The Bill Simmons Podcast - 2026 Finals Lessons, Giannis’s Next Stop, Brunson’s Apex, and Mike Brown’s Magic Touch With Doc Rivers

Episode Date: June 17, 2026

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Doc Rivers to talk about the NBA Finals, Knicks coaching, Giannis trades, and much, much more! (0:00) Intro (2:37) Doc Rivers’s NBA Finals reaction, Brunson’s greatness, and Mike Brown’s coaching (01:07:44) Giannis’s next stop, worries for coaches in 2026, and best current referees Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Doc Rivers Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Brought to you by PayPal. Learn more at paypal.comThe Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Dovemen Plus Care. Fellas, it's time to care for your skin like you care for the game. Dove Men Plus Care is an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 2026 and has just dropped their new limited edition deodorant and antiperspirant collection. The deodorant is gentle on your skin, bringing you 72 hour protection with zero aluminum. The antiperspirant comes in a gozone dry spray for a smooth glide stick, keeping you fresh from kickoff to the final whistle. visit dove.com slash

c.m. slash men dash care to shop now. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by PayPal. We are also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where you can find the new episode of the rewatchables. We put it up Sunday night, Hand That Rocks the Cradle, part of From Hell Month. The next one is going to be domestic disturbance

with John Chabulta and Vince Vaughn. This movie's really something. It's on Netflix right now if you want to go check it. out. Don't forget all our basketball and soccer coverage. I'm loving the World Cup. The World Cup's been fantastic. You can check out the beautiful pod with Adam Friedland and Chris Ryan

has been popping on there a bunch. We've had a whole bunch of fun guests that's on Adams' feed ringer gambling show as well. A lot of good gambling tips. I'm going to have the bundo on, I think, at the end of the week to talk even more soccer. Try to get some tips before we have this amazing USA game

on Friday. Can't wait for that. All right. Doc Rivers, he came here for a game or didn't come here, but we did a podcast together after game one. Have not talked to him since the finals. Just a lot of big historical stuff coming from that finals, a lot of strategy stuff. We had to talk Janus, what we think is going to happen this summer with all different teams. Favorite players, refs, all kinds of things from his last season with the Bucks.

And he came over, which was great. So we're going to take a break, Pearl Jam, and then in the house, Doc Rivers, next. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by PayPal. You know a clutch move when you see one, a no look pass, a buzzer beater, big steel. Well, imagine if your wallet could pull off moves like that. That, my friends, is PayPal. Right now you can find offers from hundreds of brands like Sony, Allbirds, and Viator, and save offers before you check out.

Earn unlimited rewards. Plus, you can add those rewards on top of credit card points. Now that is clutch. Download the PayPal app today. save those offers, start scoring rewards. Terms and exclusions apply. See PayPal.com slash rewards terms, credit card points subject to issuers, terms, and conditions. All right, Doc Rivers is here in studio. We've never, this is great. This is nice. This is great. This is nice. This is got posters, people you played with in the jam session. Yeah, I see Austin

Carr up here, which I was telling him. My son, Austin Rivers was named Matthew. He played with my uncle, Jim Brewer. You, did you have a Nike poster or no? No, no, I had a rebock poster. I had a rebock poster. Yeah, yeah. I got to get that, maybe I got to hunt that. I have to get that again. We have so much to talk about, but let's do finals because you never talked about that.

So, big picture, levitating over every beat. What did you think? Like, what was your big takeaway from that series? I wanted more. It was the first take, you know. It was interesting, Bill. I played for the Knicks. and I played for the Spurs.

Right. And so I caught myself going back and forth, you know, I was a Nick Longer, so probably lean more that way. You know, but I just wanted more basketball. And it got to the point. My son Spencer said it because he was cheering for the Spurs. Because when he grew up, he was living in San Antonio. Right.

So he's cheering for the Spurs. And he says, I don't want any more basketball. And I said, what? It's like, I can't take them doing the same thing every game. Caryoke. Getting out to a lead, losing the lead. Here comes Brunson. Here it comes down the stretch of the game.

Yeah. But let's take a snapshot of the whole series. There was a lot of interesting things that happened to me. Obviously, you know, the Wimby turnover, the past, right? Game two. but I thought where the game and the series changed was after game three, after San Antonio 1 and Mike Brown walked into the media room and complained about files. And I thought, I didn't think it at the time, I thought it was a brilliant thing to do.

I don't think that's why he was doing it or maybe he was. but if you look from that point on how it was called against him Brunson like game five he had 18 free throws the comeback game and I talked about this with you where everybody missed in my opinion

it wasn't even talked about was Castle got in foul trouble right before the second quarter they had to take him out that's when Brunson got cooking he picks up his fourth two or three minutes into the third quarter. It was two minutes in.

Yeah. So now he's off the floor again. Comes back in, picks up his fifth. So Brunson, that whole 29-point stretch did it without having to deal with Castle. Yeah. And I thought that was huge for the Knicks and for Brunson. Well, then it felt like it affected Castle in game five.

It did. He was bad in game five. It was like he lost his mojo. Yeah. And defense. you know, all series against Oklahoma, against everybody, you've been able to be physical and been up, and now he was thinking about it. You could see, he was worried about it. You look at those last two drives by Brunson that they hadn't done that all series. Yeah. They wasn't going to let them do it. They wasn't going to let them just go down the lane because they're more physical on them, but they were concerned about files. Where I thought, you know, you always go, well, what could Mitch have done? And listen, if I was coaching this first, I wouldn't have thought of this either at the time because it wouldn't have been on. my mind. We just won a game. But if you watch the series, who was filed the most? Brunson or Wimby? Wemby? Yeah, probably Wimby, at least even, right? But no one said anything about it. You know,

and the difference was Wemby was filed more off the ball every time he cut, every time he moved. I mean, they were, they were forearm in them, they were hitting them. Even the alleged flagrant foul, that Wemby really was just pushing down on Brunson. Yeah. He was pushing down on him because Brunson was grabbing his jersey and he turned around. It was like, get off of me. You know, so it looked baddered and worse

than what it really was. Right. All right. So, but I really thought that's where that series changed. And then San Antonio's inability. We talked about this in game one, I think. If it came down to a one-minute game, the Knicks are going to win.

Yeah, even in game five, But when it got to 83, 83, it's like, this is done. And nothing Senator really could have done about it because the Knicks know exactly who they are the last five minutes of a game. They know exactly what they're running. They know exactly who they're running it through with Brunson. They may change the guy who sets a pick.

They usually put towns in the parking lot because now you've just taken the center, guarding him outside the paint. I like that phrase. Yeah. Yeah. And so now you're left. If you go, you're leaving a great three-point shooter.

Yeah. So I thought every game in those five games, the last four or five minutes, it was this veteran team that also had a closer. Yeah. Remember Hubert Brown, I remember when I was first started coaching and I was one of the things he told me, he's like, if you don't have a closer, Doc, I don't care how good your team is. He said, it's just like a company. Yeah.

If you don't have a closure in your company that can close the deal, you are going to lose the deal. And that's what it felt like. Now, well, ironically, the closer for San Antonio was Harper. Yeah. And they didn't want to admit he yet. And he probably wasn't 100% ready yet. Yeah, he wasn't ready for, even though they used them more in game five. He had a couple big plays down the street.

He missed the layup. Yeah, missed the layup, though. But Fox has been a great closer. Fox has been in the top five of closures over the last four or five years every year. He lost his confidence, though. I don't know if he lost this. He definitely lost something.

I thought he lost his health at first and then confidence second. Because there wasn't the explosiveness getting into the basket in the same way. And then that, him getting in the basket then allows him to do that little turnaround eight-foot shot that he's great at. Well, you also...

And he's all plays off each other. You didn't hear one time, Mike Green or legs or any of them say Fox is the fastest guy in the NBA. That's something you hear. You're right. That's where it was two years ago. Yeah, you don't, you didn't hear it one time.

And, you know, maybe the sprained ankle had some impact on them. It definitely had on the shooting. I thought what Mitch Rand was terrific. They got that shot. Even in the game five, he came off that little, we call it Shake Special, is the play that I run. It's a secondary, second pick and row. Wembe DHOs, the guard comes off.

Fox got to his bread basket. I mean, right where he wanted, and it went close. Right. And then he had the wide open three. I never thought his shots were going in when it mattered, which is a bad place to get to. It got to that point.

Yeah, it really did get to that point. Whereas OG, every shot I thought was going in. Yeah, even the bad shots. You see it half court? It's still going in. Even the bad shots, Ogie, you thought were going in. It's amazing what a series can do. You know, but like for Mitch, that puts the coach in a tough spot.

You've had this closer that has been reliable. He's been reliable for you. Yeah. In game seven in Oklahoma, he made every shot. Right. So you don't go away from it. You know, you keep going to it and give Mitch credit. He did, but it just kept coming up snake eyes.

Right. I mean, over and over again. You know, and Wimby's going to learn a lot. He'll learn a lot from this series. Someone was talking the difference between him and Jabbar. And I said, well, Jabbar was still in college at that age. Right. Dave is a senior UCLA product.

Yeah, and Wimby's in the game seven of NBA finals. So let's give him a great spirit. I do think it's a real issue that he can't seem to play more than 30 minutes. Well, I think he's like staggering around in these games. No, he's got to go 40 plus. But I think it's a league problem, as much as a wimby problem. I think what the league does more is we give these minutes all year without the thought of ramping guys up as the playoffs gets closer and closer. You know who didn't do that was Tibbs.

No. Tibbs ramped up from the start. And by the way, maybe I had a good email from a mailback pot I did the other day about. Tim's kind of conditioned these guys to go these big minutes and carry these big loads. Yeah, it's not, it wasn't something that they didn't expect, didn't want. Let me say this. Players want to play. Right.

Players don't actually want to sit. Players are told to sit. And then they are now in this culture where they accept what the trainers are telling them. I came from the culture. We wasn't listening to the trainer. You know, we told the trainer, like if I came to a trainer, like if I came to a trainer, game and Joel too was my trainer with the Atlanta Hawks. If Joe said, hey, Doc, I think you should sit.

I would say, get out of here. Right. And that was it. That was the conversation. There was no more. But think about how much you were making in the Hawks compared to what these guys make now. These are like these $50 million year properties. Look at me walk and move now.

Maybe you should have listened to Joe. I should have listened to Joe more. That's a fact. But I do think they are more careful because not only are they paying a ton of money for the best players, but if something goes wrong with one of the best players, you don't have an out. Like, look at you with Yonis as shit.

Yeah, but you don't, end of your season single-handedly that he didn't play. Well, that's because we didn't have a second guy. Right. You know, but most teams don't. Most teams do. You know, if Brunson went out, they still have towns and other guys, you know.

But you're not going to win it. No. You're not going to win it. If your best guy is out of the playoffs, you may make a run. We made a run in 2009, but you're not winning it. And where it always comes up when you have a guy out, is that game one through five if you can get there.

It's game six and seven. Those are the games that are almost unwinnable for you. That happened to Oklahoma City. Yeah, because they didn't have that extra guy. It was obvious. Yeah. The Wembee part of this. So you'd think, like, he doesn't have the signature shot yet.

Not yet. He's now dealing with this. I love the shot. He missed. in game two. Which one? The one at the elbow. That was a pick and row, pop right to the elbow.

That's his, that's his brit. Yeah, I wonder, like, what are his spots going to be? Yeah, that elbow will be one, for sure. Yeah, like, top of the foul line, because it seems like he has a lot of trouble getting to the block. Like, Kareem would, he would do that weird thing where he would kind of back in and take these little weird steps, and then all of a sudden he was in his spot.

When Kaila did it do it too. And then the jump hook, I mean, there's a sky hook. No one's ever going to have that shot. Women can develop a skyhook. The game's over for everybody. How about, can we get a jump hook? You know what I... Everybody in the league has a jump hook.

