Celts-Knicks, the Sleeper Lakers, and 12 NBA Stories to Watch With Ryen Russillo

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One thing to promote Celtic City, our nine part Celtics docuseries that we did for HBO and Max is going to be Sunday, March 3rd, the first episode, nine straight weeks in a row. Spent four years on this obviously meant a lot to me.
And I think we did an awesome job i can't wait for everybody to see it i'm in boston because we did the premiere on friday night had a bunch of people there i got to talk to joe mazula about the town so exciting joe mazula i'm making him come on the podcast he was he was a really fun hang but uh but we had a really fun premiere of episode five which was about um a part of the 80s with the Celtics. So, you know, that's in my wheelhouse.
But very excited for everybody to watch it. And we'll be talking about it a bunch over the next few weeks.
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Coming up for the first time on Sunday this year,

I think it's like year seven for us.

Ryan, Rosillo, we're going to talk basketball and basketball and more basketball.

And we're going to try to sprinkle in some goofier stuff as well.

He's next.

First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this 415 East Coast time because I'm in Boston.
Just went to the Celtics-Knicks game. It's another emotional year for us, Rosillo.
Sundays with Rosillo. We're back.
We made it.

Another basketball season

to talk about,

complain about,

break down.

Plus, we have a whole

bunch of other things too.

We have the NFL drafts

coming up.

I'm sure you have some

movie and music thoughts,

maybe some Oscar thoughts,

maybe some White Lotus

thoughts.

I never know what you're

up to.

How are you?

I'm great.

A lot of reading,

a lot of history,

beginning of civilization. If you have any questions, we get to them maybe after the basketball.
I'm ready. I'm going to talk some James Polk.
Like, I don't know where you want to go. No, I'm just, I'm on this huge Susan Wise Bauer kick.
But again, I think we should table it. Okay, we'll save it for later.
I just went to Celtics-Knicks. I have just the slew of thoughts.
We're watching the game. I'm sitting with my dad.
And I just think the Knicks are a bad matchup for the Celtics. And we're saying that the whole time.
We're like, this team can't play with us. And the Celts get up to like in the mid-20s.
It's like 24, 26. And then the Knicks come roaring back.
They come roaring back, man, Brunson and Towns. And we're watching like, should we be scared with it? Should we be scared? And then now it's like, it's nine, it's seven, then it's six.
But we slowly realized that Tibbs has just left his starters in basically the whole game. And that's one of the reasons they're hanging around.
And my dad's freaking out. I'm like, no, there's no way.
Towns isn't going to play like 46 minutes. Like, we're fine.
And then the Celts end up finishing him up. Here's where I'll start with you.
Does Tibbs know that the regular season, especially in the East, doesn't really matter and that you just want to be one of the first four seeds and that to put miles like the miles that he put on some of his guys today is insanity? I don't get it. I just don't understand it.
He doesn't care. I mean, I'm sure he understands it in the

brief time that I had access to him. We were at ESPN together.
He's so smart about basketball.

Like, I think I left the room just going, do I know anything?

You made you doubt yourself.

Yeah. Cause I mean, I've told the story before, but we were watching a game together

and then it was an inbounds. It was a simple inbounds play.
And I just went, what,

what? And then he ran through like seven different things that you could do defending this inbound.

and I'm going to... together and then it was an inbounds it was a simple inbounds play and i just went what what and then he ran through like seven different things that you could do defending this inbound and i just was like jesus and look this is what everybody says about him uh we know that he's brilliant but yeah he doesn't care and i think when you looked at the earlier part of this week because new york we know the record against the top three teams boston okc uh in cleveland they're oh and7 now.
But they played in Chicago on Thursday, and it was an overtime game.

And here are the minutes.

Precious, 46.

McHale, 44.

Cat, 43.

Brunson, 38.

McBride played 42.

And then he played three other guys 17 minutes.

So they go into that Cleveland game fresh off of that, where Cleveland, I think, was coming off of back-to-back. And you could see within that game, you're like, they're toast.
Boston had the extra rest day. New York had the rest.
So, you know, that third quarter was awesome because Brunson and Cat are awesome. But I couldn't believe he put Cat back in after he left with the limp.
After he twisted his ankle. They were down 18.
It's like, do you want to get stuck with some Tatum isos? Yeah, with two minutes to go, let's do it. Well, he had, we're looking up, and I'm looking at the thing, I'm like, I don't feel like Towns has come out.
My dad's like, no, no, he's come out. And then he played 33 of the first 36 minutes of the game, right? So he just went all in on that third quarter with his starters, basically.
And they were great. Trying to hang around.
And it was, but the Celtics were playing their bench guys too. And, you know, trying to keep their guys fresh for the fourth quarter.
And then that fourth quarter started and you could see it at the game. You could see like Hart, who was, I thought really good.
He's like, there, any stoppage, you could see his chest heaving and town started to slowly die. Cause towns was awesome, but he ran out of gas and the Celtics knew it.
They started targeting him. And thens finally twisted his ankle, but I just watch stuff like that and I know we've talked about this tip stuff forever about how he doesn't care about the minutes, but I think it's really reckless.
This team just needs to get to the playoffs with these five guys being able to play 40 minutes a game when we get to the playoffs. They don't need to do it now.
You look at the standings, it just doesn't matter after the top four and whether they're going to be two, three, or four. I don't really feel like it matters.
I think it matters for them to be healthy. And any Knicks fan I know is like, well, just wait till we get Mitchell back.
It's like, all right, so that's going to be your big X factor in the playoffs. This guy who barely ever plays, keeping your fingers crossed on him, keeping your fingers crossed on Towns and 6'1 Brunson and Nananobi, who always gets hurt, to just be able to roll like this for 40 minutes a game.
I think it's irresponsible. I don't get it.
We've spent so many years, though, talking about guys not playing with effort. Effort, culture, all that stuff came up big time this past week with the Four Nations tournament, how great that was.
And I spent some time talking about just like, look, the sports are a little bit different, but I think the NBA is a much better place than, you know, when you go back five years ago, I mean, it depends on which snapshot you want to take of like, man, these guys miss a lot of games. And again, a lot of that stuff was team mandate.
So I don't know that any of it, like, I know that actually the answer to it, none of us loved it. So I do feel guilty with what I think is Tibbs approach that, you know, when you're on his team, like, this is what we do.
Like, this is what we do. This is how hard we play.
And this is, this is the approach. And it seems like the players don't mind.
It's just funny when they do those player surveys. It's like, which coach would you least want to play for? Tibbs is almost always the answer because they see this stuff.
Well, and then Towns is somebody that I just think, and I thought he was really good in the first, in the second and third quarter. I thought he was really good.
But he's also somebody I think you have to be a little careful with. He hasn't exactly been Cal Ripken Jr.
over the years, you know. But when they got back in the game, Brunson got cooking, which he does from time to time.
The Celtics did the same kind of the offense slowdown. But Towns, who had Tatum and a bunch of forwards guarding him, which is Celtics' strategy, and then Towns was like, I'm going to actually use my weight, and I'm going to bulldoze into dudes.
And the refs were letting him do it. And all of a sudden, he went from zero points to 20 in about, I don't know, it felt like 20 minutes of real time, not even game time.
So when you watch the Knicks, when you see them, when they're all playing well and you see the five guys and they'll have these eight minute stretches where it makes sense. I just don't think with the way he plays, the minutes and the bench, I don't really take them seriously as a championship contender, which is one of the things I want to talk to you about today.
I think they're one level below. I really only think it's OKC and Denver and the Celtics and Cleveland right now.
And I have room for a bunch of other people that these next 30 games can climb in. But I think the Knicks are level below those four teams right now.
You're right, and it's not just today. I thought Boston came out with a great, just an awesome approach, just pushing the ball in transition.
That's when they're starting five with those five guys playing, and you're going, okay, this almost looks unfair. Jalen Brown was awful.
I know he has points. So bad.
You just couldn't understand what his approach to the game was today. Even though if you just box score, you'd be like, what are you guys talking about? It got better.
It was a really bad first half. It got a little better as the game went along, but it was not a great game for him.
So, you know, you're down 27. I mean, we could talk minutes because you're right about the minutes part of it, but to get it from 27 to four is exhausting.
Yeah. Right.
On top of whatever Tibbs is doing in the sub pattern.

And then Boston,

you know,

the,

the only blemish on the entire like two year resume of this team is that

you'll go,

are you guys shooting the other team into this game right now?

Like what the hell is going on?

And a lot of that happened in the third quarter,

but like back to your original point,

I,

did you have an open mind before today about the Knicks being in that one line of right okay because let's run through the resume it's it's oh and seven now against the three teams in boston cleveland in okc and it's also not close in those seven games they're losing by an average of 20 points in those seven games yeah they're down big in every game at some point in the game these are blowout games and they've allowed 125 25 points per game against those three teams in those seven games. Yeah, they're down big in every game at some point in the game.
These are blowout games

and they've allowed 125 points

per game against those three teams in those

seven games. So the data

like I really enjoy them. I think

they're fun. I can't wait to see what happens

with them in the playoffs. But

as great as Cat has been,

you can see against big wings and

what Tatum's looking for. Like Tatum

had a couple like end of the first half. He had two switches into cat where he drives right on right yeah and and i think one worked one didn't they weren't like one was a really tough make the other was a decent look and then that play at the very end when he hits the three he knew like cat was like i don't want to run up because this guy's like attacking the shit out of me yeah tatum comes off the screen knowing he's pulling up because Cat is so far away from him and that's just what they're going to do and you're right like maybe Mitchell Robinson helps of course he'll help if he's healthy but solving this seems like a massive ask of that guy I think the Celtics are a very bad matchup for them.
With all the guys they have to throw at Brunson,

with all the ways they can attack Towns,

with the fact that their two wings are just better than the next two wings,

and those guys are really good.

And, you know, I thought Josh Hart was fantastic today.

And especially just watching, you know,

there's stuff you can see on TV, but then in person,

just the motor that he has.

And now he's just trying to catch his breath every time the game stops.

You can watch him. He's just like taking these big breaths because he knows he's got to go like a rabbit again.
But I think it's a bad matchup for them. And Cleveland weirdly is I think, even though Cleveland's been great and they have 10 losses and they're playing after we taped this, I think Cleveland's a more realistic series for them than the Celtics are.
With the size the Celts have. Now, the question with the Celtics is, poor Zingas we saw today, he was moving great.
Are we getting that guy in April and May? Drew, they've been really kid gloves with the whole season. They just, Chad Finn of the Boston Globe was writing that he's on the DJ plan.
I thought that was great. I'm going to steal it from him.
He's just on that. Yo, man, just be there in April, May, June.
We don't care about right now. Feel free to just whatever.
Pick your spots. Today, he gave a shit.
When he gives a shit and Porzingis is healthy, this team is still, in my opinion, the best team in the league. I just don't know.
Is that team going to be there in April and May? We'll see. They were so lucky with the injuries last year and then

facing a Dallas team that wasn't going to be able to exploit some of the weaknesses to the point

where they didn't even really need Porzingis. So the whole design of this Celtics team,

the whole reason why you move the assets you do at the time, and then remember the contractual

obligation to Porzingis, because even if you liked him in that Washington season where he's pretty

good, you're like, man, that is a leap. That's a leap of faith, but they had to do it to get him to opt out.

So,

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I think I think I think I think I think I think I think Zingas because like even if you liked him in that Washington season where he's pretty good you're like man that is a lot that's a leap of faith but they had to do it to get him to opt out so look when they're right that first quarter you're right like I don't know what it looked like in person so I'll defer to you here but that first quarter was just a nice little reminder and they've been on a really good run here by the way too after that weird 500 play stretch which basically is going to happen to anybody in today's nba but that first quarter i was like man is this nasty and they just do a great job and here's the most important stat like i'll ask it what do you think the most important stat from today's box score was in this game what was it rebounds brunson zero free throw attempts oh because i had a Brunson thing for you.

Something important happened today. There was a moment

my dad and I agreed.

I think he's become the preeminent

flopper in the NBA.

I actually

have to put him. The reviewed play

or the inbounds when he was coming right to left?

It's just a whole bunch

of them. He's doing it on both ends.
He's doing

it on defense and offense.

By the way, kudos to him because it's working.

