A Rare NBA Sea-Change Season, the Haliburton What-Ifs, and a 2020 Redraft With Ryen Russillo

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Ryan Rosillo is next.

We tape this Sunday morning before the Pacers next game three.

So it's coming up next.

First, our friends from Pearl Champ.

All right, we are recording this.

It is a little past 11 in the morning Pacific time on Sunday.

We are not doing this after Pacers Knicks because it's Memorial Day weekend, and sometimes real life takes over the podcast schedule.

I don't know what to say, but Ryan Rossillo is here.

We have a bunch of fun stuff we're going to talk to.

We're going to be able to talk about these playoffs, even not knowing what's happening in game three tonight, which started out pretty shocking with the Pacers taking a 2-0 lead.

I'm going to start here, Rascillo.

Indiana and OKC, if that ends up being our finals,

what's interesting big picture is you could argue each of those teams is the team you would want to be for the next four to five years in their conferences.

And I think the OKC is a pretty easy argument for the West, unless you want to throw San Antonio at me.

But for

Indiana, the fact that we are now, I don't know,

two plus games in the conference finals, the thought of them being the team you would most envy in the East was like 50 to one odds, I would say, in January.

How did we get here?

Look, the Thunder thing, you're right.

Whether it's roster or the flexibility of what all these future draft picks are going to be, and you know, look in the future draft pick stuff, sometimes it's like, oh, that didn't work out.

And then there's like a pick in 2029, and you go, oh, my God, like, I can't believe that ended up happening.

And you're going to have to sell me a little harder on the Pacers.

Like, this is a really nice run.

It's awesome.

They're up 2-0.

There's tons of great things I want to say about the Pacers.

But to map out the next five years of them being the franchise you want to be, you got to sell me on that.

Well, so let's go.

Let's go this way first.

Who would you rather be in the East?

Give me a team.

Because

I felt the same way as you where I was like, oh, there's got to be somebody.

And then I'm going through the conference and I'm like, Detroit,

Orlando,

Boston.

I have no idea what what their payroll is going to look like in two years.

Philly, I got to deal with Embiid

and Paul George.

New York, this might be where we peak with them right now with these five guys that the first two games that they played, the plus minus was an abomination.

And I don't know how that plays out over the next two years.

Milwaukee, I think you throw in there as a, like, do you want to pick them?

Probably not.

No.

Yeah.

I don't.

Who else is there?

I thought about it because for all of those reasons, but

this almost feels like, can I take the field?

Which isn't fair and it isn't the right answer.

But

as great as this Pacers thing is, and we were texting this morning about it, I brought it up in the pod this week.

Like, this is really great, but it's also usually not the way it works.

And

as much fun as it is in the depth and Halliburton kind of reminding people like what he can be,

it's just hard for me to be like, yeah, I want to be the team that doesn't have a a top 10 player in the NBA.

Like, give me that for the next five years.

Well, I guess my question is,

did he move into at least the top 15?

He did make all NBA.

Now, there were some guys that were injured, so that's not necessarily a great litmus test, but he's somewhere in the top 20 to 22, I would say.

And then the fact that

he's found a way to raise his game in the playoffs, I think that counts for something.

The fact that he's so unique with where basketball has gone, where where we just don't have guards who run the show like this in the same way anymore.

We have these guards that are trying to get their stuff off.

And, you know, you got to revolve the offense around them and what they do.

He just kind of is additive and makes everybody better.

And I don't think, like,

I know you've studied at least the top five in this draft, and everybody likes Harper.

And it seems like the Spurs are going to take Harper.

It seems all the indications are like that, that pick is really not available, and they're going to take Harper, and they feel good about it.

And that's where we're going.

But But I don't think he's an inclusive player like Hal Burton.

He is, he's more of a the way guards have gone this decade, where they score, they can also bring the ball up, they can set people up, they can run a fast break, but they're not constantly just thinking about involving everybody else.

Harper definitely wants to get his points.

So

if we were doing a, I'm not really ready for it, but if we were doing a draft conversation, like the craziest thing about some of these picks is you go, all right, even if you love Harper and you should draft based on talent, you shouldn't be drafting on fit, especially when you don't really know who you are, but you're like, how do you play Harper off of De'Aaron Fox?

Like it's, especially if you think like San Antonio with a healthy Wembanyama is going to be a real player in the West.

And then, you know, you think about Ace Bailey standing around

watching those other guys.

And

look, he got used to standing around because he watched Harper and played with him.

So that in itself is like a really interesting conversation because we're not used to having these teams pick

that, at least with Philly, we know they're established and what they want to be.

And then San Antonio, the assumption that we kind of know like who their three guys are.

But

yeah, you know, it is, it's one of those questions where as soon as you sent it to me, I just was like, what is he doing?

What are you talking about?

But when you run through all the known versus unknown, if the pacers are your answer, you're like, okay, that's the known.

But there's also the Turner part of it that you're always bringing up in that this group does not pay the luxury tax.

And Turner, you know, is going to be whatever you think of him,

he's especially in this free agent class, despite the irony of it feeling like he'd been available in the trade market for years, like he provides something to them.

And, you know, 20 million a year in this new NBA world is probably not going to cut it.

But that's like a minor issue compared to some of the other, obviously, like when you look at the Celtics with all this stuff.

I guess I still would rather

be the Celtics?

It sounds like you would.

Yeah, I think I would.

I think I, but that's going to get weird quick.

I mean, the Drew is going to be a little bit more.

We know Tatum's gone next year.

Drew's going to be 35, 36.

I just don't, Tatum's not playing next year.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Jalen's going to be at 60 million.

This Indiana, the way they set it up, Tyrese and Siakam next year are $91 million combined, which is pretty great.

Normally, if you're paying two guys who are in the top, Siakam's,

you know, always one of the best nine to ten forwards.

He's never one of the best five or six, but he's always in like the top 50 for players.

So you put those two together

on that.

Yeah.

I know, like, I had a huge Siakam game one thing where I'm like, he has to initiate more, and then he comes out and almost drops 40 on him in game two.

So he was terrific, but he was great.

Yeah, I feel like he's what in the top 30?

Usually the market, wherever you want to put him, if you're paying those two guys, normally with the way the current NBA structure is, that's $115 to $120 million combined for those two spots.

So they're getting a discount on those two spots.

Then they smartly signed Nemhard to 18, 19, 21

as an extension, which is right around where his value is.

I don't know where the cap's gone.

Neesmith's at 11 and 11 the next two years.

McConnell's at 10 and 11.

Toppin's at 14 next year.

Matherin's at 9.

And they still have Walker at 6.6 and Shepard at 2.7.

They have all their own picks except for 26

and have the ability to,

I don't know, either package dudes together.

They have the ability to dump somebody.

You know, like if they wanted to trade Matherin this summer, they'll be able to at nine.

If they wanted to either upgrade him or.

try to get a vet or do whatever.

So I think the flexibility is what's appealing, but you made the key point.

They don't pay the luxury tax.

I think the owner is like 90.

And in general, they've just,

you know, they're like, a few of these teams just don't do it.

OKC is another one that we're going to find out how much they want to keep this team together when these guys start getting expensive.

But at least with Indianapolis, I know what I have with my top two for the next three years.

I can add around it.

I might have guys coming in who want to play with this nucleus.

And I'm in a much weaker conference, which I think is the other appealing thing.

I'm in like the JV conference.

Well, that's another part of this exercise.

You go through it and you're like, man, flag ends up in the West.

You know, what if Harper's a stud?

He ends up in the West.

Wembinyama just a couple years ago.

Right.

You know, Adianis.

And then Atlanta's like, we'll take Risache, you know, who I actually do like and thought he showed a lot of promise as a rookie here.

But when you were thinking about the lottery, going like, hey, can the East at least get Flag?

Just try, like, if he's going to be this special.

And, you know, we've had this happen before where it felt like there was this massive migration, which really mirrors history, Bill, where you just kept pushing things further and further out west.

But

look, I'm going to say something that's going to seem really stupid when they're up 2-0 and they just eliminated the Cavs, but I'd rather be the Cavs because their three guys are better than the Pacers' three guys.

And I know it didn't happen in the playoffs.

I could point to the injury stuff, but there were some games in there too where it's like, what's wrong with you guys?

I think Orlando is in this conversation because I think Paolo is going to be better than anybody on the Pacers.

I looked at them as well.

The problem is they're already paying their top two.

They're getting no advantage out of their young guys anymore.

They've already paid the top two plus sucks.

So they're kind of all in with the team they have, and it's hard to move around the margins for them.

But there's definitely a case for them.

Yeah, but this feels like one of those exercises where day of

like any other answer seems like I just named the team they got rid of in five games.

I mean, that seems on its surface like I don't feel good about anyone in the East.

That was why I thought this was so interesting to talk about.

It seems so improbable to me that Indiana would be the team you would land on, but it probably is the most stable with the most flexibility of all these teams.

Even Orlando, we talked about like,

I don't know how you make that team better.

Your nucleus is what it is, unless you either trade Franz or Paolo, and they're not trading Paolo.

But that's going to be kind of their team.

And the thing that they need is for black to hit.

Well,

sucks being healthy.

And honestly, like at some point, you're going, should I give this guy an MVP vote?

Because it's like, is he like they're just not going to be able to play offense now anymore?

And I think they got into some, look, I don't think they were the best offensive team.

This has been two years of this, but they, I think, got into some really bad habits offensively here with this whole thing.

I'm more open to it than when you first suggested it.

I think another thing in the Pacers' favor, if you were going to go ahead and pick them.

And it just still feels like if you're picking the Pacers, you're kind of going like, all right, I guess.

It's a recency by six, but they did make conference finals two years in a row.

That's not nothing.

That's exactly it.

Is that this is now year two?

This isn't Atlanta getting to the Eastern Conference finals.

This isn't Dame in that Portland team, you know.

Whereas Dallas, when they got there with Luca in 22, you were like, is this real?

And then it's, you know, they're in the finals two years later.

And here are the Pacers back-to-back years

just, you know, getting through the East in a way where you were like, I don't know that I've ever thought about you

this way during the regular season.

Like if they were really this good,

you know, why were they not up there competing for 60 wins with some of these other teams?

The counter to that was the last two-thirds of the season, they were on that pace.

They started out bad for a bunch of reasons.

But last two-thirds of the season, that's why we kept talking about them.

We're like, this is, if you go by last 50 games, last 55, whatever it was, like they're playing at the same level as all these other teams.

And the odds, I remember we were talking, they were 28 to 1 to win the East.

Now, odds didn't really reflect what the last 50 games of the season were, which kind of happened last year with Dallas, too.

I think Cleveland I had on my list.

Boston's a really interesting one because,

first of all, it depends on what they're going to be able to do this summer.

And I think they have to get under that second apron.

because of the repeater tax and all the money it saves.

It just sets them up for the two years after that.

But what they have to give up to be able to do that.

And then when do we get Tatum?

You know, and I've heard a variety of things about that, especially like how fast he got the surgery and there's stuff going around that he might be able to come back in February, March because he got the surgery so fast.

But who knows?

That Achilles thing seems like it's

seems like it could go as long as a year and a half.

And if you're following the Durant model, who's the most successful example of coming back, Durant was a year and a half.

So if you're just doing that and you're like, look, next year is a wipeout.

They wipe out next year, get under the apron, and then they just try to reset around Tatum and Brown and Derrick White.

And,

you know, then they're still in good shape for this conversation too.

I think your instincts on Cleveland,

because there's some fixes for them,

right?

And you could talk yourself into Garland.

He was hurt.

He was such a huge part of what they did.

Indiana caught them by surprise.

Bad style for them.

They lost one of the flukiest games in the history of the playoffs, except for the other two fluky games that Indiana won.

You know, you could talk yourself into, wow, that was stupid.

Let's not overreact, which I think should be the answer for them.

But at the same time,

I still feel like they're going to make a move this summer.

