As soon as we're done, I'm going to sign that video.

Zach's a journalist of the three.

He brings up a great point.

Like, I get mad whenever it's like somebody else gives you the titles.

I'll look at titles of my own podcast being like, that's not what I said.

Well, there's just no way that anyone is like, now he's in that class of player for a holistic career.

Like, no one would ever say that.

It has to be a single season thing.

Well, there, I mean, the most interesting thing with him is the guard conversation that he's in now from start to finish seasons.

The pool that he's swimming in is pretty crazy.

We're going to take a break.

Zach, are you

you, you have a you on East Coast time, and we're going to talk Durant now.

If you want to stay, feel free to stay.

I will parachute out.

I will parachute out and let you guys do the Durant thing.

I appreciate you letting me crash the party, the usual Simmons really long party.

And I just

weird night.

Weird night in the NBA.

You're right, Zach.

Regular season for one season.

Averages MVP, the whole thing.

Great instincts on this.

I could be an editor.

Congrats,

Thunder.

Congrats to the Thunder.

I'm going to go watch some TJ McConnell highlights before I go to bed

and

see what happens.

Enjoy the Durant Trade Talk, guys.

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We're going to talk to Rant, who got traded.

So on the one hand, I feel like the league should pass a rule.

There should be no trades within 24 hours of NBA Finals game seven.

Seems like a decent rule.

On the other hand, I don't know how you would enforce it.

And

I thought it was a pretty fun trade.

I thought it was an awesome trade for Houston.

I just loved it for them.

I don't know.

We could talk about the Phoenix part after.

Let's go.

Why don't you just take?

Don't even ask me a question.

Well, we talked about this last week.

I had so many more assets in the trade.

They didn't give up Jabari Smith in the trade.

That's a fucking miracle.

Like for Phoenix to trade Durant,

it just speaks to what I mentioned.

I can't remember the last pot I did was Wednesday or Thursday, but like, I just think the offers were so terrible.

Everyone lowballed them because everybody knew they had to trade him before the draft and everybody knew they wanted a pick.

And it ends up being Jalen Green, who I don't know if there's four teams that they could spin him to for 33 million a year.

And then Dylan Brooks, who at 21, 22 million a year, I think is a solid asset if you're trying to win games.

And then the 10th pick.

And

that's basically the trade.

So I think for Houston, no-brainer.

10th pick pick wouldn't have played for them.

Plus, you get rid of Brooks.

Now you get to play Tara Easton and Whitmore, basically give them those minutes plus Ahmed Thompson.

Like, I just thought, I thought the trade was a home run for them.

Yeah, I loved it.

I mean, Stone is on an absolute heater.

He's been incredible at the draft picks.

They've been incredible and how they've worked

a lot of this stuff.

And yeah, we knew that they were limited offensively.

Like the Durant market, right?

The Durant market, if we go through it,

you knew it was getting bad when you were just at least hearing the rumors of like Miami won't include who.

At first it started with like Khalil Ware.

You're like, okay, I could see why you just wouldn't want to be in a hurry or you would say no until you think like if you wanted Durant that bad, you're saying no about Ware for days until maybe then you finally give in.

But then you're like, Jakez wasn't,

come on.

Like there's no, there's no way because the salary piece that you're moving out in Wiggins, I think, is less attractive than Brooks

because Wiggins is probably going to get you some numbers, but I don't know that he impacts the game the same way Brooks does.

And by the way, shout out to Brooks for all the jokes when the Lakers eliminated.

And granted, he brought a lot of it on himself, and then he wouldn't do anything with the media after they would lose.

So it's not like I was feeling bad for him, but like, dudes didn't think he was going to be in this league.

And I still think he's somebody who impacts games.

And when that contract came out and Houston gave all that money to Brooks and gave the massive deal to Fred Van Vliet, a lot of us are going like, man, that is so much money for that level of dude.

But it's like, well, we got to spend it on somebody.

We probably have to overspend this way now over Houston.

And they flip Brooks into Durant.

So like, there's just all these things you can look at with Stone being like, oh, he did that right.

That worked out well.

So credit to him.

Credit to the Rocky.

He got two guys who he knew could play in playoff series, and they did.

Right.

So like the Jakob Purdle part of it, like, was he really not available?

Well, maybe not.

I probably like him a little bit more than Zach does.

And considering how expensive Toronto is, like, they're going to have to get one of the expensive guys, get like rid of one of those dudes.

When you heard the Knicks rumors, like, now we've come full circle.

It's like, well, first of all, apparently they didn't want him, but the early stuff on that was Mitchell Robinson and OG.

And now when I look at that, I'm like, Phoenix would have been bumped.

I love Mitchell Robinson now.

I remember I was thinking towns for Durant straight up.

I mean, that's like three times what Houston paid.

Yeah, so that's not happening.

And then when it comes back to Minnesota, I can understand like with Randall and the playoff player option, which he probably opts into at like 30 million.

Because I don't think he wants to opt out and go to this free agent market.

But then it's like, if you're Phoenix, do you want to get in the Randall business for 30 plus another 60 plus million over two years?

I don't know.

I don't know that there's a ton of teams that want to do that kind of stuff.

And then even San Antonio, and I'm finishing here quickly, but like San Antonio, if they had done it and whatever their case was, I would have been like, okay, yeah, that makes sense.

And if they don't do it, which obviously they didn't.

Then I could also understand their position on that one being like, yeah, maybe it doesn't make a lot of sense to add Durant here because you're not just adding a 37-year-old player who's a perfect scorer.

You're adding somebody who doesn't have the greatest history with how happy he stays with with franchises and the fact that he's going to cost you like another 120 million, which this probably was worked out ahead of time for him to be like signing off on this, even though we'd heard last summer, right around this time, almost exactly to the day, a year ago, that he wanted Houston, but Phoenix didn't want to move him out.

All right.

So you put all that together and I think it kind of makes sense that this is what the price ended up being, isn't it?

Yeah.

Well, for Houston, you're getting somebody who can shoot the ball in the last four minutes of a game and maybe appear on a panel about the future of the intersection between athletes and business.

There we go.

Get those two, those two verticals covered now.

Are you mad that Ruben didn't invite you again this year?

I got invited.

I just went to New York.

Oh, you didn't go?

White Party?

You going to that?

I don't go back Easter in the summer.

I try not to.

How about you?

I go back to Vermont usually.

I go back to the vineyard.

No, it's a no-brainer for Houston.

I think it's great for Durant.

I was really excited because i want him to have one last act i wanted him to go to the right team i think miami is a disaster and i really am dubious how much miami even wanted him or what miami wants to do in general because i didn't want to add jockez legitimately didn't put want to put him in a deal after all the other guys they want to put in a deal then they clearly didn't want him that bad no like if i if

you if i had a buddy who was selling like uh i don't know ford bronco and i knew you love Ford Broncos, I'm like, this dude's, it's like a 1973 Ford Bronco.

He's like giving it away.

And you're like, yeah, I don't know.

I'm like, but you told me last week you really wanted a Ford Bronco.

