The Buddy Hield Game, Indy’s Dangerous, a Clips Collapse, and “Whaddya Do” Teams With Ryen Russillo

30:53We're going to do that dance back and forth forever. But ultimately, if I'm Houston, I'm like, look, you're not getting him. We have a ton of picks. We have all these other guys. So let's figure this out. I think with the Jalen piece, the part that's disappointing to me because what I really liked about him when he had that moment that you talked about from two years ago, was it wasn't just the scoring. I felt like he was starting to create shots for other guys. Guess how many assists he had from game four, game five, game six, game seven. Four games. Yeah, I have it up in front of me right now.

31:25All right. Well, for the audience, he had six assists total in four games. So he's turned into this guy that he's either looking for his own shot or he's not doing anything for anybody else. And I feel like he's gone back with that. The defense certainly isn't on the par with Thompson and Neeson and Jabari, who I think are just way, way better than him. And I don't know what he is. Like, would you trade for him? Let's say you're like... let's say you're a lottery team right now. It's like, oh, we can get Jalen Green. Pretty good contract. 33 million next year. What's he worth? Is he worth a top five pick in this draft?

32:00I would say no. No, because you would still hope for like the unknown of hitting on somebody that caused control of the whole thing. Where are you as a team? Like, I wonder if Miami, what would Miami be able to offer that would make sense? You know, is there some three-team thing where Miami goes, you know, we'll bring them in here. We're in transition anyway. and we still think he's a really talented guy because I think we have seen that talent. But this is a really, and if you're doing local Houston radio this week, you know, it's a bummer of a Jalen Green conversation because now he's just in a men's way.

32:33If you bring him back next year, he's just in his way. If you were Houston, like if we were running Houston, we would keep Thompson and Deason and we would try to do Shangoon with Jalen Green with Jabari. right? Those three plus picks. We'll take one of your bad contracts back with Giannis and let's try to figure it out. And now I get to keep Eason and I get to keep Thompson and I get to put them with Giannis. I bring Van Vee back. I have Brooks back and now my team's better. And by the way, I like Jabari as an asset. I think he's misused on this team. I just think they decide they stick him in the corner.

33:12They don't run plays for him. I think he plays hard. I like him defensively. I think he could be a stretch five on the right team. I actually, that's somebody I would target this summer if I was somebody else. Yeah, I still hold out some hope for him, but he also showed that the handle thing's a real problem in this series. You know, and Steph had a defensive play against him on the left side on the baseline where Jabari's like, all right, I'm ready to start going to work. And like Steph knew he couldn't dribble. So he just stayed straight up with him and he held up great against him. and he had another play I think it was in game six where he like went to kind of create on his own I was like damn it you know because I I really like him and I'm with you I think there's a role for him where he's playing 30 plus minutes a night and he's hitting threes and he's playing really good defense and all that kind of stuff even though Steph got him on a switch she was so happy to get him on a switch and not have it be a man on that layup in the second half but the only thing I would say about the amend thing is if it's a bidding war which I don't know why it would be that right Giannis has to go to them and say I'm good but then also feel free to send me anywhere that doesn't really seem to be the way any of this stuff works for stars or it's not just open for Milwaukee to decide where they want to send them so if Houston's not necessarily bidding against anybody and they put together a sexy package then you're right they shouldn't have to throw them in there but if it's somehow turned into there's four or five teams involved in this um you know then it becomes the kind of conversation like really you wouldn't include men in there for somebody who's as good as Giannis.

34:41But again, they have the advantage though because again, Milwaukee needs to get players back so they can compete next year unless they just decide their picks at some cost for a year. And Houston's really the only team other than maybe the Knicks that could actually give them players that could still make them good because they have the Doc situation too where Doc's got two years left in his deal. He's never wanted to be in a rebuilding situation ever so he's not going to be happy. He's not going to be psyched to just throw in the towel. Do you think this ultimately was a win for Houston in this playoffs?

35:13Would you say it's a W to go to seven against Golden State and then you lose in seven because your offense, which was the thing everybody was pointing at this entire season as the thing that was going to sink you in the end, and then that's exactly what happened in the end?

35:31If you label it just as the two losing to the seven, I think you're losing sight of how ridiculous the Western playoffs were. Yeah. so other years you'd be like what a huge disappointment because they're on the cusp of it fall apart a little bit the end of the season because they were one of these great stories and for two years now they've been one of our favorite teams to watch because all these guys and wondering how it's all going to shake out i still feel like the entire season is a is a positive i know it hurts right now but it's positive and you lost the staff you know you lost step you lost the history is terrible as you mentioned now uh with this group this warriors group going against this franchise so you know even though it's the two i would throw the two seven part of this out because all of these teams two through seven were really close well also the warriors lose that stupid spurs game which comes back to haunt them because now they now minnesota is the sixth seed with home court because they lost that ridiculous harrison barnes game where they were trying yeah and and the spurs were just like our season's kind of sucked wimby's been gone for two months this will make our season if we can somehow stick it to you guys in this game.

36:38Chris Paul, Barnes, and they stick it to him and now they don't have home court. But I will say I'm not positive how much that matters for this particular Warriors team because we've seen them stink at home and we've seen them win on the road. The Game 7 stuff is crazy too. Like NBA history, we grew up with that. 80 plus percent chance of winning at home and now is it nine of the last 13 road teams have won? Yeah. It's absurd. You know who didn't win yesterday? It was the Clippers. but wait so yeah it might be it might be uh nine of the last 14 the clippers tried to keep it old school the way you used to remember the game seven yeah i appreciate it golden state minnesota i think it's a really really really tall task for gold state when you consider that coming now i don't do we see coming again if it's not garbage time i'm gonna say no he was so bad in that hey not to defend comingo but i think kerr probably broke his confidence completely and i don't know what they were expecting was going to happen if you're throwing them in.

37:36Moody's been up and down. Post has been up and down. Peyton, who missed the game today, which I forgot to mention, might have helped the Warriors because Houston crafts this defense thinking we're just going to double Steph everywhere and make these other guys beat us. And then all of a sudden, Buddy Heald is in that Peyton spot playing big minutes who can actually shoot. Maybe Peyton doesn't make a couple of those.

38:04but um by the way i think you're right i think you're right because you know i think that's why we didn't see quentin post a lot because even though the idea of him is a stretch five to try to pull one of those bigs away i think houston was thrilled every time quentin post ended up taking a three in a playoff series or had the ball yeah all of these were high leverage moments and when you factored in when he was at the rim for rim protection you know a man's like this is this is unbelievable i think post still doesn't know what a man did on him on that drive a couple games ago so i think payton was probably one of those guys with the ball ended up in his hands a little bit too much um post was one of those guys so now they weren't really even options tonight and by the way i know that the regular season series golden state has the 3-1 advantage the last time they played double checking it was january 15th i feel like minnesota closed is the healthiest version of themselves and was still just a weird team um because three of the games were in December.

38:55Can I intervene with you once? I got a stage of intervention. I don't think you can look at the regular season matchups anymore. I think it's a 95 % chance nobody on both teams played in any of the games. I feel like I want the five hours of my life back where I've looked at different matchups and be like, oh, Halbert didn't play that game. Ah, no Mitchell that game. You're just learning nothing. It's not like it used to be even five years ago. They'd be like, oh yeah, that February game when they all played, they won 138 to 130. There's never a game where everybody played anymore. Listen, we talked before the playoffs started about how Minnesota was a long shot that we didn't totally understand because there was a path for them, right?

39:40Their path was beating the Lakers, getting home court in the round two against Golden State and then just basically being toe-to-toe and unafraid against OKC. I think Minnesota should win this series. And I think Golden State, I continue to think they're a guy and a half short. They're not even a guy short. They're like a guy and a half short. And you're going to need eight guys against this Minnesota team because they're deep. They have different lineups. They have size. They can go small. You have the Edwards piece where he's just relentless on both ends. And I think Minnesota should be more of a favorite.

40:15I would have had this at minus 200. I think the Warriors are getting a lot of respect in this. I think Minnesota is a good team. You know what's really funny is everyone from Minnesota has played in this. Has what? Played in the four regular season games. Is that true? You just looked that up. I knew it was going to happen because you're right. Your general point is right. There it is. There's the 5%. But see, there's just a lot of times, whether it's who played, because Draymond missed a couple. So Golden State has a 3-1 edge. But I don't know that you can look. And this is the thing I always struggle with every single year.

40:50So you're watching Golden State, and they have this great closing stretch. Houston felt like they competed throughout the entire year. So those felt real like a closing month. If you'll give me a month. The Clippers felt like a real closing month. Okay, well, does that mean that that was all misleading? because Denver went into it as the worst defensive team in the playoffs. The Timberwolves closing the way they closed felt real. That's why I picked them. And also just because I felt like, how is no one picking them? Like, this isn't that daunting to go up against Los Angeles. Did you know LeBron was going to sprain his MCL near the end there?

41:28I didn't know that. Who knows? That last seven minutes of that game five. This isn't even a LeBron thing. He hadn't sprained his MCL. We're getting updates on injuries. We're like, hey, the normal time frame for this Michael Porter Jr. shoulder thing would be four to five weeks. He looked great in game seven. You're right. This is a new language. Normally, he'd be out 10 days, but he's going to get through it. They did it with Derrick Garland today. They did it with Austin Reeves. They did it with LeBron. So LeBron's not the only one. We've got like a first team of he would have been out. I'd like to raise my hand on this one.

42:04Please do. Everybody's hurt in the playoffs. Everybody has injuries. right like the Celtics are starting their series tomorrow Drew's gonna play he has a hamstring they probably rest him two more weeks Tatum hurt his wrist if it's December they're probably sitting him for two weeks Jalen's got the knee like it's it's May I would expect people to get hurt I'm sure Steph has like two injuries that we probably don't even know about Steph's all these guys are fucking banged up Steph had that crazy thumb thing right it looks like footage from some sort of like pharmaceutical ad during the commercials or you just go if you're experiencing growth on your right he got stung by a stingray in cabo although i'm chris finch watching the tape of this series being like are we also not going to get called for anything off the ball with stuff like this series when they called the off ball on shingoon kerr he may just run that on a loop and they'll have like a celebratory dinner and just be like let's not get ahead of ourselves it was only round one but i think we should all get together as an organization cake and champagne that there was actually a foul called on steph at some point in the series because you know he it was on it's going to be one of the most disrespectful star whistles and i know the off the ball stuff is just never policed the same way i just thought at some point the rest might be like let's call one of these early to see if they i didn't know you were allowed to bear hug somebody off the ball there was one thing like it's happening now regularly with the or at least in that last series it did they're just bear hugging him if you're wrestling with your younger brother and he's just weaker than you unless it sucks and he's just kyle long and you're chris long but you hold your brother's arms out and you're like why are you you know not necessarily making him hit himself in the face but you're just holding his arms and there's nothing he can do and the wrist control and all this stuff there was one play where van fleet had both of steph's wrists right as he was trying to like get off of some sort of screen they were setting off the ball and he was holding both of his arms if you're defending somebody the same way you would hold back one of your buddies from trying to take a swing at the bouncer at two in the morning that's probably a foul yeah i'm glad they won so that it doesn't sound like it's it's making excuses but they got away with it was smart they got away with what they wanted to get away with If Minnesota can get away with that, but they also have one of the least respected stars, whistle-wise, in Ant, but it's for different reasons, because Ant plays to avoid, doesn't play to contact.