So I was on the phone with about four or five coaches. Yeah. Day before yesterday. And we were just talking about the game, right? And what would each guy do with Mimby? And one of the guys said, you know, everybody's talking about the back to the basket. The only thing with back to the basket is, yeah, we'll throw it to you and they're going to trap you. And then you have to give it up.

Yeah. He said, no one is talking about Jack Sigma. And he's like, what if Wemby just faced? Jack Sigma. What if you don't, what can you do? Well, that was the old Tim Duncan, right? Yeah, just face you up. Like, 12 feet from the bass.

And just shoot it. Like on the post, turn, face, shoot it. If they come up on you, put it on the floor. You know, I think that's a move he will have to develop. I remember sitting with Pop and watching Wemby, practice is rookie year because I was doing TV. For those two months? Yeah, for those two months.

And I actually said it. And Bob's like, thank you. I said, why is he fading? Well, that was the Will Chamberlain problem. Yeah, just go up and shoot. Right. Why are you going backwards? Yeah, no one's going to block your shot.

Also, he's a great free throw shooter. Great, so that's the difference. He can really shoot the ball, and it's a balance issue at times with him. You can see he's all. balance a lot. You know, that may be strength. That may be balance. And fatigue. And fatigue. Yeah. So KG had, he had the little turnaround. Yes. Near the baseline. But then I always liked when he faced up. And he would do like the stutter step. The counter. Yeah. And he encounters everything. Yeah. Wemby. Wemby did that face-up.

Great guy for Wemby to work. They have the same type of intensity. Right. He's like a much taller Wembe. Yeah, KG's workouts were amazing. I mean, he used to put these shoes on the floor, which as a coach, I had never seen. You know, we used cones. He would actually put two shoes and make them face like the player

because he said, I want to attack the feet. So he would just, he would stand there and he moved the shoes over and attack that. Then he put the two shoes over and attack that. It was genius. So he would always look at the feet over anything else. Yeah, he wanted to attack the feet. And he would teach guys if he saw one,

One foot just turned, he said he's dead. He's dead. He knew exactly what he was going to attack. So it was pretty impressive. I remember there was the Dave DeBuscher thing where he always looked at the guy's eyes. Yeah. And he said everybody who is about to shoot looks at the rim no matter what they're doing. Eventually they're going to look at the rim. Well, they have to.

And that's when I know. And he was like, the only guy who never did it was Earl Monroe. All of a sudden he was shooting and was like, you were looking over there. How did you even? That's pretty impressive. But he said that was the only one. But he was like, I always followed the eyes. That's why he was so good defensively.

So KG's looking at the feet. He just got the ball looking at it. He squares up and he looks at your feet. Yeah, even if Wemby had the Tim Duncan face-up, KG kind of start or step, stop, and he's shooting over you, and then just like a seven-foot jump hook. Yeah, but even... That's two more shots than he has now. Yeah, but just the face-up to me is because you can't double team him.

He sees you coming. He will pick you apart, you know. And I think that's one thing they'll do in the end. And then more work at the elbows because I thought he was very... efficient there most of the season, and it just seemed like they got away from him. But I thought the physicality and the fatigue played a major factor. Well, they were doing a bunch of stuff with him, too, like on boxouts that were, like, ramming him in the back.

They hit him every chance they got. You have to. The other thing they did that Oklahoma didn't do, they attacked Wemby. Yeah. Yeah. All through the playoffs, no one attacked Wembe. They played away from Wemby. The Knicks, like, we're going right at you.

Right. We're going to attack you. We're going to make you follow us. We're going to make you move your feet. I thought that was a great gameplay. And it felt like Brunson kind of figured him out as the series went along a little bit because he really torched him a couple times down the stretch. It's crazy that when you look at Brunson versus Wemby.

It's like 18-inch difference. Brunson is figuring anything out. Yeah. You know, it's unbelievable. Brunson, I tell you, man, every time you watch him, you get more and more impressed with him. I think you still watch him waiting for him not to be able to do what he does. You know, I think the whole league for two years or, well, he can't keep doing this. He can't.

And he can. It's who he is. Yeah, you almost feel like he's like a heat check guy. Yeah, all game. Yeah. And in the last game, you know, the 45, I mean, come on, he scored half the team's points. Like, he willed a game for the New York Knicks to win a world championship. Yeah, so I did a pot on Monday.

And I was eating on my book of basketball where I ranked everybody. Yeah. And the big thing for the rankings was, were you the best guy in a title team? Did you, we're the alpha? Did you take a team to the promise land, which I just think is a different level of basketball? It is. So I put Brunson, I put him a bunch, I changed my list, and I put him 41, and I put him ahead of guys like Nash and Kid and Luca. And I'm like, this is the whole point of basketball is to be the best guy in a title team

and to do this stuff that he did and game one of the Cleveland series throughout the finals, especially game five, which I think is in the running for one of the best finals games played this century. Yeah. So, you know, he's never been a first team on be a guy, but I feel like he has to be treated that way now. I think he will be. You know, it's almost like the voters didn't believe either, you know.

I didn't vote for him. I voted for him second team. Yeah, they don't believe, even though his team's record is great. He keeps doing the same thing. How about 29 points a game in four playoffs now? Yeah. This is a four-year stretch where those are shaking. stats, those are Kobe stats over everybody's stats.

Other than Michael, those are all the other great player stats. The other thing, I keep saying it and I'm going to say it and tell the cows, you know, whatever to come in or whatever they're supposed to do, we don't evaluate what a great player is right, in my opinion. I was so

excited to talk to you about this. Because winning and leading is part of that. And if you can, can't do that, then really all you're doing is playing your game. And you're putting up stats. Yes. You know, I got to play my game.

Well, winners play their game and they give room for everybody else on their team to play their game. And they encourage. They do all the things that are required. Right. More than just score 30 points. You know, they lead, they push. you know, Michael pushed.

He pushed his teammates, but he also trusted. You know, two of the games, two of the series they won came off on Michael Jordan Pass. You know, he was willing to make the right play at the right time. He was 11 assists a game in the 91 finals. Exactly. So he was willing to make the right play at the right time. And Brunston led their team to an NBA title. He didn't just play his team to an NBA title.

Well, and that's part of the problem. And I was really interested to see how people, would react when I was like, this is where Brunson is now. Yeah. This is my system. I did this when Dwayne Wade won in 06, when Walton won in 77. Like, if you do this once, that's more important than what you did for 15 years if, you know, you made some conference finals and that's it. This is the whole point of playing basketball.

Because basketball's not boxing. It's a team game. Yeah. And you have to win to be considered a great player. Well, think about what Paul Pierce, what 08 meant to him. Yeah. There are some guys. straight up and all that are some guys that never had talent around them.

It's a small pool. Well, I always use Barclay as the example. To me, I don't hold no title against Barclay because I feel like in 93, he went against the best player of all time at the peak of his powers. And he never had talent around him until he got to Phoenix. Right. And Kevin Johnson let him down the first half of that finals. Then he had a chance.

But no offense, there are plenty of bulls. Who had won't win in that series in any way, They were just not. You know, the Bulls were the better team. I thought the Knicks were the better team that year, really. You want me to be honest. But I was on the Knicks. And, uh, yeah, I, that, that still bothers me, you know, that that loss to the Bulls.

We're up too old. And then, um, well, Jordan put the double nickel on you in game three, right? Or game four. Well, no, game three, the media. And I, uh, and I, uh, and I felt it. I don't know if we've talked about this. Game three. What happened with the media?

It was, I want to say, a three or four day break. Yeah. Between game two and three, which allowed them to kind of capture themselves a little bit. But more importantly, the media beat up Jordan every day because they saw that he was at a casino. Right. And for four days or three days or whatever it was, Michael Jordan is sitting at home hearing that he let his team down. Does he care anymore? Yeah.

He's out gambling. Yeah. You know, and Yeah, Jordan happened from that point on. I think one of the toughest things with evaluating. So I look at that next team, and it basically comes down to that, the Charles Smith sequence, right?

Yeah. And you could blame, okay, Charles Smith should have scored. Maybe you should have had a slightly better player than Charles Smith, like, et cetera, et cetera, or you go the other way and go, this is why the Bulls are so great. They protected the rim and they had no center out there, and those guys were so great in the moment, that's what made that team special.

That's the difference. It's not that Charles Smith missed the three layups. I lost BJ Armstrong late in the game and he got a three. It's a play we worked on all the time that you had to block out but not get sealed. And I had to block out, I think it was Horace Grant. And as I was blocking him out, I got too low. And now he seals me in that I couldn't get back on a ball swing and BJ makes a three. I think we missed two technical file free throws in that game.

I always took, I was the best free throw shooter on the team. I think I played, I'm going to go look now that I'm thinking about it. I think I played 38 minutes or 37 minutes. Both techs were in the time and I was out of the game. And so whoever shot them missed them. So it was all like, it was like 10 little tiny things. Yeah, it's always. And Michael Jordan.

But at the end of the day, who was our second best player? Yeah. I'm not sure. Starks was, by the way he played, but he wasn't really the second best player every night. Where, you know, they had Pippin, you know, it was clear with their second best. So they-Pippin was one of the seven best guys in the league. Exactly. So when you make that case, it's hard to say that you would have won, but I think we would have.

We had a chance. I mean, San Antonio was a little like that, too, right? with like who was their second best player. Well, it was Fox all year. But it might have been Harper by the time we got to the finals. By game seven, or by game three, game five, yeah. Game three, it was Fox. Yeah.

Something with Fox, I mean, it was Harper. It's something with Harper that he would make a mistake and come out and go back in. So, you know, there's this old adage. You don't know a player until you coach a player. There's something that he was doing that made him come out at times. And I couldn't figure it out. Interesting. Yeah.

So he's a 20-year-old point guard. Yeah, that's part of it. You were a point guard. Yeah. And he's like me, too, because a hundred times better than me. He were really good. I wasn't a point guard in college. Yeah.

I just led to team and assists. Yeah. And then when I got drafted, I remember my first conversation with Mike Fertell and said, you're going to be the point guard of Atlanta Hawks. And I'm like, okay. You figured out. It's like Dennis Johnson. Oh, exactly.

But we didn't have, in the 80s. we didn't have some traditional point cards like the way people think of them. Well, it was like guys who would bring up the ball and run the office. Isaiah was a traditional one. But then you'd have the Isaiah,

John Lucas, like tiny archibald types. Magic wasn't traditional. Yeah. But he was a pure point guard. Yeah. You know. So yeah,

I think Harper is that and probably didn't execute things properly all the time, you know, but he'll learn all that. I mean, he is special. He's a special basketball player. And he will be there second.

best player. Like, I was trying to think of him in the context of when like Kate came into the league or Chris Paul. Yeah. People like that were you knew right away. I feel like that with him. Yeah, Harper, yeah, but they're completely different. I mean, Harper's a score. He's a scoring point. It reminded me more of Rod Strickland what is finishing. I mean, he can, Harper finishes at angles, you know, I think it was game five, the one

where he was under the basket and comes up. The reverse, yeah. Come on. I couldn't have made that. in the gym by myself. I could have tried that shot 10 times, and I'm missing it all 10 times. He's doing it in the NBA finals with ease. You know, it's amazing. And now it's time for across the eras,

brought to you by New Era, the official cap of the NBA. So we just had the finals, and as always, I thought a lot about history and the eras intersecting and some of the greatest matchups we've seen throughout history.

The New Era NBA Hardwood Classics Collection celebrates these legendary teams and eras and moments. So perfect time to put the finals matchup side by side with a classic from the past. Gotta talk about Reggie Miller here. Like, when you think about a new era, players that bridge 80s, 90s, 2000s, Reggie Miller drafted in the 80s.