Don't you?

I don't feel like Cleveland runs it back.

I don't always, I always feel like everybody just runs it back.

Really?

Man, I feel like everybody gets,

I feel like everybody always makes a move when the playoffs don't.

You do?

Yeah, even the Celtics.

Think about the last couple of years.

Like, they made a move after every year, starting 22, 23, 20.

They always did something.

Yeah, but they weren't really doing anything.

They gave us shit because they won.

They weren't giving up anything, though.

They gave up a first-round pick in the Derrick White deal.

They gave up Brogdon and

Robert Williams

in the Drew deal.

They traded Smart.

Smart was a big trade.

That was a pretty polarizing trade at the time.

People were surprised.

Now it seems like a no-brainer.

Yeah, I think fans in the media were like, I think the Marcus Smart stuff

was pretty predictable,

even though the fans in the media kind of was like, I can't believe they'd be getting rid of this guy.

So we're not targeting Jared Allen for Cleveland would be the one that wouldn't shock me.

That's fine.

But like Jared Allen still is a better player than any of the guys that we've named that Boston has shipped out here.

And then if you start taking it to like the Garland level, that's a whole different thing.

I mean, if you're getting Drew Holiday for the Packers, the Celtics are like, that's a no-brainer.

The only thing with Przingis was talent-wise and how it allowed them to be different made a lot of sense.

But you knew that for him to opt in to do the trade and then to give him the extension, you're like, that dude gets hurt a lot.

And he's missed 65 games with the Celtics.

And, you know, do they win last year without him?

Probably.

I know he had some nice moments.

And then, of course, you have this, the end of this year where, you know, watching this Pacers-Knicks thing, you're just going like Przingis killed.

I mean, there's a bunch of things went wrong for the Celtics, and I don't want to recap that series again with you, but you're just like having, you know,

here's the Pacers trying to survive with Turner, and then Tony Bradley's playing now because Thomas Bryant is just not a solution.

And then they had the hand thing.

And then it's like, man, Tony Bradley's out there running around for a few minutes in Europe.

You're up in this series.

A Knicks team that just destroyed Boston around the paint and just was the more physical and just the bigger basketball team throughout all this.

It feels like an answer.

Like,

I'm not sitting here saying like, you're crazy because the more you think about it, the less crazy it is.

I would push back on like, if you go from January 1st to February 1st, that the Pacers are playing at the same level as other top teams.

Net rating-wise, it isn't like those other teams were just far superior statistical profile teams than what the Pacers were.

But it does feel like- I don't know if I go far superior

because

they were in the top five or six for the last 50 plus games.

I don't know.

I mean, I've got it up in front of me now.

OKC was plus OKC, Boston, Cleveland

above everybody.

Cleveland was plus eight.

Clippers are plus seven.

Indiana were plus five and a half.

Yeah, very cool.

Plus five and a half, 34 and 14 in the last 48.

I think you undersold Marcus Smart a little just because how we felt about the trade versus, I think, what his actual value is.

I think people really thought he had value when they traded him.

That's why they got two first-round picks for him.

They got two first-round picks plus Porzingis

for Marcus Smart.

So he had to have real value.

And I think Jared Allen will have real value if Cleveland decides actually our move might be.

Let's do it then.

I mean, do you think open market, like Marcus Smart a couple years, Jared Allen right now, it's the same demand?

Porzingis, the equivalent of Porzingis and two firsts for Jared Allen.

I mean, the best thing with him is he's, I think he's 20 and 20, and then he goes up to 30, 30, 30.

So it's a five-year commitment to him.

And there's a lot of teams that need a center.

I think Gafford's going to be in demand, too.

I think both of those guys, if Dallas tries to trade Gafford, I think he's going to have real value because we just see it every year.

These teams, like the Lakers, that killed them, that they had to play, couldn't play Jackson Hayes, you know.

Going down the line, like Milwaukee couldn't find any center to play because Lopez finally got old.

Yeah, I think let me ask it.

Let me ask you I have Allen circled as a guy that I think could move this summer.

That's fine.

The Allen part of it.

I guess I was thinking of some of the more aggressive stuff that we've tossed around with Cleveland, but yeah.

No, I just think the default is, and we've already done this, but the Cavs going,

hey, look, we didn't have mobile game two, you know, whatever.

Like, that's, that's usually, I think, what teams do.

Like, if you talk to teams, you'll be like, hey, what went wrong?

And they'll paint the picture of like the things that wouldn't be repeated the next time around.

The problem is you have the Mitchell history and never getting out of the second round.

Like, I thought they'd figured some stuff out where I, you know, other playoff years, I'd look at them after the series is over and go, do they have like just real fundamental problems?

And I don't know that I feel that same way about them, even if history tells you they're the exact same team.

But again, they were just so good in the regular season.

I don't know that I'd be in a hurry to be take like it's one thing if there's a trade that presents itself where you feel like, hey, talent-wise, we're at the same level and maybe we're a little more malleable in the playoffs.

And maybe it just allows Mobley to turn into this whole deal.

But then I think you almost would need a center again

instead of just running Mobly out there for like 36 minutes a night playing center, especially with how big the league is and how these teams are going back to playing a real center and a power forward.

The thing that I would get back to like 20 minutes later here is just

Is this the kind of answer where a year or two years from now, you're like, holy shit, like we even asked that question?

Because it does feel a little like that.

Well, remember after you could have gone after every single year we've had for the last five or six, and there was two teams we felt awesome about, and then that was kind of the peak for us feeling awesome about them.

I would say Dallas last year was a good example.

Yeah, but

Dallas looked really sad.

Yeah, and by the way, like, if anybody, everybody had been healthy, like in a full year with all those guys, and like, I thought they were going to be a really good team in the West again this year if they were ready to go in the playoffs.

You could have picked them as top five team you'd want to be last summer, you know?

Yeah, Lee alone makes you say that.

I think Denver, after the summer of 23, no question.

And then even after last summer, you still would have said it.

And now this summer, you're wondering what the hell they're going to do because the league has shifted and you need seven, eight guys realistically.

They have four.

So what do they do?

Four and a half, depending on what they get from Porter.

But then going back even further, like that, think about that Buck Suns finals.

Like, oh, man, these seams are, these teams are set.

Suns look great.

And then within two years, that Suns thing completely fell apart.

Let me ask you it this way: if you got the phone call and it was the owner of the Cavs, the owner of the Pacers, and the owner of, well, we can't even put the Celtics in here.

I don't think Orlando.

It's too much money.

No, and would you be too emotional about it?

Be like, hold on, I got to sit down first.

If you were just the hot, like, hey, man,

it's like

pick a roster.

Yeah, Peek Woge is like, look, he's been putting in the hours, the 20-plus years of hearing his thoughts on things.

Like, out of this NBA owners meeting down here in Tampa, Bill Simmons is the story.

They want to make this guy a GM.

And you've got these three teams fighting over you.

Pacers, matches.

Oh, I like how you did that.

Yeah.

Right, right.

And be like, all right, Bill, like, take your pick.

I think I'd won Indiana.

I think I'd have the...

I think I would.

I think the Cleveland piece, the amount of money you have to shell out for the team they have with all this apron stuff, I think is really prohibitive.

Orlando, I really would have to study Orlando

because I would have those three guys would have to be my guys.

I think with the Cleveland part, that's interesting is you have outs all over the place.

I can trade Garland.

I could trade Allen and I could trade Mobley.

Like I have three guys that I know have real value that I can turn into multiple pieces if I have to.

Whereas

Indiana, I probably have less outs to blow stuff up.

Cleveland also has a lot of people.

Who's the third best player on the Pacers?

I don't know.

But this is what's so crazy about this year.

You're almost better off having a team like how they built it versus the traditional three guys and then a bunch of James Posey Eddie houses.

Like that, it feels like those days are over.

You know, that's why OKC, I mean,

and OKC is clearly the answer in the other other conference.

There's a moment with that draft

when

it seemed like they were going to get the seventh pick,

where it wasn't just they were going to get the seventh pick from Philly.

Dallas was also going to get fucked.

And they have Dallas's, I think it's like top two protected 2029 pick.

So they basically lost two picks in that trade, like two prime picks, because Dallas was never going to get back there.

Let me see, I have this.

They have swap rights with Dallas in 28.

Yeah, in 28.

Think about that.

That's three summers from now.

So instead of like them having this juicy swap pick in 28, they're like, oh,

three.

And then on top of getting the seventh pick in this draft, which would have been huge, they don't get the seventh pick.

And then Dallas gets replenished.

And that pick's probably not going to be that important, but I'm not crying for OKC because they're still pre-loaded.

Somehow they they had the 15th and 24 picks in this draft.

I don't even know.

I mean, they have so many players.

I don't even know.

I assume I was trying to figure out how they could work around the fringes because,

you know, they have this SGA contract now.

He can either make

200 million, he can sign a four-year, $293 million extension this summer, or he can wait.

and sign for $5,380 next summer.

Either way, he's going from making $38 million million to like 60.

And then Chet and Jalen Williams are both extension eligible pretty soon.

I think this summer.

They're going to have to deal with that at some point.

They have Hartenstein 28.5 next year and then team option on that after.

They have Dort at 17.7, team option after that.

Caruso at 18, 19 and a half, and 21.

They have Wallace on a cheap contract, Wiggins.

I assume if they wanted to trade somebody to create some money, I would assume Dort would be the guy, right?

If you wanted to send money out because you know you have to shift that money toward SGA,

I think Dort would be the most expendable.

And I also think Dort would have a lot of,

I think, a lot of value out there.

That's the kind of guy everybody's looking for.

Get somebody like that for under 20 million a year.

But other than that, I think this is going to be their roster.

Plus, they have Toppich coming out,

coming off the knee surgery next year.

So you could, he's going to get some minutes from somebody.

So I would assume, right?

You agree with that think dort's on that team next year

uh

just give his wild minutes to wallace yeah i mean clearly you can already see the replacement there i don't know that wallace

i mean it doesn't have to be like a perfect fit because there's going to be some stuff that dort can do against bigger guys uh as much as we've all enjoyed watching wallace grow into a player here we didn't even mention who's mount jang so i mean they unleashed that beast uh i would rather stock huh i'd rather be expensive and worry about being expensive than be less talented and less expensive.

We just haven't seen them have the appetite to spend.

Would be the counter.

I wouldn't say they've been money.

Yeah, I think you're missing the OKC team.

Like you're throwing a lot of like, hey, look at what this is going to be like and all the second apron stuff that we've been talking about the last few weeks and all of this looming.

Yeah.

I mean, sure, it'd be great if you were running a team that had some flexibility, but I'd rather have the talent first and then figure out what my salary is going to look like as opposed to being cheaper, going, do I have that kind of high-end talent?

But they know they have money coming with those three guys specifically.

The SGA, that's coming.

That's here.

That's probably here this summer.

I don't know what if he's going to pick this summer or next summer for that extension.

And Chet and Jalen Williams are going to be

Max guys are close, I would assume.

I understand all that.

The Jalen Brown, Jalen Brown, corollary on those two guys, I think is going to be hitting.

Although, Chet's an interesting one because he's already been injured twice and plays a position that

usually it's a little discounting at the center position compared to the other positions for whatever reason.

So maybe

I don't know what he lands.

You could tell me any number.

I would believe it.

Yeah, I think he's going to be really good if he's healthy.

I mean, he just has moments.

I mean, he took Rudy.

I mean, granted, game three, they got destroyed.

Like, he had a play where Rudy was on him.

And, I mean, mean, he, he worked him like he was a point guard.

Yeah.

And I went, holy shit.

Like, he has these moments where,

you know, more touches on a, on a weaker team would probably mean his profile was even higher.

But there's just in the course of the way this team works, I mean, he's rarely going to be the first guy they were looking at unless the players run for him, but that just doesn't happen very often.

I'll tell you the same thing that I've said throughout all of this.