This guy, it's right here.

This is, so I just don't think Miami, I don't think that Miami knows what they want to do.

We talked about this last week.

I think they're a mess.

I don't think they have any idea whether they should.

be trying to pursue and try to be good in the playoffs or go the other way.

So Durant and having to give him an extension just didn't submit they want to do it.

You're paying $100 million a year to him and Tyler Hera.

Where are you going?

Right?

A year from now?

Is that a recipe for anything?

In the East?

Well, I guess in the East.

So anyway, with Houston,

the fact that

what's really interesting to me about this is they kept their flexibility for one more trade if they want to do it.

And I don't know whether that trade happens in the summer or whether it happens in the December, January, February range.

But like, for instance,

as we covered many times, Giannis is not getting traded this summer.

But if it's January and they're 15, the Bucs are 15 and 25 and he's like, you know what, this sucks.

Let's, it's time.

Four Bucks fans.

They still have their chance.

If the Celtics change their mind and they're like, God damn, we didn't realize we'd be this bad.

And we're going to pay how much money in luxury tax?

Like, yeah, maybe we will trade Jalen Brown.

They have the flexibility still in some of the assets to make a second move, which I thought this was going to be their move.

And this might be move number one.

So I thought from that standpoint, great.

And then from a Durant standpoint, I'm excited to see him in playoff games again because I thought it sucked.

Those teams that

he was on basically since that Brooklyn Bucs game were not fun teams to watch, you know, and teams that had real, no, no real upside.

From a Phoenix standpoint, I have no idea what they're doing.

You have to really like that 10th pick.

You have to feel like you're getting somebody who is going to be potentially like an all-NBA guy.

If that's the centerpiece, because we know it's not Jalen Green and Booker together.

I can't imagine how those guys are playing together.

And then you got Bradley Beal next to them.

Like, what is this?

It's a lot of depth.

What is this?

Yeah.

No, I know.

One position.

I'm worried about your guy.

I don't know if you want to talk to somebody about all your Booker stock, but you might want to get rid of some.

It won't be his

diversify the portfolio.

Yeah, we're probably going to have to make a call tomorrow, but

there's a lot of other factors.

I

like, let's have a Jalen Green conversation.

Like right now, what do you think?

Like, what do you think of him?

I want him to go to a bad team and have the ball a lot for like a year.

That's what I think.

I'd love to see him.

And maybe Phoenix will be the bad team.

I do feel like there's something there.

And I think he's young.

And I think he's had stretches that made both of us go, wow.

I thought he got worse last year as the season went along.

And I thought in the playoffs,

they were scared to even have him out there in some of the fourth quarters.

But he's still young enough that there might be something there.

I don't, can you run an offense with him as like the creator slash looking out for everybody else?

We haven't seen it yet.

Well, you could argue that I'd want to see him on a bad team.

Yeah, I know what you're saying.

I mean, his second year, he had almost a 30% usage rate on a team that won 20 games.

So I don't know that Houston's ever shied away from exactly what you're talking about.

But I've got an older version of him.

To be fair to you, exactly.

I know what you're saying.

You're saying, okay, fifth-year version of him.

I don't know if that's the recipe because clearly he's going to get his buckets if you give him the shots.

And when you get drafted as high as he gets drafted, it's a bit like a top draft pick in baseball where they almost always will call him up, even if they don't know that he deserves a roster spot.

That's bullpay.

Like, yeah, that bullpay is just than the Yankees, even though he's bullpay.

Big bonuses, you know, signing bonus stuff would happen in baseball all the time where you'd be like, why is this guy get called up?

There's like five other guys in double A that are better than him.

It's like, well, we didn't spend the resources on them, so we have to make sure we know whether we're right or wrong on this guy.

So I think there's, it's not apples to apples, but there's a close parallel there between Jalen Green being picked this high and going, all right, go to work.

And I know I've already referenced it before too many times on the pod because we just did it, but that stretch when Shangoon was was out at the end of the regular season last year was when I thought this light went off for him.

Two seasons ago.

Yeah.

But then you go to

where he was

in the playoffs and you're like, hey, your counters don't work and you can't shoot.

And we desperately need like the possessions are there for you.

We don't really love any of our options here.

It's not like there's two awesome Hall of Fame scores and you're getting shut out because you're the third option.

Like we're allowing you to be a one option here offensively, probably a lot longer than anybody else would want to.

And again, credit to Stone.

Yeah, we're in the playoffs and we need you.

Yeah, yeah.

And you can't.

So, hey,

he didn't close out a bunch of playoff games his fourth year in.

That's probably being a little harsh, but I think he needs to figure out how to play with somebody else.

And maybe that's good for him and Booker.

I don't know.

Or maybe they want nothing to do with it and they're happy to get the pick.

They're happy to have Brooks to add some kind of toughness.

Because whatever it is Phoenix is doing is it feels feels like they're still trying to fix this thing on the fly around Booker, which is usually just going to make it worse.

I don't think if the goal is to keep Devin Booker as your franchise guy through his entire prime, I don't know if this trade is going to help that.

Who's your best case scenario for them with the 10th pick who could actually come in and play real minutes for them and be good for them?

Because I don't think Milwaukee is going to be there.

So

I don't know that he's going to be there.

I want him at six.

Vassini thinks he will be there

when we talk.

I don't even know if we did that on the pod because I like Malowatch more than he did.

He does way more work on it.

So I would defer to him if you're listening to this.

But I listened to that whole podcast on Saturday morning.

Thank you, Bill.

Had a coffee, seven o'clock in the morning.

When somebody writes 160,000 words about the draft, I'm going to give them an hour.

He's literally wrote 160,000 words.

It's insane.

That's like almost the size of what my book was.

Just banging about.

Kudos to Sam.

Unbelievable.

It's unbelievable how.

And so we were talking about the Malowatch range because then there was this guy, Noah Senge, who's playing

in the German league.

And then somebody else hit me up.

He was like, you know, when we went to their facility, they were playing your podcast.

He's like, do you feel bad now about what you said about SNG?

And I was like, you know what?

I'm mad.

I'm mad that draft people are talking about his incredible free throw rate.

And I'm like, I watched the games.

I can't believe the horseshit stuff that he got calls.

You made him better.

Maybe it was a wake-up call for him.

You're talking about how he's falling down all the time.

Yeah.

Get up, dude.

What's going on down there?

So, yeah, if there's a center, but this is a weird, because after Malowatch, unless you like Baranger more,

which I don't think that's, that seems a little high for him.

I do like Sorber, the kid from Georgetown.

And again, the mock stuff is stupid because then you keep looking at him and you're like, I love this guy at 14.

It's like, you killed him at 10.

No, but there was one, you guys had a disagreement on one guy that I thought was fascinating because I thought Fears was guaranteed top 10.

And Sam had him 18th and was like, Look, I don't like small guards.

And he can't show me.

He's like, Show me this.

Show me this small guard with shooting issues that's come into the NBA and been awesome.

And I was like, ah, because

I just had him in that seven to nine range, just assumed.

But that, that put the fair guy out out of me a little bit.