Really starts to hit it in the 90s. First, they're, I think it was 91. He's in the Larry Bird's last great moment, the 91 Boston and the NFL. final first round and then we go through now he has the nix battles in 94 and 95 and then you go to 99 they get the heartbroken by LJ's four point play 2000 they make the finals and it really feels like reggie's going to finally get there and win it and then sadly for him Kobe ascends and then not to mention in 98 they came the closest out of anyone to beating Jordan's bowls so he intersects

with Berg, Jordan, Kobe and Shaq, and then you go into the 2000s, and he has one last run. They almost beat the Nets. He's not involved in the Artes-Melia, but he's on that team. He just saw a lot of things, man.

And the sports, the sport's totally different by the time he's leaving there in the mid-2000s. Because this three-point shot that he was special at, now it's about to come back in a big way

because Steph Curry is about to join the NBA. and the league and the geometry league is about to change. So Reggie Miller is a good one. 80s all the way through the mid-2000s and boom, sports changing. Relive vintage logos and timeless icons with the NBA, I'm sorry, with the New Era MBA Hardwood Classics collection, available in a wide range of silhouettes including the iconic,

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Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool. With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. So you talk about like the little differences between teams. Like, so I went to the Bird Dominique game, which you were great. And you got a standing O when you filed out.

Yeah, that was cool, actually. The crowd appreciated you. That was the breaking point for me with Boston. That was that. You were like, I like these people. Yeah, I hated Boston. Yeah. When I was a player.

Yeah. And that changed my entire. mindset of Boston. I love these people. These people were pretty cool. Well, so Dominique, at one point, he's number two in MVP. Yeah.

He's one of the five or six best players in the league for five years. And that's like his moment to either ascend or not ascend, right? And Byrd's like just a whiff better than him. Yeah. Partly because Dominic,

I wouldn't say, was the strongest defender, right? And you didn't have that, maybe if you're doing it now with a different guys at Bird. We call it. He was an occasionally great defender. Spiratic.

I remember Fratellis saying that occasionally, Dominique, is the greatest opinion in the league. Right. We just need that to be more. Well, but I think. But he has a score. But he's a, well, that's the thing. He's carrying a lot offensively, and he comes so, and that's the closest he ever comes, right? And then you go back to the Lakers who end up taking Worthy over him.

Yeah. And Worthy ends up in all these games and he's big game James, and he has the big game seven and 88. and Dominique's on this other team where he has a much bigger burden and if you flip them... You don't know. You don't know, but I...

Yeah, I mean, that Tracy McGrady made that comment and why I really like that, if I was on the Lakers, I would have... And I said, no. You just don't know. But think about Dominique on the Showtime Lakers. Yeah, that might have been, like, pretty spectacular. It would have been fun, for sure.

But he also wouldn't have been able to guard Bird in the finals. Like, I don't know what you win in this. You know, but it's been interesting. I love doing that. Like, if such and such was here, would he had won as much or one less or one more. Yeah. I think it's hard to say.

Like Tom Chambers is another one. Yes. Who was really good. It's like if he had just been on the Lakers instead of worthy, would we be talking about him reverentially as one of the best forwards in the airs? It helps. I mean, magic was again, the reason magic, I struggle taking magic out of the top five of all time. He's fifth for me.

Yeah, because of not what he did is his presence. He made, I mean, he resurrected Kareem Abdul-Jubbar's career. And his love for basketball. Yeah. He'd gone from, the Lakers were losing games, not playing well. I don't know if you remember their first game was against the Clippers. Yeah, yeah, and the hug game. And the hug game.

Yeah. I mean, I think that changed Jabbar's second half of its life basketball-wise. And it was huge. I forget who said this on my podcast. I'm going to say, It was Nick Wright, but I'm not positive. It was recent. Certain players love playing basketball because they love playing basketball.

And then certain players play because they absolutely love winning and want to win all the time. And Magic was one of the few who was both at the same time. Or he loved basketball, but he also really, really loved winning. Yeah, I don't know. You know, it's funny with Magic. Going into my rookie year, they used to have that garnstorming tour in Michigan. And I was included in that. Yeah.

We would go and sell out, like, in Lansing, and after the game, and I'm not being honest, the gate, they would bring the gate in, the cash. And Charles Tucker would, you know, 10. It's like the godfather. It'd be 10 for Magic. Yeah. Five for Isaiah. One dollar for Doc. You know, and it was, it was unbelievable.

Yeah. But I remember going to Magic's house. You know, we're sitting there, and Magic was out. I want to say he's playing Mark McGuire, tennis in the backyard. And I'm just sitting at... Isaiah was playing Mark Aguire and tennis? No, no, Magic was. Magic was?

He was playing Mark because Magic had a tennis court in the back of his house. Okay. And we're just, you know, we're not watching the game. We're sitting in the house, you know, drinking Kool-Aid or whatever, you're just hanging out. And I was a sudden, Magic bust the door open, it throws a racket across the room and just walks and leaves.

And I'm like, what's going on here? And he lost. He lost. He was serious, and he lost to Mark McGuire. He lost a tennis match. And I want to say wherever we were supposed to go that night, he didn't want to go. I was like, ho, this guy doesn't like losing. Well, wasn't that?

KG was like that, right? The practices. Oh, yeah. KG, you know what's great about KG? He loved the competition and practice, but he also loved when the other team was into it. You know, that first practice we had, the starters lost. And the whole bus ride, you know, we were in Rome.

Yeah. The whole bus ride, Eddie, Howells, Tony, they're giving it to him. Just giving it to him. And Kevin's like, all right, yeah, okay. That next day, it was incredible. The energy that he brought to that practice, that was one of the days I told Tibbs.

It was like, we're going to be hard to beat. Speaking of Tibbs, they just win the title of the year after he gets fired. Yeah, that's tough. Do you take that as a positive or a negative if you're tips? because I got a great email a couple days ago from a listener who's like Tibbs condition these guys

in a lot of different ways and like he should get some credit for this right? Tips should get a lot of credit defensively you know they didn't vary from that sense the system. Brendan O'Connor was my assistant coach

in Boston and with the Clippers is who Mike Brown hired as his defensive coach this year and that's we're all from the Dick Harder system of defense. So he brought that to the Knicks. It was already kind of in.

Brandon made a lot of changes, but, you know, it was pretty cool. Having said that, Bill, you're a human. All right? And if I was fired and the team won the World Championship the following year, I get, I would know deep down that I really helped that team. But it wouldn't feel that way as your answer.

And I think Tim's was very happy. for a lot of their guys. Yeah. Probably not all of them, for a lot of their guys. But it also, it hurts you too. It's just human, man.

We forget that we're all humans, and that would hurt a little bit, for sure. Where would you put Jalen Brunson against, like, Isaiah and some of the other Chris Paul, some of the other tough little guys? We had that, well, I think, you know, and nothing against Chris,

I think you would just put him against all the guys who have won titles. Yeah, yeah. I think you would have to shorten that list. That becomes a much shorter list. That's basically Isaiah, Tony Parker and Gus Williams. Yeah, that's who you have to put him against, you know, because he powered them. You say Gus Williams? Good call.

Yeah, Gus Williams. I apologized to him on my Monday podcast because I forgot to mention him in the Great Small Guards because he always gets left out. And he was the best guy in the 7-9 Sonic. What about Coos? Coos didn't ever want a title without Russell, though. Yeah, that's true. And Russell was the best player on the team.

Yeah, good point. Because he was close, close, close. Russell showed up. A lot easier when Russell was there. Yeah. So I would start with that list first. And then you can go back to the other guards because Brunson was so much different. Like all the small guards would have really struggled guard Brunson.

I mean, all of them. Now, he would have struggled guard in him as well. Because one of the things, so I did my thing yesterday and I had him ahead of Luca all time. Right now. I had a Laker fan who was like, that's insane. That's not insane. Lucas, Luca's 33 and 9. And I'm like, yeah, but the whole point of basketball is winning the title.

Luca was in a similar situation in the 24 finals right against Boston. They're down 2-0 in game three. And then he has that whole thing where he kind of implodes and fouls out and then tells him to challenge it. Yeah, but that's part of it, Bill, like, do you have the makeup to win? That's what I was telling them. keep missing. You're telling me if you switch Luca and Brunson, but Nick still win the title with Luca?

Or are you discounting all the other stuff Brunson did for that team? The fact that he got better when it mattered all the time. I would say no, they wouldn't, at least from what I've seen so far. And I love Luca. Right. He's just not there yet. Not yet. And health, conditioning.

Can Luca sustain that type of intensity for that long? I don't know if he could have couldn't, but I know Bronson could. And there's something about whatever Brunson did with that team, that the guys around him were the best versions of themselves, which I think should count as a trait for basketball players. That's what Bill Russell did. It's what Casey Jones told me that we're sitting around in my office one day, and I said, so what was Bill Russell's secret?

He always left for him. That's what he said. It's like he knew for him to be great, he had to give everybody else enough for him to be great as well. well. What you keep hearing it so often by players, you know, I got to play my game. I got, you know, they got to let me play my game. Okay, we will, but that means he can't play his game if you're going to be dribbling

the ball or he can't play his game. And so, well, I'll let you play your game, but we're going to lose. Right. Or can you play your game and allow him to play his game and him to play his game and your team win? Because if you can't do that, if you think the only way you can win is just, with you with the ball in your hand, every possession. Yeah, but a lot of people think that.

But it hasn't happened. It's in the history of the game. Right. It's never happened. It has never happened in the history of basketball that a guy, every time down, just dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, either shot it or passed it. No one's ever won that way.

So, I mean, I love history. Right. And even when Brunson was playing that way, Yeah. It was more because he kind of had to for like nine straight minutes or they weren't going to score. Yeah, but they also moved the ball. They advanced the ball. They got it back to him.

They had fast break points. But down the stretch, they went to that. Yeah. Other parts, they went away from that. What they did a great job of, they knew when it was too much Brunson. And what Mike did so well this year is he instilled the ball movement, you know, playing through towns, even when Outtown's just moving the ball where in the past they hadn't done that.

It just stayed in Brunson's hand. It's almost like they had a little barometer. Uh-oh. It's too much. And they got away from it and then they would go back to it. So I thought that was the difference. The other thing with Mike Brown, he used a hell out of his bench.

Right. He really did. I thought Mike Brown coached an amazing series. Even his challenges were like that. that, well, the NICs have the best challenge system in the NBA. It's swung games. Their challenges. It's funny, though, Bill.

People think it's the coach, head coach. The head coach has very little to two. Some dude that he trusts completely on the bench. And the Knicks, I think two or three years in a row, have led the NBA in challenges. It's a weapon. Right. And they're good at it. They're quick.

You know, I remember we played them last year, and I was like, did they have a quicker computer? I mean, what the hell is going on? But the guy actually also understood, you have to understand the rules. You have to understand the rules to be a good challenger. Was that a file before the play?

Why use your time out now? You know, is this the right time? Even if you're right. They had won in game one or two where they were right. They knew it, but they didn't challenge because they already had one challenge that they won. And they were like, no.

This isn't the perfect time for us to use the same. If we use the second one now, we're done. And they end up using it in a third or fourth quarter where it came back to really help them. So, yeah, they're really good at. But what else Mike did was that bench, man. Well, to do what he did without towns, basically playing half the game and just figuring out how to patch together non-towns minutes so they could hang around. Impressive.

He had the courage. He had more courage than I did as a coach in bigger games. What do you mean? Well, he was putting in guys that he hadn't played. you know. That was something you just wouldn't do? Not unless the guy has proven it all year, you know. But, you know, he puts in different guys at different, you know, he went away from Deuce.

Duce was... He should have. Duce in the finals couldn't make a shot. He couldn't make a shot. So then he goes to sham. I love that one. Then he goes to Clarkson. Yeah.

Huck 40 out of nowhere? Yeah. And then he goes to Clarkson. Yeah, right? Clarkson had played throughout the series. Yeah. Game four of the comeback. He stays with Avarado, stays with him.

