OKC Ends Denver, "Whaddya Do" Second-Round Losers, and Knicks-Pacers Predictions With Ryen Russillo

29:22Workday is the AI platform that helps propel your organization, your workforce, and your entire industry into the future. Workday moving business forever forward. Watching OKC today, I felt myself get relieved yet again that they didn't end up with the seventh pick in the 2025 NBA draft because that would have sucked because we got really close. We had two teams jumping Philly there. And OKC could have added the seventh pick to everything we're watching right now where they're already so deep. They have guys who are playing 10, 15 minutes less. Jalen Williams, J. Will, the other Jalen Williams, I don't even think he played in the first three quarters.

29:58That guy would have played 30 minutes for the Celtics in the Knicks series and the craziest thing too is you watch the series you know like here's a guy that scores three points a game he's a complete afterthought on offense and yet his body and his strength was like a nice little like hey go in there and hack jokic like to think that the third center that they don't even need don't even plays a significant role at times defensively in this series because you know it's a bit like the cat thing at least last year where you go okay at least we have a huge big body type that's strong and can fight for position yeah because you're just going to need some of those minutes with yokich so you're just not allowing him to get deep i mean because every time that yokich got chet his just eyes lit right up it was like okay and you could see dagnall was like i i want to end up with chet that was the one thing they didn't want yeah than the beginning of the series how many if you did the player by player on each team so Jokic let's remove Jokic Gordon and Murray the fourth best guy in the Nuggets was Brown and the fifth best guy was probably Porter is that fair for the Nuggets yeah I think even though he's disappointing who else are you picking so it has to be him right Porter with one shoulder does he get on the court for that OKC team their fifth best guy.

31:26Does he play a minute in that series for them? Well, he's not playing over Caruso. He's not playing over Caruso, Dort, or Wallace. So cross that off. Is he playing over Wiggins? I don't think so. So that's 5-6-7. Wiggins, Michael Porter Jr. at his peak. I'm saying the guy we just watched the last two weeks. I don't think he plays for them in that series. Yeah. And nobody else does either. I don't think Wiggins was all that necessarily. in this series. No, but this is healthy. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. We all have our routines during the playoffs. I'm the same man who once wore the same t-shirt every single day during the 2003 baseball playoffs.

32:08I am the same person who will tell my wife to come into the room when I need a team to win because she's good luck during the NBA playoffs. These are things that happen. Well, Michelob Ultra, a great addition to any game time routine. It is a superior late beer. It's really great. And they're getting fans closer to the game with exclusive prizes, including courtside seats to see your favorite team play, signed memorabilia, lots more. Enter for your chance to win at mclobaltra.com slash courtside. McLobe Ultra Superior Access Courtside 2024 to 2025 sweepstakes. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S.

32:50residents 21 or older. Ends on July 1st. 2025 multiple entry periods. Visit michlobaltra.com slash superior access slash courtside for free entry, entry deadlines and official rules message and data rates may apply void. We're prohibited. Um, all right, let's play. Uh, let's play. Do you want to talk about the two series coming up or do you want to do? What do you do? Uh, whatever, man, I'm ready to go. All right, let's do what do you do first? Cause we can talk about Denver. they have Jokic, Murray, and Gordon at$124 million last year, next year. They have Porter making$38.3 next year,$40.8 the year after.

33:32We're going to find out he has a torn labrum or some terrible injury. They have Najee at$8, Brown at$5, and Sarge at$5.4 player option. Do you want to report now on Sarge$5.4? Do you want to do a breaking? Yeah, we're going to go ahead and confirm that. Okay, so he's picking it up. Okay. I just don't know who's paying him with the limited cap space. Yeah, but I say he's picking that one up. Why that's not a one-year deal, you could ask Calvin Booth, who's no longer the GM of the Denver Nuggets. They have their own first and 26 and 28. They're 27 and 29 first, their top five protected going to OKC.

34:14They do not have a lot of flexibility to improve the roster. They were well under the second apron this year. They had like seven, I think six, seven million to play with and just didn't get whoever. But we always talk about this every February, like go get a buyout guy. It's like, well, who? Who are the buyout guys? There weren't really any good ones this year. But the team, the roster wasn't good enough. Westbrook has a player option that I think he probably opts into too because that's like three and a half. So they might be stuck with him again, whether you consider it stuck or not. But going to be a tough roster to improve.

34:48Meanwhile, all these other teams in the West are getting better, which is why I led in the first segment with, you start to worry about the windows with this stuff. Because if this is the nucleus and you're just bringing this back and hoping everybody's healthier, I don't think that's going to be enough in the West. As great as Jokic is.

35:09I know we're probably going to fall on a lot of this of like, what do you do? um but if porter jr has like i sometimes i see him written about like he's this awesome trade asset and is that you're like if he was any good they wouldn't want to get rid of him and the numbers are massive i mean it's 38 next year 40.1 in two years and he just appears to be a guy that even at his peak um you know was more aware defensively which is being nice he rebounded a little bit more he stretches the floor you just wish you were more aggressive it doesn't happen uh for him to the point where you know it ended up being a huge issue in that clipper series where he got benched before he was hurt and even yokich was like look it's the playoffs if you're not if you're not into it now i mean that's his teammate saying yeah which really doesn't happen very often so if you're moving them out you're not moving them out for some other player that's this massive upgrade and solution because it's not like the rest of these executives aren't seeing these games and know that generally with his talent his size and his shooting ability he should be a better player so if he's available what are you actually getting for him bradley beal that was a joke for people not watching this but that's you're you're you're shopping you're not shopping at at uh whole foods or bristol farms you are you are shopping at a pretty grossly kept grocery store when you're shopping michael porter around like where you're picking up the ground beef going oh this might have been here for a while that's who you're looking at like say cam johnson was available like why would they yeah they're never getting yeah he's on a better contract too so i don't really know what they do and it'll be interesting because Jokic has done a great job over the years of doing the whole, I'm just here to play basketball.

37:05I leave every summer. I don't really have any opinion on anything. He's never really come out and said, I need help. I need more. He's just not wired like that. But if he was ever going to do it any summer, I think it would be this one. I still feel like that Jokic Murray Gordon as a three-person foundation can compete for a title because we just saw it. and the rest of the supporting cast has been bad all year and it failed them at the worst possible time. I don't really know the answer. I guess it comes down to that Porter deal, whether you feel like, would you have to attach a pick for it? Could you find the right GM who really likes him as an asset and gets excited about it?

37:48I don't know. Are you looking at like you're talking to Milwaukee and hoping maybe they talk themselves into him And it's like, all right, we'll take Kuzma back and something else and get two guys, turn them into two guys, and then where are you anyway? All right, the Celtics.

38:12So, I haven't talked to you. We haven't talked on a pod since the Tatum injury.

38:19The numbers are grim next year. And they were a lot less grim if it was a team that made the Eastern finals or the finals and they had cashed some playoff money this year and you felt like they were headed for something special and instead the season abruptly ends. Tatum is out probably for next season. Who knows? Their starting five next year is$188 million. Their top nine is$205 million. That's not counting Al or Cornette who are free agents. Total salary is going to be around$227 million approximately. Second apron is$207 million. so they have a huge tax bill plus a repeater tax and with tatum's injury i don't see any way that they don't try to get under that second apron do you i don't know which owner would go into next year going yeah let's just run it back like i again i still think that they were going to be pretty proactive about trying to figure out a way to save even if they'd won the whole thing i mean it just was going to be tough and so we've already covered the pr part of it of like the first thing you do yeah you start saving money um but it's a little different when you're spending six billion on a team as opposed to a few hundred million like it used to be back in the day for these teams so true uh the drew contract i think all of us probably deserve a redo on not going like hey he's a great guy and he's such a good leader and he's so good on defense you're like what those numbers again i mean there it's three years 105 million for Drew Holiday.

39:51You can't move that. 32 next year, 35-37. Player option. You want to report it now? Probably put that one up. KP is 30.7 next year, and then it expires. But the thing is, like, they won the title last year. That was the price of doing business. They had to take care of Holiday before the playoff started because he didn't know if he was staying or going. They didn't want that hanging over. they had to extend Pritchard as part of the uh Porzingis as part of the deal and they won the title so you know when you win the title it's it's hard to be critical but then when you look at these numbers it's like holy mackerel um I still feel like Drew would have real value for somebody because there's it's not a good free agent market and I think he's the type of person that you always hear younger teams want to get like the you know the veteran who's been in a lot of big spots who's a glue guy who doesn't care about his own stats.

40:48We need, is he, do you wish if you're trading for him that he was making 22 instead of 32? Probably. But it feels like that's one. And then KP is an expiring, I don't know, I guess we have to find out what's wrong with him and we still don't know for some reason. This is the most covered up illness whatever that I can remember where even like people around the team won't talk about it. I still don't know what it is. Przingis has missed 65 games since he's been with the Celtics. So when they made the trade and you think about the ceiling version of it because the ceiling version of it's really good stretches the floor defends the rim um but this past year was a disaster i mean they were 18.7 points better per 100 possessions with them off the floor so even with the 30.7 million left on this deal i don't know why anybody trades for that i mean again all of these guys are tradable so i'm not saying they're these movable contracts but i'm surprised that you're so bullish on the market for Drew, I would feel like with 105 million remaining for him.