Like, if the Pacers end up in the finals,

you know, who knows what happens there.

OKC, who was a great shooting team,

the kind of, I don't know if Thunder fans understand this, but I was going through their shooting numbers, and it really doesn't have anything to do with getting their ass into game three, but they're just not shooting the ball well at all.

And Denver made that game.

Yeah, Denver made that gamble.

And I know I think at some point we'll talk about the Western Congress finals, but Denver makes that gamble.

And, you know, sure, game seven goes the way it went.

So it doesn't feel like they were in it.

But I mean, to get them to game seven, considering what we thought about those two teams the close to regular season, and you keep trying to figure out like the offensive rating is still pretty good for them for a bunch of different reasons, but this team is just not shot at well at all.

And they've been one of the best shooting teams in the league.

And it seems like, you know, Denver was the one to go, we're just going to find a way to sell out and not trust that those guys are going to hit their shots around you.

And for the most part, they were right.

So

I don't think there is another argument, though.

I think there's probably some Wimidyama stuff, but I feel like that is like rounding way up for anyone to pick San Antonio because of one guy versus what this roster has been from Presty.

Did you see he might have grown?

Did you read that story?

People were studying photos of him, and they think he might be 7'7 now, but he grew an inch.

I hope he isn't 7'7.

7'7's nuts.

We talked about it at the draft.

I mean, it's the first player I've ever heard of the agents trying to temper his true height the other way, you know?

Like, he's definitely ever five

on your OKC point.

they're shooting 32.4% from three in these 14 games.

And it was something they've, you know, they've just been killing everybody and their defense is so great.

But it's also a team that if they fall behind by 20, I feel like they just can't come back because they're not explosive enough.

Right.

And part of the reason they fall behind by 20 is because their younger guys are usually not playing well.

But when they fell behind by Minnesota,

in game three, it just feels like they don't have that same kind of explosiveness unless it comes from their defense.

And their defense, what did you see in that game that you felt like Minnesota unlocked?

Anything?

Well, the number one rule that I always have is you can't fake desperate.

And if you're any good and you're down 2-0 and you're going home, like there's just no way the other team's going to come out of the tunnel with the same desperation that you have.

Okay.

Game two, Finch and the staff threw the kitchen sink defensively at OKC.

And Finch talked about like going back and watching the Denver series, because if there was one concert for the Denver series, it was like once they got settled into that zone, they're like, Look, if we can at least stop the first thing that they want to do, which is SGA coming downhill at the top of the key, and Denver deserves credit for disrupting that part of it.

And that's where the stuff we were talking about earlier with the gamble that you're willing to take going, I don't know if the guys around SGA are going to hit enough threes.

And they still really haven't.

I mean, you're right.

Like these offensive numbers, I mean, 32% in the playoffs is 13 out of the 16 playoff teams.

They were sixth best in the NBA this season.

Granted, you know, the number doesn't feel like it's that big of a difference at 37%.

The offensive rating is okay.

The defensive rating is off the charts.

It's even two points better per 100 possessions than it was in the regular season when it was historically one of the best defensive ratings a team has had based on the differential from the average defensive rating.

So they've cranked that part of it up even more.

But back to the original thing of like what you'd asked.

Minnesota clearly, when they were just dazed again in that third quarter, you could see like Finch has pulled Rudy, then he's put him back in, he's had him in drop.

I thought that they did less drop in game three.

When they went to zone, they were a fucking mess because they know they don't play it.

And Finch had even said, like, we saw them do the zone stuff.

So it was like, hey, we'll do some of that too.

And then Minnesota's letting Caruso and Chet and these guys get this super easy catch that once you have that catch in the paint inside of a zone, then everybody's scrambling.

And if you don't play it, then it's just even NBA players are going to be making mistakes, being like, wait, where's like, who am I helping off of?

Or if I'm helping here, am I, is there somebody behind me?

And so that turned out to be a disaster.

So, look, it's great when Ant comes out and scores 16 points.

It's great when the team starts shooting threes because so many of their guys have been abysmal on the Minnesota side of shooting threes in those first two games.

But they were so much more aggressive to kind of getting back to who they are, of just letting their athletes get after the ball handler.

You guys, Shannon played.

You know, he's older older than ant he's 25 in july come on

young shannon

yeah it's gonna take him under his wig if there's leonard miller was out there being like i'll give you the whole package son well it sounds like it sounds like yesterday they were just like we need more athletes out there shannon go out there be an athlete i mean the score was so one-sided that i don't know like any of the tactical stuff necessarily matt but like game two i thought was defensive desperation And I don't even mean that as a criticism, Bill.

It's like, all right, we got to figure something out.

Like,

you could see at the very beginning of this series, SJA is like, oh, shit, I get to drive again.

Yeah.

And it was like, all right, this is finally.

Like, this is who I've been for six months.

I mean, does that make sense to you?

That, yeah, I mean, we could talk tactics and all that stuff, but when you're down 20 like that,

you know, I don't even know.

I don't know if we'll see that zone again, but it was, I thought they were trying everything in game two, and it was just a mess.

I agree.

The biggest thing I noticed, other than the zone, was that Randall was getting the ball in the right spots without OKC doing the thing where it just felt like he was getting smothered every time he had the ball.

And this is the part I don't understand with OKC because we saw in the Denver series too.

There were games where it felt like Jokic was doing every single thing he wanted from all the spots on the floor he wanted to do it.

And then there were other games that just felt like he was in a tsunami.

And if OKC is not playing with that tsunami defense,

at least for Randall, it's great.

And I just felt like he was physical and impactful in a way that in game two, it was like, is he going to be playable anymore?

He's just had three awful quarter, three awful halves.

He was really good in the first half of game one and then just disappeared after that.

So they unlocked him.

They were able to at least survive with Gobert out there, which that felt iffy in the first,

especially in the second game.

Isn't Gobert crazy?

Because it's like certain nights you just go, oh, thank God he's out there.

You know, he's deterring some of these drives.

And then other times, you just go like,

and I think you've seen that from Finch

throughout the playoffs.

I mean, even going back to the Lakers series, there'll be these stretches.

And I think that's kind of what playoff basketball is, is that the same thing can look like a completely different product 48 hours later.

But Rudy has had moments where it's like, thank God for Rudy.

And then other times you're like, all right, Finch is going to get him out of there.

Then he had one possession where I saw like he tried to go small.

And then he was, I think it it was game two, and Finch is just so frustrated.

I think he put Rudy right back in the game because he was like, all right, whatever.

Like, it was like such a bad defensive possession.

Do you, do you have anything?

Like, is there any part of you with OKC as we looked at this Final Four being like, this is their title to lose?

Is there any resetting for you at all with that kind of result in game three?

I'm going to answer that question after the break.

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All right.

So you asked me if I feel any differently about OKC after game three.

I left game two thinking that they were not going to lose another playoff game and that they had gone up a level defensively and they were just going to go on one of those runs like the 91 Bulls did.

There's some great young teams over the years that just as the playoffs went along, they started going up levels and just waxing everybody.

I think the 0-1 Lakers were like this too.

I mean, they basically only lost one game in overtime to Philly, but teams that just got better as the playoffs go along.

And I thought that's what we were watching with OKC.

I don't get surprised very much.

I know game three, it's always a zag.

It's always the desperation thing.

The line was only OKC minus two, which I was talking with Raheem and JJ and House and Sal about the line.

It's just like, this might be our last chance ever to have OKC.

at a spread that that's low.

And finally, it went up to three.

And then they just sucked and they seemed young.

And I was surprised by it because I figured they would know that Minnesota was going to come out like they did.

I thought Ant was good in game two.

If you look back at like his, the pace that he had and how he played and the decisions he made, it was really good.

There was some good stuff about that the next day.

But I was just surprised.

They seemed young.

And one of the things that stood out yesterday was Gobert just seemed big.

in some spots in a way that I just didn't feel in the first two games.

I felt like physically

they overpowered OKC a little bit.

Ultimately, I don't think OKC loses again.

I would still bet on, I think this is now five instead of four.

And Minnesota at least showed they had a little in reserve, but I still think OKC is just,

I know they can crank up that defense.

For whatever reason, when they fall behind 15, something happens to them psychologically.

I don't think they're a very good come from behind team.

They did it once against Memphis in that John Morant game when he got hurt.

But in general, I just think they're built to have a lead and protect it.

It's almost like those those NFL teams that they just need to go up 10 and then their defense can finish the game.

I think that's who they are.

Well, I think some of the three-point shooting numbers that we talked about would be part of that.

I mean,

when they were having some of those bad closes against Denver, and then that entire storyline shifted when Denver looked like the disastrous team late, and then they win game six with having the Strother game.

Sometimes you're like, okay, so OKC only played 24 clutch games.

Does that mean that they're less comfortable in clutch games and all this other stuff?

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

If they played in seven more clutch games, then they would, they would be, I mean, it just sounds good because you have something to point to and say, hey, nobody's played in less clutch games.

They're, they're, but over a quarter of their games were still technically clutch games in the regular season.

It's not like they played four of them out of 82.

So I think it sounded really good.

It was hard for me to buy it.

And then guess what happened?

Like the better team ended up figuring it out.

The team with the MVP figures it out.

And, you know, you expect the shooting variants at some point to kick in here but if you're trying to figure out like how do you get your ass kicked that bad maybe part of it is like minnesota i think is good you know i i'm surprised that at least one of those games in okc wasn't a down-to-the-wire game i mean we could see

game two which was heading that way and they just couldn't land the plane on it and they let a couple

That's what's crazy about this OKC team.

They have these 10-0 runs and all of a sudden you're like, fuck, we're down 12.

What happened?

You know, especially with their defense at home.

And it might be one of those things.

OKC might just be an awesome home playoff team,

right?

And they're going to have home court, and maybe they're just going to be one of those teams where old school, like the splits at home versus them on the road, is a little different.

I think there's one way Minnesota hangs.

And I think you would agree with this.

Edwards was,

I thought,

really good in game two, even though his team wasn't.

And I thought he was really good yesterday.

And maybe that's the roadmap for them.

I thought he was patient.

I really felt like he was trying to solve what they were doing.

They were throwing all kinds of dudes at him, and he was handling it.

And I just was really impressed.

I thought it was a sophisticated game.

Whereas compared to last year in the Dallas series, where I thought he kind of unraveled a little bit, the more Dallas threw at him, I thought he had had trouble handling it.

And this, in those last two games, I didn't.

So that would be the case if you're excited about Minnesota.

It's like, hey, Ant might be, something might be happening here.

But it only happens when the other guys are making shots.

And when you have Nas miss 17 straight threes, DiVincenzo, who, you know, I don't always love every coach after a game being like, I liked our looks.

Right.

I've yet to ever hear a coach.

I don't know if I've heard a coach.

I mean, it's probably been said at some point, but like, you know, we didn't have a lot of good ones tonight.

Didn't love our looks.

Yeah.

DiVincenzo, who I would agree with Finch, like

I've liked so many of his looks.

He's going to be better than 5-18.

And granted, he hit two in game three, but he only took three.

I mean, granted, some of the overall stats, again, from game three, I don't even know necessarily what they'll mean because you're down 20, 30 minutes after you're tying your shoes if you're on the thunder side of things.

But none of the ant stuff works unless

these guys are making shots.

And for

the first two games, it was pretty abysmal.

Minnesota was under 30%.

And then I think the other part is kind of the Randall, it's getting close to midnight conversation.

If you look at who he was in those first two series and you go on any metric you want to look at and who he has been throughout his career in the playoffs, and like it just ends up being part of the national broadcast.

I know they have access to this guy, and it's like, you know, people doubted this guy to play.

Like, well, no shit, we doubted him in the playoffs.

Like, give me the evidence that told me I was supposed to be psyched about it.

And he played great.

great.

And his matchups, you know, he, he was like, when he got LeBron on him, seeing it live and then seeing on TV, he was.