But I think Harden's getting

Thank you. it's just a whole bunch of them.
He's doing it on both ends. He's doing it on defense and offense.
By the way, kudos to him because it's working. But I think Harden's getting a little older, right? Maybe his best flopping days, probably 2018-19 range.
Trae Young was there for a second, but I think some of the rule changes have gotten his head. Brunson's top of his game.
He's flopping on picks. He's flopping coming off screens.
He's flopping when somebody bumps into him on a drive. He's flopping for charges.
I think he's the complete package. It was some of the best flopping I've seen.
He's all first team, no question. Yeah, maybe I'm premature.
I mean, he's clearly in the running for MVP. Maybe I'm vaulting him up too high, but what I saw today, I was in awe.
He didn't even get any free throws though. I mean, this is a low free throw attempt game.
I think at the end of the third quarter, there was 16 total, or I think Cornette then took a couple. So it was, um, play town's drives.
They were letting them play. Yeah.
But see towns, you know, it's, it's amazing how productive, I don't know if there's anything in the NBA that I dislike more from start to finish that's more productive than his drives. And I think they're better this year than they even were with Minnesota.
Because the Minnesota drives are like, what are you doing? And he's been so good. This is the perfect role for him.
Because there's all these other guys. You can have a McHhail game.
You can have an OG game. Hart can go off.
Brunson's still going to be the focal point at all this stuff. He's a stretch five, which I think is almost mandatory if you're trying to be a title contender.
But we know their defensive numbers are not good. We know what they are against those other top teams.
And today wasn't really close, man. It wasn't.
Well, they also... It's weird with Bridges and OG.
I texted her in the game because one of my favorite Rissolo jokes is the, was Tobias Harris out there? Oh no, he was out there for the last hour. Like I always think of you anytime I'm watching a game and I'm like, oh, it's Mikael Bridges.
I forgot he was playing. It's exciting.
And then OG, but both of those guys had these really like quarter longlong stretches where they might inbounds the bottom. I'm like, oh yeah, Bridges.
There he is. They haven't figured out the same way the Celtics, I think, with White and Holiday, who can take a backseat because you have Tatum has the ball a lot.
They'll run the plays for Porzingis. Jalen Brown will have his first five minutes of the second quarter as my dad's just bitching in the stands the entire time about the shots.
And White and Holiday have figured out how to kind of sneak in and out and get little fast break layups or get like threes in the corner. And they're always involved.
And what I saw today and what I've seen on TV too is there's just games where Bridges and OG just aren't involved. Did it feel like it was anything that was happening to them? Because Brunson got off to a really slow start, and then those guys go nuts.
What was it, 38 points in the third quarter? They were throwing everything at Brunson. They were really disciplined.
Because Brunson got coronet a couple times, and then I thought there was another time where it was the the same movement where they're going to get Brunson down the left side and they brought Tatum over as like a third defender. Yeah.
So we're like, fine. You know, so I thought there was these little moments in there that kind of back up what you're saying.
So go ahead. Well, you know, I, I was ready to almost leave the pod with Tatum.
And then he had this really terrible stretch where I was like, this is still like the last hump for him because the first half of that game, his two-way game, and you saw it in the Philly game too. And there's been a, and I feel like it's getting better as a year ago, his passing, it feels like he's going to be between seven and 10 assists almost every game now when he's locked in his rebounding and his Swiss Army knife stuff that he does on D where he can guard basically everyone on the other team.

I do feel like he's going up a level,

but there's still that last piece where it's like

he never has the awesome 48-minute,

oh my God, he blew my doors off game.

It's like three quarters of the four.

I think that's the last level for him.

If you want to be on that

SGA Jokic level,

you've got to do it for the whole two and a half hours.

Right now, he's at about an hour 45.

Does that sound too nitpicky?

No.

My thing with Tatum

has been pretty consistent that

as much as I loved him, and I

think I appreciate him, that there was never going to be a time where like that guy's the best player in the world. Like that seems like, like that seems like an impossible goal to accomplish.
Would you agree with that? Are you hesitating? No, because sometimes when I watch him, when he's really going well, I feel like he's got all the pieces, but I don't, at this point, I think it would have happened. I think we would have had some sort of nudge where we would have had some crazy stretch, you know, that all the greatest players have had.
Like what SGA just had, where SGA was just like, I'm just going to score 50 points a bunch of times now. And my team's just going to win every game.
And, and it's just, that's the last. So he's like a level below.
And that, you know, the, all the MVP ballot stuff, the MVP is basically done. It's the top two guys.
But I think Tatum's, I think he's been the third best guy in the league this year. I would put him against Giannis.
I would, I would pick Tatum. I think he's had a bigger impact on a winning team.
I know his team's been a little bit better, but he's, the durability thing is the piece with him that I just think he doesn't get credit for. He fucking plays.
Yeah, he's, look, this is the most I've ever appreciated him. Me too.
His passing, the way he beasts guys, like a team, the other day, we were just kind of like bullshit because Goldsberry and I had done constructing our most complimentary starting five of today's players. Right.
Yeah. And I just I put Tatum on it because I felt like he provides so much.
I mean, he's basically playing point guard at this size. Right.
And I don't know that that gets talked about a lot nationally. And guarding towns on the other end like that.
There's nobody in the league doing that other than him, basically. Right.
Which is what he did in the NBA finals. Now, granted, the game's different, so it's not like he's down in the post against Moses Malone for 40 post-ups a game, but he was a center on defense and he's playing point guard.
And, you know, maybe somebody else brings the ball up, but then they bring it back to him and it's his decision making. And so, you know, maybe there's some output stuff that doesn't line up with the sgas or the nights where ant goes fucking crazy you know which is just so much fun to watch like ant having one of those nights is probably still my favorite thing other than just a reminiscent curry flamethrower game yeah honestly i'm probably i would tell you like the certain moments with ant that i probably still like more than any other single player the league.
But Tatum just has more options around him. I still would say Boston at its peak has more options offensively than even Oklahoma City does.
I don't know if there would be much of an argument there. So even though you're not getting that peak output that would maybe put him in the belt conversation, I am so happy with his approach that it's – I'll take this.
His assist ratio on the advanced stuff has never been better. You know, a lot of the advanced metrics are like peak for him, but there's also, it's not just a counting thing.
It's not even the metrics. There's just an eye test thing with him where how steady he is.
Like he had a baseline drive on OG where he went right into him and moved him off the spot and got the free throws. And I'm like, how many other guys 20 plus feet away would have the balls to drive at og and look like the stronger player so yeah i've never like i've never been more in love with his game than what i've seen this season that's how i felt today watching it i just feel like he's maximized a lot of stuff that he's been working on the last couple years.
If you took this version of Tatum

and you put this version in the 22

finals, I think they beat the Warriors.

He wasn't even close to being able

to do 40% of the stuff that he can do now.

I love the rebounding. I don't think he

gets enough credit for that. I love the durability

and the fact...

JJ said something about this because he was talking about the Lakers.

This was even before the Dallas game

because they're way better on defense, the Lakers. I think they're like third in defensive rate in the last 20 games.
They were even playing better before the trade. And somebody asked him what was different.
And he's like, you know, the NBA is about just playing hard. Just making sure your team plays hard every night.
And I think that's a skill that Tatum, where if he's taken off a quarter in Charlotte, you really notice it because of the level of intensity that he has game to game, quarter to quarter, half to half. When he doesn't have it, you're like, oh shit, what's wrong with Tatum? What's he doing? He's just jacking up shots.
Why isn't he rebounding? It's really glaring. So anyway, I think he should get probably more credit for that.
I don't know if there's an extra half step for him. Maybe we'll find out in the playoffs.
You really think it's, well, I think you've already answered that it's kind of a closed case. But I mean, at any point, do you think, I mean, I guess he's got a couple years to go, but is he going to surpass SGA? I i don't think it's ever going to be as easy like that you for the yokage stuff that yokage night to night it's just easy for him to create shots for everybody the best possible shots right last night's a bad example but for the most part sga is just like he's just getting the 35 he's just getting the 40 it doesn't matter what you're He's just going to get to where his points are.
And I think Luka is in that category too. I don't know if Tatum's ever going to be at that level.
But I think to me, he reminds me, it's a weird one. And I know I'm thinking about it probably because we just finished this nine-part Celtics docuseries.
But to me, he's more like a Havlicek type. He's this Swiss army knife that does all these different things for your team.
He's never the best scorer in the league. He's never the best assist guy, but he's just additive, and I think that's the level that he's gotten to.
So he probably reminds me of Havlicek the most, even though he's taller and he's got size, all that stuff. But just, it's like, they could play small ball center with them if they wanted.
He could also play point guard for them if he wanted. The other thing with the Celts that I think Cornette has been playing really well and Pritchard's been up and down.
Hauser's coming back, but they're getting more of a bench than I think. And then Horford being able to only play like 18, 20 minutes, their benches is back.
And I think I wouldn't be surprised that they went on a little run here over the next, next three weeks because they haven't really had a run this season. We're going to talk about that after the break, some teams that we think might make an actual run.
I wouldn't be surprised if they had a streak. Have you felt like they've had one kick-ass three-week stretch other than you'd have to go back to November? I just don't remember it.
Yeah, but I mean, aren't they, are they 12 and 3, 11 and 4 in the last 15? I mean, I know it was 12 and 4. Yeah, but I'm talking about like what the stuff they're doing last year where they were just like ripping people's heads off for three straight weeks.
Yeah, they're 10 and 2 in their last 12. Yeah.
This, this kind of feels like it other than, you know, the start of their 9 and 2. They also had that, I don't know, what is it, seven-game stretch there in November.
The weird thing was just a couple games against lesser opponents, a Toronto game. They could have lost a New Orleans game, and the standard for them is so much higher.
But that first quarter was so impressive that I was just a nice little reminder, I think, on a national stage for everybody of like, this is what this team is capable of. And I don't know that there's anybody else.
Now, granted, you talk about the OKC defense, which I'm sure we'll get to a little bit later today, might be the tiebreaker for a lot of different people. But those first 12 minutes were just awesome.
Let's take a break. And I want to talk about teams that can make an actual run.
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So I want to talk about intriguing subplots with 30 games left. And some of them are easy to figure out and some of them are a little harder to figure out.
But the number one subplot to me, and I can't believe I'm even saying this, and it makes me mad that we're in this position, but what can you do? I think the Lakers are the number one subplot to watch over the next 30 games. The Denver game was so interesting last night to see the real Luka in a Lakers game.
And to watch their centers, whatever.. They're just double teaming Jokic.
They're just going to be happy with Westbrook and those like whoever. Fine, shoot 16 for 41 from three.
We don't care. We got to take out Jokic.
But the thing that I really noticed that people talked about when they made the trade was just 48 minutes of Luka and LeBron or Luka or LeBron, but you always have somebody out there

who just has this crazy IQ and is a really good offensive player. And I've never wavered from

thinking Luka was going to be awesome on this team. I just thought it was scary last night.

And if I'm in the West, I think there's four teams that can win the title and we can talk about a couple wild cards. I think the Lakers are an official wild card for me.
I agree. And it's the defensive numbers.
Like you mentioned it, if you go back the last 15, that's the number one defense in the league. They're 12 and three.
It's the best record over the last 15. Do you understand that? What's your explanation for that? Other than just they're playing hard.
Well, I think having some of the pieces i thought ruey played his ass off last night both i mean you can look at the points but it was what he was doing defensively now granted vando comes in and just hacks the shit out of yokich but you know it's like they're not going to call all of these although they tried to call all of them on vinner yeah because he didn't play a ton of minutes but But the Cam Reddish thing seems over. The Dalton Connect minutes are limited if you start looking at these things.
So I think we gave Vincent being healthy with Vando being healthy, with them liking this Rui center matchup stuff because they're basically forced to figure this out because the Jackson Hayes minutes usually aren't that great because the longer he's out there, the longer there's just going to be something that happens. And specific to last night, Bill, I loved that game.
Okay. Me too.
I thought it was really impressive because we look at the playoff and you go bracket wise, like how far can LA go? It's like, well, they're going to run into Denver again. So that's not going to work.
And last night's one result, but I thought this coaching staff showed the difference where it's always about the roster for me, but there are little times like Kenny Atkinson this year with Cleveland, like clearly there's something better with this, with his approach to basketball. I think JJ and this staff did such a fantastic job of last night's preparation.
The possessions, when you really looked at what they were doing, there's these non-spacing lineups that Denver runs out there outside of Jokic where the Lakers are like, if this is what you're going to run out, we are not going to pay attention to Aaron Gordon. We're not going to care about Westbrook.
They had a play, and I'll finish here, but LeBron was on Jokic kind of in the paint, left side. Dalton is in the dunker spot, ignoring Aaron Gordon.
He's basically under the rim. The other two wing players to the right, the Lakers defenders are in the paint.
So that's four's four players in the paint against yokich the only one that was providing any spacing was michael porter jr at the top of the key and ruey was defending him but ruey was only a foot beyond the free throw line and you saw possession after possession where you could see the lakers like specifically the way they prepped that game last night i think that's a credit to JJ and the staff going, we've got to come up with something new that's Jokic specific and it worked. And, you know, it really wasn't much of a game on top of all the Lucas stuff that I know you want to get to.
Well, they did the same thing that that Celtics game that we both went to in LA where they kicked the Celtics ass. And part of it was they just were really well prepared.

And they used a bunch of things against the Celtics

that I had kind of been waiting for, you know, somebody to do.

It's like, oh, you're going to try to force it to Porzingis?

Great.

That's going to throw your whole team out of whack.

Like, keep giving the ball.

And Porzingis had a good first quarter.

Nobody else did.

