Orlando Gets Bane, The Limbo Grizzlies, KD’s Future and OKC’s Moment with Ryen Russillo

This episode is brought to you by Bleacher Report.

Football is back, and downloading the Bleacher Report app puts you in the middle of the action.

Make Bleacher Report your go-to this season for the fastest-breaking news alerts covering NFL and college football.

And don't miss a moment with highlights, scores, and live reactions in the app.

Get expert analysis on your favorite teams and the news that you want this season.

Download the Bleacher Report app today.

The Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find Ryan Rosillo's podcast.

This is our favorite time of year, June, with free agency and the NBA draft and the NBA finals all happening at the same time.

You can find the Rewatchables, which will be on Tuesday night this week, not Monday night.

We are doing Marathon Man as part of New York City Month, Rosillo.

Dustin Hoffman, Larry Olivier, how call him Larry, William Devane, Royce Scheider.

Any thoughts on that?

Written by William Goldman?

Yeah, that's the old story where the other Larry O,

didn't he tell Dustin Hoffman to be like, want to just try acting?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

We're going to be covering that.

Yeah.

He was talking doing a method acting thing, and Larry's like, How about just trying acting?

So there you go.

You think you'd be a method actor?

I definitely would not.

I think you could tell from our podcast, we both like winging it.

We like the improv and the ad-lib.

Oh, I don't know about that.

Maybe with the podcasting, but I could see myself getting into it.

Be like, I get to do steroids.

It's an ESPN talk show host who has a steroids addiction.

That sounds great.

I didn't realize you remote that actor.

Yeah, or just be like, what happened to him?

Like, he's in Key West.

He's just decided he's going to get like super bloated, glassy-eyed for this role.

My favorite is Dana Day-Lewis, where he's like doing Last of Mohicans, and he insisted on helping them build the cabin because he wanted to get into his like late 1800s kind of

man about town.

I'm not sure there's a podcast I wish could happen more that won't than you interviewing Daniel.

About all his method acting?

Just because you have a good way about yourself of like not making it pretentious for everybody else to try to make it pretentious and you just be like, what's up with?

Like, can you still fix shoes?

We're going to take a break, bring in Pearl Jam, and then an action pack Sunday, Father's Day podcast next.

this episode is presented by State Farm.

It's no secret that great teams need great teammates.

I've been saying this for years.

And when it comes to insurance, State Farm is there to help you find the right coverage for your home, car, and more.

Whether you need an in-person or a digital assist, they're ready when life hits you with a full court press.

Get a game plan that helps fit your life.

Talk to State Farm today.

State Farm with the assist.

Coverage options are selected by the customer availability and eligibility vary by state.

All right, happy Father's Day taping this this a little after 10 o'clock.

P T,

we thought we might be talking about a Kevin Durant trade.

Instead, we got a bombshell Rosillo.

We got a Memphis and Orlando trade where Orlando gets Desmond Bain, and they give up four first-rounders and a swap and Cole Anthony and Cantavius Caldwell Pope.

And I want to talk about the Orlando stuff in a second.

The Memphis piece really jumped out to me because

you're basically getting three firsts from a team that's going to be really good over the next five years.

You're getting a swap, but then you're getting this 2026 best of a Phoenix, Washington, Orlando swap thing that is

the prize asset.

And yet, when you have Jaron Jackson and John Morant and Desmond Bain, and you trade Bain, and Jaron Jackson has a year left on his deal,

and John Morant has been, I wouldn't say stable over the last three years, and you're in the West with a team OKC that looks like they're going to dominate the rest of the decade with the Spurs,

with Dallas, with Cooper Flag.

You go on down the line.

This feels like a possible white flag for me from Memphis and maybe not the last trade.

What was it?

What was your thought on the Memphis side?

No, I want to stay there, though.

White flag.

Like that's saying something when you start.

Like clearly we had it with Golden State where when it was just stacked up.

And I remember talking to other teams and like Daryl is like, hey, at least Daryl's going for it.

Like so many of these other teams in the West go, what's the point?

That might be the best starting five we've ever seen in the history of this game.

And Daryl's like, all right, well, and I remember we had him on, and he was saying something like,

I don't know if we had it, it wasn't, I don't know.

The quote came out, Vegas Fandu thing.

We were talking about him chasing Golden State.

Yeah, we did it then, but like in the moment, as it was like, we'd already been through a year of it, because I thought the Vegas thing was after that.

Um, because it was right.

Well, whatever, I got trained, right?

Yeah, yeah, it was just that Daryl had figured out the math of like, we have you know 41% chance of playing the Houston Houston Rockets and or the Houston Rockets are going to play Golden State.

That was my Daryl impersonation.

Sorry, I like that.

You know, sold that a little bit.

Um,

so

method acting,

you'd be like, wait, he's taking night courses in MIT.

Uh,

what do you like?

Do you think that

I mean, do you really think that though?

Because that's a pretty bold statement about a team with a job, with a Jaron Jackson in a city where it's like you kind of have to feel like you're all in all the time.

Like, do you think they look around and go, okay, Dallas gets Cooper, Wemby's coming, and all these other things?

And of course, you have OKC two games away from this whole thing, which I know we'll spend a lot of time on.

That's just a massive statement for front office and ownership to get on the stage page and be like, let's white flag this conference for the next few years.

I don't know any other way to take it because, like, I looked at my Ringer 100 list and Desmond Bain, I had him at, you know, in like the high 30s, somewhere in there.

Wherever, whatever list you're having, he's one of the best 35 to 43 players in the league in a 30-team league, right?

And you're whatever the Memphis is trying to do to win a title, you would think would be built around those three guys.

Now they're saying we only need two of them.

One of them we can't rely on.

The other one has a big contract coming up.

So either they didn't want to pay all three, or this is stage one of a massive blow-up.

Let's try to emulate what Presty did, you know, with the Paul George, Russell Westbrook, that whole four-year era,

which would mean the second part would be a Jaron Jackson trade.

I have, I looked at everything.

I had a really good time this morning.

What What a Father's Day for me.

It was the perfect gift to just go in the trade machine and spot track for two hours.

I think it's a lot harder to move Ja than it is Jaron Jackson because the Jaron Jackson, the fact that he only makes 23 million bucks

makes him tradable to every team in the league.

Not that every team would need him or want him, but it's just a completely different type of trade.

Like you're talking about the Lakers,

not that, you know, but they could literally get him for Reeves and Rui and all their picks.

Like it's stuff like that, that can't really happen when you're talking about a guy making $45, $50 million a year.

You're a bigger, I think you're a slightly bigger fan of Jaron Jackson than I am.

Yeah, and I understand the problems.

You brought it up, the rebounding, the stupid fouls that constantly happen that make some of Cat's foul decisions seem smart.

And sure, I mean, you could get into even different playoff moments of like, is he a coin toss kind of guy?

But I mean, you're talking about how much easier he is to trade.

My argument would be they don't want to trade.

Like, you would want to stay in the Jaron Jackson business.

And, you know, as much time as we spend of trying to predict how teams will sort of manage some of this stuff with the second apron, you know, we've been on here for a while.

Do you look at Bain's deal with what's left on it?

I mean, it was a pretty big deal, five years, $197 million.

Although I think Bain at 37, 39, 42, 45, and he'll be 45 million in the 31-year-old season, as opposed to like some of these other deals where you're like, that guy's going to be making what at 35, 36.

um with with everything in the cap being at like 195 for this year i still think that's a fairly reasonable contract for a player that i know we both like a lot i love him i love the basketball fit for orlando yeah but it it might just be like if we're all in on on jaron and ja

then where am i going if that's my answer like well no this is a commitment to jaron and ja it's like cool you're you have no chance of being one of the five best teams in the west for the next three years if that's your

those are your two guys the Bane thing is

it's not just getting off a contract.

It's not just the assets.

It's that this is a directional shift to the franchise.

I do.

I really do.

I'm not saying you're wrong.

I guess.

Well, there's two ways to perceive it.

Either they felt like they couldn't pay Bain, Jaron Jackson, and John Moran all at the same time, which, as we know, with this hard cap, which Zach has officially named it a hard cap.

And I think I agree with him.

This hard cap, you're paying three guys 40 plus million.

orlando's going to find that out when palos

uh when his extension comes in all i i saw like for the 26 27 season you're all of a sudden looking at like a 350 million dollar payroll with the tax it's just really hard to pay four guys much less three um it just feels to me like they're like this is a full reboot like we gave it a whirl um Maybe we should just be a bad team, let Ja just go nuts for a couple years, everyone wear his jersey, and we'll just be one of the three worst teams in the West.

And by the way, I support it.

I like, especially after going to those two finals games in Indy and watching the athleticism and the depth and the youth, and you just start thinking about how many teams could play at this level.

That's why I love the trade for Orlando because Bain is somebody that could have played in the two games I just went to, right?

That's that's somebody

easily played 35 to 40 minutes on either team in those games.

Yeah, if he's the 35th best player in the league, which I think he's probably in that 30-something to, you know, I don't know.

I don't know if I had him 43 to mess with your cutoff there.

Somewhere in that range.

There are some incredible numbers for him and who he's been.

I mean, the minute he came into the league, he just makes threes.

And there was one number I was looking at today.

He's 43% on catch and shoot threes

in all five.

So since he's come into the league in five seasons, on 43% shooting on catch and threes, that's third best of any player in the NBA.

Pairing that with Orlando's greatest need,

which had the worst three-point shooting percentage season since we've seen in the league since the 2015-16 Lakers.

So you're saying of his a need.

Yeah.

I mean, this is, you know, whatever you think of Orlando, because Powell is starting to take some hits.

If you don't like him, he's an inefficient hog who makes bad decisions.

I like him.

I think he's a guy whose inefficiency speaks more to the role that he's tasked with of solving a team that can't shoot around him.

And he's 21.

There's that part too.

Yeah, but I don't look at him as some of the other on-ball guys that are really dynamic, where it's like, well, you just still haven't figured out a lot of the game.

Like, I've seen enough from him from college and in these years in the pros, where I'm like, I actually think he is a willing teammate.

It's just his teammates are unwilling to make any threes.

The Pope signing was a fucking disaster.

I mean, that guy was invisible.

He was brought up.

That's why one of these picks, I think, goes to making Memphis take Caldwell Pope, right?

So it's like basically four picks for Bain and then an extra pick to please take Pope with you, with him in the trade, I think.

Yeah, I mean, the picks are 16, the Phoenix first and 26, which, you know, who knows what Phoenix is going to look like day by day here.

The unprotected 28 and 30.

I mean, it's just so funny when we start looking at these picks to be like, you're going to be sitting here in five years being like, oh, that's that 30.

That's the unprotected from who was in that deal?

Be like, remember Pope?

Oh, that's my favorite with the Derrick Way White trade.

So there's one other piece to this trade that I think really hurts Memphis and really hurts and really helps Orlando is Bane's just a tough motherfucker, man.

And when you think about like the way Presty put together that OKC team and watching them in person for a couple games where none of them talk, Caruso is the only guy on the bench that talks.

Everybody else is just like silent assassin, competitive guy.

And it's like clearly a prototype they're looking for.

Athletic, silent assassin, do your job, keep your head down, work really hard.

Bane fits with Suggs and Palo and Franz.

That's a forsom that makes sense to me from an intensity, chippiness,

little aggro.

Bane gets a little aggro from time to time.

Like you think about him in like round two of whatever series next year.

And that's a team that's almost like the Florida Panthers, like what we're watching, you know, they add Marshand.

to all these other guys they have who are just agitators and just this physical agitator team.

And Marshand's just like perfect for that.

And Bain just seems like perfect for them.

I love the trade.

I also thought there was more playmaking from him last year than I thought he had in him.

Like his assists last season, he was over five.

When you're over five assists a game, that's not nothing, you know?

The true shooting percentage is around 600 for his career.

You look at the regular season part of this.

He's 41% from three in the regular season.

He's played 27 playoff games.

The playoff 3% shooting is at 40%.

I love him because I like him as a player in a vacuum.

I like him for Orlando a lot because this team desperately needs some kind of spacing to make it easier on Paolo, to make it easier when you're swinging to the other side for Franz.

Suggs clearly is so important to this team because they fell off a cliff.

I do not understand some of the stuff that they do offensively.

I'll never forget that regular season game where I think it was Ty Jerome and Sam Merrill.

Shout out to Sam Merrill, but they were at the front.

They were at the top of a zone that Cleveland was running.

And Orlando, with all of their size, still couldn't figure out a way to do anything.

They're just not very creative offensively.

So I don't know if that's lack of point guard or Paolo not being along.

Cook that a little bit, though, because I do feel like he can initiate some offense, run some pick and roll.

I really like the fit.

Yeah, because the catch and shoot guys, usually that are this good.

It's kind of like you catch, you shoot, muscle memory, and that's pretty much it.