What I do love about this draft after the first two is that like Trey Johnson, the Texas kid, makes the most NBA-type shots of any player in this draft, right?

And can't finish anything.

Can't finish the rim.

Just atrocious numbers.

What he's like basically the best version of Eddie House you've ever seen in your life.

That's my Trey Johnson tape.

It's Eddie House on a heater.

He's a little bigger than Eddie.

VJ's got the most motherfucker in him out of this group, and Kniple is the most adaptable.

And I don't know what's going to happen because then you keep hearing that Utah likes Fears at five.

Because if you're talking yourself into Fears, you go, he can already get to the rim and get past defenders in a way that is so special.

There's no way they can take him fifth.

I can't accept it.

Why?

Because of Utah's roster or because of him?

I just think he's,

you can't.

You have to take who's left between Vijay and Ace Bailey and Knipple.

You have to.

And if you want to get nuts and take Maliu's share, maybe

fine.

You can talk me into the centerpiece, but you can't take Fears.

Twin Towers, Kessler or Malowatch?

Well, then you trade Kessler to the Lakers for the two first-round picks they've been allegedly offering for a year and a half.

I just feel like Utah's have to, they have to be dying for Vij or Knipo to get there.

And if neither of them are there, they're just going to take Trey Johnson because he's the best asset at five.

Like, that's how it has to play out.

I don't know what Danny's role is as far as the final say now with Austin there.

And of course, Zanik was a big part of all of this stuff that happened, but Danny was going to say that.

Ryan Smith has final say, listening to Danny.

And I think those other guys are in the room, would be my guess.

Ace feels like such a Danny pick.

It really does.

To be like, what's wrong with Danny?

Right?

Yeah.

He's like, I watch Ace, I see a 30-point a a game score

yeah because the stuff to be scared of with ace it's so funny because if he turns out to be a bust you go see

the start the way he handled his representation the ruckers that team never won um the the the the fact that his assist rate

you could just point to all these different things

but like If you watch the right YouTube clip on him, you like,

like you think he's in the running to go head-to-head with Flag and Harper.

Like, there's one of those Hoop Intellect had some really good YouTube videos.

Shout out to that guy.

I don't understand why you want.

Do you not have synergy access?

No, but I'd like watching.

I like the YouTube guys where the guy tells me the strengths and weaknesses.

I like those clips.

There's a Hoop Intellect does a good one.

I think there's like a Marty Conlon YouTube clip still going around being like, how did it not happen for this guy?

Well, that's the thing.

I like seeing the weaknesses.

Because like VJ, the weaknesses were what you pointed out.

It's like, how come every time he drives to the basket, he whips the ball against the backboard and it goes flying the other way?

It's like, at some point, the guy can't make a layup.

That seems like an issue.

But with Ace, there was a chase-down block section that was like the most exciting 45 seconds I've had in June, other than maybe the Halliburton game winner and game one.

He looks like LeBron on these chased down blocks, like 2012 LeBron.

So I don't, there's just like a lot going on both ways.

Like, he can clearly score from 18 to 20 already, like nobody you've seen.

But I also think he might not play for two years.

So for Utah, do you care?

Well, Utah shouldn't be doing anything based on need.

And the fact, like, I'm always trying to think about like, cause Danny's drafting habits.

Anytime he just, you're like, oh, Mark is smart.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And you could say, I remember one time I'd asked him, we had like press availability.

I didn't go to many of those, but one time I was just there in Waltham and I went,

what's the most important asset?

Like, what's the most important trait to have?

And it was, he was like,

he's shooting.

Like, shooting, shooting.

So then you're like, okay, well, that doesn't really make a lot of sense of fears.

And then you could counter that by saying, well, he took Rondo.

It's like, no, he took Rondo because he thought Rondo was a freak and every other thing.

And they took him 20th.

Right.

He also couldn't believe how much he had fallen because I think they had him like six or seven.

But the Jalen Brown conversation, because you remember that draft, very clear.

It's Ben Simmons, it's Ingram one and two.

And then it was a constant, like, what the hell is going to happen at three?

Because there's all these other names.

People kept thinking Chris Dunn.

It's like, well, if they don't like him and he played at Providence, then nobody should want to draft him, even though Chris Dunn had a nice little revival this year with the Clippers, but certainly not what you're thinking of with the number three pick.

But the Jalen Brown conversation, because that Cal year was a mess, right?

Cal was there.

That other kid was there.

They're big-time recruits.

And like, Jalen didn't even look like he knew how to play basketball yet.

But the Ainge argument was physically, he was so gifted in his size, and there was still some like,

you know, we're talking about Jalen Brown's handle of Cal, but he wasn't worried about all the other basketball stuff as much as he thought.

Like, this guy kind of fits the mold of this big athletic wing.

And, you know, if we let him just kind of get loose, he might figure some things out.

And I've been thinking about that when I've been thinking about Bailey, but the difference that we know is- Wait, hold on.

Can we can I add one thing on that Danny thing?

Because it's a really important point you just made.

And there's one piece you're missing.

And we've talked about it before, I think, a million years ago.

Danny loves pedigree.

And if you go back, like you mentioned, that Jalen thing, the ESPN top 100, Jalen was the fourth fourth guy in that class right

danny doesn't care about what oh what was your college year like like they took avery bradley that year at 19 he was the number one guy in high school the year before ace bailey the number two guy a year ago and went to this weird rutgers team where they basically just had two guys and nobody else right it's got weird representation it's all fixable stuff Danny's going to look at the pedigree, which is why I don't feel like, I don't feel like fears is in play for them.

If you look at that draft last year, year, first of all, there were five guys that were 95s or higher in that draft class.

Cooper one, Ace two, VJ three, Harper four, Trey Johnson five.

And I just think he's a pedigree guy, and he's going to take one of those five guys.

Whoever's left, they're taking.

And if it's Ace Bailey, they're taking him.

It's a great point because it was a big Bob Myers thing back in the day.

Like Patrick Baldwin Jr.

was a five-star.

He was supposed to go to Duke then, right?

That's a good example.

Kavan Looney was like a big-time high school guy before he went to UCLA.

So there's a lot of that stuff there too.

The Avery Bradley call is perfect.

Now, what I'd also say, and this is really about the draft and trying to figure out what the hell Utah is going to do,

is if Ainge thinks that Ace is not wired to be competitive, because clearly Jalen Brown had that in him,

even if you don't like Jalen Brown, like you know when he takes the court.

Rational confidence.

Right.

He thinks he's going to win.

If he picks up on anything that he thinks thinks like Ace is checked out when it comes to that, so even with the pedigree, even with the physical stuff, even with the classic, like, I can't believe this guy's still here at five, because that's what it would be if they were to take him.

And go, we're not even good now.

So the idea that we're supposed to worry about how does he fit in with the rest of the roster, like, who cares?

Yeah.

If they don't take him, I would imagine there's something that Ainge thinks is alarming about the way the kid is wired, which is, again, why everybody makes mistakes on this stuff because we don't really know.