Shocking.

Let's go.

It was shocking.

You know, Draymond, very honest, which is sometimes like surprising.

And he talked about how much Siakam had eaten him up and how much Randall, you know, had taken him out in his matchup.

But granted, I think Draymond in that series against Minnesota was tasked with doing a ton of stuff.

So I don't look at like, I don't look at Draymond's defensive run through the playoffs against Houston and Minnesota.

And I'm just not sitting here upset because I think he was asked to do a ton of stuff and for the most part, battle.

But you look at it and you're like, holy like, do you realize like how special Randall has been through these 10 games?

And it's like, okay, well, now you get OKC.

And it's not just the primary defender.

It's all of that other stuff that's happening.

And immediately, like the start of game one, it's like, hey, this back down turn dribble thing that takes a little while for you to set up.

So Randall not being that secondary on-ball creator and getting benched in game two, which is all you need to know.

I'd be like, hey, I wonder how they feel about him.

Well, he played 32 of the first 36 minutes, and now he's not going to play any of the fourth quarter.

They had it to 103.90.

Did you see the social clip, but he was telling his family to leave with like six minutes left in game two?

I thought that was weird.

It was like Finch told him, not, you know, we're going to make a run with Ayu.

Don't get mad.

I need you for game three.

It looked weird.

I'll admit, my first instinct now on any social clip is that I don't believe that is the thing that's being told me.

I think, by the way, that's a great first instinct.

The first one.

When you get the press conference clips where they're just like doctoring the audio out of the guy's mouth and you're like, wait, that guy said that?

Right.

Then you realize, oh, they did AI with this.

I think I fell for one of those once, but I didn't repost or anything.

I was like, holy shit, Harbaugh's like letting him.

Like, I know Harbaugh.

And I was like, oh.

I was like, I don't think he'd say bitches, though.

Yeah, I saw that clip.

I mean, if that's what it ended up being, you know, he handled it the right way.

And I also think there's a part of this, too, with

OKC.

It's incredibly frustrating.

And that first game was frustrating.

I mean, SGA has seven free throws at the seven-something mark of the first quarter.

Yeah.

And, you know, when Jaden chucked him during game two,

I kind of liked it.

Like, people just could pile that in to be like, oh, you know, they're breaking at the seams.

The Timberwolves are just so frustrated.

I didn't kind of like it.

I loved it.

And he's like, fuck this guy.

Because he had a lot of fun.

That's like the class we grew up with.

Yeah.

And then it kind of gets packages like, oh, this shows that Minnesota's breaking.

I'm like, I think he's just pissed and he's sick of this guy.

And by the way, that's not SGA's free throws to me are not necessarily even the story, the outcome of the first two games here.

But

it wasn't the free throws.

It was the calls he was getting when he banged in other bodies that didn't resemble everything else that was being officiated in the entire playoffs.

He was doing it.

He would be side to side with somebody and he'd put his arm out.

And McDaniel's had a couple fouls where he's just like, What the fuck am I supposed to do?

Am I, should I run backwards?

When he fell down,

when he fell down, and they challenged it, and the official was like pissed at Alexander Walker for being like, You've got like Alexander Walker was like unhinged because he knew he's like, He just fell down.

And then the ref kind of looked at him.

And like, a ref, when they get, and I can't imagine being a ref and having guys yell at you for two and a half hours.

Like, eventually, you get sort of defensive and you know, all these guys, that testosterone is flying around.

And the official gave it this, like, look, like, hey, you know, you fouled him and it's on him.

And it's like a little extra emphasis on what he's doing back at the score table.

And you see the review, and you're like, yeah, he just fell down.

That's why those guys were all losing their minds.

So they definitely got way too caught up in all that stuff.

I think Minnesota's a good team.

I wasn't going to pick them in this series.

I thought the odds were a little crazy.

Then the odds looked like they might have been too low with the way the Thunder controlled those third quarters, the stuff that the Thunder can go to here.

But, you know, there's a Randall piece and the three-point piece that makes Ants night.

Like, it's predetermined.

If Randall can't do it, they're going to go 20 for 40 from three and Randall's going to play well and Ants making good decisions.

They're a really good team.

There you go.

With that said,

Caruso, nine minutes.

Didn't he get a bunch of fouls, though?

Yeah.

I'm just, he was minus 16 when he was out there, and it was the first bad Caruso game in a while.

Wallace only played 15, and he was minus 30 in the 15.

I don't even know.

Do these numbers matter, though?

Yeah, I'm just, I'm trying to figure out, like, to me, defense is going to be their identity in this series.

And my guess is they're going to try to come back and be like, dude, we got here on defense.

Let's play some defense again.

When Caruso goes out, there's like, give me Randall.

That guy's not doing that again.

He takes him.

They'll throw dudes at Edwards.

Just try to make him give up the ball.

And they're going to see if Minnesota can go 20 for 40 from three again would be be the strategy.

I still like OKC in five.

Yeah, look, the Caruso foul game was game two.

Um, I just don't know what any of the stats will mean from any of the guys.

And then, you know, they were talking about it because I was watching the broadcast a little bit with game three with

Ruko Legs and our guy Kirk Goldsberry.

Yeah, and I watched some of that too.

It was, it was delayed by two seconds.

So, that I'd like to get as live as possible.

So, I ended up going back.

The two sides.

Legs is having a big year.

Big Legs year.

He's been great.

Can you give me an actor equivalent of like 20 years later?

It's like, man, we appreciate this guy.

Yeah, maybe it's kind of the surroundings.

Yeah, because if you're...

If you're in a neighborhood where you have one of like many good restaurants in the neighborhood, and then you're one of the only ones left, and it's like, man, the food, this place is great.

Might be one of those.

But Travolta.

I think he's great.

I'm trying to do a Travolta here for you.

Travolta's peaks were higher than earlier's legs' peaks.

So Travolta just went away.

The Travolta comeback cannot be compared.

It's not.

He was literally six feet under in the ground and came back.

But he had these peaks.

I don't think there's a Saturday Night Fever for legs.

What I'm trying to think of is the actor who has been around forever and then later on, I mean, you can't.

It's like a Liam Neeson.

Yeah, but

I don't.

I don't know.

I don't know about that.

Tommy Lee Jones?

No Country for Old Men.

Is it No Country for Old Men for Legs?

It might be.

Because he was around, but I mean, I think it felt like he was having a bit of a comeback with the fugitive.

Right.

And then he had that run in the 90s, then it dipped again, then it came back.

Where he played.

He played the same character for a decade.

Legs is doing great.

That might be it.

No country for old man.

It's like you can build the whole thing around this guy.

Did you not realize this he's been here the whole time yeah he's awesome give him a giant monologue at the end he's gonna crush it um

i was thinking i don't know whether i would call this the sea change season or the something's different season i mentioned this to you last week and i was going through seasons

that just feel like something has shifted

goes back to your pacer's point right because if this is real if this is normal this is the way you want to build your team this goes against anything we've ever accepted we've gone from it's better to have nine than three.

That's pretty weird.

But think all the things that happened this season.

LeBron and Curry feels like those eras are over.

As like, if this is the best guy on your team, that doesn't mean you're even going to make the finals.

Tatum goes down and the Boston thing, which goes from 2016 to this year, now feels like it's in flux.

The Luca trade, which was the biggest trade in the history of the league, Cooper flag to Dallas and OKC has arrived.

And San Antonio feels like they're reloading.

It just feels like

it feels like the seesaw just went like this.

The last time I was looking through all the seasons, trying to think when I felt like that with the season, 2016,

when Cleveland beat Golden State, Golden State had beaten OKC, and then the weird salary cap thing and Durant just went to the Warriors, and we were like, oh,

it just felt like a shift.

And for those listening, Bill did a thing where his

thing was my

fake human seesaw.

Imagine a plane and its wings dipping a bit.

2010-11 season, right after the decision in Miami, and the lockout was coming, and it felt like the Celtics and Lakers had kind of run their course.

We were in the tail end of Kobe and Gasol.

That felt like that was not going to the best place.

KG Pierce, Ray, that felt like that might be getting creaky.

OKC was coming with Durant and those guys.

And we had all those awesome drafts in a row in 07, 08, 09, where just all these young players are coming to the league.

And it was like, I don't know what's happening, but something's happening.

And by the way, we went out of basketball season next year.

So it was just like, we're on edge.

And then the only other one I can think of was

after MJ's,

he wins his last title and we immediately go into the lockout.

And Kobe and Duncan are coming and the league's about to shift that way.

And it seems like Grant, it seems like it's going to be Kobe Duncan, Gran Hill.

MJ's gone.

we have this lockout, the salaries are super weird.

Every they're trying to get rid of these three-year contracts for you get you're in the league three years, then you can sign for a hundred million dollars.

And it just felt like everything was up.

Those were the seasons in the last 25 plus years that you could just tell something had changed.

And I think this season feels like that.

So, I wanted your take.

I would put it in that class.

If the Pacers win this whole thing, well, that's like right.

Yeah, then we're getting canned goods.

Even if they make the finals, I think it feels that way.

We get an Indiana OKC finals.

It's fucking crazy.

But what will happen is everyone will agree with you and say that this now is different.

And as I've said this entire time, like I would need to have this happen.

This would have to be the new normal for me to accept that this is the shift and that the league has changed.

I feel like we're already here, though, for this reason.

Did you see that there was a graphic about the 25 most followed Instagram accounts

in the NBA, which includes people like both Ball Brothers and Ben Simmons, but it was like the NBA players with the most Instagram followers.

And none of the four teams left had a guy in the top 25.

I was like, that feels like something.

Well, Bridget's both suck.

I'm just kidding.

Too much Tommy.

No, it just feels like I think you add everything up combined with where we're going with this lottery,

and it just feels like something.

And then the second apron thing, I didn't even mention that part.

Well, we're going to go to the bottom.

And just where we're going financially, I don't even,

I don't, like, you add all that together and say, I don't know what's going to happen with this league.

I still will refuse to believe that the outcome of this league will be dictated by players outside of the top 10 consistently.

I forgot to mention the media rights deal.

We have new partners.

We have the inside.

What does that have to do with the results?

Just the flux of this year, like feeling like

we're ending something and heading toward something.

And there's also a study that says icebergs have gotten bigger for the first time.

Global warming is maybe over.

And the salary cap.

I don't know that I believe that it's over, but there's data.

There's new data, Bill.

You're not with me.

It doesn't sound like.

Plus, Cooper flag coming.

Well,

hey, if you want to hit me with all of the guys that are the marquee names and they're all kind of heading towards the end of this whole thing, yeah, you're right.

Luka and the Lakers.

I mean, if you're asking me, like, hey, new teams are going to start winning, it's like, well, no shit.

Like, sports are.

Something doesn't always happen, though.

Well,

like, we're going to have Utah tanking, I guess, for the rest of the decade.

And still,

God only knows what's going to happen with them.

Look at Charlotte.

Look at Washington.

You know, it's...

And then you go on the other side.

By the way, did you know Brooklyn has four first-round picks?

For some reason, I didn't realize that until I was studying the draft and all the draft picks.

Yeah, I did.

It's in a really interesting spot.

I saw some bad, like, hey, package all four.

Like, it's the NFL draft.

Like, that is one of the biggest disconnects of all time.

Like, if you were in the NFL and you say, I'll give you 12, 17, and 20, like, who knows?

Like, you might be able to get it up to the top five.

The NBA, when it's like, we don't want 20, 21, and 27, like, that's not going to get you right.

Even though obviously Brooklyn's first pick is a lot higher than that I've mentioned.

But even in the NBA, like, if you're sitting there with eight and two other firsts, like, hey, can we get to four?

No.

In the NFL, you could.

The NBA.

8, 19, 26, and 27.

How high could you move up with those four?

Could you get to fourth?

Would Charlotte do that?

I don't think you could get to fourth.