And he's able to provide that with somebody that can put the ball on the ground and can probably swing it and make some decisions, you know, back to this kind of thunder ideal of the ideal thunder players, the way I should say it, of that once the ball is in your hands, we trust you with every decision you're going to make after that.

And Bain definitely fits that.

Now, if you want to say, you know, I just always get annoyed when it's like, oh, he only has one year left.

It's like, what's he worth?

And then it's like, oh, that contract.

It's like, well, what do you want?

Do you want somebody under contract or do you want the flexibility of him not being under contract?

Because I think the headline part of it is it's four and a swap for desmond bain but now it's about different people watch basketball i mean come on i i would do this in a heartbeat it's three non-lottery picks it's the number maybe 16 pick this year and the phoenix pick which is a prize yeah the phoenix pick which if phoenix does all right on this trade

yeah but you like paolo the most This is a bet on Paolo.

Like, this is like, we have Paolo.

We're going to be in the mix every year because this guy is going to be one of the best 15 guys in the league.

So I think that's when I don't really care about the picks.

Like, if the Celtics had done this with Tatum in the early 2020s, I would have been like, I don't mind it.

Like, we have Tatum.

We're going to be in the mix.

You know, and I think Palo is at least an in-the-mix guy now, especially in a crippled East.

Yeah, I know.

It's just five years out.

That's all.

I mean, you never know what's going to happen.

We sit here all the time being like, oh, this team or this guy and all these things are like even sitting here pretending like the Thunder, like no one's going to challenge him for five years, depending on how the rest of of this week goes here.

So, it, I, I sense that there's some resistance to like people made fun of the Bridges deal because of all the picks.

It's like Bridges hasn't even made an all-star team.

Um, but the Knicks probably felt like at that point, we know we can't pay Hartstein, so we're going to lose him.

And so, can we reinvent this thing with another wing, go all into the picks, and just go all in now?

Because we actually like with Mitchell Robinson, the other four.

So, who's who's the fifth guy or with Hart?

We like the five guys, who's the sixth guy?

So, Bain fits such a desperate need for this team that it's probably worth the extra pick.

You know, if it had been just the 28 unprotected and not the 30 unprotected, does that sound a little bit better?

But I don't know who they're bidding against.

I don't know what the rest of it is.

And he's a really good player.

He's a really good player for a team that desperately needed to figure something else out because KCP, even though he's making, it's not half, but he's 22 million the next two years.

He just was such a massive disappointment, which, by the way, should be another one of those deals where if you're a team thinking about trading for anybody that's not Jokic with Denver, I might just, if I were running a team, I'd go, even if I like this guy, I don't think I'm going to trade for anybody post-Jokic.

Because you have no idea what their actual talent is playing with Jokic.

That's, I like that theory.

So, Michael Porter, buyer beware.

Yeah, I mean, Aaron Gordon's a perfect example of the other side of this, which Orlando, Orlando fans had to hear this shit.

It's like, I can't believe they traded this guy.

Be like, dude, what did you think the market was for him?

And now he's playing next to Jokic in this awesome baseline role, and now he's become a better shooter.

So, I mean, this is a different conversation, but I think the Senate summary is, we're aligned on this.

He fits such a just awful need for this team that I'm okay with the price, even if it feels a little bit like

throwing a lot in there.

Yeah.

And who, like, who are the other type of people, if they're going to make a trade like this, that you would want to go after?

It's basically Jalen Brown, maybe Ananobi, right?

Knicks aren't trading with Orlando.

I don't think the Celtics are trading with Orlando either.

So if you start thinking about kind of guard, big guard who could also maybe guard some small forwards, like perimeter guys with size who hit threes, who can play defense, who are tough, this is probably the number one draft pick.

I had two bigger reactions other than that Memphis one.

This to me is a blood in the water trade for the Eastern Conference.

And this is why I don't think Milwaukee is going to trade Giannis either.

I think everybody who's in the Eastern Conference has to look around and go,

we might be able to make the finals next year.

Like Tatum's going to be out.

Look at what Indiana.

Indiana was 10 and 15 after 25 games.

I know there are real reasons for that, but

they've won 14 playoff games.

Who knows what the Knicks?

The Knicks seem like they're a mess right now.

The Knicks are going to be good.

I mean, this whole coaching thing is funny to make fun of them, but they're going to be good.

I know.

But I'm just saying, if you go down the line of who are these slam dunks, like Cleveland, we still don't know what's going on.

Nobody's afraid of

nobody's afraid of any of them.

Even Indiana, as good as Indiana's been, I don't think anybody's going, whoa, like you would with OKC.

And I think, I think that's why Milwaukee keeps Giannis at least until the December, January, February range.

If they're, if they're horrible and it looks bad, maybe they look differently at it.

But

I think with this, Orlando has to be looking at this going, we might make the finals next year with this team, especially if we can get one smart free agent signing.

You know, who knows?

Who knows?

We have Palo.

What if he makes a leap?

What if there's like an Ian Edwards going from here to here kind of jump, or a Halliburton going from here to here?

So that was that was one thing.

And then the other one,

it just confirmed to me that I don't think Milwaukee is going to trade Giannis.

I just think if you're them, could you talk yourself into

can

Giannis do a 2018 LeBron and just win three three rounds by himself?

You know, maybe.

You scared anyone in the East?

I'm not.

So that's it.

So Orlando threw that.

Which roster would you rather have right now, Orlando or New York?

Orlando.

When we did the next five years thing with the Pacers, before I think everybody kind of fell in love with this Pacers team, and I think that's despite the loss, which I know we'll get to, just, I know you were in the building, and after game three, you're like, damn, this team is just, you know, this team is, they really are something else.

They haven't had any money.

Yeah, right.

And I was like, would I still take this roster over Cleveland's roster?

I'm battling with it.

But when we did that exercise, I thought it was worth bringing up Orlando before the Bane part of this.

So, yeah, it's going to be expensive with Franz, with Suggs, with Paolo, and Bain.

which a different way that that's uh you know the pacers kind of hit this right with the timing a lot of these contracts, too.

Because if you were going to start re-signing these guys and keep it longer term, then clearly the salary would be a lot more.

But yeah, I think you're right.

And by the way, like as bad as it can be in Milwaukee, it can't be that bad because of how special Giannis is.

So the other thing, Memphis, did you see that sneaky ED injury that they announced a couple of days ago where he's out for like five to six months, maybe?

They're like, they're going to reevaluate in four.

So they might not have him for the whole year.

Brandon Clark's coming back from a knee injury, I think he's going to be fine for the season.

They have no idea what job.

And then the Jaron Jackson piece,

you know, I put it this way.

If they decide to auction him out, like I was thinking,

Utah,

is Utah poning him up the fifth pick and Collins and more first to be in that conversation?

I would assume.

Houston, a lot of the same Durant stuff with more picks.

Detroit, if it's Tobias and Ron Holland and like all their firsts and swaps, and they just go all in on trying to add him.

Brooklyn, Claxton, here's we have a shitload of picks.

How many do you want?

The Spurs, could they figure out how to get him without giving up the second pick?

And then

I hate mentioning them, but man, if the Lakers put Reeves and Rui in their 31st and some swaps and a 32nd first, like I think it's a conversation.

I really like Reeves,

you know?

So that's one of the teams I was looking at, but I mean, clearly on the asset part of this, it's about the picks, it's not about Pope's contract and Cole Anthony, who we should probably mention at this point because it's been this far the discussion of it.

Uh, Cole's Cole's like a really nice off-the-bench guy, he probably don't want to be in your starting point card, obviously.

But Cole Memphis ties too for him.

What's that?

He's some Memphis ties, right?

Because I remember Verno loved him.

Was it just Verno?

Um,

no, in the draft, he there was something with him in Memphis.

I can't remember, like his

maybe

we need to do we need to get IT on this?

I don't know.

We, we could, we could talk.

I could look at it during the break.

Verno was like the biggest Cole Anthony fan.

Um,

so what would you do with Jaron Jackson?

I like the Utah part of it because, you know, the whole bang conversation is you're sitting there going like, all right, but don't we want to wait for like somebody who's just a little bit better if we're going to go all in with all of these picks?

It's like a lot of times you're just sitting there waiting around.

You go, all right, cool, you waited.

Yeah.

And then no one else became that available.

You know, it's, is it like the Bridges conversation where

you go, well, sure, it'd be nice to have all these picks for like a top 10 guy, but

waiting around for this top 10 imaginary scenario where we outbid everybody else and the guy definitely wants to come here and stay like that's a really

It's probably

likely a stupid plan because the idea that it's going to just follow through the way you had planned it out for this one specific guy in this certain tier, it's just chances are stacked against you that that's going to happen.

So, if you're a Utah and you go, okay, we need something that's heading in the right direction.

You know, if the draft goes the wrong way and Knipple's gone and Vijay's gone.

I love it.

I love that you did the is Knipple gone at five because I feel the same way.

I think Utah would be devastated if Knippo was gone.

Unless they want fears and they go, this is great.

We wanted fears the whole time, but that's another guard, another really young guard, because he reclassified like Cooper did.

And

you can say whatever you want in the press conferences.

Like, there's a lot of teams going, we are not rebuilding anymore.

We are going for it.

You're like, you guys won 32.

I'm not even talking about Utah, but like, I've heard it a lot.

I mean, it felt like the Pistons were saying that year after year after year.

And look, then it finally happened.

And we all like where this Pistons team is right now.

So you wonder if there are teams that have been bad now for a while that would look at Jaron Jackson the same way Orlando Orlando looks at Bain, and I like Jackson better than Bain, but if they would look at him and go, you could do a lot worse than going all in on somebody this young that's this talented, I think showed you like the full repertoire of his scoring possibilities.

It'd be nice if he was probably with a more athletic five.

Can I get like seven rebounds a game from him?

Yeah, I know, I know.

You're probably not going to.

So I, yeah, I, but I don't know if this means Memphis is tearing the whole thing down.

And that would just lead to like, what's the jaw market or is, is JAW the best?

Because I used to joke that like if I

market, you're, you're looking at like Brooklyn, Washington teams like that.

Part of the problem with trading a franchise point guard is that 22 of these teams have a franchise point guard or a point guard they love.

You know, you go on, if you go on Trade Machine and just be like, oh, Ja, that'll be easy.

And then you go through every team and it's not nearly as easy as you think.

Even if you talk about like, oh, maybe the Clippers would take them.

Okay.

Well, who are they they giving back?

And why is Memphis trading Ja for like James Harden and Zubats?

Like, not happening.

I do think Brooklyn, Brooklyn's the most interesting summer team, just because I have no idea what they're up to.

They have all these picks.

They're going to have potentially 100 million in cap space.

I don't know if they want to be good right away.

Maybe they want to tank one more year.

Maybe they want to be the way station for other teams' crappy contracts and do what Presty did.

But it also feels like there's a way for them to just supercharge it and be like, we'll take Ja.

You're souring on him.

You're rebuilding.

Okay.

We'll put him in Barclays.

We'll get people excited about him.

There was another thing.

So

conspiracy Bill, not quite.

It's like his brother, just kind of, I'm mildly intrigued, his cousin.

I'm mildly intrigued, Bill.

Yeah, Wayne.

So that Phoenix pick being in the trade

did make me wonder, because

we're going to talk about Durant later.

I like this.

And the Durant trade would be Jalen Green.

I assume Jalen Green, Jabari,

maybe Cam Whitmore.

They give Phoenix back their 27 pick and it's something like that, right?

But then what does Phoenix do with Jalen Green and Devin Booker?

Could that then lead to they trade Jalen Green to Memphis and get their other pick back?

And then it's basically they have Booker, Jabari Smith, and all their picks back.

It was just

my Wayne, my cousin Wayne, just was mildly intrigued by it.

Or that's not what I thought you were going to do.

What did you think I was going to do?

A Booker to Memphis?

Did Orlando do the trade because they have a good feel on what Phoenix is going to get for Durant?

And they go, well, look, Phoenix is still going to be competitive

to

a playing game level where they're...

I don't see it.

You think they're going to be one of the five worst teams in the NBA?

No, I think they're going to be one of the five worst teams in in the West.

They're going to trade Durant.

Can we both agree that if they get, if Jalen Green is the centerpiece of a Durant trade and it's Jalen Green and Devin Booker together, that's not a playoff team?

Because I'm willing to sign that in ink right now.

You're not making the playoffs.

Those are my best guys.

I do not like

that mix at all.

We would agree, but I'm wondering if they have

good about their intel, if they have an understanding that Phoenix, however, they're going to try to put the pieces together for 25-26, if they're including that pick, does that mean they feel like, all right, well, Phoenix will have

a 6% chance of the number one pick?

They're not going to be completely bottom.

And Booker's probably too good, and you probably feel like you owe it to him to be competitive.