44:25Like, Luka plays to contact. Some of these guys are really smart, like, knowing Brunson, hey, if I just play into the contact, like, it's going to go my way. Ant is so dynamic that he's avoiding everybody, and everybody's just in awe of his athleticism. And I think a lot of the stuff with Steph is he's not going to get the foul calls because because they're not just traditional drives towards the hoop. Granted, if he's fouled on a three-point attempt, that's different. But the off-the-ball stuff with him in a playoff series, and good for the defense for getting away with it. But when you really lock into it and watch it for a few possessions, you just go, dude, I can't believe somebody wouldn't want to retire.

45:02Like, this is what I have to do. Or that's why he's going to punch somebody. You know what's crazy? So you get Minnesota Golden State. That's a great series for the league, right? Curry versus Edwards. I think both of those teams are really fun to watch. I did not think Houston. Devin Gento-Pogemski. Right. I didn't think Houston was very fun to watch, just for the record. Not bummed out to not get them for the next two weeks. I was pretty much done with Houston Rockets basketball games. No offense to their fans. Wasn't exactly a great hang. It's like, oh, cool. It's 74-72 with five minutes left.

45:40Minnesota-Gold State is a great series. And yet it's not even one of the two best series that we have left from like a big storyline basketball standpoint, because that Indiana Cleveland series. And we've been talking about Indiana for weeks now and the people just haven't been on it. No, you've been on it more. I know that I'm labeled as more dismissive, but today was tremendous. So that could. So Cleveland was minus 500. In the series? In the series. So you bet the Pacers. I have multiple Pacer bets. I did the Pacers plus two and a half for the games. That'll go like six or seven. I did Pacers in six was 10 to one.

46:20I bet them today. I was just like, especially when no Garland, it's like, these teams are even. I looked up the last 50 games, Rosillo. Cleveland was 35 and 15 in the last 50 games. And the Pacers were 34 and 16. And if you look at the net rating, the Cavs were like 7.7. And the Pacers were like 5.1. I think they're pretty even teams. And you saw it today. Like when the Pacers, when they can play the pace they want to play and they suck you into it and teams get sucked into it and they can't help it. And once we're doing this, they're like, they're happy. They're in. They were getting the matchups they wanted.

46:57I think they can play with that team. Like I wasn't surprised they won today. I think it's gonna be a long series. And I actually think it's probably the best basketball series of the four. Just for like, I don't know what's going to happen. The styles are great. it's a styles make fights it's a great series and i thought that first game was awesome today was awesome that was an awesome basketball game okay now i'm gonna i'm not gonna you guys you here but there's something with the gambling world that i actually get annoyed with did you pick the pacers to just win the series though i i mean i bet them to win in six but you you bet them with the payout at 10 to 1.

47:35I thought that was the best value. If I had gone to my head, I would have probably said Cavs in seven. Right. If I had to make a pick. But do I think the Pacers come in at seven? Sure. I just feel like it's a 50-50 series is my point. It's not a minus 500 favorite series. Right. But what happens if you pick the upset, but you put a ticket on a five to one payout or a 10 to one payout, then I've noticed, I don't know if it's you, but guys that I follow that are really into gambling would be like, well, you know, I picked him. And it's like, no, you picked the odds. You picked the value. Fair. You didn't pick it straight up.

48:10Here's where I took a loss. I picked the Clippers against Denver and I had Clippers stuff multiple places. And I know we're going to talk about that in a second, but that was one where I was like, I think the Clippers will win this series. This Pacers, Pacers Cavs is more, I think either team can win this series. And I think it's a 50-50 series. I felt that going in. And now that they won game one, it hasn't changed. I don't think it's 60-40 now. I just think either team can win. And the Garland thing is a big deal because they needed this three-point shooting. You can see it today. I think they were like 8 for 39 from 3.

48:46You know, it was a lot of Ty Jerome. Ty Jerome, 20 minutes, fantastic. 30 minutes, now we're pushing it a tiny bit. We were talking about what's real, right, as teams close out. After the All-Star break, before, let me just do it this way. Before the All-Star break, the Pacers were 21st in defense in the NBA. After the All-Star break, they were 8th. So the thing about them that always bothered me against another talented team was you're just going to be able to score against them whenever you want to. And last year's playoff run, that was still true. There were injuries against teams they faced.

49:19We've covered all of this stuff. But if you want to look at a team where you go, hey, something's a little different there. Now, I don't know if the Cleveland closing numbers for that team are as relevant because they were at such a ridiculous pace through so much of the season. They knew they weren't going to lose the one seed. I felt like a lot of the Cleveland games I watched, like, I don't know, maybe they're still too new to feel like they're taking the foot off the gas. But it felt like that might have been a misleading closing part of it. But that Pacers defensive thing is real. And I wondered also, too, like in the series against Milwaukee, I'm like, Carlisle is really going to play 10 or 11 guys.

49:49I think he put Ben Shepard in a game as the 11th guy in the first quarter of a playoff game. You know, that's my all-time pet peeve. Who does that? And yet he played a ton of guys again today. So there's a lot of stuff that I really like from the Pacers today. And the Garland part of it's totally true. Because as much as we both love Ty Jerome, he can't be taking 20 shots in a playoff game. In 29 minutes. And some of them are rough. It hurts the calibration of the team, too, because now you don't have him coming off the bench in the same way to swing a game because he's just out there playing most of the game.

50:23I will say this. If Garland's not going to be 100 % healthy in this series, I actually think Indiana is going to win. But it seems like that injury, like whatever, they're being careful with it. And it seems like he's going to be able to play with it and not be completely compromised. You could argue three-point variance in this one, too. 19 of 36 for Pacers. nine of 38 for the Cavs the alarming part about the film if you were going to go back and watch this the Pacers shots were open the majority of this game and part of that's Halliburton's brilliance like I know people he's a funny one too because it's like man when he is really rolling do you realize how special he is at breaking the paint getting past the first defender then the help defender thinks that maybe he's giving up on his drive and then it's too late and he's already by you but people are collapsing he's finding open shooters all over the place i think he could have attacked even more if he wanted to today um and i'm by the way he had 22 and 13 and i think he leads the league for me and when i watch a pacers game i'm always like just go buy him just go buy him you find yourself saying that with him constantly just go buy him you know a lot of open looks um because you could tell when cleveland cranked up its intensity and Atkinson did the in-game interview he was almost sitting there like a fan going this is awesome isn't it but he also felt better because Mitchell was just driving at will which I think there's going to be a lot of that in there like Miles Turner being pulled away is a problem they don't have any depth behind that against the two bigs for Cleveland although Atkinson did separate those guys the way he normally would but I was really really impressed with the Pacers and I I don't know if it's just the three-point shooting I don't know if it's that even though the Pacers are better than Milwaukee.

52:05This might have been a wake-up call for the Cavs. That Heat series was about as garbage a series as you're ever going to see in the playoffs. Do you know that was the highest point differential ever in a four-game sweep? Really? That was the biggest point differential four-game sweep in NBA history. That's how disgusting that first-round series was against Miami. You've got to wonder if Cleveland had a moment where like, holy shit. We both watched the whole game. I thought Cleveland played hard. the Pacers came out I've seen them do that where they just put you on your heels they turn you on track meet and you get excited because it's the first game of the series like alright let's run let's go and it's like that's exactly what they wanted to do Cavs started slowing it down Mitchell took over and if you're the Cavs I think you would take solace watching the tape the Pacers made some dumb shots like what was that one Nembhardt he made like a 29 footer at one point.

53:04To the right side. It was like two seconds on the... Then he made another one. Then Toppin made a couple. And it was just like, every time they needed a dumb shot to go and it did. But I thought Halliburton was the... I thought he controlled the game offensively. Especially some of the transition stuff, which I think if you're Cleveland, when you have guys out there like, you know, Wade and what's it? And Struess. Like I thought athletically they were kind of trying to make the Cavs pay for it. Are you going to put those shooters out? We're going to go, go, go on you. And the other thing that was interesting to me was Halbert and attacking Allen, you know, who I think is a really good defensive center, but he was like, come on out here.

53:40Let me do my yo-yo thing with you. And he got him a few times. Yeah. That one I watched where I think the league's like letting guys change their pivot foot a little bit more than I ever remember. When you take the five steps backwards to shoot the three. The backwards travel thing, I've never, and I guess it's legal, but I don't understand how that evolved into something. But look, everybody does it. so I'm not even making it specific to anyone. But Halliburton got Allen on one. Yeah, he got Allen on one of those. And then the drive where he delayed it mid-drive and then went, that was straight.

54:11That was two steps. That wasn't even like an NBA two and a half or whatever. That was like a real drive. And it reminded me a bit of when the Celtics, I can't believe you're not doing this and I'm doing it. But Tatum, I think the Celtics preferred Allen against Tatum in a switch because they like Tatum. Look, it's just a lot to ask any seven-foot guy, even as great defensively as some of these dudes are, to hold up. That's what made Barnett so special. It's just like, oh, you're going to switch into me? Like, what are you, nuts? But Tatum likes that matchup because it's also pulling Allen away and everything else.

54:47And I'm with you. I thought Halliburton was in complete control every time he had the ball to the point where it was like, I think you guys could actually do this more. But the balance was so incredible from six guys tonight, including all the starters. it was uh i thought it was just off the charts impressive because then you blow the lead mitchell's going nuts although he can't hit any threes that place is on fire like the announcers are basically saying hey man yeah like greg anthony's like i think this is the loudest building i've ever been in for a playoff game yeah so don't have greg to be on the road and blow well not blow the but you just expect the calves are going to have some kind of fight in them and then still respond and close out um as impressive as a win is like i'm not going to say today but um i think it's just up there with anything else we've seen yeah for this that move mitchell has where he drives right at the guy and he does the high dribble and he carries the ball by his head and then rips it forward and comes in and i was like where have i seen that before and i was thought about it for like an hour it's dwayne wade's move that was the old dwayne wade is that are those the only two guys that had that i'm trying to think did kobe have that i feel like Kobe had everything.