Now, I did that. You remember we won the one game where I didn't bring in Paul or none of the big three. It was the big baby Nate Robinson. Oh, in 2009, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and that group. And we won, I think it was a finals game maybe, with that group on the floor. But I had played them all year, so I did have more confidence in him. But he had gone away from Clarkson all year.

year. You know, it's funny. He did put him in the NBA Cup game, if you remember. He hadn't used them and Clarkson came in and played great. But even in that game, the Cup game against the Spurs, Tyler Cole, he put him in and he played great. So I loved him. Mike kept trusting everybody. I thought that was really impressive. It's funny. He got fired three times, four times? Yeah. Including recently in Sacramento. It's got coaching. Right. And then, And then meanwhile, all the other coach was like, Mike Brown's a really good coach. Yeah. And then finally he's in the right spot.

Now it's like, I've always thought he was a good coach. Yeah. Now he can't, he'll never have to pay for another meal. Did that happen to you after 08 when you're walking in a restaurant? Oh my God, in Boston. Still does. Because they had equipped, he walked into the polo lounge in New York. Everett just started standing up and doing this.

Yeah, but right after, I remember I was walking in, me and Sam Casale, and it was a little uncomfortable, you know. Yeah. You know, I'm walking in a restaurant, people stand up and try to pay you. You had no chance to pay. I did like that. I'm known for being a little tight. So I absolutely love that part.

Yeah. Yeah, because the Seltz were 22 years. This was 53. Yeah. But it had a little bit of the same stuff of like, you know, a lot of losing. A lot of like, I remember back when we were good and now we're not. Yeah.

And, you know, Boston's fans now have gone through so much winning. You know, when I, when I get upset when we're bouncing around one. When I got the Boston, the Red Sox hadn't won in a thousand years. The Patriots hadn't won. The Bruins hadn't won. The Celtics hadn't won. Then all of a sudden, we're all winning. And I always think back to, man, there's a kid that's seven years old that thinks, this is how it is. Right. That's soe from the Celtics. Yeah. Yeah. His sons, all day, they were born like right when, when Brady showed up. They were born at the perfect time in Boston. They think winning is like they're entitled to win.

It was 13 titles. Yeah, that's pretty impressive. I don't know, however many years I was. One thing on Brunson, so I was arguing with a Luke of a friend of mine, and we started talking about Hardin's like, you know, I know you don't like Hardin. There's just no way Hardin was worse than Brunson. Like Hardin has to be above Brunson.

I'm like, all right, you make the case. So it makes the case. It's like you win the MVP, you know, he's 36. points of game. We're like arguing back and forth about it. And I was like, all right, I hear everything. Give me your best heart in here. 2018. It's like, 2018. I'm like, all right, take 2018 Hardin and put him on this next team. Do you think they win the title? And he goes, well, but that's, and I was like, that's your answer. That's the answer. That's your answer. That's why Brunson has to be a head of Hardin. That is the absolute answer. You just said, you just already started stammering

and making excuses. Yeah. It's the answer that we should all go by. Right. You know, There's a lot of players. You know, James is a phenomenal player. He's in my top 50. I still think the best part of his game he doesn't like as much as I loved. The point guard play. Yeah. I think he has as good a vision as anybody that I've seen next to Rondo and Chris.

Yeah. And but he could score too and he liked the dribble. He liked to hold the ball. See, James doesn't give everybody else enough room to be. great. Yeah. He is the only one that can be great on his team. He has to be the greatest. Yeah. You know, I don't even think it's a jealousy thing. I really don't. I just think it's the way he plays. And that's how he plays. You know, as he said, he's a system, you know. But that system to me is not the way to win. You know, I still go back. You look with James with us in Philly, the first half of the year.

Yeah. He gave himself up to the team. He was playing unbelievable basketball. And I thought there was nobody better than us. Yeah. And then it kind of changed. He wanted to go back. You can see it slowly like he was uncomfortable in that row.

One of the things I did like about that sucker, though, he practiced every day. It's funny how people don't look at him like that. James Hardin loves playing basketball. And he's durable. Very. I told Tai Lu that. I said, listen, you're going to eat a guy to practice this every day, and he's going to play 80s. Like, there's something good about that. The bad part is can you win with it? This episode is brought to you by Activia. You might already be eating yogurt, but not all yogurts are created equal. Activia contains over one billion probiotics per serving to survive and reach the gut alive. When it comes to gut health, Activia is the number one family doctor-recommended probiotic yogurt brand.

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Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. The other thing I've been talking to people about is the 10-week playoff run and being durable and actually getting better as those 10 weeks goes along

versus going the other way. I think Wemby is a decent example of this, but he's 22. But I think every team does that, and every player. What you want is that grind is so hard and you've got to keep climbing the rungs, and some guys can't do it.

And even LeBron in 2011, by the time we got to the finals against Dallas, like he cratered. He had to learn how to how it went. He had to learn how to win. He hadn't figured it out yet. I thought LeBron's growth, where he became one of the best all-time, was between 11 and 12. Yeah, right.

And I thought. And sadly, you were in the, you were part of the shrap known 2012. But I remember we played them in a game, maybe a preseason game, and he was calling out the sets. And I remember turning to, I think it was Lawrence Frank. You were like, oh, this is different. Yeah. He didn't prepare before like that. He came out and played.

But he was 21 over here. He's going. I was like, wow. Now that's different. And when he start doing that, the other thing I thought Miami, you know, Kevin Gardner, Nett, him loved it.

I showed a video before game one, a two. It was before game one. We played, you know, they were the, you know, the big favorites. You know, we were old. And I showed up.

video of Duane Wade, Chris Bosch, and LeBron, before the game doing their thing. The handshake thing. After the game, they would do it. And I said, those three guys can not beat us 12 guys? And until they figure out they're going to need those other nine guys, we got these guys. They can't beat us.

You know what you weren't counting on? being up about to go up 3-2 in game 5 and all your guys talking so much shit to LeBron that he finally said, right, fuck this. Well, not all our guys, Paul. Yeah, Paul can't stop. Is that the all-time bad trash talk story? Oh, my God. Well...

He probably changed the course of LeBron's career. Yeah, actually, I do think if we had won that series somehow, they were about to break them up because they had lost the year before. Chris Boss was gone. They at least trade Chris Bosch. Yeah, somebody was gone.

But I thought that way about the 2016 calves, if they lose to go and stay, Kevin Love is out of there the next day. It's amazing how it bounce or something. You know, I always use Jeff Van Gundy, who I think is an excellent coach, all right? But Jeff Van Gundy was about to get fired with the Knicks. And Alan Houston takes a shot. Oh, in 99, yeah.

And the ball bounce, bounce, bounce on the rim and goes that way. If the ball goes this way, Jeff Van Gundy's fire. The box. if Kevin Durant's foot was back this much, they were going to fire a butt. Well, I think the 2014 Clippers is a good what-if team. Yes. Because you have Sterling happening,

which is still one of the craziest things that teams ever had to deal with during the playoffs. And then just Chris Paul, the safest bed on the planet, just having a complete meltdown in the last minute of game four. Or game five, whatever, game five. Oklahoma City. Yeah.

You know, it's funny. I thought, I don't know if we would have won it or not. Because when you look back, and that's where some of the players get mad at me, when I said, when you look back on our team, we didn't get along the way we were supposed to, to win. And so if you didn't have great chemistry, it's hard to win. But that year, I thought we kind of had it. Blake and Chris kind of whatever their stuff was, and that happened before I got there, they kind of moved it to the side.

There were so many mistakes, and Chris was literally... Chris is the smartest player that I'd coached in my career. You know, I think Ron was the smartest. Who also never made mistakes. He had like the best-nesses turnover ratio. Never turned a ball up,

but we were supposed to file out of the timeout. His guy got it. He didn't file. He tried to trick the game. That was the one thing that me and him butt heads about all the time. You don't need to trick the game. Oh, the, you remember he threw the ball,

and honestly, he did get filed. Yeah. But they didn't call it. Right. And so Oklahoma gets it, and they come back and scores. That was like when Brunson got fouled with 10 seconds left,

and they didn't call it. They didn't call it. The ball went to Bridges. Yeah, so. That was almost a disaster. It was going to be a disaster. So that's, you know, but, man, that changed the fortune of the Clippers.

That one game, really, it did. Yeah, you had that one. We've talked about this before on pods, but the ones that you almost could have won and two bad things happen are way worse than winning. Well, I've had the... Winning is here in the losses. The seesaws.

Yeah, the winning is always, if you win it all, there's nothing that's ever going to beat that, except for mentally, your losses hurt more. Right. You think more about the losses than... Tims and I talk about 210 way more than 2.8. And that's just... Yeah, you're not being like, oh, remember that 08 Detroit series?

That was great. That's what coaches. I mean, I had the 3-1 lead against Detroit, where we weren't supposed to be in that series. If you ever go back and look at the Magic Team, and then Tracy McGrady stands of, this series is over. You know, I didn't know he said that, but that's all he said it in the media. Nobody should ever say that. Never, never.

And think about this, Rick Carlisle got fired because of that series. Because Joe Dumars, I guess all years said you got to play this kid named Tash. John Prince. And he didn't play them all year. And in game four, he put him in at the end of the game. And he was phenomenal. By game seven, he was their go-to guy. I mean, it was crazy.

And I really believe that's what got Rick fired. Jesus. Yeah. We were talking on a previous podcast about these teams that got the secret, which like the 04 Pistons is a good example. Yeah. This next team, the 14 spurs. Now, there's other, like the 08s.

Celtics were so talented. It's almost like the talent is going to. It was more of the play. We played together. Right. So when do you know that it happens as a coach? Is there a moment during the season or playoffs? With the Knicks, it was the last 16 games.

But that's how it happens most of the time. Like, we were not ready to win when the playoffs started. Yeah. People think we were. We went seven games against the Hawks. The first two teams. Yeah. And the second series was Cleveland,

who was probably the second best team in the east, another seven-game series. Where we turned into a championship team was when we lost game two at home against Detroit. And then it flipped. That's when we went to Detroit and won. That was the moment that we went from here to here. And for the Knicks, it was Game 4, Atlanta.

Right. And what I try to tell people each round, as much as these players think they know, and coaches all of us. You're good in the first round. Your team is different in the second round. You win that round. Your team is different again in the third round

because you keep growing. You keep trusting. Guys start either becoming more and selfish. They start seeing themselves with a chance to win. Each round, your team gets better. Each round it does. And that's every team. What's your theory for why home court advantage

seemingly does not matter anymore? Well, I don't have one. I really don't. I've thought about it. You know, the talent, the offense. Three-point shooting variance. Travel. I think the travel is easier.

What about what about DMs and Tinder and all? You don't have to go to clubs to meet girls anymore. That helps. That helps. You know. That helps Dominique. As I think Pat Riley said, it's not the act. Yeah.

It's the chasing. Right. You know, so, yeah, I think all that. But I do think it's the three-point shot that has changed. Because the next one, two in Cleveland, and then all three in San Antonio. Look at last year, Indiana. Another one. They didn't care where they played.

Yeah, there's no, but shooting, three-point shooting has changed. There's no lead that's safe anymore. I have a Boston fan friend of mine says the biggest thing that's changed is they have all these rules that the fans can't be super mean to the other team anymore. Oh, no. They're still pretty mean. Because they, you know, there's been teams where they would put people behind the visiting bench and they would just yell at the guys the whole game. Yeah, yeah.

That era is kind of over. That error is gone. Yeah, you don't feel like you're, oh, my God, it's a little dangerous. You know, it's funny. As a player, I love the road. I love playing on the road. Well, those are the best wins, right, when you shut the crowd up. It's the most powerful position.

I wanted to beat the Lakers so bad in game five. Yeah. I wanted to win there so bad. I just talked about this game in a podcast because I was telling a story about how that next game 5 with Foster reminded me of game 508 with Foster where Ray Allen had 5,000 in the second half.