The wizards passing him on six,

that will mean there's some real fears going on that all the NBA people know and that we're not even knowing about.

Like just about work ethic, work habits, stuff like that.

Because for the wizards to pass on him would be insane.

That's like a miracle if he gets to six.

It wouldn't make a ton of sense there.

And it would at least make more sense that that's why he's shutting down these interviews and workouts because he's thinking, which a lot of the guys do think, it's like, well, if I go to Washington, I can give up the money from pick three to pick six because I'm going to get so many touches.

Although, Bub Carrington may have something to say about that.

But

let me show you how it works here in Washington.

I like Bub.

So,

okay, well, let me ask you this: what do you think Daryl's going to do if he has to have the pick?

Because, you know.

So, two options.

You love this.

This is draft week, is my favorite Rascillo.

If they keep the pick, I think it's Vijay I've been saying that all along.

I just think he fits the Daryl profile.

I feel like they're going to do some trade back a spot, trade back, like stay in the top five, but try to trade back and pick up an asset and try to leverage Charlotte, who I think really does

wants Vijay.

And I think if Charlotte can move up for not a huge price and take VJ and just make sure they get him at at three.

I just, I feel like he's going to move back a spot and end up with Knipple.

Knipple checks a lot of Daryl boxes.

Can play with the lineup they have.

He's got size.

He rebounds.

There's some stuff when

Flag wasn't playing or when Flag was in foul trouble where the offense, like, I don't know.

I mean, I'm biased because I like him, but I just feel like he's the most additive guy in the draft.

And Daryl has always gravitated toward those guys.

Like, remember, he made that Shane Badier trade.

How many years ago was that?

It was just like,

we didn't even have stats to quantify all the stuff Shane Badier was good at.

And Daryl had the 1.0 version of those stats and was just like, no, no, when he's in the lineup, all of these awesome things happen.

And it's not about the counting stats.

It's this, this, this, this, and this.

I think Knippo's like that.

And I think they need a guy like that.

They need like a connector shooter, doesn't need the ball that much.

That's asking a lot, though, of a team with now title aspirations coming in and being like, All right.

Honestly, think they have title aspirations because I don't.

You think, like, they think, you think Daryl thinks, oh, everyone's talking about Cleveland and Orlando.

And like, why, why not us?

Like, I think he's thinking, can Embiid play 40 games?

Okay, sure, right.

But I was thinking about this the other day.

And

like the haul that Phoenix sent out for Durant and what they get, you know, not even two years later, right?

It's

it's what we call sunk cost.

It's brutal.

Like when you see the side-by-side and you're like, that is one way to drill.

We both like the trade.

We just didn't understand why Cam Johnson was in it, is my memory.

But we both thought it was a good, it was a good trade for them.

They're getting an awesome player.

I'm fine with thinking it's good to get Kevin Durant if you can get him.

Yeah.

If that ends up being something I still don't know why Cam Johnson was in it, but

yeah,

absolutely.

Look, it's very new owner syndrome, right?

So, yeah, two years, right?

Two years of

not even, well, right, we have to go back to February.

When was the trade?

It was February, right?

Super Bowl week because it was in Arizona.

I was thinking about Phoenix this morning when you were hearing that it might happen

in the side-by-side thing we just talked about.

But

it's very simple to be like, well, they shouldn't have waited.

It's like, well, they just got him.

Okay.

So, right.

And if you're Phoenix, you're going, we won 47 games last year

and we didn't have all of our guys

or 45 games, excuse me.

We didn't have all of our guys playing together at the same time.

You know, we didn't have enough flexibility.

We kind of figured out some things on the margins.

And if these three guys can all play together and we feel a little bit better about the center rotation and we have shooting to play off of what should be a ton of help to these three dynamic on-ball scores.

That's when people were still tricked by Beal.

I don't blame Phoenix for saying if because this league, more than any other league, you could argue the same with quarterbacks and your pitching staff and break and spring training, but because there's so few players, there's way more conversation of talking yourself into the if scenario.

Same thing with the Pooh.

We went way over on the Suns 47 and a half.

We thought they were going to be good last year.

Yeah.

So we were right there with them.

So

they're thinking, hey, if we could, if this, if this were to break, you know, it's better than the unknown or like hitting the reset button when the owner gets pissed about it, your business partners get pissed about it, your vet players get pissed about it.

You know, we in the media really overrate the simplicity of just, wow, tear it all down and start all over again.

The same reason why the Clippers would sit there again and go, well, hey, look, but if.

But if Kawhi is healthy, and here were the Clippers with this incredible close of the season, maybe the best defense in the NBA over that stretch, and then they lose in the first round again.

All right, whatever.

I imagine Josh Harris and Daryl and everybody's playing this if game, especially with all of the injuries that we've seen throughout the East in the playoffs.

So, for you to say, like, do I think they're a title contender with Embiid's track record?

It's not a good bet.

But the if scenario here is even more appealing than it was yesterday for them.

So, that's why, like,

even as much as I love Knipple.

Can you imagine Embiid trying to play 10 straight playoff weeks, though?

That's why I can't.

Come on.

No, I can't.

You're right.

I cannot.

I'm out.

I've given up on that possibility.

I would say 50 to 1 odds.

But, but

what if, you know, the rest of the New York does.

Right.

What if he does?

What if it's March and you're like,

hey, you know, Cleveland has a great regular season record.

The Knicks have a really nice record.

If the Knicks are the same team, they're going to be good.

Even with a different coach, they're still going to be a really good team.

And then, you know, is the Orlando, is Franz ever going to hit a fucking shot here?

Right.

You know, if you're the Sixers, like, I don't know that you should be afraid of any of that stuff.

The scariest thing is the team that you see in the mirror, not necessarily anybody else in the Eastern Conference.

So I know this has become a far more expanded conversation around Khan Kanipple, and we both love the guy, but that's asking a lot of him.

You're like, all right,

huge game.

Five minutes ago in the fourth quarter.

Like, all right, we're going to get Khan initiating some of this stuff.

No, but I do think he could play 20 to 25 minutes a game for a good team.

I think he can figure out anything that is needed of him.

It's just a matter of whether or not he'll be able to execute those things.

Like, he won't be lost in a basketball court because he's so, like, that was my favorite thing once I really dug into him, just how smart he was off-ball cutting.

And, you know, when he, I just, there's so many basketball players when they have the ball and it's all predetermined, it's fine.

But when they get stuck, you know, it's like a college quarterback who we were talking about this, I think, with Vicini.

We're a college quarterback.

It's like, all right, these are the two reads.

Like, this is the, this is who you're trying to beat.

If you see the safety, do this, then just throw it underneath, keep moving the chains.

It's like, all right, so this guy threw 4,000 yards.

Like, is he good?

And like, no, he's not any good.

And there's a lot of guards that it's like, okay, we're setting the ball screen here.

You're going to go here.

If the help comes off the corner, then it's open to three.

And if this guy plays up, then you should should be able to have the role guy.

And it's like, what happens if both things stop?

Am I going to like, then I have to decide?

I have to come up with something.