55:53He splits the screen. But did Kobe do that one, that high, bringing the ball up high, and then you're almost like driving the ball down into the guy and then bouncing off. J.R. Ryder, maybe? No, Isaiah Ryder. Changed his name. Yeah, I know. Mitchell was great. You know what I loved about Mitchell in that game? It was the same reason why I felt like he had to be a top five MVP thing. Like, he could feel what was happening, and he's like, I got this, I got this. and he really like legitimately took over the game and swung it for a couple minutes it was it was 80 68 and he drove six straight possessions just drove yeah and with him you know he's probably as good as anybody is splitting the two defenders which is you know when kobe i think kobe's probably the best i've ever seen at it um wade always wanted to reject the screen a little bit more than you expect but with mitchell you don't even necessarily need Sometimes you just screen to try to get people moving around and figure out where the help's going to be all this stuff.

56:52It's not as much as it is hunting the big all the time. But Mitchell, he can beat the guy off the dribble, and then he can beat the help defender. He can split a double. He can do anything that you really ask of him there. But if he's not going to hit his threes, I mean, you don't expect him to shoot that poorly. One for 11. Yeah, if I'm Indiana, I'm psyched because I almost feel like you have to win game one on the road if you're going to win a seven-game series where you don't have the home court. Otherwise, now you're looking at you have to win four out of six, and it's just the math becomes too hard.

57:27It always seems like winning that game one is huge. I think they know they can win there. And I continue to think that's as good of a team as anyone in the East. Boston obviously has a higher ceiling. Cleveland has the pedigree from the season and probably have the best player. I would say Mitchell's slight edge over Halbert. him. But I think Indiana can play with both of those teams. I was talking to my dad today. My dad's like, who would you want to play in round three if we get by the Knicks out of these two? And I was like, we want to play Indiana because we'd have home court. He's like, yeah, good point.

57:58But man, they're scary. And both of those teams have played the Celtics really well and know that they can hang with them and potentially beat them. And for the Celtics, health is going to be the biggest enemy for them these next two rounds, whether they can, on a back-to-back season, try to keep everybody upright and playing big minutes. But I think all those teams are really good. I think Indiana, if Indiana made the finals, I wouldn't be shocked. I'd be a little surprised. I'd be shocked if Golden State made it with how limited their roster is. If they actually put together two more rounds, that would be like playing Quentin Post and coming hoping Moses Moody's making threes and like that would be shocking uh i would not think about indiana like carlisle even though he plays a ton of guys he knows what he's going to do over the course of a game and then he kind of figure out how he wants to close kerr doesn't know who he's going to close fourth quarters with right this late into the season moses moody can't make a shot today uh cross him off game 89 yeah he's turning around going it's like anybody else is andre goddala over the i don't No, he's not on our team anymore.

59:07You know the other thing with Indiana that I think is interesting? Everybody they bring in, I like. Yeah, you like Jairus Walker. I even like him. Yeah, but like Toppin is like, all right. But when Toppin's open in the corner, do you think the shot's going in in the fourth quarter? Because I think it's going in. After that Minnesota run, yeah. When TJ McConnell's driving to the basket, I'm like, I think he's going to score. I think they're a good team. Continue. I thought they were the best value for all the bets before the playoffs because they were like. You have no hesitation then. I mean, Thomas Bryant's out there, right?

59:40They're playing OB top and at the five against the Cleveland options that they have. Five minutes for Thomas. But I'm like. I just think Carlisle was showing off at that point.

59:54He's like, you don't think I could play 11? Watch this. Doesn't that mean? Doesn't isn't Thomas usually the 12th guy?

1:00:05I'll tell you this. If Garland's not healthy, I think Indiana wins the series. And if Garland ends up being healthy, I still think they could win it. I think it's go six or seven. I thought that was a great bet. That was one of my favorite bets. The Indiana plus two and a half. Let's take a, one more break for the podcast. Then we got to talk Clippers, uh, Clippers. So big picture. I think this is the rare series that was decided in game four. You see this sometimes where, uh, sometimes the games, I know it's weird to be like game seven, anyone can win. And the line certainly reflected it. The line was even, then it was minus one, then it ended at nuggets minus one and a half, which I asked FanDuel, like, have we had a game seven line that low?

1:00:47And we really haven't. Like they're usually like three and up for a game seven. So even Vegas was like, we don't know. But I think game four, which we talked about a week ago, the one I went to at the, at the end to it. Um, And the way the Nuggets played in that game, the desperation they had where Jokic, Gordon, Murray, where all of them were like, we have to win this. And they ended up winning on this crazy alley-oop. But the desperation they showed in that game versus the desperation or lack of desperation the Clippers had yesterday was pretty telling. And I don't know what happened. I don't know whether the Clippers wore out.

1:01:27It's an older team maybe playing on Thursday, maybe the Denver altitude. Maybe they kind of deep down knew they missed their shot in this series. But that third quarter, which I asked to rewatch this morning, the first five minutes of the third quarter for the Clippers was one of the most putrid, embarrassing displays of basketball on both ends. I can remember because it was an eight point game. Kawhi hit a three. And then for the next four minutes, they just took a complete shit on both ends. And there's 20 mistakes. It's just awful. And that was it. That was their season over in four minutes, basically.

1:02:05It was really bad. And I don't know what they do now.

1:02:11I thought the Clippers were going to win the series. you know back to that closing part of it's like you realize how bad denver is defensively i didn't like their defensive options and i think we're going to see those exploited again on the perimeter against the okc team that has its shit together certainly more so than the clippers do um you know i watched the third quarter again this morning because you asked me to and you're like what happened to you guys like i i know they were kind of like trying to figure out how to like the done parts that were good defensively clearly he was the guy that was getting exposed as they ignored him offensively yeah i think zoo is a great story this year i thought yokich fought him way better in game seven um than maybe you'd expect there's some really good yokich numbers as far as like defensively what the averages would be for the clippers at the rim yeah against everybody and so you know that's always deals too that's the thing with him is he's at least positioned better and it was funny because you know he's just so bad defensively in that first half of the game they ended up winning but i don't i have a lot on harden if you want to do it i just don't know that any i have stuff specific to the third quarter but it's just crazy to see the cycle of the harden conversation happen all over again it's like who's even what is the debate anymore like at this point i actually have sympathy because It was weird because he had assists in the first half, which kind of shielded some of the stuff that he did that fucked him over in that first half.

1:03:41Like just not running back on defense, being lazy, you know, in a bunch of different ways with specific plays. And then in the third quarter, he's like, I'm taking it up two notches. And he was so bad for five minutes. He played. So I went through it and I was really focusing on him. You knew it was bad. Like you can just tell if you've watched it enough, you can tell. You can see it and go, oh, this is a problem. His first technical shot, his first actual shot of the game was about 55 seconds left to go in the first quarter. He had gotten free throws on that bullshit arm hook thing that he does at about the two minute mark.

1:04:17He had let Watson get behind him after a make. Like you didn't, there was no one else in the area other than just, I'll let a super athletic guy just kind of get behind me because whatever. He played the entire 12 minutes. I counted the number of times he actually got inside the three-point line and I'm not talking like a foot over the line I'm talking like got into the got into the offense of all of their possessions in the third quarter he stepped inside the three-point line three times one was an atrocious lob attempt there was another play where he was on the right side and there was another one where he played for free throws on a fat he was hoping to get fouled on this layup going back against jamal murray and he lost it so all right he doesn't want to shoot fine he doesn't want to move fine i mean he's standing by the and they're killing him on defense right he's standing on the ball arena logo which is like by the coach's box and he he just can't there's one play where kawaii gets totally shut off in the paint he's like at the free throw line he's at the paint denver scrambling on defense and he looks to heart and all harden had to do was take two steps just to get there as a possible option to catch at the three-point line and Harden couldn't even move in from the five feet there there's something that happens with him where his regular season brain and his approach to dissecting everything there is a speed difference there's a process because obviously he look Austin Rivers was just on with me last week saying he's one of the three smartest players he's ever played with and I'll give it to him because you see the moments where he's diagnosing everything that's going to happen and how to help and which matchup makes more sense but there's something that happens to him when he is in these high leverage moments that he's just clearly uncomfortable so it's like okay you don't want to shoot you don't want to move can you at least be positioned somewhere the Aaron Gordon tipping he just lets him just step right in front of him stop boxing out dudes it's not yeah it's not just basketball it's like it's the same fight we just watched from the Warriors you watch and you go where's the fight this is game seven you're going home if you lose this game you realize that right and you just don't see it you saw it in game six game six he came out he was aggressive he was attacking and it was like oh this guy really cares if they win today game seven it didn't seem like he cared that sixer series against the celtics a few years ago he saved their ass a couple of those games early on and as somebody who's been well positioned on this like i remember being on sports center 10 years ago going yeah something's wrong here and and you know people were like oh he had a concussion.

1:06:47It was like that Spurs series. Remember? Yeah. And you're just like, what? You think he has a concussion? So that's, that's what happened. And it's like, okay, what about this year? What about this year? What about the Warriors series? What about the 18 closeout game? What about the 19 closeout? Like, it just goes on and on and on. And I don't, I don't know why it keeps happening, but it's like, okay, so you don't want to shoot like whatever it is, you're not comfortable at least do something else. And I think it's a really good lesson in the first half tonight of where Steph is struggling and nothing is easy and he can't get an open look and it's like okay but there's still a bunch of other ways I can impact this game.

1:07:22He's rebounding he's playing defense he's scrapping he's trying to create stuff. Well is that so our friend Zach Lowe when he wrote his hard and playoff piece that was heading into round two of the Lakers series in 2020. When they won game one. And he had in that piece he had in 15 games facing elimination since 2013. Hard at 90 assists, 79 turnovers, 40 % field goal. The crunch time stuff was really bad, 38%. Nine for 50 on threes in crunch time during that stretch, right? Damn. Well, since then, 20. That's six more playoff exits. These were his elimination game totals. He had 30 points in the Lakers one that they lost.

1:08:10Six turnovers. 22 and 21. He had 11 in the closeout in 22, 9 and 23, 16 and 24 and 7 in this game. But the total shots, he averaged 16 a game, 9.3 assists, 31 for 81 field goals and 9 for 42, three points. So one thing that definitely happens is you can't make threes in these big games. But then if you go further, you know, this is just statistically one of the best offensive players of all time. Like I looked at how many guys have averaged 24 points a game just for their career who have played a thousand, a thousand games or more. and it's 11. It's Jordan, Wilt, Durant, LeBron James, Oscar, Carl Malone, Kobe, Dominique, Steph Curry, Kareem, and James Harden.