And so did Paul Pierce. And Ray Allen fouled out of the game. How many games did Ray Allen foul out of his life? Yeah, not many. But that was one of those where I was like, I just wish we had gotten a good whistle. Yeah, we didn't get any whistles. I thought that was the first game.

The only game. You can't get fined anymore. It was 20 years ago. Yeah, that's true. You didn't get any whistles. I thought that was, yeah, that's, well, we didn't get any whistles from the game seven. That's for a whole other show, you know. They, the officiating changed.

Yeah. From the first half to the second half, you know, in that seventh game in 210. When they allowed Pau Gasada to just shove everybody around? Yeah, went from, they, they wasn't calling anything to, I think it was 17 to 5. But that's a good example. Yeah. Of the little margins, right? So why, why did it, we ultimately, I'm going to say we,

like I was playing. Well, it's a we. Why do we lose that game? Because Rashid Wallace had to play 35 minutes. Yeah, yeah. And because Perkins is out and that tilted it just enough. Enough. You didn't have, you were 10 men.

And Kevin was more like Wemby then in the fact that. Yeah, Wemby? Kevin was exhausted. He's free rebounds in that game. Yeah, Kevin's, once he got back from injury, he never could practice and work the way he worked. And fatigue was a major factor with K. And that was, Gassal was feasting.

Yeah, and that's where Gassau, we let him out of the, we own him. And we let him out of the bag. Well, that's the thing with these, when you talk about the margins, because a great one was 2016 game seven, where's calves, Bo gets out, Barnes is unplayable. Yeah. Also, Festus Azelia is out there with six minutes left. LeBron targets them, gets six points out of them.

Yeah. And that swings the game, right? And it's like, it's a little thing, but it's not. Yeah, it's a little thing, but it's a huge thing. And I always find that interesting. Like, LeBron had figured out how to win now. You know, he won in Miami. He had gone through those each rounds.

And so now he knew how to win. He'd become a winner. It's interesting, though, because I felt like he was, I mean, he's easily one of the four or five smartest players of this century, right? And then he's probably the best athlete of this century. Yeah. But something had to, like, settle in with him. It was almost like a cake.

He had to stay in the oven for a while. He had to settle. He had to figure out how to win. And the pressure, I think he was putting on himself. If you don't go how to win, how do you know how to? Right. You know, if you haven't won. You don't think he learned from Ricky Davis for Larry Hughes.

Some people was natural. You know, Magic was a winner coming in the pros. He won a national title. The biggest game in, I think the biggest college game in the history of college basketball. Has to be. And I think it still is. Yeah. You know, I know where I was at when Larry Bird and Magic.

played. I remember that game. Would you see that stat that Brunson was the 15th guy to win high school college and NBA? Yeah, I didn't see that. Not nothing. No, that's a lot. You know who else is on there? Kareem Russell and Magic. Yeah, I was going to say

that's a lot. Like, Bill, that's people... That has to matter. It matters more than so many other things. This guy just keeps winning. He may not be done. Well, that team probably has two years left, but now they're going to deal with the Pat Riley disease Amore. Yeah.

I gave up stuff. Now I'm not as excited to give up stuff. I don't really like shooting eight shots a game anymore. I'd like to shoot 12. Michael call it the trophy tour. You're going to have to deal with all the trophy tour guys. And I remember asking, what are you talking about? He said, oh, no, these guys, they're carrying the trophy to their hometowns.

They're having parades for them. They're going to come back. They're going to want more. They're like, yeah. Trophy tour. I like that. Yeah, he called it the trophy tour. Did you see the Jim Dolan speech?

No. About the fan safety? No. This Brunson's podcast, they put the speech on their feed. He gave a 15-minute speech to the team before the playoffs. Wow. Sat in front of them. I couldn't believe it.

It's like a great speech. It's like a sports movie speech. I have to see this. Give them this whole speech about, I think this team is going to win the title, but it's only going to happen. If you guys dedicate this, you're going to have to put the team.

team above your son. It's like he, it was kind of great. He's like, you're going to have to tell what, at one point he goes, I'm going to give your wife for your significant other championship rings if we win this because they're going to have to sacrifice too. This has to be all you think about. Wow. This is going to be the hardest thing you're like. That's a Pett Riley speech. Well, then he goes, if we win what this will mean in New York City, I can't even explain to you what's going to happen to everybody in this room. You got to watch it. I was like, I didn't know you had this in your jazz doing. Listen, they've done everything right.

Like, Leon, man, we talked about this two podcasts ago about Leon and West, yeah. Yeah, but anybody, and I remember I said, anybody can get the star. I can make a trade. I can take over to tomorrow and find a way of getting a star.

Can you put the right people around them? And, God, darn, every decision they made came up gold. It came up gold. Would you, I talked about this before, but would you, do you think the job of being a GM with relationships and knowing kids who turn into adults that you recruit in stuff? That feels like more of an advantage than, like, West New Towns when he was 15. Yeah. Trying to get him, like, he's known that guy forever.

So he's like, oh, his contract is expensive. Absolutely. No, no, he's a good kid. We got to get him in. Should more owners be looking at people who were like agents? Or agents or even players who want to be front office people. Yeah. You know.

Like, could Chris Paul do this? I don't know if he has a relationship. Right. You know, but one thing Chris does, you know, is he knows players. I guess Jamal Crawford knows everybody in the league, you know. Right. He's voted teammate of the year every year. Yeah, yeah.

If you wanted one guy to get, and I'm joking, DeAndre Jordan knows single league, every single person in the league. It's funny when he played on the Olympic team, Coach Kate calls me, he's like, hey, this guy's the pipe piper. I have never seen a guy that everyone wants to be with. And, you know.

Have we ever talked about this? Because when I had the, I still have the Clippers did tickets. But when he didn't play, he wasn't playing. He was like a scrub on the Quippers. But before and after the games, he knew everybody on the other teams.

and it was like hand-shake pugs. And I would say to my wife, like, I don't know what the deal is with this backup center. He knows everybody in the league. When I got him, and, you know, when I came and we had the big talk, and for him, you know, my mom and my favorite player coach stories of all time, I gave him that long list.

Like, you know, he told me he wanted to score more. Yeah. And that's why he didn't play well the year before. He was pouten. You know, it was my first year there. It was my first meeting with DJ. Literally my first meeting. We're at Nobu.

Yeah. And I was like, so many Del Naker told you that you were going to score more. He said, no, he told me to work on my offense. And then I did that, and I didn't get the ball. I said,

I'm going to have you work on your offense too, but I'm going to guarantee you one thing. And he says, what's that? I will never call a play for you. Never. And he's looking at me. This is our first meeting. Yeah.

I said, but if you get every rebound, you become, I'm going to make you the defensive captain. I gave my list. All defense. you know, all-star team. Rebating title. Rebounding title.

All these lists. And then NBA champion. And it's an emotional one. He checked them all off. And then when he won the title with the Denver Nuggets, I'm built 10 minutes after the game. I get a Bing on my phone. It's a pitcher with him in the trophy.

And he had the note. And it said, checked. Wow. How awesome is that? Yeah, that was DeAndre. That was pretty cool. We took J.R. Giddens over him. Don't get me started with that one.

I'm going to give you the one thing I loved about Danny, and me and Danny loved, we had a great relationship. But my son, Jeremiah, had played with some of these guys now. Oh, I think you told me this story. Yeah, and he's texting, doing the draft. During that draft, J.R. Gids, He's like, I'm telling you, I've played with him.

And Danny loved him. Danny loved him. Danny's had a pretty high batting average. Yeah, that's why. Listen, I knew what Danny did let him do it. Whatever. He's right most of the time. Well, you know what's funny now?

They have the second pick and people, like Peterson said he wasn't going to work out for them. Yeah. And it's nobody's going to know who Utah. Anyone who's like, I know what Utah is going to do. It's like, good luck. Well, Lauren's right. I don't think people who work for Utah knows what Danny's going to run to. It was over game one or game two.

I had Larry over in Lawrence Frank. And it's funny, Larry really enjoyed Lawrence Franks. Lawrence, you know, it's an active. Right. Just asking. He's just buzzing with questions. And we started talking about Danny. And we were laughing.

No one knows what Danny is up to. No one. And it's the truth. I think they're going to take Camboozer. Only because of 25 years of watching how Danny thinks about this stuff. I just think he's going to be like, you know what? That guy's just really good. Danny knows.

Taking that guy. I will say this about Danny. He knows already. Yeah. I can guarantee you that. Yeah, he's like walking in a bar and seeing a girl. Yeah, and now he's trying to sell other franchises on someone else. You know, what he does.

Have you looked at the draft at all or now? Not much, not yet. No. You're like a retired guy now. Yeah, it's playing golf. Golf and trying to build your endurance up on the course. Yeah, terrible golf. but I enjoy it, you know.

Well, we got to talk about Janus trades. Yeah. So when you have a trade hanging over a team like that, and it's not just Janus and the Bucks, it's other stuff, but, and then the way stuff's reported now and talked about. How do you navigate that as a coach or you don't? You do. I probably underestimated the damage that it was doing to our team.

Yeah. Because, you know, first of all, a lot of the reports, they were just not accurate. Yeah. And unfortunately, it doesn't matter if they're accurate or not. It's out there. Because the reports are poor and there's six hours of shelf I've out of it. You know, as Al, Michael says, some of these guys, they report on the news and then they didn't do reports on the news that they created. You know?

Right. And so it just... It's like a double dip, but so you go back to the buffet table. Yeah, it takes a life of its own because I knew what Janice was telling me. Yeah. And so some of this stuff

just wasn't right, wasn't true. And, but that doesn't mean the agents wasn't telling someone else something else. You know, it didn't matter. It did damage because if you're a coach, I'm trying to get Bill Simmons to play his role, you're like, play my role.

Why am I going to play my role? my best player doesn't even want to be here. Yeah. You know? And that is the damage it does. Yannis really never said to the players that he wanted to leave, and he never probably said he wanted to stay, you know. And so...

So it's just like everything is uneasy. Yeah, but he did tell him once, guys, I'm here. I'm here. He told me that, you know, several things. Coach, I'm going nowhere. Tell me long before the trade deadline before all started break. Coach, I'm going nowhere. I don't want to go anywhere.

So what am I trading for? if I'm getting him, because I don't know if you're aware, but the Boston Celtics are one of the possible teams. Yeah, I've heard. I've heard. Well, you're getting a rejuvenated, healthy, Janus. Is it a healthy or hopefully healthy? No, he's healthy.

And I also think this will be his first time in four years, not having your basketball. You know, so Janice and I had a conversation, I want to say a month before the season ended. And, you know, you remember the whole should you come back? And I was, I was honest. I said, yeah, honest, here's my opinion, all right? You shouldn't come back. Yeah, the season's over. Yeah.

You need to sit. I said, but you should look at this as a great opportunity. You can start working out now. You can bring in your guy that you work with, and you can start now for next year. There's no European basketball. You get a whole year. to really work on your skill. It's like the Rocky 3 eye of the tiger.

Yeah, yeah. And he started doing it. He was doing it. He was, you know, before I left, he was already into his workouts, you know,

so I think they're going to get that. I think it would be good for him probably, you know, just to get all this stuff out of them. He can focus on basketball and playing. But how does it make sense? And I've already said on the record, I kind of hope the Celtics don't trade for,

for him because I think it's risky because this will be his 14th year in the league. The history of big men is they get older. No, he's not a typical big man. He's at it. I know, but I'm just going by history. I don't think it's it's not like getting KG in 2008. Yeah, and also, with any trade,

you risk chemistry. You don't, even if you think your chemistry is not great now, you risk making it way better. You also risk making it worse. seen this happen in the NBA over and over again.

Over and over again. But for him, like, I don't understand why he would want to go to, Miami's the one I don't, I can't figure out, unless they have other moves coming that I don't know, because it's like, all right, it's him and bam, but you just traded everybody else. And you would have traded your closer because teleheroes are closer. Right.