41:46I wouldn't use the word bullish. I think it's doable though. Doable or you have to attach something to it. I mean, that's a ton for him. I don't know if he would have to attach, but maybe I'm being naive. Because I'm trying to factor it in. So there's 30 teams in the league and 10 of them every summer are like, we're one guy away from really being interesting. The problem is there's no, there's really no free agents this year. There's nobody to like, oh, this guy, that guy. It's like a lot of the Bruce Brown types, right? And the price for the Bruce Brown types in the free agency are always higher than you think, right?

42:23Or like Caldwell Pope last year. You know, Caldwell Pope got what, 22 a year? You know, the problem for them is I didn't think Drew was not good in the Knicks series. I mean, other than game five, I just didn't think he played well. he's coming off his worst year in a really long time yeah on top of everything else he was going to turn it on for the playoffs and and he just didn't so if you're taking back a worse player with a shorter contract for a ton of money okay maybe if you think you're getting an asset back that's a rotational guy for this team next year and sending out you know him making 37 million plus at what 37 years old 36 to 37 it's that's a huge ask uh granted it's a player option but How's there's that 10 who might be a little tradable, but yeah, I'm, I'm with you.

43:14I see it the same way as you, the whole, Oh yeah, they'll trade guys and get under the second apron. I, I definitely spent a couple hours looking at all the teams and you'd be surprised how many teams are just immediate cross-offs. Either they don't have that thing to trade back or they wouldn't be interested in the first place. So, well, you know what it gets back to, right? What? If you were, all right, you just bought the team. and you hit me up, you're like, what should I do? I definitely would hit you up. I would have caught you. You would have been one of my first like 10 calls. I just would have wanted your advice.

43:47I would say, and I hate that I'm. It would have gone right to voicemail. And then I would have had a call back and you would answer. Far too often all of us just say, hit the magic reset button as if there's all of these scenarios out there for these teams to get better and not realizing that teams are trying to compete and be a little bit better. But next year without Tatum is most likely a lost cause. And Jalen, as expensive as he is, he's an NBA Finals MVP. And he's still young enough that I would try to flip him and look at next year as like this gap year of getting in some kind of assets to then reset.

44:29Because you're going to have to reset it around Tatum anyway. Al's going to be gone. So you're looking at the 2020 Warriors scenario of let's just take our lumps for one year and try to be ready. yeah and it look it doesn't doesn't guarantee anything and it'd be a lot easier to say hey jalen's a really good player and he'll be the number one option and it's going to be fine and you know who knows get into the playoffs you see what'll happen but i think you're just then delaying all of these other decisions that you're going to have to make so i would hope if i'm a if i'm you know again the celtics a lot of these things are connected if houston were to miss out on Giannis, right?

45:04Say Giannis isn't real forceful about it. Milwaukee kind of goes to the default of like, Hey, run this back. But granted, I think we'll have a Giannis conversation here anyway. At some point you may be getting in front of something you probably have to do in 2026 anyway, and then resetting this thing around Tatum. And it would be really bold. It'd be probably hard to do because it's a new ownership group that doesn't have the equity of Wick and his group where Wick was explaining it, ownership that never spared any expense that, you know, they could probably pull it off quicker than who's this new guy.

45:37And then they just traded Jalen Brown. But I'm serious. Like, I think I would try to figure out a way to get a few assets back and, and reset the salary deck that way. And then hope, you know, granted, you've got to be right around the things you're bringing back in around Tatum and do it that way. Cause you may be getting in front of something you have to do pretty soon. And it's probably going to be a lot less options. What do you think?

46:01so I don't know who to blame for this second apron thing because I think the owners are just going to try to get away they're trying to protect themselves from themselves they're trying not to spend too much money and they want all these checks and balances this is what's what's been the case for all professional sports forever they want to protect themselves from themselves from the four five six seven people in the league who are like I don't care like bomb or Ishbia. I don't care. I don't care what stuff costs. I'm just going to pay. Just going to throw money around. And everybody else, so they put this infrastructure in, but the players union who is always run poorly and always does a bad job with this stuff.

46:40And this is the worst thing they've ever done because what they've created is a league where you can't keep Tatum and Brown together and you can't keep core people together because you can't afford to do it. And if you try to keep the two together, you can't put it in anyone else around them. And so this is just the way it is. And you're going to have these three, four year windows and then you're going to have to blow it up. And this is just what we have, which is not, I don't think what professional sports is about. Professional sports is about, I have these guys, I've followed them their whole careers.

47:11We drafted them and they showed up or I've watched them go through their prime and then age with them. And, you know, if we're just going to be this like transactional league now, I don't think that's good for anybody. So when I think of like the Brown trade, it probably is the one that makes the most sense on paper, but that means we're splitting up Tatum and Brown, which is something I never wanted them to do. And it might be the only move. You might be right. Because, you know, like looking at Houston, if Houston was going to say, we'll take Jalen and Drew and we'll give you Van Vliet back and Jabari and Eason, and we'll give you the 10th pick.

47:46And, you know, you'll save like$20 million. We can make it work with our cap. and that gets you under the second apron right there and gets you a rebuild. I think they would have to think about deals like that. And then if you're Houston and you can get Jalen and Drew in the same trade and give up assets, but not touch Thompson and not touch Shangoon and keep enough going. That's the type of trade. But I just, for me, it's like trading Jalen is an all-time last resort. There has to be a better option. What are your expectations for next year? not good. So why play it out another year? Well, it becomes a question of, do you want the person to stay in the city for his entire prime?

48:32Or in this case, the two people together. Yeah. Be nice. But now you don't get that option for 25, 26. You don't. I'd add something else onto the Houston thing. Cause I think the Giannis thing is going to be a big influence on like how a Or does Houston do all the legwork for some sort of Giannis deal? And then it's just pulled back. And he backs out. Yeah, right. Well, also, if you're Giannis, I would rather kind of stay in the East if I felt like my team could be almost good enough, right? The East is going to be awful next year compared to the West. If you're just removing Boston from the picture next year in the East, and God only knows what's going to happen with Cleveland because they're way over the apron.

49:19I might rather stay in the East than go to Houston and be in this juggernaut of a conference against all these awesome teams. I don't know. Does that guarantee me anything? Plus, Giannis already won a title, which I think everybody forgets. I don't think he's decided anything. But he already won the title. I think he just wants to be in a good team. I don't think it's about like, I need a ring. He won a title. It was the most talked about thing at the combine. Yeah, let's hear it. You were in Chicago for three days. yeah and i'd say like the conversations are kind of all over the place that it's definitely happening um that you know it's or the other side of it is that he actually hasn't initiated any of this stuff i think that's true i've talked to teams that spoke with his agent where it's like if anything were to happen you know we're kind of like hinting in these areas of like semantics it's like hey nothing's really happened but if anything were to happen i think the most important thing to remember is that it's probably not a free market kind of deal where milwaukee's going to be telling yannis and his agent hey guess what we did today all right even with control for a couple years here you know the standard usually is for somebody at this level we're talking about one of the three best players in the world that he's going to have input on where he would be going now if he's open to four or five different teams then you know this is a different transaction as opposed to guys in the past where it's like, hey, I have a year left on my deal.

50:45And if you trade me anywhere else, like I'm not going to resign. So then that destroys the trade market. And then it's like, all right, how many swaps can we throw in this thing to make it look like it was that good of a trade? And you're kind of screwed, which I think is another conversation that you would have if you're the Bucks going, okay, if Giannis is fine with it, okay. And I know I've said that in the past, like if he told me, hey, I'm good with Milwaukee, that's all I'd need to hear. And you hope to win 48, 50 games. And to your point, see what's going on in the East. I mean, it's not the worst scenario, but if I'm getting the feeling like it's going to be way worse in 26, then I might just want to get this thing over with now and bring back players.

51:22Do you think he'd be like, is Kuzma going to be on the team next year? And they're like, yes, like, OK, I'd like to revisit my options. You're just going to keep scrolling right on this on this one. And the spot track thing. Yeah. Just keep going left. Keep going. Keep going. there's one more year there. Wait, that's not an option. Nope. Well, let me ask you this with the honest though. What if gold, what if he says to Milwaukee, I've decided I want to be traded. They're like, okay, but I only want to be traded. Golden state. That's where I want to go. And I won you a title and I've been an awesome buck and I've been here since 2013 and I represented the community in an amazing way.

52:04And, all I've done is kick ass for you guys. And if you're going to trade me, I'd like to go to golden state. so now what do you do for the bucks like well that's really nice it's cool but we like a lot of other potential pieces more than kaminga yeah that's looking like draymond kaminga and all of their picks and a million swaps i guess and that's not not a headliner i would not maybe pods is in there there's no way i'm bringing draymond in to be like okay we need more from you on offense because now curry's not running around you for a decade so how about that what randall did to him that ended the defensive player of the year debate yeah i thought i thought it strengthened his case uh considering everything that he had to deal with in houston but randall i mean randall's just off the charts right now.

