The Bill Simmons Podcast - 2021 Steph vs. 2006 Kobe, the NEW Warriors Fans, and SuperLeague Soccer Hijinks With Marcus Thompson, Logan Murdock, and Chris Ryan

Episode Date: April 21, 2021

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Logan Murdock and The Athletic's Marcus Thompson to discuss Steph Curry's incredible stretch of basketball, the parallels between Steph's current season and Kobe Bryant's 2006 season, sports dynasties, NBA playoffs sleeper teams, the postseason play-in games, Draymond Green stories, and more (2:30). Then Bill talks with The Ringer's Chris Ryan about the potential European "Super League," including who proposed it, why certain teams are involved, the potential fallout if ratified, and much more (1:19:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, if you're fascinated by this whole Super League story that we're going to talk about in a second with Chris Ryan, check out Ringer FC. That is our soccer podcast where we have the Stadio guys, Ryan and Musa. We have Righty's House. It's a really good one. If you love soccer, check it out. Ringer FC. Find it on Spotify or wherever you get your pods. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet at all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking,

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You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this. It's game day. All the gang's here. You're tailgating outside the stadium. It's a great time for beer. Or how about when you're standing at the grill and the smell of sizzling burgers is in the air? Moments like that. Or when you want a light beer that tastes like beer, that's delicious.

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They're going to tell some Steph stories, some Draymond stories, and a whole bunch of other good stuff. It's a really fun one. And then my friend Chris Ryan comes on after that. You hear us together in the rewatchables a bunch. But he's going to break down this whole Super League saga for us and try to figure out exactly what the hell is happening and how long this will last. It's a good podcast. It's a good day. It's a good day in America right now. Hope you're enjoying it. Hope you're staying safe. Here comes the pod first project.

All right. We're taping this piece of the pot. It is one o'clock Pacific time. I know Rossello and I talked about Steph on Sunday. And then last night I was flying back from Florida watching Sixers Warriors on the Wi-Fi on the plane, which I really felt like was a pivotal 2021. Didn't know I could watch basketball games on an airplane. And Steph did it again. And that was when I decided he's my favorite non-Seltic of all time. I wanted to talk about

him more. So what better than to have Logan Murdoch from the Ringer, who is in the Bay, as well as Marcus Thompson from the Athletic, who just wrote about Steph today, who has had a front row seat for a lot of this. Steph went to another level. Marcus, we'll start with you. How did he go up a level? I thought we already had the Steph apex. I thought 15 and 16, that was it. We'd climbed the mountain. This was as high as it was going to go.

How did we go up to another mountain here? What is going on? I don't even know. Like we need scientists involved. Like this doesn't make any sense. The dude is 33 years old. At best, you're supposed to just maintain it, right? If he's just this dude until 35 or the dude he was in 2019

or 35, that would have been fine. I don't even know what he's doing. We need science involved. We need some kind of put him in the 50 cent machine. Remember when 50 was in in it's your birthday you got the tags on them like we need to figure out what is going on with Steph I do think that break he did have what 18 months where he played like five games the break helped him a lot I think

watching the bubble watching the bubble did something to him like you know Steph was out the game for a while and and I think missed it. He was working on his game. There's no Klay. There's no KD. He's kind of got to do this. It's ridiculous, man. I don't even know what to say about this. I've been watching him since 2009, and I can't believe

he's getting better at 33. It's making me feel terrible about my life and the way I'm progressing. What do you think, Logan? I think it's a combination of the long time off, the fact that he might have had this in him during those championship years, but he did have to play second fiddle a lot of the times to Kevin Durant. And I think also Marcus knows this as well as I do.

He reads every single thing about him to the point, probably on par with Kevin in terms of reading what's read about him, reading what's written about him. And he internalizes a lot of that stuff. And I think that there's a release that's coming out right now in the form of basketball. And he's balling out of control. And he hears a lot of that stuff and also the last point in the combination is his team's not very good right now he has to do this he knows he has to do this and i think i've talked to marcus about this i've texted him

back and forth he doesn't do this the warriors lose by 20 on a lot of nights if he doesn't do this and he if he doesn't keep them afloat he kind of has to do this so it's a lot of nights if he doesn't do this and if he doesn't keep them afloat. He kind of has to do this. So it's a combination of all those things. Just the motivation from seeing a lot of people other time play, the time off, and also the team that he is playing with right now. That might be the only

dude in the league. He might be the only dude in the league who reads his own memes and laughs at himself. Like, if you're dissing Steph, he's reading it and he's like, oh, that's funny. That was a good one dissing me. It's one of the funniest things about Steph. He loves it. When we were doing the podcast with Durant and he had that whole rant

about blog boys and we thought it was hilarious so we made blog boy t-shirts and Steph immediately wanted one and then he wanted one to practice. I always felt like he's had the best sense of humor about what it's like to be a famous basketball player of all of these guys. I would say Durant is maybe in the other direction where he seems to take a lot of the stuff the most personally, but he also has a really good sense of humor, but takes this stuff personally. Curry, as Logan said, anything he takes personally, he just seems to internalize and then push

it a little Tom Brady style. The little slights he just takes and then pushes it to whatever the performances. Yeah, I think the biggest thing is Steph doesn't tweet. And I think that's the biggest thing that we don't see. I think that he might laugh it off in public, but in private, he is really pissed off about this. Marcus always brings up this, the fact that when guys guard him full court,

he might laugh that off, but it freaking pisses him off. And I think some of that stuff still pisses him off. He just laughs it off to us, but he internalizes that a lot. He's one of the most competitive dudes I've ever been around. And I just think it's just the biggest thing is that he just doesn't tweet. He doesn't outwardly do it on socials.

Nah, and he'll never criticize another player. He's got way too much reverence for this whole basketball fraternity thing. It means too much to him to actually participate. But if you talk to him privately, he'll be like, man, I heard that, I saw that. But he'll just never participate because it just means too much to him. I mean, he grew up in it, right? Like, he remembers having shootouts with Mark Jackson

at Toronto's Raptors practice. Like, all that stuff matters too much to him. So he just shimmies, right? He just does some awkward dance when he gets his revenge. That's the way he does it. But but he definitely he's into it all i remember it wasn't a couple years ago it was surprising remember he confessed to it when he had a hot start he was like hey y'all didn't put me in the mvp right right i'm not i'm not i'm not an mvp candidate he goes out starts his year going crazy so he's definitely got that little chip but it's been like that

since he was like wearing extra large jerse but it's been like that since he was like wearing extra large jerseys in middle school. Like that's just, that's who he is. I will say he hasn't been a little bit more prickly this year. I asked him about that earlier this season. He kind of laughed it off, but he's been, he's kind of bucking back on a lot of things now.

They're an all-star weekend, I think was the biggest example. He was like, y'all, y'all forgot about Steph. Y'all forgot about Dre. This is his forgot about Dre season. And he's kind of a bit more prickly. And you kind of get that in doses sometimes where you kind of got Steph messed up

and he's going to show you and he might say something. A big example of that was Jalen Brown a couple of years back at a Warriors home game where Jalen was kind of talking mess to him. He hit a three in Jalen's face. And then like he said, you sit down or something like that to him as he was walking off the court. There's a little bit of like prickliness that doesn't get seen.

It maybe doesn't get notarized, but Steph was caught from that cloth where you, if you got him messed up to let you know about it a little bit. Man, Bill, you know, we need, we need Steph to go into OG Kobe

mode. Can you imagine if Steph gets to be 35 and is like, I don't care, I'm just going to say it. Yo, this is what I need from Steph. Just go and say, I don't care. I'm going to say whatever I think. I've made it. I've arrived. If we get that from Steph, my whole career will be

complete. I'll be done. You mentioned Kobe. You threw this in your piece today. I was jealous of it that I didn't think of it earlier. You have these MVP seasons. They're easy to follow. They're track. You go on Basketball Reference and you can remember certain seasons for whatever they

need. There's those other type of seasons where ultimately they're going to lose in the playoffs. They might give Utah a fun scare in round one, but they're just not good enough. But you mentioned that 05-06 Kobe season. And this is what he's been doing the last three weeks is the closest we've seen to that, where it's just like, this guy's on a team that's not very good. If he's not doing this, they would be a team that won 30% of their games. But now he's hitting this point where there's a little bit of reverence coming around, not just from like the coaching staff and the teammates. I love reading, the quotes today were great. Some of Kerr's, Kerr's like run out of ways to have an orgasm

about how much he loves coaching Kerr. He's just, he's done every possible quote on that, but then you're seeing it from the other guys and you could see it in the eyes with the Sixers yesterday. There was some, that kind of helpless and bead who has been a big bully this whole season, right? He's bullied teams left and right.

He's bullied playoff teams. He's bullied other, other centers. It was like a rocky for the russianist cut kind of moment with him last night when kavan looney's you know stuffing him at the rim curry's hitting threes another and you could see like mb it's like what the fuck is going on um but the 06 kobe thing versus this curry season it would have to go on for a couple weeks at this level beyond what we've had but i do feel like it's in play, right, Marcus?

No question. And you know what's special about that? If you didn't see it, you don't understand. You don't feel it. Like this is like, I'm calling it the privilege of the present, man. We're here. Like people, you can't appreciate Jordan unless you saw it. I hate the fact that I wasn't there for Magic and Bird. I can appreciate it, but I wasn't in the build. I wasn't there. So this is what we get.

Kobe was insane, right? He's riding with Smush Parker now, right? And them. And them, right? Well, because he had that Dallas game before the 81-point game. Yep, yeah. And I remember writing a magazine column about it because I was furious he didn't go for 80.

I was like, man, that might never happen again. And then it didn't matter. Two weeks later, he actually got 80. But it was like that. He raised you before it happened. But it was like that. It was appointment viewing the whole time. Logan was in nursery school at that point,

but he barely remembers it. No. I remember that Kobe year. And I remember the 81 points in the 62 and three quarters. I feel privileged to feel privileged to be able to say I watched Steph during this stretch in person. It was against the Milwaukee Bucks. One of those games where the Warriors were not supposed to win. I was sitting next to next to Mark Spears when this happened. And I asked Mark, I'm like, you think they're going to win this game?

He's like, I don't think so. I think they were down like 10 with like eight minutes to go. It was a very uninspired game. And Steph just says, forget this. I'm going to win this game by myself. And literally won the game by himself. And there have been games like that during this stretch where he's kind of had to do that.

And he's doing this, like Kobe that year, with a messed up tailbone, with all these injuries that are going on right now. He's balling. He's got a butt pad. He has a butt pad. He's wearing a diaper as he's doing this run. And it's really incredible to watch.