You don't think Charlotte does that?

You think Charlotte wants four more rookies?

No.

No one wants four more rookies, by the way.

The only team I was thinking about that could potentially get excited is Daryl because he would just have all these picks.

It would be like his Super Bowl.

You'd be like,

I'm going to build an entire bench right now for my guy, Joel Embiid.

Yeah, but even the most confident

GM isn't going to assume that he's going to hit on all four first-round picks.

And then they're going to be rotational pieces for a team that, when Philly's healthy, has

Eastern Conference finals aspirations, championship aspirations.

Yeah.

It's funny when,

how often do you look through when we think about all these teams that are loaded with all their picks and then you actually look at the picks?

You know, OKC is one of those that I thought OKC was just like, holy shit, they have so many awesome picks.

And now you go through it and I'm not sure they're that awesome.

Like they have two Denver top five protected picks down the road.

I assume Jokic is still going to be there.

They have the Dallas swap in 28, but now they have Cooper flag.

They have Clipper stuff in 26 and 27 swaps

and this year, but the Clippers seem like they're going to be at least pretty functional for the next two years.

And then they have the Philly 26 first,

top six protected, top four protected the next year.

And Philly seems like they've reloaded.

They have the Utah

top eight, right?

In 26.

Top eight, right.

That's not much.

No, no, I didn't say that one, but I almost assume Utah is going to throw next year.

See, they don't really have like a

genuinely juicy pick, whereas,

you know, like Houston has Phoenix's 27 first,

you know, and they have the ability to choose between Phoenix or Dallas's first and 29.

Like those are picks where you're like, oh, fuck.

Those are some.

Those are some winners.

Brooklyn has a couple of good ones too.

But again, it's like Brooklyn can swap with Houston in 27.

What does that do for you?

Houston's going to be really good.

So sometimes when these teams put together all these picks, Utah is interesting because they still have a bunch of those Minnesota and Cleveland picks left.

But ironically, the best pick they have is that sneaky trade they made

near the deadline, that weird trade Phoenix made where they gave up the three firsts for

their 2031 first, which Utah now has.

If they're 2031 first,

who the fuck's going to be in Phoenix in six years?

You know,

that could end up being, yeah, it might be both of us.

The other one, there's some other weird trades that I just forgot.

Three of us just hanging out.

Well, Washington got Memphis's first-round pick this year

because they took Marcus Smart to go back to our Marcus Smart trade.

He went from I'm worth Christophe Sporzingas and two first, basically, to you have to trade her first to get rid of me to go to my next team.

That's

pretty dramatic.

Anyway, there was a reason I brought all this up.

Oh, because

we were talking about how fast things can flip for who we think is looking good.

Who knows?

You'd think Utah, if there's somebody that's available, that the agent says, yeah, my guy will stay there.

Because the idea of Utah taking another rookie guard, I mean, unless the evaluation, they just look at him and go, hey, he's better than everybody we already have.

And this was an upset, and he shouldn't have been here.

You know, maybe it's just

because I think Edgecombe should be in the conversation with the other two Rutgers guys.

I knew you were going to be in this corner.

I've been waiting for it.

I need to do more work, but I am a little surprised that

after the combine, whether during the combine or after, it's like, okay, well, clearly we know who number one is.

And then it's Harper, and then it's everybody else.

And I'm like, yeah, I don't know.

As I said to you a week ago, I'm, um, even though all indications is Sanio, Santona's taking Harper,

I don't know.

Edgecombe seems like a,

I know they already have Castle.

Like it would be weird to have both of them, I guess, but I don't know.

And Harper's shooting is better than his numbers.

The reason his three-point shooting percentage is way lower than you would want is because he takes some terrible shots, which a lot of really big-time, high-profile high school guys come in being like,

you know,

I've got to take these to show that I'll take them.

So Harper, I think, is going to be a better shooter than the numbers prove out.

And he does so many really good things, like running the high pick and roll that you see all the time.

and all this stuff.

And like, you know, Castle's had a really nice year.

And he certainly seems to have the mentality of, like, you would think he's going to attack this as a competitor, that he's going to care, you know, that he's going to love basketball and he's going to be frustrated in those moments where he feels like he's not good enough.

Like, it was just everything, you know, we're always trying to guess with any of these guys.

But

I don't feel like I see the same separation between Harper

and Edgecombe that the draft conversation seems to be at right now.

So trying to remember, when was the last time that's happened?

Where

in like April, May, we were like, oh, no, here's going to be the top four.

And then something shifted as we got to mid-May, June.

Oh, no, yeah.

Tatum was like consensus mock third.

I just thought

at the time.

No, but Tatum's a good.

I think Tatum's the right example, though.

Yeah, but everybody knew that was like Fultz is going first.

Right.

And everybody knew Lonzo was going to the Lakers.

So at least that was a little bit more accepted.

It just,

you know, Ace Bailey, if he was better, is your number two guy.

Like, there's,

isn't it more likely that he could drop versus go up?

Like, when I found found out he was 6'7 and a half and not 6'10, I thought that was a complete game changer.

Okay, but remember,

we're going off, and I hate the league did this, and I'm probably one of the few people that even cares about this.

No shoes.

The no shoes thing changed.

Like Harper's listed at 6'6, and he measures 6'4 and a half with no shoes.

So now it's presented as this huge disappointment.

Like, what the hell's going on with these college programs?

Like, I think one year in La Crosse, one of my roommates just like they were like, hey, what are you?

And he was like, 6'4, 230.

And he, I didn't even think he was 6 feet.

Yeah.

And they just let him do it.

So that's been going on in college for years and years.

I mean, it's probably a little bit tighter when you're one of the top players in the high school circuit and then you end up, you know, at a D1 program.

But Harper is listed at 6'6.

And then he's 6'4.5.

And so it's the same thing with Ace.

It's like, oh, I thought this guy was 6'10.

6'10 from 6'7 and a half is a little bit different.

But it frustrates me because then you've just, I mean, I know the simple thing is like, well, hey, now they're just not in shoes, so factor that in, but then it gets relayed as if all these guys are just across the board comically shorter than all their listed heights.

But the flag was another one.

Yeah, well, it's because they used to let them up until very recently, the official measurement was the measurement in shoes.

So I think we need, this is where we need a sports are to really decide one way or the other with the measurements.

Are we going shoes or no shoes?

It's like when we talk about NFL seasons, are we saying that the 2001 Pats or the 2002 Pats that won the Super Bowl?

Is it the year the Super Bowl was played or the year we had the regular season?

There's just some things we haven't figured out as a country.

Well, maybe they were just some stability.

Maybe it's a lot like the tariffs, Bill.

It's like, we need, you're going to have to take your medicine.

Yeah.

Okay.

But, but trust us on this one.

Not a statement, not a position, just obviously the rationale behind it.

And maybe the NBA is looking the same way.

Like, well, if he's going to just start tariffing everybody,

maybe we can start tariffing height.

i uh i think it would be most likely ace but ace bailey falls out of the top three then stays in the top three and i i still have uh edge cone

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All right, Tyrese Halliburton.

We're taping this before game three.

So he might, he might go one for 15 tonight with 12 turnovers.

I was thinking.

They don't turn the ball over a lot.

That's true.

That's for sure.

I was thinking he's the best what-if guy of this decade, considering all the teams and all the fan bases that can look at him and go.

Even Golden State.

And there was no way Golden State was taking him at two during the COVID draft, which the COVID draft we'll be doing documentaries about because we had no March Madness and nobody could really work out and just doing Zoom interviews.

Golden State knows Halliburton is absolutely perfect for them, and there's not quite enough of a resume to take a guy who's probably in the seven to nine range at number two.

It would have been really ballsy that you would have had to absolutely love the guy.

And they did try to trade back from what I heard, but nobody wanted to trade back because it was the COVID draft.

Nobody, but here's a guy who I would assume Curry is the perfect steve kerr player but haliburton's probably a close second for how he sees the floor and how he loves the unconstructed chaos so you have them you have detroit taking killian hayes over him you have the knicks now this is a what if in both directions because

they take top and over him but it also leads to brunson and all the good stuff that happens so you're you're probably fine with how it worked out if you're a knicks fan Washton passes on him and takes our guy Avdia.

Phoenix was the most indefensible, and we said this in the moment because they actually needed, you know, to think long-term Halbert and Booker together.

They take Jalen Smith, who they waive after two years, and then San Antonio passes on him.

So you have all those teams before we get to Sacramento number 12.

Then you have, this is my favorite one of all of these.

Philly could have traded Ben Simmons for him.

It was the Haliburton Healed trade.

And I've argued with people about this for two years.

It was like, I was never on the table.

That was never the trade.

It was like, well, they traded

Sabonis for Haliburton and Healed.

And they were offering Sabonis for Ben Simmons.

So you can't say, like, oh, this couldn't have happened.

But I just feel like if Sacramento wanted Ben Simmons,

which I think they did because there's stories about it, could that have been Halberton and Healed?

And I just don't think, I don't think Philly thought he was a big enough star.

So you have that.

And then you have the Sacramento piece.

Sacramento had him for 109 games, Rascillo.

They had him for a year and two-thirds.

And they were like, Fox and Halbert, I don't know.

This doesn't work.

They weren't going anywhere.

They had a chance to trade for Sabonis, which made sense at the time.

It worked out.

They made, you know, they won a playoff.

They got to the playoffs.

They did all the stuff they did.

But

end up trading him.

So that is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight teams that are like, oh, fuck, we could have, we literally could have had that guy.

And now he's on India and he's not going anywhere.

I don't remember another player like that.

I would have to go back to like the 1990s when Jason Kidd got traded twice and felt like he was available for a while there

on Dallas in the mid-90s when that team wasn't working out.

But for somebody as talented as Halliburton to just kind of be available, both in the draft and as trade bait, it's pretty unusual.

The Dallas thing is good, but I remember just having Mashburn around, who just was one of my favorites back in the day, the early SPN stuff.

And you'd be like, you know, and he was like, it was that bad.

Like, it was just that bad.

Yeah.

And so, you know, when you're with it every single day, it's easy for us to be like, how could you ever be in the business of wanting to move off from Jason Kidd?

But then again, you know, of his own doing, it led to another transaction later on for him.

So

I was just talking about Kidd, I think, with Raja the other day.

And, you know, his highlights hold up in a way where I like watch the highlights and I fear we're never going to see anything like it.

You know, I go, are we ever going to be like this lucky to see a player that could see the game this way?

And you knew when you were watching it, even back when he was playing in college, you're like, dude, there's something like incredibly special about this guy.

And again, he has this awesome career and the whole thing.

I don't know that we're putting Halliburton on that level,

but I like what you're doing because you're trying to figure out like, why would you have moved on from it?

I think the funniest thing about the Sabonis.

Halliburton deal is that it happens.

It's like, how do you do?

You can't.

No one ever does a deal like this.

No one ever takes a lottery pick and then moves on from him this quickly, especially when it looks like you got it right with the pick and you can't believe he fell to where he fell.

And that's a really fun trade when it happened.

Right.

But then it,

it's like, oh, here we go again with Sacramento.

And then Sabonis makes all NBA two seasons.

They win 48 games.

Yeah, you look at, and you also look at like Sabonis' career stuff.

This year, everybody's like, no, thanks.

Right?

Because the numbers are still really, really really good, but it's pretty clear, like, when he's your center, there are just limitations on what you can do.

But Sacramento to even have that

high seed a few years ago.

You're like, how can you get on their case when they took a surplus and added a need and it's worked and it's worked for a team that doesn't really get to sniff in this area?

But, you know, now we get to like, we're, we re-litigate this trade so much

that I think it just proves once again, you can't ever give up on lottery talents you think have worked, even if you think it's redundant.

Well,

but or maybe you could make a, they traded the wrong guy a case too.

Well, yeah, I mean,

did you think at the time it's like, hey, trade Fox?

