UConn’s Miracle, Weirdest NBA Season Ever, A Scary Playoff Team Draft, and an Iffy Expansion Plan With Zach Lowe

29:21I've done that plenty of times in my life. Nowhere gets you ready to go quite like Sam's Club. Snacks, the gear, super low prices on gas. They got a bunch of stuff that keep you and the whole crew rolling. And here's what you got to do. You got to join the club of Yes. And at sam's club.com slash. Yes. And you must be 18 years or older to purchase membership and membership is subject to qualifications. Visit sam's club.com slash. Yes. And for details, this episode is brought to you by Expedia family vacations are great. My favorite family vacation ever. I went to cover the 2012 Olympics in London and I brought my family.

30:04My son was five. My daughter was seven and we were in London for three weeks and we went to Paris for another week. And it was just awesome. Uh, our kids were the right age to travel. That's my number one family vacation I've ever had, but we've had plenty of those trips where everyone's excited, but you hit the planning part. Suddenly it feels like there's too many movie pieces. You start talking yourself out of it. Can't find the right flight. Can't find the right hotel. That's why Expedia is a total game changer. Flights, hotels, vacation rentals, cars, activities. Everything's in one spot, which makes the whole process way easier.

30:38And the bundle and save feature is huge. The more you bundle, the more you can save because you can book what you need now. Add more later. Keep saving on the way. Book your flight today, attach your hotel tomorrow, and you're still good. So if you're thinking about your next family getaway, bundle your flights, cars, hotels, as vacation rentals and save. Savings vary, members only. Book your next trip with Expedia today. All right, scary playoff teams draft. I'm on the edge of my seat. This is one series only. San Antonio, OKC, Denver, Boston, off the board. Who do you have, Zach Lowe? Well, I'll tell you who I don't have, first of all, is the team that lost to the Raptors by 50-something points today.

31:22They were low on my list too. The Orlando Magic will not be my selection. Holy smokes. That feels like... That's an uh-oh. I mean, we were already at uh-oh stage. The official uh-oh was when Paolo had the like, yeah, we don't make adjustments coming out of halftime thing. And Jamal Mosley was like, well, the only adjustment Detroit made was to play really hard. Losing to the Raptors by 50-something points is an official like... Everyone's on notice. So I'm not taking Orlando. How about they've lost seven of their last eight. The one loss was to... The one win. Oh, the one win was to Sacramento.

31:56And there's a thing on NBA Reddit right now that it's called Low Light. This is the headline three hours ago. Arguably the worst stretch of basketball in NBA history. A compilation of all Orlando Magic possessions during Toronto's 31 to nothing run. This is a four-minute YouTube quip that you could easily find now. That's a cry for help. Now, I've been watching games all night and not engaging with... I haven't been on Twitter. I've been following it. Is that the biggest run? It's a record. Something to zero run in the history of the NBA? Yes. They said as far back as they have ever measured play by play.

32:34But they don't know. It might have happened in like 1948. There's some years, missing years. Anyway, who's your fifth pick? I will go, you know, against my better judgment, I will go with the Knicks as the fifth pick in the draft. I did not have them fifth. I still respect this core. Another loss to the Thunder tonight, you know, got blitzed by the Hornets the other night in Charlotte. So it's not it's not trending great. We're back on like the cat seesaw where it's like cats invisible cats being benched. Cat has taken three shots and then cat has like 12 points in two minutes and everything's fine.

33:18and it just blows my mind how often we ride the same roller coaster with him. I still think there is, when they click, they can reach a pretty goddamn high level and they are top six on both ends of the court. And yet there are all these reasons where you're like, do I really trust them against the best, best, best teams? But I'm still taking the Knicks and it's worth noting, they don't hate the Celtics matchup that is looming in the second round of the playoffs. They shouldn't. That's a team they've had a lot of success against. They should not hate it. A lot of Knicks questions for me, but mainly, why is this team always down 10 to 12 points against good teams?

33:59And they're either rallying back or they don't. But why is everything so hard with the Knicks? And they have a... The starting lineup has just been okay. And not as good as it should be, given the high wattage people that are in it. I just don't know what the right move is. They started, remember, they started the season with Hart coming off the bench and immediately concluded, like, this guy's the heartbeat of our team. We can't function without him. The obvious one would be Bridges. I just don't think 70-something games into the season, they have the wherewithal to do it. No, this is who they are.

34:32And so, but yeah, and now they have Deuce McBride back, so they have a deep roster that they've got to figure out now, too. Assuming he didn't get hurt today. That's true. There's just four Dort collisions every game where it's just like, Okay, there's the door pile over there. Yeah, he's really the... He's carrying the torch from Bruce Bowen, the old Ron Artest. There's just certain guys. These accidents seem to find them somehow. I had the Lakers in the five spot, so I'm taking them here. For one series, if I know Smart and LeBron are healthy and I have to play Luka and I have to beat them four times in seven and I'm also looking at some of the foul stuff that happens with them that we don't need to belabor.

35:21You bring it up every time. You can't resist. There are like five more free throw attempts a game, I think, for the last five years. And I just think they're really hard to play, especially at the end of these games. When it's a two-point game with four minutes left, you just feel like they're going to win. And they could have two guys on the court that are just complete zeros offensively and it doesn't seem to matter for them. And I would not want to see them in a playoff series. So I'm taking them fifth. Who do you have? So we're just, to be clear, we're just doing like scary teams. We're not doing like if the bracket breaks like this, just blah, blah, blah.

35:55Just pure scariness. Then with apologies to Detroit and I guess Cleveland, I'm going Minnesota. And it's been a rocky month for Minnesota with Ant out of the lineup in the last few games. every time you think Randall has like rediscovered his verve a little bit even if it's like an 8 of 19 game but he looks frisky and he's doing he's doing something he has a 2 of 13 you know lays an egg like he did the other night against Detroit now no JD McDaniels that game no ants whatever but Io's been out the last couple games too that's a little problematic I don't I think he has a calf thing that that's a scary word the C word calf I guess the new C word that's a great point yeah Yeah, it's the C word.

36:38We'll just call it the NBA C word. The NBA C word. I like it. Conference finals two years in a row. Scoff at it if you wish. Io's the perfect bench addition for them. And they have a guy. They have one guy who is just like, you talk about Luka being terrifying in a playoff series. Absolutely, Luka is terrifying. Anthony Edwards can reach his version of that terror alert level. So I'm sticking with my words. I thought you were talking about Bones Highland. Well, Bones, wave to the bench, baby. Bones, Bones. Bones. Listen, for a playoff series, these are the kind of guys that swing a playoff series when Bones Highland just says 30 in a game four.

37:14Absolutely. We've seen it. I like the Minnesota pick. I thought I was inspired. And you've inspired me as well. See this game? You were dubious of. You were like, oh, what is this? Now you get it, which is why this is where we're going for the next pick. This is the eighth pick. Recency bias. there's no way it'll continue for an entire playoff series. I don't care. Oh, no. I don't care. It's happening. Philadelphia is scary. That was unbelievable yesterday. And Bede was awesome in that game, including the winning block where they showed a replay and both of his feet were like a foot off the floor.

37:54Paul George had a 26 and 13. This is against Charlotte for the people who missed this. Maxie looked great. And I thought the team was really locked in, wanted the game. I thought they really intimidated Charlotte. And some of the stuff they did defensively, I was kind of shocked by. They were blitzing those little handoff things and those little pick-and-pop plays they do. They're picking up LaMelo at half court. They were really physical. I just thought it was like a playoff performance. Now, granted, Charlotte probably didn't see it coming. Charlotte played the Knicks Thursday. They had the Celtics today.