I mean, I guess we could pretend that Beale's on the team.

Well, you're looking at Atlanta situation where it makes no sense to bottom out.

So you're basically grinding your way to 39 and 43 or whatever it is.

That's what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

Now, I don't know if there was another version of where Phoenix goes.

Now we're just going to tear the studs down around Booker because you would just think as much as Booker seems to love it there and

says all the right things.

And

I think it's a lot easier to say those things and say that you're on the same page until you're actually like living in it again.

And I don't know how happy he would have been long-term with Sarver and all the stuff that was happening until Chris Paul comes in and saves saves the day.

And then they're competitive.

They're playing an NBA championship.

So now it's like that window of three or four years of being competitive, maybe it revives you a little bit.

But then if you're going back into it, but you know, I could do a weekend, I could do a marathon podcast on trying to figure out what we actually think the best and worst assets are of all the Durant rumors that we've heard.

Because you're right.

If the headline is

you got Jalen Green,

you're like, you can't do better than that.

But then you'll hear something that's like, Sohan's untouchable.

You're like, Sohan?

We like Sohan.

Untouchable?

Yeah, he would not be untouchable for me.

Jaron Jackson, I was trying to figure out what his trade value would be, knowing that you're going to have to pay him in a year.

Would you rather have the second pick or Jaron Jackson?

If you're San Antonio.

Yeah.

That's a tough one, right?

I think I would rather have the second pick because I think both of us think Harper,

man, I did an all-day rookie deep dive yesterday in the top eight.

Yeah, I was getting the text.

I didn't even know what to do.

You were so excited.

I couldn't keep up with him.

Yeah, it was an all-dayer.

It would probably be the unknown of hoping like what Harper is now, projecting, like, okay, if this guy really figures it out and how seamless it feels like his college game in just one year as a freshman, just all the stuff that you see with him, you're like, okay, well, that's an NBA thing.

That's an NBA thing.

And the price control, all that stuff.

You probably would rather have the number two pick with Harper, but it's not.

It's not like.

I would personally rather have the number two pick.

If I'm San Antonio, I just want Wimbinyama and Harper and all the rest of the guys.

I'll figure it out later.

Fox, you name it.

I just know, like, give me these two.

I'm going to build my team around these two.

Even Castle, who I really like.

I would be like Wemby, Harper, maybe Castle.

And I would just be watching this OKC Indiana series on a loop going, what kind of team do we need to put in a game like this?

Athletically, from a playmaking standpoint, from a shooting standpoint, what does our team have to look like?

I would rather have the number two pick.

But yeah, that's the thing.

If they just go, hey, we're going to re-sign Jaron Jackson.

We have all these picks.

Maybe we'll make a move, maybe not.

And we're going to build around John Morant, a guy that everybody in Memphis loves.

and one of the 30 best guys in the league and Jaron Jackson, that's our team.

I don't think people would be upset about that, but I don't think they're making round two of the playoffs anytime soon, do you?

In the West?

Come on.

No, I don't think so.

I would think there's a lot of teams that really like Jaron Jackson, but a lot of the value of all of these picks, especially when we're talking about lottery picks, it's okay.

But if I hit it right, you know, the value of the unknown, the value of talking yourself into like the biggest ceiling ever for a player, because you haven't seen seen anything yet on an NBA court that tells you that somebody can't do it.

So, right.

The unknown always feels like it's more valuable than the known, which is probably a mistake in a lot of these transactions.

Because I love Jaron Jackson.

You know, I really do.

If it was just in a vacuum, like who would get more calls?

If you said, hey, Jaron Jackson or Bain's available, Jackson's getting more calls,

right?

You're not saying,

wow, wow.

The one year left on the deal makes me nervous.

I love that Bane is just, here's his contract.

Let's say this.

Let's say this, because, all right, fine.

But this kind of gets back to the whole like, that's a lot of money or, oh, he could leave in a year.

What if Jaron Jackson is telling you like the Siakam transaction with the Pacers?

It's like, I'm in.

I'm going to, I'll re-sign with you.

So if you know you can get Jaron Jackson re-signed versus Bain already being,

you're going to re-sign me, but I expect something in the high 40s, low 50s.

And I'll be like, so 50 million a year.

So that's 10 million per rebound a game.

That's what that's what we're pricing out.

Is it 9 million per rebound a game?

I don't know.

I just don't think he's a 50 million dollar player.

I don't.

Now, that doesn't mean he's not going to get it from somebody, but

I just think with this hard cap now, if you're paying him $50 million, it's going to be really hard to put a winning team around that.

Let's take a break because there's a lot more to discuss, including the KD ramifications of this trade.

This episode is brought to you by Miklob Ultra.

One of the best things about summer, all the different sports going on.

You might be playing volleyball, golf, tennis,

baseball.

Who knows?

There's so much to do.

If you really want to have some fun, spice things up with Miklob Ultra as the prize because winning always tastes better with Ultra.

on the line.

I'm a big tennis guy, especially during the summer.

Nothing better than a couple sets, sweat it all out.

The ultra is waiting for you.

Don't do this with pickleball because you shouldn't play pickleball.

Play tennis.

That's what the real people play.

Play tennis.

Have an ultra.

Superior is worth playing for.

You can fill your fridge with Miklobochra this summer at doordash.com.

Super easy.

Enjoy responsibly.

Copyright 2025 in Iser Busch, Michael Obltra, Light Beer, St.

Louis, Missouri.

All right, Rossello.

I looked at Fando.

They have the odds for the year 2026 NBA champion.

OKC is plus 220.

Cleveland is plus 850, second best odds.

The Knicks are plus 950, third best odds.

The Pacers are 12 to 1.

Celtics are 14 to 1.

I'll book that bet.

Orlando is 16 to 1.

Same odds as Denver.

The Celtics to be NBA champs next year.

I would book if somebody was going to bet that i'll i'll book that action you'll take it yeah i'll take that my bad my bad um orlando 16 to one with the with the one two three four

six best odds in the conference seems kind of excessive i would i would have them i'd probably have them second behind uh

indiana

right

or would you have cleveland over them they're in the top three cleveland's still too talented for vegas to just completely write them off so especially after 64 wins Yeah, you're right.

Anyway, 16-1 for them.

I'm trying to think for them to actually win some rounds next year,

Anthony Black would have to go to two other levels.

I assume he's the fifth guy, especially because now they've traded Cole.

I don't, unless there's some free agent I'm not thinking of, or maybe it's like they get like a Luke Cannard type or something, but they're still going to need that fifth guy out there in these crunch times with those four.

And I guess it's going to have to be Anthony Black.

What did you see from him last year?

What did you like and not like?

I liked him.

I think there's probably moments as a rookie where I was like, oh, this guy's going to be pretty good.

And then there wasn't enough progress from year one to year two with him.

But I still like him.

I like his playmaking.

I like his unselfishness.

But I mean, the key for him is,

you know, like the whole, remember like two years ago, we're sitting there with Jonathan Isaac and we're like, this guy's awesome.

Is this bill russell in the time machine

and

you

are

like oh this team can't play another non-shooter like this is a complete disaster um

and that's kind of the problem with black at least for the second year and the regression i mean he was under 40 from three granted he was only taking one and a half a game you know that's a bit like some of these bigs are it's like that guy's a 40 shooter from three it's like yeah he takes like one a game so it's not really a thing, even though the number is nice.

And he was 32% from three this year, taking two and a half a game.

So the minutes jumped up.

You know, he didn't start a lot of games.

He played.

I still think there was enough there.

I just feel like maybe that rookie year, I was more excited about him.

And then I expected a little bit more this year.

And it's not just about the shooting.

I think he's a smart player.

I think he's competitive.

Probably still needs to fill out a little bit more, but he's not playing.

He's not closing.

Yeah.

Do you think he's closing with Paolo, Bain?

I don't.

There's probably a Nether in There's a Derek Fisher, early 2010s type of.

But

it's the four and then whoever the center is.

And Wendell is underwhelming.

I think it's safe to say.

So you think it's

the four guys with the, you think it's the four guys with a center and they don't even play a point guard.

Yeah.

Well, what do you think it is?

Franz and Paolo are playing.

Sucks is playing.

Bane is playing.

So then it's who's the center?

You seriously think they'd run that?

I would want somebody that I know in certain situations could play crunch time if I wanted to go small with Paolo and Franz basically as my quote-unquote bigs.

I would want the flexibility to do either depending on who I'm playing.

Because what if I'm playing Indiana in game six and they just go small and put Toppin at the five and they have three guards and I basically have no guards out there?

I'm in trouble.

You know,

minutes.

I mean, Batazzi's been a nice little story.

Remember, they like spent their money last year, too, on

fast pace.

I thought he was

thought he was a little reckless in the Boston series.

I'm still mad about it.

Some elbows flying around.

Well, the other part of the odds for Orlando is people are probably thinking, like, even with Bain, it'd be nice to see him win a series.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, they're really young, so it's not like they had all these massive expectations.

But I'm going to just say a couple teams for John Morant, and you tell me when to stop.

Okay, so these are teams.

Memphis is calling and they're dangling John Morant, and the other team is not saying no thanks.

They're saying, Really?

We're going to talk amongst ourselves.

We'll call you back.

All right.

And I'm not going to say every team in the league.

And I'm not going to say teams that can't trade for him.

Atlanta

is Trey gone.

I think Trey has to be in the trade, right?

What are you doing if you're playing Trey and Ja next to each other?

No, I think Trey has to be in the trade going to Memphis.

But I just wanted to be sure, like, what you

Trey and Ja together would be an attempt to just completely ruin your brain during Leo.

I watch it.

Like, actually, the whole DeJante thing was test driving Ja and Trey.

Right.

All right.

So Ja and Atlanta seems like a good fit, though, just just in general.

How about Chicago?

I'm not totally against the,

you know what, though, you can't because Trey is a more stable guy that you can also count on who plays.

You're still thinking about the Atlanta trade?

Yeah, because, I mean, that one just, I mean, I was a little frazzled here when I, I was so ready for you to say something positive about the Celtics.

I completely misinterpreted a very normal phrase of like, I'll book your bets.

But I just expected, I was like, wait, you're still, it was like breaking news to me here in June of 25.

I was like, did Bill talk talk himself back into believing that they're a sneaky East contender?

And the answer is emphatic no.

And I'm so pretty

conditioned to think that you were going to actually, I got so excited.

I was like, he actually thinks they're going to win the East next year that I should have totally understood based on the phrasing.

I was like, no, you want people to make that bet.

All right.

So back to Atlanta, because I can't get over this one yet.

Let me throw it back.

Even if you think like Peak Jaw is better than Trey,

even if you don't like Trey, his stability,

you would never do this, even if you thought, like, okay, but Ja, there's like a little bit more of a ceiling.

I'm not even sure if there is that much more of a ceiling, but like, does Jaw feel like a bigger star?

Which is kind of a dumb conversation anyway.

Ja higher ceiling because he's,

I think if his head's on right, he's a better player.

And he also means more to Memphis, which is the other reason why it's tough to, I mean, as Verno has talked about many times, everyone in Memphis owns a Jaw jersey.

So if you're trading him, as stupid as this sounds, this does have Luka getting traded from Dallas kind of vibes where people are like, you traded Ja.

Everyone loves Ja.

So if you're going to do it, you have to get a good trade back, I think.

Take out the fan base part of it, too, because that's like the superstar conversation that's a little different.

Cause it's like Ja at one point felt like he was tracking towards being one of the faces of the league.

I know that might not be done yet.

He's only, he's only in his mid-20s.

He's still

a basketball player.

I, I just, I'm over his very

predictable approach to all this stuff.

I think he's going to get hurt all the time.

Um, and I think he's delusional.

I think he's a very delusional guy.

I would, I personally would trade him.

Uh, Chicago, so I guess that would be like Kobe White.

I'm not done yet.

You're not done yet.

You're still in Atlanta.

Yeah.

Who would you just rather have?

Like, not Trey's appeal in Atlanta.

Not

Trey.

I would rather have Trey.

At least I know what I'm getting.

Chicago, I guess, would be like a

Kobe White.

Some picks.

I don't know how that makes sense.

Is your pitch on this that you're kind of, if things go the right way, you're kind of getting a star, a very discounted star?

No, my pitch on this is a jaw trade is a lot harder than people think.

If people are like, Memphis is going to blow it up, they're going to trade Jajaron.

Like, we're going through the teams now.

Miami.

So I think Hero would have to be in that trade plus picks picks to get Memphis to do it.

I don't know.

Is Miami rolling the dice with John Morant?

I think they'll roll the dice on somebody that feels like a real.

Okay.

So we finally have a guy.

Yeah, I think Miami makes it.

All right, Miami first team.

Toronto, keep hearing Masai.

It's ready to do stuff.

It's going to be aggressive.

Don't count them out.

They'll trade for Durant for a year.