You know, see what you want about him, but he's a straight-up closing. So why would I want to go laterally? I would just rather stay in Milwaukee at that point. That's where he's trusting their front office that they have the ability to add more pieces. You know, those are the talks we're not in, you know. After the last two rounds of basketball we watch, like you, you need like seven, eight dudes.

You need a lot of guys. It can't just be you and Bam out of Bio, and it can't be you and Jason Tatum. Yeah. Well, the Celtics still have a lot of players. No, I know. But I'm just. There's a much safer thing for him.

The only thing from the Celtics point of view is you are shortening your window. you know, because Janus is older and Brown is younger. Well, Janice is older with more miles on him, too. But you also maybe, after that window, giving yourself a chance to have another window with Jason Tato. Right. You know what I mean? So it depends on how the front officers look at it.

What would you do if you were Boston? Oh, that's a tough one. You know, I don't ever say it because I don't know. Because you traded for KG, you had a five-year window with KG, right? Yeah, yeah. You know it was like, I have him, I have peers. With Ray, this is four to five years. Yeah, I remember we thought when we did it,

we thought we had a three to four year window with age. And obviously, KG got hurt. We didn't know that was gonna happen. That's why you can't take anything for granted. I said it the other day. You remember when Oklahoma City, KG, KD, James Hardin, Abaka. I went nuts when this happened.

They thought their window was limitless. Yeah, Mike Brain. I remember Mike Brain say, well, you, They lost this series of Miami, but they're going to be back here many times. They never made it back. Like, assuming. 86 Rockets. Yeah.

You can never. 95 magic. There's no assumptions. There's no, this league winning is brutally hard. You have to play well. You have to act right. You have to get along. You need luck.

You need everything to win a title. And if you don't get everything, you're not going to win. So you think you get, you get, you're not going to win. So you think you get. Giannis, these next two years would be the years you have to cash in on. Yeah, he's got to be, he's so motivated. You know, it's not like he's not always, but he just motivated. He wants to win another title.

Yonis wants to win. Like, it's interesting, we were just talking about it. He didn't talk a lot about his play. Yeah. He talks about winning, and Yonis wants to win. I don't know what the right team is for him. I don't need to actually win a title. You have to have a closer with him.

Which Boston would have. That's what the Tatum, that's why the Tatum things makes more sense because a two-man game with Yonnas and Tatum, good luck. The only thing I said on the pod that I guess it was a reporting, but I know I'm right, is that the Salt Expanded an offer. I don't know if Jaylon Brown was in it. Yeah. I assume he has to be in it.

Yeah, see, I don't know how you get, I don't know, I don't either, but I don't know how you would make an offer without him in it. The problem with our league now is when I first started coaching, you could have all these conversations and the player would never know, never know. Now the player always knows. They know it 10 minutes after the conversation. Is this what happened with KD and Brooklyn with Jalen Brown? Yeah, once when he heard about that, once the news happens, there's damage.

You know, it's really tough for teams. You should have conversation. Yeah. You should always try, listen to everything. That doesn't mean you're doing it. And my guess is it wasn't the Celtics calling. It was probably Milwaukee calling Boston. Or they're trying to figure out, they're talking basic, vague parameters. And then Milwaukee goes,

well, if we got Jailen around, could we spin him? Yeah. Now you talk to another team. And now it's up. Everyone says it's going to be three teams. Whenever this. It has to be.

If it does happen, it'll be three teams. It's just, you know, it could be the clippers. Jalen could become in L.A. I actually wouldn't be surprised at all if the clippers were involved in this at all. With the financial ability of Steve bomber in that organization. And they have some cap space and they have the fifth pick.

They also will have 80 degrees and no humidity. And they have an ocean. People like that. Right. They players like that. You know, before it was all Lakers. You know, when... It was a little like that.

And that's next situation. Yeah. But now, you know, that's one of the things I would say if I have a lot of pride about things, which I never do because I don't ever think that in those terms. But that's one of them. No, you should take pride in that. We wanted to, when I took that clipper job, I remember said, I said in the press conference, we're going to make this a destination.

We're going to make the clippers a place that people want to come to. Now, I didn't know at the time with Donald Sterling as the only, that was a pious sky thought when you think about it. But even Donald paid, you know, for players. But then when Bomber came organizationally, like everything's first class, they do everything right. I mean, they do it the right way.

Yeah, when I got my tickets in 2004, I just got it for the other teams, which is why most of the people were there, right? Yeah, it still did, unfortunately. And it was really kind of fun to go to the games. They were so dysfunctional year after year after year. And then, you know, his little baby steps, they draft wake, he finally gets there. The Chris Paul thing falls out of the sky.

And all of a sudden it starts to look like a real team. You know, bad. So when I was traded to the Clippers as a player. Yeah, in the 90s. My wife, Chris Rivers, goes to the first game. And she's in a stance crying. True story, she's sitting next to Gloria Schuller. That was Mike Schuller's wife.

Yeah. And Gloria is consoling her. And like, what's wrong, baby? My son is, and she says, my husband is no longer in the NBA and he doesn't know it. Oh, my God. And she was like saying, no, baby, that's not true. That's not true. No, it is an NBA team.

Yeah. And she kept saying, no, it's not. Now, way back then, if you remember at the clip joint, that thing was a mess. It was a mess. I never went there because I would never been in L.A. until the 2000. I heard it was the, what was it,

the sports arena or whatever? The sports arena was a mess. It was a mess. They had comedians doing shows after the game. Yeah. People, I mean,

you could literally check yourself in. It was no one there. It was crazy. It's one of the only good sports documentary ideas left that I don't think Balmer or wherever let happen. Like the actual history

of the Clippers and what the... Well, if I'm bomber, I would because the ending is a glorious story and he was the white night. I hope it's glorious. We don't know how the aspiration

scandal At worse, he's still going to be there. True. And he's still going to keep doing things well. And so I wouldn't worry about it. So you, if you're the Clippers, you would rather have a star than the fifth pick. Yeah, I think.

If you have Kauai and Garland and you have a really good front office. Yeah, I think right now, here's my belief in a lot of front offices don't believe this, half and half. if you legitimately can look at yourself in the eye and say if we do this move, we have a chance to win, you should go for it. I think so many franchises have waited. No, man, no, this is not to that.

If this is the time, you got to cash it in. But you got to have a very honest, like, is it or isn't it? Because a lot of teams think they do it, and what did they do? you know, and I remember last year, Orlando traded for Bain, and they said, now we have a chance. And I was like, what? No, you don't.

You're better. It's a hell of a trade. It's a good trade, but you're not ready to win yet. That's how I always feel about these trades. Yeah. If I'm doing it, I better at least have a chance. Yeah, but you have to be honest enough to evaluate the league and what you have for sure. Like Celtics, Ray Allen,

trade, then the KG trade. You basically trade all your assets, but now I'm the best team in the East. Of course I'm going to do that. We knew immediately we had a shot. We knew we knew we had to be Detroit, Cleveland, and the Lakers. Right.

You know, in whatever order, we knew that had to happen. Well, the Bridges trade, which I guess I'll take the loss on this one, but the thing I didn't like about it was like, this is it. This is your move. Like, now you have no more moves. But it turned out they had an extra move because the town's trade became the extra.

became the extra move. I thought after Bridges, I didn't think. It was funny. Everyone made the big deal about the Bridges trade, five pictures, a lot. Was anything they could have given up for Yannis? It still didn't constrict them. You know, they went out and got towns.

It didn't stop them. Yeah. And I don't know if there's a better role player for your basketball thing, than Bridges. Yeah. He's willing to take four shots, 15 shots, six shots, every game, he shows up. He didn't know.

And by the way, he plays basketball. He's out there. He doesn't miss games. Yeah, he plays every night, and he's still one of their better defenders every single night. Yeah. He's a pretty important guy to have on your team. If you were Orlando, would you think about Palo for Yanis? I don't know, man.

That's... Does that put you in the title convoy? Yeah, I would do it if I'm Orlando, if I thought that put us over the hump, or if I thought... I got Janus, I have Franz, I have Bain, I have Suggs, I have black. I don't know if you have enough shooting. Maybe in Fradesang get somebody. Yeah, if you can get enough shooting, you know, I don't know what the other moves. Like I keep saying it, I can go get a Yannis, right?

But does that put us over the top? And do we know how to make the rest of the moves to win? Teams do it over every year, Bill. Every year we see it. Teams go and get a star. How about Houston? I have Van Villeen coming back. I have to give up Schengut in the trade, I'm guessing.

And maybe Jabari Smith, too. And I might have to take a contract back. No. I don't know if that works. I don't think it works either. Yeah, I don't think I'm better than San Antonio or OPC either way. You know. And then, San Antonio is the interesting one, but I don't think they would do it.

They probably wouldn't do it. Oklahoma could as well. Oklahoma is not their style. Oklahoma could do any trade they wanted to. Right. I mean, what they have, what Sam has done is absolutely amazing. They have 12 and 17 in this draft. Like, they're mad at draft picks.

Yeah. Like, oh my God, what are we going to do with all this stuff? He's the, he's in the first situation ever where he's like, I think I'd rather have the eighth pick than the 12th pick. Yeah. I'm just going to go trade for it. Hey, Atlanta, here's seven picks to move up more spots. There's no doubt that he's going to do a two for one.

He has to. You know, he almost has to. Well, there's a center in this draft who I like, the Michigan kid, Mara. Yeah, he's solid. But I haven't watched him enough. Yeah, you've watched them more to me. Well, he's seven foot three. Yeah.

He's a good passer. And I'm through the Wembe prison now. Yeah. I need size. Where am I getting size? Yeah, Wimby is. everybody in the West. You had to think about it.

You have to think about it. You know, the son of the Knicks, they didn't just, where I was way wrong, there's no way I thought Towns would or could guard Wemby. And he did an amazing job. And he didn't really have dumb fouls until, no, near the end of the finals. You know what made it interesting,

statistically going into the series. You know who's the best defender on Wimby plus minus? Who? Oh, gee. I think in the league, he had the highest plus minus guard. Did you know he was that good? No, no.

I knew he was a great defender, great, like elite. I never thought he'd be able to shoot and make shots and make plays the way he does. And I never knew he had the IQ. He has an incredibly high basketball instinctive IQ. I love how he, there's got to, there's no way to have a staff for this, but like, do you do the most positive things that you're capable of doing in the least negative things? Yeah. Something about like, do you know yourself the best out of anyone?

Like you always have these guys who are like, oh, I bet I can do it and they can't. He never does anything he can't do. Yeah. The whole league has irrational confidence. Right. Every player has irrational confidence. That's what makes them good. But if you want to be a successful coach, I always tell young coaches, if you're

You can get all 12-year guys to know exactly who they are. Now, you're never going to do that. But if you can do that, you would never lose. You would never lose. You talk to coaches all the time. All the time. You're like the fucking Yoda of coaching. I do talk a lot.

You talk to all of them. What is their biggest thing that they're worried about now? Like just with basketball in 2026. No one's ever asked that question to me. That's a great question. Thank you. I think a lot of them are concerned. how many

the outside forces touching their players. It's just too many people. You mean like shooting coach, manager, agent? Even inside. Like you got 10 skill development guys who I love.

You have, the medical team now is bigger than your coaching staff. There's just so many voices. And how do you manage those voices? Like culture is not just the players. If you're

culture in the training room or which is skill development aren't all locked in on the same thing. You're not winning. Right. You know, 15 years ago, I had to worry about four coaches and two trainers. You might add two. Yeah, two or three coaches and two trainers. It was easy to kind of circle the wagons and they have a great culture. Now, you got, you know, a lot of people.

How many coaches do we actually need in all seriousness? because like I was watching and they were showing the 76 finals and the Celtics had Tom Hineson is the head coach and John Killet as an assistant and that was it. Yeah.