53:01Wait, so this leads me to Cleveland, though. Just talking about Giannis quickly. Okay. Do you want to be the Milwaukee GM or the Cleveland GM? The most for this phone call. I'll stay with Milwaukee. Okay. I'll be the Cleveland GM. I'll be Kobe Altman. Hey, Kobe. Hey, Mobley for Giannis straight up. What do you think? We could do the deal on July 1st when Mobley's kicker comes in. straight up. He's six and a half years younger. Call it in right now. Done. You're done if you're Milwaukee. Yeah. I think I'm done if I'm Cleveland too. I think I'm doing it. I think it's a great trade. And I don't even know if you had to say one side has to throw in something else.

53:52Which team would you pick to have to throw something else in? Giannis is a better player, but Mobley's six and a half years younger.

54:00I mean, what else would you want from Milwaukee? There's no picks, right? Right. Some sort of, I guess, some swap in 2032. Anything? I think it's a really fair trade. You know, can you send us AJ so we can do an AJ Sam Merrill backcourt? Can you sign and trade Kevin Porter Jr. and keeping him? No, I think that trade makes a lot of sense to me. And I know they love Moby there. Does he have an option? The seat, two years. So Mobley turns 24 in June. He has an option. And Giannis is 30. He turns 31 in December. Cleveland is really screwed with no first-round picks this year in 27-29 and swaps with Utah.

54:42So they had no – their picks thing's done. I guess the question for Cleveland is, do you overreact to what happened in those playoffs? Or do you say, eh, Garland was hurt. Mobley missed game two. The series got away from us. were still really good. We won 64 games. And, and if you think that Garland wasn't super important, everything we did, then you didn't watch us this season. Cause he was, our backcourt was the single biggest, like basically OKC's defense was the best thing they had. Their backcourt was the best thing that they had. And Garland wasn't Garland in that series. So that's what you would talk yourself into.

55:19And their role player sucked. Strew sucked. Jerome was super disappointing. that's where you would say let's give this one more year counter would be you could have a team that has donovan mitchell darris garland yannis on it in a weekend east and i think you're immediately the favorites in the east Yeah, the only reason I'd be so quick on the Milwaukee side is that I'm emphasizing I'd rather do something now if I get the hint that it's like, okay, we're fine for now, but I'm going to do this. all over again next year with another right year of miles on Giannis there's probably another just little nagging injury that'll happen I mean this guy is on an all-time tear he was great again this year I don't have a negative thing to say about him I mean hell the fact that he addressed the Halliburton's dad thing the way that he did where he composed himself thought about what he was going to say and gave you this incredibly like heartfelt answer you know he just I'm such a huge fan of this guy not only because of stuff like that but knowing that when he takes the floor he wants to kill everybody out there and i want to see him get another run so i realize like i'm losing the trade on talent out for talent in and wondering okay like even the best version of mobley it's likely he's not going to be um finishing top five in the mvp race like five years in a row and i think janice he's going to be what like seven years in a row top four something like that so we all love him we all think that's what it is fantastic but it would be okay comparing mobley to the rest of the potential like make-believe stuff that we're doing here it's better than maybe even a men thompson it's better than the number two pick or the number three pick i mean some of the stuff that i've read in the days removed from the combine of like houston if they were going to do something and san antonio was going to do something like what they wouldn't trade it's like look castle had a nice year but yannis like give me a fucking break you're gonna to have to trade castle but houston has these pieces where it's like dude they're not doing it for cam whitmore you don't get to keep everybody yeah you're gonna have to like jabari or jalen or a shangoon like one of the three has to go and then you're figuring out the rest of the part um and if it's jalen two of the three for that yeah right right because like oh no i'm in no tari no reed shepherd no shangoon don't give up on jalen yet we with the milwaukee we i just have to mention this, even though we talk about every time we talk about this, they don't have any of their picks.

57:46So it makes no sense for them to do a dump trade, which is why the mobile thing was so interesting to me that they could bring back somebody that would keep them competitive and somebody they can build around and then hope, oh, when Dame comes back, maybe we'll be pretty good. And maybe we'll have cap space in two years. Like there's light at the end of the tunnel where right now they don't have any. And I think it gets, when you don't have your own picks, it just gets so complicated with the rebuild because it's not really rebuild. You don't have your picks. Brooklyn's in that spot too. And they made that crazy trade with Houston last year to get their picks back so they could feel better about basically tanking, which is what the league is now.

58:23And the league rewards that. And this goes back to the second apron discussion. The league rewards that over actually shrewdly building a smart team and doing and putting your roster together the right way and winning trades and drafting. Now it's like you know what you should actually do is just throw away four seasons in a row, accumulate a lot of picks, take some of those picks and keep trading and get more picks down the road so you have this never ending fountain of picks and then eventually hopefully you strike oil with a couple and you can have a contender. And then you could thwart the second apron that way, which is basically what Utah is trying to, Utah is basically emulating what OKC did.

59:00Right? Houston's emulating it to some degree. But that's, I guess, what the league would rather see people do.

59:10Yeah, I also think there's like a conversation in there about, you know, was there so much freedom of movement and so many players dictating things that they put enough restrictions in there? It was like, OK, you can be as mad as you want. You can want to go there. But now I legally can't even do the thing that you want to do. Now, granted, it's about, to your point, giving yourself a credit limit on a card that even though you could afford a higher credit limit, you're like, I need to figure out a way to curtail this. because it's not just, you know, sometimes we lose sight of this. It's not, oh, well, they're keeping spending down across the board.

59:39It's like, no, that comes down to the negotiated split on the basketball revenue. So whatever the basketball revenue is and whatever the split is that's agreed upon, like that money's going to the players. So the lower apron or, you know, granted, the cap's going up every time, but whatever the money is, it only hurts the players in those off seasons. It's going to hurt them individually, but collectively, these guys are still making what's agreed to with all this stuff. So, um, yeah, like Mitchell was a good example last year. We talked about that last summer that he kind of ran out of options and it actually made the most sense for him to stay with Cleveland, which I think is part of what they were designing the CBA around to kind of nudge people to staying where they are.

1:00:20But ironically, now you have this new issue where the Celtics, you might be right. They might have to trade Jalen Brown just to right the ship financially for a year during this tragic Tatum injury. And then, so now you have a different problem. You still have the problem of stars not staying where their cities are, you know, which is why the SGA thing, I think the SGA thing is what people, I personally think that's what people want to root for. I think they want to root for Edward staying in Minnesota and staying there for a while and starting to win titles. They want to root for Curry at age 37, trying to win one last time at Golden State.

1:00:54everything Kobe did for, you know, two decades in LA. That's what people care about. That's what they respond to. And we're unfortunately going to start moving away from it, it feels like. But if it means more parody, and if we're seeing the first post-season of something that becomes more of the norm, which I'm not ready to say, I mean, this could be a blip. It might be. Well, it's definitely, this season's definitely something. I don't know if it's a new thing going forward, but it's definitely some sort of era ended and some sort of new era is here. And I don't know how to really put my hands around it yet.

1:01:31Yeah. I'm not ready to make any definitive statement about what we have playoff teams, but if it is, if there is more parody and it's not just three guys teaming up and going somewhere, whether it's through free agency or demanding trades and the next mad guy going, I'm mad, I want out and I'm only going there. And we just all accepted it. And was that better? No. The good thing is that era is over. Well, that was the longest segment we've ever done. You can learn more about Workday at Workday.com. We're going to take a break and come back because I want to talk about Golden State as well, but we're staying on YouTube.

1:02:06Okay, Golden State. Golden State's probably in the worst shape out of the four What Did You Do teams that just got eliminated because they have all their firsts. Basically, Miami has their first this year, but they have 26, 28, 29, and 31. And they basically have 32. They made this weird trade with Washington where they get the pick if it's 1 through 20, and Washington gets it if it's 20 through 30. So they basically have it. Draymond's got two years left. Curry and Butler have two years left. They're basically locked into that core for$140 million. And Peyton and Looney are UFAs, and then Kaminga is the sign-and-trade piece.

1:02:46I personally think somebody's going to sign-and-trade for Kaminga would be my guess because I think it's limited free agents and I think there's enough there to fool you into thinking he's a 15 to 20 million dollar guy some GM will be fooled I'm dubious of it but what do you think yeah you're right the free agent list is so bad and that's why it's so funny it's like well there's not that much cap space um it's like okay but is there not that much cap space and guys aren't going to get paid or a couple guys going to get paid a ton more than we thought because there's no one to pay so if i'm the nets i'm probably not looking to get into the kaminga business at a huge number because it's probably pretty stupid i think the best version of kaminga unless you know everything clicks and he totally figures it out it's probably like all right you run out there with a bad team and score your 20 points a game like this dawned on me during some of the jaylen green struggles and kaminga playing really well where i had said in my pot i was like is kaminga jaylen green with less opportunity which is seems like it's it's kind of insulting to him jaylen green i'm not even sure that i'm two guys that should end up on charlotte yeah so putting up stats the thought popped in my head and i actually think that's unfair to jaylen green so i'm i'm not that's not my conclusion it's just hey i'm sharing some thoughts every now and then what like the non-taxpayer mid-levels 14 million i mean is there a non-tax team that goes hey this is actually a pretty decent acquisition look at these numbers where there's three teams that have cap space brooklyn is 58 million detroit's got 24.6 might be able to get a little more.