38:27It was the sandwich game. I was impressed. so for i don't think they're the one they one of the eight best teams but from ceiling scariness standpoint they're number eight for me well and we're talking one series right like we're not talking like can this team hold together for three playoff rounds or four which they won't because i don't think going to we we know that um and your your caveat at the beginning was you get the fully healthy version of this team so like that's the version that has existed for maybe 72 hours in the last calendar year. Yes. Sure. It's now is the time. It's just we've waited too long.

39:06Cleveland is my pick. The Cleveland Cavaliers, Jared Allen got back healthy. This is an extremely dynamic top four. Struis is back. Tons of options for the remainder of the minutes with all the guards that they have. it just feels like it's been an eh season for the Cavs in a lot of different ways they had to get off of Garland they have James Harden who I know you don't trust and nor should we in a game 6 or game 7 of a playoff series even Donovan Mitchell is in a slump right now Jared Allen is coming off knee tendinitis Evan Mobley is just he's very good and he's not making the next leap to great that we're all sort of waiting for Struis has been out the whole year I think this is a really good team they're actually one of the more I still don't really know what to make of them.

39:52I think it's been about 20 games with Harden. Their offense has been sensational. Their defense has been crap. But the big four guys have barely played any minutes together. And if there's one thing that I'm really curious to watch for these last six, seven, eight games, half of which are just tankathons around the league, it's that. I want to see those four guys, Mitchell, Harden, Mobley, Allen, how does that look together? Because I think there's a really high ceiling here that it feels like the NBA cognoscenti has just sort of moved away from them in this Boston hoopla, which is very well-deserved with Tatum going back and all the stuff going on out West and what Cade, and is he going to come back healthy?

40:33Cleveland's just kind of there to the side, and I think we got to bring them back center stage a little bit. Sometimes this is not your year. starting starting to wonder if that's what we've said that about denver too right who was the third pick in the draft denver obviously has a player that's better than anyone they have tell you this if i was a calves fan wouldn't be happy about the clippers box scores lately and their net rating with garland on the floor as well has been been none of none of what has happened with darris garland on the clippers would make me happy if i was a calves fan now Because you just did the rarely seen old guy for a guy about to hit his prime who had kind of had a rocky couple of years, but there were real reasons for it with injuries.

41:21And you bailed because you thought you had a chance to win the title. Now you're probably going to be the fourth seed in the East. You just went 10th in our scary team's draft. And you gave up Garland. Which, as you noted, though, fourth, if that's indeed where they end up and they have a very easy schedule. Fourth is a great spot. Maybe that's part of this is they're delighted to be fourth. And you know who we haven't drafted yet in the scary teams draft? Well, you're not up yet. I know. Can you take them or not? No, I have Detroit. Okay, that's what I'm talking about. Oh, I thought you were talking about another team.

41:54Yeah, it's Detroit. And I said this to Goldsberry Thursday in a weird way, not having Cade for a couple weeks and seeing this new level for Jenkins maybe will help them in the playoffs. But I still wonder. I don't think they... To have holes that I just worry about with some of the teams that they're going to have to play. Like when they play the Celtics and the Celtics can throw those two big wings at them, Tatum and Brown, and their wings are Tobias Harris and Robinson and Herter and Javante Green. And Asar Thompson. Asar Thompson is going to be harassing somebody. Well, but he's probably going to have to guard one of the guards on the Celtics, right?

42:31Like white or... See, that's the part... I don't know. I just feel like there's a physicality with the two wings that they're going to have issues with. Ashton Thompson now winning the Thompson brothers, uh, who's having a better season contest now. He's like minus 200. Hard disagree. I think I listened to you. Hard disagree. I listened to you and Kirk on, um, and Thompson. Um, I, this is, I don't, and Thompson apologies. No, I just like in, in what, in what, I, I don't know if, if people's expectations for him just got out of control. You guys were talking like he's having a, like he's trending down.

43:08Kirk said he's trending the wrong way. Nobody guards him anymore. But no one guarded him ever. I thought he was going to get better at it, though. He's 23 years old. He's averaging 18, 8 rebounds, 5 assists a game, after averaging 14, 8 rebounds, 4 assists a game. I guess he's shooting a little bit worse this year. 56 % on twos, down from 60 % on twos. Free throws are, by the way, quietly, and this is the most encouraging part, he's shooting 78 % from the line. which which but I I just to me he's more or less kind of what I expected him to be this year I did not think that he was going to be like oh now suddenly it's he's going to be a point guard and he's going to be a 20 and 0.8 assist guy that's not who he is and in fact they'll look they're just the weirdest team in the league which one would you rather have I'm in over over us are yeah I mean they're both awesome I would love to have either one of them on my team I think he has a little bit more offensive creativity to him now he's been able to show that more than a SAR has but um I am curious to see now that I mean the Houston is the weirdest team they are unwatchable one night it very not been drafted yet interesting no and I don't think they're going to be next but I am interested to see more of this okay we've now committed to starting Reed Shepard in part because Tar Eason hasn't made a shot in three months and he's left us no choice but to start Reed Shepard but now we've starting Reed Shepard that puts on man Thompson, I think, into a more natural role for this stage of his career.

44:39And I'm interested to see just sort of how that looks. I took Detroit. So now here are the teams that well, there's one, two. We'll go faster. I can't wait to see who's last. Who do you have next? I just took Detroit. We're cutting off at the 10 teams in each conference that are in. We're doing all 20. Well, we can go fast. I'm more interested to see who goes last. of course you are so we can't pick the hypothetical bucks with yannis is like yeah they're only 10 games out they're out they're out um uh all right you picked a detroit so that leaves you have charlotte atlanta the clippers orlando and toronto are all left charlotte no question i think this is actually i want to say it's too low for charlotte but i don't know who i would who i would remove you know tough weekend for charlotte interesting moment actually for Charlotte because it's been nothing but, you know, flowers and candy for three months.

45:35And three months is not a short amount of time. They've been like number one or number two in net rating for a long half the season now. And they have been looking at this stretch of their schedule as, OK, let's see what this looks like. And they started off with just raucous home win over the Knicks. That feels like, all right, we've arrived. Everyone's watching this game. This is the kickoff of a brutal end of our schedule. And we just do like ace the test. Philly comes in. That's a win. I think Charlotte should expect to win that game based on how these teams have played this season. And Philly sneaks it out in the end, and it's like, oh.

46:10And Charlotte blew the game, too. But it's like... They're in the bonus with like seven minutes left, and I don't know. That game made me a little nervous because the crowd got nervous, and their offense fell apart, and everybody all of a sudden looked like they'd never been in a big game before. And it made you go, So, oh yeah, that's why we don't decide this stuff with net rating. You actually have to use your savvy in games like this. They didn't really have it yet. Today, back-to-back, fine. Boston was rested. They were in Charlotte last night. Back-to-back off a tough game. But no Derek White, no Jalen Brown.

46:44And kind of got outclassed and a little frazzled offensively. Now, I still think they're an extremely dynamic and very dangerous team. But this is, they play the Knicks, I think, on Tuesday or Wednesday. this is an interesting little moment for them like at Madison Square Garden coming off these two losses you know and real stuff at stake like you want to get to eighth at the very least you want to get to eighth to get into the top half of the play-in game like I'm very interested to see how they respond but the track record of the last three months is holy crap so I'm very happily taking them here they were before the game yesterday they were number one in net rating for 40 games 40 games is half the season every sort of net rating thing they were number one, number two, number three if you did 25 games, 20, 30 the last two games were not great though and I do think they have a flaw other than the lack of experience they don't have anyone on their team who can guard those Maxie Mitchell types and you could say oh well nobody has a guy like that well then there's also Brunson you go on down the line and it's just those guys kind of can do whatever they want against Charlotte.