And that's one of my favorite things about Ken Nipples: that I thought he saw the game at a level that I couldn't believe for his age.

He'd be really good

for any of these teams.

The thing that's a bummer is that the number three pick isn't

like we have like flag, then we have Harper, and then it drops again.

I wish the number three pick was good enough that we could really have a Utah Paul George trading up from five to three, but you have to take Paul George's contract.

Like, I actually wish, because I think, I think Danny would do it.

I don't think he would care.

He'd be like, fine.

Paul George is still pretty good.

If we can go from five to three and get this guy, I'll take the contract.

I don't care.

But it's not worth it in this draft to do that.

I don't think.

Five to two is a different scenario.

But I don't think the Spurs would go any air.

I think the one thing that's changed over the last two weeks, I said this to you last week, is I think once the Spurs got a little closer to Harper,

really like diving into him, they were like, oh, shit, okay.

We don't, we don't, screw the Kevin Durant idea.

And I still wonder with Fox is, I still pick a wild card for the summer.

Yeah,

you got to wonder, though, like, if that was the Fox market that just happened.

then

but wasn't part of that teams were afraid of uh of clutch and they wanted to go to the Spurs and some people kind of backed off because they felt like he was headed that way anyway.

I don't think I don't feel like it was an official trademark.

It seemed like he's like he wants to go there and then that's how it played out.

Okay, but that entirely may be true.

And I think there is, I don't know, it's hard for me to remember all of this stuff with this, but

it's always a good reminder that when we hear about like teams making calls, and I've even made this mistake too, which I regret when I make it, but

I think these teams are constantly canvassing the league to kind of get an idea of like, hey, would you ever do this without any intention of ever doing any of those things, but just trying to figure out what the value is.

And that Fox trade, they didn't really give up.

No, it was like no brainstorm.

So you're bringing in even as flawed as like even the most, the most ardent detractors of Fox.

I still like him.

I still like to hear in Fox.

I'm not saying he's perfect, but I like him, but the market wasn't that strong for him.

Are you going to like him as much when he gets like a $230 million extension for four years?

Might not like him quite as much, but I'll still like him.

If both of us were GMs,

like you're running New Orleans, I'm running like Charlotte, I would call you all the time.

Why?

I would have like five GM friends that I just called constantly to check in.

And then every once in a while, I'd be like,

yo, what's up with, what's up with Mark Williams?

And just, you know, because I'm sure they just are shooting the shit on the phone, right?

It's like, oh, my buddy's calling.

And then at some point, you can kind of steer it toward feeling out if a guy's available or not.

And I'm sure that like Danny and Kevin Mikhail, I'm sure Danny would do that all the time when Mikhail was in Minnesota, right?

You're not going to trade KG, right?

And he's just, you know, just kind of working it.

But I think that's how, I think how, this is how some of this shit works.

I think these guys just, there's certain guys that just call everybody all the time.

Well, I imagine

anything, there's talkers, guys that can't help themselves.

It's like, even though he's my friend and I've known him for 30 years in the business, if I can just get him on the phone, start bullshitting, like, maybe he'll say something.

Because that was the old Dan Duquette thing:

he used to not talk.

You'd be on the phone with him and you wouldn't, he wouldn't say anything.

You'd have to make conversation.

Right, right.

It's the John Walsh interview move.

John Walsh's famous move.

Not talk.

You're in a job interview and he would just be silent and it was like a power move and then you would start talking.

Yeah, he recommended a good book when I met with him.

Yeah.

Game changer.

We'll do that.

Yeah.

We'll do that too.

No, let's stay on this, though, because I was thinking about the Luca trade again.

Great example.

The best ever example.

Exactly.

Nico just bitching about

Luca Dach one day and Palinka going, hey,

and then all of a sudden they're negotiating.

Right, because I was looking at all the picks that Bain got.

It was like,

you know, we're not sure that Luca's going to resign here.

So we can only give you this one pick.

We can't even do a swap.

We can't even do a swap.

I don't know if Palink will ever write a book.

But since Nico's his guy, which he clearly had the inside track on this entire thing, why there was no market for Luca, because no one else knew that he was available.

And some of this after-the-fact reporting on, like, well, they had called this team, but then you hear from the team that they're like,

We

didn't, they were asking for our best player, saying Luca wasn't part of it.

We didn't like what, whatever you want to do to make this look better for Nico.

But if Palinka ever writes a book,

and I wish you could get Polinka to like completely tell the truth, but like that moment when Nico said, I would do this, I would do Luca for AD, and you know, figure out the rest of it.

AD and Reeves, and you'd be like, well, we're not trading Reeves.

Is it still a conversation?

And there's a pause and Nico's like, yeah, there might be.

Really?

What?

Huh?

Because you wonder if Rob, based on what we're talking about, like with guys calling each other, is Rob thinking, I've heard you bitch about this guy for like two years because we've known each other for so long.

And was that, you know, this is all hypothetical.

I don't know the answer to the stuff.

That's why I wonder if it would ever come out of the book.

Because could Rob ever just be like, I couldn't believe it.

I couldn't believe it.

And then make his friend Nico look bad, which would feel kind of shitty if they still have a good relationship.

I mean, Palinka should love him now.

But if Palinka would ever, in that moment, honestly answer 20 years from now in some interview where he was on the phone being like, holy shit, I can't believe I'm actually going to be able to do a trade that a trade like this that is just not supposed to happen.

I would also love to know the whole Magics last year with the Lakers when Magic went on first take and

said he got stabbed in the back by plinka and then they were fine

i would love a whole chapter on that in the plinka book i'd also love a chapter on the on playing with the fab five the plinka book i'm i'm signing up right now i'm pre-ordering it mark twain would publish it he was big in the publishing business killed it with grants but then wanted to do a book on the pope and the pope was like are you sure And he was like, are you reading a Mark Twain book right now?

Yeah, I just finished Chernow's Mark Twain book.

I already interviewed Chernow last week.

We're going to run it later this summer.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was on the list.

But you would call me all the time.

I think I'd get sick of you calling me that much, though, because I think you would be trying to get over on me.

You'd be like, well, see, I would just be checking in.

See, Rasillo has a couple cores lights in.

Checking in, because I know you would start pitching about somebody on your team within like 10 minutes.

You'd be like, fucking Jose Alvarado, this fucking guy.

Should have seen him.

You should have seen him in the fourth quarter calling for ISOs.

It's like, you're lucky you're you're playing.

But see, I would know you too well, though, because then you would be on the phone with Daryl being like, Rosillo hates Alvarado.

Like, I think you can get it for a top 50.

Top 50 protected.

There must be like an honor among ISO.

But you must have your

two or three GMs where you're like, these are your guys.

Like, if you're bitching about your team to the other GM.

I'm sure you get feedback from somebody you know who works for a team who's listening to this afterwards.

But I'm sure you get,

I'm sure you have your guys that you feel like you can vent to

friend to friend that must exist.

I'm sure that exists.

But I think this is one of the fascinating parts about the job.

And that's why, you know, we can bring it full circle here with a thunder.