Is that actually true? I thought that was like a myth. He really has a pad on his tailbone? He's got a pad on his tailbone. Yeah, he looking chunky. Check him out. Check out Steph here. Steph got a dunk?

Steph need to be on King Magazine? Steph is out here. He looking thick. Marcus, beginning of the season, Steph took some shit early. I can't remember what it was maybe it was three weeks in where he had like one or two bad games and then

the LeBron media mafia came in and it was like everyone's disparaging Steph and then the next game he went off and kind of quelled it but why hasn't he gotten the respect of a two time MVP who has won three titles,

who was a revolutionary, but then you'll see it like the last week or so. And then all of a sudden he has the respect again and people are like, Oh man, he changed the game, blah, blah, blah.

And then he can suck for two games. Nope, not LeBron. Why do we go on this rollercoaster ride with him? It's one of the weird sports phenomenons, right? Like, like who else have we done this to? It's one of the weird sports phenomenons, right? Like,

who else have we done this to? It's got to be somebody back in the day. I thought he'd gotten, like, you kind of got to go through the fire, right? LeBron went through it. Like, it's almost a rite of passage. Everybody's got to hate you before they love you. So I figured it was that. He was so new. I still think a big part of it is the dude came out of nowhere. This was out of nowhere. In 2013, Steph was the next Grant Hill. And by 2015, he's stunting on people and winning championships. You don't have any people who he leaked over who were supposed to be next. So I do feel like he came out of nowhere. And I really don't think it helps like he's six foot three like he goes to church and he's light-skinned right like you getting dragged by a dude you saw in starbucks like that don't lebron you could sit with right lebron's six eight and he's a he's a ridiculous specimen right like you can tip your cap like yeah i was supposed to

lose to that dude you're not supposed to lose the dude who like went to charlotte christian right like who couldn't get into any acc school like yeah he's supposed to be getting cooked by that dude and he's cooking and he's got and it's the shimmy and it's the celebration all that stuff like it it burns a little bit right it's like it's like playing your little brother and he's cooking you and that you could do about it the next thing you want to do is fight if you can't do that because your mom's a you just little brother, and he's cooking you, and that's all you can do about it. The next thing you want to do is fight, and if you can't do that because your mom's hating, you just start talking crazy. And that's like the response to Steph. I think that, and Bill, you've gone through this in another era with, I'd imagine, Magic and Bird. But whenever something, whenever Steph does something well on the internet, Steph's hive comes up.

And whenever he does bad, LeBron's hive comes up to disrespect Steph and his legacy. And he's just this with this. And that's something that you get right now. And that's just the end. I feel like a lot of that has to do with the internet names that we're in. A lot of us, a lot of a standship or fanship is dedicated to one player. And LeBron fans, by and large, aren't letting up no matter what. No matter what LeBron says about Steph, they're not letting up about how Steph's championships don't mean anything.

And it's asterisk and all these things. And they do that to Steph. And conversely, when LeBron messes up, we're in the Bay. We know a lot of these people that are doing this, Marcus, are ready to tarnish LeBron. And I feel like that's the new wave that we're having right now. These two polar opposite type of figures who don't necessarily hate each other, at least publicly. And you see that, but their fanships are just going at each other because it is their right to defend that their guy. And I feel like we're seeing that on a nightly basis on the internets. I don't know. I have hope in my heart. I have this burning optimism that we are,

we just might be graduating past internet pettiness and just start appreciating. Bill, this is your area, appreciating the sports, right? Like appreciating greatness. is your area appreciating the sports right like appreciating greatness i feel like you gotta give you gotta you gotta be the evangelist on this this is what you do and we're getting there i'm telling you i'm telling you that's gonna happen no i know you gotta listen that there is in between you gotta read between the tweets it's that oh i hate steph i love him i love him i hate steph As we progress, by the end of the year, I'm telling you, we're getting to the point where there will be peace in the

streets of social media. I don't believe that, Marcus. It took LeBron James signing. I want that. It took LeBron James signing with the Lakers for Kobe fans and LeBron fans to be like, all right, I guess we all good. Even that, it took a year

after. That's what I'm saying. I like the Kurt Blunt's truce, right? Yeah, it was like, all right, I think, but like, I guess. Steph sides with the Lakers, that'll be it, right? That'll be the you. Maybe. Well, that's that story made me laugh about

maybe Steph will go to the... And you clearly come in front of the LeBron camp. And I'm not saying they weren't thinking like, yeah, we should try to get Steph someday. But it's just follow the dude's career for the last 12 years. He's not jumping on somebody else's coattails to go somewhere else. If he leaves for anywhere, it's going to be Charlotte. I personally think

what he's managed to achieve in the Bay might be the last time we see it. And this is something we talked about in this podcast a bunch of times as we're in the the player roulette era where just people just kind of spin the wheel. The Bay is always overlooked,

Marcus. The Bay is always overlooked. You see how they do it, man? You already see how they do it. It's over. It's over. You see how they do it, man? But here's the thing. Like, you would say, all right, well, Luka, maybe Luka retires with Dallas.

None of the three of us would embed on that. I don't know where Luka is going to be in five years. Steph might be the last guy. And I think, I really do think it matters more career-wise. Like, LeBron's it matters more career-wise. Like, LeBron's been in a bunch of places. He's going to go down as, I think, the most beloved basketball player of the last 40 years.

But who, ultimately, what fan base does he belong to? He belongs to LeBron fans. Steph actually belongs to the Steph fans, but then he belongs to this whole area in a way that I just think is really important. And I feel like we're losing it. What do you think about just what he means to the Bay, Marcus? Listen, listen, the Bay will fight for Steph. And look, we don't take too kindly.

We don't take too kindly to outsiders. Like it takes a lot to win over Bay Area people. Like people will fight for Steph out here. It's like I'm not talking about all caps on social media. I'm talking about get them hands up. What did you say about Steph? Like, that's, it's to a level,

because it's not just Steph too. It's Aisha, right? It's Riley. They literally changed Children's Fairyland to Riley, right? Like, this is, this is, they're part of the family. And then the way Steph is always like Mr. Oakland

and he's riding and he's so appreciative. Like, he can't leave at this point, right? If he left, they might burn down Chase just because they'd be so mad at Joe Lakin for letting it happen. But it just won't happen. He's not going to do it. Ayesha ain't letting him.

That's funny because what Marcus just said, the last part was, if Steph leaves, they're not blaming Steph. They're blaming Joe Lacob. They're blaming everybody else but Steph. And the thing is, though, the Bay will fight for Steph, and it's not just one demographic. You go to Tiburon, you go to San Leandro,

you go to Oakland, you go to San Jose, you go to tiburon you go to san leandro you go to oakland you go to san jose you go to the silicon valley everybody ride with steph out here and that's the love and i don't i don't know another athlete that has as much love maybe joe montana you know maybe that maybe jerry rice who has as much love all over the bay it's's tough. But the fact that Steph is even in that conversation, and if I said he's the best player in Bay Area history, you won't blink an eye, that shows how much Steph means to the Bay Area. Well, the Barry Bonds piece of this,

which you did not mention, I was stunned how popular Barry Bonds still is in the Bay. They ride for Barry in the Bay. Oh, my God. And you understand why he didn't leave leave because this is his one safe place where it's like he's still a superstar nobody holds anything against him but i had no idea i saw it in person a couple times and i was like oh so barry went to a couple warriors games and got cheers yeah very lit sitting next to cc sabathia right like yeah yeah yeah very one of

them people out here it's it's like barry bonds right steph is like that time i remember covering that era barry bonds where you just you could not miss a pitch like you couldn't do it like no matter what you were doing you stopped to watch barry bonds at bat and it was they four wide felt like an experience right it's like they're gonna walk up but i still want to watch Barry Bonds at bat. And it was, they, for a while, it felt like an experience, right? It's like, they're going to walk him, but I still want to watch it. That's Steph right now. So as long as you give Bay the moments like that,

it's on, man. He will never eat at a food truck, pay for a food truck bill again in the bank. You said an interesting thing about Barry and being like Steph in terms of his at-bats. With Steph's shots, it's the exact same way. Steph is one of the rare athletes. Every single time you see him, it's like the first time you've ever seen him play. I remember interning really early in their run, and I

couldn't get media seats at Oracle Arena. If I did, I had to sneak up to get them. So I had to sit in the bowels of the arena. But there's this thing that I recognize. You see me. Anyway, the thing that we used to say, the people that was always there, it was a Steph roar in Oracle Arena that there was a distinct cheer whenever he would do something that no other player would get in the whole arena. And that's something that Steph can capture when he goes into an arena. There's a certain type of angst when he plays, when he shoots the ball. Even if he misses,

there's a collective, there's a collective all of that. And when he makes it, it's a different type of swish when Steph makes it. I've never seen another player capture somebody like that. The other person that I think in my lifetime was LeBron when I saw him come into Oracle like that. But there's just a game winner. It hit the game winner. But there's a different type of cheer when Steph walks in the building. So, Bill, explain this to me. I need to tap into your wisdom.

Why is it everybody says when Steph shoots, I expect it to go in? And then you're still shocked when it goes in. You still feel the joke when it goes in, right? If you know it's going in, why does it still feel this way? It's the nice wonder of the world. Oh, I know that shot's going in. It went in. It's every time. I did that like seven times last night.

I did that seven times last night. It's a phenomenon. I'm too young to explain it. There's some degree of difficulty thing that he's added this year. It seems like he has the ball a little bit more. It just seemed like his offense when he would get hot was a little bit easier when you have clay out there, the space he created. And Draymond was just, let's be honest, a much better offensive player in 2015 and 16.

This now, it's kind of like watching him pick up where this guy just wants to stay on the court. He's been saddled with like his two college roommates and, you know, this other guy they picked up who they don't know his name and, but, and there's the next team waiting and it's like, all right, we're going to get bounced. And he's like, no, no, actually we're going to stay on. And you know, he, the shots he's creating, the sliver he needs now from 30. I don't remember him doing this in 15 and 16 like this. I really don't.

Not at this level. I think the biggest thing is we saw it in spurts and all, even in 2016 and also during the championship run. The difference now is like it's unhinged. He kind of has to do this, like I said, but you saw this in spurts when he gets on an island against Tristan Thompson and he has to do his little thing and then shoot a fadeaway. I remember hearing whispers this summer. I was talking to Juan for a piece that I was Juan Anderson, Juan Toscano, Anderson Town Legend, 95th in East Oakland. But anyway, I was I was talking to him over this over the summer and he was working out with him.