1:04:17Memphis has 6.9, but could also potentially get a little more. And the Detroit one, I think, is going to be different depending on the Cade stuff, too. So I think that could be... Right, if he gets all NBA. Right, I think it goes to 19. Full non-taxpired mid-level is San Antonio, Sacramento, Charlotte, Washington, Utah, and Atlanta. A couple of those teams feel a little coming to me. And then taxpayer mid-level, but not full. That list has like 10 teams on it. yeah but that's only like five and a half million the crazy thing is when you see the guy who's like seventh or eighth on a team and he immediately gets the two year tax mid-level and he's just like I'm afraid I'm afraid to wait this thing out so I'll just take that right now you know what they call that the Austin Reeves that one day he's like how much okay yeah but they weren't look their agents I mean look I know those guys so I'm a little biased they knew what was going to be out there and what wasn't going to be out there for Austin.

1:05:18So it's not like they jumped on something without all the information they needed. Fair. I don't know what Golden State does and I don't know what makes them think a year from now, a team that got slowly injured as the season went along and limp to the finish would somehow be super healthy next year. But more. It was fun. It was more fun, right? It was, Hey, this could happen. It was fun right until the fourth quarter at game three against Minnesota. That was when the fun stopped. When it seemed like they were going to go up 2-1 against Minnesota and at least buy enough time for Curry to come back for game six.

1:05:55And then Minnesota finished him off. And Randall, the Randall Renaissance. Did you keep any Randall stock? Did you ever have Randall stock? No. I mean, I think I had it for the draft. I liked him better than Marcus Smart. Did you really? Yeah, I did. Interesting. I did. I liked his playmaking. I like the size and there were times where I thought I was right. I mean, you want to talk about, this is like you and I revisiting the Pelicans Lakers, Anthony Davis trade again, which you should probably do next week. I haven't scheduled the number of times that you could have argued smart against Randall.

1:06:30And then it's like, it was this late to be able to argue like, yeah, actually, you're right. That argument flipped again. Like that would be an incredible segment. Maybe not a great segment, maybe a real slow. No, you and I would enjoy it. Yeah, we'd like it. But just trying to figure out, like, what are the longest possible... Drafting one guy or the other guy? How many times it flipped back and forth? Yeah, like, can you get to year 14 where you're like, I'm still not sure.

1:06:59Sean Marion versus Andre Miller? Had a couple of twists and turns. Yeah, right. I mean, then once, you know, D 'Antoni got there with Marion, you're like, all right. He's hitting threes and everything else. I have a couple of fake Celtics trades for you. I want to stay on the Warriors thing, though, because I think there's a little bit of a lesson in this, in that the things you're battling and how tough the moment is versus all the decisions later on, because I would have not wanted to get into the Jimmy Butler business, okay? And then Dunleavy basically is like, what are we doing? We're not doing anything.

1:07:33We got off to this great start. We're terrible. And now it's everybody chasing Steph around and he has to take all these other shots because we don't trust, like, no one cares about any of the other four guys that are out there offensively, and everything's on Steph. And so if we're not really moving out anything of significance, what are we actually disrupting? And then they get a tack on the extra massive year for Butler, okay, because, like, that becomes part of it. But, you know, the beginning of the 25 calendar year, nobody cares about any of that stuff and it looks like how could you have questioned this butler has his joy back and all these different things and you know the playoffs are disappointing um also minnesota might be really good yeah that's the other piece and they lost their best guy one game in but there's you know i know jimmy in the game where he took nine shots after the fact he's like hey he was sick i mean this by the way this playoff season is unbelievable with the health and illness updates that we get from every team as soon as they're eliminated and we're like our trainer had a cold our the pilot is has eczema you know it was tough it was tough for us at the end so you you look at all of this butler stuff and it's this huge celebration and then it's almost like how could you have not wanted jimmy butler and he's so smart and he's doing all these different things then you're watching like take the first quarter off of playoff games and then steph is out and you're like hey dude just shoot because i mean another pojemski off the dribble stuff isn't working dream on offensively i mean if you know i know he hit four threes in that game thanks but then you're like all right now we're kind of stuck and we're paying those three guys 140 million and like what's jimmy gonna be like with an expiring contract he was healthy jimmy yeah because i'm not i'm not positive he was healthy in that minnesota series he looked that injury he got fucked him up and i think they could you know i i think these guys get shot up with a whole bunch of stuff so they can play like god only knows what aaron gordon had put in his body today so he could limp around for two hours but um i don't know if that was like a five-day injury jimmy i'm not by the way i'm not making excuses for jimmy he looked exhausted i don't he just didn't look right to me in round two i didn't i did not feel like that was like a vintage jimmy performance well because it wasn't well is it you know what i mean ready is there anything for draymond green at 34 years old at 26 and a player option for 27 and a half is there anywhere yeah i mean is there anything that works there where you go hey it's been a great run but we need to figure out something else we need more offense in today's game it's interesting because we it feels like we've had this conversation now for three straight years if it's a younger team on the rise that needs like their version of the veteran guy who's been in some wars maybe but i just don't know what you're getting back it's not like you're saving money you're gonna have to take somebody else's contract back right i'm not talking about it as a salary dump i'm just wondering if there's a specific value what are you getting for him though well you'd already have to have your offense pretty established because he can't go to another team you're like hey we want you to shoot more because the offensive stuff with him now is like a major problem for them in the playoffs.

1:10:56Could it be the Lakers? Are you doing a Reeves deal? No, I was thinking like a Rui and something else. But I don't think the Warriors are trading Draymond unless it's like this unbelievable deal for them, which I don't think they're getting. Reeves is getting traded. That one I would bet on. I wouldn't bet my life on it, but I would bet on it. I think they're going to turn him into something. I don't, it's just the logical thing because he's, it's the same situation the Knicks were with Hartenstein last year where it's like he's just going to be able to get more money outside the team than he will with the team.

1:11:29And he's not going to stay for less money again. So they have to trade him this summer. And by the way, I think it makes sense to trade him. I don't think it makes sense to have, if you're keeping LeBron for this year, next year, and you have Luka and you have Reeves, we've already seen it. You're not going to be able to win four rounds with that as your top three. They need to turn him into a center. yeah but can't he just turn down the extension now and then sign for more with them if they wanted to keep him later on there's i thought maybe i'm wrong but i thought there was something with the it was a little hard like for what it was the extension that he got i think he can only get a certain level of raise unless they're like way under the cap so i think that's the issue but i think they're going to trade him yeah um they can i'm pretty sure they can wait you're right because it's like the max like the percentage off of the last year of the previous contract because it was lower i think that the extension puts him way below market again yeah but i think what they were waiting if which he was obviously going to do i think there's a they could actually then sign him later on so i don't look let me throw two at you though because um for warriors no just in general yeah would you do tatum for janice I don't think Tatum's on the table is there do you think if Nico hadn't traded Luca he trades the number one pick for Giannis

1:13:04I don't I think from all indications they're like Holy shit, we got Cooper flagged. If we're doing trade value list, it feels like he's already in the top seven because of his age and the rookie contract and how impactful he's going to be right away, right? He's 19 in December. How can you possibly... The list is so short of people I would even entertain a phone call with him. And he's going to be so good right away in all these different ways. The Giannis... I do have some fear with Giannis if I'm trading for him. I'm not getting Giannis in his mid-20s. I'm getting a guy who's 31, who has been in some long seasons, who's already had some wear and tear, and who plays a really physical style of a game.

1:13:50You know, I just don't, I would just rather have the young guy in the rookie contract than take the ride with that. Do you disagree? No, that's the right answer, but I, you know, there was all sorts of stuff where I know KOC had mentioned that the Celtics talked with Cooper Flagg. And by the way - Oh, at the combat. yeah but they have five years from now when he turns down his rookie extension and just comes to the cells be the first counting on you kelly flag kelly flag she's got our backs 2030 celtics come on kelly flag it sounded like a newsworthy item but and and koC mentioned it so it wasn't as if he was reporting it as this like oh my god can you believe this like once you understand how it works like they're like yeah we'll do the interview with him we'll do the interview with the top guy and by the way front offices there's nothing they love more than doing stuff where they think they're collecting information even if it's incredibly unlikely all of these rookies they're going to interview they're never even going to have on their team um but i thought some of the cooper stuff of like the hypotheticals and then realizing like even if nico and ownership were like this actually makes a ton of sense it makes a ton of sense for our window um why would we do this like why would we try to have two timelines which seems like it never ever works out except for maybe the Spurs but they just obviously couldn't do something like that months after they did what they did with Luka but the longer term part of it which is a lot like the Lakers side of it which again you're not going to say no to getting Luka for anybody but it's like even if this screws up the 25 part of it which again I don't know what Anthony Davis how different it would have been I'm not going to guess that he's healthy with him hurt with anybody else but Cooper gives you the post AD, like, you know what you can be and build around.