1:09:04That's why we talk about this because that's how good the stats are. You go to the playoffs and there's only 16 guys who have played at least 140 games and averaged 22 a game or more. And they're all guys who won titles. Jordan, Durant, West, LeBron, Curry, Hakeem, Kobe, Dirk. Malone's the first one who didn't. Kareem, Shaq, Larry, Wilt, Harden, Wade, Havlicek. So he statistically resides in this area with all these great guys who have all won titles. And yet his legacy is over and over again, the worst possible things happen at the worst time for him. And we could talk about legacy and whether it actually matters because I think what we've learned in the last 10 years is sometimes the legacy stuff doesn't matter as much and people choose to remember or forget what they want.

1:09:58But, you know, Zach was saying four or five years ago that this was the Carl Malone of guards and it's worse now than it was when we were talking about it a few years ago. And this is it. What is he? 35, 36? It's been the league 16 years. It's not going to get better. This is just the legacy. And the Clippers, you combine that with the Clippers and it's unbeatable. I wasn't even, you know, the reason it used to get me more passionate was because what he was doing in the regular season, people were like, you know, putting these numbers up there going like, look at this. I mean, top five MVP, or top three MVP finishes, like five straight years, maybe it was top four finishes.

1:10:38And so when you look at those stretches, you start going like, okay, where's this guy going to end up? And without the ring, you know, we're pretty resistant to let you hang out at that top tier neighborhood. But make the finals. Yeah, look, I think the other thing that we learned through those years too was that that's where the usage part of it comes in is it's an entire season is dedicated to you having the ball every single minute to like absurd historic levels. And you're putting up all these points like that's cool. And you're playing a different team every game versus the same team seven times in a row.

1:11:14Yeah. Is that going to translate? Is that going to be the best thing. I mean, again, I don't mean to bring up the Westbrook stuff because, you know, he was great. He was great in the elimination game. Tons of energy. Good for him. But there was this regular season thing that was happening in those OKC games that once they got to the playoffs, you're like, oh, so now we don't just stand around and wait for him to do something because Westbrook had such an advantage because of how athletic he was. And Harden had the statistical advantage because he was going to make threes he's terrific if you send help he's terrific on the lobs he lives at the free throw line so like those prime years for him would give him the profile of somebody really really special and i figured at some point he would probably just have a great elimination game because he was fucking due like this is over a decade man like that's first series but that was the point that was the point of zach's column in 2020 he's like Why haven't we had our James Harden playoff moment yet?

1:12:15And we've had six playoffs since he wrote that column. I'm mailing you. I'm texting you. Check your text. Even when they beat OKC in 20, before they lost the Lakers in five, he was 4-15, one of nine from three. I just texted you what I'm about to run through. This is the James Harden. This is the levels of the bad James Harden closeout games. I'm going to rank them. James Harden close out terrible games ranked. 2017 Game 6 Spurs, I think, was the worst one ever. This was the one where they lost. It's 2 for 11, right? They lost by 39 at home, 2 for 11. He was 1 for 2 in the first half, field goal-wise, as San Antonio went up by 18.

1:12:59And by the way, Kawhi Leonard did not play. Did not play in the game because he was hurt. The next one is the 2023 Game 6, Game 7, the Boston combo, where they blew game six, lost by nine. He was four for 16, 0 for six from three, five turnovers, one for six in the second half. They lost game seven by 24. He was three for 11 in that game with five turnovers. And you could see from the first drive where he had to make a decision with the ball. You're like, oh, he, I don't think he kind of know right away. Yeah. And this is a series where he had 45 in game one and won the overtime game. Right. He was awesome.

1:13:36When Embiid wasn't even, I think it missed one of those games, right? Yeah. next one 2015 game five warriors round three conference finals they lost by 14 it was two for 11 with 12 turnovers they were down six at halftime it was over five in the second half so you have that i put this is a game they won but 2015 game six clippers round two which they ended up winning by 12 he was five for 20 in the game bench for the comeback yeah the bench for the Comebacks, one of the all-time. Houston's 40-15. They won the fourth quarter. Harden never played. He's one for seven in that game. The game seven this year, two for eight field goals, seven points.

1:14:18Denver goes plus 16 in the third quarter. He's 0-2 field goals in that game. And then there's other ones. There's 22 game six, Miami. They lose by nine. He's 0-2 in the second half field goals. Last year, game six, Dallas, round one. They lose by 13. He's 0 for 6 from 3, 5 for 16. It goes on and on. The point is there's not a lot of good ones. And there's not even a lot of decent ones. And there's no great one. And in fact, probably the most honorable one he has was that year when they played the Bucs when he had the hammy. And they lost an OT. And he was 5 for 17, but he had 22 points. He got to the line.

1:14:57He had 9 assists. Remember he was playing on one leg? That was probably the most admiration I've had for him in one of these games. But look, people are going to remember what they want to remember. But I'm going to remember that this is a guy that you're just like, I'm so mad I didn't bet on Denver in game seven. When you think of the Clippers piece combined with the fact that the Clippers needed Harden to really come through in a big game, he's just never done it. But see, that's what's so crazy is all of these other games, for the most part. I mean, granted, you can argue Embiid's importance in the 23 series.

1:15:29The funniest thing, too, is because I'm looking to the game log, too. when they swept Brooklyn in the game for closeout, he was 4 '18 in 40 minutes. He was, you know, like they didn't need him, obviously, because they swept that Nets team. But I at least felt with this one, because I knew when I had said it, I'm like to pick, and it wasn't like I was picking Harden against Jokic, because really it's about Kawhi, and it's about Zubats, and it's about the team. It's about how great they had been defensively, and it felt like they had really figured some of this stuff out. I'm not, I don't even know who was left to argue with.

1:16:06I mean, you could find somebody. Over the years, there was always people from Houston arguing about this stuff all the time. You're just like, all right, cool, man. Like, whatever. The argument was what he did in game six. He was really, really good in game six, right? That was three days ago. The Denver series, the one Thursday night. Oh, this one. He was really good in that game. So the argument would be like, hey, he was really good in game six. Could it happen again? And the answer was, it can't. okay and i think to be fair to harden you've got to admit that they unloaded the clip in game six and then to turn around playing games yeah he's an older player he's playing in aptitude i get it i would not lead my show with this today because if he were 30 and he were the number one option and get mvp votes then i would be like i was a few years ago but i'm i'm pointing to the stuff that's frustrating because it's like all right if you don't have the offensive part of it doesn't mean you don't have to do any of the other stuff you just decide i'm going to stop moving but i'm again like I said I'm more sympathetic to this time around because he's not the number one option he's not in the MVP conversation I mean he might make all NBA but they really they really needed him though they needed something they needed they needed him a catalyst if he was spent he's played this game long enough he needed to figure out a way to be like okay I'm gonna I'm like dude it looks like he's saving himself the entire time he's out there but be calculated about what your team needs from somebody who's been in this many playoff games and you know you're gonna wonder if Ty Lue is watching this going, do we need him out there for all 12 minutes?

1:17:31Was he going to put in Corey Brewer? Josh Smith? I think Amir Coffey is playing Corey Brewer? Maybe. Ben Simmons is Josh Smith? Oh my God, he just hit a three. Look. Harden's been in the league 16 years, and it's a lot to ask for him to outplay Jokic in game seven. But it leads to a pretty good what do you do conversation if you're the Clippers. Okay, real quick though. You couldn't get through a round one. Go ahead. I have to pretend, but Pop Pop Simmons, you know, you've got your compound, you know, who knows, maybe Montana for you. And the grandkids come to visit. Yeah. and they go pop up tell us about james tell us about james harden what are you going to say to your grandkids good question do it a grandfatherly voice if you could one of the best left-handed players i've ever seen good start uh recreated offensive basketball in a couple different ways was one of the best two guards of the first 25 years of the 21st century, put up huge stats, and his teams were always good.

1:19:00And something would happen to him in playoff series that none of us could really fully understand. And by the way, the same thing could be said about Carl Malone, but at least Carl Malone made the finals twice as the best guy in a finals team. Did I think he was going to come through in those games? I did not. But at least he was able to get that far, and he won some big playoff series, you know, and Harden, you know, Zach wrote that piece six years ago. What's the James Harden playoff moment? We still don't have it. It's, you know, I was thinking about this stuff because I was thinking about in the context of Carmelo, right?

1:19:33Because I think Carmelo has had a nice little resurgence post-career and he, I think there's, he's, I think a popular X star, right? And I think people remember his Knicks era really fondly. He won one playoff series with the Knicks. Yeah. If you go through Carmelo in the playoffs, he starts out with five straight first round exits. And you know I'm a Carmelo fan. I was the one who wrote the Carmelo column about how I felt like he had a chance to be on that level and he was just bad luck with his teams. My homepage. Five straight first round exits. He lost 18 of his first 21 playoff games. In the 2009 playoffs, they won two rounds, lost to LA in six.

1:20:14They lost the first round the next year to Utah. his career record in Denver, playoff record, two for seven in playoff series, 15 and 28 career record, goes to the Knicks, three years, one for three in playoff series, seven and 14 is his record, average 28 a game, then missed the playoffs the next four years. And now Brunson is hot this year and people are like, who's better? Who's the greatest Nick ever, him or Carmelo? Because people can't remember anything. So that, bringing my point back to James Harden, maybe people won't remember 10 years from now. They'll be like, oh yeah, the beard. He was awesome.

1:20:51They're not going to remember any of this stuff because they certainly don't remember any of it with Carmelo. I'm pushing back on this. I agree with Carmelo. I think he's an incredibly likable guy, but Carmelo doesn't have the failures at the highest moments. This is like not making fun of the Broncos before Elway. It's like continuing to make fun of the Bills. He didn't really have any success from a playoff standpoint as a player, but I think now as the years pass, people feel like he was on that LeBron Wade level in some ways. My point is, if you actually go through it, it's pretty grim. But I think you're missing my point, is that failing consistently with this many eyes on you later, those Warriors failures, everybody missing threes.

1:21:29I mean, even though he had 30 in the closeout game at 18. Two for 13 from three. Yeah, I don't know that you felt great about him necessarily in that game. I feel 100 times worse about Harden. I'm just saying, I just wonder with legacy sometimes, when people are like, legacy, legacy, legacy, legacy. We don't even do a good job of remembering what legacies were or what happened in somebody's career. I think Carmelo had a lot of bad luck. Teammates, he pushed his way to the Knicks and they traded all these guys back to Denver. But for the most part, for what his talent was to never make a finals, to be in one round three, it's kind of disappointing in retrospect because I thought he was one of the best guys of that generation.