Presty, when he's at the Combine,

back when it was at the old one, when I would host it,

he wouldn't even stand there anymore.

Like he wouldn't, I don't know if he still does it now because none of us are even allowed to kind of, even though we can get in, we can't go to this big section, which is fine.

We shouldn't be able to go over that

section.

And, and, you know, when I was still hosting it, I could walk wherever I wanted to, but now that I have nothing to do with it, like, I shouldn't be over there.

I think I went to get a box score once and I was kind of like, you know what, I shouldn't do this anymore.

But I remember years and years ago, Presti,

like, hey, you're not anchoring it anymore, buddy.

Put the put the box score back.

Presti was like standing by himself, like, arms folded.

And I'm like, is he that freaked out that he can't even like sit six seats away from somebody else?

And I was like, yeah, maybe.

That was, I forget the player, but that was, I think it was Dave Callens.

That was a Red R back move where he went to Scout Cowans and he stormed out at halftime.

Yeah.

And people were like, oh, Red hated Callins, but he loved him.

Yeah.

So, you know, anytime he went to a game, people knew he was there.

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Can we do draft really quick?

So, Harper second.

If you had to bet, Edgecombe now is almost a three-to-one favorite on FanDuel to go third.

So, it's just, would you go chalk and say Edgecombe to Philly number three, Knipple four,

and Danny says, fuck it, and takes Ace Bailey five.

I don't know.

Would that be your prediction?

No, I really don't have any

like probably a day or two away for feeling good about it, you know, just because of just bullshitting with guys and because everybody has a different board for everybody else right now.

But if you had to pick, if I had to

have Bailey go neat or somebody else

that means Trey Johnson's going sixth,

no, that would mean Trey.

Yeah.

My whole Bailey, Utah exercise was just you and I talking out.

I think seeing what Ace is.

So you'd have Trey Johnson in Utah.

He can shoot.

I think you're right.

You and I see this Danny thing the same way.

I think he fucking takes Ace Bailey.

His whole history of the last 20 years

is he would take Ace Bailey.

So unless there's some massive red flag that we don't know about, I just think that's the kind of guy he takes.

Unless

he feels like, okay, I saw enough from him that I think he might check out a games and he's not.

He's not competitive enough because then I think it's kind of a no.

That's like a deal breaker for somebody like Age.

Because even with the pedigree, I'm not saying everybody's perfect, but he likes guys with a little motherfucker in them, too.

I'm not sure

Gabe Vinson was starting fights with anybody, but...

Well, the other piece with him is...

Gabe Pruitt, excuse me.

If you're are you drafting somebody because you think you have one more tank year in you, or what Austin Ainge said about we're done tanking.

Um, if you feel like there's one more year you want to throw away, Ace Bailey is perfect for that because he's probably a year or two away from having any sort of impact at all.

Here's the thing:

there's no one you're taking at that pick that is now preventing you from tanking.

True, like you could say you're Ace is like, he is like a project.

Trey could come in and be fun off the bench, like, I think, right away.

I think he would be, he'd definitely be a league pass guy where I could see you texting me in December and be like, yo, you watching Trey right now?

Like, he's one of those guys.

He can absolutely light it up.

And there's

like 16 points in four minutes kind of guy.

So,

you know, I know some people have talked about like it not being necessarily like the best fit for him.

And granted, they're making a coaching change anyway.

But, I mean, that was still a a pretty efficient offense from that group.

And, you know, he's going to be set up off the ball a lot, which is probably what they need.

I mean, God, they've got so many guys who love having the ball in their hands.

And, you know, I don't think that you're sitting here.

I think Zach was smart to kind of bring up, I don't know, maybe you were, I forget if you or Zach did an hour or so ago bringing up like who would be the line above Jeremy Grant, where marketing would be, he would be above it, I would think.

But marketing's probably not good enough to go, no, we've got our one

and we'll figure out the rest of the pieces later.

So, I mean, Austin Age can say we're not tanking.

I just, I think the rule is you can't ever say that you actually are, but I don't know who they would pick to be like, holy shit, they're not tanking now.

They just took VJ fell to them.

Right.

Can I test drive a couple draft stuff?

I'm not done with my sweep yet, but I'm pretty close.

I know I let you down with VJ to three.

I'll say, yeah.

You didn't let me down.

I wanted to test drive a couple.

A couple

half-assed, just

doing my rounds, stuff that jumped.

Malcolm Malcolm Gladwell blink test stuff.

I love it.

I love the blink.

You know what?

There's value in the blink test.

I've been pretty good in that.

I've been pretty good over the years with that.

I don't see it with Danny Wolf.

I know he's polarizing.

I don't see it.

Doesn't shoot it well enough.

No, I can't.

Well, I can't imagine him in games like the ones that we just watched the last two rounds.

Like, just where would he be?

Like, could he put up stats on a team?

Sure.

But, like, if I'm actually trying to win the title,

where am I playing him?

And is the, is the ball running through him?

Like, I, I, I just, who, who are the examples of guys like him

that

have been impact dudes on actual good NBA teams in the last 20 years?

I just have a lot of questions.

If he's in the 13 to 17 range, that's one thing.

But like, some people are saying, like, he could go like, you know, in that seven to 10 range.

That just seems pretty high to me.

If you're saying that Danny Wolf to you would not crack the rotation of two of the deepest teams in the NBA that just played for a championship, I would agree with you.

Let's go final four.

Let's go final four.

Let's go last eight.

The problem is last eight teams.

Is the best thing about well, the best thing is probably is rebounding, but it's that you're letting him have the ball in his hands as this 6-11 point guard.

So there's a little who's doing that, though, when we're in like May?

Taller Joe Ingalls?

Jingle juice?

Taller Joe Ingalls.

That's interesting.

All right.

So we've seen that work a little bit.

Ingalls was an incredible, like, pick and roll read decision guy.

And,

you know, look, if you stick Danny Wolf in the corner and be like, hey, you're only doing this, then don't take him.

There's no point.

He's a very unique player.

The Cedric Howard thing worries me.

Like to get on the board there.

This is a bit like the Jalen Williams question from before, where it's like a bunch of guys that were draft people were like, you know, who's pretty good?

Is that guy at Santa Clara?

And then the first time I watched Cedric Howard, I didn't see where Bissini had him in his rankings.

I go, dude, I love Cedric Howard.

He goes, yeah, me too.

I have him ninth.

And I was like, oh, shit.

Uh-oh.

Frown face.

Bill does not like him.

I'm not saying I'm out.

Did you only It's not a dialogue game.

No, it's not a don't like.

I don't know.

Like the way they were talking about him, what I heard about, oh, this guy, he's fast right.

Like, I started getting to Jalen Williams in my head, and then I watched it, and I didn't feel like he was athletic enough on

that level.

I don't know.

I just didn't totally see it.

He felt like a 13 to 17 range guy to me.

Okay, again, 13 13-17-range.

This is blink test, but this is like a fast riser.

He only played in six games, wasn't clear for contact with a shoulder injury forever.

Yeah.

Started in D3, goes to Eastern Washington.