They don't even.

He did it with Kawhi.

Yeah, he did it with Kawaii when he had like a 57-win team.

He did it with Kawhi.

He didn't give up a lot for Kawhi.

Have you gone back and looked at that deal?

I mean, you probably remember it.

DeRosa.

Right.

And it was a top 20 protected pick that was Keldon Johnson at 29.

Yeah, you do that trade every time.

For one year.

And they also won the title, I forgot.

I'm going to roll out Toronto.

Brooklyn, I'm not.

You're ruling out Toronto for Jaw.

I just don't think they have anything to give up.

They're not trading Scotty Barnes for him and the rest of the stuff they have.

They're not getting him.

quickly.

No,

Brooklyn.

Yes.

Charlotte would have to be Lamello for Ja, which I think we've discussed on seven podcasts at this point.

It's a fun one.

Not against it.

It's a good who says no.

I think Charlotte probably says no ultimately, but it's a fun one.

Who says no?

Wait, you seem like you're percolating on that one.

You're just picking all of my favorites here.

you know

uh and then washton

it that just feels wrong it is because it is wrong yeah that just

brought in for them yeah front office group i mean i know it wasn't yesterday but i think jaw kind of disrupts the the team that trades for jaw and this used to be the old westbrook thing is that i know he puts up numbers and he's talented I personally feel this way about his approach to basketball and the flaws and how he fits in.

Like you have to hand the keys.

You give him the entire franchise.

And you only do that if you feel like you have been a stale franchise for a really long time without any direction or any kind of plan.

And before Orlando hits desperate.

Yeah.

And like before Orlando had hit on, you know, Franz and then winning the lottery and getting Paolo and be like, okay, we have real building blocks here.

Who knows how it's going to figure out?

But like there was, there was different years ago, different landing spots of like Westbrook.

It's like, would Westbrook to Orlando like work?

You know, hey, just you've got to

have traction.

Yeah.

But it happened in Washington.

So you could argue like it kind of happened in Washington.

It would at least feel like there's a three to four year plan here for the Wizards where you're a year in and you'd be completely derailing everything you've been, you know, hypothetically mapping out here by saying, like, okay, now we have John here and good luck.

It would be the most wizardy move in a while.

So then you go through the West and there's a lot less candidates.

There's really just one team that jumps out because I don't think New Orleans, it doesn't make sense.

And I don't think Utah would do it either.

Sacramento.

Everything you just said about a desperation, a malaise,

making a big swing, not being afraid.

They check a lot of boxes for a jaw trade.

I think Sabonis probably has to be in it because I don't think otherwise.

I don't think you're getting them for Levine and picks or whatever.

They don't really have a lot of assets, but maybe it's a three-way, but that's the only other team I looked at.

The point is, I think a job trade is hard for them.

Yeah, I think Vivek would do it.

I think he would too.

Yeah, I think that's the kind of thing that he would want to do.

Like, I thought Monty Dayer did a really good job of that team.

But I feel like

there's

like a lot of these teams, like sometimes you're like, what happened there or what went on there or whatever?

Like, we always have to remind ourselves, a lot of times the owner is going to say, hey, this is what I want to do, or this is what I'm going to do here.

They bring in Scott Perry.

So are Scott and Vivek aligned enough that it's like, hey, we're a little flat here.

We were close.

It was new for us, like, light the beam.

All that, like, they had some real momentum there, but you knew that that was like, that's not a high-ceiling team, but this is kind of fun that they're even in the mix considering their history and where they've been.

And that now, like, that building towards something, it's likely like, hey, that was it.

That was all it was going to be.

And, you know, five.

So the game seven against Golden State.

That's where it landed, right?

Steph had, yeah, 50.

One other thing I was thinking: could Memphis get a little sideways frisky?

Maybe be, maybe be no man, no man lands it.

No man's lands it.

I don't know what the phrase is.

KCP and Brandon Clark to Denver for Michael Porter Jr.

And they say, fuck it.

And then if you're Denver, you save salary.

You get two pieces for one.

You get out of the last two years of Porter's deal.

And if you're Memphis, you're like, let's take a fire on him.

The guy's talented.

Put him in the bane spot.

Maybe he can capture 85% of his scoring.

And then we just got all these picks.

Because whoever's trading for Porter, I like what you did there.

He can't ever be expected to be anything more than your third option.

That's the best case scenario.

And if you were to bring him in, being like, we're going to have him.

Wait, he's going to be, you know, you can just already see the headlines that are fake.

We're going to get him more in the actions.

Yeah, right.

He just needs more touches.

Yeah.

He's a feel guy.

And when it's right, it's beautiful.

It's nuts what he can do.

6'10, those pull-ups off the dribble.

When it's right, you realize why this guy for a very long time at a young age was projected to be this dude.

And there's always these glimpses, but him, kind of back to the other thing we were talking about, him not with Jokic somewhere else.

If you think that you're two-manning it and Porter's your one or two every single night, you just, I don't even know how many teams would even think that.

But I like what you did there for Memphis.

Thank you.

Well, there's a bigger picture thing that ties into that Jalen Greed train I mentioned earlier.

The one that didn't happen.

The one that hasn't happened yet.

And maybe by the time this podcast goes up, Durant will get traded to somebody else and this whole section will be moot.

But I do think, and there's a second piece of this that I want to talk about about why I don't think San Antonio, why I think something is changing about their philosophy of what to do big picture.

I think it makes the most sense for Durant to go to Houston.

And the trade that makes sense has to have Jalen Green in it from a salary standpoint with Jabari, who I think both of us really like.

Maybe Whitmore is in it.

And they give Phoenix back their 27 pick.

I think we like Jabari, but we're running out of time.

We realistically like him.

Yeah.

But if they can then flip Green to Memphis and get their other pick back,

and Phoenix can at least write the ship for the next two years.

That gives them a lot more flexibility with Booker to be a little more patient.

And maybe they could do what OKC did with SGA, where, remember, SGA, OKC was just sitting him for two years, basically.

There was one year where he just, after the all-star break, we just didn't see him again.

They just punted on two years.

I don't know if Sarborough would have the patience to do that, but it leads to the KD thing, which I think we have to talk about

because it feels like that's going to happen pretty imminently.

He said the three teams he would sign an extension to as reported last night were San Antonio,

Miami, and Houston.

So the two Texas teams in Miami.

Minnesota, I don't think could ever figure out the Go Bear, Defincenzo.

I just don't think they had enough.

The salaries were weird.

They're both hardcap teams.

And I thought it was going to be San Antonio.

Okay, so where are you on that?

Because a week ago, you were heavy on San Antonio.

I was.

And I'm not calling you out for it.

I just want to know, like, tell us of your journey the last seven days.

Let's say we're working for the Spurs.

We find out we have the number two pick.

Harper's clearly the second pick.

I think we can both agree.

And now we're just crunching Harper tape for a month.

And at some point, we look at each other and go, what are we doing?

This guy's clearly should be the second pick.

This guy's a potential franchise guard.

He looks like he's a combination of Cade Cunningham and Jalen Brunson, and I don't even know what else, but he's a really unique, awesome athlete.

He's herky jerky.

He's crafty.

There's stuff he's doing at age 19 where he's like moxy.

Yeah, he's got guile.

A lot of moxy and guile.

And you're like, hey, the Deer and Fox, no-brainer.

We didn't have to give up a lot for him.

We wink-winked.

Maybe we'd give him an extension, but this is kind of our guy.

Maybe the move is to just take Harper, move away from Fox, not do the Durant trade.

And maybe our window is in right now.

Maybe our window is like three, four years from now when Wemby's 24, 25, when this kid has been in the league a couple years, castles come up, maybe we could kind of emulate what OKC has

and build up through this nucleus.

Why are we trading any assets for Durant now?

We're not going to win the title.

It just makes me, I don't think Fox and Harper make sense together.

I don't get it.

A couple things.

There's maybe nothing I hate more than this idea that everybody's supposed to be locked into this kind of timeline.

Right.

Right.

Like

the Dallas Mavericks talking about a timeline as if it was like, like, we're smarter than everybody.

Like, you know, we, we need to be about defense and the way AD is paired with Kyrie.

And it's like, everybody's supposed to be within three fucking years of each other for you to be doing it.

Like, like, Duncan couldn't use Genoi or Tony Parker.

Like, those guys are too young.

You know, right?

It's not the same timeline.

All this stuff is so stupid.

And all of us bring it up constantly about like, well, if you have a guy who's like in year six, but then you have a lottery pick, it's like, well, who knows?

Maybe when you likely don't win the championship, your best player who's only in year nine and likely came in after one year and is 28 or 29 years old, and you pair him with a guy you've completely nailed and he's terrific in his second year.

Guess what's good about that?

He's a really good player playing next to the other guy.

And it doesn't mean that they have to be 28 or 26.

It drives me fucking crazy because everybody defaults to it all the time.

Now,

that makes it sound like I'm totally aligned with you and I think the Durant thing is really stupid.

I feel like I could be talked into this either way.

Where if the price on Durant is Harrison Barnes, Vesselle, who I think we all like, but

what's the ceiling there?

As of this point, like he probably feels a little bit more like an opportunity score than just a dynamic, like nobody can do anything with this guy.

If it's Barnes and it's like some other later pick,

it's Barnes Vassell, the 14th pick in some future pick that's okay, but not awesome.

I would also do that trade in five seconds.

Why not?

It gets me excited a little bit about: all right, well, let's see what happens here because this is a guy who can bring in, and you know, he's going to put up numbers.

Even when he was miserable coming off of that summer, going into Brooklyn, he put up huge numbers until he was then pretty quickly miserable again by the trade deadline and ended up getting his way out.

So, well, I also

want to be there is the other piece.

If he wants to be there, he believes the Austin, San Antonio area.

I really do.

I think he likes that area.

Okay.

I don't know.

I don't know because

you're also betting on somebody who finds a way to be unhappy everywhere he goes.

As much as we love him as a player, like that's on him.

And I see him arguing.

It's only been the last seven years.

You're right.

It has only been the last seven.

It hasn't been a full decade.

It's only been seven years.

And the last three stops.

So, you know, based on pricing and, hey, we do this, and I would think every team wants to do the two-year extension with them.

I I don't understand why you'd be trading kind of anything for a one-year rental of Durant.

I know the numbers at two years, $122 million, which he's eligible for after July 6th.

I don't know why he would wait another six months to do two years, $124 million.

I hear that one talked about all the time.

It's like, well, if you're Durant, you go, it's okay.

I'll risk the other $2 million with my injury history at this stage of my life.

I'll take the 122 now.

And I'd imagine that he would want that.

It also reminds me a bit of the Jimmy Butler thing.

Jimmy Butler didn't like Golden State until Golden State was the only option.

And they go, opt in, and then we'll tack on the next year.

So you're going to get another year at like max money.

It's like, you know what?

Maybe I could do this Golden State thing.

So that could be the Minnesota thing.

Minnesota's not on my list.

Oh,

you're going to promise me two years?

How?

Now you are on my list.

Right.

Everybody has a million options in their head and all their preferences and the things they will do or they won't do until it's like, okay, well, all those things you thought were in play, you don't get to decide.

You don't have those options are not on your terms.

So now here are the only things that are left.

So now you got to pick one of these.

And a lot of times you're picking one that you didn't think you were even going to do.

You're trying to talk yourself out of it.

So on the other part of the Spurs part, which kind of speaks to criticizing my own timeline thing here, is if the Spurs, if we came out, although, you know, you don't hear a lot from the Spurs, they just went, hey, Durant, at this stage, in the two years, $122 million.

We're really excited about Harper.

We'll see how it fits with Fox for a year.

It probably is a little redundant there.

There's a lot of overlap in their games.

Um, you know, can Fox later on play off a little bit more than he did before?

That seems kind of stupid to have DeAron Fox playing off of him.

He already couldn't do that with Halliburton in Sacramento, so I'm going to guess it's still not going to happen, which would be the funniest thing for Fox.

It's like you got to stay because of Halliburton, and then they got Dylan Harper, which they didn't expect.

Clearly, they didn't think they were getting Dylan Harper when they make that trade, and now you get spun out for the new young guy, which was again the opposite of what happened there with Halliburton.

I have now, if if I've, I've talked about this enough this week,

I don't really like it.

I would say, hey,

are we really solving anything here?

Are we just more interesting for 25, 20?

Yeah.

And it's also going to cost us another $122 million for a guy that does get hurt.

And who knows if he's pissed off about being here in a year and goes, oh, you know, I only have one year left.

Or, you know, he does the extension.

It's like he plays two years.

I don't think it makes a ton of sense.

I really don't.

I don't think I do it, even though the price isn't that bad.

We agree because the difference with them in Houston,

San Antonio has no reason to be desperate at all.

What do they care?

Right?

They have this amazing roster of assets and picks and all these other things.