1:22:07And he's the one that nothing really happened. yeah if you go through the carmelo things i used to argue with nicks fans that like turned on him big time like they ended up really turning on him yeah uh i think it's that pacer series you know speaking of the pacers again but if you go through all of carmelo's playoff exits and i promise like it's i don't know how many people would actually do it more often than not the team they were going up against you weren't going to pick that carmelo's team to beat that team right i think there's a jazz series in there maybe or the records were pretty even series yeah yeah well he was he won three playoff series in his career is 22 for 42 in the playoffs um but that's the thing is i think as the years pass people remember what they want to remember and the twitter videos and the social media stuff becomes as big a part of somebody's legacy as as anything else and i think james will probably be okay big picture because the stats are going to have them look at carl malone you and I were there for the Carl Malone era and now the years pass and people are like, yeah, Carl Malone's stats.

1:23:11Holy shit. Wow. Made the finals twice. It's like, all right, well, you wouldn't want to throw in the ball with 18 seconds left. Just wouldn't have. Game four maybe with Harden. Because that's what I like to remember about Jim. Well, Jim Harden. Down 115, 113. Sixers need it. Harden three-pointer, wins it in overtime. I think he ended up with 42 in that game. Big game, Jimmy. Well, big picture, what do you do if you're the Clippers? What do you do? Well, Kawhi's got two years. Harden has got a $36 million player option. They have Powell and Bogdanovich and Eubanks and Batum for$46 million expiring next year.

1:23:57So they can put contracts together. They don't really have any picks to move. They can put together some contracts and take somebody else's high-salary problem. or somebody who's a little expensive that maybe somebody wants to dump because they're tanking. But, you know, do we run back this team and be like, hey, we lost to the best offensive player since Jordan, basically, in round one and seven. Let's not overreact. Or do you overreact? Are they going to have the option to overreact? And I would say this is just the headline to all of this offseason stuff that I want to get into with you that I know you're excited about, but just in general.

1:24:33When you look at the free agent list, it's terrible okay well it's more of the player acquisition list it's the sure can you talk yourself into zion can you talk yourself into trey young there's eight of those guys yeah it's a bonus hmm what's he what's he up to you're right that's the exciting part of it there's a really exciting version of this summer for the nba but no more often than not like history tells us it's not just all of a sudden every gm's like let's just get wild but this is our changing our dudes and would just keep running back. So the fact that you have Kawhi under contract for two more years at$50 million, everything still kind of revolves around him because I don't even know what the market would be for him.

1:25:13And as you pointed out, they can't just tear this whole thing and necessarily start all over. I don't know if Harden's going to opt out because of the over-38 rule if they extend him. Is he probably thinking in the back of his head this league still owes him money because of the Philadelphia thing? I just think he's got to opt in at the 36. you have to but he could opt out and go fine you can't do that again that he did that the last time no but if he already understands like all right how about i figure out a way to give us because i think last season was you know they were smart about the paul george thing how much money can james hard and give away i'm talking about opting out of the player option of 36 million and then doing a three-year extension and then having the number be less each year so it's like okay james Like, why don't we do it this way?

1:26:00And maybe there's more flexibility. But they've done a good job of kind of resetting the financial restrictions here because depending on, you know, the options and who they want to keep around here. But you seem to be completely either not being with me on this Harden thing at all. Do you not understand? Like, just opting out and taking a less average annual salary for a couple more years? But now I'm in business with James Harden for three more years. I just, I don't know. I don't know. Make a compelling case of wanting to be in a long-term relationship with them last few minutes, but I don't know what their options are.

1:26:32To say the least. I mean, we just went through it for eight minutes. So now I have to bring it back for three years. I would do 36 million. If you opt in, okay, let's see how it goes. And then I have him. I have all these expirings and I can get a little frisky either before the season or heading into February because the best thing that happened to them is Kawhi and how good Kawhi was, I think, the last three months of this season, combined with Zubats. I had the foundation of something and I have some flexibility. And they have one of the... But it's a front office you and I both really respect.

1:27:05Like, I feel like they're going to figure out they have options. I don't think they have a lot of options, though. But that doesn't mean you have to give James Harden $100 million for three... Like, we'll shave$5 million off your deal, but... I wasn't talking about$100 million. What would you do? if he's going to opt out of his 36 then you're talking about like those deals like what CJ McCollum did some other people where it's like I'll opt out what if he says I'll opt out I'll do 3 years 70 million now you have my attention that's what I'm talking about would he do that do you think he would what do you think he signs for after another year he'll be 37 that summer Or do you think he's making 30 million a year?

1:27:54You're asking me to figure out the motivations of somebody who's passed up two giant max deals over the last six years to take less money each time. But we know I did it in Philly. Yeah, no, I get it. Well, the bigger question for me is you're in the West. You're in the same division or the same conference as OKC, who's just a fucking nightmare. You're in the same conference as Minnesota, who's a fucking nightmare. You have Wemby and San Antonio with these draft picks and cap space. You have Luka and the Lakers. Like, he gone through. It's a nightmare conference. And you just, and Jokic, who just beat you.

1:28:31I don't know. You're no man's land. But the owner's, like, the owner just flew 200 fans to Denver for Game 7. Like, he's not, he's going to think they have a chance. On the way back. Why was there more social media from the fight? Just silence. I want to read that on The Athletic. The flight home.

1:28:56Like, are we landing? Maybe it's a documentary. We're landing in Barstow, by the way. I think it's one of those guys. You have to find your own way home. Denver reports over there. So you're just, you're, you're trying to do 370 for Harden. I mean, maybe that's, maybe that's nuts, but like Harden next year, 37 coming off the 36 million. Who knows? Does he look at it as like, I'm going to get another$40 million guaranteed on the books right now. Maybe he thinks, hey, that's ridiculous. I can do another three for$75 after that, keeping this high average annual for this one. The chances are is that he's on the team.

1:29:34Kawhi's on the team. So that's, whatever this is, it's like$80 plus million with those two dudes. They don't have a young player that you're really excited about that maybe can entice a vet to say, I want to be traded there because it's LA and it's a great coaching staff and front office. Great ownership. Good arena. There's a lot of stuff about it that feels really attractive for the next guy that's mad, but it's not a great group on the court to be mad enough to be like, I'm going there. If you had to do a pie chart of this would be better next year, this would be the same or this would be worse.

1:30:07I think the, ooh, this would be worse is 60 % of the pie, right? Because you basically have to get another healthy Kawhi season. I have no idea how many of those are left. you know, you're never getting a better Zubat season. You got Norm Powell. You might get the same. You might get the same. You're not getting a better season. I mean, unless you wanted to trade zoo, can you get creative with a zoo norm? Zoo's like, I thought it's weird. His stats went down as the series went along, but I really respected how he went at Jokic. Yeah. I don't know where the rebounding was for him. I thought he was a better rebounder in the regular season than he was in the playoffs, But I just think, I think when you play yokage for two straight weeks, I think it starts to break your brain after a while.

1:30:54If you're actually, you're in charge of defending him and stopping him. Can you imagine that? The response, but just like going to sleep and being like, yeah, I got to play yokage again tomorrow. That's like three hours sleep. He's lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Fucking A.

1:31:15Next team for what do you do? so basically we agree though on the clippers like you didn't have some magic crazy scenario here because when i was doing it out this morning i'm like i don't really know how different the crazy scenario is do you take a big contract from somebody that somebody is like kind of excited to to get off of like whatever this year's version of brandon ingram is and brandon ingram didn't get traded do you talk yourself into a brandon ingram type somebody who's available and expensive you know that's the question for me I don't know who that is yet because we haven't seen first of all the playoffs have to shake out a certain way somebody might tail out in the second you know in the second round who knows the Pistons get really interesting because they have Hardaway and Schroeder and Beasley all as unrestricted free agents they have Tobias on a 26.6 expiring they have Ivy coming back they have Harris they do and you could talk me into hey let's just keep the trains moving the thing I would recommend them not doing is overreacting to how the playoffs went and doing new longer big deals with Beasley and Hardaway and Schroeder and being like we have our nucleus I would go the hired gun route for those but you know this is an interesting KD destination nation so let's talk about it my um you know we were talking about hey how do you feel about the rockets right what's what's the grade you give them and it sucks right now but the season was a success uh detroit you gotta feel great about this and i think they battled with new york to even a higher level you know there's a couple things where this breaks maybe to game seven so i thought they competed to a level that i didn't know that they were going to get to against the Knicks and I'm totally with you like I think because of the free agent class being so bad but then you know are the Nets going to sign Malik Beasley to a huge contract and then after the Nets you look at who has available cap space Detroit has cap space but with Cade's new deal because he's going to make all NBA yeah it's going to be 19 million in cap space as opposed to 24 Chicago's got 20 million in cap space Memphis has like 17 and a half there's like five teams that have between 15 and 12 million and then you kind of run out of team so you start going okay if we know something about this year with Detroit it's that spacing around Cade is really really important and as much as we all love Dern he's not gonna provide that spacing ever so you really have to make sure rotationally around that you're doing those kinds of things but Beasley's season this year I'd be scared to death of what that price tag ends up being because another team may just say screw it let's throw him a crazy contract because he was so good this year from three when I don't even know I don't necessarily trust him.

1:34:07So Hardaway was a bigger number. I'd have to keep one of those guys. They can get creative because of their own cap space and how they want to structure those contracts. But Hardaway was an old contract, so he was like$16,$17 million range. He's not saying that again. He's now a$6 to$8 million player, I think, in the market. I'd rather pay him$6 to$8 than pay Beasley what I think might be a scary number from the one other team that goes, ah, we've got this cap space, so let's just use it on somebody and look at all the threes that he made. The biggest part of this is that Ivy's going to come back.

1:34:37And it's easy to forget that Ivy in 30-game shot 41 % from three. He was terrific. And I think in the playoffs, it shows, as tough as Schroeder was, and he was big for them, and he fights like crazy because clearly he takes the Brunson thing personal. Ivy being a second on-ball creator and getting his own at his size and his athleticism, I think that's actually going to solve some of the problem, especially if that three-point shooting holds up. So we know Cade needs spacing. I would not be in any kind of hurry to mess with this. Houston, I think, is on a different timeline because they have all these different guys that they still probably don't even know who they want to make decisions on.

1:35:15Maybe they do, but there's not necessarily enough assets for Detroit to have to get as creative as Houston could potentially get. I would really just be steady here if I were Detroit, making sure I don't let all of the shooting leave. But I think I'm probably going to be scared off by the Beasley price tag. So Phoenix calls and says, you know, Tobias and Thompson and Fontecchio actually works in the trade machine with KD and throw us some picks and let's start talking. You have the meeting? You have the internal meeting with the rest of the front office trying to figure it out? You definitely have a meeting.