1:15:38So it's, it's extending, like it's not necessarily like a championship window, but it's like, Hey, if Kyrie's this or AD is this and all these things, like we now have a new thing though, that we already have in place that if he's as good as everybody thinks he can be the hardest thing to get in the league, which is again, why the Lakers, that's a discussion around the Lakers in 25. It's like, all right, whatever even happens here, but you know, for the next five years or longer, with Luka, we have the first thing, which is the hardest thing to find because without it, there's no point. Isn't the bigger question, why wouldn't you trade Davis?

1:16:13As weird as that would be, considering he was the focal point of the Luka trade, but wouldn't it make more sense to trade Davis and try to build a team that has a different timeline? Is there a Davis-Lakers trade that makes sense? not that i we'd have to be flipping it back but what if reeves turned into reeves like if reeves turned into like i don't know i'm trying to think you know it's not paulo but like that level or scotty barnes two years ago when it seems like his his value is taking a massive hit which i'm pushing against here that's my position right now on this but what if san Antonio said second pick and Vassell.

1:17:02I don't even think they would do this, by the way. I'm just using his hypothetical range of what AD might be worth. If San Antonio is like, you know what? We feel like Wemby's ready right now. We'll do the second pick and Vassell right now for AD. No. I wonder if Dallas would even consider that. I don't think they would. I think for everything Nico Sopak committed to the AD thing working out, I don't think they're going to do an injured sample. What if Booker was on the table? Then you have to do it. You have to do it if you're Dallas. Yeah. But why would Phoenix do it?

1:17:43Durant, Beal, and AD? And it's Matt Ishbia who's already done nine things we disagreed with? I don't know. would so you think dallas would have to throw in more in that be ad plus for booker yeah booker doesn't well i shouldn't say booker doesn't get hurt because he he's had some some time i would say booker's value is not as high as it used to be i think that's a mistake uh he's born in 1996 so that makes him 28 years old 29 in october so he's i think three years younger than Davis. What if there was a... Wait, you think Phoenix would have to... Who do you value more right now? AD or Booker? I'm a bad person.

1:18:33You have to think about this? I'm a bad person to ask because I'm not convinced AD can stay on a basketball court. I do have to think about it. So that's your answer. I was really unimpressed by Booker the last two years. I don't understand why it wasn't more of his fault that his team went to hell in a hand basket and couldn't even make the playoffs. And he was somehow absolved from this. When we both thought he was like a really special player who should be in the short list of franchise guys. I don't understand why they were so bad. I can't believe you just said, I'm not the person to ask. This is you.

1:19:06This is your entire life's work. I'm not the person to ask about. I'm not the person to ask with AD because I default toward not thinking he's going to be at a basketball court, but I don't know if I'm in the minority or not on that. that was one of the things I thought was so crazy with Dallas like I just don't trust that he's going to play nine months of basketball in a season you know especially they trade for him and he got hurt again what if it was what if it was where's the other one what if there was something with Brooklyn where Brooklyn traded for Davis and Cam Johnson the eighth pick in the draft and Moore first and it was like a reboot in action?

1:19:46Maybe Nick Claxton. I don't know. My point is I couldn't figure out the AD trade, even though I think it probably makes sense for them to trade AD, but maybe they can decide to do that in February. I don't understand the team they have now. I guess they'd have to play flag at small forward, but if I'm Dallas, all I care about is flag. That's my number one, number two, number three priorities is how can I put this guy in this position to succeed for the next five years? And I'm not positive him playing small forward is how he's succeeding, but they have these two centers and they have Davis. So then plan B, I guess, would be to trade at least one of the centers.

1:20:21And maybe you could just have Lively, Davis, and Flagg, and those are your three guys and you split up the 96 minutes with those three guys and you feel like Davis can get hurt sometimes anyway. But they probably have to trade Gafford. That might be the move. That's probably the easiest solve. I'm sure they're going to have to trade one of the centers. Right. If I'm them, I want to keep Flagg and Lively because now Short-term and long-term, that's where I'm in business with those guys. Yeah, but Lively's a little different player when it's not Luka. True. True. But maybe he'd have value for the right thing.

1:20:57Anyway, I think it'd be hard to trade AD. I have another draft trade for you. What if Philly didn't want to stay at three? And what if they wanted to move back a couple spots? And what if they called New Orleans and said, we'll give you three and Oubre's expiring for seven and Herb Jones? Call it him right now. Philly moves back four spots to get Herb Jones. New Orleans moves into that top four that I think all of us really like. And I would include Ace Bailey in the top four, personally.

1:21:32Man, I love myself some Herb Jones. I figured you would. Feels like a Daryl-y trade, right? Still loves he ends up with like Knipple at seven and Herb Jones, and that's what they turned the third pick into. it's pretty interesting yeah because bassini was really good on this as he always is uh from the athletic on the draft stuff and he was talking about how you know philly because of daryl you expect you know big into the models um but not i don't know that any team would go hey this is what our model says and now this is all we're doing but that bailey on something like stuff is not a not a darryl guy i've been trying to tell people that he's edgecomb i think is more in the darryl vicinity yeah but then you think okay they have maxi mccain i feel like edgecomb with his his just motor and the way he attacks the rim like there's just another level of like hey some guys get to the rim like i look at the nba and go okay whenever we say it's really hard to stay in front of this guy well the way defenses are so sophisticated now and everybody kind of understands like game in and game out like this is the plan against somebody who's really aggressive and dynamic off the ball you can clog them up i mean look what denver did with the zone against sga who's one of the best drivers in the entire league all right so having said all that and then there's ant okay and then there's ant and in college somebody can be really good and special athletic you're like all right but can this guy consistently just get to the rim you know that's really hard to do when a team is ready for it and edgecomb felt like he consistently was just in this other gear um in comparison to other guys that are you know playing college basketball so does that translate over the nba and everything so you know it'd be interesting if there's no deal there for philly if they go it doesn't make a lot of sense because of who we've invested in nailing the mccain pick last year to throw another small player in like this but i'm not i'm not letting mccain change who the right player is for my third pick i like mccain i don't yeah i really good.

1:23:35I know. I really like them, but like, okay. So we like Indiana has multiple really good guards. Like it's not like, Oh, we have too many good guards. Like that feels like a good problem to have for me. I feel like two and three. And I know you talked to way more people than I did this week. Cause that's the combine is it's the super bowl for that. I feel like two, three and four wide open. I don't, I'm not convinced San Antonio is taking Harper second. I'm not. and I would say Harper feels like they think outside the box more than anybody though yeah where they're just like hey we like this guy we don't care what the mock drafts say we like this guy the most we're taking him second well is Harper the most likely guy to go there probably but I just think like if anyone's just they're like Danny like I would never trust Danny with a mock draft versus if he just likes somebody he's just gonna take the guy you know they might they might say whoa Trey Johnson this guy we love this guy we're just taking him here too i have no idea yeah i think it's a good reminder with san antonio and the danny things right because of the tatum year uh where it just was like how could you not take faults and i just love that danny was like i don't i don't see it you know and you've got to have some stones uh you have to have like years of of everybody just accepting you to go ahead and do some of that stuff because i think the mocks durant was even bigger because he didn't even have the resume at that point to fall back on and they would have taking duran first yeah right he had that would have been the year well again that was the year they ended up winning the title but um the reason they were able to do everything they did is because they didn't win the lottery or didn't get one of the two first two picks so the funny thing is that all of that probably would have been delayed and maybe they don't do the ray well they wouldn't have done the ray allen deal because that was the jeff green pick and then maybe that you know likely means they're not giving them falling to five led to the title yeah you're right you're Right.

1:25:22So I would say other teams, though, certainly think it's Harper, too. So maybe you're right about San Antonio thinking outside of the box. I'd say consensus is Harper's, too, in this draft. But I like the Herb Jones thing. I know when you put these trades together and we sit here and we were like, all right, and then we just end up talking about it for five minutes. We're like, yeah, that's not going to happen or that doesn't make any sense. Philly probably doesn't want to wait on another guy. I mean, if somebody's special and they do all the evaluation, it's like, hey, this is still the best value.

1:25:51will sit there at three but herb jones healthy again gives you stuff that very few wing defenders gives you there's one more trade back for them brooklyn is at they're at eight with the cam johnson pick with cam johnson and eight and that might be too much to flip with philly but if i'm brooklyn and i can get in the top three i'm trying to do it you know and that's the other one i just feel like Philly with the talk about windows. I don't know what their, their window with Embiid might already be shattered and there might be wooden glass everywhere, but they don't have time to wait on some 19 year old kid with Embiid.

1:26:30I don't think so. They're, they're basically, and George, who's going to be 35 years old, but thank God he's podcasting again. They need to move fast on turning this pick into people who can help them next year. if they're actually trying to contend. Plus the East, like we talked about earlier with Giannis leaving, the East potentially, and Tatum being out, like the windows now. So, you know, if they get Cam Johnson in the eight for the three, I would do it. Unless I felt like one of those guys, like I'm kind of with, and I haven't done all my work yet. You're way ahead of me in the draft stuff, but I'm with you on Edgecombe.