It's not like they're like, oh, we got to cap this off and get Durant.

Whereas I look at Houston.

I actually think Houston not only needs Durant,

but becomes a really interesting team if they can add him and all they give up is Jabari and Jalen Green and Cam Whitmore and they give Phoenix their pickback.

I still really like the nucleus of their team.

Like post-trade, they would have Shengun and Adams.

They'd have KD and Ahmed Thompson.

They'd have Eason and Brooks and Whitmore.

They would have Van Vleet and Shepard and the 10th pick.

That's a lot to work with just to throw Durant.

And what was the one thing they needed last year was a guy to score at the end of games.

So it's a home run across the board, I think, for them.

If that was the price, and I just don't think San Antonio is going to top that from a price.

So,

well, he wanted Houston apparently last year.

I don't know why Houston would be giving back that Phoenix unprotected pick that they were able to get in the Brooklyn thing, which has worked out for Houston because at the time, it's like,

I mean, I went through all the Houston-Brooklyn stuff when we did the show together just almost, you know, almost exactly a year ago.

It was like, what did Brooklyn do here?

It's like, well, Brooklyn wasn't going to do the trade for Bridges unless they knew they could get their picks back.

So you could sit there and say, well, you're giving up these valuable Brooklyn picks.

It's like, well, you don't know what Brooklyn's going to do.

They're not going to get rid of Bridges unless they know they're going to get their picks back.

And then you're looking at, well, there's a chance, especially with Dallas winning, it's like, what if they had won the lottery?

You know, like Houston gives that pick back.

But now it looks like Stone pulled off another one here because it's going to be four picks for the two.

You've made it through the scary part of like, like, where's the picture?

We both liked the trade for Houston, though, when that happened.

We were like, cool.

Like they're, they basically leveraged, they took advantage of Brooklyn kind of panicking, right?

I think we liked the trade for them.

Well, Brooklyn couldn't tank unless they knew they were getting their picks back.

So they were paying a premium.

They're paying that.

They're paying the VIG.

But a year ago, the conversation and then in the fall was like, what if Brooklyn ends up, you know, they gave him that pickback?

But it wasn't, it wasn't that

there was clearly the thing in front of it.

So, you think that's too much for Durant to also include the Phoenix pick?

Yeah, I think Phoenix is a mess right now, like not trending in the right direction.

So, why would I help them stabilize

in front of that?

What if Phoenix says that's the only way you're getting Durant?

Then I'd be like, let's fucking Jabari this up.

I think I agree with you.

Although, if you're not going to be able to do that,

I wouldn't trade Durant to Phoenix unless I got my own pickback.

Like, if Houston's like, How about the 10th pick?

I'd be like, No, I want my pickback.

I need my pickback.

When the deal happened last year and they have the 27 Phoenix pick that's unprotected, I thought that was the single most valuable asset

in all this stuff.

Yeah.

And

I don't know that, look, if you would talk to us, if we were having this conversation right after game seven, where it's like, hey, guess what?

Offense wasn't great in clutch moments.

Like it was Houston's.

Who saw that coming, right?

This feels like a very solvable plug and play.

Throw them in there.

You'd wonder if you were Houston and you're talking to Phoenix, going like, all right, well, what's, I mean, they don't know what the hell the rest of their plan is going to be.

I mean, we've got to keep reminding ourselves how quickly these things change, but the unknown of what that 27 pick could be, I'm not interested in doing that for somebody with KD that isn't a complete, it's a slam dunk from the scoring thing in the fourth quarter for 25-26, but it's an expensive $122 million for the years beyond that.

And, you know, his habit of, you know, you really wish one of these picks that they had had turned into some sort of super polished closer in the fourth quarter.

As much as you can love Emen Thompson, it probably feels like a reach to think that he's going to be closing playoff games and being their number one scoring option.

And then Durant just eases up everything else for everybody else.

I would be very reluctant to want to get rid of that 27 pick.

Or could you use a lot of those assets with something else and try to get somebody younger than Durant?

Like

Jalen Brown, who I don't even know if is available.

Who do you think is more valuable, Jalen Brown or Kevin Durant?

Jalen Brown.

It's not even close.

He's 10 years younger,

right?

I was looking at the Durant stuff.

He's 37 years old in September.

He's played 18 seasons.

He's played 11,023 games and 170 playoff games.

So he's almost at 1,300 combined games.

He's played 41,000 regular season minutes, 7,000 playoff minutes.

So he's getting close to 50,000.

If you just look at the numbers of,

hey, 37 and over, who's averaged 20 a game?

It's LeBron, it's Carl Malone, it's Kareem, and it's that one Michael Jordan wizard season.

So this is like the rarest of rare territory just to be good after this age, right?

And then you think he's had foot fracture.

He had the

Achilles.

He had some knee stuff,

seven feet tall.

You know, so there's that.

But then, on the other hand, in the 2020s, just this decade, he's averaging 28, 7, and 5, 53%, 42% from three.

Like, he's been pretty steady offensively.

There's been some slate athletic signs of decline that I've I've seen just from like the defense and rim protection.

And

I wouldn't say he's 2014 KD,

but he's 88% there, 85%.

I don't know.

I just don't know how many more years he has left because NBA history says this isn't going to go in a great direction from here.

You know, so that speaks to your Phoenix point.

You're trading, you're not trading for a sure thing.

Whereas if I'm trading for somebody like Jalen Brown or even Desmond Bain,

I know I'm getting like the best years of their career right now.

With Durant, I don't know I'm getting

all fair.

I mean, none of this is new to anybody that's paying attention to the league as much as his scoring is like you're so enamored, but like run through all of the stuff.

And by the way, I need to clean it up.

I knew as soon as I said it, Genobi and like Duncan are the same age, but he didn't play for three years.

No, but he came in, he was in 03, he was

young, and Duncan was my point.

Still stands bad, bad little tidbit on that one based on the technicality of the same age.

Anyway, here's the thing: go through it all.

Like, if I'm, if I'm Stone in Houston, I'm like, okay, so what's your Miami offer?

Right?

It's Wiggins.

It's Wiggins

and where?

Well, I don't know if they'll do where.

It's Wiggins, one of the young guys we don't like, and then a pick, and then maybe a swap.

All right.

Okay.

What's Minnesota's offer?

Go Bear and Definso?

Or it's

Dillingham Dillingham is the exciting thing.

Because, I mean, there's so many different problems that they have, especially if they have to wait and like assign a trade.

I wouldn't put him in there.

Would you?

I really like Durant in Minnesota.

I could probably live with it knowing how jammed up they are.

But I mean, we want to start running through.

Like, if they didn't do,

I was looking at it this morning.

I don't know how Minnesota goes from how expensive this team is going to be and why they did the cat deal,

knowing that his numbers at the end.

But I mean, if you were at Anne Anne at $49 million, this is in 25, 26.

Yeah.

Or maybe I did it.

I was doing, yeah.

KD at 60 million, Jaden at 26 million, which look, five years, 130 million for him.

You know, it's not, it's not cheap, it's not terrible.

Nas,

the numbers on what that could be for what he wants.

I'm just guessing 30.

Right?

25 to 30, like minimum.

great guess nobody has cat nobody has free agent uh

i don't know who i guess from a cap space standpoint maybe there's not a lot of people with cap space maybe he goes for 20 25 i don't know so it's if it's di vincenzo and goberts out and so that means randall staying which now you're like okay so who's playing center you didn't mention alexander walker yet who's an unrestricted free agent they're just going to punt on him to me he's just gone i mean i he doesn't he doesn't work in any of this stuff i know but that's so that's a loss even that i thought he i don't know how they were going to redo randall and then sign nas and then keep alexander walking would you redo randall

i would not

so you would just let him what opt in and we'll talk to you next year yeah

i would i would play chicken with him

yeah i think that's the right move there okay so anything that has cap space is is brooklyn going to sign julius randall probably not

totally aligned on that one you just never know because sometimes they'll be like, all right, we're going to do this.

And then you,

I don't, you know, again, we've seen different versions of this.

Anyway, the point is, is let's keep Randall at that $30 million number on the player option.

That's $190 million with those guys.

So you're just below the first apron.

And I've been

filled out seven spots.

Yeah, and I'm not counting the stuff, you know, some of the smaller stuff that's already on the books here with different roster stuff.

Again, back to the exercise of that 27 pick that's unprotected from Phoenix that Houston currently owns.

Now, what's the Knicks deal?

I like OG.

I like Mitchell Robinson.

I've never liked Mitchell Robinson more than I do right now.

All right.

That guy was a motherfucker in the playoffs.

Knicks fans, I get it.

I get it.

All right.

Like him to stay healthy.

You can make the same health argument about Desmond Bain, by the way, but we've already done the Desmond Bain part of the pod.

So what's Toronto's deal?

Hey, do you want expensive former Knicks or expensive former Pelicans?

We got you.

All right.

Now, not impossible, not impossible.

Maybe there's one guy in that group that the group in Phoenix actually really likes, and they feel like it's stable, and then they get a center out of it, and they're like, hey, Booker, we're going to try to do this.

But what if, what if, whatever this is, as we're running through all these assets, you know, is Reed Shepard more valuable than the 27 unprotected?

Potentially.

Or maybe Houston still loves Reed Shepard so much, they'd rather do something else.

Maybe they'd rather trade the pick in 27 than even Reed Shepard.

I feel like if I'm Houston, I'm sitting on either the Shepard part of it, the 27, that's like, that's better than Gobert aging out at 35 million a year.

That's better than Dillingham.

That's better than whatever the heat are going to throw at you here.

It's probably better than Vessell and then Harrison Barnes.

They can throw it at two.

They don't have to put in number 10 or they don't have to put in 2027.

You're right.

They don't have to do that.

They might have to say, hey, Jalen Green is the second pick in the draft.

Jabar's also

have the two picks in 29 where they get the two best picks between Dallas, Phoenix, and I believe themselves in 29.

So there's other avenues.

Okay, but

as quick as these things happen, like, what if,

what if

Houston did the deal and it's Booker's like, this Jalen Green thing sucks, right?

Or this isn't working out.

And then you start realizing that Booker's like, hey, I tried it in the beginning.

I was patient.

The Chris Paul stuff was great.

We tried it with these three guys.

This sucks.

Beal's still hanging out.

He just bought another condo in Scottsdale.

He says, I'm never leaving.

Bill Jenned, another golf club.

He's decapitated.

He's the four country clubs.

I'm not going anywhere.

He's down to an 80-handicap.

Yeah, he's never felt better about his approach.

Short game is great right now.

There's just so many unknowns where I feel like all of us could be like, oh, just throw a pick in there, throw a pick in there.

If you compare it, and maybe there's another secret thing out there,

that's a really valuable piece.

I mean, are you with me on this at all?

Or do you think I'm going to be able to do it?

No, he swayed me a little.

The case for it would be, can we actually make the finals if we make this trade?

Right.

We still have an awesome nucleus.

It's basically green in Jabari for Durant.

And then we threw some other stuff in there that we can't use right now anyway.

And that's the trade.

But I think the who are we bidding against if San Antonio is like, ah, we're getting Dylan Harper.

I don't know.

And then Miami, I just don't think has the kind of assets to swim in this pool, right?

I guess they could throw a bunch of firsts down the road, but why are you doing that for Kevin Durant in his 19th season?

Here's another timeline to revisit.

We've already touched on it.

Last year, it was, you were hearing Durant wanted to go to Houston.

So I feel good about him actually wanting to go there.

And I imagine his team is telling whoever it is, because there's no other option.

It's waiting six months for the extra $2 million.

They're going to want to, in the beginning of July, say, we need that two years, $122 million extension.

Durant's like, cool, just pocketed another.

I thought it was $112.

Excuse me.

No, I thought it was an extra $12 million if you waited six months.

I asked Bobby Marks this morning.

Okay.

Well,

it's 122 versus 124.

He's going to grab the money.

You're right.

Why would he wait six months?

Well, I saw it talked about a few times.

I was like, I need to look that up.

I mean, it's hard to keep track of all this shit, right?

And then whatever taxes, like, like, there's no point.

And I don't know if you've heard this, but there's no state income tax in Texas.

What?

Did you know this?

Oh, yeah.

Huge advantage for the stars.

So

he wanted Houston last year.

There was a TV report that said they wanted it, Phoenix wanted to trade him.

I was lucky enough to talk to someone.

We said it on the pod.

It was like, I talked to somebody to say, they're not trading.

They're not trading.

They didn't trade him.

All right.

This Minnesota thing happened before the deadline.

Supposedly, Durant was kind of open to the Minnesota thing.

Doesn't mean I'm right.

And by the way, all of the things I'm about to say could be completely irrelevant.

Golden State had the deal done and then found out, no, I don't want to go back there.

So I've also seen it talked about where it's like, well, they want to do right by Durant this time around because he was left out of the process.