1:35:51KD, one year left. You have to have a meeting even if a man is asked for in the Houston one. I'm saying, do you have a small meeting with your inner circle? or do you keep it open and invite a bunch of people? What is it again? Do you have a catered lunch for the meeting? Little Caesars. Yeah, probably get a deal. What is it again? Fontecchio, which obviously gets me excited. Just Tobias Fontecchio, but Thompson would be the big piece. And then you'd throw a bunch of picks. You'd throw a bunch of picks. Three firsts and two swaps, whatever the fuck it is. For three years of KD. Then you bring in KD for 50 plus million.

1:36:29You'd sign him for the two-year extension. So it's 150 million commitment. I personally wouldn't do it. I would just keep the, because I don't think they're going to win the title or come close with any sort of trade. The only one that I think you really have to think about is if they could get Giannis and it's a mortgage to farm thing and basically everybody's available except Cade. Like Durant and Thompson are in it. Tobias' contract is in it. Fantecchio is in it. Picks are in it. You're just like, we're going all in on Giannis and we're going to have a Giannis Cade franchise. And we'll be able to fill it around.

1:37:06We'll be able to fill around those two guys and actually try to win the title. You could have the Tigers too. I mean, if you're talking about Cade and Giannis on pick and roll lobs. Yeah. You've probably thrown in some Tigers, maybe a couple of Red Wings. But yeah, I don't. The Durant thing really hinges more on like, hey, what's the history here? is he super happy everywhere he goes? So I think I'd be a little cautious if I were Detroit. You know, granted, we're talking about a team that just won their first playoff game since 2008, which seems just impossible. So we agree. Take your time, Detroit.

1:37:46Like maybe even target February as, let's see where we are in February and maybe we have some expirings, we have some stuff. I would not overpay Beasley. I'd probably go two years for him. Maybe like a 30 for two. 30 for two. Maybe Hardaway, two for 16. Try to do something like that. You bring Ivy back.

1:38:14Would you do...

1:38:19Hmm. I was looking at this. You have another trade for me? Yeah. Is there... No, I'm not even going to do it. I'm not going to do it. This is stupid. Can you give me the player you were thinking about? Is it Jalen? Jalen Green? Jalen Brown? Yeah. I'm always nervous if you're going to suggest a Jalen Brown trade.

1:39:08The app is on an 18 .3 expiring. Finney Smith's on a 15.4 expiring. This is all next year. Then Reeves is 14 and then 15. So they have some flexibility. Kept a couple picks. They clearly need a center and a rim runner. My question would be, would you trade Reeves? If you could get a real, some sort of rim protector. Somebody like a richer man's Miles Turner in that range. would you trade Reeves or do you feel like you could build around Luca Reeves and 41 year old LeBron and then there's something there to try to win multiple playoff rounds the first thing's going to be LeBron's number um because depending on now granted he took just a sliver to keep them away from the most restrictions and then there's a bunch of people being like see it's like all right well and i'm drafted his son and gave him a four-year no-cut contract right uh if he stays at around 50 million they're going to be i would say on the practical things that would happen here they're going to be six seven million below the first apron um so if that puts him as his tax team, I don't know what kind of big you're signing for a$5 to$6 million tax mid-level.

1:40:50You know what season it is though right now? It's ridiculous trades on social media for centers they'll never get. It's like, they should get Bam out of bio. It's like, oh, cool. Well, they're a little emboldened right now. I mean, basically, Jokic, once the coach was fired, was in the Lakers jersey and now Giannis has been in one. And as much as you like to say. Yeah. uh like i don't even know how they get miles turner i don't know how they get anybody i mean well how they get somebody is if if you have the two expirings i mean they could the thing is with all the expirings they can work toward any kind of number right so could they get some bonus okay but what what is going out that's exciting because this is where it comes back to the austin reeves thing which i don't think they would want to do because he's really good and he's 26 years old but if they thought okay what could we do to shake things up like as a bam like would you do austin reeves for bam just in a vacuum no if you were the lakers no i wouldn't do it if i'm miami i'm not doing that in a million years why am i trading bam for austin reeves i'm just trying to see where your head's at with this i was thinking sabonis i thought was an interesting one because if I'm Sacramento, no.

1:42:05All right. God. If I'm Sacramento, I put together this team that clearly doesn't work. I'm paying some bonus, more money than he's worth for somebody who's basically, if he's your most expensive guy, you're going to be a slightly better than 500 team. You're probably not going to have a huge playoff upside and you're going to get torched defensively unless you put the perfect amount of guys around him. And could you give them a get out of jail free card with that Sabonis contract? Be like, we'll give you all expirings and a couple firsts and you can get out of Sabonis. I don't know if the Kings are at that point with that contract yet.

1:42:46They might not be.

1:42:50Look at the contract. It is nasty. It's 43-6, 47, and then 50. Yeah. it's a lot okay i'll tell you this paying lebron 52 million dollars when he's 41 years old is fucking crazy that's a lot of money but if you get the year you just got from him he's worth it i mean i know the playoffs didn't close the way everybody expected i think that's another reason of like even talking about houston golden state like you can sit here and make fun of oh look at this lakers group they didn't even get out of the first round this first round was all of this stuff was on the table and granted it was five games and it was yeah fell over the course of the five games they weren't even close i think it's a bad draw for the lakers now that we saw it actually play out even though nobody felt that way very few people felt that way at the beginning of it i don't really know i mean you know we keep writing these teams out like what would you do what would you do i think they need to figure out a way to try to get cheap rim runners like a baseball team that doesn't love their starters three four and five and then just all of a sudden you're like al lighter still around like you signed you signed this guy like the walker kessler shit doesn't make a ton of sense um i don't think dalton connect gets walt gets gets kessler done um you know well i was thinking with utah who has too many guys plus a bunch of picks and if they floated austin reeves to utah what's the reaction like that's one where you could get a three for one and a four for one and picks That feels weird.

1:44:19Austin Reeves. They already have Filipowski. We could put Austin Reeves, Filipowski, and Kessler. Could they Hoosier it out if they get Cooper Flagg? And Markkinen? And we could have Cooper Flagg? I think Reeves on that contract, they could 14. Just Will Hardy going teams on the floor.

1:44:39I think Reeves at 14 and 15, when you throw expirings with him, you could get some really good players at that point. I don't know if you could get BIM out of bio. You're with me, though. It's an automatic no from Miami, as much as we love BIMs. Yeah, automatic. Okay. Automatic. Can you think of anything where, if you're the Lakers, you go, now I have to think about this a little bit. Embiid? That's something the Lakers would, like, traditionally do. Talk about get-out-of-jail-free cards. I think the Sixers do it in a second, by the way. We'll give you all of our expirings and a first, and we'll get you out of the Joe Embiid business.

1:45:24Here's your get out of jail free card right now. You don't have to deal with them anymore. I heard Embiid was available at the trade deadline. It'd be irresponsible to not even ask. Yeah, oh yeah. Come on. But I mean, like. Oh, we're getting on Hoops Hype tomorrow. Yeah, baby. Hoops Hype. It may have been a would you? but i think this happens all the time so it shouldn't be something that's that big of a deal we're getting so aggregated but i don't know that you're doing your job how are you doing bobby barack again we can get aggregated by them too let's try to get aggregated i think barack will pick that up post are you talking about obama no i'm talking about a bead you think it's surprising that that Darryl would potentially float the idea I just hadn't heard that I was excited about the info I think Darryl talks to everybody all the time I think he calls people constantly and they're like fuck Darryl Tommy Shepard's like I'm not in charge of the Wizards anymore stop bothering me fuck yeah so alright that's my favorite Lakers move all their expirings and two first round picks and they get Embiid.

1:46:44So not Reeves. Reeves isn't in it. Oh, Reeves isn't in it. He's not in it. You don't even get Reeves. We don't know if Embiid's ever playing again. I'm like, I'll take Embiid. You can have one of our first-round picks and here's a bunch of expirings. I think what they need to do is figure out a way to, and I don't know what's going to happen with all the decisions here, but if they're below the tax, can they use the non-experience taxpayer mid-level is is a decent you know it's a decent it's like 14 million so could you go after like I know nobody likes Clint Capella anymore he's 31 years old you put Clint with Luka does it work now his numbers decline some of the advanced stuff decline he also played less it also felt like Atlanta was waking forever to have Okongwu be the guy and clearly he balances them out a little bit better offensively so maybe clint isn't worth it at this point uh i don't know when was the last time you got super excited watching clint capella play basketball was in the last three years jackson hayes catching lobs from luke in the beginning was exciting the lakers fans they're like unlock jackson this is awesome what about jonathan isaac is there a jonathan isaac but i don't know if orlando wants to be in the gabe vincent business What about Mark Williams?

1:48:04Are we kindling? Batase. I'd be calling about Batase. I'd be. What about DeAndre Ayton? Now we're talking. 35 now. Now we're talking. DeAndre Ayton. So a couple of expirings. Do you think when they shop Rui around all summer while pretending that they really like him, they're just hoping nobody watches the rebounding in game five? he's been, he was really good for us this year. Uh, can we see the tape of game five? It's been destroyed. We don't have it. Um, is there a, is there a Rui? Cause there's nothing that screams Lakers more than. I love the DeAndre idea. LeBron can teach him how to win.

1:48:49Right. Right. So all this talent still really young. Yeah. He's at 35 million. So you load up Rui, you throw in a pick, maybe a little Dalton connect action in there. Dalton. right so you start going okay we're a trade machine right now what's the point right why does portland want ruey well maybe they don't want ruey but is there some version of this they're they're grabbing an asset of getting somebody out culture-wise change of scenery the change of scenery pieces for deandre ayton in a lakers uniform alone those are going to writers are going to have beach houses people clicking on those fucking things lebron has wanted to play with somebody like this for his entire career right ayton's never played with Luka and Luka's never played with a stretch five like this.

1:49:33Luka still remembers how good Aiton was in their one playoff series. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Poor Zingas, yeah. Made it to an NBA finals. It was too soon. Peyton, you know. So you're saying Rui? I feel like they could, I think they could keep Rui. I think they could get Aiton for Maxi Kleba, Gabe Vincent, and another contract and throw a first-round pick. and Portland's super happy to dump that last eight in here. So just a first round pick. Yeah. And I think I'd even say top four protected. Great. We sobbed the Lakers. Milwaukee Bucks, I have no solution for. I really wanted to come out here and say something provocative and smart and forward thinking, and I don't know what it is.