He was like, Steph's different right now. And he talked about a time when they were doing a one-on-one, not a one-on-one, but a scrimmage at USF. And Steph falls down when he's getting guarded. And everybody just thinks it's a broken play. He falls down, keeps his dribble and throws up a shot and it goes in like nothing. And he's running back smiling. And everybody everybody's like what is going on right now like this dude is this dude is different but it seems like he's gonna be he's ready for a different type of year this year so you kind of heard those whispers going on i think we got a little recency bias i think i think we're seeing what's happening now and it's causing us to forget steph was ridiculous they won 24 straight stats are the same it was insane he's he was he was faster than right so he was getting to spots

based on quickness plus he had the crazy space now it's almost like a little bit of debo it's almost like i'm gonna get you a spot like he had he had George Hill. He hit one move, a little push off, and George Hill was like 10 feet away. He wasn't doing that. He can drive by whoever right now. You can't stand in front of Steph on one man. It's one move, and then he's got a little something on that shoulder now. You know what I'm saying? He was skinny back then.

Now he put that shoulder down. He's getting by you. It's a little bit different. We've seen this before with the Kobe's, with the George's. When they kind of recreate It's a little bit different. We've seen this before with the Kobe's, with the George, when they kind of recreate their game a little bit, they get stronger, they get a little slower. So they go mid-range. Steph is doing the opposite though. He's like, all right, I'm going to go further back. I'm going to bully you a little bit. I'm going to put a little body into you. So it's a similar thing, but he's still doing the long range stuff. He's

getting to his spots, taking his time, where before it was just bad. Draymond, you did the rewatch, it was right, from that Oklahoma City game. Draymond, watching that game, Draymond is just up and down the court like this. He was so fast. Steph was so fast. They definitely 30s now, right?

You can see. You can see. They got their old man game on. They playing in linen and sandals with no socks on right now. They got that OG vibe. So it's a little bit more slow but it's under control and i don't think we've ever seen stuff like this we just like i'm just gonna hit these 10 shots this is a dude who used to have when he was in high school they had to give him a shot minimum like you gotta take five shots a quarter now he's chucking 19 threes like it's nothing. This was never who Steph was. He hates feeling like a ball hog. And now it's like, let's get these up. Y'all don't want none. And he did it to his brother. Like why?

I want to talk about that. I have two things off that, but let's take a quick break. Then we'll come back. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl,

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Sign up now. Just search Movember. Coming back off what Marcus was talking about, the two things I've noticed that are a little different than 15 and 16, the physicality that he can bounce off guys now in a way where all of a sudden the shot's coming off where he's not off balance. Definitely have noticed that.

The herky-jerky thing, Russell and I talked about a little bit on Sunday where it just seems like he's able to get to his spots in this kind of stutter step, scatter, left, right. He has guys off balance in a way that I don't really remember him doing as well in 15, 16. He could do it, but now it just seems like he's got complete command. It's like I never got to see Earl Monroe play, but that was what they always used to say with Earl Monroe, where he's just like, he's going right, but his body's going left,

but his leg's going backwards. And guys were just kind of on skates going backwards trying to guard him. And it seems like Steph's got a little of that too. But Logan said something interesting. The fact that he has to do this now is what's different. There were a time, even when they won 24 straight, he could have the night where he scored 17, right?

Where maybe clay hit nine threes and he could just basically take the game off. There's no games taking off in this. There's no night where it's like, Hey, cool. Juan Toscano. Anderson's got it tonight.

I like why I like JT. There's no like, good thing. Good thing. No, I do. Okay. No, all right. There's no like... Good say. Good say. No, I do. Okay, okay. I know. How about he basically goes flying into the computers

and split his head open, and he's got seven towels on his head, and the announcer's like... Marcus, where's he from? Where's he from, Marcus? East Oakland, baby. My point is, he's not getting the clay 11 threes.

He's not getting the Draymond 24, 12, and 17. Those days, it's just him or they lose. And I think that's the difference this time around. I think the biggest... Okay, go ahead, Marcus. Go ahead, Marcus. It's not just that they lose. They're getting boat raced.

Right. They're getting destroyed. They're getting destroyed. They're literally like one and six when he doesn't play. They're getting destroyed. They're literally like one in six when he doesn't play. It's not even a game if he's not playing well. That's a huge difference. So that's the 06 Lakers parallel is the same thing. parallel. When you talk about he's literally the only option right now, at least the only option that's effective right now, I'm not going Kobe 05-06 at this very moment. I'm going Kobe 2012-2013 in the backstretch of that season where he had to play 40 minutes and had to do anything for them to get into the postseason. That's kind of the vibes I'm getting right now now that I think about it.

The totality of it might be 05, 06. But this stretch run, when they have 14 games left or when they have a couple weeks left, they need Steph every single night. He can't be injured or he can't not play for them to be successful. I'm going right now to this backstretch. They need a 2012-13 Kobe as opposed to a 15-16 Kobe. Let's start some shit, Marcus. So I was joking. I was joking last night with a couple of my friends

after Steph was doing it again on ESPN on the big stage. Like, all right, LeBron's not going to stand for this past like Thursday. What does LeBron, what does he just do? The interview, the ESPN interview,

does he leak out a second deleted scene from Space Jam that we haven't seen yet? He doesn't like when Steph commands the attention like this. What does LeBron do? Let's start some shit. I like, yo, the second leak of Space Jam is innovative. I like that.

See, it's just, see, we weren't going to release this, but fuck it. Here it is. Again, I have love and peace in my heart. I have optimism. I think LeBron is on the Steph love right now. He wrote a piece about how we should love them too.

He might have sparked it at the All-Star game. He extended the olive branch. I think... This is a part that is actually important like steph was being basically being mentored by lebron up until 2015 when they met in the finals right like what do you mean mentored how was he mentored it was lebron it was steph was at lebron's camp lebron was going to his games at Davidson. Steph looked up to him. LeBron was the

superstar of the NBA who was reaching back to the young guys in college, and he valued Steph. He was at, you know, they played at, back when it was the Charlotte Bobcats. Steph had a game there against North Carolina State. LeBron goes to shoot around, shoot around, he goes to the game. He's sitting courtside, Steph hitting buckets and pointing to LeBron. They had this kind of relationship. We even remember the whole Hesi thing, right? Like, LeBron is after the game basically throwing Mario Chalmers under the bus

like, yo, why you do my point guard like that? They were celebrating, Steph. It wasn't until they got to the finals where it got to be like, alright, this is a rivalry now. There's always been this kind of value relationship. I don't think it was the finals. I think it was the 24-game winning streak.

Because that was when the Warriors became a phenomenon and people started showing up to the arena an hour early for Steph. Yeah, you're right. And it was like, Steph, Steph, Steph, Steph, Steph. I think that's when LeBron was like, wait a second. This was supposed to be my time. Who is this guy? I remember being in San Antonio for a road game.

And I'm like outside. And there's like this man and his son who's got a Steph jersey. He's got a Spurs jersey. And he's like going off on the ticket guy because they wouldn't let him in because he didn't have the right ticket to get in to watch Steph warm up. So this child is crying. I'm like, what the heck is this? It's San Antonio. Like Spurs. There's a kid crying because his dad cussing out the ticket, dude, because he can't get in to watch Steph's warm up. That's what it was like. OK, this is a different beast. I mean, you remember this, Marcus, when like when Oracle was a big thing,

like when we had to get there early to even get a seat, like a stand up station on the baseline because there was so many people. But back to LeBron and Steph, it's almost like when the little homie becomes a peer. Right. When the little homie is like, yeah, you've been grooming him, you've been grooming him, you've been doing anything or whatever. And then he becomes a peer and you're like, you're still proud of the little homie but you're like hold on hold on one second you ain't you ain't better than me yet and then even to get a sliver of like damn i can't even control the little homie no more that's how i'd imagine it feels for lebron he's still happy with steps doing but he's like hey hold on real quick player hold on hold on let me show you and i think that's the 2016 finals in a nutshell like hey relax hey, relax. Hold on. Hold on.

That's over, man. It's already done. The olive branch has been extended. LeBron has been cemented at the top. Like, it's over. LeBron is riding with him. But I do. If that's patient after he comes out, Bill, I'll be like, yo. I still you wait. That's such a great call. Next 48 hours, he'll definitely do something. You guys were probably there. You were there for game one, 18 finals, right? Yes.

The best game I ever saw LeBron play in person. But there was a moment in overtime when he got really mad at Steph, and I was sitting under the basket watching it where it was like a fuck you, no, no, fuck you kind of moment where it was like, there was something there.

I was, I, it was exciting and Steph stood his ground. But LeBron, that whole game was just like, we don't have as much talent. I'm going to bully these guys. And he did,

he did something physically that if you had told us, you know, six years earlier, seven years earlier, when, when J.J. Barea was guarding him in the 11 finals and it was like, LeBron's got to figure out how to

use his body and be more physical and post up. And he basically almost beat that incredible Warriors team by himself. There was some sort of something going on in the arena that day that I will always remember. So, I always felt like the rivalry was really on in the arena that day that I will always remember. So I always felt like the rivalry was really on to another level that day.

I mean, you could tell like we could we could tell like when LeBron comes, LeBron comes to town. It's one of those games he gets up for when he plays Steph. Those one of it's not like it's a Utah or some one of those games where he's like, I'm gonna give you a light 35 and eight. He's like, no, man, I'm putting, I'm putting in work. I'm coming. You can tell that he's a different type of focus whenever he comes to town to play step. And no matter what teams he's on,

you can just tell when he walks in the building. Was that, was that the same game? I remember that game. Was that the same game where David West and Tristan got into it? I think that might, it might've I think that might have been another game. I remember the game. I thought that was 2017. Because the play had gone on,

and Steph and LeBron just stayed back, and they were just jawing at another. I do remember that. Do you know what that felt like? That felt like LeBron realizing inevitability, right? He had like 50 points. He had like 50 points. He did everything he could.

J.R. Smith tricked off the whole game. I think he's like, I ain't never going to beat the state. That's the maddest he's ever been on a basketball court because he knew they weren't going to beat them five times. And they gave away this game one. And that was it. The ship has sailed.

Marcus, do you think the last five years are more fun if Durant doesn't go to the Warriors? No. Part of me does believe that the NBA figures stuff out, man. You got to adjust. Maybe they get one more championship, too. I don't think they create the dynasty. I don't think they get to the heights.

And I'm a firm believer that dynasties are great. I don't like parody get to the heights. And I'm a firm believer that Dynasties are great. I don't like parody. Parody's trash. Give me the top. Somebody to shoot at, right? Like, give me something up there. For me, the NBA was built on this, right? Lakers, Celtics.