If anything, you could argue that Golden State and Miami kind of went through the process of it all last year, or I should say this year before the trade deadline.

And then once they had something in place, instead of wasting his time and updating him and his team all the time, it's like, hey, we could do this.

Do you want to do it?

That's being involved.

He says he wants to do it.

So he can't really play the card of like he was left out of this process and it was somewhat disrespectful.

So whether or not he wanted to play with Ant and wanted to go to Minnesota in February, I don't even know if that's true.

It appears that's not what he wants to do now.

I heard it was like a five or six team,

it got too complicated.

It was one of the issues.

In February, in February.

Yeah, because there was no way to do it.

What do you believe now?

Do you think he wants?

Do you think Minnesota?

Because it's not brought up.

I think he wants to go to Texas.

I heard Minnesota, Miami, and Texas are all the favorites at different points of the week.

I would not rule out him wanting to be in Miami, but Miami feels like it's,

I mean, unless they love Khalil Ware,

which there's a lot of nice stuff from him.

What's he doing in Miami other than he gets to live in Miami?

What's going to happen?

Should we ask that question then?

I just don't think you're even in the Eastern Finals with that nucleus.

Nothing's happening.

Houston is the only team

that I feel like he could elevate.

I even have real questions about him with Edwards.

That feels dueling banjos to me.

I don't.

Sometimes it is, and sometimes it's an awesome situation.

It's like another

Booker situation where there's a lot of Durant standing in the corner, like, I guess I'm not in this one.

And he has that weird body language thing he gets going from time to time.

i'll just be over here guys

whereas houston they'd be like please take us home here's the ball

eight minutes left do your thing like they don't have anybody else other than shangoon but it is funny how when teams have one option as that closing scorer and it's like man he needs help and that's what ant needed but i looking at those possessions this is where we disagree i don't think he needed help i think he needed a point guard

that's what they need i wouldn't for if I'm going to make trades, I'm not trading for Kevin Durant.

I want to get like a somebody who can actually handle the ball and take pressure off Edwards and get fast breaks.

Conley was in that OKC series.

Conley looked like he was 50 years old.

That was why they lost.

They couldn't bring the ball up.

It wasn't because they didn't have enough scoring.

That's how I watched the series.

Conley Western Conference Finals moment.

It was, I thought it was going to be bad.

It was way worse.

And listen, I just went to a second half of a game four where Lou Dort was looking at Hall Burton, who's one of the best guards in the league, and was like, you're not dripping the ball over half court.

I'm not letting you do it.

So poor Mike Conley is 37.

That was like his worst.

He's probably in bed, like fucking seeing nightmares of Lou Dort and Caruso.

I think they need a point guard.

I don't think Durant changes their destiny at all.

Okay.

And there's also a funny thing that we've already touched on here before.

Imagine if Houston gets Durant and is ramped up and it's 25 versus 2018.

You're like,

hey, we're the team best positioned to try to take on.

Oh, it's like we're rebooting this?

Yeah, same situation.

Like in 10 years from now, where there's just this epic player and he's on another team and the guy's like, hey, Houston, do you want to be the one that goes in there first?

And he tries to give this a shot.

So year 19 of Durant, I just don't think gets discussed enough and all this stuff.

Now, maybe he can keep it going for two more years, three more years, but this is, we are now at the point.

LeBron defied it.

Carl Malone, who even if the stats say he was still pretty awesome, if you actually watch those games post the two finals, he was at a slightly different point in his career.

Jordan and the Wizards, Kareem near the end, like LeBron's the only one who's defied it.

And by the way, LeBron hasn't been in the finals since 2020.

So, you know, like, When you go to these games and you see how young and athletic everybody is, like, there's a reason for that.

It's really hard to win four rounds in a row and you're an older player it's almost impossible the only reason bill russell was able to do in 1969 was because the series was shorter and it was three rounds like he didn't have to win 16 playoff games i just think counting on old guys is really hard we agree i mean when you run through all this stuff you don't need to i think everybody listening for the most part but it is still the rant and whoever gets to introduce

brand new jersey i think you're right if they could be jabari and jalen green

some other pick that's not the 10th pick or the Phoenix pick,

that's my offer.

And if you can top it, so be it.

Jalen Green's still young, had some really good moments in the league, and we both like Jabari.

But I'd like to see more from Jabari.

Can I end with one last thing, though?

Yeah.

You just said it.

Okay, he's been in the league this long, right?

He hasn't been happy the last few stops.

It makes sense because we think he cares about hooping so much that he would want to go someplace that at least has a chance to contend in the next year or or whatever, the next three, if he likesly, I still would imagine he's going to get the extension if teams are given up.

If you're giving up Jalen Green and Jabari, you probably still want control of the asset as opposed to, like, well, let's see what happens in the summer of 26.

I can't imagine any team wanting to do that.

But would there be like a long-form feature by Brian Windhorst if he ended up on Miami, where it was like

the role model,

Kevin Durant, never thought he would have the Bradley Beal story.

And they're like, why South Beach, Kevin?

He just goes,

why the fuck not?

We'll take a break.

This episode is brought to you by the Home Depot.

Labor Day savings are happening right now at the Home Depot, so you can get more out of your outdoor space this fall.

The Home Depot has a wide selection of cordless outdoor power equipment that makes it easy to clear your lawn starting at just $79.

You got to love a power tool.

Then why not make those colors pop with string lights and mums that bloom all season long?

Shop Labor Day savings now through September 3rd only at the Home Depot.

This episode is brought to you by Prime.

Prime delivery is fast.

How fast are we talking?

We're talking a cooler for your snacks, a folding chair, a Bluetooth speaker, and a six pack of your favorite seltzer delivered by tomorrow.

Fast.

Oh, yeah.

Extra napkins, last minute guac bowls, backup phone chargers, even a replacement remote.

Fast.

I feel like I've ordered all those things.

We're talking everything you need for game day, fast, fast-free delivery.

It's on-prem.

Quickly, San Antonio, I forgot to mention one thing.

If they did trade Darren Fox

and they just went Wemby, Harper, Castle, let's go.

I'm just going to throw a couple of fake trades at you just for fun.

Fox to brooklyn for 8 19 and 27.

does brooklyn have a meeting yeah

okay let's say that happens could they then flip eight 14 and 27 to move up to four

to charlotte for for our guy kinniple

basically turning fox into knipple with a couple other assets

Kind of fun.

That timeline would make sense.

Much more like the analogy where I should have said Kawhi Leonard Leonard instead of Genobi for Duncan.

Yeah, yeah.

Is there a Trey Murphy possibility where Fox could go to Brooklyn and then you take, you basically do the Bane trade with the extra picks you have, more stuff, and try to get Trey Murphy from New Orleans, who I think is gettable if you just do the Bane price, maybe even more.

That's the kind of trade I would rather see them do than Durant.

There's one other one, though.

Tell me what you think of this.

If they're keeping Fox,

if they just dropped from two to three

and got McCain in the trade from Philly,

so they would still be picking a three and they could take Knipo or Trey Johnson or Ace Bailey, whatever they want.

And they get McCain, but I also don't feel like Philly's giving up quite enough.

What is that trade for you?

If it's McCain and three

plus what to move up a spot?

Cork Moss, they still have his rights.

I don't think they have his rights anymore.

Or is that just a no-go?

You're keeping Harper.

No one in the NBA would trade out of the two into the three.

That's how I feel, too.

I just wanted to talk it out.

I don't think.

So even if Utah was like, we'll give you marketing and five to move up to two, and we'll throw in some extra stuff, they're still like, no, thank you.

Yes.

Yeah.

That's why I think they should trade the Aaron Fox.

We got to talk finals.

We're going to do do a whole bunch of draft stuff, but

I guess we'll do it next Sunday.

I was prepped.

I'll be even more prepped next week.

I have some people.

I will say, I'll give you this.

I'll give you this little tidbit.

Nemhart's, in my draft prep, Nemhart's brother, who's like a late second rounder, I bought some stock.

Ryan Nemhart on Gonzaga, averaged almost 10 assists a game last year.

I watched him film.

I like him.

Only 5'11.

You're doing second rounders already.

I just, he was, he was, I already have my sleeper.

The finals, what'd you see in game four?

You didn't get to talk about it on pod.

There was a moment in the third quarter where I was very surprised to see how just out of sorts OKC was on offense again.

And it was a lot of like, SGA, can you come back and take the ball?

Can you come back and take the ball?

And it was the first moment in the entire finals where I was like, maybe this is actually going to happen.

I mean, sometimes this stuff has to happen.

Sometimes we have to have these great stories.

This is why we keep coming back.

The sports need to be unpredictable for us to continue to be entertained.

Because what if, what if the ball just bounces the right way?

And in that moment, I'm like, what is up with this OKC offense?

This is awful.

I felt the same way sitting in my seat.

It was like a five-minute stretch where you're like, my God,

this is going to happen.

Right.

Really, I really did feel it.

It felt like they had kind of mentally broken OKC a little bit.

Yeah, it wasn't the first quarter.

It wasn't that building.

Third quarter.

It was that third quarter where I went, holy shit.

Like I had to like almost just have a moment with myself being like, this might actually happen.

And I think this is important because you didn't catch it because I want to get to you more than me because I was at home watching it.

But on the broadcast, it's like a six-point game, but it felt like 12.

It felt like the 12, like OKC is down six and it feels like 12 against the Pacers, but that's just how impressive the Pacers had been.

And on the broadcast, you have Doris, you have Breen, you have Richard Jefferson, and it's like, hey, this is still a six-point game.

And it was like nine minutes to go, but they were right.

It would be easy if you didn't experience it in real time.

It'd be right to be making fun of the announcers and be like, why are you telling us it's a six-point game?

As if anybody's changing the channel.

But it, the control of the game just favored the Pacers, and it was so

aligned with what we saw saw in game three that

you're like,

all right, I guess they just kind of figured this team out.

And yet, like, why would I be doubting a 68-win team?

Like, OK, see, why would he be doubting this team that has the best point differential in NBA history?

And they're down six, and you're like, kind of worried about them.

And I thought the announcing crew did such a great job of relaying that vibe that it's only six points.

It's only six points.

And they said it a couple of different times.

And instead of being critical of something that would seem like almost an observational mistake it was the perfect way to sum up how the game felt and then

sga happens a bunch of different stuff you were there what did you think well i remember i turned to i was sitting with my friend chen and at one point okc was one for 12 from three

and indiana was 11 for 27

and they're up eight

so they're plus 10 on threes but they're up eight and we were just like this is i can't we couldn't believe okc was still in the game it felt like they especially when that sequence wappen hit the two threes and the crowd went nuts.

And it just felt like OKC was dying to be knocked out for about three minutes and they couldn't do it.

And they hung around and they hung around.

And then

the only reason not to count them out was just how crazy the defense was.

I said it.

I went on Zach's Pod Friday.

I was saying

I don't think I've ever seen defense like that in person.

I've seen rim protection defense that was as good.

This was different.

This was

attacking whoever had the ball 50 feet from the hoop and making it impossible for them to even start the offense.

It was like shit you would see

in like a high school game where

some crazy guy is like the, he's won 500 career games in Long Island and he has this crazy press and the other team can't get it over half court.

That's what it felt like, but it was Halliburton and Nemhard.

Like these guys are good guards that are good ball handlers.

And Dort was just standing there on the logo, just wiping people out.

And then you have Caruso, and then you have Jalen Williams, who I thought was really, really awesome in that game and really took it to Siakam.

And just athletically, that it just eventually won out.

And

I just, I thought Dort was the MVP.

I said that the other day.

I know SJ had 15 in the fourth quarter and came through in the end, but I thought what Dort did all game and the physicality and the intensity and just how he kept fucking with Hall Burton,

Really hard to do.

He's the first guy, all playoffs, who's kind of

slowed down Halbert

to the point where if you're on a show going, they need Halberton needs to step up.

It's like, you're not watching.

You don't understand what's happening with this.

Like, Lou Doord is impossible to go by.

So I thought that was why they won.

And then SGA, I didn't see.

So when we were sitting in the seats, that after the three, that pushoff shot where he traveled,

I just didn't see that angle.

That was an amazing no-call.

It was like we didn't cover that on the Friday night thing.

That was really rough because he definitely pushed off and he definitely traveled.

And Foster was just staring at it and didn't do anything.

Really tough call.

Do you want to talk about the extender?

He was bad for both teams.

There was no, I talked about it Friday night.

There was no rhyme or reason for the calls.

There were touch fouls being called.

There was Dort and Caruso just kind of shoving guys away at midcourt to get the ball or create steals or running through picks.

I just, I didn't understand what a foul was in that game.

They're bad for everybody.

Both coaches were mad.

Both benches were mad.

It was just all over the place.

The two SGA plays that everybody has talked about, I don't think officiating had anything to do with the game.