47:54So that's one thing. And then, you know, they looked a little small against Embiid. A lot of teams do. But physically, I thought they had Grant Williams on him in the fourth quarter kind of because they didn't really have any other options, right? That didn't bother me much. They're a year away, I think is my point. But I do think if I had to pick who could go further in the playoffs, Charlotte or Philly, I would take Charlotte. Who would I be more scared of for one series? Philly. forgive me hypothetical the hypothetical sixers I get it Embiid is Embiid just walks into 30 points and that 20 footer thing he does it's just automatic you're surprised he misses two and then all of a sudden he's shooting and it just works every time but it's a good point about Maxie because I was tracking who they assigned to Maxie and it was Knipple at the start of each half.

48:53And like, you know, we all love Carpool Khan as Van calls him, but that's a tough matchup for him. And it, but it's, it, it like, it feels like it should be Brandon Miller, but Brandon Miller often needs to guard somebody bigger or is not quite ready for yet. Then it's like, all right, Sion James, we got to play you more. That's probably bad for our offense, but can you come on Josh Green? Like it's, it's a tough matchup. And then Embiid bullying them, like you said, you know, that's how the brawl started jalen duran was just like oh musa diabate you're an awesome story we love the antlers guests on the podcast all that but like how about i just beat the shit out of you because i'm like much much bigger than 50 pounds heavier there yeah um con was i think well con and lamella together were 10 for 40 yesterday they're not winning many games with that no but part of it was because con had to chase around maxi for a whole bunch of it see i'm making excuses All right, we'll go quickly.

49:45I'll take Atlanta next. So let's go rapid fire here and see who's last. Houston. I'll go Clippers. I thought about it. Now it's getting grim. Now it's grim for me. So I can't theoretically make Jimmy Butler healthy, right? That doesn't count? No, he's happy. Okay. That would be bending the rules. Miami. Okay. I'll take Toronto. So we're left. Oh God. Okay. All right.

50:24You know what? I'm going to happily take the Warriors because I get theoretically healthy Steph and healthy Porzingis. Let me see it. Let's go. I'll go to war with those guys. I'll take them. I'll take Phoenix then. Oh, I forgot about Phoenix. Well, you can have Phoenix. I'll take Golden State. No, I'm taking Golden State. Come on. Even for just nostalgia, I'm taking Golden State. So Portland's last. No, you forgot. There's two teams left. Someone else is so last that you forgot that they're even in the draft. Who was it? Orlando. Oh. Yeah, I skipped over them. Yeah, they're last. I think that means they're last.

51:04I think they lose. Yeah, they lose. Orlando loses. If we do this draft on the day you give up a 31-0 run, you come last. You lose. You lose. There's no, every year a coach gets fired with like two weeks to go. That's not going to happen in Orlando, is it? I don't think so. It's actually a conversation I've had with a few people and coaching agents around the league. We're a year removed from the Adelman-Taylor-Jenkins double. What the hell just happened? Are we going to see any of that this year? but that certainly feels like a scorching seat right now. A couple other quick things. So if we don't get Curry, and we're close to knowing whether we're going to get Curry or not, Curry's basically said if he doesn't get a couple of ramp-up games, TM LeBron James.

51:56Who is the key? Who started ramp-up? Embiid. Embiid is ramping up all the time. TM Embiid. the 9-10 play-in game in the West with no curry do we even televise it? Should it just be terrestrial radio? What do we do with that game? Tape delay? We go back to tape delay? Portland Golden State do we do maybe an AI broadcast which is AI characters? I can't believe you're saying this about a Scoot Henderson team of all people you should be this is Scoot's now every third game Don't do this to me I can't. I can't. He's showing some signs. That's all I'm saying. But then there'll be every third game. It's like he had how many turnovers?

52:37But I'm still, I wouldn't, you got to hold until the end.

52:45Miami today was so bad, losing to Indiana, a team that was the first tanking team that actually had people making like Shawshank Warden, people tell the Indiana warden telling Jay Huff he has to miss the two free throws kind of jokes and Indiana just killed Miami today and it is definitely doesn't want to win anymore ever and Miami lost to them by 15 and and they beat the Patriots beat Orlando last week too Miami seems happy to be the 10 seed and I wonder if it's intentional because it's actually a better draft pick and they probably feel like what do we care we'll get to the plan we can beat any of these teams anyway so let's just mess around And that's the only other explanation other than they're terrible.

53:30So I'll give you those two choices. Like we don't really care where we are or we're just, we haven't been good this whole time. I think it's more closer to just we're a pretty mediocre team. Okay. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Upsets, buzzer beaters, game-changing plays, what happens on the court keeps us on our toes. And life isn't any different. That's where State Farm comes in. With over 19 ,000 neighborhood agents for when you want to talk to a real person and easy to use digital tools, State Farm is there to help when facing the unpredictable. Because in life's uncertain moments, big or small, you need to know someone is ready to assist.

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54:46For our listeners, they're offering 20 % off your first purchase at viore.com slash Simmons. V-U-O-R-I dot com slash Simmons. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype? Well, marketers know the feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great. Impressions, reach, reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's not such a great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that, bull spend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO?

55:23LinkedIn ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. You can target by company industry, job title, and more. So cut the bull spend. Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend$250 in your first campaign on LinkedIn ads. Get a$250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash Simmonsbill. That's linkedin.com slash Simmonsbill. Terms and conditions apply. uh march madness stuff really quick i asked you to look up oh yeah so the lottery you're not a lottery guy but i i asked you to go look at some clips because we have two different things happening with the nba draft we have the top four which everybody's now going to argue about um all four guys are now out of the ncaa tournament debansa darren peterson cam boozer Caleb Wilson.

56:23I do have to say I am going to miss dad Carlos Boozer dropping F-bombs in the stands. That was a good time. Taunting the St. John's crowd. That was a good time. So we have those four and that's going to be a great argument in itself of just who could and a lot of it's going to determine on who gets the top four picks all that stuff. 5-6-7 has now turned into its own awesome argument and it's Burry's from Arizona who I absolutely love and I think is my favorite I don't think he's going to be the best part in this draft, but I think he's my favorite. Wagler on Illinois, who's been just incredible and has dragged them to the Final Four.

57:00And Acuff on Arkansas. And they're going to go 5-6-7 in some order. And some of it's going to depend on who has those picks because if you have a point guard, maybe you take Burry's. But I just asked you to look at their YouTube clips really quickly and give me your Malcolm Gladwell blink test of what you saw. So let's do Burry's first. What did you say? I really enjoy just giving myself just enough knowledge to be dangerous to have strong opinions that's what I was hoping for coming in hot Burry's I may have liked the best of the three super physical plays bigger than his height and his size plays defense jumper looked like the release was a little slow at times but when he needed to speed it up he sped it up from what I saw active off the ball.

57:51All these guys, you need to be a good off-ball player, too. And I think Acuff is, too. You need to learn how to play off the ball as a secondary ball handler. And there's a lot of back cuts and coming off pin downs in the Burries tape. But he plays, I think he was listed as 6 '4". Acuff is listed as 6 '3". He plays bigger than 6 '4". And just the physicality was kind of interesting to me. He's definitely a little Booker-ish. when you, I don't, like in, he was, he won the state title in California last year and was an awesome offensive player in high school. Arizona has a million guys, so they don't need the offense anyway.