And then it's like, oh, here's the top of the second quarter. This is when Jalen tries to get his offense for six minutes.
We're going to make it really hard for him. And you were just watching it going, oh, this team's got their shit together.
Last night against Denver, you would think, well, why doesn't everybody do that against Jokic? First of all, it's hard to do it. Second of all, it's hard to commit to it.
And your guys have to be really disciplined with it, but they also have smart players everyone makes fun of Luka's defense but he's still a really smart basketball player LeBron, I think has been noticeably better on defense for, what, a month and a half now? I don't know what the timeline is the first month of the season where it was like, oh my god, he's just not playing. He's a DH now.
Now he's really active.

And they just have size and physicality that I think,

you saw it against the Celtics.

They bullied the Celtics.

Now, you know, slightly different team.

But when they have those,

when they have Rui and LeBron and Luke all together,

like those, that's like 800 pounds of dudes.

So are you in?

Are you in?

Are they your fifth team?

Are they the first team outside of your tier one playoff title contenders? I wrote down... You tiered us up? No, I wrote down things I like about them.
And the number one thing is just always having Luka or LeBron out there. One of the two or both.
I think it's just really hard to play them. You don't have a moment like you had with the Knicks today where Brunson has to sit down.
It's like, all right, it's campaign time. Cross your fingers.
The Lakers just never have that. Campaign was nice, though, that first shift.
He was. He made three in a row.
That's probably the best thing ever for a Knicks opponent. Be like, hey, don't forget, like tight game second half.
Campaign made three in a row in the first half, so that's good for us. He's going to think he can get to 20.
The fact that the defensive numbers, like if they were 9th or 11th, the Lakers, I'd be like, okay, that's a little fluky. There's probably some...
When you're in the top five, when you're in the top three, that's not fluky at some point. I think JJ's a legitimately good coach.
And I thought what they did last night to Joker, who was terrible because they made him terrible, but then at some point it's math. Last night, LeBron and Luka had 59, 19, and 12.
If you're going to get numbers that look like that from your best two guys, you're going to be heard from a couple playoff rounds. So if I was a Laker fan, I'd be excited, but this is why we all went.
That's when the trade happened. This is fucking crazy.
You don't just get to add the fourth best guy on your team, in the league, to your team, just for Anthony Davis and Max Christie, who, by the way, has been playing great. Yeah, he has been good.
I think some of the worst anti-LeBron content that I've ever seen was Luka's stat lines, those first three games with LeBron. Like, I get it.
If you hate LeBron, you hate LeBron content that I've ever seen was Luca's stat lines,

those first three games with LeBron.

Like I get it.

If you hate LeBron, you hate LeBron.

But come up with better evidence than that.

Because I went to Luca's first game that he had played in like two months.

I went to Crypto that night to watch him play against Utah.

And he was so tired like four times up and down the court. I'm like, oh man, I'm like, he's so tired.
Like he doesn't even, you know, he hasn't been complaining because he's on a new team. Like you haven't seen him.
And it was kind of funny. Like obviously last night's the best that he's looked with the Lakers.
That first half was incredible. The way he was kind of getting into a shot, not like basketball is funny, man.
You can be this incredible player. Here we are talking about somebody who has a chance to be the best player in the world.
And it's like, I'm new here. So I'm just trying to fit in for a little bit.
Yeah. And if you're a coach and it's Luca, you're like, don't be trying to fit in to just do what you do.
And then we'll figure it out around you. And just because the stats were bad and then they had the weird breaks like all that stuff was so stupid he was great last night it was funny too because he he made a play and then he cycled out the three-point line was wide open and he didn't get the ball back and it's the first time i've seen him pissed with the lakers and he put his hands up like you idiots like what are you what are you doing and i'm going this is great this is this is like this that's what you want out of this dude you want to rest that he didn't get the ball back so i'm i'm shocked the defensive numbers are that good the last 15 it's been a big part of this turnaround they finally beat denver so i'm not ready to say that they've solved denver you know there's just going to be some spacing stuff in the playoffs where if it's Westbrook or if it's Brown, and I think even Michael Porter Jr.'s coin toss game, Gordon is a matchup specific guy, but they're going to ignore him even though he's shooting over 40% from three.
They just did a great job of loading up on all this stuff. But look, man, your closing group in a tight playoff game, if the three perimeter dudes are LeBron, Luka, and Reeves, I have a hard time believing that defense is going to be just living on stops, though, in the playoffs, right? Yeah, they're probably trying to outscore.
Yeah, the Luka dialogue was... I feel like a lot of the sports dialogue is just getting worse because it's just this quick rush to whatever judgment.

He could have one bad game his first Laker game

and everyone's like, oh my God, this is why the Mavs

traded him. Nobody thinks

of the human element of, this guy thought

he was going to be the next Dirk Lewicki

in Dallas. He had no idea the trade

was coming. They trade

him. He's got to move to LA.
He's got to

figure out where he's going to live. He's

taking shit about that. He's got a drinking

problem and that he eats too much

and they didn't want to give the max and they're just

Thank you. trade him.
He's got to move to LA. He's got to figure out where he's going to live.
He's taking shit about that. He's got a drinking problem and that he eats too much and they didn't want to give the max and they're just laying into him left and right, leaking stuff to make him look bad.
On top of that, he's got to figure out how he fits in with this new team. He's got to play with LeBron, who's this guy he grew up watching.
He's got to figure out how he fits in offense. New coaching staff.
He's not in shape. It's like, oh, you think this is going to go bad for like a week? Yeah, and he hadn't played.
He hadn't played in two months. Like Perkins tweeted three days ago.
It's going to be another two, three weeks before we see the real Luka he has to get in basketball shape, get his legs under. And then last night, he tweets, like I said, give L a time.
It's like, yeah, no kidding. We got to give Luke a time.
Sure. To adjust to his new team and get back in shape.
I'm pretty sure he'll be able to figure this out. He's had one of the five best offensive starts to anybody in the history of the NBA in their first seven years.
I think we're going to be okay with Luka Doncic. I'm not worried.
But people were worried.

I don't know what happened.

Who did you respect that was worried?

Well,

but some people have platforms

who this is kind of what you do.

You just go nuts.

Get mad.

Luka Doncic was terrible.

This is why the Mavericks traded him.

I would say if over 50% of your tweets are about LeBron or Jordan, then you should just be banned from the platform. It's fair.
We can talk to Elon about it. Have you been hanging out with him much lately? I haven't talked to him.
Lakers have the six best odds on FanDuel right now, so it's not a hot take to say, oh, I think they're a title contender. I think that's where they are.

I think they're in that wildcard team.

I went back and I looked at... I think this needs a name.

I came up with post-All-Star late bloomer,

but I think we could do better.

I don't know. That sounds great.

Thanks.

What is it?

Well, these teams that over the course

of the last 30 games at some point

got their shit together and became a real contender. So the reason I thought of this was because we watched it happen with Dallas last year.
Dallas was 16 and four to finish the season. They were fifth net.
They just remember they had a big winning streak. Then they had a losing streak.
And then they started winning again. And at some point it felt like there might be something there in a real way, right?

2023, it happened with the Lakers.

They were 16-7 down the stretch,

fourth net.

They ended up making the Western Finals.

2022 is when the Celtics,

were they 25-25,

then went on the run.

Their last 22 games,

they were 17-5,

first in net.

Weren't they below 500 too?

It might have been,

maybe 24, 25.

They made the finals.

I threw out the two strike,

uh,

not strike the COVID years.

And then in 2019,

Portland finished the last 25,

19 and six,

fourth net.

And they made the Western finals.

So this does,

there is a team.

There's a track record of a team.

We didn't think was in the top three or top four moves up there. And for me, it's either the Lakers or Golden State.
And we're taping this right now as Golden State's playing and they're beating up on Dallas. But those would be my two picks.
Golden State or the Lakers, and I'd probably lean Lakers because of Luka and the talent. Who would you have? It feels like the Knicks are on the Lakers line of this though, right? That's fair.
But I don't think they... Would you necessarily say they would be an out-of-nowhere team? I guess it could conceivably happen.
I think they're more likely to have more injuries and weird shit happen than to go on a run, but maybe I'm wrong. Here's something that I like about the Lakers because I think this is always an important thing.
And because I think guys play more often now, because this could get really misleading sometimes, you're looking at matchups against the better teams. You're like, okay, who was there? Even when I go through those Knicks seven games, it's basically everybody played in those games for the Knicks.
I think OG missed one. And so, you know, there's different times where you go head to head and you're, you're looking at it and getting ready for the playoffs.

Like, how do they do against each other?

You're like, oh, these guys miss these games.

But again, like I said, it's been a little bit better.

The Lakers are one of three teams in the West with a winning record against teams 500 or better. So clearly OKC's 20 and nine, the Rockets are 20 and 15 and the Lakers are 15 and 12.
And I think that's important. Memphis is under 500.
Denver's under 500. The Clippers are under 500.
Minnesota's under 500. So again, like I said, only three teams.
The rest of them are all under 500. I think for me on the Lakers part of it is we're totally aligned on the Luka thing.
Like, give me a break. Like this guy at this age with his track record and because he hasn't played in two months.
So you're like, if you were watching these early games going, what's wrong? So this is what you think it's going to be now. You just think this is who Luka is going to be? It's just going to be an complete mess? Yeah.
Do you know how absurd that is? So we're not even at peak Luka. They're putting together this performance.
They have this defensive profile the last month or so. But bracket it out.
Four or five, they're playing Houston. You're probably picking the Lakers because you trust their offense more than you trust Houston's offense, right? Okay, then guess what's waiting for them on the other line? Sadly, I did this, and as you know, I hate the Lakers, and this made me sad.
Going series by series, I was like, oh my god, they're going to fucking make the Western Finals. So they're beating Oklahoma City in a 1-4 matchup? You're crazy.
Oh, no. I'm just saying there's a scenario with these brackets where if they're not 4-5, if they can somehow avoid OKC to the Western Finals.
And then you think they're going to beat Oklahoma City? Well, so they would have to get to 2 or 3. Okay, all right.
Which I think is completely reasonable. Right now, they're 34-21.
Memphis is 37-19, and Denver is 37-20. I think they have to leapfrog.
I don't think they'd want to play OKC, but I also wouldn't blindly pick OKC against Luka LeBron either. Would you? I mean, I would pick them to win, but I wouldn't be like, I wouldn't be like, oh, lock it in, write it in marker that in marker that okc is 100 winning i'd be a little nervous well i want to see more of the chet stuff but defensively the stuff has been really good so yeah um you know it's it's not the same as the luka thing but i mean we're looking at chet missing three months and then trying to come back he's not taking a ton of shot like i can't wait to see what that guy looks like and what this team looks like so They still have a massive issue with certain matchup bigs.
Normally I would say, what are you going to do against Jokic? Do you really think you're going to survive seven games against having... Rui was great last night, but let's not lose our minds about who this team is.
I still have Denver and OKC in the Western Finals. But I think if you start thinking about series by series, game by game, this Lakers team is scary, especially with the fact that they're actually well coached.
Right. And there's they're a matchup team.
I think they're a team that could win on the road in a game seven. Right.
How many teams could actually go on the road and win a game seven? It's not the longest possible list. This is a team that would not be afraid to go on the road.
I think the Vincent thing is important for them too because that's a guy who they signed who's been banged up or sucked for a year and a half. And then people forgot that he wasn't good, that people forgot that he was actually good and valuable in Miami and was in big games for them and kind of knows where to go and what to do.
He's one of those guys. And you need a guy like that on a

weird team like this. And the fact that Reeves has

gone up a level. And J.J.
loves

Reeves. I mean, the best thing J.J.
and

LeBron have done have been

just pump Reeves up, pump him up,

make him really think he's this

gifted offensive player. And I think he's

playing with so much confidence now.