I rarely do.

But I don't like rewarding the offensive player for initiating that contact on Neesmith on the one at the free throw line.

But Neesmith is also on a heater of fouling, which is to be expected.

He's averaging over five fouls per 36 minutes, which,

according to NBA.com, is the highest foul rate of any player who's played 175 minutes or more.

But that's how Neesmith plays.

But it's very, it's playing out like that regular season game that I keep referencing.

There was a few things that I thought, okay, oh, that's interesting.

That's interesting.

Is that whether it's Jalen Williams or SGA?

And it's really when Jalen Williams gets him, he's like, I'm going to kill Neesmith.

So Neesmith, this hyperactive physical defender, Jalen Williams is like, you have nothing for me.

Okay.

And to the point where they were running that two-man game, which is something that if you track it, there's not a lot of on-ball screens being set by SGA throughout the course of the regular season.

And that he and Jalen Williams started doing it for each other.

And the hope was to get Neesmith because they needed to get Nemhar off of Halliburton.

Yeah.

So there's this, and everybody's been talking about this now.

Yeah.

Yeah, excuse me, SGA, trying to get him off of SGA.

He's just doing such a good job with it.

But they started working this like two-man thing and setting screens in ways that it's just not something that they normally do, which is, you know, look, the Pacers will be ready for it in game five if they want to go back to that kind of stuff.

But the whole point of it is, let's get Neesmith in the action.

Let's get Neesmith in the action.

And yeah, there was a lot of free throws and everything, but I want to stay on this because I've heard about it so much, especially with Scott Foster being involved in it.

A part of this game that's a little easier to miss

is that the Thunder were called for four fouls on defensive rebounds within six minutes of the fourth quarter.

And there was a fifth foul on Neesmith.

So for the whole idea of that, hey, let's extend this series, let's get OKC back to 2-2 and all that kind of shit.

That's why Foster's on the game.

They called five fouls on the Thunder and got the Pacers into the bonus with over six minutes to go.

And again, four of them.

I don't know that I've seen that very often.

Four fouls on the Thunder just trying to box out.

And I'm not arguing that they were or weren't fouls, but I think on a lot of box out stuff, you can find more fouls there if you want to.

It's like college officials.

They'll just pick a game in the tournament, decide to call all of them.

You're like, how come this first?

So that was on our basket.

And they definitely were doing this mauling technique of the rebounds.

But

that speaks to my point from earlier.

They started calling stuff in the fourth quarter that they didn't call for the first three quarters.

I hate that the most.

Well, this game is like there was no consistency to anything that was happening.

The two Pacers games, or at least at Indiana, it felt like there's so much effort in that first half.

Yeah.

That, and it might be even a little underplay.

We'll see what happens here in game six in the second half, but

you can almost see the guys exhausted on both sides.

Like, I thought Chet was spent in game three.

I thought Chet was so good defensively.

He was getting into switches.

He was holding up against perimeter players.

He's contesting shots.

Like, Halliburton got him one side.

So, I look, I thought that was kind of interesting in the free throw part of it.

It's like, okay, I understand this team lost.

So, it's all about the free throws.

I hated the baseline thing with SGA.

I don't like that Neesmith foul, but it is a foul and all that stuff.

But there's another like

Degnall part of this is that

they clearly don't like Hartenstein because he's a target for the Pacers.

When he's in, he's targeted.

And let's face it, he's a nice player.

He's been a fucking zero on offense for this entire series.

And him holding the ball 30 feet away, waiting to do some sort of dribble handoff thing in a playoff game when everybody's flying around at full speed.

That stuff looks all right in the regular season.

It's kind of a waste of time in these playoff games.

It kind of slows everything down the way everybody's hedging against all this stuff.

I said that to Zach on Friday night.

He's become a backup center.

And I don't feel like

in this season.

Yeah, in this series and a little bit last series, too.

You know what the right job is drifted that way?

Look at the game logs in the minutes.

Like, they're pulling away from it.

You could argue some games.

It's just Chet has it going.

Chet had the two follow dunks, too, on top of the really good defense because, you know, he closed really poorly after a great start in game three.

Didn't play that well.

But at that 6.09 foul, the fifth team foul against OKC, another defensive rebound thing, Degnal went to the double big.

And I was like, he must like, that staff has to be going.

Can we grab a board?

Can we grab a board in this game to close this thing out?

Went double big for just about two minutes, a little under that.

And I don't know if it's settled, but clearly, you know, look, Caruso's the preferable guy as opposed to the double big against this stuff because I think they worry about Hartenstein being a target.

But it almost felt like in those two minutes when he went double big, his main concern was we got to figure out a way to try to control the defensive glass here.

And we're not closing six minutes of double big, but let's just, let's try to change our physicality here for a couple minutes because our guys are getting eaten up just trying to pop.

I think he was was trying to help out Chet too a little bit because he didn't want to take Chet out.

So it was like, I'll give you a little added muscle for a couple of minutes here.

Jalen Williams was the only guy on that team that didn't look tired in that game because SGA, you know, they played Wednesday night and that Wednesday night game was a brutal game.

Brutal game.

Oh, yeah.

So they're 48 hours later.

Indiana looked fresher than

OKC for the most part, but they're also home.

You get energy from home.

But Jalen Williams was the one on that team that, and Dort, who Dort is like, he's not even human.

I just thought my big takeaway from just seeing that in person for those two days is just how unique Dort is.

Because I was thinking before the playoffs, like, all right, if they win the title, they got to pay these guys.

Maybe they'll trade Dort.

Wallace can take his minutes.

Dort is untradeable for me.

Like with the toughness and physicality and all the stuff he does for them.

I don't think they have anyone on the roster to replace it.

To just have somebody who can wipe out the best guy on the other team and make it like even when haliburton was scoring they were like

you know

flying down the lane layups where he had to like throw it high off the backboard with some spin on it just to like make the shot like it was nothing was easy for them and that's why they won the game and that's why they're going to win the title i think i just feel like indiana missed their chance they had it they had it in that third quarter i felt that way when i left i felt that way on friday night and we talked about it and you know it was 80 it felt like it was 86 to 76 for two three minutes there and they just couldn't extend it to 15.

if it gets to 15 okayc wasn't making threes they're not coming back from that you know but they just couldn't get the hump high enough

And I don't know what the fixes are either because we've seen with some of these games when you kind of unlock the other team, it just kind of gets worse as the series goes along.

Like, I think the Warriors Celtic series in 22 is a good kind of parallel to that.

It just everything you got worried about just starts to get worse and worse as it goes.

I think they've figured out if they're not going to call those fouls on Dort and Caruso at half court with how physical they're being, it's going to be really hard for Indiana to run offense.

Like that, remember that part where they were putting Siakam 40 feet from the basket and he was trying to go one-on-one and they were, OK, C was like, really?

This is, you're doing this?

No, thanks.

The only wild card is Matherin.

to just, he seems like, you know, and he's the ultimate trick or treat guy, but that's the one where I felt like they should have thrown him in in the fourth quarter.

They were so stale.

It was so hard for them to do anything.

They kind of needed the wild card heat check irrational confidence guy.

It feels like a quarterback avoiding pressure and then like getting back to the line of scrimmage and then thinking he has like another chance at the same play.

They'd be scrambling.

It would all get shut off.

And then it'd be like, all right, Halliburton.

Now it's like started all over again.

And I didn't have any issues with him.

And Siakam had such a terrific game, like completely well-rounded with the steals, the assists, the boards.

The shooting wasn't great.

But the problem is it's like, okay, but now you're taking, you've had this really nice game and you kind of need to be like a number two scoring option with some of this stuff.

And I know everybody's going to think that I'm just kind of on his ass again, but the variance of

noticing him to then going, oh, did he take one shot in the first one?

It's one for six in the second half.

Well, I mean, once they took away their fast breaks and slowed the pace down.

The pace, by the way, has been like a non-factor.

Maybe you can say they pushed it a little bit more in game three, but like if you look at the pace numbers game by game, it's 102, 97 and a half, 100.

That's for the full games, though.

The first half of game four, especially for the first like quarter and a half, Indy had to have been delighted because OKC, this is what Indy does over and over again.

They pull you into how they want to play.

And OKC was doing it, and And then they backed off.

I think OKC's fine playing at a pace.

They played at a faster pace than the Pacers have for the entire playoffs.

They've had a lead now going into the fourth quarter, the first three games.

They didn't have it.

They come back.

The storylines that I touched on after they were down 2-1 is like all of these storylines that are potentially in play of doing the obituary on what this Thunders team ended up being, right?

If they had lost this series, who knows?

They could still lose this series.

I'm at a point now where certainly certainly I'm not going to like change my pick or anything, but this Pacers team is

more real

in this final series than I certainly thought.

And a lot of us thought, but

the too young thing, right?

Or they didn't play in enough clutch games.

And it's like, man, if they were too young, doesn't that show up in game seven against Denver?

Doesn't it show up?

I thought that game four win against Minnesota was just an absolute like ballsy, we're here type of win.

And so you come back and you win this game four.

Like if the Pacers were to win this, are you allowed to say that it was, oh, because the Thunder were too young?

If they're too young, they don't come back in game four of this series.

The too young thing comes with going three for 17 from three and having 10 assists.

But they didn't shoot it well.

They didn't shoot.

Some of their young guys who were MIA, like people like Wiggins, Wallace, those are the guys that when you're talking about too young, they're just not getting stuff from the rogues.

That's why Caruso was so huge in that game.

I mean, Caruso,

you know, he might make the Hall of Fame now.

Michael Cooper made it.

Does Siaka make the Hall of Fame?

I don't know.

The answer is yes.

He probably does.

Second best guy in a finals team might be on pace for like almost 20,000 points.

Do you know where OKC is right now as far as three-point shooting in the playoffs?

Where?

13th out of 16 teams.

They shot it well against Minnesota.

They did not shoot it great the first two series.

And that's another thing that's so scary about this team is that,

I mean, I wonder where they'll be historically as a three-point shooting team if they stay at some of these numbers and they have another bad shooting night.

Like they're in that game.

And I'm glad that you brought up that math because you're like, something feels wrong here.

They're going to be one of 12.

It just doesn't resemble the basketball we watch in 2025 when somebody can be that bad from three and be in the game.

That's usually a death knell.

Okay.

Another observation because when the thunder are not talking to each other only caruso is the guy with any energy on the bench and they're down and they look lost and that body language stock is right there just studying everything you're on the case yeah

it is

used against them it's like who's you know you start thinking like hey who's their draymond green like where's their emotional leader where's their badass is this too subdued a group of players

that wasn't what i was thinking i was thinking more like

these guys

have all the same type of personality where they're just like,

they just go.

The only thing I really know.

Would you have said that if they lost?

No, the only thing I thought was that they seemed tired.

Like Chet looked like he was going to keel over, like for real.

All the young guys, like people like Wallace and guys like that, it just, you could just tell they weren't going to get anything from those guys.

But Caruso, I thought was, you know, really seems like he's the glue to everything.

And And then SGA, they never bailed on him.

He took him out for that one minute and he got the fourth foul.

And he looked tired.

There's no question.

He didn't have a good first half.

They said it after.

So

I think Degnold even had said, you know, he wasn't having the best game and then he was going to have to work through it.

And we're going to have to figure a way to get Nemhar off of him, you know?

Yeah.

And then Jalen Williams, I thought, you know, the fact that he can do what he does, but that team, they're just a bunch of dudes that,

you know, they're like a football team that just kind of goes out.

It's like, you're not getting a first down right now.

You know, they just have a vibe to them.

It's hard to explain.

I think they specifically pick certain type of personality types, and that's who they look at and go after.

Like, Draymond wouldn't make sense on that team.

I don't think they would ever have a guy like that kind of boisterous type of, you know, big alpha personality.

It's not the kind of team they have.

Even Dagnall, when you watch him, like, he got mad at the refs for him at one point

and mad at him in the refs is just him like making a face and putting his hands out he's not like a screamer um everything they do and i think they do a lot of stuff after the games which has been uh talked about about how they they constantly barrage the uh nba with like clips and stuff like that but i think on the court even afterwards i thought it was interesting dagnalt said I thought they called a good game.

They could have called even more fouls.

Did you hear that quote he had?

Like they're very careful about not pissing off the refs or showing them up haliburton when he got fouled that one time and he did he was doing the holding his hands up and i don't know refs hate that this has been jason tatum's problem for the last three years when he does that sarcastic wave at the refs like they hate that and okay so he doesn't do any of that stuff yeah and it's another one and it's just every single baseline on the way up it's like before i get my balance back i'm gonna motherfuck this guy uh haliburton had every right to be upset

but he just gets called a little differently than most stars i would i would just the default it's always the refs.

It's always the refs.

It's always the refs.

And you just go like, all right, well, you want to go through?