58:26So there's some Steph Castle potential with him where there's more there. We're just not seeing it because he's trying to win a title. Um, the defense rebounding hustle stuff, competitive stuff. I just have zero doubts. Give me all the stock. I'll take all of it. and I think when you see a team I think he could potentially go four if it was a team that didn't need a forward and was like you know what we really need is a two guard because he's like perfect two guard so we're aligned he's my favorite I have a specific thing for Wogler but what did you think when you saw him weird player and actually watched a little bit of their elite eight game too because their team Croatia They're a team Yugoslavia.

59:11It's like a whole Yugoslavian team that is migrated there. He's a very weird player. He moves, and I don't mean that in a bad way. He just has weird movement patterns, like a lot of step backs, a lot of spin moves. He's obviously the tallest of the three, and he leverages that for all it's worth. I think he's only hit like 47%, 48 % on twos, which is a little discouraging, but the guy can really shoot and he can pass. He's the weirdest of the three and the one that I was like, I need to actually watch even more on this guy because he's a little strange. But clearly, there's something there. To me, there's a lot of A.J.

59:49Mitchell, but the ceiling would be higher. But same kind of like very unconventional, weird, herky-jerky game. Like Brunson, they obviously have different bodies, but he just kind of knows how to play basketball and how to get shots that he wants to get and doesn't really seem to care how many tall guys are around him. what the angles are. There's a competitiveness with him that I think the tournament, sometimes we can overreact to, but I think it matters that he was the best guy in this team that was an 11 seed that dragged him there. I also like that he's an overachiever. He wasn't a top 100 recruit.

1:00:26He wasn't like in the ESPN top 100. So he's been like a late bloomer. And I like that those guys have the chip on their shoulder. I have Acuff ahead of him, but I think it's 50-50. I'd like to watch more because I did find myself thinking as I watched 11 minutes on YouTube, to be clear to me. Yeah, it's with the blink test scouting. I did find myself thinking, how does this translate to a league where everybody's a little taller than the guys that he's facing now? Right. And his height is a little bit less of a superpower at the guard spot. Well, that's what I think about with Cam Boozer because I watched a lot of Duke the last five weeks.

1:01:06His big go-to move is he basically, he bullies you and he does these little spin moves and ends up with like the same either jump hook or little turnaround. And his goal is always to get as close to the basket as possible, which you can do in high school and you can even do in college. And I don't know if he can do it in the pros in the same way as comfortably. And what he never really seemed to shoot was that little 12 to 13 footer that Co-Apeed on Arizona has. um i think co-op is basically kind of boozer-ish i'm sure somebody at some point will roll out a take of co-op it's actually going to be better than cam boozer and here are the five reasons why um but he has this really nice foul line jumper that he's always setting up and boozer's always and that that's the kind of stuff you just don't know until you get to the nba and all of a sudden you know jaron jaron duran's waiting for you um i i will say jayland duran i don't know why i call him Jared.

1:02:01I will say, um, what do you have for a cuff by the way? Well, hold on. I want to talk about cam bruiser for a second. Uh, I'm just looking at the box score from, so again, I put some stats every game. I want to watch, I want to sit down and watch more because I have very limited information. You're going to have to this year. Cause this is a, like a once in a decade, top nine. I, so this is the only cam bruiser experience I have was a Friday night, fifth grade play at my daughter's elementary school. We have some people over afterwards. Everyone wants to have the Duke game, Duke St. John's. Obviously we're in St.

1:02:38John's country. St. John's is America's team. Anyone playing Duke is America's team. St. John's is winning. We throw it on. So it's on in the background. We're talking, there's social, I can't say I'm watching it carefully, but when I looked up, I was like, okay, I'm a little underwhelmed. Like I was excited for my first like a big game look at Cam Boozer and he put up numbers and it was like good but I expected him to pop a little bit more than he did in that game. That's not what he does. He's a basketball player though right? He's just like a good basketball player. Really smart. He's in the right spots.

1:03:11He's cool as a cucumber and he gets his stats but the Caleb Wilson somebody will cut an 11 minute Caleb Wilson tape and you're going to be like is this guy Giannis? That's the difference between those to a cuff. So, Oh, go a cuff really quick, smooth as silk, like just so smooth. If he were two or three inches taller, would he be in the conversation to be the number one pick in the draft? Cause he's just the change of pace, the hesitation, the variety of finishes, the self, the control, the mid range game, the passing vision, like so smooth, not like a blow away North South athlete, but kind of like I was going to kind of Shay like in the way that he just knows how to get a little bit of separation one way or another, not, not as blow away as an athlete to Shay, not as big as Shay, but just so smooth.

1:04:05So under control. I can see why everybody loves him so much. A lot of Kyrie. It's a little Chris Paul in there, like game manager, general stuff. It's just his ball. His teammates got a rebound. They just, he's, it's one of those. Um, we'll see what the size, that people are worried about the defense with him and like, I don't know how many point guards that we had that were awesome where they weren't good defensively and it was fine. I'm not, I'm not as worried about the defense as other stuff. Um, okay. I want to talk about expansion really quick because I have a bunch of intel. Lay out. I'm laying out.

1:04:43Well, I'm interested in your take on some of this stuff. I think this is a fascinating sports story because of how the league has handled this, what the reality of it is versus what they presented to the fans and to the media. They've made it seem... What's your take as you've read all this stuff? What is your take on will expansion happen, all that? Just knowing nothing or knowing what you've read and that's it. I mean, all right, if I excised all the private conversations I've had, I would say, like, it seems like it's on the path to happening, that Adam Soper has basically announced, like, barring some unforeseen circumstances, we're having a Vegas team and a Seattle team.

1:05:25Right. So if you live in Seattle and you read and consumed all this stuff the last week or so, you're like, this is amazing. We're getting the Sonics back. Here we go. That's not what's happening. And I think it's really weird how the league is handling this because there's two things going on. One is they don't have the votes. And two, this is a two-part process where part one is you get the 30 owners together and they have to vote, need 23 votes to proceed. And basically, Silver is going, I want to see what we can get for these two teams. We've decided it's going to be Seattle and Vegas. we haven't decided if we're expanding it, but let's see what kind of price we can get for each of those.

1:06:09And then I'll bring that back to you and we can vote on it. So the analogy would be you live on a block and two people sold their houses on your block and you're going, huh, those went a little higher than I thought. Should we sell our house? And your family goes, we don't want to move. What do we want to sell our house for? And it's like, well, I'm just going to ask a realtor what they think we could get. And the realtor goes, all right, I'll ask around and see what it's worth. That's basically what silver's doing. That's not how it was presented. And what's really interesting, not only do they not have the votes, but I think it got a little testy in the board of governors when they were all together last week with some people are like, why are we doing this?

1:06:55I'm never voting for this. This is stupid. We're not doing this. And I think what's happening really, if you want to dig deeper, is there's this new generation of owners, a little like what we had 20 years ago with Cuban and Wick Grossbeck, like the younger guys that were coming in. And they just kind of thought about the league differently. I think that's happening again. So you have Chisholm, who just got the Celtics. You have Ryan Smith, who just got Utah. You have Fertitta in Houston, who's been there for a while, but I still think he's closer to the newer generation than the old one. You have the Charlotte guys that just got the team.

1:07:28You have Ishby and Phoenix, and you have A-Rod and Lori in Minnesota. All of those guys intend on owning their teams for a while, right? They bought in. They want to win a title. They want to compete. If you're doing this, you're bringing two more franchises into the league. Now I have a 1 in 32 chance of winning the title, not 1 in 30, right? So now I just have two more people I have to compete against. That's one thing. I'm giving up two 32nd of my media share. I go from 1.30 to 1.32. And I don't really see the point of why I'm doing that. These guys are all rich for a reason. Why would I do this?