How many teams have

a third guy who's as good of an offensive player as Reeves is? It's not a long list. It isn't a very long list.
I mean, Pat Bev really went for it last night. I think he tweeted out they have the best one through four in the NBA.
And I was like, who's the fourth? It was like Rui. I'm like, all right.
I think you're forgetting about Boston. And then OKC with Chet.
I think there's a lot of guys that you could pick from there that would be in the conversation. But as far as number three guys with Reeves, I mean, is it Derek White? Is it...
I was thinking somebody on Cleveland. Is it Mobley? It's just a completely different kind of player.
I'd rather have Mobley than Reeves, but offensively, initiating your own stuff, it's not even a conversation. Reeves is so good at it.
Right. When you're talking about good offensive players, a good litmus test is that guy scored 45 last night.
Are you surprised? Right. Like if Derek White scored 45, I'd be like, what? Did he make like 12 threes? What happened? But Reeves had that game the other day when everybody was hurt.
What did he have? Like 38, 40? No, he had 45. He was 45.
Yeah. 26.
Right. I wasn't shocked.
Yeah. But the other starters are Dorian Finney-Smith, who, by the way, like we hadn't even mentioned yet for the defensive part of what they've done.
Right. You know, getting getting D'Angelo Russell away from this basketball team.
You know, I try to tell you guys, Lakers fans, I know, I get it. He makes a couple threes and points, and you guys are super into that.
But getting him away from this group has also been a big transition from who they are right now. I feel bad we didn't even mention Dorian Finney-Smith at this point.
I mean, he made one shot last night, and he was a plus 20. That trade made me mad.
Why? Because you liked D'Angelo Russell so much? No, because I wanted the Lakers to not be good. I said, fuck, they got Finney Smith.
Finney Smith's good. He's an additive player.
There were some guys around the trade deadline that I was wondering. I still can't believe the Lakers didn't go after Nick Claxton.
Was he available? I don't know what. What are the Nets doing? Playing their ass off.
I know, but they traded to get their picks back for some tanking plan, and then they just can't stop beating teams. I know.
I just don't think Philly was ready for the Keyon Johnson-Watford two-man game to close. They had no scattering report on that.
Watford was like, I got to get this video to the scouts. I tried to turn that game off like four different times last night.
Yeah, you couldn't. I hate watching the Sixers play basketball.
Yeah. They are disgusting.
Okay. I can't, but I can't turn it off.
And then I was like, that's close. And I'm like, look at Brooklyn.
Look at this team. No, they can't stop.
It's now they're ahead of them. They're ahead of them in the standings.
They flipped it in that Philly game. Had a couple of moments where they blew the lead and like, all right, value and effort.
And then somebody else would hit a three. And they all said they'd be winning again.
Whatever Philly is doing to Embiid is one of the weirdest subplots of not just the year, but the decade. I have no idea why he's playing.
And he looks miserable. He's falling down, I think, twice as much as he's ever fallen down.
Looks like he's legitimately hurt. What's his F per 100? Do you know? I think this is the highest the last couple weeks.
He's just he had that play when he ran in to contest the play in the corner and just kind of went into the third row. He could stop.
It's pretty brutal. So the case for Golden State really quick, to be the late bloomer, is just the combo of, Jimmy, I don't know what it is about Steph.
It would be the greatest feature somebody wrote, but it just seems like everybody that passes through Steph's life, they turn into Gandhi for like the first three weeks. Like the way they talk about him, it's just like this religious experience to be Steph's teammate.
And Jimmy is like so happy. Like there was that clip of him diagramming plays in the huddle.
This is a guy who was just sitting next to the water cooler the last three months of the Miami season. And now he's like, Draymond, come here.

I have an idea for a high screen.

And he's just so invigorated.

And I think they're legitimately dangerous looking at their schedule.

Um,

and they're beating Dallas today as we're taping,

but they got Charlotte,

Orlando's a mess at Philly.

Great at Charlotte,

at Knicks,

at Nets.

And then they have a seven game homestand against Detroit,

Portland,

Sacramento,

Knicks, Denver, Milwaukee, Toronto. Like it's team that could go on a 12-2 run, and I wouldn't be surprised.
So that would be the other one I'm kind of looking at. I guess the thing to watch is whether Curry can go up a level again or not, because we haven't seen it this year from him.
His life looks a lot easier having somebody like Jimmy Butler out there. That's the thing.
And the shooting numbers would back it up. The three-point shooting would back it up.
Even watching the beginning of today's game, even though it wasn't just super aggressive, like having Butler just be somebody else that people are worried about. And of course, they ran some other play where it's like Curry's the lead block on the cut.
So everybody freaks out and then Butler kind of slips a screen and then he's the second cutter behind it. And he's wide open in a way that, you know, he's probably like, this must be, I just can't imagine playing basketball for a living and then getting the chance.
Like, no wonder everybody's in a good mood. They're like, this is what happens.
Like when he moves, all of this other shit happens. And then now my life is like this much easier.
Although I do have to point out on a couple of broadcasts,

like our memories can't be this short.

Like Butler has a nice game.

He's super aggressive.

I mean, he was taking 10 shots a game from Miami.

It was the lowest field goal.

Not going to foul on it all.

Yeah.

No, he was actually still was like not,

he's one of the most like hyper free throw rate guys in the league

because he pump fakes at the rim and guys just go for it all the time. So if you played him in a series you go you guys gonna stay down against him now he's shooting a million free throws but he's just more aggressive now you can tell he's taking 13 shots a game again the shot count goes down because he's taking so many free throws right but he for all the stuff that he talked about in miami like they took my joy from me.
Like he broke up with a quarterback. Uh, you're just going like, we just saw this guy destroy his value around the league.
And he makes a couple of cuts and hit some free throws. And it's like, man, golden state, like, you know, everybody who's golden state is probably still scared to death of like what the longterm thing could could be here but in the short term it's it's awesome to see you know some of these possessions late in games where you could just see step being like i'm running around i get the ball i'm trapped i throw it to somebody else and i don't even want to take some of these shots and then you have people being like oh his his shooting is dipping it's like well no shit so i think his life is going to be a lot easier now i still don't even think they're in the lakers class though are they you have them in the lakers class i don't know i want to watch it for a couple weeks because yeah um like butler he's averaging almost 10 free throws a game for gold state as we're taping this they're beating dallas by 20 and he's already six for.
He's plus 24 in the game. But watching the way he's playing with these guys, it's weird.
It reminded me of when Moss got to the 07 Pats and was just so delighted to be in a real offense with Brady. He was just skipping around.
He was just so happy and had so much space and knew that if he was going to do whatever, the ball was going to be there. And Butler, watching the space that he has, but also the connection he has with Draymond, I wasn't prepared for.
I wish we were watching the game right now. But the high IQ thing he has with Draymond, I think has been fun to watch, where he's posting up and Draymond's at the top.
They're playing this weird two man game,

but everybody's so scared of the Curry shooting.

I'm,

I'm not counting this team out.

It reminds me a bit of like when Brian Heideck was cast as the pool guy in

Melrose place.

And he was like,

look,

I'm just,

I'm just happy to be here.

Who is it?

Brian who?

Heideck.

Who's that?

He's, he played Brian Heideck. Yeah.
He played the pool guy in Melrose Place. It just reminds me a lot of that.
Pool guy in Melrose Place? I feel like you're making this up. Google it.
Brian Heidek. So is there anybody else you would put on the late bloomer list? Late bloomer list? Is there any hope for a healthy orlando so i had them marked down they've been so i mean they were six and 14 in their last 20 so there's only uh their offense their last their last month they're the they're the third or fourth worst offense in the nba and boy when it's bad on offense for the magic i surprised it was that high, that they were only 27.
So the other three I had marked down, it's not going to be Detroit, even though there's a lot of good Detroit numbers for the last 20, 25 games. How many people do you think right now know what seed Detroit is? Yeah, not only is Detroit, for the people listening, probably locked into the sixth seed.
It's not like an easy series for the Knicks. They're going to be favored.
I would pick the Knicks, but I don't know if that's the easiest series possible for them. The other two teams I have, Minnesota, just because, who knows, 31 and 26, but maybe something happens.
Is Randall playing? I'm out. Is that good or bad? If Randall's playing, you're out.
And then the only other one, I mean, Dallas, I guess we have to watch, but the only other one I was thinking was the Clippers. If there's like a long, healthy Kawhi stretch, a Bogdanovich resurgence, they're really well coached like the Lakers, and you know, could something blossom with them in March? I wouldn't rule it out.
You want to do a little Clippers profile or do you want to save it? We'll take a break. Yeah, let's take a break.
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All right, more 30 games left subplots. So your pick would be the Lakers.
I think I agree with you, but I have Golden State a little closer to them than you do for a possible late bloomer. Anybody else? Well, I'm glad.
I don't think we spent enough time on Minnesota because I think we did 10 seconds on it. And I know they lost in the Houston game.
That was just kind of a frustrating game. They didn't have Rudy, but that, you know, sometimes is that play to their strength now when you look at some of the declining Rudy stuff.
But then that also means Houston can go small because even Houston against utah last night they lost because they were just like utah's size bothered bothered houston um and granted houston's kind of rotating some guys in and out so they're not playing with like the full cast of guys so look sometimes you're just going to lose to utah when george decides to go all first team nba but let's just say, okay, open to the idea.

I feel a little bit better about Minnesota maybe than I did

because in the beginning of the year when it was frustrating,

it was like this team's healthy and these other teams are hurt

and they're losing to these teams.

But there's just a Randall stretch here where it's like,

man, they might just be better without this guy.

And they haven't had DiVincenzo for a month either.

You're going to go might for that? They are. I just think they're unquestionably better when he's not out there for them.
I don't know. I've been watching basketball my whole life.
He screws up the spacing. He might be a good player on other teams for that team.
He does not make sense to me. He's good for 20.
And it's like, like okay but there's just a lot of other stuff that that we need for him so here's what i don't love with minnesota okay give it to me as you know i'm uh i'm on the amp bandwagon there's been a lot of really high volume field goal games for him yeah that i can't really explain. Even if you just go in January

and February this year,

he had a 31-shot game.

He had a 29-shot game.

25-28.

Just the last two weeks.

28-25-28-33-18-32.

I don't think they're winning three playoff rounds with that happening would be my point. And I don't really know.
I haven't watched enough Minnesota the last three weeks to understand why that's happening. But, um, it's just a lot of three.
Like he took 14 threes in a game. He took 15 threes in a game, 17 and 14.
Just a lot, you know? And I look at the free throws. Like in one game, he had 28.
They won by 19. He had 28 shots and 18 free throws.
25 shots and 15 free throws. It's just, it's a lot of ant.
That's pretty easy to stop when you get to a playoff series. So I wish they had a lot.
But I don't know if they have a lot of other choices. No, they've done a good job.
Like Terrence Shannon's been playing well. Clark, this other young player's coming in.
He's been good for them defensively. And yeah, like I'm not disagreeing with any of that stuff.
I just think there's certain dudes that maybe I defend because I like them, but I think I like and dislike players for very valid reasons. And for the high volume stuff with him, I think the ball just ends up back in his hands.
And he's getting trapped. He's getting a ton of attention.
And it's up to you to figure all that stuff out. I mean, he had a play against Houston where he split the screen.
And it was two defenders that came with him. And he just split it in a way where I just couldn't believe and believe it was physically possible, and then he almost throws it down from there, and so because he's capable of doing some of that stuff, I don't know that he wants to take those shots.
Some other players, again, you just go through the list of guys I don't necessarily like. I think they're totally fine being like, cool, I did a good job on LaMelo and the LaMelo usage rate, shot rate stuff.
You talked about that in your pod a couple weeks ago yeah per 100 he's like 2006 kobe yeah like we haven't seen somebody take that many shots per 100 possessions that guy should be the all-star game shitty well the other reason he got so many all-star votes is somebody pointed out to me after the fact and they're like do you realize like if you well the voting was still open but if you went to the voting tab it was done by points per game so he was like the first option when you went to the fact. And they're like, do you realize like if you, well, the voting was still open, but if you went to the voting tab, it was done by points per game.
So he was like the first option when you went to the page to vote as a fan. So he's popular.
They have the top Instagram panels in the NBA. Him and Lonzo have two of the top five.
It's awesome. For most, most, most viewers.
Like people, people like the balls. They're going to have a lottery ones as well.
Oh, before I switch topics, that Minnesota-Houston game when Dylan Brooks was talking shit to Ant and they got into it a couple times and then that game just got more and more competitive and heated and kept going and kept going

is in the running for my favorite

game of the season. I love that game.

I really enjoyed it.

That was one of those deals where it's like

whatever I'm doing tonight, I'm watching Minnesota and Houston.

I wonder, is Dylan Brooks,

does he do that again or is he like

alright, here's somebody I shouldn't do that to

again or does he double down on it the next

time they play and what happens in the playoffs?

Are you serious? He's definitely going to do that.