1:27:07Like his, the clips of him are unbelievable. It's like everything you want in the NBA now is a guy who can, is that athletic and can go to the basket like that. so i would have a hard time not taking him and that may be what they're stuck with but i think your approach and your strategy if you're going back into it be like all right the whole thing this offseason is health be ready to go limit the minutes for these guys see what you have in what feels like a more open east with the tatum injury with milwaukee likely kind of stuck a little bit maybe the knicks and the pacers are the favorites to win the east going into next year because everybody's going to be so pissed off about Cleveland.

1:27:48Although the odds are they're going to be the odds on favor, at least to be the one seed in the East if everything stays status quo, but we know that's not going to happen. But even if they want to do all those things, and if you start looking at going, okay, is this a veteran that actually helps us or is it just a veteran? Right. Those are like, you know, I don't know if John Collins, like, yeah, this makes sense. Same timeline. Speaking of John Collins, So we're going to take one more break for the podcast. We'll keep going on YouTube.

1:28:45John Collins was in one of my get the Celtics under the second apron trades. Yeah, weren't expecting that, were you? Porzingis for John Collins just saves the Celtics 4.1 million. And Utah thought they were getting Porzingis a couple years ago and then he had a chance to go to Boston and he did that instead. So they've always liked him.

1:29:08It's interesting. There's 4 million. Hauser to Detroit just trading him there. that would save another 10 holiday to memphis for conchar and pippen they're not going to give you pippen i think pippen's good all right i was trying to steal him holiday to memphis for conchar maybe in that maybe it's just maybe that's a trade how long would you wait after they said no to conchar pippen before you called back and asked for just conchar you'd have to give it a I'd call a second time for Pippen. No, I'd keep trying for Pippen first. I love Pippen. Holiday to Detroit for Fontecchio, I thought was the most interesting because that actually makes sense to me for Detroit.

1:29:55That's the exact type of guy they need for the team they have with Ivy coming back in that Schroeder spot with all the other stuff they're probably going to want to do in the East. And the fact that they're not going to be able to sign a free agent. And I don't know, maybe that's one too. that would say the Celtics 24 million I feel bad trying to trade Drew Holiday because I love Drew Holiday but if the assignment is you have to shave 20 million he's the most logical candidate unfortunately but if you're Detroit I mean they're gonna see the same thing that we've been talking about here being like how much does it cost in the last year three years from now 37 million at that point Cade's making his massive contract which is the highest version of it because of the escalator you've got to at that point figure out what you're paying Ivy um Durin and Trissar so that's that feels like one of those deals and now maybe they go hey by that point Tobias is expiring which I would imagine yeah Holland I'm assuming that they think Holland's going to grab some of those minutes the thing with Memphis is just I think some of these smaller market teams do not lure free agents as we've seen for the last four decades and the best way for them to add an impact veteran is to trade for one that's under contract and that's a possibility for them but anyway it's a it's a tall task.

1:31:14Can I give you my list of we should have won the title Celtics seasons? My top four? Do you think 25 is on the list? I'm just giving you a top four. You think 25 made the list? No, because you're going to put nine and 10 in there. So I don't think 25 is on the list. It's not on the list. And I'll tell you this. Game four was before Tatum went down they were down 9 or I guess Tatum went down as the steel layup they were down 3-1 in the series and let's say Tatum never gets hurt I still don't know if they I don't think they win 3 in a row without Porzingis do you? I think they could have won 3 in a row without Porzingis or the ghost of Porzingis or zombie Porzingis whatever version of Porzingis that was he was terrible I mean I know he's doing I don't think they could have done it They blew the series in those first two games is where I've kind of landed on a Sunday after the series.

1:32:15Game one, fine. I can't believe they did it again in game two. And Tatum going down to say, well, that game was, we'd already seen it two other times. So sure, there's randomness of the OKC Denver stuff, where OKC looked like a terrible team in the fourth quarter a couple times. Denver looked like a terrible team there in the fourth quarter. when Tatum went down if you're a Celtics fan you cannot use that injury as an excuse for the outcome of that game I mean sure you can hit me with you don't know what's going to happen with three minutes left and this team okay fine it didn't feel that fucking way man like that felt like in that span when they got down to them it's like oh my god they're actually going to lose this series and then the Tatum part is just the bad news on top of everything else so I think we're on the same page with that one The second half of game four for the Knicks and game six for the Knicks is the best I've felt about them as a team all year.

1:33:10I was really impressed. And the Mitchell Robinson stuff, man. Yeah. Just the 15 minutes, him and McBride. Can I have possession on Jalen in the corner when he defended everybody? Oh, God. Yeah, that was great. I got to defend the Knicks fans for a second because they took some shit for the over-celebrating, getting that around too. I was fine with it. I mean, that team hasn't had anything good happen to them in 25 years other than Linsanity and beating, like, the ghost of the Celtics in 2013. Like, they should have celebrated like that. It's a Friday night. It reminded me a little that when the Celtics had that comeback Nets win and that nothing good had happened with the Celtics for nine years and everybody just went out in the streets and got drunk in Boston.

1:33:57Same thing. It's like they deserved it. That team, all those fans have been through so much shit and so many bad, stupid management things and owner things and so much bad luck and bad lottery luck. I would have expected them to celebrate that way. And if they make it two more rounds, I can't even imagine what that's going to be like. But both of us know a ton of Knicks fans. I was happy for a lot of people, even though it was at the expense of my team. I thought it was a pretty cool story. Is any of this true or is this just like that? No, it is. I feel the Knicks, you know, there's some Red Sox parallels.

1:34:33I see it. I feel it. Like with the, you know, they haven't won in 52 years. It's like you're talking entire generations of people. I'm talking people like Koppelman's son is like in his late, mid, late 20s now. He's never even seen them win a game like that. So I don't know. I was, I was feeling for them positively. I loved watching him play last year. I know I've mentioned that Philly Knicks series for an early round series last year is like one of my favorite series of the last few years and the intensity of it all. And clearly like Brunson's more comfortable, which doesn't make any sense considering the Celtics team and everything they've gone through.

1:35:10But he's more comfortable in those moments than anybody on the Celtics. And that was going to keep happening. It's a great plan. And I know how I felt like I could do a much bigger. you know one of my favorite things about the combine is just like what the dudes who do this every single day think about this sport where it's going yeah and you know are we now away from like we just accepted small balls like well it makes a lot of sense like why would you want some big plotting guy out there who's not as skilled put your five best skilled players like what took us so long to get to this point and now we're seeing in a real way pretty quickly the teams are going you know what i really like is controlling the glass and having you know it's fun rebounds it also helps that some of these big guys can both stretch the floor offensively which you know maybe a shot and then get it back and then take another shot and then that one goes in no but i started thinking about it you know look i don't love doing this uh the week tatum blows out his achilles but it was another thought that i had where you know i remember i've talked about the usage rate stuff of like if you look at the history of like the highest usage rate seasons and how many, I haven't updated the numbers recently, but more often than not, those teams didn't do very well in the playoffs.

1:36:22Now, the counter to that can immediately be the reason the guy's usage is that high is because the rest of the team isn't that good. And that means that's why those teams didn't do anything. I think both things can actually be true. I think if you do something in the regular season where it's always in one guy's hands over and over and over again, like I think there's probably a Donovan Mitchell conversation about that, that he defaults back to the Utah Jazz version of him where it's so dynamic and when he's rolling he looks like one of the five best options with the ball in his hands nobody else is doing anything but then no right then nobody else is doing anything guys aren't boxing out as hard because they're sitting there watching um they're not playing defense as hard because they're like this guy's going to take 30 something shots again and you know for the most part i really like donovan mitchell uh because when it's right it's probably one of the most fun things to watch in the nba so if you allow me to take my time here making the point you know i was talking with just different people just bullshitting about the game and i was like this is even about tatum so much is like when you see it going bad for the celtics and everybody knows i mean it's unbelievable it's like there's a warning sign or a greeter eight years of watching it like you kind of know the signs it's like you know being in a marriage or something where you're like oh my wife seems pissed right now yeah it's like a major like this Well, like four minutes to go interrupts the broadcast and goes, and here's the point where they're going to hunt for switches and then settle for bad threes.

1:37:43And it's going to be a lot of isolation. They're going to walk the ball up and start the offense. Eight seconds left in the shot clock. Are we in a parallel of this small ball to now the two big? And I'm going to say it one more time. Also known as center and power forward, which was pretty accepted for a long time. Yeah, it was working. Have we gone so far away from the traditional point guard who may not even, he may just be extinct now. I don't even know if there may be a couple of those in China. That's why Mike Conley is still working. That's why Chris Paul can still get 30 minutes a game.

1:38:23There's no, I kept thinking about like Gary Payton in some of these games where you can see the best player, you know, whether it's a Mitchell or whether it's a Tatum or some of these other dudes that are like MVP caliber players that are just like, hey, this is kind of what we do. Like, I'm the best player. The math says that I have to have the ball. The math says I have to take the shot. But that means that it's kind of pretty ridiculous. Well, like what I'm going to do so the defense is more prepared. Prep for it. They can help off a little bit more because it's just not likely that we want like any of these other three guys even shooting.