The D3 team scared me too.

I can't lie.

He

was

filthy in those games that he played this year.

But if you want to tell me, hey, it was against Northern Colorado, looked like somebody

from the lacrosse team was out there.

No offense to Pat, but

or Anton.

But i would say

he was he was filthy and he was like a man and he was like mean to guys and then he got some kid in the post where he was like i'm gonna fuck with you so bad that i could score in the first second but i'll just do it on the third move so you're in on him

yeah i like him better than

you know some of the other guys like dude everybody loves carter bryant because he's 6'8 he's really young he can really shoot it he can play defense everybody really likes the kid i'd say like highest approval rating of the kid is Vij or Malowach.

Teams have talked about just raving about them, like Vijay just off the charts, I guess, in all of his interviews and his background and everything that he went through.

And there's a lot of people who really like Carter Bryan at Arizona.

I saw a guy that the good parts in that three and D, six, eight, whatever, okay, fine.

Like that guy's a very in-demand type of player.

The second he had to do something with the basketball after like it was either shoot it or it was an outlet pass on a defensive rebound, it was a nightmare.

I really like Malowatch.

I think there's a case for him to go sixth.

Like if the Wiz took him sixth, I wouldn't make fun of House.

Saar Malowatch, Twin Towers, double bigs, Adams Shingoon response, case they're in the finals a couple years.

A little Twin Towers

40 years later, the Samson Elijah.

Does SAR spacing provide enough for Malowatch to operate those lobs?

Who's to say no, right?

Here's a positive one.

I'm kind of talking myself into Derrick Queen.

I think it depends on the team.

Big time.

I think there's teams where it could be a disaster, but there's a lot of stuff there.

And then what's the dude's name?

Yakashonis.

How did he say his name?

Yeah,

from Illinois.

Yakashonis.

Yeah, you did great.

That guy's an NBA player.

I don't know.

It might not be until he's 28, and it could be his third team, but there's something, there's a

there's a wherewithal he has offensively and how he uses teammates that I just see it.

It translates.

And there's going to be, I know he's going to get hunted, like all the usual shit with him, but that dude would be fun to play with and is unique and has like an elite skill.

As you know, I love elite skills when I look at this draft stuff.

I'm always like,

what's your thing?

What's your Trump card?

What's the thing you have?

He would be fun to play with.

So

it feels like he's dropping a little, right?

Doesn't it feel like

people are cooling off on him a tiny bit?

What are you talking about?

Like outside of the top 10?

Well, initially he was supposed to be top eight or nine.

Now it feels like he's in the,

I don't know, a little lower.

He probably could shoot it a little bit better.

I mean, I like him better than Demon because he can shoot it and Demon just couldn't shoot it all year long, but apparently Demon, the BYU kid, is lighting it up in some workouts with the shooting.

So I'm out on him.

I do not have an opinion on him.

I couldn't crack that one.

That one, I threw my hands up.

I like

Mary Hoyles.

He's probably a little smaller for the way that he plays.

And then Derek Queen, I'll admit, I just don't know that I can figure it out.

It's all over the place.

But sometimes it's really pretty fucking good, man.

And then I'm like,

was Sam the one that said he's just been somebody who's played against men for the last couple of years?

Yeah.

I like that.

It's meaningful.

I like Sorber, the Georgetown kid,

because I think he's a legit center.

I haven't researched him yet.

Need Clifford's probably the most well-rounded guy, but I think he's already 23.

Where do you stand on Fleming from St.

Joe's?

I don't know what he is.

Well, physically, he's a specimen.

So he's enormous.

He's like 230.

He's chiseled.

You know, playing in some of the games that I was watching, there are times where I'm like, is he a small forward or is he a center?

Because I think he wants to to be a small forward.

And

I'm not saying he should be a center, so maybe there's a ton of value in him at his size,

you know, stretching the floor for you a little bit.

But I think he was so physically gifted, I would have liked to see him make people feel him a little bit more.

Yeah, but you know, to be fair, again, I'm not doing this year-round, I'm not watching every single game.

I was watching Hugo Gonzalez the other night, I was like, I think he might suck, but I like him.

I like that he hasn't shot it, like he said five different stints in Europe, and he hasn't shot over, I think, 27% for three.

And he's not a point guard.

So I'm like, okay, how does this work?

But I got to tell you, fun kid, fun little guy out there.

Well, he's not 6'6.

Shocker of shocker.

I like Clayton Jr.

I mean, it's the most predictable Bill opinion of all time, but I just don't see how he's not an NBA player.

And I don't know how many more times we have to do this with these guys.

Brunson was one from

way back, but what did he go like 31 32 it's like at some point

at some point it should matter what we saw

there's other times where it shouldn't matter at all but you get you can kind of you have to filter it and he's clearly somebody who could play in nba games and create his own shot and do stuff

yeah and the shot making like yeah again tray's the best of the class but there's some walter clayton shots where you just go like i can't even believe like he has the balls to even take this and then it felt like it went in more often hansen yang i'm gonna give myself the combine there is value in the combine okay um didn't speak a lick of english when he was at the combine and so he would just kind of do this like yell when he wanted the ball like ah

ah

and then he had this baseline

spin with with the ball and one flushes it i was right there on the baseline when it happened and i i tweeted out that i've I've seen the, I think it was on threads.

I'm on threads a lot lately.

I was like, I've seen the future of the NBA, and it's right in front of me, Hansen Yang.

Got a couple chuckles.

The Threads audience really liked it.

Yeah, in the peanut gallery, you know, at the Combine.

And now people think he might go in the 30s.

So if your team takes Hanson Yang in the 30s, you may have something.

Bit of a project, but you may have something.

I don't mind the Stanford Senior because I scouted him because there was some self-expuzz with him.

So, of course, I I had to watch all this.

He was awesome in the combine.

He seems intrigued.

Awesome.

Hasn't really been playing basketball that long, which I think sometimes is a bonus.

Room to grow.

Yeah.

All right.

There's our draft thing.

I know you're going to be tackling a lot

this week.

Hopefully, we'll have one fun trade.

And that's it.

I've run out of things to talk about, unless you want to talk about

what do you do with Connor McDavid.

No, I just want to say one last thing about the Thunder.

Yeah.

This is a team that finished the playoffs 11th in rebounding rate, 12th in defensive rebounding rate.

Their assist percentage was 11th.

Their three-point percentage may have dipped down.

It was 13th out of 16 playoff teams.

Might have been worse after today.

They had like a couple points they had to make up there.

So 13 as of today.

They fouled at the third highest rate.

They had, I think, nine games under 30% from three, maybe under 31% from three.

So nine bad shooting games in the playoffs.

They went five and four of those.

For this team to win an NBA championship with the lack of shooting and the rebounding being an issue and fouling all the time

speaks to how insane this defense was.

And we saw it in the third quarter, and you can see it like a switch when that group gets connected and says, you know, granted, TJ went crazy, but all the turnovers they were

committing because of the pressure, I think it was a 19-2 run,

As great as SGA has been at the peak moments and the MVP deserving all that kind of stuff, for a unit to have six, seven guys, it's like we just got to be dogs defensively.