1:50:21But the thing is, if Giannis says, I don't want to be traded, then do you trade him? What if Giannis says, I'm happy here. I don't want to leave Milwaukee. I don't trade him. I don't take any calls. Yeah, I don't either. My goal would be to keep Giannis. The forgotten zone of this league is, okay, we're screwed. And you laid it out perfectly last week. When you really dug into how bad the future draft stuff is for them. So when you're married to having none of that coming in, then you can't. No one ever wants to hear it. but there's a lot of like honest conversations where teams believe it or not are opening the season going all right we have Giannis and we'll probably win like 45 to 48 games and that's probably who we are but at least we have Giannis I mean hell Atlanta's been doing that with Trey this whole time Charlotte's going to keep doing it at least Giannis is one of the best players in the world so if Giannis doesn't want to go anywhere that's enough for me and I just like all right hopefully we can get competitive and then one year's a short amount of time who knows what happens the problem is for Giannis and look this might be a league-wide thing but you know how we always talk about like oh this guy likes this guy and that guy wants to go there and Glenn Davis is now in Orlando because of this and yeah they brought in Jarrett Jack because Chris Paul likes him like all of these things that we used to talk about granted it was the big three in Miami and then everybody trying to figure out how to team up and all that stuff it feels like that doesn't necessarily happen as much anymore so there's more animosity than we've had in a while but Jokic isn't going to be somebody who's going to be coming up through the AAU ranks and having those relationships with the other stars I mean every star who's like on the fence about sticking around should want to go play in Denver but I don't know that he has the relationship with other players I think the same goes for Giannis and I just don't know a norm of this league it doesn't feel like it's as normal as guys being like hey let's like Paul George and Kawhi and all that kind of stuff I don't I don't know that we have that as much anymore.

1:52:14It doesn't mean it can't happen again, but if Giannis is just happy there, then that's enough for me if I'm running the bucks. I don't care. Yeah, I know we're not going to win the title next year. He'd have to ask out. And even if he asks out, I'm not trading him unless I can get a trade I'm pumped about. And that's it. I'm not going to give you away for 60 cents on the dollar because you don't want to play for us anymore. You signed the extension. Let me try to figure out a good trade for us. Can't figure it out. Let's take it in this season and try to figure it out in the December-February range once eight teams are unhappy with how their season is going and then we'll do the trade.

1:52:49But you have our word at some point we're going to do it just keep playing hard and we'll figure it out. And then you kind of keep your fingers crossed that Dame can come back from Achilles surgery in five months. Dame sets the record for coming back. That's they're you know they made two trades where they gave up an inordinate amount of picks for one player. because they wanted to win the title and they won the 2021 title. They couldn't win it with Dame, but they traded a shitload of draft picks. Like, this is what happens. If you're mortgaging all this stuff to win now, everyone forgets that part.

1:53:26It's like, oh man, they got to get Giannis some help. It's like, they did. They made two massive trades and gave away a bunch of assets to try to get him help. Now they're here. This is how it works. This is how the league works. And they have Kuzma on the books. well that one neither of us agreed with because we watch basketball i don't know how anybody could watch basketball this season and thought kuzma was gonna uh make a difference that's that's a huge i mean he's like 23 million in these two years the only other one is 43 over the next two yeah the heat got knocked out and i don't really know what the heat do either where you have uh you have a bam hero wiggins foundation right wiggins wiggins he's still there all their guys are a contract you want to go through a tough book here it's brutal hero and bam fine the fact that you're only going to be paying them i think before the bam extension kicks in here or you know because it's going to jump up he's going to be like a 50 million dollar a year player hero got barbecued in the cleveland series he did but his shot making it's really good he's pretty special maybe he should be a six man uh he should be a third option i would say but you know sometimes we look at guys He's like, okay, cool.

1:54:36It'd be awesome if we had two dudes that were better than him and he would be our third option. Bam is not enough offensively as much as we all love him. They're on the books next year. They've got Wiggins for 28 and then a player option, probably going to pick that one up, 30.1 million in 26-27. Terry Rozier's 26.6. Duncan Robinson, one of the few remaining early termination options, just at 19.8 million. Kyle Anderson's on the books for nine. So they have a bunch of contracts of dudes that probably are not in demand. The butler thing murdered them. Unless somebody said, I am so mad. I have one year left.

1:55:19I'm only going there. Why are you going there? Because you love Bam and Tyler Hero? The only reason I wouldn't count them out is just because they've pulled rabbits out of the hat over and over again over the last 15 years. Every time we felt like rock bottom, then they'd make some, even the Butler thing, which was one of the craziest, uh, transaction sequences in the recent history of the league. And they pulled it off and I still don't know how they got anyone to take Hassan Whiteside. I still don't understand it, but this time it seems bleak because, um, I thought, you know, that the, the one guy we didn't mention that I wonder is out, out there in some form who I think would be considered a real asset is Jaron Jackson if Memphis is handcuffed at all by being able to spend as much money as it's going to take to keep him.

1:56:13If he makes All-NBA this year and different triggers come in, I just, just monitoring that one.

1:56:25I'd be happy to be in the Jaron Jackson business even with his limitations. Well, I really started to like him even more this year, even though I know you get mad about his fouls, but you should get mad about his fouls. The rebounding makes me madder than the fouls. Can you get nine rebounds? I would say down 30 to OKC and running Jaron Jackson post-ups clear out. Like, I don't really know what's going on there, but I mean, that series is such a mess. I forgot to give you one Giannis situation. if OKC's if OKC somehow lost this round or next round huge upset loss would they would Presti who by the way has only made the finals once and lost the finals 4-1 and has not been back since even though we all agree he's one of the best GMs of this century but at some point he hasn't won titles or even finals games I wonder if he would just be like fuck it and do like a giant Giannis thing.

1:57:27And if you're Giannis and you could go to OKC and be on this incredible team, like that's a team that's actually built to make a 160 cents on the dollar trade. They want it to. Yeah, I do wonder about that because I would say that that's kind of the lingering, you know, as much as Bucks fans hate all the Giannis trade stuff that's gone on forever. And then he signs an extension. I mean, this has been going on for a long time with the Giannis speculation. And then sometimes when you hear the speculation, you wonder, like, have I heard anything specific? Is there anything new that sounds like it's very specific?

1:58:00Or is it everybody just repeating everybody else that thinks, like, eventually he's going to ask out? And it's been going on for such a long time. Again, in this time, he actually signed an extension. So Bucks fans, much like Cavs fans with the Mitchell stuff, because they were hearing the same shit from all of us over and over again. It's like a nice little victory lap. We were right. Hey, guess what? We were right about Mitchell. The OKC one is, like, should it matter? I know it's kind of back to the beginning conversation about Houston. Should it matter on where they're at in the playoffs? Oh, I think if OKC doesn't win this year, they have to really think, we're really close.

1:58:37How did we not win the title? We were favored. All the math said we were going to win the title. If they get bounced in one of these next three rounds, I think that's the biggest overreaction team, even though Preston doesn't overreact. I think you'd have to really think about it. What's the point of having all these assets and all these picks if you're not going to cash them in at some point? This isn't blackjack where you just get to stack chips. At some point, you have to try to win the title. They have the best chance this year, but if Giannis is on the table and they can make a run at him and they're bummed out because they couldn't get it done in the playoffs when it mattered.

1:59:16I don't know. I still think my bet would be in Houston. If I had to bet on a team, I think the Houston thing makes so much sense in so many different ways. I think it's a good spot for him. I think it's good for everybody. That's the trade that makes sense to me. Is there a trade built around Chet or Jalen Williams and all the draft picks that you'd have to sift through which ones you thought were the more valuable ones? if you were Horst where the bus just held. Well, you insist on Chet, right? If you're Milwaukee, you're like, Chet has to be in it. I'm not even discussing this unless call me back when Chet's in the trade.

1:59:54Wait, if you're Presti or Stone, what's a quick or no? Them asking for Chet or asking Stone and Houston for a man? Presti, yeah, I think a man's a quick or no. Because Chet's been hurt twice already. He's had two injuries already. Okay. Right? Yeah, I think you're right. The injury thing, I can't throw a counter argument to that. You're right. He's also one of those guys when you watch him run around, you're like, ah. I don't know. Did you watch that third quarter against Memphis? No, and listen, you don't have to sell me on Chet. It's just, you know, he said two injuries is 23. So that part does scare me a tiny bit.

2:00:34So I think when you ask me quicker now, I just think Thompson's like, I'm not trading that dude. Shut up. Hang up. But if I'm OKC, I'm trying to. Now, I'm assuming I've had some sort of terrible playoff loss. Probably trying to start with, how about Hartenstein? And then, how about, you seen Kaysom Wallace? He's really good, huh? You hear Rasulo talking about Usman Jang? See our lottery pick? We had the seventh pick in the draft. Like anyone in the lottery? Yeah, you're moving that way. But that's the thing. If Giannis is actually going to be traded, good people are going to be in the trade. You don't just get to not put a good person in the trade.

2:01:14You know? It's a thing. Yeah, but when you were talking Houston, you're like getting to meet Shingun, Jalen Green. It's like, can I have any of the other guys? So you would do Jabari, Shingun. Now I don't know what the salaries are. I think Shingun, Jabari, Eason, and Jalen Green, at least three, but maybe even all four are all in the trade, right? if I'm not getting Thompson then I get everybody else that's where we're starting just keep giving me dudes we gotta wrap it up do you have any you wanna do a Bill Belichick update quick

2:01:54yeah I have a small small piece of of stuff here yeah let's hear it you know why don't you start though cause I gotta look up um I got to make sure I got my facts straight here. I was trying to think that maybe with coaches, maybe it just doesn't end well. And that's how this usually goes with guys who are super powerful and, and fly a little too close to the sun and are used to controlling their circumstances, which becomes harder and harder as you get older and you have to stay on top of the ball that maybe this goes worse more times than we realize. And when we're talking about, I can't believe this is happening to Belichick, maybe we shouldn't be surprised that it's happening to somebody in their mid seventies, that they're making some bad decisions because we see this in every aspect of life.

2:02:47It's like, what's he doing with this girl? It's like, well, you know, this is how life goes. I don't know that I care about the personal part of it all that much because I really do kind of want to like leave people alone, you know, on that part of it, even though we spent our entire careers talking about people. But this has leaked into the actual running this UNC program in a variety of ways, which is how it became a bigger story. And also that interview was so crazy. And for somebody who has been so intensely private, where you just know nothing about him ever. And then for that to happen the way it happened, it's just really weird.