That's what it was built on. Team at the top. So without that, it may be more fun for, like, Dallas' and Portland Portland of the world, but it ain't more fun for basketball. You had a you had a villain. You had a hero. You had more eyes on it since Jordan was on it. Right. Like for me, this was this was the great part. I love the dynasty stuff. Build another bro. Sports are built on dynasties, man. In general, if you talk about like you talk about the Patriots, I'm a Raider fan Simmons. I hate the Patriots, but the Patriots were good for the game. You know what I mean? Just that all the theater of that that made me want to watch. I watched the Patriots to have to see if they would lose or see if they would if they would fumble the same with the Bulls. They had at a certain point. They were like, well, when are they going to lose? That's the storyline now. Serena Williams, we love that dominance. We need that dominance. Beyonce Knowles, bro, we need that dominance, man. Just to have parity and just say, hey, okay, Portland won that one series. Portland won the one

series in like 70 with Bill Walton. Nah, man, would know it would have been greater than Portland winning that one series if they would have reeled off like four straight that would have been great you know for the game and i i think that we always ask for parody until parody comes and we're like damn who's the next dynasty gonna be you know what that's a great point because that's stretch whereas like the knicks well i think the knicks won two and portland won one it was a stretch where it wasn't like, yeah, the 70s where people are, you got the Lakers and the Sonics won one randomly. And then you skip all the way to the Bulls in the 90s, right? Or to, you know, the Pistons.

But there was a stretch in the 70s where all of these teams were winning and the Sonics, right? And it was cool for them. Hey, Bill, what were the ratings like back then? What were the ratings like back then? Didn't they have that on record when that happened in the 70s? He was all over them Dave Cowan Celtics. He went, what, it's a ratings?

No, they were taped in the finals. It was terrible. The league was completely falling apart in the late 70s. Yeah, it was rough times, but you're right. There was no... It would have been Walton's Blazers.

And they were kind of the mini dynasty the league needed. He got hurt. And then it's just kind of rudderless until Bird and Magic show up. And I honestly feel like it's a little rudderless right now. Yeah.

I think one of the reasons we've had so much trouble trying to figure out this season, one of the reasons the Steph explosion has been so needed and so perfect is just weird. It's like, I don't know. I had led a podcast four weeks ago with a Utah conversation. It was like my heart wasn't even 100% in it.

It's like, can Utah win the title? It's like, Utah's not winning the fucking title. Why are we even doing this? It's just the injuries, man. There's just like nine teams like this. Yeah, it's the injuries man it's like it's like we wanted the you know the storyline going into it was like make can the lakers go back to back can they make another laker type dynasty and then the hardened trade comes and maybe we try to make brooklyn the thing where they have three all-stars but it seems like we're even just trying to put a narrative on a team that

hasn't necessarily earned it just yet. And that's, I feel like we're doing it. Like Brooklyn. Brooklyn's playing 10 minutes together. Yeah, but we're trying to be like the super team right now, but like we just got to see them play. We got to see Kevin get on the court. We got to see LeBron and all these people get on the court. And it's just been in a season

where, like you said, Utah as by and large has been probably, Utah and Denver have been really good as a team. We've been talking about, and Phoenix, all these teams, exactly, as by and large, Utah and Denver have been really good as a team. We've been talking about, at Phoenix, all these teams, exactly, we've been talking about a nine seed, a nine seed right now. We're talking about a nine seed led by Steph Curry right now.

And that's where the NBA is right now. It's trying to find its identity with the team, and we're trying to find that right now. At least until the Space Jam deleted scene comes out, and then it'll be much better. Marcus, you still feel like the Lakers are winning the title? If they're healthy.

See, that's the season. At this point, I do feel like, who's got the greatest chance to get their life together in time for the playoffs, right? For the finals? The Lakers or the Nets? And I feel like the Nets feel a little hapless, right? I don't know if they can get it together.

They, like, can't get right from life, right? They got all these pieces, but I just don't have faith they're going to put it together. If they're together, that team is scary as hell. But I feel like LeBron will be ready for the playoffs and he'll drag AD with him. So I'm leaning that way. I'm hoping the Nets get their life together because I want to see it.

We need something epic, man. We've been in a pandemic. Give us something epic. I don't want to see Jimmy Butler carrying a team. I don't want to see that. I want to see epic class. Give me KD. Give me Harden.

Give me Kyrie. Give me Brian. Give me AD. I want to see Epicness. I earned this after a year. What about 1-8 Golden State Utah and the Warriors

go up 2-1 and then Game 4 is in San Francisco and all of a sudden Steph's getting hot in the fourth quarter. That's probably our best case scenario for round one. You over here. Pure excitement level.

Hey, Marcus. Simmons is over here really trying to recreate this 0-5, 0-6 Kobe thing right now going on right now where they go up 3-1 and maybe Utah comes back and wins it all or something like that. Utah would fold. Utah's folding in that scenario.

They will not be there. Just pick and roll all game five with Draymond and Steph. They take it home. What would Dwyane Wade do in that scenario? He loves Steph, but now he's like a jazz guy. Would he be rooting for a guy to get cooked? That was a weird one. It's going to take me 10 years to think of get cooked? That was a weird one.

It was like, it's going to take me 10 years to think of Dwayne Wade as a Utah guy. You know, one of the things I've noticed about this season is every time any team is brought up to me, I'm just immediately coming up with the reason why they can't win the title, which, and then you go through and I've just done all 12 teams and there's no teams left,

which is why I think we all default toward the Lakers thing. But like Brooklyn, you know, Brooklyn should win the East. I have no idea if Durant can play five games in a row. I have no idea if Kyrie will be there for every single round. Who knows what will happen when there's real pressure. Milwaukee, I feel like I'm pretty settled on because I watching that Phoenix game last night. I just think when they, when there's that mano a mano moment where they have to go back and forth, I'm going to score on you. You're going to score on me. I just don't like their guys as much in those situations. And you saw last night, I just thought Booker was going to score more reliably than anybody they had. And that's how it bore out, you know? And then it ends up with Giannis clearing out for everybody, you know, in the last shot of regulation, I'm watching like, what does this have? Like a 12% chance of working Giannis isn't this guy yet. So I don't know. I'm, I'm crossing them off. And then Philly was the other one where you see how involved Seth Curry was last night, which is kind of how they have to be when they're in like a half-court situation,

a good team. And it just seems like it's all set up for Brooklyn. I don't know if they can get it though. I want to say of another team, I just, I love Phoenix, man. I really, really, really love Phoenix. And in a weird way, like, I know you guys are probably going to kill me for this.

There's a world where they make the conference finals and like, and go to the, and maybe go to the finals if something shakes out. A hundred percent. No, I don't think that's crazy. What do you mean? I don't think that's crazy at all. Do you know how hungry CP3 is? Do you know?

This is 35 years of wanting and wanting. I was all in on Phoenix. That was one of the things I was right about this season. I was all in on how Phoenix rolls, and I just love their game. I love Devin Booker's game, and I just love their game. I love Devin Booker's game, man. I love his game. His bridges. I love what they were bridges. How about when he went glass in overtime?

Did you see that? The one-on-one on the side? Yes. And it was just like, it was like out of a sports movie or something. There was a moment in regulation that made me, to me, that Aiton is the piece where there's going to be a moment. And you saw it last night with like a minute left where CP set it all up, gave the pass to him on the pick and roll.

And Aiton like kind of ran into somebody. Then he like hurt his shoulder. He lost the ball. And I was thinking like in a playoff game, is Chris Paul ever going to pass to him? Is anyone going to guard him? Is he going to be on the floor? Yeah. Is,

is he even on the floor? And then if he's not on the floor, who's the fifth guy? Are they just going super small? Um, that's the X factor for me with them, but they have two guys who can create a shot and they play well together. And I think they have a good coach.

I didn't think Monty was great in new Orleans. I thought he, I think he's been great in Phoenix. I'm voting for him for coach of the year, unless he blows it over the next two, three weeks here. Yeah. He was my pick for, for coach of the year start going into the season. And honestly, from a selfish media member perspective, like, I don't know what it's going to look like in the playoffs this year, but if Phoenix is a team, man, a week in Phoenix sounds lovely in the spring. And I just want to put that out there. You know, I don't know who's listening to this but yes yes so sweet so so hold on you're saying not a week in utah

hey i'm good i'm okay guys la phoenix yo i need to recreate the la phoenix rivalry again in the postseason because that seems like a lovely postseason matchup for a media member. Raja might get PCSD, though. Oh, my God. They won that series. He'll be all right. Any sleeper teams that you guys see that aren't? We have the three in the East. Is it fair to call Miami a sleeper?

Is it fair to call Miami a sleeper? I mean, I don't think they're a sleeper because everybody assumes they're awake. It almost seems like the better, the counter take would be, but actually Miami's not a sleeper and here's why. Because heroes playing like crap,

you know, if you actually look at their stats and I don't think they're the same team shooting wise that they were last year. Drogac isn't the same as he was last year. So you could almost make a better case. They're not going to be the sleeper, and here's why. But I'm with you. You just figure they'll figure it out when we get to the postseason.

Here's my sleeper. The New York Knickerbockers, baby. The New York Knickerbockers, baby. Stop, stop, stop. Julius Randle, sleeper MVP candidate. Here's why I like him. Sixth in the league in three-point shooting. Sixth in the league in three-point shooting.

So they can make threes. And if the threes fall, man, they got options. They got dudes who can put their head down and get to the cup. I'm sleeper. You don't want to see them next. You don't want to see them. Logan. You don't want to see them. Logan, good team chemistry,

at least on that team. The bench is locked in. I like it. They haven't burnt out yet. Tim's got two more years before they burnt out. No, it's good right now. Marcus has this weird fascination

with the Knicks ever since he got a quote from Latrell Sprewell in like 98 in an internship. He's just loved them since then. But anyway, my sleeper is, and it remains to be seen if they're still asleep in the postseason.

But my sleeper pick right now is the LA Clippers, man. LA Clippers. Paul George is playing really, really good right now. We'll see what happens. They might be asleep. I'm just going to say, let's do some controversy. Let's do some controversy. No, no.

Nobody expects them. The Clippers are always the team that you figure is going to be bad in the postseason. And at this point, they're the team that's bound to choke. And I'm just going to be like, maybe they won't choke this year. I'm just going to do that. Because I've already said Phoenix. I've already said them. So I wanted to switch it up.

That's what we're doing. The Clippers are the most talented team in the league. They can't beat the Sleepers. Calm down. That would have to be a crazy Rondo run I think is the path for them. Which is in play. Which is in play.