1:38:56I wonder if Gary Payton watches some of this stuff and goes, hey, after three of these in a row, let's do something different. I'm going to take the ball. I'm going to tell everybody what to do. And I'm going to get us a good look because the way I'm programmed to play this game is to figure out the best possession for us and not necessarily saying, hey, an open three in this spot gives us this many points per shot, points per possession. So it's not even like an anti-analytic. So you're saying like a Steve Nash, Jason Kidd, any of those old school point guards that we grew up with? I don't think a Chris Paul or any of the guys you just named would let that many possessions go as bad as we've seen with the high usage.

1:39:33And we're talking about some of the best players in the sport, players that have had huge accomplishments, a few of these guys that have won rings. But wouldn't you put Halliburton in this though? Because I think I really like some of the decisions he made in those first two rounds. And he's a real point guard. I think it's a great call. The way he collapses a defense because of his handle and because of his size, and you can see, and then he's keeping like almost Jokic-ish, he keeps all of these passing lane options open. Like he's not just throwing to a corner. He's not just hitting the roll, man.

1:40:04He's thinking like, okay, I have a few different things. As soon as I can get into the defense and get them to collapse, I'm going to find a couple of different things. But you're just talking half court. The other thing is he's getting fast break transition stuff too. That's different. You're right. But that's the bonus of, that's the stuff you don't get with Tatum and the Celtics because he's not wired to be like, rebound. I'm going to try to create a, you know, even like Jokic is wired that way. But I see what you're saying though with this stuff. Yeah, we are like combo guard, the tweener thing.

1:40:31Like it used to be bad. Well, he's kind of a combo. He's not really a one or he's not really a two. Now it's mandatory that you're the one, but you're really all of these ones play as twos. Yeah. And has the game in those huge playoff moments, have we lost that part of the game? Those guys that had that talent to go, it doesn't guarantee you anything. but hey we just did this three times let's do something different it sounds simple but i think the game is missing that a little bit because what would you look at that too yeah but uh because that that got really stale in the dallas boston series specifically you're talking about the the bad part of it where it's predictably the same thing over and over again.

1:41:20Just over and over again. Same. I see what you're saying. I think there's one other piece. Maybe we should appreciate LeBron more. No, I think there's one other piece that you're not factoring in that I think is important because you were talking about how more bigs. We also have more bigs now that can play this style. And I think that took like 12 years to shift. Totally. Because remember like those 2012-13 bigs? I always think we talked about Brandon Bass and the 2012 Eastern Conference finals, like this type of forward that just no longer exists or big baby Davis or like the PJ Brown, those guys are all gone.

1:41:57And now it's turned into, um, this new version of those guys where it's like Mitchell Robinson is almost a throwback center. He totally is not almost he, but you can, you can, you know what? I, well, I would give you this though, because what this game asks bigs to do now defensively, that's insane. Is insane. And so maybe he's guarding. Yeah. He's guarding Derek white, 25 feet from the basket. That wasn't happening in 2012. So it's like you, even if you're a big, you're accumulating these new skills that I don't think the guys from the previous generation had combined with, you have like these Chet Holmgren types that are this new version of a center where it's like, they're 25 feet from the basket, they're spacing.

1:42:40so I just think we have better talent to play you know these ways to play the double big than maybe we did when it was Ante Zizic Zizic what was his name Pirantich Macedonia I just had a guy he was driving me in Chicago he's from Macedonia he told me the NBA was fixed it was a long hour wow I know they could fix the ping pong balls I think the whole discussion is Al Horford. If you just look at his basketball reference, that is, that is the roadmap. That is the IMDB of how basketball changed where he's zero free, zero threes a game to like one to all of a sudden he's at like five. And now when you look, he's like no free throws and threes.

1:43:28And this was a guy who used to, you know, post up and play near the basket. Now he doesn't. But he always should have been, because he was pretty good with the ball in his hands. i always felt and i know i interviewed him and i asked about this i go you're going to spend your entire career out of position because you end up having a play center and you should have been a power forward yeah had the ball a little bit more and of course it's al horford so he's like yeah you know whatever not gonna complain another one near the end of his career was became more of a three-point shooter yeah but if he came into the league being a three-point shooter combined with all the other stuff he had it's pretty interesting um so that was what you guys were that was one of the combine discussions of is the the way people are playing basketball is something broken is it fixable like because that's just a lot of philosophical stuff that i think is really great especially when you're talking to the guys that think about the game right every single day of their lives all they are like they're thinking it doesn't mean everybody agrees it's not like i came back from the combine like 10 teams to the exact same thing about the way they see the game But there is, I'd say there is a sentiment from a few of the guys that I talked to that were like, there's just a lot of this stuff that gets really repetitive and really predictable at the ends of these games.

1:44:47And it feels like almost the default setting for all those teams. They're like, look at OKC to bring it full circle. they had to figure out the second thing because the sga take you from the top high ball screen and then now you're chasing him and he's pulling up from every single angle full speed to straight up in the air or he's working you for three free throws like okc could not go to that as consistent as they wanted to or as they had throughout the regular season because denver was prioritizing just clog all this stuff up at the top and you know it almost makes me think the celtics would have just kept running that right well because it was the math was on their side and then they won the title last year which makes you think you're invincible but they sure i mean the the i mean the last minute of game one was an atrocity the shots they got and then the fact that they repeated it in game two you know it was even worse it's interesting with minnesota because minnesota is a hybrid of both of these worlds right where you're what you're talking about is basically the ant issue where it's when they're at their worst, it's him trying to do the same thing over and over again.

1:45:52And teams like threatening to send a second guy, not him getting frustrated. That's usually when they unravel. But then they added this Randall piece and now they have these two different versions on offense that they can kind of attack you with. It was notable in those Laker games. Like at some point you're realizing Randall's just not having a good game. Like he's attacking them and they can't match up with it. And I felt the same way in Golden State. We'll see with OKC. So you think you have OKC in this next series? I picked him this summer. I'm picking him again. I'm, again, surprised the odds are that in their favor.

1:46:28But maybe it's because I thought the Thunder were going to dispose of Denver a little bit earlier. Well, I did. There was a lot of pride, championship DNA. And that one game where Gordon hit the game winning three was a pretty lucky win. Right. Even though it was a great win for Denver, it was still pretty fluky. I guess them winning three was an achievement, I think. Clippers are probably saying the same thing. Definitely. Yeah, if I was going to bet the finals, I still think OKC is going to win the title, but I would probably do the SGA to win the finals MVP. I think it's the best value, although it's basically the same as OKC.

1:47:13OKC is minus 185. The Knicks are plus 490. Minnesota is 6-1 and Indiana is 8-1. And this is, I guess we can hit the finish line with this. I picked the Knicks to kill Detroit. I thought they were going to win in less than six. It took a little longer. I thought the Celtics were going to kill the Knicks in round two. They didn't. I like Indiana against the Knicks in the series. I think Indiana is going to win the series as a bet. like the Pacers are plus 126 and the Knicks are minus 148. I think that should be a 50-50. So I think you're getting more value with the Pacers at plus 126. Because I honestly, I think the Pacers have a slightly better team.

1:47:57They're deeper. I think this is a good matchup for them. And I continue to really believe in them. I think they're really good. So for me, I would take the plus 126 if I was betting on this. That line's moved a little. is plus 140 it's drop what do you what do you have you think the Knicks or the Pacers this is a coin toss I'm taking the Pacers you know there's not really much I mean their first three games were October November and February right and the Pacers are a better defensive team they were and you know here were two teams I thought had a lot of similarities in that man I like them and I I like their top level scoring but are they you know are you really weak at point guard defensively and then you're really weak at the rim defensively so i felt like they kind of emulated each other even though the pacers have mentioned numerous times big reason why this has happened in this turnaround is that they're able to get stops now in ways that you just didn't expect right you we always knew they were going to score it was like that team is not going to get a high they're not going to get multiple high level stops they need to get them um so now when i look at these two things i mean i can understand the knicks side of this in the argument and i would throw in a little thing about the knicks fans though everything you said totally fine um and look this is kind of what this is now get a bunch of dudes together do crazy shit film it i mean we got this generation throwing stuff at strangers and target and posting it so like this is not new and it isn't any different than anybody who's young at some point when it's like would i do this by myself nope would i do it with there were 50 of us yep probably would but leave brian windhorse the fuck alone okay yeah just leave windhorse alone and chuck d again a legend we don't need him tweeting wind worst which may be his worst bar of all time um i mean chuck d is like unimpeachable for just a million reasons and how awesome he was but maybe he was you know look he's a knicks fan the knicks fans get so upset at wind horse and it's like dude i don't understand that it'd be just here to get we're here to give our opinions on what we're watching right and here's the thing when we're wind horse is like of all the good guys out there leave wind horse alone okay i vote for leaving a lot of people but yeah that uh that was unfortunate i agree with you i'm glad you said that i uh i have one thing to say because i was too positive about the knicks so i'm just gonna put sports hate my sports hate this is an actual hate i really grew to hate carl anthony towns by the end of that series i wasn't a huge fan to begin with i'm just talking Oh, my God.