1:08:06Seems to be the prevailing theme. Now I'm talking about Dolan, who's been against this from the get-go. How about the guy who just bought Portland, Dundon? Right? Why would he want a Seattle expansion team two hours away? He's not voting for this. How about rich competitive dudes like Balmer? What does Balmer want more teams in the league for? What does he care about? 500 million dollars. You know, oh, if we sell for 8 billion each, everyone gets a check for 500 million. I have more on that in a second, too. What does he care? He just wants to win the title. You're making his odds worse. You're taking his media money away.

1:08:42And then there's wildcard. Like, Joe Sy is another one. He doesn't need money. Walter just bought the Lakers. I have no idea what Vivek's doing ever. And Dumont on Dallas, who knows? So I just listed, that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13 owners that I've not either, I know they're against it or they're, or, you know, probably not. So that's one thing. The other thing is in the hypothetical fairytale world where they could get 8 billion a team, do you know how fucking hard that is to get$8 billion where you'd have to write an$8 billion check for a team and people point to the Lakers went for 10 billion.

1:09:19They didn't really go for 10 billion. It was like four, seven, because the guy already owned a big chunk of the team. He definitely got outside investor money to help him out with it. I don't know if he had to pay for it all at once. Same thing for Chisholm. He was able to get the Mattel family from India to throw in a billion dollars. They inherited all this debt. Like he basically scraped it together. Minnesota, it took them four years just to pay what? 1.7 billion, something like that. Utah paid 1.4. I don't think they have any chance of getting$8 billion. The more people I talk to and the more people I look at it.

1:09:54And I think Adam is floating it out. Like that's the number who's paying that. And why would you pay$8 billion for a team in Seattle? So a, I don't think they have the money. I don't think they have the money lined up. I don't think there are groups out there. B, I don't think the owners are going to necessarily vote for it, even if they do get 8 billion a team. And if it's like five to six, they're definitely not voting for it. And I don't really understand the point of any of this. Why not just be transparent and say, Hey, we're just curious to see what we get for these expansion teams. This doesn't mean we're going to have expansion.

1:10:29Instead, you've completely led this poor Seattle people on who now think they're getting a team. And I don't know if that's true. So that's my, that's my rent. I think that's all fair. And, um, certainly eight to$10 billion, you have a very narrow universe of potential buyers, assuming you don't, I mean, you don't want a 20 person group coming in because that's proven problematic in other places, having so many minority owners. Um, it's a, it's a very small universe of people. And yeah, I mean, Adam, at one point in the press conference last week was careful to say, you know, we didn't approve expansion today we approved the exploration of expansion but it does i mean they've they've they they 28 29 kind of came out i don't remember the exact origin of like who said that first and when that came out but it certainly was not like rebutted by the league office when 28 29 is like these teams starting came out and like that's aggressive i mean it's 2026 right now like that's there's a lot to do to get a team up and running and you raise a lot like i i i'd like to go back and listen to it because when i had ish be on my show a couple months ago at your house actually i recorded at your house yeah i asked him about this um and he was he he was a little non let's say i i basically asked him do you think they have the votes like and he was pretty noncommittal about it.

1:12:00And I just sort of put that in the back of my mind. They don't have the votes. I'm just telling you they don't. Now, whether they can swing a couple people, maybe like even I noticed Houston, did you follow them getting the WNBA team for 300 million? Yeah. Is that a scratch your back? Now you scratch mine with a vote kind of situation? Because that was really weird that Houston, who already lost the WNBA team, just took a team from Connecticut that why wouldn't that go to the Celtics when the Celtics wanted it or another city? Like I thought that was weird. Uh, I think all of this is really weird and I don't understand why it was presented the way it was.

1:12:35And that when my shit detector started going off, it was a Monday morning news news leak, which is we know Monday morning is always when you put a story out trying to set the tone for the week and they put it out in a way that made me think this almost seems like they're testing this out to see what the reaction is like they're either trying to convince the fans this is a good idea or they're trying to convince the votes that they don't have that this is a good idea so i do not think they have the votes let's flip it around what why is it like why is it a good idea like is beyond like it would feel good to have the sonics back would feel like writing it wrong and vegas is vegas like what what what is the if financially it's um it's murky enough that some owners will vote no based on the money right like based on the expansion fee short-term boost versus the long-term reduction in our media right share if financially it's murky enough that some owners will know based on that version based on that data point alone what is the reason for this because i don't i do agree with you i don't think anyone is like clamoring for more teams.

1:13:45I don't, I, I'm not necessarily worried about talent dilution. Um, I think you can support 32 pretty healthy NBA teams on a talent level, but I also like no one is sitting there being like, we just have an overabundance of talent. Like we could, we need like six more teams. No one is saying this. No, I mean the players union, it's 30, 30 more jobs for them. Right. So they, they're pro. Um, I, I can only think of a couple of things. One is you're establishing a value of a franchise, right? The Celtics sale established a number and then the Lakers sale established an even bigger number. The Celtics number is legitimate.

1:14:24The Lakers number is flawed because if you're trying to buy a percentage of a team that gives you the majority, you're going to overpay for that majority to get the final result. So you say it's 10, but I don't know. If you're in a vacuum, nobody's paying 10 billion for the Lakers and just cutting a check and handing it to somebody. They already had a piece of it. So to me, it seems like they're trying to establish the number that then becomes the number. Well, this is what we got for our expansion team. This is what our franchises are worth. If the goal is we have to right or wrong in Seattle, first of all, you never should have took the team from Seattle in the first place.

1:15:04And I have two Save Our Sonics meal bags from 2008 that I did at the time. It was criminal when it happened. I still can't believe it happened. They let it happen and they didn't rectify it for almost 20 years. You can't then say, well, we're going to add two more teams to fix the wrong we did in Seattle, especially when you have a couple of teams that you have to seriously think about. Are they in the right markets? Right. First of all, if you're going to move into Seattle, why wouldn't the Portland guy who doesn't even have an arena yet have the option to potentially move into Seattle? Why wouldn't some of the other franchises potentially have the option to move there And that's like, Conspiracy Bill wonders, do you play this expansion thing down the road?

1:15:44Because ultimately, you know it's not going to work. And now you're going to relocate a franchise into Seattle. And you want to at least cover your tracks and be like, well, we tried. We tried to do expansion. We couldn't get it passed. So we want to fix this in Seattle. And now you move a team. Is there not a case for Portland wanting Seattle? Because A, it's a great natural built-in rivalry that has a history to it already. and B, we're not all alone on an island in the Pacific Northwest. We actually have one short flight road trip that we do every year a couple times? Maybe. I don't know. I think I would feel better just being the only NBA team in the Pacific Northwest.

1:16:24But I think for the league, it's, I mean, obviously it would be better to have a team in Portland, teams in Portland and Seattle. And for Minnesota, isn't there a part of you that's like, are we the one that gets to move to the East? Like, does that factor in at all for you? I mean, I don't know how they decided. I know they have all these committees, right? They have expansion committee, they have TV committee, they have all these different things. So the expansion committee obviously decided Seattle and then Vegas are the two best options. I still don't know how they ended up with Vegas. I think there's some other options.

1:16:58I've talked about this on the pod before, but it's interesting. Apparently in the board of governors meeting, one of the loudest guys in the room against this with Chisholm, the guy that just bought the Celtics because he just got into the league. He's not in any of the committees. And I think there was a few people in that room and it's more than just the owners. Everybody brings like their one or two people with them. Um, there are a few people in the room. Like, I don't get it. Why are we doing this? I don't, I'm not voting for this. And I think it was a little more contentious than Adam thought it was going to be, which then makes sense why they leaked that story on the Monday morning to try to set the template for it.