Yeah, it's in play. I just don't trust that team. I can't put my finger on it. They don't pass the stink test with me. Something about it. Something about the way they play together, I do not like, which is why Rondo might be the fix, right? He has a way of being so inclusive with everybody,

and that's kind of what they need. But I just don't trust those guys in big games. I don't trust Paul George. I just don't. PG gets me every time, every time. He goes on these runs, and I'm like, yo, y'all got to stop sleeping on PG. You know why? He goes on these runs in the middle of April, right? We were like, oh, he's about to go turn up in the postseason. He's right there. He's right

there. I'm here. I'm here for all of it. I'm like, yo, PG MVP. I'm telling y'all sleep on PG. He does this to me every time and I buy it every single time it's happening again. Well, I'm ready for the playoffs. Are you guys ready for the you guys pro playing game? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Especially this year when if Steph can bring it all the way back, if Steph can have like Steph magic in the postseason playing game. Yes.

You know, I'm all in. We need to do this. We've learned from the all-Star game with the Elon ending to last year's bubble, a little ingenuity is okay. It's all right to switch things up. We're not married to stuff. And if it don't work, go back to the regular. It's fine.

I'm all for it, especially because one of them teams coming out of play is going to do something. There's going to be a 15 seed to come through the clutch like in the tournament. They're at least going to scare the hell out of play is going to do something, right? One of them teams, there's going to be a 15 seed to come through the clutch, like in the tournament. Somebody's going to, they're at least going to scare the hell out of somebody. And that's going to make it more entertaining. Who can handle that play-in team from Murray State or, you know, whoever.

And I like it. I like it because it encourages some teams not to tank, man. Like there was a lot of times when going into the postseason, teams would just flat out give up because they know lot of times when going into the postseason, teams would just flat out give up because they know they weren't going to make the postseason. And now it's cool because maybe we get the playoff game. Mark Cuban, bad he can't. He's like, yo, man, we got

to finish the season? What are you doing? I don't like this play-in. I got to play my guys. All these guys voted for it. What are they complaining about? Why didn't you complain about it during the vote? Go on the record after. Why are you complaining now? It was supposed to be a four seed there. That's why. Now you're that eight seed.

You don't want to do it. We're taking one more break and then I have a fun question for you guys. Alright, here's my question. Let's say the three of us are at dinner. We've already had dessert. Somebody ordered one more drink and then I ask you give me your best Steph story. We're skipping the dinner. We're just doing it right now here in a Zoom during the middle of the day.

Give me your best Zoom. Give me your best Steph story. Give me the one you would tell me in that scenario. Go ahead, Marcus. You got it first. You got it. I got a longer roll of this. I'm over here.

I'm over here thinking right now about it. Damn. Okay. I mean, we're going to edit this out. Kyle, you got this. Hold on. Let me think about this real quick. Let me see what I got a longer roll of this. I'm over here thinking right now about it. Damn. Okay. I mean, we're going to edit this out. Kyle, you got this. Hold on. Let me think about this real quick. Let me see what I got.

You put me on the spot. Wow. No, no. I got a good story. I got a good story. We're not editing this either. No, no. I got a great story.

I want people to hear Indecision. All right. I got a great story. So I am driving outside of Chase Center. It's after a shoot around or something like that, right? And I'm driving. I have Marcus knows this car. I was driving a beat up Toyota Prius and I was outside on the light that's around the corner from Chase about to get on the freeway on the 280 freeway. And I stop at a light and this this whip comes this very expensive luxury sports car comes by me and it's

tinted and it comes it rolls the window down and he says and it's steph and he goes you want to race it drives off oh that's an epic throw that's a pretty good one that's i don't know marcus can you top that one i don't know mine mine's cuter it's a little it's a little more personal so uh my daughter is a big april fools like she was like 11 at the time big into april fools is one of my favorite holidays so i changed the number to a friend of mine to steph curry in my phone and i had him call and so she thought she was on the phone with steph curry uh and he was like saying hey how good he was talking about how great you know you i heard your dad said

you've been doing great at school she was so excited like she was like she was trying to contain it and then at the end he was like ah april fool so she was um she she was she was actually happy she was laughing she was like that's a good one so i tweeted out i tweeted out that i did it and steph thought i was uh i was very wrong for doing it so he called to wish her a happy birthday on her birthday he sent the video message telling her happy birthday so she's got a video message from steph curry on her phone to happy birthday i'm sorry your father did you so wrong. We got to make up for that.

For me, that's going to always be the coolest moment because it involves a 13-year-old. That's my heart right there. That's a great story. Give me your best Draymond story. I got a good one. I don't know if I can tell you. I don't know. I got a couple good. I don't know if I can tell you. I don't know.

Like, I got a couple good Drayvon stories. I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's safe. I'll say this one, man. I know how to do it. I remember there was one time in Portland or whatever, right? And it was after they won in 2019 to go to the finals. And I was talking to Draymond. I was trying to get him for some extra sound.

Me and Draymond had a good rapport. And Marcus knows this. And you guys have written a story about this. What do you call it? Sideline or something like that? I was about to sideline. I was about to do my thing. I was about to do that.

I was waiting on Draymond. And me and Draymond are cool enough at that point to where i can get him right and so um i'm trying to get him and he gets keeps getting whisked away he keeps getting whisked away and i'm like come on bro and like like i'm like i'm on deadline i'm like come on what are we doing and draymond sees me like we lock eyes and i'm like and i get the look like come on man right and um the uh he's about to get whisked away again and he pushes somebody he pushes somebody over to the side pushes the the person over to the side like i'm gonna go talk to logan and he's like and i'm about to pull my recorder out and he's like man i see that they doing you scandalous and i seen they've

been doing you scandalous for a minute i've seen this all night if you need anything from me you just let me know and i got you and that's the most pg story that i can give about draymond but that was a dope story that's pretty good story i have a lot of stories about dray but that's probably the the best one i can give that was really cool to draymond to do that at that point because i was very young and really didn't know what i was doing at that point and he really showed love in that point. So shout out to Dre for that. Oh yeah. I got, I got a Dre.

I got to what I was going. I just got to the athletic and it was kind of new. And I was telling, I was talking to Dre about leaving a newspaper was kind of this weirdly enough, scary moment. Cause I had been there for like 18 years. I was talking to Dre about it and Tim Coward County, my boss was there.

So we doing a, a group, like a group interview with him. And Tim Coward County, my boss, was there. So we're doing a group interview with him. And he's just like, oh, yeah, man. He just goes off about Marcus Thompson is great. Marcus Thompson always tells the truth. And he just starts raving about me. So I ended up getting a raise. So shout out to Draymond because he did that.

But there was one time Draymond was telling me something. I don't remember the story. But he was telling me something I don't remember the story but he was telling me something and you know how if you don't know they want you to say it you just kind of like you know it's what you're hearing right so he calls me

I wrote it he calls me he's like so what's this what you hearing stuff and I was like I hit you to see if I can if you want if it was cool if I put your name on it but you didn't respond so I just put what you're hearing he was like oh i hit you to see if i can uh if you want if it was cool if i put your name

on it but you didn't respond so i just put what you're hearing he was like if i say it to you then put my name on it like don't be doing he was like mad that i sourced it right he was like if i say it to you you put my name on it if it come out my mouth and i'm telling you that you need to put my name on it don't do this what you're hearing and i'm told stuff this is for me say it's for me. And I was like, I've never heard this in my life. This is crazy. That's amazing.

I have another Draymond story. It was pretty fun. That's coming back. I remember I went to, it was the last, it was when he got the Jersey retirement at Michigan State. And so I remember hitting him. We were in Miami and he's like, tell me, oh, you're going to Lansing, right? And I'm like, for sure. Yeah, I'm going. And he was like, go to Crack Chicken in Lansing. Like, go there. I'm going to hit you every time. I'm going to hit you until you go there. And like, I'm never, I don't think I'm ever going to be in Lansing again. I don't know. Maybe y'all might put me out in Lansing and he's hitting me like, did you go to Crack Chicken yet? And I'm like, I don't know yet. I haven't gone there.

And I was hanging with my guy Colton Pouncey. And I brought Colton with me to go. And he's also with The Athletic. So I go to Crack Chicken. I send him a picture of it as soon as it happens. And I send him a picture of the chicken and the fish and all the stuff that's in there. It was a great establishment. And I get there and he's like, I told you.

And I didn't even eat it yet. He was like, I told you. And I didn't even eat it yet. He was like, I told you. And then the next day, the next day is his jersey retirement. He has a presser. They're playing against Duke. He's the man of the hour. He's doing all the stuff. He's like, you know, everybody's eyes are on Draymond.

And he does his presser or whatever. He's walking out, catches a glimpse at me. There's a crowd around him and he stops. And I'm like, why is he stopping? He looks at me. He was like, did you get the the crack chicken i told you it was hella good huh i told you it was the fucking best huh and he was like yeah right logan i fucking told you all right bye it was great chicken it was great it was great how are we gonna have him on television after he retires? I think he's just going to have to be on cable, right? He wants to be. He's going to be alright.

He'll be fine. By that point, I think SCC will relax. I want the real Draymond. I don't want TV watered down Draymond. I want Draymond on television. They got to figure out how to do that. You're going to put a TNT version on NBA on HBO? Put it on HBO Showtime?

Well, you figure like by the time he, you know, he's got five to nine years left depending on what kind of shape he stays in. But by the time he retires, I'm sure they'll have

alternate broadcasts and alternate studio shows and all, you know. There'll be more opportunities to kind of tap into somebody. He wants inside the NBA though. He wants that seat.

He's not making that a secret at all. Nah, he wants that. He's shouting out Tara August. He's shouting out everybody, bro. He wants to do this. He's the biggest sure thing we've had since Barkley. I remember on my old website way, way back when Barkley retired,

I wrote this whole piece about how great it was because now we were finally getting him on television. There's this whole new era. It was so obvious he was going to be amazing. Romo is like that. And Draymond, whatever he does, whether he's a game guy or a studio guy, he's going to be he'll be the next Barkley. The thing about Draymond is he's like perfect for this because he's going to say whatever is on his mind. He's been wrong in some things that he's tweeted out over the last couple of

couple of weeks and stuff. There's been some wrong things, but he's going to do it. He's going to say his opinion in a lot of the way that, that, um, that Barkley has done. Barkley's not right about everything, but he's going to say what he means and he's going to be right in his mind on his, on his conviction. So I think that Draymond is going to be perfect. I think as soon as it's, it's so much of a shoe in when he retires, it's not even going to be surprised when he gets announced as the TNT guy

or wherever he goes. It's like, oh, Draymond's going to do it. It's right there. I'm not going to be surprised. He's openly campaigning for this right now. Look on his Twitter every other day. He's literally campaigning. Just do it now.