Because DeAaron felt like he,

you know, of all the things that I prioritize, and I've talked about it, but like, can you get your own when it matters?

And De'Aaron's that guy.

It's always felt like he's more that guy than Halliburton is.

The case for trading him was that the money was kicking in with him faster.

So you had the Halliburton on the

rookie deal versus paying more for Fox.

But yeah, I mean, it was, I think the Knicks were trying to get Fox there for, they loved him, obviously, because the Kentucky piece and what kind of godfather deal, but I don't think they ever shot Fox.

And I think Halliburton was kind of being dangled just because the Fox-Halliburton thing didn't work, which in retrospect is kind of crazy.

I actually think when you think about where the league's gone the last few years, they actually could have built their own version of what Indiana has, you know, around like, around two guards who had the ball at the time who were attacking.

I think the other piece, though, you know, it's so funny.

Like Rick Carlisle felt like he got old in Dallas in a lot of ways, right?

And then they finally moved on for him

where how inventive he was

for a lot of his career, but it just felt like

maybe the league was moving in a different direction or something was happening.

But then you watch what he was able to, how he rekindled how everybody felt about him as a coach in Indiana.

And how, I mean, the stuff they were doing to the Knicks in game two.

I was watching the Twitter clips the next day, and some people are putting some good stuff on them.

I'll watch what they do to towns.

Yeah, what did you like?

Just chaos.

You know,

they push the pace.

So they get a lot of one of the things the Celtics, I was watching it more from, I was driving myself crazy about those first two Celtic games, which are moving up the ladder of all time.

Worst losses.

Still, still healing from those first two games.

The worst Celtics loss of my lifetime was 2010 Game 7 Finals.

Game 422 is up there.

I think when you lose a game that actually, like where you could have won the title and you didn't win, because those have to be the highest.

But I think the combo of those two games,

it's really up there historically.

Like blowing two 20-point games in a row, but part of the reason they blew it and you're watching what Indiana is doing, they're pushing the pace.

They're just trying to make Towns stagger around at the top top of the key, not having any idea where he should be or using Robinson.

There was one awesome play where they ran the same play with McConnell twice in a row on the right side.

And the first time Siakam stayed in the corner and Robinson was kind of guarding him, but guarding the rim.

And then the second time Siakam snuck up and got this wide open three.

They were using all the shit the Knicks are bad at against them.

And it's, it's, he was doing the same stuff last year.

Like they really went toe to toe with Boston in that Eastern Finals, and that series was way closer than I think it felt.

It was the closest sweep I've ever watched.

I never felt comfortable in any of the games.

But anyway, I just thought, I think he's figured out pace and chaos in a way that's really unusual for a league where everybody wants to know exactly what they're doing.

Boston's the worst possible example of that.

Let's walk it up.

Let's play 1-4.

Let's wait till eight seconds.

Come set a pick.

We're going to hunt this one matchup.

And I think the Knicks just got used to it.

And they're not, they can't get used to whatever Indiana's doing.

I hate talking about this before game three, but that's what I noticed.

I just felt like the Knicks were frazzled by Indiana.

You know what I mean?

I do.

You know, look, you can just tell a lot based on like sub patterns too, because in that fourth quarter there, he doesn't go back to cat until it feels like they need his offense because he didn't, I think it was, I mean, I've got it somewhere here, but I mean, he was in at 225 when it was 110, 101.

So at that point, you figure he's coming in because they got to make up the nine points somehow, and they're willing to give up.

I mean, he was subbed out with nine minutes to go.

I thought the other great thing was that the Pacers won that start of the fourth quarter because I thought in game one, they were losing the game because of how bad they were when Brunson goes out with the foul trouble.

And then it's a 10-0 run like that in two minutes.

This is supposed to be,

I mean, even would be a disappointment because Brunson is out in these minutes right now.

And you may have just lost this game with with OG getting a couple buckets.

So if Tibbs is taking out Cat with nine minutes to go in the fourth quarter and they're not really making up any ground and then he brings him back in at 225, he realizes how much of an issue Cat is.

And I think you said something because sometimes it is very straightforward.

It's let's get the switch on Cat.

Let's see what we have.

Let's attack.

But for Boston, it was always just that.

Right.

It was always just that.

There's been a couple of things, and it even takes me like a second time to notice it, where it's like, you think we're switching into the cat hunt here with the ball handler, but what we're really doing is there's this other thing where somebody's like crossing underneath it.

And that's really what the whole play is because we've shown you this.

It just, I know what you're saying.

We're really trying to catch Mitchell Robinson asleep.

You think we're going after Cat, but we're really trying to get Mitchell Robinson to forget that somebody is about to back up behind him.

Or we're using the first screen.

The first screen doesn't really even matter.

So Cat's overplaying and he's freaked out, but actually what he has to do is make up ground and follow that his, his first primary defensive assignment is now actually setting a screen for somebody else.

So now you're like, well, shit, I was worried about Halliburton at first, but now I don't know if I'm supposed to take the cutter or stay with my original guy.

And so it's just a little bit, again, I don't know how many times this happens, but it's not just, hey, high pick and roll, even though there's plenty of that.

I mean, Halliburton, when I was watching game two, I'm kind of like, getting frustrated even with Halliburton dancing with Mitchell Robinson for such a long time.

And sometimes sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

But you're like, okay, this is a little predictable and it's getting a little late in the shot clock.

I could totally understand being a Celtics fan and watching some of this stuff going, it was all right there.

And when Kat's not the one to attack, Brunson's the one to attack.

And

why is that complicated?

Why aren't you pushing the ball?

That's the other thing.

One of the things Indiana is doing is

Indiana's brought back the fast break, which was basketball since the entire time we've started playing it.

Is we we get a rebound, go.

Siakim has been chilling

on leaking out.

And, you know, I was very critical of Siakim after the first game because I went, you know, this is kind of who I like some good numbers.

And, you know, in the playoffs, he hasn't shot it really well from distance the last four years of being in the playoffs.

And, you know, there's a marginal decline in the playoffs, which isn't, you know, the end of the world or anything like that.

But, you know, he's so big and you're like, there's no matchup for him out there.

There's no matchup for him.

I mean, is it as simple as, hey, it's OGs on him?

And we know how disastrous that was for any ball handler with the Celtics going at OG.

But the fact that they early on were like, we want to get you going.

And then he starts hitting everything.

And those were like really nice shots from Siakam, too.

That mid-post, back into you, hit you, fade away.

But, you know, I wouldn't be shocked for New York matching, even though it's on the road, New York matching.

You know, again, we don't know what's going to happen here tonight.

But do you think there's this massive gap between these two teams?

Because I do.

I don't.

I don't.

I'd like to see more bridges.

I think it's interesting.

And again, we're taping this for game three.

I think it's interesting that all those Detroit games were so close and that they were down 14 plus in the first five Knicks games.

And that

the bigger the sample size gets, they just don't have a lot of games.

Like OKC, they sucked in game three, but OKC has had a lot of quarters and stretches and even entire games where they've just killed teams.

And that's what would worry me the most if I was a Knicks fan.

They're not having game six against Boston was the only time they like killed the team, right?

And that was a team that had Porzingis and

borderline coma, no Tatum, et cetera, et cetera.

I mean, Bruce has taken 17 shots per game.

So maybe we have seen, I just, every time with him, I feel like he finds a way to get space into a really great look.

And nobody can figure out that weird 45-degree angle jump shot he has.

He has

body control.

He bends and nobody blocks it.

I don't know what his testing would be on.

I don't know if it would show up even in the three cone with him.

He had two plays in game two.

One was the fast break like football outlet to him where he has only

a foot to catch it

to then get up and still make the layup.

And you're thinking like, first of all, the pass is great and it hits him,

but his feet were going to be wrong.

And it was like, I've got to catch this and then get my feet right and then still go up and finish.

And it was awesome.

And then he had another play where he comes baseline, he turns, and it looks like anybody else's body would just like over-rotate, like as if he was trying to like pull a trick on a snowboard.

Yeah.

And he gets.

turned and I know there's other players that are athletic enough to do this stuff, but he gets turned where you'd think his body would keep going and then it just kind of stops in midair because he has such great body control so that he's able to get himself squared up and everything.

And I don't, I don't know that, look, when he's going to the side on those hard dribbles that we saw even in the last round when he would have that huge fourth quarter moment in game two,

when he gets all that momentum going with his dribble to one side and then he's pulling up with his length and the way he's leaning, you're just not contesting that shot.

So I know he's taking 17 shots a game here and I'm saying, hey, more bridges, but I, I don't like it when he gets through these stretches where it's,

you know, he's just kind of stuck in the corner.

I think we saw probably maybe too much of that.

Second earlier season.

Yeah.

It was shocking to watch what he did to Derrick White.

I thought he was just able to score on him whenever he wanted, basically.

Quick 2020 NBA redraft.

Minnesota takes Edwards again.

Right?

We can pencil that one in.

Golden State took Wiseman second.

I just think they shouldn't do that again.

No, I don't think so.

I think Wiseman is no longer the second pick.

And I think it's Hal Burton.

I think they take him and they're delighted by it.

And then him and Steph Curry.

This is quite an alternate universe.

Charlotte had the third pick.

They took Lamello Ball.

Tyrese Maxie is still on the table.

You think they take Tyrese Maxi or LaMelo Ball at the third pick?

I think they would still take LaMelo.

Really?

Interesting.

Over Tyrese Maxi.

I know who I would prefer, but.

Well, let's say we were the conciliaries for the pick.

Who would we tell them to take?

I would tell them to take Tyrese Baxi.

That would be my suggestion.

All right.

We'll give them LaMillo the ball.

So Chicago is at four.

They took Patrick Williams.

I'm not sure they're running that one back.

So you think they would take Maxi here?

Yeah.

All right.

So LaMello and Maxi are 3-4 in some order here.

If Maxi goes 3, I mean, you're not going to drop Lamello.

I had Lamello 4.

I had Maxi three, though.

Cleveland's fifth.

They took Isaac Okoro.

Who'd you have for here?

I had somebody written down.

Well.

Or you want me to give you the name?

No, I think I might take Shaden McDaniels or Bane.

I have Bain.

You'd rather have McDaniels than Bain?

Normally, I'd rather have McDonald's Daniel Daniels scoring than defense.

I like where this is going.

I do.

I think whatever the end of this season is for Minnesota, it feels like a win on the development part of Jaden McDaniels because he's never going to be the first or second option for this team.

Yes, he gets stuck in the corner a lot.

He may never really develop into a guy who, A, we can run some stuff for him with the ball in his hands on the other side.

But whereas, like, there's some players I go, that's never going to happen, and it's still unlikely for Jaden.

There's a lot I really like about him, even though Bane has just been a flamethrower since he stepped into the league.

Bane would probably be more fun for you to work out with.

Or it'd be

in the gym a lot, seems like.

So he's almost Bane is.

I'm doing an age thing here.

Bane is almost 27.

Yeah.

And Jaden is,

he's two years younger.

So for the people listening, if you don't remember, Bane ended up going 30.

He got drafted by the Celtics and then traded.

And this was one of the reasons the COVID draft is so legendary because, like, just look how we did the first five.

Number one, number 12, number 21, number three, and number 30 were the first five.

Atlanta's up next.

So it sounds like you would have McDaniels or Bain, whoever's left over in this spot, which I agreed with.

Yeah.

Well, he went 28th, McDaniels.

You know what my biggest criticism of McDaniels is?

It has nothing to do with anything about him.

I think he gets no respect from the referees, and I don't really understand it.

And I've noticed it over and over again.

He gets called for

touch fouls that I don't feel like any other elite defender gets whistled for, and I don't really fully understand why.

But you can kind of feel it too.

Like, I remember going to game two of the Lakers, and you're just like, oh, they're just going to foul him out of the game.

I can see where this is going.

First two OKC games, I felt like the whistle was not fair with him.