1:17:33So So listen, all I'm saying is, uh, you better know you're going to have a team in Seattle in the next three years because to extend this and make it seem like it's going to happen and then pull the rug out from under them again would be pretty fucked up. That, that we can agree on. Um, I mean, you even have the Seattle media at this thing to ask Adam and now there's Vegas media there too, but Vegas is like already an NBA city in a lot of ways because of summer league and all that stuff. But like, yeah, you can't do that to Seattle again. we'll see what happens. And there's also, there's also the, like, I think part of the discontent was also just like, we're doing, there's just a lot of stuff going on at the same time.

1:18:15We have the tanking stuff. We have the Clippers stuff. We have the NBA Europe stuff. We have, like what, like why, like this, this is a, there's a lot in this too. There's a lot that we already have to resolve. WNBA. Um, yeah. And, and that's, I said this a week or two weeks ago, but like, To me, you can't add two more teams until you fully figure out the tanking rules. And they tweeted out three terrible solutions on Friday, which I didn't like any of them. Did you? I thought they were fine. I don't understand. I don't think they're that difficult to understand. Some of the outcry was like, these are too complicated.

1:18:51They're not really that complicated. They're just basically like, we're going to flatten the odds and let some of the play-in teams in. It really depends what do you want to happen. I don't want a situation where San Antonio can go one, two and four and three straight years again. And I'm not taking anything away from what happened with them, but I just don't think that's the right way to do it. I don't want a situation like Philly being able to do the process. Well, one of them had the built in, had, had some built in safeguard, at least one of the proposals has some built in safeguards where you can't pick in the top, whatever, I think.

1:19:27And then there was one that had two years worth of record was going to be, uh, the basis of where you pick. The league has real issues now. Even you look at a team, because then on top of it, you have the player empowerment piece coming into this too, right? And you have, I don't know, who's the team that lost somebody in the last five years because the guy just didn't... Mitchell. So Mitchell just decides, I don't want to be in Utah anymore. What are you going to do if you're Utah? Are you going to keep him? He's under contract for three more years, but he doesn't want to play there anymore. He wants to go somewhere else.

1:20:01Shit, what do we do? Anthony Davis. Well, Darren Fox goes on and on. Right. So if you're Utah, you made a really good Mitchell trade. You haven't had any luck with the lottery. You're now you've done pretty well in your picks, but you also didn't win the lottery. And then you see a team like San Antonio goes one, two, four. I don't know. I just don't think any of this is a good system. I don't think if I think if like if Indiana wins the lottery this year, they shouldn't then be able to win the lottery a year from now. And that's, I don't know why they haven't done little tweaks like that. Like if you're in the top three, you don't get to go back.

1:20:36These seem like pretty simple. I don't mind flattening the odds though. If they wanted to do like the odds for the worst seven teams are flattened, then it drops down to the next seven and then the four play in. I'd be fine. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. You know, with just one trip to Whole Foods, you can travel the world. First stop, discover the taste of the Mediterranean with big sales on brands like De Seco, Oreos, and San Pellegrino. With Whole Foods prepared foods, dinner is solved. You can roam the world with empanadas, burritos, soups, and more. Maybe expand your snack repertoire to South America with colorful and crunchy Peruvian potato chips.

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1:21:51I'm with that. All right. Last thing before we go deep dive I asked you this. Is this the weirdest NBA season we've ever had? Seems like a pretty bold statement. It's a big question, first of all. Because I was trying to think what's been weirder than everything we've seen now for five months. And every week there's another story. We just talked about this expansion story that came out of nowhere. I'm going to list some of the things that have happened this year. San Antonio went from 34 wins to a title favorite Wemby arguably became the face of the league we argued about face of the league last summer for two months and I think Wemby has now become the guy that is the hottest ticket out of the 30 teams is that fair?

1:22:42is there a hotter ticket than Wemby coming to town? he's must see he's the face of the league BAM had an 83 point game that happened The Clippers had an aspiration scandal, started out 6-19, traded James Harden, and are now making a playoff push. And the scandal has not been resolved. Also, ignominiously waved Chris Paul, who then retired from basketball. And waved Chris Paul during his farewell season. Charlotte had the best net rating for 40 games after going 4-14. Kevin Durant had a burner scandal at the All-Star game, and the team has not been the same since. and we've never found out whether the scandal happened or not, although I think we have our ideas.

1:23:26Jason Tatum blew out his Achilles in May. Their overrunner was 42 wins. They've now already won 50 and he's back and he had 32 points today and that all happened in 10 months. The Lakers looked like an absolute mess and are now contenders and just went fifth in our scary team draft. Phoenix, Stephen A. Smith called Ishpia the worst owner in the league a year ago. Now they're going to be in the playoffs. OKC became villains. We have 10 tanking teams that made Adam Silver snap. The Luka trade officially became the worst trade ever. The Wizards have Trey Young and Anthony Davis. I was going to say, when is that coming up?

1:24:04We have a hardcore expansion plan out of nowhere. Everyone turned on Inside the NBA, a show that we all loved and considered family. And we might have 10 East teams that have 45 plus wins. So I just listed 5, 15, 17 things. and I don't know what I left out. I mean, there's more. I mean... Well, keep going. What else did the Pistons... The Pistons are the one seed? The entire Giannis saga from start to finish. Giannis. Is that a saga? Can we come up with another word? I don't know. Zion plays now every game. That's a weird one. Yeah, you're right. New Orleans being the worst team in the league and they're going to give Atlanta the number one pick and now I think they're like the 10th team in the league the last 20 games.

1:24:53John Morant, last man standing in Memphis, except everyone already forgot he's even on the team. Like when they issued the medical update for him, like elbow to elbow, he's just going to be out for the season. These teams are giving up with these press releases. I half expect them to just like accidentally send one that's just like John Morant, injury to come in parentheses, will be out for the season and they accidentally send it. Did you see that Brian Keefe, the transcript of his press conference when the reporters were asking him why he stopped playing, guys. And he was just like, well, he'd reached his cap for minutes.

1:25:28These are like healthy 22-year-old guys who just want to play basketball. The Jazz are like, Kyle Filipowski, you're too good. Just the first two quarters are for you. Sfi Mahaluk, you're so good. You can only ever play when we're already down by 30 points. Then we're like, here comes Sfi off the bench. It's just absolutely laughable what's going on. There's probably more that I'm just even forgetting. You mentioned James Harden, the Hornets. How about the Bulls? Oh, yeah, the James Harden trade. We forgot about that. The Bulls, just sure. They exist. No one. How is a team this storied, now this irrelevant?

1:26:08The Nets took five first-round picks. None of them will make an all-rookie team. That feels problematic. Is that true? Yeah, I guess that is true. Joman, I mean, I think if Joman had been healthy the whole season, he would do it. He'd have a shop. I guess we could have thrown in Jalen Brown being a viable MVP candidate. Sure. That was like 350 run outs. One of the things I was looking at was the over-unders before the year and how many teams outperformed or underperformed or over-under by like 10 or more wins or losses. And it was more than you'd think. Donovan Klingin looks more and more like Gunther every day.

1:26:46That's a good one. Should he just start dressing like Gunther? Should he just come out like that for games? What's a Kings one? There's got to be a Kings. Well, the Kings were, the Kings getting mad at you because you called them a train wreck before the season. And then it was five times worse. I called them the Hindenburg. And they took that personally. And guess what? It was even worse. Scotty Pippen doing that. Was that a real thing or was that AI? Did you see the Scotty Pippen, Mr. Pibb? The soda. Yeah. Voice of Van Lathan in that. That's right. That's right. Throw that on the list. He's still mad about the last dance five years later.