What are we doing? Like after the game, go to Zoom. That's exactly what he's going to do. He's going to go to Atlanta and do it now. What are we doing? Like after the game, go to Zoom. That's exactly what he's going to do. He's going to go to Atlanta and do it. Marcus, what happened to his jump shot? Do you have any theories? I know he had a stretch where his injuries were messing him up, and I think his form suffered from it.

It's definitely an athleticism thing. But first off, he wasn't a great shooter he had one stretch under luke walton by the way where he shot like 40 for three for that like 43 game stretch he wasn't there it's it's form i think it's his body i think it's it's physical like his physical body doesn't lend to a shooter he's never had to really touch and everything's got to be perfect for him for had to really touch and everything's got to be perfect for him for it to work for him it's got to be all in rhythm uh he's just he's just not that guy you know the reason he can't shoot is because he needs the moment he'll make the biggest shot in a game

but that doesn't happen until the fourth quarter that's his game in a nutshell he needs stakes in general i remember my favorite thing about dray I remember my favorite thing about Draymond's jump shot and his three-point shot is no matter how many he misses, I remember a time in Portland. It's a great example. Same game. His shot was broke all season. The playoffs, it got good.

I remember the last game against Portland, a game for the 2019 finals. He hits a three. He was broke all even postseason. He hits a three, He was broke all, even postseason. He hits a three, looks at the Blazers bench like, y'all shouldn't have let me fucking open

and Wadden's over there. And that's what he does every time. He will break 27 straight and then we'll look at the bench after he hits one three and we'll be like, I told y'all,

I told you, I told you. Get somebody out here to guard me. Yeah. Bro, your shot's been broke for three months.

It's unbelievable how he can do that. I love that about Draymond. I mean, he hit seven threes in the 2016 NBA Finals. It's still one of the great things. Like, seven threes for Draymond is ridiculous. Is there a world where he comes back one season and he's been, like, working out with Tom Brady and TB12 and Alex Guerrero. And he's just all of a sudden in amazing shape and transforms his career.

The next time they're a bona fide contender in the beginning of the season, he's going to be as skinny as me and he's going to be balling and he's going to be doing all the stuff that he's. I don't know if the shot's going to do there, but when he knows he has stakes and there's, it might be the last great shine for him in his mind that they can win a title. I think he's going to be probably in the best shape of his life and he's going to give one more crack at it what you think marcus yeah i think this this summer he did a lot of the skill work to kind of rebuild it uh it's so much of it is confidence right it's in his head he missed the shot he won't take it anymore he's never been a guy who got his buckets one way

it's all kind of garbagey anyway push it in transition a few times post up a small guy a few times hit a couple open shots like a couple putbacks you know i'm saying it's very like garbage man type he's always been that way and it's very supplemental so i do think he could get there uh i just wonder about his knees and like like whether he could put the grind of one of them off-seasons. Like Steph worked out for nine straight months, right? Like just every day. He was in game shape from the moment he left.

Steph was in game shape from the moment he left. I don't know if Jeremiah can do that. Steph is ridiculous. Alright, last question then we'll go. Warriors playing in San Francisco. We're actually going to have playoff games in San Francisco this year. It'll be the first time we've had, I don't know, a legitimately relevant Warriors game and it's not in Oakland. Has the Warriors thing changed at all for you guys

now that it's not in Oakland? Like, just what is it like in the city and the area now that they're a San Francisco team? I'll go first because you're going to give a great answer. in the city and the area now that they're a San Francisco team? I knew it was coming. I'll go first because you're going to give a great answer. I think that there was always an inevitability from people from Oakland that the Warriors were going to leave. First, the Warriors never claimed Oakland,

and then they were like, we want chips and leave. There was never really – Oakland loves the Warriors, but there was always inevitability. Okay, whenever they get good or whenever they get a little bit of Silicon Valley money, they going to dip on us anyway. So I don't think there's like a, it's an understanding that it was going to happen. It's never going to be like how it was in Oracle, but there was always an understanding

from Oakland that they were, it was never ours. The Warriors were just never ours no matter what. So I don't think there was going to be that much animosity. It'll never be the same and to truth be told, it was changing when it was in Oakland, right? It's just, it's a different audience.

It's the one thing I hear about the most from people, right? It's the one thing, like, if I mention anything about San Francisco, somebody's in my DMs, why are you even bringing, why are you even talking about it, right? There's still people like, I'll never go to a Warriors game again.

I think once they win, it can start to become a new relationship. The problem they have, they keep trying to live on that old thing. Yeah. And it just keeps bringing up a new wound. It never lets the wound heal. Like, it hurts. Anybody from Oakland don't see Oakland and the Bay as this one big unified place. It's Oakland and then everything else is the Bay Area.

So this idea of this universal Bay that they use to try to make it all good, people from Oakland ain't like that. They're like, nah, San Leandro, you stay over there. San Francisco, you over there. So there needs to be a new relationship, a new kind of identity. It'll be fine. there needs to be a new relationship, right? A new kind of identity. It'll be fine, but I think once they win, it'll change. But there will never be what was in 2013 when Steph is in 20 and Oracle's going crazy

and you can't hear. There'll never be like we believe because there were people. It wasn't corporations. It was moms and pops. It was families. Like it was people for me. It was Juan Toscano Anderson, right?

Dreaming one day. It's fancy now. You know what I'm saying? It's real bougie. It's like we moved up a little bit, but sometimes you still got to go to the liquor store and you still got to go to Crack Chicken. I remember when it happened in Boston in the 80s when

I was looking at my dad. 80s when my dad had... No, I'm talking during the Byrd era when the ticket prices went up. And everybody in the lower section who were just like all real people, and they slowly started to go year after year. And my dad, his one big purchase every year was the Celtics tickets. And we were there, but we would just watch the people around us change. And then I remember, I've told this story in the pod before, but the lockout season, I got in March of 99, I got to see the Kings play the Warriors.

It was my first game in Oakland. And I had no idea. And every time C-Web touched the ball they fucking went crazy and i was looking around and it was like just an arena of normal people and i was like what is this how did nobody tell me about this place i just couldn't believe it and you can feel it by the time we got to the last couple finals it was there was no semblance of that anymore. You got to understand though, like the Bay Area, at least the Bay Area that me and Marcus grew up in, it was a Bay Area where rich people and poor people

took the bark to San Francisco together. You know, it was one of those type of places. Now the rich people are like generationally rich people right now. And I feel like you kind of see the change in the Bay Area with the Warriors, man. Like the beginning of the Warriors Area with the Warriors, man. Like the beginning of the Warriors run, like Marcus could say, it was still affordable to get tickets to go see this phenomenon that was brewing. And now when you go see the Chase Center, it's literally segregated. There are glass doors separate glass windows separating common folk from Silicon Valley oligarchs.

You know, you literally can't see them. And that's really the change in how it is. So it'll never be the same. And also, in part, the Warriors kind of did that to themselves. They segregated a lot of people in that arena. The lower bowl, you can't. Back in the day, you could sneak down to the lower bowl and slap five with E40 if you wanted to.

Now you can't even touch E E40 if you wanted to. Now you can't even, you can't even touch E40 now if you want to. That's how I would change overall. And, you know, good thing the acoustics are good at Chase Center because it will get loud in there, but it's never going to be the same as Oracle.

Hey, Logan, remember when Dane will come and Dane will have a whole section like 105 and you can knew it was Dane's people because there was a cloud of weed over that section. We got contact high when we got to 105. Yeah, exactly. That's Brookfield right there.

Now Brookfield is like... That's how it used to be. DJ D-Sharp is right over there. It was crazy too. It used to be like super like you said, rich and poor. It was like really diverse culturally from an economic standpoint. Oracle was that place.

I wrote about this before. I used to sit. That's back when we sat courtside, Bill, when the Warriors wasn't fancy, when we could sit baseline with media. It used to be funny because I had people from my hood who knew me as a kid who were like, stop. What's up, Mark? He stops me. I can't believe you're here.

You made it right. But they were in the building. They were barbers or they worked for PG&E or whatever. And it was just like this crazy community. It was the Bay, like the real Bay. And it's different now. You can see the demographic change. Maybe it was inevitable, right?

Maybe this is how these sports are. But it definitely will never be like it was, especially maybe this is how these sports are but it definitely especially especially nba you know this there was two places where you could see all your partners at at the coliseum there was two times when you could see it it was a warrior game and it was summer jam where you could go walk around the bowl at halftime or in the middle of like a of a musical act and you could see 30 of your partners and then y'all go to and then y'all go into it y'all sneak into a section together and y'all go along you can't do that at a chase center it's not the same because all the uh all the corridors

don't connect no more it's not the same you can't you can't it's it's it's it's hurt now you now you ask that question you see what i know right i shouldn't have done it. Warriors games used to be the most expensive club in Oakland, right? Like, it was like going to the nightclub. You pay to get in, and you really just kicking it. It was $50 to kick it with your partners. That was it. It was like better than going to the nightclub. You just go to the—put your best outfit on, put your diamonds on,

go to the Warriors game, get you some drinks and just walk around. And it was a night. It was a night out. And the cheapest after party was the Coliseum Bart on the way home after that. Was to go home on the Bart to get back home. It was the most expensive. Now we got to relive that. Now we over here boring and stuff, man.

Damn. Maybe it could happen in Sacramento now. No, because they got a new thing, too, maybe, but I don't know, man. I was kidding. Damn. Sorry, I'm just heartbroken right now. I'm just sad. To the Warrior fans, how do they regard Sacramento?

Is it like Laker fans regard the Clippers? Well, they all got relocated to Sacramento in gentrification, so they're still the same people. That's where we go see our pot. Nobody lives in a bay. They still Warrior fans. They got to go to Kings games because it's cheaper. That's where they only twice where they could go see the Warriors play.

Remember that lower bowl, Bill, you were talking about? Yeah, they all Sacramento. They all the time. All I know is the one year the Celtics had their first round pick was the one year in the last 15 years that they had their shit together. Now it's like, couldn't have been this year. Somehow we have Romeo Lankford. Who's the guy we drafted this year?

Dee Smith. We have five first round picks and I still don't have a bench. I'm very frustrated, Marcus. You should be. This is just a ving session of the pod. Feel good about Jalen Brown because the level he's taking this year is incredible. Shout out Cal Barkley.

Shout out Cal Barkley. We have two really good guys. All right. It was great to see you guys. Marcus, we can read you in the athletic. Logan, you're on the Ringer NBA show. The real ones. We've somehow managed to keep Raja from joining Steve Nash's staff for this whole season.