And then in game three, all of a sudden started getting a good whistle again.

All right.

So Atlanta, Jaden McDaniels, Detroit took Killian Hayes, number seven.

I'm going to say they're not going to do that again.

This is either Devin Vessell, Denny Abdier, Aaron Neesmith were in that range.

I think they're one of those three.

Who do you have?

This is funny because I didn't think I'd spend my Sunday, Memorial Day weekend, going, who says no between Denny and Vesselle?

It's

an unexpected joy for you.

You know, people were like,

you get a lot of work this weekend.

I was like, yeah, kind of.

Like, you're going to have any fun.

You're going to have any fun.

And I was like, right when we say goodbye at the end of this pod.

Are you kidding?

I think Vassell's the pick, but I'm

I'm still kind of holding out.

Like, I think Denny's going to be pretty good and maybe

is more, there's a little bit more to Avdia than there is Vasselle, but I think Vassell's the more proven, like, hey, come in and get buckets and score and give us spacing and all that kind of stuff.

Where, I mean, Denny's just so aggressive in the rebounding.

I have Vassell here as well.

He went 11th.

I have Denny going to the Knicks with the next pick.

He went 9th to the Washington Wizards.

I can't believe Pritchard's still on the board for years.

Oh, yeah.

Then I have Neesmith going to Washington.

Any arguments?

Over Okongwu?

Yeah, I'm just watching Aaron Neesmith with flames shooting out of his ass.

It's Knicks series.

It's a recent Sabbath.

Then the next three are Okongu, quickly, and Pritchard

with Phoenix, San Antonio, and Sacramento all in the clock.

Okanguu ended up going sixth to Atlanta, quickly went 25th, and Pritchard went 26th.

So,

and Phoenix, as we talked about,

famously botched this pick.

So, I'm going to say Okangwu for them.

This is where it gets exciting.

I'll admit with Okangwu, I always think he's better.

No, I always think he's better.

I think they think he's better.

They finally made the change

this year.

And maybe it's just the idea of him, or maybe they were, I don't know, they were trying to keep the

keep his value down a little.

I don't, I don't know.

I kind of like him.

Me too.

And

basically

this is a property with me on Kongwu Island.

This feels like a make-or-break a Kongwu season.

How's that?

I think that's totally fair.

Yeah.

Then I I have Quickly going to San Antonio and Pritchard going to Sacramento.

And then we don't have to do any more after that.

He already has the extension and it's a super easy number here, but he Pritchard.

No, no, no.

I meant a Kongwu.

I'm still

on him because he only started 40 games this year, but it was very clear after never starting any games.

I mean, he did technically start games.

It feels like a Kongwu time is on the horizon down there in Atlanta.

Quickly or Pritchard?

In fact, they're in contracts.

No, honestly, with Pritchard,

I think he

is more adaptable to what you need from him.

Where if Quickley just doesn't get, you know, 16 shots against a second unit, and look, Quickly was awesome a couple of years ago, okay?

Yeah.

But it was very clear.

It was like, hey, it's quickly time.

And I think he needs that freedom.

to be as impactful where Pritchard,

Pritchard, man, he, I mean, it's not just the dribble pull-ups.

It's not just the dribble drives, which he got really good at, I thought, this year, but it's also the catch and shoot.

So I think he's a little bit more versatile in how you can use him as an offensive player, where for the most part, it's like quickly just going to go.

All right.

So we just did a top 12.

It was exciting.

And the guys,

where they were actually picked versus how that top 12 went: number one, number 12, 21, 3, 30, 11, 9, 28, 14, 6, 26, and 25.

That is fucking nuts.

And we don't have out of the guys in the top eight, we only have three.

So it just makes you think: like, when we were going to spend all this time in this draft,

maybe you're better off with the 13th pick than the fifth.

Like, who the

it's such a crap shoot every year, and we always forget it, which is why I think the redrafts are always kind of interesting to redo.

This one is a crazy one, though, because of COVID.

This was not considered a great draft, by the way.

Also, if Cindy Bay is healthy, who knows?

You know, maybe he's in the conversation.

But you're right.

Like, I'm shocked because I do it usually around this time every year, and I'll probably have a segment.

It'd be a slow opening monologue night before.

But the number of guys that are in the top 10 and how rare it is now, like, for that person to be on the team that drafted them.

And I mean the team that actually has them, not the draft rights thing, which can make it even more confusing.

How many of those guys get to their fourth year?

I think one stretch I did it over like a five-year stretch and it was, it was less than 50% of the guys in the top 10 because we knew

that was always my point of like, you know, oh, cool.

I'm trading picks in the 20s all the time.

Like, who gives a shit?

And history still tells you, like, there's a significant drop off.

And when you're grabbing a rotational guy that's going to make it to a second contract somewhere in the 20s, that's a massive win.

Also speaks to your boy Ainge, too, because you start going through this aing draft where it felt like boston had him richard rob williams yeah he was nailing him

i mean he's he's had some really good picks that like hey that guy's going to play like 10 years so um yeah so as i talked about the 20s stuff which we've talked about for a really long time teams were on this for a long time i always felt like those picks were just a little overrated but it sounded really cool to be like hey this expiring bet or whatever and like you know it depends if he's expiring you're getting something so i'm not criticizing that transaction but then it's like okay so that means all the top 10 10 picks are really valuable.

And then you look at those and you go, my God.

Yeah.

This isn't, this is where the stars are.

So that means a chance at one of them is valuable, but the return on even the guys in the top 10, you'd be shocked.

And I'll do it again this year, but you'd be shocked how many times the guy is not even on the team in the fourth year of the rookie contract.

Also crazy how many times an awesome player falls into the 12 to 17 range because it happened in that 21 draft, too, right?

Shengun and Trey Murphy fell to 16 and 17.

Halibairn fell to 12.

Where did Booker go?

Like 13?

12?

Maybe, I don't know.

Yeah, somewhere like in the 13th

range?

Something like that.

Yeah, well, the problem for him was that team in Kentucky was loaded.

So,

yeah, 13th pick, good call.

There's always one guy in that range that nails it.

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All right, before we go, because we're going to go enjoy our Memorial Day, I asked you to, you have to give me one

absolutely crazy prediction for the summer that deep down you don't think is that crazy.

Nets run it back with Kyrie.

All right, make the case.

Let's hear it.

Josiah, all is forgiven.

You gave me this like one minute before I jumped into the Zoom.

Yeah, it's like 20.

There's not what, there's not one.

It could be like a Jalen Brown ends up in Houston kind of level.

I think there's going to be three major name transactions.

I do.

Because I think one will go, and then the other teams that we're working on at all offseason are going to feel left out.

And I'd imagine one of those top five picks is move,

which which I think is.

Yeah, but it also could be maybe Utah just says, we have to do something.

Like, we have to figure out a way to package this unless they get done with the entire draft thing and they go, hey, look, Edgecombe fell to us.

The Kyrie thing was kind of a joke, though, because I was thinking about his negotiation.

And he can opt out of the 44 million this year.

And you're thinking, okay, but what?

What do I have to pay you?

And you're not going back to the Nets.

Like the one team with all this cap space isn't going to the Nets.

And now, if you're Kyrie's representation, you can go, it doesn't matter what our leverage is or isn't.

But we said this two years ago with him, and he still got that awesome contract from them.

Remember, we were like, who are they competing against?

Didn't matter.

He got the 40 million a year.

Yeah, but it was almost like they admitted we had to give him this because what we gave up for him.

And you're like, okay.

You could argue it's going to be the exact same thing, that he's going to get everything that he wants because of even with the number one pick and bringing in flag.

It's like, so wait, you're going to to play hardball with me now, though, when you talked about this

window and wanted to build this team around me and Anthony Davis.

So I was trying to be cute with it.

I don't actually believe that that would happen, but I don't know what Brooklyn's going to do with all of their cap space.

Would Detroit try to, and they might not have enough space with the way that Cade's contract goes up a little bit here, but would they just go, hey, we'll give you the full four years to Miles Turner?

You know, we have a stretch five to go with Duran if we want to switch this and try to take away from a team that we're going to be doing.

It's tough because we know, I was looking at him.

We know the center market and it's in the, it's around 20.

That's where these guys land

over and over again, except with the exception of Sabonis.

So we think it's 20, but then we know with free agents, especially when there's not a lot of them out there, all of a sudden somebody gets some crazy deal.

Do you think Miles Turner is worth more than 20 million a year?

I think he is when there aren't any other good free agents out there.

I mean, he's still only 29 years old.

He just turned 29 two months ago.

Even though it felt like, again, we said this at the top, it felt like he was available there for a long time, but he was available in that way.

Where it's like, well, we don't want to just give him away.

Like, whatever you may think about his deficiencies, there's still a lot of really good stuff about it.

And now here they are two games away from the NBA Finals.

But he was available partly because he kept getting thrown into Laker trades that seemed like they were just coming from Laker fans.

You know, where they're like, oh, they're going to trade for Miles Turner and Buddy Hilde.

It's like, are they?

I don't know why Zana doing that.

I believe he was available for a while, but they weren't.

But they were going to give him away, though.

They wanted to get a good player back for him.

All right, I'm going to give you mine.

I didn't really give you one.

If you didn't have one, you didn't have one.

I got, you know what, though?

20 plus years of doing this.

We got a few minutes out of it anyway.

So thanks in advance.

I have a good one.

Can we talk about LeBron going to Cleveland?

Sure.

Can we just talk it out?

Yeah.

Floor's yours.

There's a couple ways it could go.

It's a really interesting last act for him.

I'll start here with what they have, with their assets they have, with him, Luca, and Reeves together.

Reeves, I guess you could try to trade him this summer, which you'd have to with the way his contract is going to go.

But I'm not sure if you're getting a piece back that if you put Luca and LeBron and whatever that piece is together, I still don't know what that gets you if you're the Lakers.

And the GOAT stuff, which just doesn't end ever.

And every time you think it's over, now the agents are frightening Avid Falk defending MJ.

And then Rich Paul's like, well, I've got to defend LeBron.

Now we have the agents of the two guys involved in the GOAT discussion arguing about who's the GOAT.

That's how bad it's gotten, how stupid it's gotten.

I want it to end so bad.

And

I just thought after a certain age, honestly, with LeBron, to me, at this point, there's only things he could add to his legacy.

Playing this long,

I don't think there should be any result, any stat line where you're allowed to then go, well, you know, I thought you were this, but this age 41 season, I've got to reassess this.

You know, and Steph is kind kind of getting close to that.

Like, if Steph loses in the first round, it's like, oh, this guy lost this many times in the first round or didn't get it.

Yeah, the resume is complete.

We've already printed it out in our printer.

We have it.

That would be a good segment where it's like, once you're past this threshold,

it's like the over 38 rule, but it's legacy talk where we can't.

We can't take anything away from you now.

You know, it's like LeBron has 40,000 points, but he didn't get 42.

Like, you're just looking for one.

He was coasting a bit against Minnesota.

Second team on NBA.

Is that good enough?

If you're doing game four breakdown and saying, hey, I thought LeBron wasn't showing the initiative that he showed in game three, that's totally fair.

But if you're then using that as some like, hey, Jordan will never do that.

Jordan will never fucking coast.

It's like, dude, I don't want to do this.

It makes me actually want to talk about Angel Reese more.

So that doesn't happen.

Look.

Angel Reese post-ups.

I think we should have.

I ran into Rich Paul recently, and it was funny because I thought he was coming over to give me shit about something I said.

And honestly, dude, he's so good.

He's so good with people.

I was like, hey, man.

And he's like, what's up?

And I was like, are you getting on my case?

Because

he's like, man, I don't care about any of that shit.

He's like, I don't even know what you're talking about.

And then he started talking to me about college football.

He's like, I love like the stuff that you and Van and how much you love college football.

And I was like, God, I forgot because I hadn't talked to him in forever.

And I was like, I forgot like how good he is.