1:27:25So, all right. So we've established this was a super weird season. We're not even probably done. I went back over history because I'm weird. And I tried to figure out if there had been a weirder season. And there were three candidates. And I'll just go through them quickly. You'll remember them pretty fast. 1995 which had the goofy three-point line it had Michael Jordan returning from baseball to just start playing basketball again in mid-March out of nowhere Houston won the title as a road team in every series but never had home court advantage in one series won the title. Nick Anderson missed four free throws in a row.

1:28:03We had the Nick Anderson game and his career was never the same we had Dave and Robinson win the MVP and then Hakeem had vengeance on him in the playoffs and destroyed them. We had Dennis Rodman taking his shoes off during the Spurs series. We had, and completely having a breakdown. We had the Pat Riley Knicks Miami thing. Wasn't that the year it fell apart? 95? I think so. I think it might be the next. No, it's 95. I can't remember. And that was also the Patrick Ewing finger roll miss. And then we had... Eight points, nine seconds is that same series. and we had indy orlando eastern conference finals um which was the best series ever that nobody's ever talked about again you could watch five games from that series and you'd be wildly entertained they wouldn't even show it in hardwood around before when the magic beat the bulls is what the all-time like what's happening image of the magic carrying horace grant like oh yeah like a high school kid who just made the game winning field goal in the homecoming game off carrying him off the court.

1:29:05That's another thing about 95. Michael Jordan came up short in a playoff series. But it wasn't really Michael Jordan, and he got his vengeance next year. Anyway, that's one candidate. And he wore number 45. Yeah, he wore the wrong number. 2004 is our next candidate. Okay. Pistons win the title. They beat the Lakers. The Kobe trial happened that year, which was just surreal and bizarre, and kind of terrible. We had that crazy Pistons Pacers series where it would be like three minutes left in the fourth quarter. Indiana winning 59 to 58. Remember? Just scores were like you couldn't even believe this was basketball.

1:29:46That series single-handedly led to some of the rule changes that have now kept happening for 20 years. We had Minnesota having their one good year ever with KG and all that stuff. We had your guy, Paige Justyakovich. Stakovich? There you go. The second one. It's always itch. It's always it. Always it. Fourth MVP that year. His son is playing pretty well for the Illinois Fighting Balkans. We had Dirk and Nash flaming out. We had the Jailblazers officially falling apart. Trading Rasheed Wallace, who played one game for Atlanta and got traded again in the Pistons. We had LeBron's first year. We had the crazy 0.4 Derek Fisher shot.

1:30:25Oh, my God. How many teams were over 99 points a game that year? 99. Two. two. And we had the 04 Olympics collapse with our backcourt of Stefan Marbury and Steve Francis, among the many things in 04. So I would say that was a pretty weird year. It's a good word. Oh, and then we had Shaq getting traded right after the year to Miami. All right, here's our winner, 1978, which featured the Kermit Washington punch of Rudy Tomjanovich, probably the worst moment of the last 50 years. I just, before you, I wish FanDuel would have offered me odds on who would have won this, which year Bill would pick. Cause I would have gone heavy on 1977, 78.

1:31:10I just, it's a great, it's the weirdest one. Uh, Kareem punched Kent Benson and broke his hand and missed 20 games. Bill Walton got injured when the Blazers were, I think 55 and 10 or something and really never came back. We had the Sonics go five and 17, fire their coach and make Game 7 of the NBA Finals in the same year with Lenny Wilkins. They lost to a 44-win Bullets team. We had a 44-38 Bullets team win the title. This was two years after the ABA merger. We had the Braves trying to move, and they finally did. We had the Celtics falling apart officially. We had the weirdest MVP vote ever that nobody still knows who should have won the MVP.

1:31:50We had Doc kind of choke in a playoff series, Julius Irving against Washington. And the fans kind of turned on, it's like, hey, Doc, I thought you were going to be better than this. That happened. And we only had three 50-win teams, even though it was an 82-game season. Only one team won more than 55 games. It's a great random year. I still think that might be the weirdest. But this one's getting close. The BAM 83-point game, I think, removed the ceiling for this season. I don't know. So what's your take? Out of those four, what was the one that jumped out to you? 95 is a pretty fun year. I might be partial to that one because that's, I'm 17 in that year.

1:32:34And so it's just right in the heart of you're becoming the sports fan that you're going to be. I'm right in Nick's country. So I'm living the mid nineties next thing. All my friends are going crazy about that. That was the Jordan thing. I mean, people who were not alive and or engaged in sports, then just don't have any idea how wild it was that one morning we woke up at six in the morning and the radio on the way to on the way to practice before school was like, could Michael Jordan's retiring from basketball? There's like, it was the craziest thing that had ever happened. And then he played baseball and then he came back and he had a double nickel and had to pass to Bill Wennington and all that stuff.

1:33:17That was when you, when you talked about knowing, hearing the news that he retired. That was one thing. Hearing the news that he was coming back, I still think might be the single most exciting news announcement because we didn't have Hoopsite back then. We didn't have like social media and rumors and whatever. It was just all of a sudden there were rumors he was practicing with them and everybody, he was kind of word of mouth. Maybe you had a sports radio station in your hometown. Maybe you knew a guy who knew a guy. It was like Jordan's supposedly he practiced with the ball and then all of a sudden he was back and we were like this is amazing michael jordan is back i'd given up on this and that became the most fun two months out of nowhere this weird season it was great i'm kind of you say 95 i'm just i'm just a little i'm a little bit by the way i i'm you know what i'm just thrilled that you included in your 1995 description.

1:34:13The three seasons they moved the three-point line in are like a wild three seasons. If you go on Basketball Reference and search the best three-point seasons of all time, percentage-wise, a bundle of them from Steve Kerr and Glenn Rice are in those three years. And people just list like, oh, Steve Kerr had the greatest single season ever, Glenn Rice had the greatest... And they don't even mention that the three-point line was like two feet closer for his three-year win. It was like a massive thing. Yes. Whatever it was, I can't remember exactly how much closer it was. Steve Kerr shot 52.4 % from three.

1:34:53And Dead Left Strength was right behind him at 51.4%. It's such a weird thing that they just did this for three years and were like, no, not good. Just move it back. I don't even really remember the reasons. that I don't know whether they thought the paint was getting too clogged or something. And it didn't make sense as it was happening. And it was kind of awful. But you really see it in that 95, that Magic Pacers series. You really feel the three-point line in that game. Because for Reggie Miller, it was 21-footers. So you have to chase them everywhere. All right. So we think, I'm going to go with 78.

1:35:34I think I got to be honest. I think, I think 26 is really close. We're like two more weird things away now. But we, what if, what if the playoffs is all chalk? What if we get at the end of this and it's like Oklahoma city and San Antonio and just like crazy seven game bloodbath in the Western conference finals. And then the winner beats the Celtics or something in the finals. And it just ends up being chalky in the playoffs. Is that, does that take away from the weirdness factor at all? All right. I'm going to flip it back on you. you've watched this whole season. Is there any chance the playoffs are going to be normal?

1:36:09Any? No, no. I think there's no chance. There's no chance we're getting a normal playoffs. Even if we end up at a normal destination, the journey is going to be like we drove off the road and the car went into the pond, like in the office when the GPS just directs Michael Scott into the lake. It's going to be crazy. Even these plans, like Charlotte just not making the playoffs would be insane to me. They've had the number one net rating for half the year. And there's really a path now for them not to make the playoffs. Did you mention that the Hawks just went 14 and one, like the actual 2026 Atlanta Hawks.