Do you remember him in that

Like,

Thank you. all right, here's somebody I shouldn't do that to again.
Or does he double down on it the next time they play? And what happens in a playoff series? Are you serious? Because he's definitely going to do that. Do you think he doubled down? Do you remember him in that Lakers series? Where people thought his career was over? Ant, this is different though with Ant.
I actually think he might double down because he might think Ant might punch him in a series and then he would take Ant out of the series, basically. Well, he did it to LeBron in a way, but LeBron was just not going to fall for it.
The thing that turned everybody off... Right, and then Brooks couldn't make a shot and then he didn't do a media availability and it was like, what? Yeah, I didn't like that.
Brooks is a better player now though than he was in that Lakers series. It was an awful Lakers like People were going, get ready to learn China, buddy, type of stuff.
I mean, he was a China meme dude. And then all of a sudden, he gets a huge contract from Houston.
And to Houston's credit, they desperately need him. And what I liked about that game is this Amen Thompson progression is nightly, man.
You have to watch him every night to see it and you know you and i were talking about him we did that pod for the trade value thing i was like yeah doing this at the worst possible time because you're going to lose your shit about thompson but i feel good about i thought we were properly careful while also respecting the moment where was he again he was like 19 okay um and i i had said something and i remember i was pissed when we did it i wasn't like mad i wasn't like mad the next day type of mad but i was like you know are you still gonna run like pick and roll for him in a late possession and you were like well they did on the game winner and i was kind of like i didn't want to get into it with you i was like there's four seconds left they inbounded it to him and yeah he uses athleticism and he hits the game winner against boston the stuff he was doing against minnesota and even some stuff that i saw last night against utah like the drive and kick stuff that he's showing now and there's a like granted we know he can't shoot yet which is the funniest thing about how much we all love watching him play is like you know the joke is he's not even good yet and it's this much fun right but he hit a shot because utah just didn't respect him he hit a shot late last night where it's like i'm catch and shoot three like i'm not even going to dick around with this like i'm getting this shot up i'm going to make you try to come out here a little bit more there's more and more more ball handling with him where they trust him, where there could be this amend Thompson reward of these Van Vliet minutes as disrupted as they could be because clearly they need him to organize them on offense, even though they have all these clutch wins, but all their clutch numbers stink, which is one of the weirdest stat profiles. Well, then nobody can create a good good shot that's why with thompson it's like at least

when he's driving to the basket

and he kind of doesn't know where

he's going or what's going to happen but he always

goes by whoever's guarding him

but he kind of does know that like there were

these kickouts in that minnesota

game where it was a very clear like

when he takes off he's going

if i don't have this i know

where to kick it out and it's also just awesome

having jabari back as you know the stretch option because you know it gives you some more flexibility with Shingun because I'll admit there's some as I can't say it some Shingun nights where I'm like what what's up with him are you there at all with that that? Just feels like he's, depending on the matchup, he's kind of one of those guys. Yeah, and Adams at this point is kind of...
Do you know how old Steven Adams is? Isn't he like 28? It's like some crazy number. Yeah, he's 31.
Right. But he's been in the league for 25 years? Yeah.
I don't think he should be this bad. So having Jabari back is really important for them.
So look, I mean, none of this was... That's one of those where they could have probably flipped Stephen Adams and one of the 90 picks they have to get Capella or somebody who could actually play a little bit more for them.
I had them on my list for subplots for the last 30 games

because they're 3-8 in their last 11, 18th in net.

They've dropped to 35-21 for the season.

And they're a five seed right now.

But if I'm Golden State and I'm five losses back from them

with a bunch of time left, I feel like I can catch them

because I thought Houston was overachieving

with some of the stuff that was happening to them the first

two months. The

league, their conference is getting better.

Clippers are better. The Lakers are better.
The Warriors are

better. And I don't

know if they're going to stay in the top six. That would be

my pick to drop out. What do you think?

I was looking at some of that schedule stuff

in the expanded schedule where if you look at games

against teams 500 or more, I wish we've already gone through

the record stuff, but Denver's played 26 games

against teams with that

and Houston's played 35.

So scheduling-wise,

they've been a little unlucky,

but then when you look

at the remaining schedule stuff,

I mean, it's the top three

most difficult remaining schedules.

It's Phoenix, Denver, and LA.

Houston's like down at 18.

So it should,

because of that number

and the record I told you about, it should even out. I can't wait to see what LA does.
Tari missed the game. So I'm not putting a ton into the Utah loss.
I put way more into the Minnesota win. Because that's one of the subplots that's left is who are the 10 teams going to be and more importantly, who are the play-in teams going to be? and then how can you avoid that 8 spot where you have to play OKC in round 1 which would just suck no matter who you are it does feel like Phoenix is going to drop out and we should talk to them we'll talk about them, they're 27 and 29, they have 3 more wins than your Portland Trailblazers, your favorite team they're 6th last 15, they're 19th and 9th.
I know you talked to Goldsberry about this and you were a pod on Friday, but I sat at that game with Goldsberry and the Suns were absolutely alarming in person. Give it to us.
There's no other word than... Body language, Bill.
Oh my god. I mean, we were pretty close to the bench, so I could really watch it.
They weren't talking to each other. You know, you judge certain things, like how many guys get up after a big play on the bench? What are guys doing during timeouts? What happens when a star player walks by his coach? Does he acknowledge him? Does he talk to him? Does he just kind of stop by? Does one of the star players yell at the coach? Well, KD yelled at Bud twice during that game.
There was near the end, one of my favorites is when one of the stars, there's somebody shooting free throws at the other end and one of the stars moves to the furthest part of the court away from everybody just to go sulk in the corner. That was KD near the end because he was so mad the way they used him in that game.
And the team played like crap. They were playing all the hits and it is not a team that seemed very happy.
And I don't know. I actually, we were talking and it was like, I don't think Bud was trying to get fired.
But it was the kind of coaching where you were like, if that guy's trying to get fired, I would point back to that game where it's like, you're just leaving Grace and Allen out there for the entire crush try and get killed by Darren Fox. It was weird.
It was a team that was not on the same page in any respect and seemed unhappy. That was my takeaway leaving for two and a half hours, an unhappy team.
Yeah, it's not Bud's fault that people can't come over to help on cuts. and Durant had a bunch of those swiping late out of position.
And if you don't believe me, I think Van Gundy was on the broadcast of that one too, being like, what? It was tough. What are you doing? And Durant puts up these numbers, but I mean, there's some stuff here.
And look, the worst thing Durant did was tweet that the NHL has loyalty and doesn't trade his players, which is still one of the dumbest tweets I've ever seen. Did he do that? When was that? Yeah.
It was during the whole stretch where it's like, why don't you watch something else? And you're like, all right, dude. Yeah, not great.
When you look at their whole thing here, I don't know. Rebound is usually a number where you see rebounding decline.
It kind of speaks to effort and all that kind of stuff uh i mean he's under five rebounds a game in february the crazy thing is like some of the other numbers are nuts because the guy can't miss a shot right now the shooting sports are incredible free throw attempts are down the last couple months so you know i don't i don't know if this is hey this is part of this little but with him, but like he still gets his numbers because the guy is so brilliant offensively. But like, you know, it's kind of up to you, man.
It's kind of up to you to be a part of the solution here. And they've tried some different things and they're just not very good.
Even when they're, you know, what they unfortunately tried to do is they tried to trade him and didn't tell him. And I think that was the death knell.
Because, you know, the way the NBA works. I don't think he's wanted to be there, man, going back to last summer.
You think that this whole season, you don't think he wanted to be there? No, I don't think. I think there was pretty strong indications that if he could have gotten his preference to go somewhere else this summer, he would have done it.
Interesting. You don't think so? You didn't hear? I don't know.
Well, I never know what to believe with Durant stuff, but I'd always heard that he likes Phoenix. But I think it was a pretty unusual move by them to shop him around quietly with the don't tell anyone in a league where somebody is immediately going to tell somebody.
And that's how they found out. I just thought that was the kind of thing you do when you're trying to burn the relationship.
Well, Luka never found out. Listen, I test-wise, I've been watching Duran his whole career.
He's at a slightly different point in his career physically. You can see it.
He's as amazing as he is and we've never seen a guy with that kind of size and shooting and athleticism. He's a little bit creakier than he used to be.
You can see it when you watch it. And it makes sense because he's been in the league since 2007.
This is how it goes. I don't really enjoy them.
I looked at it last year. Remember, we kept waiting.
Hey, I don't care about any. Like, I looked at it last year.

Remember, we kept waiting.

Like, hey, I don't care about any of the stats.

And the fourth quarter stuff didn't make any sense.

It was so bad, it had to be an anomaly.

And that part of it's been fixed a little bit.

But even with last year's injuries and guys missing games,

they were 38-28 through 56.

They're 27-29 now after an 8-1 start.

They're bottom third in offense and defense

the last month

KD's only missed 13

Booker's only missed 3

the Beal bench thing

it doesn't matter

because I don't think that dude cares

at all

you know

I really

I just don't

so

they're just

you know

they needed those three guys

to be just

top level

not to sound like a soccer analyst, and they've rarely gotten that. The Beal thing was interesting to watch in person because he was in a funk to start the game and wasn't really trying hard.
And then there was a moment where you could almost see him and be like, oh shit, this is on TV and there's fans. And then he started trying harder.
But you know, it's an unhappy team. I will promise you that that team does not make the playoffs.
There's no solution for whatever is wrong with them. And I don't, you know, it's probably the all-time new owner syndrome example we're going to have other than Prokhorov, which I think is number one.
Although Dallas in the running. Fair.
Fair. I'd still think Prokhorov.
It's unbelievable. Like I've done this assignment.
If you go through every ownership transition, the new owners fuck up so bad within the first 12 to 18 months. Like even Cuban, when he brought it in,

and I never forget him being on with Dan Patrick

talking about acquiring Rafe LaFrance.

And I remember thinking like, what the hell is he doing?

And then Cuban's just so good.

After 10 minutes of Dan Patrick, I was like,

oh, I guess getting Rafe LaFrance is a good idea.

Well, think about it.

If we bought the Pelicans, would we just keep the roster intact for a year or would we just be going out to dinner every night trying to figure out what our first trade was going to be? I feel like they would be the latter. I would be so determined if I owned a team to not screw up in the first 18 months.
I would just be like, say no to everything.

So I think Prokhorov was worse than the Luka trade,

and here's why.

Because the Luka trade,

as ridiculous and absurd as it was,

and it's going to go down as one of the worst trades in the history of the league,

and maybe in the history of sports.

So putting that aside,

at least there was a strategy in place

that I genuinely think they believed. The strategy was insane.
It makes no sense. It made no sense when it happened.
It's indefensible. But they had a plan and a strategy.
Prokhorov, his plan was let's spend as much money as possible and do whatever it takes. I don't care about

picks. Let's keep going, going, going, going.

And then it didn't work

for a year and he was like, I'm out.

No more money. I'm not spending anything.
He just zagged the other way. But now they had no more picks left.
I just don't feel like anyone's ever going to top that. Two strategies that one was worse than the other.
And in the span of two years and he just demolished basketball in brooklyn for no reason well the fact that he changed course so quickly after he'd already started like you know it's like digging a hole for a house and going you know what should be over here now no you can't i mean even then eventually you'd have a house at the end of it so for a street. It wasn't even one house.
It was like nine houses. Which way do you want these highways going? North, south? I didn't realize the sun came that way.
I'm out. Let's do this.
Just sell the lots. Yeah.
But the problem is there's no single piece that's as damp. I mean, I guess you could get into the Tatum and the draft picks and all that kind of stuff, but they weren't like Tatum wasn't playing for that franchise and having everybody fall in love with them over the course of seven years.
The way like the reaction, like I saw a quote the other day on the Luca trade where somebody had said we had underestimated the reaction to this. Multiple people said that.
What did you think was going to happen and it just sucks even worse because ad gets hurt immediately but uh the other thing that i love too about this and i'm going to make this joke throughout the rest of my career is this stupid fucking timeline people do and talk about and how married they are to the age timeline of NBA rosters.

Like, we need somebody on this timeline.

So if Cooper Flagg, if you had the number one pick,

would he be too young to put with Kyrie and AD now?

Like, he's not on our timeline.

Yeah, right. As if every

rebuilding team, everybody has to be between 18

and 22, and then any team

that's going for a championship is like, this guy's

25 and good? What the fuck are you guys

doing? It's way too much of a cap with the rest of our timeline and all this stuff. So also the iconic part of the reason you're getting rid of Luca, because he's not a safe enough risk physically and his devotion to the game.
And then you trade for Davis who gets hurt an hour into his first game. Like you, or when I thought you nailed it when you were tweeting out about that really good feature with the owner who's, what is he, the son-in-law? Married into the fam.
Patrick, is it Dumont? This is your dream. This is what I want to happen to you.
You marry into the rich family that's thinking about getting into professional basketball. This is it.
This is the path. No, I go on Instagram and constantly like single daughters of NFL ownership, their pictures.
I'm like, oh, killing it. You know, nothing creepy, just really tasteful stuff.
Be like, oh, it's such a great sweater, you know? But that party looks awesome. Yeah.
Oh, my God. You guys, that's so great.

Did you guys reach out to the community like that?

Keep,

keep doing you.

Uh,

he,

he went through all of these players,

like clearly like Nico had gotten to Patrick.

It was like basically to be on brand here.

The messaging should be like,

we here at the Dallas Mavericks want people that are fully committed.

And clearly like, look, it's no secret on the Luca thing. He wasn't committed enough.
I'm not going to make the argument that he was and was misunderstood, but you can't then run through all the list of players and be like, you know, Kobe and Shaq when Shaq himself would admit that I could have done a better job. And that was the whole reason of the Kobe Shaq divorce is that Kobe, you know, fills line to him being like, your 10 is unattainable for everybody else.
Your 10 is their seven and they don't understand that there's a higher number. That's your gift.
That's what makes you, you. So holding everybody else to that standard is completely pointless.
All you're going to be doing is wasting your time. So getting on Shaq's case, because he's not going to approach the offseason the way you are, that's unsolvable, man.
And so when he went through the list of players that he admired because of their work ethic and their conditioning and all that stuff, and as much as we all love Shaq, he'd be the first to admit that he didn't take it serious enough while he played. So it was an awful quote.
He wouldn't have been in my top 700 to list for that. I remember when John Walsh sat me down and told me that my 10 was everyone

else's seven.