2:03:30He would have been a top five draft pick of, I would never expect anything like this to happen to this person. Yeah, that's all true, too. And I think when you probably look at him evaluating players and being like, what am I bringing into the locker room? Right. He didn't want free thinkers. He wanted people that were single minded. I mean, when you played for the Patriots, you weren't supposed to live in fucking Boston. Like that was thought of as a bad thing. If you were on the Patriots, you lived in Boston. No further than Attleboro. Yeah. You're going to stay right here. in no offense that part of the state but providence too far so this is if he were evaluating bill the person is bill he'd be like what what's going on here i remember stoops telling me the story about gronkowski where belichick called about gronk before the draft yeah and he was like uh what's this guy an asshole that was it he was like no man he's he's the best he's the best and you know look you picked him hall of fame super bowls later like it all worked out but bill always was very big on prioritizing like i don't want any extra shit yeah so if he were a booster with those values that he would take from his time running an NFL team, if he were a booster running a college football program and the money guy behind it, and then was evaluating the situation of the head coach being involved in something like this, like Bill would be the first guy to be like, this is all stupid shit.

2:05:04We are giving people all the, like the reason his brilliance was so - Intentional distractions. Right. To think how simple his brilliance was, and even in the times I didn't like it where he just couldn't answer a question because he knew if he answered a question, it just opened up another question. And then he's like looking around at the world going, why do you answer any of this stuff? So I may not have always loved it. And again, it wasn't like I was a reporter who had to deal with any of this stuff, but there'd be times I didn't love it. I didn't love some of the press conferences where there were really serious issues.

2:05:33And it was like, you're going to play this card again. Like you want to be, but I admired the tactic because it was actually really smart. It was like, I remember when the feeding the monster book came out, Felger and I, Felger had his radio show at the ESPN affiliate, right? Yeah. And so I come in and it was one of the funniest. So it's Seth Mnookin, I think was his name, the author. He did Feeding the Monster. It was like this all access thing that John Henry wanted because everybody was jealous of Moneyball. So Felger has Theo Epstein ready to go. It's the big Feeding the Monster interview.

2:06:03I'm powered through the book. I've written out all my questions because I filled them with Felger for a month. And I promise there's a point to this story here. I know you love these long winded ones. So I show up to that radio station because I didn't really work. There was just this month that I was there and you know, me all prepped up, all excited. And I think the world of Theo, so I'm excited to even talk to him. And Felger looks at me and he goes, we've been mapping out the interview. I don't think we're going to have time for you to say anything. And I was like, great. Like, but it was Felger's show.

2:06:35It wasn't mine. Sounds like Schrager during the NFL draft. We're going to throw it to you and Schefter again. just smile for a minute by the way get up just absolutely dissing the the combat odds for schrager schrager's a big dude they had like schefter as the favorite in some royal rumble and schrager had the lowest odds and i felt like six two yeah he's a big guy so anyway um so felger looks at me says you we're not gonna have any time for you and i'm like oh okay fucking awesome of course you know back then insecure and pissed and but it was it was the right thing it was felger's fucking show and he wanted to map out the interview he wanted to control all the the timeline of things so we crack the mics we bring in theo we're back from commercial and felger's like all right you know theo i've seen gm or whatever he was okay so you know on page 14's what really jumped out feels like you know i haven't read the book he fucking killed he ruined felger's entire plan because he thought he would at least know when the book was about him.

2:07:37And Theo just stopped him and was like, yeah. And then Felger's looking at me like, you got anything? Do you have anything in there for somebody that's not going to acknowledge that the book even exists? And that's Belichick's playbook. All right. So that part is really interesting because it completely contradicts everything that he's valued. The last thing that I would say about this, and this is the part that always pisses me off, is whenever Bud Selig used to do this constantly, people be like, hey baseball it's kind of losing momentum and by the way all of those people were right what's going on with baseball what's going on baseball and bud would point the tv deals like look what we renewed for look at the growth on this tv deal versus the last rights deal we did conference commissioners all over the country do it every single time they re look how great of a job i'm doing look at what our new deal was compared to what our last deal was belichick in this email actually says i will say again quote that i want this book to be presented as a look at my professional life and how I did my job on the way up to and as the leader of an organization that grew from a 500 million dollar franchise to an eight billion dollar organization that played in 10 Super Bowls.

2:08:38Super Bowls. Awesome. If you're suggesting that your run in New England increased the value of the team from 500 million to eight billion, then what the fuck is Brady worth? And by the way, you were awesome. Maybe you've done it better than anybody else. No one would ever deny that. But that way of thinking is if you have as much to do with the value of a franchise in the NFL as the TV rights growth does. Like, that's insane. That's delusional to think that. Like, you write that and be like, oh, wow. Are any of the other NFL franchises worth a lot more than they were in the 90s? Well, of course, the answer is yes.

2:09:14That's a really... Even the Bengals are worth more. Yeah. Like, that's a very... Most people may not understand that. We understand it. People listening to this podcast understand that. but to get to that kind of closing statement of like this team was worth 500 million before me and now it's worth 8 billion dude you were awesome you did it again at a level that is unsustainable in the nfl but the value has way more to do with tv rights than it does you there's one other level to that point it explains a lot about what happened from the mid 2010s on with brady and belichick because everyone was like patriot way patriot way we're just about Super Bowls, but there was clearly some sort of ego thing.

2:09:53And it's two guys that really understood their place in history in a whole bunch of different ways. And it was always like, we're in this together. There's no credit, but the credit thing was a big part of it. And Garoppolo's in there and he's really thinking about, I never wanted to believe it. I never, when Rick or Sham and people like that were reporting about it and I was like, fuck that. I want to hear this. Stop trying to cause trouble. But there clearly was a ton of trouble. And I think when you win, you win titles like that we've seen this over we saw with the last dance documentary you know and you saw the kraus jordan you saw jordan pippen who no longer talk they hated kraus um the only one that really the kraus stuff at the end is crazy yeah they seem to get like phil jackson but then you look at the kobe shack stuff with phil jackson and phil jackson's writing books the credit grabbing that happens when you've had real success is surprising because the rings should be the best example of how much success you've had, but for whatever reason.

2:10:50So anyway, I think that really explained to me why Brady didn't end up with the Patriots because what everybody was writing about and doing the sports radio topic of who's more responsible for all the Super Bowls, Belichick or Brady, and the right answer was always both. They needed each other and that's the answer. But clearly they both kind of thought each of them was more responsible than the other. So when I read that paragraph, I thought, man, Belichick must have been so pissed when Brady had that Tampa season where he won the title. Because clearly he does give a shit about all this stuff.

2:11:22And all the media he did last year, the fact that he's writing this book, some of the documentaries, we always thought, no, he doesn't care. He doesn't care. He clearly really cares. And so I read that same email and I'm like, oh, he really did. He really does have a massive ego about all this stuff that he would say that. It made me wonder, too, if he was thinking he's owed more. When you start throwing around dollar figures. I mean, when Kraft bought the Patriots, they were ready to move to St. Louis, and they didn't. He kind of saved the team. They were the black sheep of the local sports scene.

2:12:02And then Brady and Belichick, I think both of them probably built it up. But we saw this happen when LeBron was in Cleveland, right? Cleveland was like a top four franchise and all the Forbes list. And then he left and went to Miami and they were like 28th. And then he came back in 2014. It's like top five franchises and Cleveland's in there. So, you know, you get the right asset and it does make the franchise. But I'm not, I'm not, I'm not diminishing his value, but I'm, I'm talking. I know what your value of all these franchises. It has way more to do with television rights. But do you, even the accomplishments, but you don't think he put that in there?

2:12:39partly because of what Kraft did with that dynasty Apple thing. Yeah, that's 100%. When Kraft's just rewriting history as the three of us, that last 10 years, I was just holding on. I was holding us together with all the dumb shit he said of that. And now it's just these guys are like, they're in credit grab bukkake. Just go at it. Just battle each other. It took us two hours to get a porn reference out of you. Yeah, sorry. It's over the two hour mark. I got, maybe I'll get aggregated again. It'd be great. I got to get those aggregators something. Anyway, we, I, I, Belichick's a classic example of if you had just left four years ago and just moved to Wyoming, done the Johnny Carson.

2:13:28Yeah, I don't know. We would talk about you so highly. When you've been competing your entire life, I don't blame guys for wanting to hang on to the whole thing. I'll the Brady Tampa Bay Super Bowl is my second. That's my second favorite Brady Super Bowl. I'm talking about the UNC 24 year old PR person controlling his life. People wondering if it's elder abuse, like really like dark shit. People like this has gotten to the point that like my wife's friends are asking me about, hey, what's going on with Bill Belichick and this girl? I read like on Apple News. They had a story about how great like that's what this is reached.

2:14:06That CBS Sunday morning thing was like his version of Tom Cruise on the Oprah couch. Like it's, it's part of his legacy now. I just don't understand somebody that understands how the media works as well as they do, which clearly he does what he thought that was going to be like, Hey, this is the deal. You come in, you promote the book and we ask you questions about it. But this is what people are worried about. Maybe he's not, not batting a thousand right now. I'm not ready to go there. We'll see what kind of defense they're running. That Sunday morning thing was insane. That was insane. I never in a million kajillion years would have guessed that he would be in that position.

2:14:46Joe Prunty, maybe. Out of all people, that was insane. That would be a good pod. Five guys most likely that you would expect that to happen to. That would be good. Before we go, picks for round two? Celtics? You still going Cleveland? yeah I think Brunson having to go through the gauntlet of options as opposed to being able to switch into Beasley Hardaway and Dennis Schroeder even though Schroeder I think competed like crazy against him I think it's a little different challenge and I think Cat is going to have to cover a lot more ground than he did against Duren I'm still holding out hope Garland's going to come back game two but today was super impressive I'm totally with you and you've been higher on the patience than I've been and you might be right about it OKC no issues and I have Minnesota is there any case for denver

2:15:44uh i mean you know i could sit here and say oh you know the craziest thing about even the elimination game is jokic and murray weren't even going crazy i think by jokic's our standards for jokic this wasn't some like jokic fest for seven games yeah well you don't I think they were the first team with six players with 15 or more points in a game seven in NBA history. It's so funny. Those game seven. So like Christian Brown became right. That was the Grant Williams game for Christian Brown, where he was just huge. Like the game sevens, there's always the random. It's the buddy healed. Yeah. You always see those.

2:16:19That would have been a fun one to predict for a fan to a bet. We're silly. You got two pods this week. And then I will see you live on Sunday night, which will not be as fun as this one. Our guest that Curry came through. Good to see you, my friend. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Gahau and Eduardo. Thanks to Russillo. Thanks to Basketball for giving us two Game 7s over the weekend. We thought we might get zero. I will be back on Tuesday. Don't forget, huge rewatchables coming on Monday. Get ready. You can follow all the clips and videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel.

2:16:53And I will see you on Tuesday.

2:17:02I don't have feelings with him.

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