It was just the two of them. And if both of them got thrown out like Dave Cowens had to become the coach. Yeah, we had Dick Harder and Jeff and Gundy. It sounds great. Yeah. Isn't that easier? And it was so cool because I remember

I hurt my knee and I needed a coach to come rebound for me. I need a skill development guy. I do a lot of skill development guys. I think they really help players. Yeah. I would call Jeff Van Gundy. And that's, you know, it's funny. Jeff would come and just,

Jeff was the greatest freaking guy. Yeah. Because he shut his mouth and he just rebounded for me. He could tell, like, I was just shooting, shooting. And if I miss you, running to get it and throw it back, wouldn't say a word. Just bag balls for you and shot. And, you know, it wasn't until middle of that workout one night. We're just sitting there talking afterwards.

And he set his age. And I said, wait. minute, I'm older than you? What? You know, I didn't even know that. You know, Jeff, isn't that crazy? Yeah. So they worry about outside forces. Yeah. How about wearing terror of the schedule? Not as much as you think. Yeah, I think the coaches worry about that far less than front office and medical teams do. And then I think they do worry about it's harder to get players to buy in now. Because of the two ways?

No, because of all the other stuff. You know, everyone has their own brand now. You know, guys who you're like, why do you have a person? Yeah. Why do you have a publicist? What do you need a publicist for? Yeah, you're an 11th man. Yeah, they all have them.

They're hawking, selling something, creating something. I mean, this is real business and money for these guys. So I think that's what they're more concerned by than anything else. I have something that you didn't know about. You know what that is? No. Oh, my gosh. This is awesome.

Where did you get this from? After the 2007 draft, somebody at ESPN grabbed this for me and sent me an email and said, hey, I grabbed the envelope, do you want it? And I was like, fuck yeah, I'll take it. Not realizing. How about that? Yeah, this won a title for me. That won you a title.

This won me a title. I will say, that was the lowest our office has ever been. It was the lowest I think I've ever been as a sports fan. We did everything to get the best pick. I mean, I wish I could have some of those games back that, I mean. You're just isoing for Gerald Green in March, mid-March? I would look up in the stands some nights. and, you know, let's say Gerald's having a night or somebody,

and Danny's looking to me like, like, take him out. I remember Rondo was almost like too good to play at those things. Yeah, Ronald, I mean, it was... Yeah, so that one comes up, that's it. That was, yeah, that was a rough night. Because think about it if we got, if we got one and you took Odin.

Oh. You're probably doing TV the last 15 years. Danny swears he would take a Durant. Yeah, and I don't know if that's true. I think that's true. But Danny kept things so close. I wouldn't have known until late anyway. Well, the story I always heard was that the Celtics doctor,

they had a great doctor back then. Dr. McKeon, the best. That he saw the Odin stuff and he was like. He actually gave a couple of flags. The only one that I always, you know, Dr. McKin and I have become best friends with golf. And the only thing I still kill him on, Brandon Roy.

Like, we could have had him. And he said, guys. No. He's got a five-year window. Yeah. You know, he said, but it was a really good five years. Yeah, and I always said,

I would have taken those five years. Right. But he was, it was amazing how correct. He said, that guy's going to play four or five years and then his career is going to go the other way. I mean,

it was like to the year. It was unbelievable. Jesus. Yeah. So what's your final, Yonis prediction before we go? I think it gets moved. You think it gets moved.

Yeah. East Coast or West Coast? I don't, you know, I think. teams make a mistake when they worry about that. Get the best deal. Okay.

But I'm saying would you predict the Eastern Conference or Western Conference? I'm going to go west. You're going to West? No, I'm sorry. I'm going to go east. You're going to East? Yeah. Do you think Janus will be in the NBA finals again?

Yes, if he goes to the right place. Do you think Thanassus will be in the NBA Finals again? He'll be there. He'll be there for sure. He won't be on the team. What was Tenassis's best pickup basketball strength? Energy. One thing I tell you, like,

The dude, there were days where he actually was useful because, you know, he would ramp it up. Yeah, he was playing hard. Like, the masses, no one wanted to practice against him. Yeah, I was going to say, was he the guy in the gym that everybody was getting mad at because he was trying to hurt? Yeah. Yeah, you know what was that for me? It was Leon Wood, the ref. Oh, interesting.

Yeah. I made the All-Star team that year, and I swear to gosh, it's because of Leon Wood. I hated him. I would, back then you're playing 42 minutes and back then you practiced every day. Right. And you're scrimmaged a lot. And, you know, I just played 42 minutes

during DJ and the next day we're practicing and then Leon Wood is picking me a full court. You know, there were days I wanted to just punch them. But that's probably why it hurts when you hit a five wood now. Yeah, no doubt. It hurts when I've been down. You played probably 80 games that did Leon Wood. It's funny.

How do you? The last game that Leon did, I say, Leon, You moved just like me. We did too much. Who did you think, by the way, before we go, I had you just coached a team questions, random ones. Who did you think the best ref in the league was? You're in that right now?

Right now. The best ref this season that you saw. I thought Scott Foster. Scott Foster? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought, I think he has really become a,

you know what I've learned? It's not just his refereeing. where Scott has improved is just people skills. And, you know, there's a couple other ones that I really like. Any young ones? Josh, Josh Tibben, I think, has a good demeanor overall. It takes it very seriously. I love, I love, I learn a little bit doing COVID.

I got a chance to golf with some of the rest. Oh, interesting. And it's interesting. I love, I have found this. thing, some of these guys care so much. They want to be, like, really good at their jobs. And those are the guys I like. Then there's another group of guys that are like,

why are you so upset? It's just the game. You know what I mean? Yeah. So give me that first group because it hurts them. Like, they know when they make a mistake, and it hurts them just like you. Those are the rafts you want.

Scott Foster. Yeah, I think he's really, he's a solid NBA rep. What coach impressed you the most that you went against? Well, that's a great, boy, you're good questions today, Bill. I forgot to ask you these the last time you were on. Yeah. Was there one where you were like, man, that guy's got fucking everything going here? Well, I mean, it's tough Oklahoma was so good.

Yeah. But I still think he's really good. Yeah. I think he's, yeah, I think he's really marked. Like, he does, he makes the right plays, he subs the right guys in, And though I thought in the last series with guys injured, you know, it was tougher for him. I was impressed with Mike Brown this year. You know, I've played against him, coached against him, and two Easton, you know, I beat him twice when he had LeBron.

And I think his growth has, he's a different coach from when he was back then. There's no, like he's different. I love it. I'm a couple, we've got to come up with a list. I loved, there's certain coaches, you better be ready. Right. And then there's other coaches I felt like, you know. Yeah, this is, this will be easier.

I know what they're doing. Yeah. There's certain, there are coaches that I felt, because I thought one of the things I did well throughout my career was ATOs. You know, we call it timeout we were scoring. Yeah. I had a very, very, very prominent coach. It told me he lost me, he admitted this.

He lost the game. to me because they had a timeout. We didn't, and he didn't use it, because he didn't want me to be able to drop a play. And he said it was so stupid that he didn't. Yeah. And there's coaches that you feel the same about. Like, yeah, if I call it timeout,

they're going to get to drop a play too, and he's killing us right now out of timeout. So there's, you know, that goes both ways with coaches. Stevens was the best I ever saw at that. Brad was great out of timeouts. Very good. I don't know. He must have had like some database of all these crazy plays that he would have.

Yeah, you would be amazed at the coaches. Like, Tyloo has every ATO that I've ever drawn up. Really? Yeah, the entire time he was my assistant. Just like in a Google Doc or something? No, he would draw it up and keep it. He had a book. He would draw them all up and he would keep them.

and they beat us in Philly one game with one of my plays, and it incensed me. It just pissed me off so bad. They literally ran a play that. It's a violation. Yeah, and it was flawless. And, you know, we talked about it afterwards. He was laughing. And Tibbs did that a lot.

You know, we run all, you know, because we all steal from each other. Nobody's a genius in this. We all think we are. No one's, I can watch a game. I watch a game now. Wow, that's good. I can tweak this. You know, that's how coaches watch games.

It's pretty cool. Yeah, I remember game one, we were texting, and you were like, I don't like this, Wembeon Towns. Yeah. I don't like this. He's going to, he'll get away from this as this goes along. I kept telling you, I'm like, I don't like this matchup. Yeah.

Well, guess what? He stopped doing it by game three. Yeah. Give me two young players who aren't superstars. or known stars yet that you think are going to get there? Well, he's known, but Edgecombe has a chance to be really good because he has the makeup and I think having Maxie around him. So you're buying stock on the Maxie Edgecombe combo.

Maybe too small, we'll see. What did you like about Edgecombe? His Edge. Like, he's going to be what Edgecombe is going to be. I don't know how good he'll be offensively. You know he played on Austin's A.U. team. I don't know how good he'll be. offensively. He's ahead of where I thought he was already. But he's going to be an elite

defensive player in the NBA. Elite. That's coming. And you can see that. I'm trying to canvas the league with my imagination right now. I would have thrown Dylan Harper in there before the final. Well, Dylan Harper's already known. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's the obvious choice for all of us is Dylan Harper. How about? The Castle is the other guy that we don't talk about enough. You know, Castle is being a consistent shooter away from being a consistent all-star player every year. How about Cedric Howard? I don't know yet. You like him.

I do. Yeah, you like him. I'm not sure yet. I do. I'm not sure about the intangibles, you know. Yeah, it's tough because he was on a shit team. Yeah. It's so hard to judge some of these guys.

And it's also hard to judge a guy on a good team that doesn't play a lot or play his role. You know, you don't get the. to see it. My problem is I don't go to as many games as I used to and I always pick up, I'm sure you're the same way, you pick up so much more in person. Oh, you do. But the Quipper's backup center who ended up getting hurt,

Neiderhouser, whatever's name is. I love that guy. Like that guy's going to be, yeah, he's playing very well early. He will be like in a playoff rotation. So I got a question for you, other than Boston and Knicks. Who will be the other two teams in the east? Next year? I'm interested to see what Sharif.

Charlotte does with 14 and 18. And maybe next year is not their year. Maybe they'll be like, we'll draft two more guys. This is a slow build. Yeah. But I also think they could zag the other way and just go get somebody really good and make a run in it with the shooting they have. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they moved someone and did the trade as well. Honestly, that was like an interesting Yonis team to me.

It's a different timeline, but. Yeah. But Charlotte was a wild car for me, though. Charles is one of those young coaches that I was... That's the other thing. They're really well coached. That I was extremely impressed with. We beat them three out of four times.

And we caught them early. And I remember sitting with John, a horse, in the office. And he said, man, that team's coming. I said, oh, they're here. Right. I said, I don't know if they know it, but they're here. So I would go, Boston. What do we think Cleveland's going to look like?

I don't know. Who knows? You know, they're going to be in it. you know Cleveland they have to make some decisions well they can't have the $120 million tax team again can they win with both big guys to me it's not the money they can move the money they'll trade out that's that's the question for them well one of the things I wonder like do they trade Alan and a sign and trade with LeBron for the LeBron Cleveland farewell tour and does he want to do that that whole thing

is going to be a mess I mean whatever LeBron does and he listen he deserves it but where he goes and what he does. It feels like things are fractured a little bit in L.A. with him. But I don't know if that's actually true, but it feels that way. Everything feels fractured until they figure out a monetary figure to make it unfractured.

The makeup is unbelievable in R&D. Well, I told you, I think he's going to Golden State. I really do. I think that's going to happen. I don't believe that, but you've said that. I really think it's going to happen. All right, so Boston, New York, Cleveland kind of lingering. I don't know about Orlando.

Well, the two teams to me that people are sleeping on is what Atlanta does. Right. And then what Indiana does. Gid and Zoot was big for them. Yeah, I worry about. They would rather have that fifth pick or whatever. But Gid and Zoot was, they're going to be good next year. Now, what's how Berne going to look like and what's his confidence like?