Complimentary.

Yeah, right.

And he, but it again, in a very genuine way, which I think is like our good friend Tim, Tim Walsh.

He's like the Rich Paul of my friendship.

Timmy Walsh.

Right.

Tim is.

interested in you.

He's complimentary.

He's sincere.

And it always is actually very genuine.

It's not, it's not.

So anyway, I don't know that I'll have Rich Paul on to defend himself against David Falk because I can't fucking take it anymore.

Every time I see a first take clip that actually like legitimately addresses it, they did it on Friday.

There couldn't have been more news.

It was basketball news galore.

But guess what?

Like, it's the same reason why, like, when ESPN tagged the Caitlin Clark, like, they lost.

It was Breonna Stewart got that awful foul call.

Look at me, your guy.

And

there was, there was like the headline was like, despite Caitlin Clark's efforts,

Liberty, did they lose the Liberty?

I don't know.

And then it was like, oh, look what, look what they're doing.

It's like, no, they're not, they're not doing anything.

They're giving you what you want because somebody is going to click on that because it led with Caitlin, despite Caitlin Clark's effort, not, hey, Liberty win on controversial late free throws.

And it is the same thing as LeBron, is that

until people start going, I can't fucking take it anymore.

I'm not clicking on this.

I'm not watching the videos, but I imagine the results are still there, even though what is left.

There's not only there's no fucking bone left.

Forget meat on the bone.

The bone has disintegrated.

The carbon dating on this thing.

And I've yet to meet anybody.

Have you met anyone who's changed their mind?

And again, I just did five minutes on it.

So there you go.

You mean the one person who was like, I was having a, I was at a party on Born Day weekend.

I met this guy, and he thought LeBron was the goat, and we had a drink, and I laid out the case for MJ, and he changed his mind.

He was like, I hadn't thought of it that way.

I'm now on Team MJ for the GOAT debate.

I'm telling you right now, like, if you're a guy in the TV opinion world, and you already have to be like being invited to being on shows, like I can't, the college kids listening right now, I'm like, I don't know if you're going to have the platform to do it.

That would be the move.

Like, instead of, you know, where Skip was just, he was moving all of his belongings out of

LeBron's storage.

Yeah, but like, Skip was moving his stuff out of the LeBron storage unit and he was putting it as ant storage unit because he thought he was like, you know, these old-timey writers think these nicknames are actually fucking funny.

Whereas like

can't man, and you're like, oh, that's

Ruffles McHenry in the Globe 1981.

Thought of that in the shower as he's doing the Ray Liota, finding out the heist happens.

Can't man,

I did it.

The move would be

for an opinion guy that's like not, maybe not getting the, you know, it's like, oh, I get another fill-in shift.

Like, I'm not even a headcount.

The move would be.

July 5th show.

That's when you're having me.

Wait, so the jump is live on location and then at second, and you want me to be the backup third person in the LA live studio?

But Greenie's not going to be on GetUp.

And I'm only out of the first half hour.

That happened to us on GetUp once.

It's like, who is is it?

It's Cassidy, Rosillo, and who?

Right.

And that person

shows up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that'd be a win.

I think that'd be a real lane.

It's like, I'm open.

I haven't decided.

No, to go on record and say,

after the next, because it's going to come up again.

Be like, I've been in the lab.

I've been doing the research.

I'm going to lay it out.

I've changed my mind.

Change my mind, guys.

I don't think he exists in TV right now.

Here's the, here's,

it's funny because we're making fun of this, but I'm also talking about a LeBron Cleveland scenario.

I'm just wondering if it all ends with him going back to Cleveland.

By the way, I'm not inventing this.

People, this has been floating around for the last three, four weeks, and people have been wondering.

Just after how it ended for Cleveland,

it's like, okay, what could they do?

There's a couple different ways.

First of all, I'm pretty sure,

unless I don't think I'm wrong, that they could just trade Jared Allen and DeAndre Hunter for LeBron James and take the second year of his deal and maybe give him a one-year extension.

That's a trade that I, according to the trade machine, which still operates on

ESPN.

Apparently, that's a trade that works.

Yeah, I am so nervous with the trade machine now, too, because stuff that works.

It's like stat news.

You just don't know.

Yeah, you just don't know.

Stat news.

It's just like,

it says it.

I I don't know if I believe it, but it's claiming this works.

You could have the LeBron opt out and then sign for a smaller deal.

So like it could just be LeBron for Jared Allen, a trade that I'm not even sure Cleveland would want to do because LeBron's going to be 41 years old next year.

But he could opt out, do a deal around like 20 million

straight up trade for Allen.

He could opt out of his deal and sign with them for the 12.9 mid-level,

or he could sign with them for the minimum.

Yeah, but I don't know.

See, this is where

he could just be like, I'm passing up.

I could have made 50 million.

I want to win one more title in Cleveland so badly.

I left that money on the table because that's how much I want to win.

It'd be nice if you would do it for the Lakers.

Would it be?

I'm off their cap now.

Yeah.

I felt like I owe this to the Lakers.

I hate to do this, but

yeah, you kind of like this.

No, no, no.

But this is the problem.

Like, whenever you and I are just bullshitting and talking about trades and like different stuff, and then it's like, oh, that actually isn't allowed.

And then you just want to yell at me.

No, I did say

that this guy.

Just pick one.

Third team to move some of the stuff around.

If Cleveland is over the tax, though, they're not going to have.

the full non-payer tax mid-level, which is 14, I think, this year.

So now we're talking like 5 million.

Look, if he's given up 50 million,

he's probably giving up.

I would say one of the things that was very consistent about the way LeBron has handled the finances here is that

even if it wasn't that much of a haircut, because it was the sign of trade in Miami, but there was always like this position of, hey, LeBron isn't the highest paid player in the league, isn't the highest paid player.

There was always like 97%.

Pretty much right there.

And then when they did this last deal, my guess is they're doing these deals the way they're doing them so that he has the flexibility to opt out and then tack on the next year with the next option.

And the Lakers were just, I mean, I guess the Lakers could have played hardball with him last year, but they didn't want to do that.

Kobe famously was like, I'm going to get paid every dollar I deserve.

I deserve

until the end of my career.

Because I've made you guys a shitload of money and there will be no haircut.

Pay me.

Just fundamentally, if they were able to add LeBron and keep Garland,

let's say he did the minimum thing.

Let's say he said, fuck it.

Let's stack the calves.

And they were finishing games with Allen and Mobley and LeBron and Mitchell and Garland.

It's pretty interesting in a weekend east.

I don't think it's going to happen, but it was the craziest thing I could think of that I could also.

I wouldn't be like, oh my God, like with the Luca trade.

I wouldn't be like, oh my God, he's going back to Cleveland because we've already done this with him.

And it would be an interesting way for his career to end if he felt like he had one year left.

What do you think?

And again, I'm not the first person who thought of this.

I'm not taking credit for it.

What if Mitchell, what do you think Mitchell would say to his closest friend?

Awesome.

Sweet.

Cool, the goat.

I think

there's some pretty interesting issues that come into play pretty quickly, right?

Yeah, I don't, I get what you're talking about here, but I don't, I don't really know that it makes that much sense for them.

It feels too risky, weirdly,

for Cleveland who won 64 games.

Like the Allen and Hunter for LeBron, if you're doing that, it's partly because you're trying to maybe dump contracts in the long term.

You're going to take the hit for one year with the money, but then long term, you're actually going to reset your cap because they can get away with some second apron stuff next year, just not the year after.

Um, I was trying to think: is there any other team

I could see him wanting to go to that would give him a chance to win the title?

The Pacers for the mid-level?

I don't think

the Pacers would go, Dallas was interesting

as one too, because a kid and AD and um

Cooper flags there, Kyrie's coming back.

I don't know.

That was the only other one I could think of.

Because otherwise, he stays with the Lakers and they trade Reeves.

And if I was a Laker fan, I'm not sure that's the outcome I'd be hoping for.

Right?

Like, oh, cool.

We're going to

now have to trade Reeves.

Although, Luca, I don't know if you saw the pictures of Luca recently.

I don't trust pictures.

I don't trust video clips.

I don't trust pictures.

Slim

looks like he had some Caesar salad wraps.

Some carrot juice.

I don't know.

You give me a golf weekend with my buddies, and on Monday, I look like something's wrong with me.

That's how I'm going to feel after this three-day weekend.

Something wrong with you?

Would you go out last night?

You were a little choppy to start the pod today.

What do you mean, choppy?

I just tired?

Were you tired?

Were you up late last night doing something in Hollywood?

No.

I'm just old.

That's what it is.

What's going on?

I think we need to address this.

What's up with you with the pickleball thing?

You hit that guy right in the head.

What is it?

I don't play pickleball.

That's what I would tell a jury.

I've never, ever played pickleball.

You've never played pickleball indoors in a solid city.

I've never played pickleball.

I've never held a pickleball racket.

I think pickleball is reprehensible.

What wasn't me?

What are you talking about?

There's footage of you.

Um, of me, yeah, go in.

Let's do this.

We'll do this.

Do a live.

Okay.

Are you going to send this to me?

Yeah.

You know what?

I'll actually send it to you.

Okay.

Because I've been tagged on it a million times and I, it was unavoidable.

And so, um,

let's see here.

Uh, this is people getting pissed at our mobile Giannis thing again.

Oh, was that?

Are you still mad about that?

Two weeks ago.

Can you?

Can somebody?

Nobody's with you right now, right?

All right.

I'm going to go into the hell of Twitter and Google my name with pickleball and see what happens.

That does look like me.

First of all, I would never wear a green shirt.

Definitely.

Oh,

oh my God.

You gave it to the kick

and another guy comes in.

How about your backpedaling, though?

Like, that guy looked like he was ready to,

he was on the longest drive at some charity event after like a couple nooners.

It was not me.

It's not you.

I swear in the lives of my kids, I've never played pickleball.

I'm glad we could clear that up.

Yeah, thanks.

Thank you for clearing that up.

I didn't know this was a thing.

This is amazing.

Yeah.

I hate pickleball.

I'm already on the record.

I think it's one of the worst things that's happened in the last 10 years from a competitive sports standpoint.

I don't like hearing the noises.

I don't like the people that play.

There's a ton of injuries with them because people feel like they're like playing like adult ping pong and don't realize they're going to blow out their ligaments and Achilles.

It's fucking stupid.

Just play tennis.

Just play tennis.

Tennis is great.

We've had tennis forever.

There's tennis courts everywhere.

Pick up a tennis court.

You'll get more exercise.

That's where I stand on pickleball.

Well,

it seems like some people take it a little too seriously.

So that's another thing.

Apparently.

For your audience.

Plus, indoor fighting, Jesus, with rackets.

All right, Rascillo.

You're doing your podcast Tuesday.

I'm doing something Tuesday night.

If you had to pick a which series ends sooner right now, we're doing this for Indiana and New York.

Okay.

You think OKC five still?

I feel like there are more problems that are unsolvable for Minnesota in that series

than I do for New York Pacers.

But, you know,

I also say that knowing I thought Minnesota would be more competitive in one of those two games.

I guess you could say they were competitive for quarters one, two, and four.

And both of them, when you look at the halftime stuff, like, hey, they're sort of in it.

I just look at OKC as being.

that much better than everybody because of that defense.

I did two Indiana bets before the series, for the series.

I did two bets in the OKC Minnesota series.

I bet the over five and a half games, and I bet

OKC to win parlayed with Indiana.

Those were my two.

I thought I was going to go six games, Minnesota.

Wasn't feeling too good about that after game two, but five or six.

We'll see.

All right, Brasillo, enjoy your Memorial Day weekend.

Thanks for popping on with us.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

That's it for the podcast.

Thanks to Briscillo and Gahal and Eduardo.

Don't forget new rewatchables coming Monday night.

Heaven can wait.

And I will have a new podcast on Tuesday.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

See you then.

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