1:50:30I'm just talking sports hate, irrational. I'm a Celtics fan. You end up not liking certain people on the other team. By the end of game six, I was just like, oh, my God. I can't wait for some team to expose him. He just drove me fucking crazy, especially when they go up 15, 20, and then he starts punishing Al Horford. I was like, oh, he drives me crazy. I hated rooting against him. Well, you get to do it again. Well, I haven't decided what I'm betting, but I'm leaning toward Pacers. But to me, this is a no-lose series because it's going to be super fun either way. I really like watching Indiana.

1:51:14I think they've been a revelation. And teams, people just continue to underrate them for some reason, which I don't really understand. Now the Cleveland thing, it's like, oh, they have Mobley and Garland. I thought they broke Cleveland by game five. I really did. I thought Cleveland melted. The fact that they got down that big on the road, and you're thinking most teams go, whatever. Like, all right, they're all hyped. They get to the three. We're going home. We still have two more chances. And then they come back, and then they just close it. The way they close that game, that is one of the most impressive things any team has done in any game during this postseason.

1:51:55Yeah, and it was the whole Cavs team, too. I also think they have the right level of feistyness that you actually need in MSG, which I'm not positive the Celtics had at certain points in that Knicks series. There's a couple of points where Jalen Brown stood up to Josh Hart. But I think the Knicks, they're an aggro team. You got Neesmith, you got Bathoryn. Yeah. And Turner mixes it up with you. Yeah, Halberd talks shit. Like, they'll, Nebhard. I'm just telling Knicks fans right now, be prepared for Nebhard to drive into OG. Maybe it'll be Josh Hart. but it'll be one of the perimeter guys it'll be mikhail og or heart where you're gonna think that next player after that collision who will get called for the foul and nemhart will get the end one but nemhart it is like a crash test dummy level of impact could be organ damage so if a guy is out just internal organ damage game four questionable or whatever there's going to be a nemhart collision where he gets going where you're you know again i just think most people just kind to watch their team the number of games where i've watched him do that i think and then he gets the call um and you know look there's going to be there's going to be a really rough brunson night in there for pacers fans where you're going to go this is happening all the time like yeah yeah it is it is well the other thing they do is the 94 feet of just putting wearing taren and just bringing the ball up which i continue to think is underrated and the pacers love doing that they did it mcconnell They love it.

1:53:25They want to just wear you down. They want to put miles on you during the game. Dumb miles that don't matter in the big scheme of things. But that's how they're wired. They come, come, come, come. I think they're really good. And there's a moment here for either Brunson or Halliburton. Right? Brunson, if they make the finals, you're moving into this completely different territory in the city. And he might already be there. But you bring that team to the finals with some of the late game stuff that he's did and just how likable and fucking awesome of a guy that he is. Just making the finals, you could dine off that for the next 50 years, much less winning.

1:54:03I mean, now they have a real chance to win. But Halliburton, who I didn't even vote for for all NBA, who was in that overrated poll. I think that's because people can't stand him, though. He's been a pretty polarizing guy, didn't play in the dream team, all that stuff. and I think he's been awesome in these playoffs. I've been really impressed. And he has a chance, you know, to really put himself on the map here because he's the best guy on that team. So there's big stakes there. The stakes in the other battle is easier because if Minnesota beats OKC, now we're moving toward this. Edwards might be actually ready.

1:54:41That's like, I'm not ready to, we'll talk about that in a week, but like Edwards going through this gauntlet and all the fucking dudes OKC has that they'll be able to throw at him for seven games. If he gets through that, this is like, we might be ready to have the combo. Like, is it time? Because the other side of the Knicks thing first, and you're right about everything you said, is I just keep thinking of Miles Turner and then the Thomas Bryant minutes with Carlisle must just be like, oh, I can't believe it. I can't believe this is what I've got to do. And it's like, okay, if the Knicks front line beat up on the Celtics front line, you know because prozingis at whatever point i knew what missoula it seemed like missoula was hoping like can this just wake up right can it wake up at some point it never happened um they bench him in that second half of that game because they said he couldn't breathe but i mean he just he was that bad but you still had cornett you still had horford out there battling like maybe the knicks maybe this becomes more of a cat thing like see cat was actually like look he didn't hit any threes he was really good in game six the on the glass stuff yeah and the putbacks and just being big and being physical and being quicker to the ball and all that kind of stuff like i don't know why that would get worse against the pacers if anything it should get better i mean mitchell's just going to be a cleanup guy it's not like they're going to give touches and actually like run something with him there but i mean it's going to be a real problem for them too because he's turned into one of the best defensive guys in the league and I think one of the problems with the Celtics in that last series is Holiday didn't do a good enough job on Brunson.

1:56:16Brunson was cooking. Derek White was bad too against him and then that's why Jalen ended up having to play him and Tatum was covering him too before he got hurt. They were using their forwards to guard Brunson. Indiana has way more options. Brunson was looking for Horford. I thought Horford held up really well but then when it was the Przingis stuff it was just a disaster. But look, Neesmith, We'll see what happens here because there's part of the Jokic conversation where it does get really annoying with Jokic too, as much as we all love him. Like when he pins the defender's arms into his arms and then screams with his palms up and you're like, dude, you're doing all of this right now.

1:56:51But then there's other plays too because he's so big where he's just getting swiped at the entire time. It's like, okay, but they're not going to call all these fouls. So if you have Caruso, if you have Jalen Williams, if you have the two bigs, if you have the other Jalen Williams, you're talking about like 30 fouls you can throw at this guy and if they get to the bonus quicker no problem like we'd still rather them get to the bonus and try to just physically attack this guy the entire time it'll be very interesting to see what the fouls are like on Neesmith in the first quarter against Brunson because Neesmith should foul out of every game he's in he's just yeah but you could have said that about Caruso and Dorton that's the thing it feels like if you can establish it in the first quarter then you can get away with it but the smaller guy gets the calls more I mean Brunson is drawn yeah that's not free throws Brunson is drawing the second most free throws of any player uh the last time I looked at and I think during the regular season Giannis was the only player that drew more free throws uh excuse me drew more personal fouls because that's another thing that happens with this Brunson debate it's like oh well look at his free throw we know all these different things like dude he's number two in the NBA I'll look it up right now just to make sure I don't get this wrong because obviously it's gonna know he's I thought he was top three.

1:58:03Per game, I think he was second to only Giannis. Right. Now, look, somebody has to be number one, number two, number three. But I'm going to look it up just because I don't want to get this wrong. And I'm almost positive I had it right. All right, so he's drawing seven and a half fouls per game during the playoffs. In the regular season. It felt higher. some of them are overturned um yeah so like you know Giannis was number one at seven and a half during the regular season Brunson was number two that's crazy well if you're the Knicks this couldn't have broke better you get rid of Boston you have Mitchell Robertson healthy which I would have I would have put the odds at like five to one in and OG October OG's at least out there um and you look the best you've ever looked all season in game six so bridges those bridges makes the start of the fourth quarter in game two um the other game like those non-brunson minutes to start the fourth quarter letting bridges cook man it's one of my favorite things about this because he has that in his game we were calling for half the season well the other thing is everyone on the team is the hungriest you can possibly be, which was reminiscent of the Celtics last year, right?

1:59:24There's a hunger level with them. Not that everybody else doesn't have it, but these are all of these guys that are really interesting points in their career that have this whole city behind them in this crazy way. It's going to be a tall task for Indiana. I think Indiana is slightly better than them. I don't think that's going to mean they're going to win the series, but I think Indiana is really good. We'll see. Those threes, when you're down 3-2 in a series, and they're home in Indiana in game six, and they need to hit some shots, and you miss a couple, and it ends up being like that Denver game where you're down 15, and you start doing the math.

1:59:59Like, oh, God, we got to get going. The sphincters start tightening. Flip side will be the Knicks. But anyway, good final four. I think this is weird. It's unconventional, but I like both of the matchups, so we'll see what happens. I didn't finish my list for you before we go. My four titles. My should have won titles. Number one, 1958. Bill Russell's sprained ankle. Bob Pettit, right? Number two, Bob Pettit. Number two, 2009. KG. Number three, 1982. Tiny Archibald's shoulder. I still think we win. When I talked to Tibbs about the 2009 team, I was in a room with him. Yeah. And we started talking about 2009.

2:00:41I think it moved. Thank you. Really? He was that excited. number four 1973 have a check separated shoulder

2:00:54the three we shouldn't have won 1969 1976 1981 so we're plus one but I wouldn't put 25 I thought this team had a chance but you know I'm not going to look back 40 years from now and be like oh we should have won that year like the team thing was super weird i don't think the knicks fan base would have celebrated the same way if it wasn't the boston new york thing and the fact that like there was all of these matchup things that i thought were going to be a problem for new york and even if they were because it's the times when something's had to lead you're going all right this makes sense this is what it was supposed to look like and it's like oh okay brunson is so fired up in this spot and you guys are not so we're so good to see you um we'll be back next sunday you have your podcast tuesday and thursday i look forward to talking uh more basketball too thanks yeah let's talk hoops all right that's it for the podcast thanks to gahau and eduardo as always thanks to rusillo i am going to be back i think on tuesday and probably on thursday as well and i'm going to be in the rewatchables I'm going to do in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

2:02:09And I will see you Monday and Tuesday.

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