1:36:47Was that even in the weirdness description? Like they didn't just go on like a six game winning streak. They went 14 and one in a 15 game span. It honestly should have been. Yeah. I mean, well, there's one, two, seven games left. I was going to say, if the season was like 90 games, I feel like they could catch Cleveland. They could just keep going. Yeah. And then the Lakers thing on top of it, like if you're talking about ways the playoffs could get weird, there could clearly be a 1-8 or a 2-7 upset. Like if I gave you odds, yes, there'll be a 1-8, 2-7 upset versus no, there won't. Probably like, I don't even know what the odds would be, but I think that's almost like a 50-50 bet for me.

1:37:32I still would go no. I mean, who is your upset threat, Charlotte? I would say Detroit. They got to get in. Right, but I'm saying, but who's going to beat Detroit? I think Boston would be a possible upset too. At two. I'm prepared for, that's the thing, I'm prepared for anything. Who knows? But who's beating, Miami's not beating any of those teams, Orlando's not, Philadelphia. What if Philly's the seventh seed? You're right. The odds, you're right. No, the odds are we won't get a 2-7 or a 1-8 upset, but it's way more in play than it's ever been. Look, Philly, I just need, I need my, I just need time.

1:38:13I can't. No, this is what I said to Raheem. Raheem was all excited about their future odds. And I was like, look, Embiid would have to play seven times in two weeks, and I don't think he can do it. Right? Just fundamentally, that's probably not happening. But did you see Paul George yesterday? I did. he looked great and they're already doing the spin like you know maybe this is a blessing in disguise that he missed 25 games because of a banned substance and we plummeted down the standings into the play-in because now he's fresh unbelievable Tyrese Maxey is like this is cool I just had to play 40 minutes like every single game until I got hurt I finally got hurt because I was on a record pace for guards playing minutes I would not want to see them in the 2-7.

1:39:01There's a bunch of teams I'd rather see. I also like, Charlotte as a 1-8 is not ideal. I just think, this is why, this is one of my favorite ideas that I just wish they would adopt. 1-8, I think you get five home games. Who's against this? The teams that would get less revenue for their home playoff games. 2-2-3. The one seed should be worth something. Look, if you can't, if you can't, and I actually went through this, I had a meeting with some league officials about a bunch of different things. Oh, look how fancy you are. And I asked about this. I asked about like, why can't we just let the one seed pick its opponent out of the play?

1:39:40And so it's logistics and arena dates. And if you let that happen, then you don't know any of the matchups. All right. Those seem to be intractable problems. We need to set the matchups and the TV schedule. Then give me something. If I've slogged through this 82 game journey and I'm the number one team, Like I got to get something. I don't, I don't, I, what I shouldn't get is like, Oh fuck the Hornets are eight. And I got to deal with this in the first round. And I might be down three, two going into a game six with Eric Collins losing his mind. Then again, if you can't beat the Hornets, I guess you don't deserve to win the championship to seven Boston Philly.

1:40:17Come on. Boston Philly is always such a great time. Great rivalry. Amstrak corridor, a lot of history. That's a great time. I just think with the three point shooting and the variance of these games, I'm scared every series, no matter who I'm playing at this point. Except Orlando. Except Orlando, who gave up 31 straight points. And by the time people listen to this, might have a new coach. Who knows? It could be. Here's our new coach, Penny Hardaway. Out of nowhere. All right. Anything else before we go? I can't even remember what else we're supposed to talk about. I'm good. How are you feeling about the Mets?

1:40:49Oh, I know what I want to talk to you about really quick. ABS. ABS. Do you watch any baseball this weekend? Yeah, I did. I watched the Mets. The challenge. It's called ABS. Oh, that. Yeah. It's so fast. It's like this. Bo Bichette did a bad one today. And I thought he was actually going to be right. He tapped it and it was like, nope, wrong Bo Bichette. I love it. Most exciting ad I think we've ever had from it. Because first of all, it was half of my text threads all weekend. And I watched every Red Sox game. And the Red Sox fucked up their two ABSs early in the second game. You get two, right?

1:41:26That's it. Fucked him up early. We go into the later parts of the game. We have the worst umpire of all time behind the plate. And he just keeps messing up, but we have no more challenges left. And it was all my texts for like three hours. So the Mets, we're in hell. The season opener, their very first ABS of the season flipped. It was a three, two count flipped a walk to a strikeout. It was called a ball. The Mets challenged it and it became a strikeout. I was like, great times. That was awesome. We had the opposite. We get the inning-ending strikeout. Guy does this. Reversed. It's like, oh, my God.

1:42:06Next pitch. Same thing. Reversed again. Now it's like, oh, my God, we're going to lose. And then he got a strikeout. But it was this added drama I wasn't expecting. I love that the batters can just do it without asking anybody. Just like, I fucked that. I'm just hitting my own head. and were like, oh, I'm sorry, I screwed the whole team. By the way, you would be, you're the perfect guy to ask about this. Here are some things that happened in the first Mets, the Mets home opener. I don't know if you saw any of this. The singer of the National Anthem plays, this is a real thing, plays George Washington currently in Hamilton.

1:42:40He is a Tony Award winning actor playing the first president of the United States in Hamilton. Forgot the words to the National Anthem in the middle of singing. It's a home opener. Oh, no. And just like, just put together two verses that don't go together. Then later in the game, the Mets won the game, but later in the game. Did they do the Frank Trevin?

1:43:04He's just saying there was like a pause where it's like he's been silent for like a beat too long. And then the wrong lyrics came that didn't match the lyrics that came. They were actual lyrics from the Star Spangled Banner, but they were just not the ones that he was supposed to say at that moment. And then later in the game in right field, two birds crashed into each other and one of them died. And Carson Benjette to like get a towel and pick up the bird and like walk it off the field. They just like, would they crash going for a fly ball? I did not see video of the birds colliding, but it was not a Randy Johnson, Dave Winfield situation.

1:43:39Like someone threw a ball into the birds, like apparently just head on. So is that a good sign or a bad sign? This is what I'm saying. They won the game. The anthem thing is kind of funny, and I just don't know what to make of any of it. It was a great weekend for sports. And I was sick for a little bit of it, and it was just an embarrassment of riches to be able to bounce around and watch all kinds of stuff. So the ABS thing. Sox are 1-2 or 2-1? Where are we? 1-2, two close losses. And on a 25-man roster, they have five holes already. So feeling good. Great. Feeling good. Thought they were going to be a little more solid.

1:44:14Did you see Project Hail Mary yet? No, but apparently the directors are massive Clippers fans. And so I kind of want to watch it. But have you seen it? I mean, I love Gosling. I'll watch Gosling. Can't wait to see it. Can't wait to see it. Have you seen Eddie and the Cruisers? I have not. That's going to be the rewatchables after we do LA Confidential tomorrow. The next one after is Eddie and the Cruisers. Because we've been pushing for it to come back on streaming for five years. It finally came back. It's all over the place. and after CR month, we felt like we'd earned, like it's the end of the dinner when you give the chocolates to your customers.

1:44:52This is going to be the chocolates. Well, I was going to say, LA Confidential is so heavy. Like Russell Crowe's performance by itself stresses me out when he breaks the chair. I'm so stressed out the entire time that I need to like have a cigarette effort. New Chris Ryan character in the LA Confidential Rewatchables. Okay. it's Sham Sharania as the LA confidential reporter from hush hush magazine. He, I didn't know if he pulled off. It was a 9.9 degree difficulty and he nailed it. So, so that's coming. We have that ends in love. So anyway, LA confidential, that's coming. Thanks to a state farm for, for, uh, helping us out with this little live stream on Netflix.

1:45:37Zach is going Tuesday morning. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see what happens in the weirdest NBA season. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahal and Chris, everybody else at the ringer as well. Thanks to Netflix. And I will be back on this feed on Tuesday.

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