And for that team to win a championship, I know how disappointed everybody is that it wasn't the full version, obviously, with a Halliburt injury, but that's some pretty special stuff to be able to win 16 games with some of their deficiencies that they had.

Yeah, I mean, game four will be the thing I remember about that team, watching them just basically refuse to let the Pacers start their offense within 30 feet of the basket for an hour.

I've seen good defense before, but I don't know.

It was also a team that if you were calling the game and letting them kind of get away with stuff, they became completely unstoppable, right?

It was like an NFL defense.

We're like, oh, you're going to let us do this.

And then they would just, and I felt like that was happening a little bit tonight.

Once Caruso and Dort and Wallace could really get physical 40, 50 feet from the basket.

Yikes.

What happens with McDavid?

It's going to get worse, not better.

This was, it feels like their best chance with the cap.

Yep.

And here's the thing.

Last year, they were a better team.

Yeah.

Where this year

people couldn't believe they beat Dallas and Las Vegas.

Where last year...

They weren't even favored in round one.

I think the Kings were favored.

The Kings came out smoking too, right?

So,

you know, they get to return trip, but I watched all the games.

You know,

I don't know that I have a ton of great insight on all of it, but this is this will bother me.

This will bother me in a way.

I don't won't be at Charles Barkley level, won't be at Chris Mullen level, but it's going to bother me.

Like, how will the rest of your life be if McDavid never hoists the cup?

You'd be okay.

I feel like he's, I've been watching hockey since when Bobby War still was

good.

Um,

And he's one of the six or seven just easily best players I've ever seen.

And I can't believe he hasn't won a cup yet.

I was thinking about something with Marshan, though, and the Panthers, how he goes to that team, and it's the perfect team for him because they just have a bunch of fucking assholes that are just agitator assholes.

And it was like, finally, I'm with my people.

And it made me think like, I wish the Bruins in retrospect had just been like, you know, we have this guy.

He's just so fucking annoying.

He drives everybody crazy.

We should just get like four more of those guys and just we become, that becomes our identity.

Cause I do feel like like a Vander Kane was so mad that by the end of the series, the game's over, there's two minutes left.

And he just went over and he slashed Kachuk as hard as he could so he could get a game misconduct and not have to be in the handshake line.

Like that's.

You know that you, you have a team full of dicks when somebody's like, I just, I can't shake hands with these guys.

Just, can you kick me out of the game?

So it just just made me think like that would be an interesting way, almost like how Presty put together that OKC team of these fucking silent assassins who just get work done and have no ego.

And they all do the press conference together.

Could you have done that with Marshan?

Just like, let's go get five assholes and that's, that'll be the nucleus of our team.

I don't know the answer to this because, again, I don't know the sports super well, but it feels like,

you know, we touched on this a bit in the last few years.

I feel like the NBA playoffs is very different than the regular season for a bunch of obvious reasons.

But, like, some of the shooting variants, I wonder, like, could you trick yourself into thinking that you're this really good offense?

But then all of a sudden, it's like, yeah, but

those guys just aren't going to be as comfortable.

And, you know, I mean, again, OKC, a lot of these threes were wide open, and these guys didn't make them, and it still didn't matter.

They didn't make them enough.

Even wide open corner threes.

Yeah, and then you could see, like,

I mean, not to recap game seven again, but Jalen Williams had one where he passed up an open one to throw it to Dort.

And I'm like, dude, what?

Like, you had 40 the other night.

Yeah.

Like, what is that?

And he responded and he closed well.

But

do hockey GMs have to think about, like,

I need a completely like different team that survives advancing through the chaos of the NHL playoffs.

Like, hey, we may not be the best offense.

We may not be all of these things, but at least we have like the right personalities.

And maybe I'm just telling hockey people what they've already known, and this isn't a secret.

I think they must think about it.

Yeah, but I must.

Is the biggest gap?

Like, football is pretty straightforward.

Baseball is a total coin toss.

Like, you can talk about how valuable pitching was.

I remember all I would do was look at the pitching matchups for every single playoff series.

And then all these times, it didn't really matter.

Or the Braves would have had more World Series, right?

It's just baseball is just so fucking weird in the playoffs.

But hockey feels like a real departure of like, we can have this really good team, but we need these kinds of personalities that may not show up or may not be as valuable in the regular season because obviously Florida checked all those boxes of the last two years.

Well, and the goal,

you have to have the goal, it starts with that, which is that was Edmonton's biggest failing in the last couple of years.

But I didn't think it was really some sort of

I didn't think it was a Skinner, like I didn't look at this finals and go, oh, well, you know, once again, it's Skinner's fault.

And then obviously, I know.

I know, but it was that.

I mean, when you're changing,

yeah, you're, you're swapping dudes in and out.

It's usually not an awesome sign.

Yeah, but I could name, I could name like 10 plus guys from the Panthers that I'd be like, oh, that guy did this, and this guy had this game.

And then Reiner, of course, closes it out.

Rodriguez, like all these other dudes that aren't Sam Bennett.

They're really

can't stand them.

There's so many dudes that you could name.

There are so many times, like you mentioned the Evander Kane thing.

I was like, I almost made a Tobias Harris joke.

Like, he's on the Oilers.

There's just a lot of dudes that we know the names because we've been watching the playoffs with them these last two deep runs.

But to just the very casual drive-by fan that I am, there's a lot of guys that were on the Oilers.

I can't remember that guy ever having a moment that stood out.

The Canada not winning a Stanley Cup since 93 is one of the craziest streaks in sports.

It really is.

It's just nuts.

32 years.

And the last time they won, they beat Gretzky and the Kings, which was like, you know, one of the most important finals, at least in America, in the last four years.

It's like Sam Malone not getting laid for a year.

That was, I think that was an episode.

You know,

you know, Voodoo?

It's like it turned into Fandango.

It's like a streaming movie TV service.

I thought you meant the rest.

No, you can rent and buy movies on it.

Sometimes they have these sales.

They had the entire Cheers series streaming for $29.99.

And I was like, fine.

That'll come in handy on an airplane.

Why not?

Switch out to Blu-rays.

It's just like, who knows?

It's how many seasons was it?

It was like 11 seasons.

It's

like over 200 episodes.

Fine.

30 bucks.

Twist my arm.

I'll do it.

We almost called you for the diehard with the Vengeance rewatchables on Friday, but I knew you were at Elite 11.

Yeah, went down to Elite 11.

I had a busy day.

What was it?

Why was I so busy that day?

Oh, Elite 11.

You love Elite 11.

I do.

We have to go.

We're over the two-hour mark.

I feel bad for Gahao and Eduardo.

Thank you for producing the pod for us, guys.

Thanks to Zach Lowe for stopping by.

Another season of the books for us.

Thanks to everybody on YouTube who watched this.

And you're going to be doing a bunch of stuff this week.

We love the draft.

Hopefully, we'll get some more trades.

Brascillo, good to see you.

Thanks, Bill.

I want to see them

when we sunstin.

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