He's probably playing now. I would assume. Yeah. Yeah. Indiana is a wildco. And Indiana is the one team that's like we could beat the next. And then the biggest wild card is Detroit, who we didn't mention. What are they going to do with the cat, with the, with they have all their picks?

I'm glad I don't have their decision. They, to me, they have a franchise defining decision to make. And I'm not sure which way you go. And that's what Dorn. What do you think is the decision? Duren. Oh, I think that we know how that's going to play out, right? Well, they're going to pay them.

But are they going to pay them the max? Are they? If they pay in the max, I just wouldn't do that. Yeah, I mean. You can't pay a center of the max that's not Wembe Njama basically. Yeah, I mean, that's a brutal decision because if you don't, you know, if I was another team with money, you want to mess the business up. That should be Brooklyn, right? Yeah, sign them to an offer sheet.

Isn't Brooklyn the only one with a? Yeah, it's only two teams, I thought. Yeah. But you get a two for one. If they sign them back, they hurt their team. If they don't sign them, they hurt their team. they hurt their team. Well, shit.

I mean, this is, no matter how much the NBA changes, this has happened every decade. Remember McElvade in Seattle? Somebody offered sheeted him or whatever, and then he made more money than Sean Kemp? I remember John Kahn Kahn Kemp. John Kahn Kahn Kempi. John Kahn Kahn Kratit.

He was on your team. You're right. Yeah, yeah. Who was the maddest of that, Kevin Willis? Oh, Dominique. He was making more than Dominique. He made more than Dominique. He made more than everybody.

Oh, no. It's funny. But Dominique had the nightclub. He was fine. Yeah. He had 21st in the nightclub. I remember Stan Kastin, who was, you know, Dodger, lower now. Yeah.

But I remember Stencasting calling me, I said, hey, I need to sit with you and Dominique. We got this situation. And I remember we sit and talked about the guy. I could care less. Right. They didn't care less. I was happy for John Concag. I was like, what do you even, turn it down?

But the business did it to screw us. And they got, and they did. It bothered our team. Absolutely. That GM was great. McCloskey. Oh, he was great. He was cutthroat.

Yeah. He was mad because Stan Kasten put an office sheet on James Edwards, and he told Isaiah and him the next free agent that the Hawks have, we're going to bother them. And that's why he did. Red Arbeck did that with the Knicks because they were sniffing around McHale when McHale was restricted. So he signed it was like Sly Williams and Marvin where.

I forget who the three guys were, and he made them match all that stuff. Roy Sparrow. You know, greatest coach or one of them. Red's the greatest GM ever Front off ever. It feels like he is. Oh, if you go by just how they built the one team.

Yeah. You know, they got Kevin McHale and Robert Parris for Joe Barry Kerr. They draft Danny Ains knowing he's going to play baseball. Draft the bird.

And drafted By the year before. They get DJ for Rick Roby, I think. By the way, he traded for Bill Russell. Yeah. I mean, oh, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah.

Okay, then it's over. Yeah. The debate is over. Yeah. He's the greatest. I like that Bill Russell guy. But you should do a show on who follows after that. So I think Presty's in the running.

He is now, for sure. Jerry West. Because he's nailed the draft picks and he's made some really good trades. And honestly like that, and you were there for the Quippers. And they're like, we need to do this. And he's like, I have to have SGA and I have to have all these picks or I'm not doing it. Well, we can't do that. Okay, no trade.

And he kind of waited out Ballmer. a great, this is what Sam Presti learned this time around that he didn't know the first time when he had all the players. Getting Shea was great. Getting Williams is great. You know what changed their team? He went out and got Caruso and Hartstain. Those are the moves

you have to learn how to make when you're a front office guy. And Sam didn't know how to make that move early on and now he understands the value of that. Well, that's another team to watch right now because they got Dorton a team option. They have Hartnstein on a team option. They're going to, I don't

think they'll ever pay second april they're really a strange team because they have so many picked so many players they are looking at this guy and say well we can play this guy you know right they have that thomas sorber guy they drafted nobody's ever even seen what he looks like they have the riches of all yeah so so they could do i that's a team that could Atlanta could potentially trade with they could do whatever they want i'm with you in Atlanta but Atlanta has the same issue that you talked about earlier about who's scoring for me in the last four minutes of the game. It was CJ in those two Nick games. Yeah, he's 34 years old.

Yeah, he's 34, and that's how I looked at that series. I was like, if you've cut down, see that, who's their score? Like, I'm telling you, man, if you want to look at a championship team, start with the closers. Well, how about the Bucks that your Yonis won? It was mostly Middleton. It was closing. You know, the biggest change that Bucke, I mean, Bud made was, Yannis had the ball a lot.

They took the ball out of Yannis's hands. They put it in Drew's hands and Chris Mildleton's hands and Yannis became the roller. And that two-man combination was unguarded. Undguardable. And then they put Holiday on Chris Paul. After game three or whatever, game two, that changed the whole series. By the way, Drew Holiday, did you know that that could have been the other person they traded Darius Garland for? Did you read that?

That was a report. Yeah. Wow. It was their choosing to have been Hardin and Drew Holiday. Do they beat the Knicks or come close with Drew Holiday? Yeah. It's pretty interesting. Yeah, it's an interesting guy.

He's one of the great teammates and team players in the last 10 years. He's that valuable to the team. Yeah, he's that valuable to your team. It's just everything right. Deeran Fox going for the layup, I never got your point guard take on this. We didn't talk about this in a pod. Yeah, well, I want you to go back. back and look at film.

Doc Rivers steals the ball from Hakeem Elyjean in game one of the Western Congress finals. I grabbed the ball and I threw it ahead. You're in San Antonio? On San Antonio. Grab the ball and throw it ahead to Sean Elliott. Sean promises it to just dribble

the clock out, right? He attacks the basket, gets filed. I think he makes one. And Robert Ory, who was 0.4, makes a three at the buzzer. So, yeah, you drivel that darn clock out. Now, he wouldn't have dribbled the clock out. And he would have, he probably, maybe you chopped three more seconds off for you at least three. But then now the file to give

timing comes in, there were so many things that went wrong there. I mean, why would you file? That was Fox 2 at half court. That kind of got lost in the whole thing. Yeah, no one talked about that. And it looked like Alvarado almost went back court. Almost. And I think if he had waited another second, he was going that way. Yeah. But besides that, Alvarado wasn't. looking to shoot. He was looking to get the ball to Brunson. As fast as possible. They could have wasted four seconds more. It would have been a two-second timeout.

They would have had two seconds in a timeout. What did you feel about Mitch not calling timeout right before Wemby through the ball away? That's the only thing I didn't like. Now, if I was... Because it's fast, right? He gets a rebound. He's right in front of him. Yeah, but you knew it was coming. You know, you have been prepared. Let's say why I was flipped.

If I was the Knicks, I wouldn't have called a time out. Because they're a veteran team. Right. They know what to do. And I wouldn't want San Antonio to set their defense up. The only reason I would have called it time. And I said it right away is because they're so young. That's it.

And, you know, Wembe gets a lot of heat from that. But I'm telling you, if you watch the Spurs play, they are the best advanced pass team in the NBA. They do it every time they grab it and they throw it. And you can see, was it castles? His eyes were there, and then he turned the wrong way. Would you see the other angle? Yeah.

He had both point guards to his right. Yeah. And he was looking up this way, but he had Fox right there with his hand up. They always threw it ahead. That's what they do. And, you know, but that one, yeah, I'm calling the timeout. And then. In five years, they wouldn't.

How did you feel about Wembe being 30 feet from the basket on the OG tip play? I didn't like that. I said that yesterday. You know, you remember them coming out, and Wemby was... They seemed they were disheveled. Yeah, I don't know what happened. There was a good camera behind the basket of they were... Somebody came in that they weren't anticipating.

I think somebody in Nix came in that they didn't account for. And the other thing I think is they were surprised O.G. was taking the ball out. I don't... Something happened there that I don't know. Only thing that I do know is I wouldn't... I don't think they wanted Wemby. being the guy to trap Brunson. Wouldn't you want Wimby in the paint

just to challenge any drive? I think you put Wimby on towns. Yeah. And you know there's not going to be a drive. There's going to be a shot. And you want your biggest guy. Six seconds left? You want your biggest guy under the room.

And he would have been if he had been on towns. You know, he would have been there. I think that was a tough one. But I think... It was still one of the eight greatest plays in the history of the league. He was on towns. Yeah. when he came out.

You could see him. He was there, and then the guards start pointing. I would love to know what actually happened. Because something on that floor, one of those guards said, no, you go here. I mean, they were,

something messed them up, and I don't know what it was. Mitch Johnson, this summer we'll be thinking about why did the ball have to bounce front of the rim straight toward Oji Lake? Like, what are the odds? Perfect bounce.

It was a brick. First of all, not only the perfect bounce, you know what hard is to tap that in? The ball didn't have to go in. I think that was like a one and a hundred thousand play. It was, but it's also one and a hundred thousand being alert. Yeah.

Like a lot of guys would have been standing there. He saw it and went for it. And then there's an angle of Vassell comes from the side to try to hit the ball. Yeah, he probably misses it by like an inch. It was the guy that I thought could have got there step earlier. If Harper gets their step earlier, he's in front of O.G. So if the spurs win that game, what happens? I think the Knicks win the series.

I think the Knicks win the series anyway. I agree. Because they could go in San Antonio and win it. Yeah, I think it's clearly, they had five exact same games. I think we would have had two more of those games. And that's what I want. I just wanted more basketball. All I have now is the U.S. Open this weekend golf.

Who's your pick? That's a good guy. I'm going with Xander Schaftley. That was one of my two. I have him or Fleetwood. Yeah, Fleetwood. I don't know the length, but I'm going with him. And then I think Scottie's going to have a good week this week.

Is it true you're playing in a celebrity tournament? Yeah, I'm going to play. Yeah. You know, the bar has been lower. Can you play with Larry? The bar has been, Larry is supposed to play with me. I've told NBC that Larry wants to play, right? Larry calls me and says he wants to play.

Now, you're getting to know Larry, but I've known Larry for 35, whatever years. You guys are my favorite buddy cop comedy. Yeah. there is a hundred percent chance if Larry commits he's going to back out. All Larry needs is the night before we're leaving to hit a shot and it goes wrong

and he's out. That's it. There's no way Larry's trying. I still can't believe he went to game four. After the game three loss, I thought he was a hundred percent chance he's flying back. Trust me, there was conversation about it. Also, he told me if he could have left at halftime of game three.

He would have just left. He was thinking about it. But it did give us one of the single funniest videos in the history of the NBA, the Josh Hart layup. And then he gave me the greatest text in game three. I'm sitting there watching and I get a text and he says, hey, can you tell your buddy, Mitch, he's standing in my way? Can you ask him to please move? He was blocking his view? Larry said the whole game, he was trying to look around. He said, and I can deal with Mitch.

But then they had this other guy, his other assistant. Yeah, he kept jumping up. And I was like, not you too. It's a curb episode. It's a chirp episode. It's funny. All right, Doc Rivers. Good seeing you.

I love your studio. Thanks for coming over. This is a blast. A. Bill has an amazing house, people. It's amazing. Thanks, Doc. Yeah, it's nice. All right, that's it for the podcast.

Thanks to Doc Rivers. Thanks to Gahau and Eduardo as well. Don't forget, rewatchables. Hand that Rocks the Cradle. That one is already up. Domestic Disturbance. next week. Please watch this.

John Travolta, Vince Vaughn trying to be a bad guy, a really special movie. I think I'm going to have one more podcast before the end of the week. So we'll try to have something

hopefully Thursday or Thursday night heading into the second USA World Cup soccer game. I can't wait. See you later in the week. Must be 21 plus in President Select States for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino

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