What did you say?

Thanks,

John.

Thanks for just to relax on everybody.

I agree.

Did he,

did he say that to you?

He didn't.

Um,

what did he say to you?

What's the most meaningful thing that he ever said to you?

Most meaningful thing John Walsh ever said to me? To care about the relationships with the people you have professionally because those are things going to last after you do whatever you're doing professionally, which I think took me a long time to realize. Yeah, I didn't realize that until recently.
And he didn't say. He recommended Game Change, the book, which I did enjoy that summer.
It's a good one. It's a good book.
More storylines for you. I almost don't want to get to Philly.
I feel like Philly is like the... Let me ask you then.
Let me ask you a Philly question off of what we just did. No, but I'm saying I want to almost save Philly.

Philly's like the fucking huge dessert we have coming out

that's got like the table where the guy's going to do like a baked Alaska.

That's how much excited I have to talk about Philly.

Does anyone actually make a bake?

I've never even seen one.

It's referenced.

It's the most referenced food item that I don't even think exists.

Never seen it on a menu. I've never seen a presentation.
I've never seen anybody order one. I think it's fake.
I think I've had it like once in my life. Philly is 20 and 36.
They have the sixth worst record in the league. They've lost seven straight.
And they owe a top six picks to OKC. And now they're in the zone where it's like, should we just fucking, should we tank it? What do we do? And it's funny.
I wrote down, could this hit mid-2010 Brooklyn proportions for them? Where I was thinking of the single bleakest situations we've seen in the NBA. And I think the bleakest they can get, and I've certainly rooted for Celtics teams that had pieces of it.
Like when the Vin Baker trade, when it became clear that there was no way of getting out of his contract. And you just start looking ahead and you're like, wow, this is...
So we're going to have this for three more years. And we're just fucked.
And that slow realization comes in. And I think it's hitting some of the Sixers fans with the George and Bede money.
So you have that on top of you might give the seventh pick in the

draft to OKC. You might not even get

a draft pick out of this season.

If you can't land the plane on this lottery,

what would you do? I would tank.

So you're

shutting everybody down. Yeah.

There's no point. Why?

Why is this

Bede thing going to look better this year?

It's not. It's not going to look better tomorrow.
And then Paul George, he's like, yeah, my finger, I'm taking shots. It's like, well, why can't you move? Why do you seem slow half the time? Are there other injuries you have that you're not telling us about? if I were a CEO of a company and I wanted to short my own stock

but I couldn't just say it outright i would hire paul george to run pr what are they doing over there we do we feel like we went strongly enough on us being concerned from the moment they did that contract to the start of the season? Because I feel like both of us danced around, including in combos with each other, recorded, where I was trying to be diplomatic. But deep down in my soul, I just felt like this was a bad fit.
And it's been way worse than I thought. See, the problem with it was, is that on one hand, you have Daryl pulling a rabbit out of his hat in a way that very few GMs can, you know, whether it's having a top five player in the world when he's healthy and Embiid, because that's what he was.
I mean, but you know, even if you don't like him now and I don't like him now, um, you have a guy who's going to make multiple all-star teams, most likely in maxi. You hit, what, 21st pick?

And then all these other little things, and you delay the maxi extension. You figure out a way to move Harden out because you knew after that playoff series, it's like, I don't really want to extend this guy to whatever was talked about and how many different versions of that story you've heard.
And then you have this cap space that almost never works out for anybody. And then you have this rare instance where the, um, you know,

you know, in this case, the Clippers, the incumbent team, right. Decide they're okay.
Losing the asset for nothing and not giving this player who's all NBA level a fourth year, right? Like everybody just gives them the fourth year. Like, why are you not giving him the fourth year? So you have this one team that's deciding to not give the fourth year.
And it's not like they weren't going to pay him a ton of money in the three years, but they're not going to give him the fourth year. Like, who cares? Just do the fourth year.
You'll figure it out later. It's better than just letting him walk.
And they let him walk. So now you can use this cap space on a guy who in theory is all NBA, even if we would say that he feels like with all of his talent, like at the end of it, Paul George is probably going to be kind of a disappointing player for his career.
And now he's even worse. Like when they've needed him, when other guys have been out and you've needed him to be this alpha, he's just incapable of it.
And then on top, so like, it's all of this credit on top of, to point like is george personality wise the guy that fits into philadelphia knowing what the standard is and knowing what the expectations are and it's been is it more disappointing than phoenix well i'm personally more disappointed because we had phoenix in that big super boost which haven't lost all decade. So that was kind of like, like all of us were aligned on we think Phoenix is going to be really good.
I can't wait to watch this offense and they've all been healthy, which is the weird part. So I mean, to me that's almost more surprising.
I can't say I'm, I can't say I'm surprised that Embiid broke down and that Paul George looks a little long in the tooth. What's surprising to me is how miserable everybody seems and the fact that there's no outs.
To go 20 and 36 is really hard. That's a bad record.
Now you're on pace for, what's that, like 27 and 55?

There's a reason they're in the standings.

Can I push back on one Paul George thing

now?

Because you said ultimately you're

going to remember him as kind of

disappointing. I think he's exactly

the best version

of whatever career we ever would have thought

it was going to be.

He made conference finals a couple times. He had that one nice playoff series with the Clippers after Kawhi left.
He also had a couple where he wasn't that great. I would still take him over Vince Carter and Carmelo and people like that from a success standpoint.
You take him over Melo? I wouldn't take him as a player from like, I have Mello ranked in the top 75, but I'm just saying like his achievements, I think he's achieved more than Carmelo did as a player. Like he made it further in the playoffs twice.
Or three times. He was in the conference finals three times.
And he was second team All-NBA. If Mello had been in the East, I think he probably...
If you go through all the Melo playoff stuff, for the most part, every time he lost to a team, it was a team they were supposed to lose to. I've heard that argument, but it doesn't explain 0-9 when I felt like they pretty easily could have beaten the Lakers.
And I don't feel like he had a good enough series, personally. That's fine.
In that series. All right, then you got me on the one.
2019, first team on Bay. I don't know.
I think he said, if you're going to compare him versus Carmelo, and I was a Carmelo defender forever, but I also feel like now Carmelo has become a little overrated in retirement, which I think happens depending on if you have a podcast after retirement or not. I don't know.

We were there for the Carmelo thing.

He was an incredible scorer.

But the Denver years, pretty much all the way through until 2009,

were disappointing, right?

Then pushing his way to the Knicks and making them basically trade all these assets that actually could help him if he stayed.

I think that he gets dinged on that.

Yeah, there's nothing. He doesn't even have a moment.
That used to be my Vince Carter argument was like, where's the playoff moment? Because for the longest time, and I know you'll be right down the middle on this one, people were actually trying to argue like Paul Pierce against Vince Carter before the 08 title. And you would just go, come on.
There's a level to like like you've got to have some kind of playoff moment and for Vince for the longest time like he didn't have anything I mean it might have taken all the way until like he hit a corner three for Dallas so maybe it's just because Paul George at one point was in this conversation of like could this guy be the best player in the league and you know I guess you could do the same thing with Mello because early on that's kind of how you looked at mellow and then the playoff part of it i i can't sit here and defend it because it's generally really disappointing but i think for george and some of those pacers years you were like is this guy and then it took forever for him to have like a playoff series you felt like you could trust him yeah that that was like hardness you know for him it was like what is going on and then they had they had lost kawaii they had that utah series or utah i think had that really good record in that two-year window they ended up you know they kind of got gobert stuck in the spot where he's trying to defend everybody so he was really really good it was like okay well that's like finally like there's something there to kind of point to there a little bit but he just needs to be i mean we're back to the beginning of this whole thing he is incredibly disappointing like he's so bad right now that i can't believe he's doing podcasts you tell him take a break i would just be so embarrassed paul's going to be taking a month off obviously that's not going to happen but i would be embarrassed being a dude who comes in with the four-year max and like hey we need you to be the guy throughout all this mb stuff you know and and maxi's numbers aren't as good because i think maxi was pressing and trying to go like all right i guess i'm gonna take 25 shots and i have to raise the risk of like what some of my shots are here i mean what is there any part of this you would disagree disagree with? Because even if he's older and all this different stuff,

like, man, year one,

this is what it looks like?

And it's just so frustrating.

Well, what would scare me

for a Philly fan

is we've seen this

with other players

that all of a sudden

were at a different level

and you knew it right away.

Like, I always remember

Jermaine O'Neal.

And Jermaine O'Neal

had those two years

where he was getting traded around and people were still acting like he was 24 and 10. Jermaine O'Neal just wasn't anymore.
Usually when the stats drop this dramatically, they don't come back. That's what we've learned.
You can go on Basketball Reference. You can look at any of these guys.
There's some sort of level, especially if it's second half of your career, when your stats go from here to here and that's just who you become and we think it's coming back and it just never does. I'm still going to defend Paul George's 2018.
I feel like that was a really good year. Even like that Phoenix series, he was kind of carrying them.
It was like he'd kind of reached his the 2019 OKC year was good. And then that Quipper run.
I don't know what it is for Carmelo. What is it? The 2013 Knicks season.
The regular season. Yeah, but you know what dude, I'm sorry.
I'm actually going to re-push back on your pushback. It's a double pushback? Yeah, if you look at the thunder during those post-durant seasons okay like they're getting blasted out in the first round they lost to portland in five games the year he was third in mvp voting you know and he has one of those horrible horrible game sevens where you don't even notice that he's out there and like look we joke we've made this joke before you know it's a really simple test like do i forget you're out on the court paul george should never be somebody with his skills with that contract with philly's injuries this year where you forget that he's on the court in the fourth quarter and it happens all the time it would be a fun podcast just to discuss paul george's career for two hours there's been a lot of ups and downs because the bubble was really bad.
The year after was really great. You could go all over the map with it.
A couple more storylines quickly. Let me just finish this Clippers point though.
Oh, please do. Because their defensive profile is incredible.
Lawrence Frank in this front office, they deserve all the credit in the world for doing something that I just don't think a lot of teams would have done. Most teams would have given Paul George the fourth year.
And to your point, maybe that tells you something if they were so adamant of not doing it. But then again, it's like, well, it wasn't like he was going to play for free on the other three years.
But I just laugh when I think about the Clippers transactions this year, because it's almost like, hey, who are all the players Urshilo doesn't like? Let's bring him in. the hardened one they need.
They need his usage, the highest usage that we've seen from him in five years. But it's not just that.
I mean, they have brought in Kevin Porter Jr., who they moved on from, who you want to talk about playing your own game when you're out there on top of all the other shit you can get into with him. Bones, who couldn't make it work with Jok like if there's like hey man all you had to do

was cut all you had to do was cut and you would have got second contract it would have worked out um and a ring mo bamba who is going to just forever trick teams they brought in kai jones okay and then they were like while we're at it let's add ben simmons this is an absolute anti-Rusillo heater of roster movement

and they're

pretty good.

I kind of roster movement.

And they're pretty good.

I kind of like the Ben Simmons move.

Oh, do you?

I didn't mind it.

You're paying nothing for him.

He costs like five bucks.

I'm okay with it.

I tell you, that guy is like, all right, this Brooklyn thing's over.

And then I just love that it was actually a story.

We're like, ooh, we're on Ben Simmons buyout watch.

And it's like,

of course he gets to go to LA.

Of course he does.

Good for him.

It's a nice team for him.

Hey Ben,

just play some defense and bring the ball up for us.

Can you do that?

Occasionally do the thing where you drive really hard and then kick it back out to somebody.

That's all we need from you.

Grab some rebounds.

And if you want to make,

if you want to make all your off season videos,

make them. I, if I'm paying paying Ben Simmons the minimum, I'm okay with it.
If I'm paying $43 million a year for him, that is okay. This episode is brought to you by Loom, by Atlassian.
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Terms and conditions apply. Some quick storylines, quickly.
Is John Moran ever gonna be John Moran again? Awesome question. Awesome question.
Yeah, he's still young enough, but I've been worried this year. You? 34 games, he's missed 22.
He's averaging 20 a game, 30% from three. Free throw attempts down to 5.9.
They're 23-11 with him, 14-8 without him. And there's moments and flashes, but I was kind of expecting more from this season.
We'll see. Maybe this is why maybe Memphis could be the late bloomer, even though they have a good record.
Could he just go on a heater the next 20 games and look like Ja again? But it's not the guy from three years ago, I'll tell you that much. At least not yet.
No, it isn't. And I do wonder if it's kind of like the disruptive pattern for him.
Like, hey, he's back. He's not back.
But I know they'll rest him sometimes in there as well. It just feels like a 25.
Like, I'm not there yet. But watching it.
I'd like to, yeah. Be good for four weeks in a row.
With you. Yeah.
Put up like a 28. I'm not there yet.
I'd like to be good for four weeks in a row with you. Put up like a 28 and 10 for a month.
So I'm watching that and it's hard to take Memphis seriously not knowing what we're getting from that dude. Even though Jaron Jackson I think has been one of the big winners of this season.
I thought he went up a level. It's noticeable.
He's an all-NBA guy for me right now. Jaw was really going against Orlando because Orlando never changed his defense the entire time, so that was good.
Cleveland versus OKC for home court. 46-10 versus 45-10, taping it before both of their games today.
I think that's the storyline at some point because one of those teams could get a game seven, and those are the only two teams left. Same thing for MVP where it's SGA versus Yurkage, although it seems like SGA has kind of got it locked up.
He's minus 500. It would take a lot at this point.
Next one, this is specifically for you. Can the Pistons, how frisky can we get? How much friskiness should I be prepared for? Do I need to put on a frisky jacket to, to combat their, their friskiness right now? Are you, are you suggesting a seasonal friskiness update ranking? What do you think the record is in their last 28 games? Last 28, I'll say 18 and 10.