I'm really proud of us. I just have a pitch real quick because we have a great episode coming up on the real ones. Boris Diaw, we have him for an hour and a half. You need to check it out. A lot of stories. You're going to listen to this one. I know you're going to love this, Bill. We got Boris Diaw talking about excursions with his own wine,

with the Spurs, how he has a yacht that he just goes all around the world. It's one of the best episodes he's ever done. We got Boris DL coming on Thursday. Check that out. Are y'all going to get espresso on the show? You got the little… Oh, it's lit. It's lit.

You take a glass of wine, get a glass of wine, and you just listen to this and just let it play. Beloved teammate, Boris Dio. Yeah. A lot of popular stories as well. It's great. It's beautiful. I see why. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you guys. It was good

seeing you. Thanks for having me. All right. Taping this part of the podcast. It's 2.30 Pacific Time, 5.30 East Time. So God only knows what else is going to happen with the Super League drama. Chris Ryan is here. Eminent soccer fan, movie fan, basketball fan. He's a bunch of eminence with him with the ringer. But soccer, when chaos happens like this, this is really your wheelhouse, your domain. This is like a bad sports movie or like a bad Amazon first season of a drama where people try to create a league and all hell breaks loose. Right now, you said they're on a Zoom trying to figure out if they should do this or not. What the fuck is happening? This is my favorite sports story of the year. It's basically like the big short meets GameStop meets so many other things.

Meets that scene in Wedding Crashers where Will Ferrell is like, that guy died in a hang gliding accident. There's so much stuff happening with this. And the wild thing is that it's only been like 48 hours. So I have no idea what can happen in the next 48 hours. Apparently the 12 clubs who are supposed to start this breakaway European super league in European club soccer and football are having a zoom meeting

deciding whether they're going to go through with it or not. Officially, at least it looks like Manchester city is the only team to withdraw completely from it. Although I believe Chelsea is unofficially withdrawn. I'm just going off of what the Guardian was reporting and what I've seen on Twitter today. So City and Chelsea have pulled out.

But yeah, it's just been an absolute chaotic shit show. Who's driving this ultimately? Is it just the owners? Is there other stuff going on here? Is it owners that don't care about the legacy of soccer itself and who seem to not understand that if you just have a league of super teams, there's no teams for them to then beat up on and that somebody would then be at the bottom of the pack? Like, I don't know. It seems like

an idea from people who don't actually follow or like sports. So Americans. Okay, good. There we go. No, I mean, the person who's like the front man for this band, this is Florentino Perez, who is the owner or the president of Real Madrid. Real Madrid elects a president and he's currently the president. He's like an icon kind of in the history of modern football. He's the guy who kind of popularized this idea of the Galacticos, where you go and you buy up all these huge players from around the world and put together a superstar team. And then his wingman in this seemed to be a guy named Andrea Agnelli, who is the sort of the guys in charge of Juventus, the Italian team. And then the Glazers from Manchester United.

Oh, gosh. John Henry from Liverpool. Oh, no. Stan Kroenke from Arsenal. Oh, my God. And a few other people. So, along with that, there's a couple other Spanish teams,

et cetera, et cetera. There's Tottenham. But those guys seem to be the main drivers of this. Now, over the course of the day, there have been tweets from variously reputable sources saying United's dropping out,

Chelsea's dropping out, City's dropping out, Barcelona's out. Then there was like wave in the afternoon where it was like Barcelona's still in, a bunch of these clubs are still in, they're holding the line. So we are really in a touch and go situation. But your question is like, why is this happening? There's a bunch of clubs that make a lot of money, many of whom are in a lot of debt, who are saying, we bring all the value to this sport.

We should get to control more of the sport and keep more of the revenue. And they don't want to be threatened with getting blown out of a fucking airlock if they have too much debt on their books or they have a bad season and they don't make the Champions League because the financial hit that they would take

would be too significant. They're coming off of basically a year, a full year of not having people in stadiums there. The vaccination rollout in Europe is not going nearly as well as it is here in the States. They don't know. I mean, they're talking about having fans and stands in England for some of these FA Cup games, I think, towards the end of the season. But they're in peril, you know, and they're trying to figure out what's going on. But somehow they've picked an issue that seems to have united, like, the Bernie bros and Amazon and Sky Sports

in resistance to it. I don't think... I didn't think we could find common ground anymore, but apparently being mad at Florentino Perez is it. Wow. That's a really special achievement by him, I think. Yeah. To have a unanimous disapproval rating

is almost impossible in this day and age. And the other big thing about this is it's very much like a... It's a contemporary story. It's a very modern story because it reflects how we've all been working together for the last year, where I feel like if these guys were in offices,

people would be like, hey, did you see, why was Florentino talking to that guy? But because it's all over Zoom, you basically have these situations where the guy who runs UEFA literally pulled a, I had coffee with Macaulay a half an hour ago.

He was like, I just talked to Agnelli. He was like, we're all good. And then turned his phone off. And next thing I knew, there was a European Super League. So the drama is just, it's better than anything I've seen on TV. Do you think there's already been some stuff about how people would be afraid to bid on it because there's been such a backlash? Amazon was basically like, yeah, that seems too weird.

Dude, no, Amazon has Premier League rights. Amazon streams Premier League. Sky Sports has a huge investment in the Premier League. All of these networks are already pot committed to the leagues that they show. Sure, let's say hypothetically, you go to ESPN and you go to Disney and say,

hey, do you want this European super league? Like, first of all, I have no idea how like the paramount CBS aspect of it. Like, would they say like, yeah, cool.

Like we spent a billion dollars on champions league, but now there's another league with the better team. Here's more money. That's fucking ridiculous. Like the lawsuits would go flying everywhere. The thing I can't get over is how these guys thought they could get away with this without it being more airtight. Well, there's another common enemy here that nobody likes who's also really mad about this. And if you're going to make the case of,

I'm kind of rooting for these guys to upend the system, it's because everybody also hates FIFA. Yes. The most corrupt place on the earth who takes huge, huge amounts of money from basically everybody. Nobody really knows what they do. They allegedly govern everybody and watch out for everybody, but they do a terrible job at it. There's bribery left and right. There's all kinds of kickbacks, all kinds of terrible stuff. So the one fun thing about this is FIFA like being, you know, they're like the loan shark who's like, hey, I got a better deal. I'm not going to

give 30% interest on that loan. I'm just going to go on my own. What? What do you mean? Because they're loan sharks. And so that's the one fun thing about this is watching FIFA panic. There's something about any group of people saying,

why are we doing it the same way we've always been doing it? And that is essentially how the Premier League started. The Premier League was just the first division of English football. It was at the top of the pyramid. And then a group of people, along with a lot of television executives, decided, how about we monetize this in a better way? Instead of calling it the first division, it's the Premier League. We sell the TV rights.

We sort of solidify the upper echelon of English football, and it becomes Manchester United and Arsenal and whoever else. So this isn't the first time somebody has tried something like this. The Champions League itself is kind of a distortion of what used to be like the Cup Winners Cup and then the European Cup. So it's not like there's never been evolutionary steps in competitive football. But I think that this is another miracle is that they have somehow these 12 clubs have made people sympathetic to fifa and

uefa who we usually spend the entire football season being like fuck these guys right these guys hate us why don't we put up with it when i was trying to think of the American sports equivalent of this. So a friend of mine today was saying how it would be in college football. If what? The 12 best teams were just like, fuck the NCAA, fuck everybody. We're just going to literally be impossible. Couldn't happen. But if they just all teamed up and they just left and like for basketball, we no longer had March Madness with those 12 teams. They were in some separate tournament. That's a pretty good example. If you took like six SEC teams, some Big Ten teams or Big 12 or whatever, it's become a couple of Pac-12 teams.

UCLA, USC. Yeah, exactly. And some Texas and Oklahoma schools or whatever. University of Texas, University of Oregon. You just had like those 15. And then they said, peace out to the NCAA. Here's the deal. We are essentially like starting a new league. We're paying our player. We're paying students. Exactly.

And we're going to renegotiate TV deals for ourselves. So we're going to go directly to Disney or directly to whoever and say, here's a new deal. And then to try and get out of it, they were like, don't worry. The money that we make from this hugely profitable endeavor, we will then cut a piece of that out to redistribute to colleges or whatever. That would be probably the closest thing. But then you have to add this wrinkle where the personalities involved in the Breakaway Super League are so Bond villainy at this point, where it's like, it would basically be if we I can't even think of like what it would be for the NBA because the NBA already is kind of

this cabal where the owners own the league and it's just like 30 guys they don't need to do it yeah but like it would be essentially like if Pat Riley was like I'm tired of seeing my guys twist ankles and spin their wheels against like the charlottes and new orleans's we need to make a 12 team league where we can control the season the schedule all this everything about it it's a 35 game season and we all make more money we don't have to share with oklahoma city exactly i'm tired of floating teams that aren't competitive i'm tired of floating teams that are mismanaged you know My arena holds this many people. My TV rights are worth tons more

than this club. Why am I splitting up the pie? It would be funny if the Super League had happened and then three years into it, they're like, so we've decided to have some expansion teams.

They're going to pay us $3 billion and then all of a sudden it's 30 teams and basically we end up back where we were anyway. They claim that there would be opportunities for teams to get into this league, but the thing that it would destroy is the domestic competitions because if you've got... Let's just say

they started the Super League, but the usual leagues like the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, they let these teams stay in the domestic competitions. Well, now those teams, which were already dominating these leagues outside of England, Bayern Munich won Germany most of the

last 10 years. Juventus has won 8 or 9 Italian titles in a row or whatever. It's a monopoly at the top of a lot of European leagues. It's either Real Madrid or Barcelona winning every year with the exception of Atletico Madrid every once in a while. These guys would just be richer.

They would just be buying more players. The problem already is in soccer is that if you see any competition coming up in your rearview mirror, you just buy that team's best players and decimate the team behind you. If these teams were now all of a sudden even richer but still playing in their domestic

leagues, it would essentially kill competition forever. There would be no way a Leicester City could happen again. And Leicester is probably one of the most miraculous sports stories we've had this century. It's all very depressing. I was thinking, tough hit for

America with this whole thing. Here's what people are saying. LAFC wasn't invited. Try it again. But also, your boy. It's a wake-up call really for American soccer. Your boy Henry, he's like, I got to trade Mookie Betts and fuck the Premier League. What are you doing?

What's the menu? He probably did on the Zoom. They're like, John, what do you think we should do? He's like, look, I just traded a generational superstar for 40 cents on the dollar. I'm not the guy to ask, but I'll go along with whatever you guys want to do. Yeah, I think it would have been smart.