Do you want me to file?

Do you want me to find a Nemhart foul that wasn't called?

But you didn't think that was a well-called game.

I thought that game, I thought the flow of that game was a fucking mess.

It was really, really, compared to the other games that we've had, that was like a mess on both sides.

I thought the game just became very different.

Yeah.

The way it was.

Well, what do you expect in game five?

Well, it was nice to see the fourth quarter defense that we'd expect from the Thunder to show up.

Although I still think the Pacers' defense in game three of that fourth quarter was more impressive than

when they pulled that game out.

I thought what they were doing on defense, like that was that game three thing.

I'm just telling you, game three, Pacers, it changes the way I feel about them in the East.

Okay.

Going into next year.

Number one, we finally got there, boys and girls.

Took me three games to the NBA Finals.

But

it was pretty special.

But unfortunately for Pacers fans, not the case in game four.

And the whole time, the whole time going into this is like, I just think that Thunder defense is going to be too hard to solve for four wins.

And that's how I feel about it still.

I mean, you know, here's the thing: is going home, OKC just feels dude, knocked down like 14, 15 threes here in one of these games.

Yeah,

this has a 29-point blowout vibes.

I also also wonder, like, everything was going so magically for Indiana for two months there.

And that was the first game where, like, Halliburton does the little step back when they really need it.

The, you know, the dribble, dribble, dribble, three-step back, and it was an airball.

It was, it was almost like the clock hit midnight for them in that fourth quarter in so many different ways.

But I do think.

I do think they have some moves.

Like, some things have worked.

Okay, they've lost some trust in a couple of guys.

Like, they're basically down to six and a half guys now.

That's a good sign for Indiana.

Um, and for Indiana, like, they've had different guys play well the whole series.

I don't feel like the only guy they seem like they've lost confidence in is Thomas Bryant.

Everybody else is

had moments.

Yeah, I don't know.

I guess they re-lost it.

Uh,

but they need, if I was them, I would have been sending uh just clips of Dort and Crusoe mauling my guards at midcourt.

I would have sent a whole highlight video of like, hey, are they allowed to do this?

Just check in.

because I thought that was, I thought they got away with physicality, which they should do.

Because

if you're getting away with it, do it.

You know, but

man,

that's the story of the series: is that the Caruso trade,

what it did for them when you actually go in against them, when they ramp it up, is the scariest thing in the league.

And that's probably why they're going to win the title.

Do you remember, and I'm not trying to like put you on this, the energy that OKC came out with defensively, the first touch that Halliburton got, it was just swarming.

I think they sent two at him, and it was like intense.

Granted, it's when you're freshest, the game's just tipped.

And I was like, uh-oh, what's going on here?

And then the Pacers survive it.

And

you're going, all right.

You know, like it was so, I, you know, I almost was wondering, like, are they just, this is like blitzing on the first drop back of an NFL game and be like, hey, let's just do something so that they know we're coming today.

And, like, we're going to do this.

Cause like the first play was so much energy defensively.

It's like, well, you're not going to be able to keep doing that kind of stuff.

Like, this is insane how hard you're going just on this trap.

And

Pacers feel great about themselves.

Thundercamp knocked down a shot.

Yeah.

There's a bunch of possessions.

And you're right.

Like, Wiggins coming in isn't pretty.

Wallace got caught up like in between.

a decision there in the fourth quarter on one play.

We're like, okay, that's like a sign of somebody not in his face.

They weren't guarding him either.

Like if he was out there, they were just playing off him.

Hartenstein, he he feels like he's lost his confidence.

But this is what happens when we get to the finals.

Guys start falling off in the battlefield and you end up with five guys, six guys left.

I'm glad you brought up football because it really was what OKC reminded me of watching them.

It was like watching an awesome defense just put everyone on the line, knowing that their cornerbacks could.

could defend any receiver and just like going.

And at some point, you're like, oh my God, I don't know.

We didn't know what Indiana should do in the fourth quarter.

It got to that point.

Like, I don't know.

They can't get within 40 feet of the basket.

I don't know what the move is.

Like,

it was like Watch them get checkmated on the left side because I think because he had SGA, but it was like 15 feet out.

Yeah.

And then he was just kind of dribbling.

You're like, what the fuck is this play going to be?

That was every play.

He was turned and he didn't have enough time.

And it wasn't like a straight line drive or anything.

He was kind of turned.

Turner had a couple threes where it looked like he wasn't in a hurry to get those off.

And then Nemhart will, when Halliburton gets stuck nemhart's the guy that's like i'll shoot like i'm good to go and then usually nie smith's good for a three or two that you're just like okay these are he had that huge one in in game three yeah not not yesterday turner is the wild card because you know obviously they have to win one of these next two in okc to win the title plus the one at home

And the way Turner looked in those two indie games, if he's going to play like that, it's just no chance because they were giving him the wide open shots at the top.

They were happy with him.

He wasn't making them.

My guess would be OKC is going to win the next two.

I hate counting out Indiana like that, but I just feel like the OKC solved something in those last two.

And then the closer you get, the more you can smell it.

And anything you're doing is going to be ramped up anyway.

Once you get like really close to the title, you're going to be, it's going to be the craziest version of yourself, right?

And the craziest version of OKC, I don't think Indiana can.

Can score against.

So I feel like they missed their shot.

All right.

So you're covering, you got Tuesday, Thursday this week.

Yeah, we got a lot of stuff.

I don't know what we're going to run.

We got a little F1 for you.

Ron Chernow.

You excited for the movie?

Yeah, definitely.

I really am.

Every time I see that.

The Ron Chernow movie?

I'm excited for the Bradley.

Oh, because I haven't seen the Chernow movie trailer.

Yeah, the F1 breadth.

Yeah, that looks great.

You're so, I was thinking about you the other day.

How easy I am to please with a trailer?

That wasn't the thought, but there's these things that you love that I'll know that you're going to love, but then you'll just shock the world.

Yeah.

And be like, it's kind of like your Star Wars position.

Be like, you like wrestling.

You like

Top Gun.

Yep.

You know, and it's like, but you don't like Star Wars.

I do not like Star Wars.

I just never got into it.

The, the one, that one I can't, the line I can't cross is Wes Anderson movies.

I just don't get it.

Not watching.

I watched Tenenbombs the other night.

Yeah, not for me.

I'm not against them.

Just not for me.

It's an Owen Wilson fest over at this place.

Was it jumping back and forth between stick and ten and bombs?

Summertime.

What's going on?

You've never seen

Rushmore?

I've seen Rushmore.

I've seen Tannenbaums.

Okay.

Yeah.

So it's Steve Zissou when we lost you.

I'm not like.

That didn't know.

Yeah, it's just like, you know, I'm I'm putting together the Blu-ray collection.

There's no Wes Anderson yet.

You don't think Rushmore is a rewatchable?

I think we did it already.

I don't think I was on it.

Good.

You're going to be on one this summer.

Hopefully.

We're planning.

I might even go to Scotland.

You hard guy to book.

You know, you call to see if you're in, and you're like just on your way to some strange country.

It's going to get real strange this summer.

Can I tell you what I did in India on FanDuel?

A A lot of Pat's bets, including Mike Vrabel for coach of the year, plus 750.

I couldn't resist.

Pat's over nine and a half.

Sure.

Pat's five to win for the division with Kansas City and Philly.

Okay, I'll parlay that.

When you were hanging out with guys, you're like, I have to go home and hammer this Vrabel bet.

Yeah, it's like, guys, it's been great.

I got to go.

Indy does close pretty early, though.

It's surprising.

I really like Indy.

There's some things I don't

understand.

No, it didn't.

Let me double check if that place is still open.

Stanford Steve and I went to Ike and Jonesy's one night.

I think they were like, hey, can we get a beer?

And they were just cups.

They're like, grab as many as you want.

I don't think there's a more Rasillo city on the planet

than Indy?

Come on.

Yeah.

No, for like, if you came for a game, I think you'd have a great time.

I have.

I've been to Indy a million times.

Pacers?

Playoffs?

No.

Did

the Super bowl there we did hardcore hardcore basketball fans man it's our people they're all there just love basketball stamper steve and i drove over to butler to check it out and then

it was pretty obvious because there was a rack of balls and the guy was looking at us he's like how bad do you want to get a couple shots up and it was like insanely bad he's like yeah you're not supposed to but like you can no problem which was a lot different than when we were at unc and roy williams told me i could get shots up after the practice was over i was like like, All right, no problem.

And then somebody came over and screamed at me.

She's like, What are you doing?

And I was like, Roy said it was fine.

And she was like, Okay, turned around.

That's all I needed to know.

That was like the time,

anytime I was at Eugene, be like, What are you doing in this?

And I'd be like, Chip said it was fine.

Like, okay, that's a good, that's a good thing to have.

Anyway, the point is, is that Indy, we drove out to go see Tom Crean coach the Hoosiers.

So, Van Pelt and I drove out to Bloomington and we spent the afternoon there, got out of there pretty quick.

So I can't say that I know Bloomington super well.

But then I did a bunch of Big Ten championship games.

We did the Wisconsin win.

There was another winner.

Why are you for a Pacers playoff game?

A couple people mentioned it.

My approval rating is not very high in that state after the college football season.

So I think I have Indy Daniel.

I'm going to feed back the Pacers thing.

Now that you've circled back with the Pacers, I think they come just as pretty.

I want to push back a little bit that it feels like a Rasillo town because I don't.

Why?

It's just, they love sports.

Yeah, that's true.

Real American people.

Yeah.

No, I like that.

It's all of the earth.

My only criticism is the

Saint Lamo shrimp.

I don't like when you're touting the food

and

it's good.

It's fine.

But if it's going to be like

a marketing thing, I really want to have my socks knocked off and it's not there.

I'm sorry.

Vampelt hated it as much as any single person has ever hated anything.

The St.

Elmo shrimp?

Yeah.

He, because I'd had it.

Stanford Steve and I probably got in earlier.

Van Pelt would get there when he needed to get there.

And then I think we went back again.

And it really becomes the hang too.

You know, it's, it's not just the restaurant.

It's the hang.

Multiple floors.

There's nooks and crannies.

You go around.

Yeah, it's good.

And no one loves St.

Elmos more than you do.

So Van Pelt's sitting there and he was like, we're watching him about to eat it.

And he's looking at us.

He's like, what?

What?

What's going to happen?

Is it really hot or something?

It's really hot.

Like, are you guys fucking with me?

And we were like, just eat the shrimp, dude.

It's not that big of a deal.

And he like kind of like halfway through a couple of chomps, spits it right out, was like, this is, what is that?

We're like, it's horseradish.

You know, it's, it's, that's the whole thing.

It kind of clears it out a little bit.

He's like, that's.

That's the dumbest thing ever invented.

He was so mad.

He's so mad about it.

It might have been the first time he didn't pay for the dinner because his thing is he always pays for every dinner, no matter what, all the time.

And I think that night he may have just been like, protest.

I went for drinks there and I ordered a ranch water.

Oh, look at you.

Is it a Yellowstone?

It's tequila for the people listening.

Tequila, club soda, and lime.

They brought the ranch water.

They brought me a glass.

It was like a triple tequila with a little bottle of club soda next to it.

And tequila had lime in it.

I'm like, and they're like, watch.

And the waitress said, watch out for this.

That's all tequila.

And I'm like, I ordered a ranch water.

And she's like, this is how we serve it here.

She's made a glass of tequila.

Not the pretty.

Put some lime in it.

And then I can pour the club soda in it if I want.

Yeah, it's their version of it.

It's also called the tequila soda, I believe, in other places.

It's called the don't drive after you have this, I think was the actual, actual thing for it.

But it was pretty impressive.

Anyway, Anyway, all right, Rosillo, I'll see you in a week.

We got to do the finals will probably be over by then.

There's a chance we'll be coming on after game seven of the NBA Finals a week from now.

Maybe.

Can't be ruled out.

You're the biggest pacers believe.

You and Winhorst.

You guys are looking at

property there.

I don't think it's going to be a game five for them, but it would have to be a game six.

One last awesome.

You were just there two days.

How can you not believe after you were in that building?

Lou Dort psyched me out.

That's what happened.

But so we'll be Sunday night at some point.

Anyone say anything offensive to you in person?

No, people were great.

Okay.

Indiana's great.

All right.

Thanks to Eduardo and everybody else behind the scenes as well.

Don't forget, Rewatchable's coming Tuesday.

And I think I'm going to have something else tomorrow night.

So we'll see.

Anyway, bye, Russell.

See ya.

I want to see them

when we suddenly.

themselves.

I don't have

healings with them.

Must be 21 plus in president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in president DC.

Gambling problem, call 1-800-GABLE or visit rg-help.com.

Call 1-88-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland.

Hope is here.

Visit gamblinghelpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support, Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8 HOPENY or text Hope NY in New York.