19 and 9.

Last 20 games,

they're seventh and net.

Cade Cunningham,

you're a guy.

You never gave up on him.

You own the most amount of stock.

You were just buying other people's stock

when they were down.

And he's averaging 25 and 9

and has,

if we kept track of

who was the best player in that game as an award, I feel like he would have about 25 of them, 20 of them, 19 of them, 22, somewhere in there. But he's been awesome, and they can rebound, and they're tough.
That's what I like. They're tough.
It's a tough, like, kind of – it's a veteran team with some wild cards, beef stews out there. There's elbows don't dunk the other night what was it just he almost got like horizontal to the ground like at rim level i don't know what was going on uh because i was watching i forget which show i watched again sports consultants available per diem yeah i guess you should say pro rata but um there was a show the other day i was watching where they were showing like something from track and field like there was a track and field meet and they were showing the high jumper and he was like jumping over the thing where he would like there was no fosbury flop he just jumped yeah over it oh my god really yeah so there was no one apparently on the set that would have been like hey you realize no one would ever do a high jump this way yeah and they didn't do it and if you'd had Dern out there he'd be like this is how you do it because it looked like he was trying to high jump the rim when he hit this dunk I'm so happy I think scholars will look back at the Zach Cram Cade Cunningham tablets as the turning point of his career.
Because Zach did a piece that lit him up. Like, hey, this is who this dude is.
An incredibly high volume inefficient dude who may not have one go-to thing that's all that great. And it feels like from that point on, he became the player we all thought he could be.
So I think the tablets will be a turning point on his. Interesting.

Maybe he'll get invited to the Hall of Fame when Cade goes.

I actually was, I've been sketching out all NBA every week just for as an exercise.

Good for you.

Getting those reps in when no one's looking.

Just part of the pod process.

I have Cade.

I think, I think there's a real case for him for second team All-NBA right now.

Who are your four guards?

Well, you figure Mitchell,

like SGA Mitchell are first team and Brunson's going to be second team.

And if you're going to go at least a little traditional

and say, I want to put a guard as my fourth,

you know, basically the fourth guard and second team All BA. It's between him and Edwards.
And I think that's really it. What about Kyrie? Kyrie's in there and Curry's in there.
If you're betting on the Curry bump. I had Kyrie and Curry and Edwards all 13.
But I mean, it's all like, I didn't really, I spent five minutes on it, but I was just, I was like,

hmm, I wonder where Cade is.

And Cade to me, with what he's done with Detroit,

they lose Ivy and they somehow keep going and how hard he plays every night.

I'd have trouble leaving him off second team right now.

It's him or Edwards.

And you can talk me into Edwards

because of the defense,

but they have the same,

teams have the same record and you could say Edwards has more talent so at least it's a good argument so anyway Kato would have on there so the reason I wanted to mention them though is because I think they're going to be kind of a bitch in the playoffs just for one round I don't necessarily think they're going to beat the Knicks. I just think they're going to be really physical, super excited to be there, and they have a really good guy at the end of these games who's not afraid of whoever the best guy on the other team is.
It's an unusual succeed for a conference that I think is pretty awful. Once you get past the first four.
It's amazing what shooting can do when you have like a a guy's gonna have the ball in his hands as much as kate because i've watched an orlando game recently and we all love paulo i think that established and whenever i watch him i just think of like there's just not enough spacing because sugs Right. This is too hard.
It's like if there was ever a team that would love a prime stretch five per Zingas to balance out all the other stuff the guys could do. And it's not like they had this massive overhaul this offseason because all the young assets essentially are still there.
Although Killian, how about his possessions and passing the other night? Was KOC wrong or just early? Some are asking. KOC still, he never gave up his stock.
He's still hold on. Killian, back in the league.
Just the simplicity of a little bit more spacing. You know, it's what every team, maybe there's just not enough shooting to go around, but every team should aspire to do that because it's just different.
Your job is different now as his primary ball handler when there's just some people that you have to worry about. And look, last night's Denver game is a perfect example.
The Lakers did not worry about any of those other guys all night. So, a couple more subplots and then we'll go.
I mentioned the All-NBA battles. What's weird is the top five seem like they're locked in unless a Mitchell-unson development can happen.
But I don't know how

Mitchell's... If Cleveland's going to have the best record

in the East and maybe the best

record in the league, he's probably

going to be first team. Anyway,

worst rookie of the year race in a while.

Castles

minus 175 on

Fandle. It doesn't even start.
I went

to the game Thursday and it didn't start.

Tenth playoff spot, Russian Roulette in the East. Orlando 7.
Miami 8, a game and a half back. Atlanta 9 at 26 and 30.
And then you have three teams that legitimately don't want to even make the playing game. Chicago at 10, 22 and 34.
Philly 20 and 36 now and then or 35 and then Brooklyn 20

and 35. Chicago, Philly and Brooklyn

I don't think want to be in the playoffs.

Maybe Philly's just going to have to stumble into it.

You realize though this top like

they have the sixth

worst record right now. Imagine if they

tank and end up with the seventh pick and it

goes to OKC. Which is almost what happened

to Dallas that year and then Dallas ended up keeping the pick and getting lively. Remember, they were right on the edge.
Yeah, and everybody lost their minds because they didn't want to be a 10 seed when it was like actually smart for them. I was just one of them.
Right here. Yeah, I'm looking right at you.
I was talking about you. Right here.
Who gives a shit? Are you still bothered? Do you ever drive around? Are you going down Sunset? You're like, I'll tell you what, though. Fucking Mavs a couple years ago.
Have you done zero times? I still stand by my foundation. You know what? I look back at my playbook, and the thought process was you have Luka Dacic.
You always have a chance if that guy's in your team. The next year, they made the finals.
Was I wrong? I think the criticism was outsized for what they actually were doing. I have no idea who's going to be the 10th seed.
And what'll be funny is if it ends up being Chicago, which I think would be the team I would bet on out of those three. Chicago, a team that openly tried to sabotage their own team at the trade deadline and still might make the playoffs.
So you have that. Then you have Tankapalooza, the Cooper flag stuff's heating up.
Washington has a four-win lead over everyone else. They only have nine wins.
New Orleans, Utah, Charlotte, Toronto, Philly is our top six. And Utah's hilarious because every once in a while, they look really good.
Like I watched some of the Houston game and Houston was really trying to win and Utah's like, nah, we're going to do this and watch this and then we'll do this. They just look really competent from time to time.
I don't know how they're going to fuck up, but they seem pretty happy where they are. Or then they'll run a play where Keontae George in that Lakers game that I was at.
I almost tweeted it out. Will you remember where you were when they came out of a timeout and Keontae George threw up a left-handed floater in the lane?

I think it was

a left-handed jumper. Maybe it

wasn't out of a timeout. There was another play out of a timeout

where I think they turned the ball over immediately.

They have a lot of on-ball guys with confidence.

I will say that about

the Utah Jazz. But who do

you want to have win? If you could go right now, win

because

if you think Scoot and Cooper flag

the next 10 years over

under three and a half titles,

Thank you. you want to have win if you could go right now win because i mean if you think scoot and cooper flag the next 10 years over under three and a half titles trying to think how many did the mid-80s lakers win they won five nine finals in 12 years listen if this season if any great thing happened through 50 games, other than Dallas making the dumbest trade I've ever seen, we might be alive with Scoot.
We haven't talked about this on a pod. We might be alive.
We might be. It's still breathing.
There's enough there, and he's young enough that I feel okay. This isn't like where I was mentally, you know,

a month and a half ago with this where it felt like a sunk cost.

Now I'm,

you know,

he's gotten better.

He's getting so big.

Uh,

last thing in Dallas,

got killed as we were taking this school and state,

but,

um,

they're not getting their bigs back until the first week of March. Where do you have them in your head? Because that's another subplot for the last 30 games.
I'll probably like them better than the Clippers. When they have everybody? Yeah, I might even like them better than Houston.
Here's the thing. I liked them.
I liked the healthy them. i thought they were better this year before all this trade stuff like they were always a team that i had to say don't don't lose sight of them with all of this lucas stuff like i think denver paid this weird aaron gordon price where people were looking at what they were doing or what they weren't doing and you go i don't really care like if aaron gordon's gonna miss this many games he's so important to what they.
Let's see what they look like when they get him back. And clearly Luke is even beyond that.
And 80 is even beyond that for Aaron Gordon on that part of it. So I, I think you still have to keep it open for them, even though, I mean, imagine having three centers like this, that you would feel so good about.
None of them are playing. Well, the good news for them

is... It looks like they're

going to keep the 10 seed no matter

what happens unless Phoenix gets their shit

together, which I don't think

will happen. And I didn't make Wemby a subplot

because we already know how that's going to play out.

It's such a bummer. I thought San Antonio

was kind of lurking as

a party crasher for

maybe a 9 or a 10 seed, but now that one's shot and they're going to sink back. And the Wemby thing is a bummer.
There's really not a lot to say about that one. So if I had to bet, so Sacramento you would have as a 10 seed? 30 games left? Is there anything you've seen from Sacramento that got you excited since all the trades? I don't think it's going to be.
You think it's going to be San Antonio in the 10? No, I think San Antonio is out. I have Phoenix and San Antonio out and I have Sacramento as the 10.
I think that's how that plays out. And maybe Dallas passes them and becomes the 10 and Sacramento's 9, but I think that's it looks something like that I think it's Sacramento I mean at least with Sacramento I kind of know what I'm getting you know I know Sabonis and Valanciunas back for you I've loved it you said you see those guys I know you watched a lot of Lithuanian Olympic tape alright any other subplots before we go that you care about, I care about you sending me a deep dive thing that you've been just YouTube in and out like a high school kid with no friends.
You want to do that really quick? I do because I have one for you because you gave me the assignment. Mine will be quick, but I know you really want to do this, so go for it.
No, I asked you, I said, we should talk at the end of the pod or near the end of the pod every Sunday about one rabbit hole we fell into over the course of the week. Cause I think we both fall into a rabbit holes, either a book rabbit hole or some sort of YouTube or somebody sends you a video and you're like, what's that? And then you're watching seven of them.
I really want to talk about this Lorne Michaels book I was reading, but we don't have to do that today. So somebody sent me a Reddit thread about the Silver Springs performance by Fleetwood Mac in 1997 in the dance.
I don't know if you're familiar with this. I'm not.
I mean, look, who doesn't love a little Fleetwood Mac in the background but go for it well so this is why this is why the deep dive so much fun um so stevie nicks and lindsey buckingham they're together as a band in the early 70s and then they end up joining fleetwood mac right both of them together and they're dating and they're in a hot relationship and they write the first album there together. Rumors, the most famous album they made, um, they broke up as they're making that album.
And then a couple other people in the band broke up too. Basically everybody in the band's breaking up with somebody they're dating in the band.
And that's what the album becomes. So they cut out Silver Springs, which is this song she wrote about Lindsey Buckingham.

And they cut it out of rumors.

It's a great song.

They put it on the B-side instead.

And it becomes one of the biggest albums ever,

but Silver Springs is the B-side.

And she's mad about it forever because it's one of her best songs.

So when they do the dance, now they've broken up.

Lindsey's with somebody and they go on stage and they do this and they rehearse it and she's playing it the same but then when they do it for the actual concert film and the album she really gets into it and starts like kind of staring giving some side eye stares as she's doing it all performative I think I think I've seen this. It's one of the best clips on YouTube, is Stevie Nicks, by the last minute and a half of the song, and he's just playing, and now she's turning over and walking toward him.
And she's now like, and her eyes are starting to bulge out, and she's like, you'll never forget. I forget the lyrics.
the voice of the woman that haunts you and she's just like yelling it out and he's just like all right cool and he's just playing the guitar um well i mean that must have made him want to get back together well and then at the end she's like the lyrics in the song are you'll never get away from the voice of the woman that loves you and she's like you'll never get away get away. You'll never get away.
And she's like, and it's a thing. And it's become ever since YouTube popped up, it's become a thing.
And then there's all these theories about the performance, how much of it was performative, how much it was a stage. This Reddit thread that I got sent was about how they're preparing to do this comeback thing.
And they might have gotten involved a little bit again because they have these different interviews where they're talking about what a good place they're in and they have interviews together where they seem a little lovey-dovey and maybe some sparks will fly, maybe not. But then by the time they do the dance it's clear to her that she that he's with somebody else like for whatever because here's the piece he has a kid the next summer so this is what the thread that's evidence that's usually good evidence yeah with somebody else by the time they do this performance he probably knew they're the kid.
And this was when it maybe died for Lindsey. So the theory was, for Stevie.
So the theory was, when she's singing this, it's like within a few weeks of after she found out maybe they don't have a chance to get back together and she's pouring it on in the thing. But it's a legendary YouTube clip.
Anyway, I read, I spent an hour and a half reading everything I could read about this on the internet yesterday at

2.30 in the morning, Boston time.