Why does LeBron James keep calling me? Hold on, LeBron and Matt were on the line. It actually would have been smart for them to have an American super team, like almost like an expansion team, just so they had the American territory, right? I mean, I think that they were sticking to this idea that it was going to be a Champions League replacement. So it would be a European league where the best of Europe would do it. But like knowing these guys and their greed, of course they would do that. Of course they would invite,

eventually they would probably try to like get teams from around the globe to Mexico. Yeah. And like I was talking with the guys who do our Stadio podcast on Ringer FC, Ryan and Musa. Great podcast. And Musa was saying like, this is going to end up with like somebody,

they're going to be playing the Champions League in Dubai or something like that. You know what I mean? Like this is where this would, or the European Super League, that's where it would be going. I can kind of see it. If I try to play devil's advocate, I can kind of see it if I try to play devil's advocate.

I can sort of see it from the Glazers and the Henrys' perspective. Now, they should have known better buying into this in the first place. But for instance, Liverpool won the league last year. Incredible story.

Incredible season. They're a little bit burned out. COVID hit the team really hard. They've just been average this year pretty much. And they're in like fifth, sixth, seventh place for most of the season. This is Chris's team. And they're in like 5th, 6th, 7th place. This is Chris's team.

And this is my team. This is the team I support. This is the team that John Henry owns. So you're John Henry. And all of a sudden, you find out that because you're having an offseason, you're going to lose 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 million euros. Sponsorships might not be as valuable.

Your best players might go looking to go play somewhere else. That's not how it really works in American sports. If the Cowboys go 4-12, they're not poorer for it. They're just not in the playoffs. Why don't you use the Red Sox as the example? Right, exactly.

If the Red Sox win the World Series, then shit the bed for two straight years. He's still packing Fenway Park. Right. And they still pack those stadiums in England. Even teams like Newcastle has been shit forever, but they still get pretty good crowds. Well, they're all drunk, though. They don't even know who's winning.

Get a beer named after you. But I just think for the Americans, they're just like, I don't understand the idea of risk. How could risk be involved in this competition? There's no risk in being the Red Sox. The only thing you get is ridiculed for being bad. You don't lose money over it. Yeah. So on social media and with the media in America and abroad, was this a 100% disapproval? Were there bad takes? Were people trying to zag? What was the zag culture? I have not seen a very significant zag.

A guy named Michael Cox, who I really, really love his writing. He usually writes about football tactics. He wrote a piece for The Athletic that was basically like, this sucks, but let's not kid ourselves about what European football has kind of turned into,

which is what I was talking about, which is essentially outside of England. We know who's going to win the championship every year. And if they get it all threatened, they're just going to go buy the best players on the most threatening team. And England isn't that much better. I mean, for the most part city Liverpool,

you know, United or have won the last 10 titles with the exception of Lester. So it's really hard for some of these clubs to get in. The ones that I thought were the most interesting participants were clubs like Arsenal or Tottenham. Tottenham specifically just bought, like just, you know, built a new stadium in London. Yeah.

Huge spaceship. So they're in debt on that. They are about to likely lose their best player, Harry Kane, in the transfer market next summer because he's going to want to go play somewhere where he can win titles. And they just fired their very expensive coach, Jose Mourinho.

So I could kind of understand why Tottenham is like, we're never going to win the title. We barely get into the Champions League, but somehow we got invited into this thing. We're definitely down to do this because otherwise we're about to get blown out of the fucking airlock and come in eighth this season or ninth. i can see it in from their perspective for this perspective of

people like chelsea and city were owned by like obscenely rich guys who don't really need this extra bit of cheddar like i don't really understand it they and i i think that's the exemplified by the fact that they were the first ones to jump ship when it got too hot tottenham will be last to jump ship when it got too hot. Tottenham will be last to jump probably? Tottenham's probably just like, guys, we're still doing this, right? Hold on. We made the hats.

We did everything. So how does this play out? When does this completely fall apart? What's your prediction? What's your office board prediction? The pace at which it's going now, I think it's over by Thursday. It's Tuesday now. I think this is probably wrapped up by Thursday. They're having this meeting now.

I don't know how many more times Florentino can drag his ass in front of the media in Spain and try and explain this away or try and tell people this is for the good of the game. It looks like UEFA and FIFA just trumped these guys with the not inconsiderable power of modern

football media. It can't be understated. I've never seen Sky Sports just unleashed hell on these guys. Just basically having their pundits be like, fuck this guy, fuck that guy, fuck this guy. It would be like if the jump just read the riot act at Adam

Silver for an hour every day. That would never happen. But that would never happen here. But the partners turned on these teams because the partners are the partners of the Premier League, not Chelsea, not Manchester United. So they had the incentive to protect the brand that they're already invested in, not some new fabulous idea about a Super League

with no promotion or relegation. So this is the equivalent of dad met a, met a stewardess in the 1970s and dad just didn't come home for four days. And it's like, whoa, dad. So dad's gone. And then five days later,

dad comes back, like nothing ever happened. And then it's never discussed again. You know, I love you guys. Come on. Look, had to let off some steam.

Yes. So that's, that's how they're going to act, basically, all these owners. They're like, ah, we were never going to really do it. Well, we're already seeing, there's going to be some skulls over this one

because Edward Wood from Manchester United already resigned. He claims that he was always planning on doing so this year. There's rumors that Agnelli from Juventus is out. There's heat on Florentino Perez. So it's getting hot. So you're saying super rich owners

using people below them as scapegoats for terrible ideas? Looks like it. Well, some of these clubs are owned more collectively than that. And some of these, it goes against some of their ideals. Liverpool and Manchester United

are supposed to be working class clubs. Barcelona is supposed to mean working class clubs. Barcelona is supposed to mean something to the people of the Catalan region of Spain. Part of the reason why I got into the sport in general is because of the tradition and the history and the connection between the clubs and the neighborhoods that the stadiums are in, down to the smallest little subsections of North London. So when you subtract all of that and you're just like, we're just going to make it

this global streaming digital product, it just kind of becomes like everything else. That's depressing. Give me one soccer storyline to watch that actually involves balls and people playing on a field. I don't know, man. I think that I would say that most

of the leagues are pretty much wrapped up, but the Champions League should be interesting. Manchester City has been pouring and pouring and pouring money into their team for years now, and they still haven't been able to win the Champions League, which is sort of the real crown jewel for them. So this is the year for them. They have a really good team. They've

got the league pretty much wrapped up, I think completely wrapped up. So it's really Champions League or They've got the league pretty much wrapped up. I think completely wrapped up. So it's really Champions League or bust. So I keep an eye on City. Before you go, Embiid MVP case? Didn't he just get it taken from him last night? It felt like it was extinguished last night, right?

I thought it was like done anyway, but last night was the nail in the coffin. I can't tell anymore. There was a time where we didn't even start talking about MVP until this time of year, and now I feel like we've been talking about it all year long. I feel partially responsible. I used to jump the gun and try to get it going, and now it starts in game 15. Yeah.

Look, there were definitely people chanting for Curry for MVP last night in Philly. It wasn't cool, but who do you think has it now? Then if it's not Embiid. No, it's Jokic. Jokic should win and I think he's a really good candidate

as we laid out on Sunday night on this podcast. I don't know what's wrong with just saying Jokic is the MVP. He's played every game. That team is going to be a top four seed. How many more games like this can Curry have to make it so that it's a conversation with him?

We talked before you came on with Logan and Marcus about Curry and talked about a bunch of stuff. We were talking about the 06 Lakers, Kobe, that whole thing. Kobe didn't win that year, but I thought he should have won. He was the one I voted for. That team was more successful than this. Warriors team's a 500 team.

Yeah. There's no correlation, no record. No, there's no other example to be like, that guy is the, is our MVP. His team went 41 and 41.

It's never happened. So I feel like they would have to go on like a 13. What was the record for the Russ year? What was the Thunders record that year? They still won like 48, 49 games, something like that. So I think unless they went on a major run, it's not going to happen.

It says more about what a goofy year this is. But I still feel like Embiid was the best player I saw this year, but Steph's starting to take that title too. The stuff he's done the last three weeks has been as high as anything we've seen. It's honestly been the best part of the NBA season.

You can now tune in every single night and have a 75% chance of seeing a miracle when you watch him play. I think Poku on OKC trying to save KOC at the to save KOC at the ringer from us giving him shit for the next five years. Top three stories of the NBA season

Steph, Poku, and Stan Van Gundy's last five minute management Stan Van Gundy Alright, we're up three. Leave that guy open I want Stan to double down and now try to high five the shit out of guys Every single break is just like seeing who's high-fiving him.

Who will touch him. I want a high-five cam on Van Gundy. You're pro-playing game, right? Yeah, I mean, I'm pro-playing game for this specific reason. I want to see Steph and Luca in a one-game death match. That's incredible. My whole thing is, who's

turning it off and anybody who's like, oh, I don't like it. It's like, all right, well, don't watch. How about that? No, no, I'll watch it. I'll watch it. That's the thing. It's like I have no conviction about it.

I do think it's watered down the product as we come into the playoffs, but I will be not taking any calls during that game. Don't text me. It's going to be amazing. So I was in Florida in a hotel room for many days just now and watching

TV. Watching Manhunter? Watching lots of movies, including The Godfather 1 and 2 for some reason. But, you know, Limitless with Cooper. Yeah. I can't decide if

we've made a massive mistake not doing yet on the rewatchables or whether it's like last year of the rewatchables, like when we're, it's the TV show where a lot of people have left, but there's still the two,

you're kind of holding on to the franchise. Yeah, we're running the car on vegetable oil, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That movie's really good. And I feel like if I texted you and said,

let's do Limitless, you'd be like, you wouldn't know if I was kidding or not. I mean, it kind of is a very, it goes back to the original DNA of the pod, which is the movie that you just have to stick it out when it comes up on TV. And it does have a bunch of scenes like that. I have a weird soft spot for

shitty Bradley Cooper movies. I feel that way about Burnt. I also like Burnt. If we did Limitless at some point this year, you wouldn't be against it? Yeah, no. I wouldn't form a breakaway podcast. We were texting,

all of us will have been vaccinated by the end of this month. And we have, it's time to start doing the big ones again. Yeah. It's time to get in a room and do our thing. There's been a lot of circling a good fellas, like a lot. Gotta slice the garlic real thin. Like a lot.

Like I just drove over to my mom's house at four in the morning yesterday with a shirt covered in blood for no reason to see if she would make me meatballs. She didn't. She was like, what are you doing here? It's four in the morning. Please go. But yeah, we have a lot of stuff in store for that. And by the way, check out Chris on Fridays on the Ringer MBA show, The Answer. Yeah. Thank you. You've had some answers. I have. I've been trying. I'm trying to search for the truth out there.

Chris Ryan, good to see you as always. Bye, buddy. That's it for the podcast. We have one more coming on Thursday, including a long interview with Dana White. So stay tuned. See you on Thursday.