I think that's time we'll spend.

Thank you. That's good, because I'll get into

a band,

whether it's new or

something I want to revisit,

and I'll be like,

alright, I'm going to read about Dwayne Allman for an hour.

So I actually do kind of like

this stuff. It's the

70s music stuff. Everybody's

Thank you. and I'll be like, all right, I'm going to read about Dwayne Allman for an hour.
You know, so I actually do kind of like this stuff.

It's the seventies music stuff.

Everybody's got a story that is at least worth an hour of your time that goes in a bunch of different directions.

The other thing I found out was there's a 1977 performance of Silver Springs because people thought they never really played it that much.

That's on YouTube in black and white of like an original performance of her, like right after they broke up singing it. So I watched that too.
Anyway, because I'll go through some like talking heads phases. I love them.
And I, I like them so much that, you know, again, it's, I'm not going to get to experience it the way people get to experience when it first happened. But I always think like I'm having less clay pool of Primus on at some point here soon.
Who's considered one of the best bass players of all time and in the beginning with primus you were just like what the fuck is this and i'm i'm so fascinated to think of like what it was like when less claypool is like well i want to make the bass the feature thing and i'm going to sing these songs and they're going to be a little different my voice is probably not the most traditional rock star kind of voice but then once you kind of buy into the thing, you just appreciate how great the music is and how great he is. But I can't imagine how many people told him in the beginning, like, are you kidding? This isn't going to work.
And when I think about the talking heads, like I just imagine was New York so cool because I read that please kill me punk book about just punk and I read that city. Yeah i i'm glad i read it and i'm also like

it was so disgusting that i couldn't you know what i mean like i'm gonna get through this it

was so gross in so many spots and i certainly don't feel like a prude but after a while you're

like all right i got it it was a weird time um wait can i read you silver springs lyrics really

quick and then you go to your deep dive yeah but it's just a couple samplings not that thing

Thank you. Give me just the chance.
You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you. This is when she kicks it up in the performance.
And then the end is, was I such a fool? I'll follow you down to the sound of my voice will haunt you. Give me just the chance.
You'll never get away from the sound of a woman that loves you. And then it just keeps going and going and going.
Yeah. Anyway, it all played out on stage and it's amazing.
And it's one of the best YouTube clips. She screams you man whore, I think, too, in there.
No? I don't remember that part. Okay.
Yeah. So I referenced her, I think, at the very top.
I'm reading all three volumes of Susan Wise Bowers. The first one is the history of the ancient world.
And I just love it. She's a complete pragmatist about things.
And I'm going through some of the early Egyptian dynasties. And so I just finished the chapters on the pyramids.
And I don't understand why people love conspiracy so much. I know it was conspiracy build.
This may be offensive to you, but usually there's a very simple, the, the Occam's razor, you know, what's the simplest explanation? Be like, that's probably what it is. So there was another author, a Swiss author named Eric von Dynakin, who wrote this book about how aliens essentially built the pyramids.

And he wrote this book in the 60s and it did really well.

And then, you know, you always kind of wondered like, what the hell's going on over there

in Egypt?

And if I had a kid and I couldn't answer that, I, you know, again, it's probably why I'm

not a parent.

You don't have a kid?

No, but I feel like ill-equipped if I had had a kid it was like what's up with the pyramids I go you know shit he's got me I haven't done a ton of research and I want to just go based on the Swiss authors thing from the 1960s but Susan's explanation of it like after you two pages, Bill, about the history of like how the pyramids get started, like one small, it's six levels up. So the next guy's like, well, mine's going to be seven.
And then the next guy's like, well, I'm going to do like eight, but then that one doesn't get finished. Then another one doesn't get finished.
Then there's another one called the bent pyramid where they're just kind of like moving them further away from everywhere the previous one is built, by the way. And that's called the bent pyramid because they realize halfway through construction that their angles are off and it's going to be too steep and then it's not going to hold up.
So they have to like flatten it out a little bit. So there's physical visual evidence to this day of what would be kind of man's attempt at building these great works.
And she just goes like, look, this one was small. Then they tried to build this one.
It didn't really work. This one was unfinished.
And then this one's like really screwed up. And yeah, they've done a good job with the corners and it's a massive undertaking

but they just basically ask their citizens

based on the pharaoh's power of like

no this is what we're doing dude like we're building

it and we're moving these stones around and it can

take forever but we're going to

give you some water and maybe like a

sarong or something and then they master

like any civilization

they become better at

building these things

and all it took was like a couple pages

just wrong or something. And then they master like any civilization, they become better at building these things.
And all it took was like a couple of pages for me to go, okay, well, that's the answer. Like that's it.
Now you're set. Yeah.
So I'm going to have a kid is my point. Cause now I can answer that question.
What you just laid out reminded me of what happened in Vegas when they were building the casinos and the themes got stupider and stupider. And they were like, we're going to have a casino.
It's New York, New York. It's going to be like going to New York in a casino.
And then somebody else would be like, whoa, I'm going to make a casino called Aladdin. And we just go and it's like being in a a fantasy and then somebody else was like i'm gonna create paris and it's just gonna be like going to paris except somebody else i'm doing venetian and it's gonna be like going italy some of these casinos stayed and then other ones just you know failed miserably that's a really good it's exactly well it's not exactly because i don't think anybody's ever accused uh despite some of the weird vegas stuff of ever being built by aliens but like not being educated on it and going yeah what is going on is it is it actually a perfect representation of all this mathematical stuff is it a reflection of the stars like all of these theories that i've heard over and over again and then i never thought of like the simplest approach to it is that here's the first one, here's the second one, third, fourth.
And like, by the time I think it's like the sixth or seventh one, it's like, okay, now we've really got this thing locked in because we've been trying to build these things for years and years. And you go, oh, wow.
All right. Yeah.
That actually makes a ton of sense. I wonder if that's going to happen with NBA trades where the KED trade was basically your version of them completely fucking up that last pyramid before they got better at it.
Or maybe the Luka trade will be the last one and then we'll just get better at trades from that point on. Maybe not.
That'll never happen. No.
They'll still mess up some pyramids. They'll probably still mess up some trades.
It's 2025 and Luka just got traded. That should have been a 1975 trade.
Yeah. It was really funny sitting next to my dad because he's like an old married couple with the Celtics team because he's been watching these guys so long.
And so like the start of the second quarter, Jalen Tatum's out and it's going to be like Jalen's five minutes where it's like that part of the concert where it's like, Keith Richards has a new song for you and he's going to come out and play like his song. And my dad's just like, watch this.
Jalen's just going to, he's just going to try to get some shots off. Like this is, just watch we just watch what's gonna and and it was like he knows the team he's been going to the games too long he knows like every part of it and uh it was just really funny because our record is like 39 and 15 and we won the title last year and it just proved to me my 77 year old dad you're just never gonna be happy with sports he's complaining about jaylen who's awesome i think because they get older and i'm going through this a little bit with my dad where like he'll complain about something sports related and i just go what what are you talking about man like what do you not do you not watch is your father not watching enough enough like other games will he watch other nba games in a non-selfish life well he He'll watch the TNT ABC sometime but he watches every Celts game.
Which is kind of adorable because that's how he finds out sometimes about other teams. Like guys.
He went to see Wemby right before the break and it was his first Wemby game. And it was just his scouting report really made me laugh because it was like, he's so long.

He's not wrong.

You have them and then he blocks it.

I was like,

yeah.

Yeah.

That's what it's like.

I think it's a common thing with,

um,

guys past a certain age is they're just so much older.

They're selfish.

They're incredibly selfish about what they want from their sports teams.

Yeah. I don't know if it's a counting down the years.
I'm not trying to be morbid about this. It's possible.
My father can be so incredibly difficult. I went to a sporting event with him.
Meanwhile, the guy hasn't had to pay for a ticket because I've helped him, which I'm happy to do as a payback for all the years that he took me to all the games growing up but like if the celtics get up big he'll want the other team to make a run for his soul to make more fun yeah and i'll just be like hey you can't you can't fucking be doing that all right like you can't you can't be rooting on the other team for this five minute window and he's like i only get to a couple of these a year it's like well you know what you didn't pay for anything the seat is awesome and you need to not root for the calves for six minutes just so you get not only a win but a close one yeah well i like with the older fans how cut and dry it becomes like my dad just wanted the wanted the Red Sox to sign Bregman. He's like, we need a right-hand hitter.
He's going to be good in Fenway. He looked up no stats.
None. He had no...
There was no B-Bip. There was no...
Average annual salary. Home road splits.
These guys don't care. No, he's like, we need a right-hand hitter.
And he in Fenway he can't you know he can't lay down any of the stats of Bregman actually in Fenway but that's just where he stands and that's the way it is yeah see that's that's always like the funny thing with um you know we're terrible because we live it but your dad and I don't even mean your dad or my dad, but everybody listening to this right now, like your dad's advanced scouting is if the guy had two doubles in like a three-game series once. It's the Doc Rivers as a GM strategy of when I played Byron Mullins that time when he hit those threes.
We got to get him. Was there any part of you that immediately looked up Bregman's deal and then compared it to the average annual salary of Mookie Betts?

No, I didn't do that.

But I will say, I looked at his stats and noticed that he hadn't had

a really awesome year since 2019, which made me nervous.

But then MLB released their top 100 players, and he was like 57.

I was like, yeah, baby, Bregman. Kind of sucked me back a little bit.
The Red Sox had four of the top 100. Well, I'm all over Baseball America again.
I renewed my subscription at a benefit for years. Right, the prospects? Yeah, I'm Big Farm.
I mean, that was my lunch reading for years and years. Christian Campbell, Marcelo Mayer, Roman Anthony.
Yeah. The Bregman thing pissed me off just because I can't think of any transaction without Mookie.
I'm surprised. I would say 38-year-old Bill probably have 7,500 words on the Mookie-Luca thing.
No, you know what? I have 20 words for you right now. The Luka trade made me feel better about Mookie.
It actually, it was a trade that was so much worse than the Mookie trade, which was reprehensible and awful. Because at least we won the title with Mookie.
Like, they never even won the title with Luka. And then they traded him for, you know, they probably got more in the trade.
But I really identified with the Mavs fans because what they were feeling after the trade was like Red Sox fans on steroids and HGH, how we felt with Mookie. But at least with the Mookie thing, we had time to prepare and it seemed like it was headed that way for a year.
It's like, oh man, they're going to fight. This is not going to end well is not gonna end well Luca they had no idea no there was a lot of preparation on the movie thing and I know it's not fair to do average annual salary because the Bregman thing can be a one-year deal um but you know one of the things about like these commitments for these these position players have historically been so bad in baseball with him you figure he was going to age right and you just go like look what his deal will be in seven years average annual salary compared to like what you're signing for now and then what it will be is salaries keep going up although you know that's another topic that we could probably spend a lot of time on because i thought that espn baseball news was crazy like it was like wow you guys are actually opting out of live rights.
You're going to do it. And then Manfred just daggers.
We didn't want to be on a declining platform or whatever he said. I couldn't believe that.
But he's setting the table because he needs to negotiate with other people and he's trying to to make it seem like ESPN was a bad partner. And that's why our ratings were down because they didn't push the game.
I get why he did it. It's just really unusual.
But I think baseball is a local sport. And I think we've known that for 10 years.
And you and I have personally talked about it 10 times. I don't think people want to say, oh, it's Sunday night.
I'm going to watch the Cincinnati Reds play the Milwaukee Brewers. Nobody's doing that.
Not anymore. 60 years old.
Do you remember when you used to do it? Because I did it religiously. It didn't matter who was playing.
It was Sunday Night Baseball and I couldn't wait. Yeah.
Days are over. Alright.
We got to go. Rossello, good to see you.
We'll see you next Sunday. Next Sunday when Celtic City starts, the last segment of the pod, we're going to do some sort of topic based off of whatever the first episode was.
That'd be good to get some Celtics content in the pod. Fire it up.
That's what the people wanted. They kept asking.
Good to see you, Russillo. Good to see you.
All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Russillo.
Thanks to Kyle Ansarini and Gahau as well. Don't forget, you can watch this as a video podcast.
You can also check out

clips on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. We have a new

Rewatchables coming on Monday night. That is a video

podcast as well on Spotify.

And you can check out the Ringer Movies

YouTube channel for entire

videos of that as well.

I'm going to see you on Tuesday.

Enjoy

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